by Shannon Hale
When his forearm was exposed, Conor released Briggan. The wolf shook his body, as if drying his fur after a bath, and immediately began prancing about, more like a playful puppy than an adult wolf.
“Briggan! I know you’re happy to be out, but can you talk to the fox? Find out if it knows where to find Suka? Or, find anywhere really. Someplace we can get food and shelter.”
Briggan sniffed the fox, howled, and then paced a quick circle.
“I think he wants me to put the fox down,” said Conor.
The moment Conor loosened his hold on the fox, it leaped onto the ground, stared at Briggan for a moment, and then took off to the west.
“Come on!” Conor said, running after it.
A destination fed his limbs better than a dry biscuit and bit of jerky.
The weary, half-starved humans couldn’t keep running for long. They slowed, and Briggan followed the scent of the fox, who was now far out of sight. Though surely not as strong as Briggan’s sense of smell, Conor’s own had sharpened so that he thought he too could detect a slight musk on the ice.
Rollan was the first to see something on the horizon. As they drew nearer, Conor made out about a dozen low structures with rounded tops. They were built from the ice itself — blocks cut out, stacked, and sealed together with ice.
“The Ice City!” said Conor.
“If that’s a city, then I’m an army,” said Rollan.
Several dogs had shown themselves, barking madly at the travelers. People stood behind the dogs, ivory-tipped spears and bone knives in hand. Conor could see many other animals — snow foxes, Arctican gulls, seals, snow hares and snowy owls, ermines, a musk ox, and two tall, great-antlered caribou.
“An Ardu settlement,” Tarik said. “I can’t imagine they’ll take kindly to strangers.”
Briggan trotted forward and barked too. The dogs yipped, then quieted.
An Ardu man with a spear came forward. The thick fur of his hood nearly hid his face, but Conor could see his pale eyes widen.
“Briggan,” the man said in awe.
He turned to the other people, speaking hurriedly.
“Time to impress,” Rollan whispered.
Meilin sighed and released Jhi. Abeke let out Uraza, who stretched and yawned as if she’d just been napping. Essix settled onto Rollan’s shoulder, playing along.
The Ardu leader laid down his spear on the ice. Behind him, the rest tossed down spears and bows, and Jhi and the other spirit animals returned to passive state.
“The Four Fallen!” said the man.
“Yes,” said Tarik. “They have returned and bonded to these special children. We need your help —”
The man raised his hand for silence. “The help you need immediately is food and warmth.”
Tarik nodded, grateful. With the promise of rest, Conor felt the strength drain out of him, leaving his arms and legs cold. Maya collapsed against the ice.
Tarik and Conor helped Maya up, and the Ardu led them inside one of the small, domed houses. There was room for all six to sit, leaning against the walls of ice. An Ardu woman set a wide, shallow pan of seal fat on the floor and lit it. A smoky fire burned happily, warming the space. Soon Conor was drinking a mug of warm broth. The heat made him sleepy. He finished the drink and lay down. He heard someone else begin to snore, just before sinking into sleep himself.
He must have slept the rest of the day, and all night too, because when Conor awoke, it was morning. He stretched, luxuriating in the unfamiliar sensation of a great sleep. Their nights on the fields of ice felt like a long nightmare, and any sleep managed had been thin and cold, a ghost of itself.
Tarik, Abeke, and Rollan were also awake, and Conor crawled outside to meet them. He stretched again, just to feel alive.
“Not to trouble you,” Rollan was saying to the Ardu chief, “but breakfast?”
The chief laughed. “First, we hunt so we can feast the heroes.”
The Ardu hunters were already outfitted with spears and harpoons and setting off.
“We should go too,” Tarik whispered. “Hunting with the Ardu might help them trust us with any knowledge of Suka.”
So the four of them followed the hunters. Conor did his best to appear energetic and competent, but he imagined the hunters to be silently laughing at the awkward children stumbling across the tundra.
He had hoped it would be a short journey, but they walked an hour or more, during which Briggan looked like the only one of them having fun. The wolf would run ahead, diving headlong into snowdrifts and pouncing on things in the distance that might have been mice, or might have been nothing. Suddenly Uraza pounced, rolling Briggan in the snow. She pressed her paws against his chest and bared her teeth in what Conor could swear was a smile. The wolf yipped and scrambled free, and the two animals began to roll around and play-bite each other like a couple of pups.
“Mine could take yours,” Abeke whispered.
“No way. Dog beats cat,” said Conor.
One of the hunters shouted as if announcing a find. As they caught up, Conor could see a hole in the ice, blue water filling it. Apparently in this part of Arctica, ice extended out over the ocean.
“A breath hole,” Tarik said. “Seals, whales, and walruses who live in the ocean beneath the ice need to come up for air.”
Rollan snorted as if Tarik had told a joke. “Walruses . . .” he whispered.
The hunter motioned everyone down with his hand, pointing at Briggan specifically and putting a finger to his lips. He then lay down himself. From a distance, in his brown furs and on his side, he resembled a seal reclining on the ice. The teammates all did the same.
Conor lay with Briggan on one side, Abeke the other.
“More walking and cozying up on ice isn’t the best for frozen toes,” he said. “I’d hoped you’d get to stay at their village and stay warm.”
“I’m okay,” she said. “I’ll just do my best to keep my feet from freezing. I don’t want you to have to rub them again.”
“Me either,” he said, then felt stupid for saying it. It might have sounded to her like he hated the task, but he really just didn’t want her to get frostbite again.
He cringed behind his fur collar and waited.
And waited.
And waited, while his nose itched and his feet grew colder. This was a waste of time. Briggan was getting fidgety and so was he. They needed to find Suka! They needed to be up and fighting and stopping the Devourer —
A splash. A slick, brown seal nosed up out of the water, flopping onto the ice. No one moved. Two more seals followed. Still no one moved. Had they fallen asleep?
And then, as if by some soundless command, the hunters jumped to their feet, spears in hand, spirit animals appearing. The seals darted back to the holes, but the hunters threw their spears. Three spears struck the three seals, the wide ends catching. The seals slipped back into the water, while the hunters clung to the ropes that were attached to their spears. Other Ardu rushed forward, hammering small metal stakes into the ice. The hunters holding the ropes pressed their boots against the stakes to keep from sliding on the ice and being pulled into the water hole.
Conor and the others were all on their feet, ready to help, but soon the thrashing on the other end of the ropes stopped. The hunters pulled the seals back onto the ice and exclaimed, clapping each other on the shoulders.
Despite his hunger, the violence of the hunting bothered him. He hid a shudder, glancing at Abeke. While he’d been tending sheep in Eura, she’d been hunting antelope in Nilo.
“I guess it’s the only way they eat,” said Conor. “No way to farm up here. Either they catch seals or starve.”
Briggan padded around, sniffing the seals while the hunters lashed them with rope, in preparation for a long walk back.
Briggan stopped sniffing and stiffened, head cocked. L
istening.
“What is it, Brig?” Conor asked. Then he heard something too. A low groan, like the sound of something very heavy slowly rolling across the roof of a house — if the house was a mountain and the something was the moon. He looked around. Abeke was watching the hunters at work, Rollan was calling to Essix. Tarik was looking at him questioningly. Clearly no one else heard.
“Hey, guys,” Conor began, “I think you should move away from —”
The groan increased. Still no one seemed to hear. Briggan spooked away with a yip. Conor tried to determine where the sound was coming from.
The ice. Below. There.
“Abeke!” he yelled. He ran forward, grabbing her hand and pulling her away.
“Conor, what are you —”
Abeke was interrupted by a loud CRACK. The ice where she’d been standing was splitting. Everyone was running now, but the lengthening crack was faster, and in a moment, Tarik was gone.
Conor saw the Ardu drop to their bellies, so he did the same, Abeke and Rollan beside him. Essix flew over the hole in the ice, screeching. Nothing disturbed the bright blue water’s surface.
“Tarik!” Rollan yelled, crawling forward. Conor followed him, thinking to hold Rollan’s ankles while he plunged in for Tarik. But then their Greencloak mentor appeared, thrashing and gasping. Something was pushing him up from underneath.
Tarik clawed his way onto the ice. Rollan grabbed his hand and helped pull, and they both scooted away from the crack. Behind them, the helpful seal emerged, sitting upright on the ice.
“Don’t kill that seal! Please!” Conor yelled.
One of the Ardu women let out a quick, rough laugh.
“Of course not,” the hunter said. “She’s my spirit animal.”
Conor stared, his mouth gaping for a moment, but quickly collected himself, hurrying over to help Tarik. Still he couldn’t help but wonder if that was an awkward relationship, given the woman’s diet.
Tarik was lying on the ice, shivering, his lips blue.
“We should go at once,” said the woman.
“But, Tarik . . .” Abeke started.
“He walks,” said the chief. “In this cold, he must keep walking or he dies.”
Tarik nodded. He walked.
All but Tarik took turns dragging the heavy seals back to the Ardu ice village, where others took over, skinning the seals, preparing the meat. The women helped Tarik out of his wet clothes and into pieces of their own dry clothing.
Other Ardu offered snow-packed chairs for the travelers. Some of the villagers brought out animal skin drums, and amid heavy drumming and loud singing, the feast began. Conor’s stomach was rumbling, eager, until he saw the feast.
Apparently the Ardu ate their meat raw. A woman handed Conor a pink, wobbly blob with a glistening chunk of brown meat clinging to it. The pink parts were the fat, Conor quickly discovered.
The Ardu sucked up the pink fat first, making slurping noises and humming contentedly. They made the fat sound so delicious, Conor’s mouth actually started to water.
He took a bite. It was not delicious. It tasted like cold, oily, chewy fat. But Conor considered that in frozen Arctica, the more fat on the body, the warmer and healthier they would be. He slurped up some of the fat, swallowing it while holding his breath. The brown meat was smooth like raw fish and very salty. Conor felt as if he were taking a bite of solid ocean.
The girls were offered bone cups filled with wiggly white stuff, as if it were a special honor. They ate it before learning that it was seal brains.
“It was creamy,” said Maya.
Meilin just shook her head and looked a little green.
Tarik held a small horn cup with a spoonful of the white stuff. He began to bob his head back and forth and sing, “Seal brains, seal brains, take some pains for seal brains. Better for you than your grains. Creamy, steamy seal brains.”
Rollan and Conor looked at each other, speechless. Tarik stopped singing, restoring his serious face.
“I didn’t just imagine that, did I?” said Rollan. “Tarik, did you just sing a song about seal brains?”
Abeke nodded, her smile broad, showing her startlingly white teeth. “I want to hear another.”
Tarik looked so serious, Conor was certain he would never admit he’d sung such a song, let alone reprise —
“Seal brains,” Tarik sang, “seal brains, my love for them it never strains. Just avoid the stringy veins in your pile of seal — I can’t do it,” he said, putting down the horn cup. “I cannot convince myself to actually eat seal brains.”
“Now, Tarik,” said Rollan. “You’re spoiling your hardened warrior reputation. Go gnaw on some raw bones, quick!”
Tarik betrayed a small smile. “When I was growing up, if our mother gave us something unpleasant to eat, my brothers and I would make up a song about it to convince ourselves it was delicious. It worked well with lima beans and kale, but no song in Erdas can convince me to snack on brains.”
Abeke took up the cup Tarik had abandoned. “I don’t mind it. In my village we ate every part of any animal we managed to hunt, just like the Ardu.”
As she lifted the spoon to her mouth, her eyes flicked to Rollan. Conor saw him nod a little. Rollan and Abeke seemed to share the experience of having to appreciate every last morsel of food.
Growing up, life hadn’t been a banquet for Conor either, but he’d never starved. Even in the direst of times, there’d always been mutton, acorn and bullrush bread, wild asparagus, and boiled clover and dandelion. But in Abeke’s arid Okaihee, or in Rollan’s cobbled Concorba, there would have been few wild plants to gather or sheep to slay. Conor realized, even in his poverty, he’d been lucky.
But did his family have mutton now? Last he’d heard from home, times were troubled. They’d lost some sheep and weren’t likely to have one spare. He bit into a purple slice of liver and tried to appreciate it on behalf of his family.
The feast went on all evening. Slice after slice of meat and fat, bits of organ meat offered up on bone knives. Then the rest of the seals — chopped up and slowly cooked over pans of burning seal fat — were offered in small bowls. Lastly, the women passed around small, pink rolls, which earned satisfied cheers from the Ardu. Conor took a bite and realized it was more seal fat, mixed perhaps with flour and something sweet. Conor surprised himself by taking a second.
“Mm, seal-fat sweet cakes,” said Rollan. “Just like Mama used to make.”
Rollan winced at his own joke for some reason and turned away, suddenly despondent. Conor supposed thinking about a mother reminded him that he didn’t have one of his own. Conor’s own heart pinched, thinking of his mother and what she might be doing right now.
“We thank you for this magnificent feast,” Tarik said, loudly enough to be heard over the drums.
“Especially the seal brains,” Rollan whispered.
Tarik cleared his throat. “We’re on an urgent mission for the safety of all of Erdas. We seek Suka —”
At once the drumming stopped. In the silence, Conor became aware of the sharp sound of wind chiseling away at the tundra.
“We do not talk of Suka,” said the Ardu man. “You may sleep here tonight. In the morning, you should go.”
The Ardu showed the group to their ice huts, their mouths shut as if there would be no more conversation. Conor crawled on his hands and knees to get through the narrow opening of the offered ice hut. Once inside, he was surprised how warm and quiet the room was. It wasn’t tall enough to stand in, but he sat comfortably on the flat ground, atop a pile of caribou hides. The others joined him, all spirit animals in passive form in the tight space. Except Essix, of course.
“Essix saw another settlement like this one a ways in that direction, and a third that way,” said Rollan, pointing at two corners of their hut.
“Yeah, Briggan seemed to smell
people off that way too,” said Conor. “It’d have to be a lot of people to smell that far off, I think.” He didn’t mention that he thought he’d smelled people when the wind came from that direction as well. Maybe his sense of smell was sharpening, but the others might think that a little creepy.
“Why are they separated like that?” asked Meilin. “Why not all settle together?”
“Maybe they don’t get along,” said Abeke.
“Or maybe they’re posted here like guards — watching over something that’s in the center,” said Meilin.
“The Ice City maybe?” said Conor.
“Isn’t this the Ice City?” Maya asked.
“I doubt it,” said Tarik. “It’s small and looks recently built. Hopefully in the morning, after the feasting, the Ardu will be content and disposed to tell us what they know of the legendary Ice City. But no one mention Suka again.”
Conor and Rollan both yawned at the same time, and then laughed.
“Let’s get some sleep,” said Tarik.
ABEKE DIDN’T SLEEP.
She could picture the Ardu village, and the location of the other two settlements Essix had spotted. The three settlements formed a triangle. Briggan had smelled a lot of people. And Abeke smelled something fishy.
The positions of the settlements reminded Abeke of how her villagers had hunted a hippopotamus once. The drought was high, and food was rare. Three groups of hunters surrounded a water hole where hippos came to drink. They moved in slowly till the hippo had nowhere to run.
The Ardu were hunters too, and they’d surrounded something they didn’t want anyone else to know about. When Tarik had asked about Suka, the singing and drumming and smiles had stopped. Clearly, Suka was something they didn’t want anyone to know about.
Abeke glanced at the sleeping forms in the hut. She didn’t want to wake anyone. Besides, it would feel really great to be a hero for once, to run back to camp and let everyone know she’d found Suka!
She was still wearing her coat and gloves. She picked up her bow and quiver and crept out the door.