Mulrox’s smashing club was in pieces beneath the green ogre’s head. The tree-shaped malcognito dove forward and shoved two of its appendages under Groxor’s nose and held them there for several moments. It nodded and then floated back to Yvwi.
“He’s going to have a bump,” Yvwi said. “But Tree-with-frog-legs says he’s breathing.”
“What’s wrong with him?” Yahgurkin asked. “I thought he seemed marvelous at first but…”
Mulrox snorted. He dug in his pack and produced the long skein of rope.
“What are you doing?” Yahgurkin asked.
“He’ll wake up eventually, and I don’t want him tackling us when he does,” Mulrox said.
Yahgurkin’s eyes grew wide, and she hurried over to Mulrox’s side. Together they tied up Groxor’s hands.
“Was it the woods?” Yahgurkin asked, looking sidelong at Mulrox. “Or was he like this when he left your house? I could see why you might not want to go after him.”
“I’m not sure.” Mulrox tried to think back. “He seemed odd. Not like this. He was threatening me as usual until…”
“I sneezed on him!” Yvwi finished, smiling maniacally.
“What did you do?” Mulrox demanded.
“This is Marvelous! Fantabulous!” Yvwi was high-fiving the other malcognitos. “Your world is so full of surprises. I’d heard of malcognitus before, but I’ve never seen it in action. To come to Veralby and find I have my very own psychotic snot rockets, it’s just magical.”
“Groxor’s lost his mind, hasn’t he?” Yahgurkin said.
“More like a different plane of existence. A state of pure creativity. It’s all instinct and chaos for him now.” Yvwi wiggled. “Delightful.”
“If it’s so great, why did he attack us?”
“No filter, no control. He has no idea what he’s seeing.”
“You’re telling me that whenever you sneeze, we are going to end up like that?” He pointed at Groxor.
“I would have to sneeze on you, which is not too likely. I’m not an animal.”
Geraldine glared at Yvwi.
“Yes, you,” he said. “You’re disgusting, you know that? Eating those little dirt crawlers and then trying to eat us.”
“Yvwi!” Mulrox shouted. “I don’t want to be insane.”
“Neither do I,” Yahgurkin said.
“He’s not insane. It’s malcognitus. It looks rather enjoyable to me, but I wouldn’t worry about it. I don’t feel a sneeze coming on. It was probably allergies.”
“Allergies? What are you allergic to?” Mulrox asked.
“I don’t know,” Yvwi said. “Bad poetry? Toads?”
Mulrox and Geraldine scowled.
“How about whenever I feel a sneeze coming on, I shout out a code word and then you can all run for your lives. “
Yahgurkin was perking up. “A code word?”
“Yes, I’ve got it!” Yvwi shouted. “Our code word will be EXSPRESSO!”
“It’s espresso, actually,” Yahgurkin said.
“No, I’m sure our code word is EX-SPRESSO.”
“But—”
“Like Spress-o change-o.”
“Fine.” Mulrox sighed.
“How do we fix him? Does it wear off?” Yahgurkin asked.
Yvwi turned to Mulrox, appalled. “Why would I know?” he asked. “Believe it or not, this is my first time in Veralby. Personally, I hope it never wears off. I find him delightful.”
“Of course you do.” Mulrox looked around at the smashed and tattered wood. “We found him. Can we go to the portal now?”
Yvwi did something that looked like a shrug. “Sure. Whatever you want, Almighty Protector.”
“Wait, what about Groxor?” Yahgurkin was standing over Groxor, looking about despairingly. “We can’t leave him tied up.”
Mulrox didn’t see why not. As far as they knew, he was the biggest and meanest thing in the forest. Except maybe the rakorvin, if it even existed. “We could untie him?” Mulrox suggested.
“And then what?”
Mulrox wanted to state the obvious, but Yahgurkin was glaring at him. He turned to Yvwi. “Do you know how to get to the portal from here?”
“Know is a strong word. I prefer idea. We have a definite idea of how to get there.”
As Yvwi spoke, Mulrox noticed that the other malcognitos were zipping about in all directions, disappearing into the haze of the trees ahead and then zooming back again.
“What is that supposed to mean?”
“We’re working on it.”
A moment later, the malcognitos surged together in a tight clump with a sound like the whirring of a grindstone. They were tossing a buzzing malcognito between them.
“And look at that, Cloud-of-locusts has found the way. The river is straight ahead!”
The malcognitos huddled up around Yvwi in a dense cloud of limbs. All Mulrox could hear was the buzzing of Cloud-of-locusts, but it felt as though they were all speaking at once. The buzzing was still going when two malcognitos, who Mulrox recognized as Death-with-a-kiss and Spinakle-rex, shot out of the huddle and into the trees.
“And we’re off,” Yvwi said and turned to follow.
“Come on, Yahgurkin,” Mulrox said. “We have to go. He’ll be fine. He can take care of himself.”
Yahgurkin looked down at Groxor’s limp body and frowned. She gathered up the rest of the rope and looped it around Groxor’s ankles several times.
“Yahgurkin, if you just—”
Yahgurkin held her hand up toward Mulrox. She gave the rope an experimental tug and Groxor lurched forward.
“Let’s go,” she said. She hoisted the rope over her shoulder and pressed after the others, the giant green ogre bumping and sliding along the ground behind her. Geraldine had watched all of this with a curious though impassive face until Groxor’s head and chest had already lurched past her. Then, with one great hop, Geraldine leapt forward and landed straight on top of Groxor’s chest.
“Freeloader,” Mulrox muttered as she slid by, riding atop the ogre.
Mulrox gave one final look around the destroyed patch of forest before he too followed the cloud of malcognitos deeper into the forest.
16
It only took a few minutes of bushwhacking before the roar of water reached them. When they broke through the branches and the river opened up before them, Mulrox stopped short to take it all in. He had read about rivers before but had never seen one. It was at least fifty feet wide. Rocks and logs fringed in bubbling white caps studded its otherwise smooth, dark surface. The water rushed downstream in an endless current, pounding mercilessly against the bank and anything in its path.
Yvwi squealed, breaking Mulrox out of his reverie. “Was that a fish? I think I saw a fish!” Yvwi dove straight into the water.
“Yvwi!” Yahgurkin said, rushing to the edge of the water.
But the malcognito had not been swept away. He popped up a moment later, shaking water from him. “Not a fish. It was a boot. A nice boot but still a boot.”
They dragged Groxor upstream but had to cut back into the woods, as most of the riverbank was so choked with reeds and brambles that even for an ogre, it would have made tiresome work.
After some time, Yahgurkin spotted a deer trail that led out to a small but secluded silt bank at the river’s edge. She dragged Groxor onto the beach and dropped the rope. She clenched and unclenched her hands and then placed them in the small of her back, leaning against them. Yahgurkin was the bigger ogre, but Groxor was no mite—the strain was getting to her.
She looked about, her mouth ajar. “Wow, look at this—sand.” She waved at the silty bank. “There’s sun, and even the water’s clear. It’s like we’re at the beach.” She looked up at Mulrox. “Can we stop?”
Mulrox turned to Yvwi. “How close are we to the broken bridge?”
“Close now.”
Mulrox nodded and plunked himself down on the shore.
“Do you think there are actual fish in there
?” Yahgurkin pointed at the water.
“Doubtful,” Yvwi said. “Mostly boots.”
Mulrox ignored them and settled in a patch of sunlight. There were no trees on the bank, and the river was wide enough that above them stretched a long swath of clear blue sky. Yes, they were still in the Woods Mercurial, but this little stretch of light was as cheerful as any spot in Ulgorprog.
“If you’re doing that sort of thing,” Yvwi said, “we are off to explore. Call if you need us.”
Mulrox snorted. He couldn’t imagine needing the malcognitos. He needed to be rid of them.
Water splashed against the shore. Mulrox opened his eyes a crack to see Yahgurkin wading into the creek. She ducked down under the surface and then popped back up again, spluttering against the cold, a wide smile across her face.
Mulrox grabbed his pack and dug inside until he found the notebook and pen. His Behemoth entry would not write itself. He flipped to the ragged edges where the malcognitos had torn out those pages. It was fine—the Griselda poem would never have worked. It had to be something larger, more encompassing. A phrase leapt into his mind, a rhythm.
Now all across the ogre land,
We fill our hearts with timeless sand.
Something popped behind him. Mulrox looked up from the page and saw nothing but malcognitos floating across the beach.
He looked back down. Timeless sand? What a lot of nonsense. Mulrox crossed out the second line and wracked his brain for a better beginning.
Several mistakes later, Mulrox was raised from his stupor by someone shaking him. He gave a start and looked up into Yahgurkin’s face. She had his shoulder in her grip and kept glancing behind her. Geraldine was asleep next to him, Groxor was still out cold, and the malcognitos were busy dunking one another in the river.
“Wha—” The unmistakable noise of baaing drifted toward him.
“We have to hide,” Yahgurkin said. “They must know we are getting close to the portal.”
The malcognitos were still splashing along the river.
“How are we going to hide? We are probably the biggest things in the forest. Unless you have another hideout?”
Yahgurkin shook her head and then looked at Groxor with a twisted frown and tugged at one of her curls. Mulrox rolled his eyes and hurried down to the shore to the malcognitos.
“Think you can test the gauntlet?” Yvwi taunted as Mulrox approached. He was hovering above the surface of the river in the shape of something that looked like a fish but had a long elephant trunk where its mouth should have been. Next to him floated Dinner-bell-of-destruction, Spinakle-rex, Death-with-a-kiss, and Eyes-like-eels.
“You’re about to be thrown into one if you don’t get out of there.”
“Why all the hostility? It’s only a little water.” The malcognito dipped his trunk into the stream and then shot a spray of water at Mulrox.
“YVWI!”
“Hurry!” Yahgurkin said. “I think they’re coming this way.”
“Who is they?”
“The sheep,” Mulrox grumbled, wiping water from his face.
“Huh,” Yvwi said. “Interesting. I didn’t think sheep were trackers—bath time’s over,” he called to the malcognitos. “The world never ceases to surprise you.”
The malcognitos stopped thrashing about and rushed past Mulrox, up the shore to join Yahgurkin.
“Except you.” Yvwi turned to Mulrox. “You remain predictably incompetent.”
One of the malcognitos rushed forward and whispered something to Yvwi.
“Toad-springs-eternal says she knows a place to hide. It’s not too far. This way,” Yvwi said, and he floated off after the malcognito who was already slipping into the trees.
Mulrox started after them. When he got to the edge of the trees, he looked back, expecting to see Yahgurkin on his heels, but she was still standing on the bank.
“Yahgurkin,” Mulrox called.
“I didn’t think he’d be like this,” she said.
“Leave him. He’ll be fine. They aren’t interested in him.”
Yahgurkin’s lips went into a thin, straight line. She kneeled down and hoisted Groxor up over her shoulder.
Mulrox threw up his hands.
Yahgurkin wobbled to her feet and started after the malcognitos, her steps heavy with the weight of Groxor.
All the trees in the Woods Mercurial were towering giants whose tops you could only guess at, but the trees here were so large that Mulrox, stumbling over enormous roots, felt like a beetle crawling over the shoe of some unknowing creature. The malcognitos stopped in front of a tree that was so wide it would have taken a dozen ogres holding hands to encircle it. At the front was an opening that looked like a blackened scar. It sliced through the fuzzy, red bark like the peak of a witch’s hat, running from the base of the tree and up the trunk a good ten feet.
“In here,” Yvwi said as he slipped through the opening and disappeared into the tree.
“Are you sure there’s enough room?” Mulrox asked.
“Plenty,” Yvwi’s voice called out from the darkness.
Geraldine and the other malcognitos went next. When they were done, Yahgurkin dropped Groxor and then ducked and twisted until she had wriggled inside. A few seconds later, Mulrox saw the rope go taut and then Groxor’s feet slid toward the opening.
The bleating was so loud that Mulrox was sure he would see the sheep breaking through the trees at any moment.
The tree creaked and groaned. Yahgurkin had pulled the large ogre most of the way inside, but his shoulders had caught, wedged in the opening. Yahgurkin pulled again at the rope, grunting. Groxor’s torso lurched upward, his head waggling in the dirt, but his shoulders did not budge. He was stuck.
Mulrox rushed forward and tried to pry Groxor onto his side. He pulled up on his shoulder as Yahgurkin tugged at his feet. Nothing was happening.
He looked behind him and could see white spots appearing through the trees. They were going to be caught.
“Together,” Mulrox said.
With a dull crack, Groxor’s head disappeared, and a stream of dust and wood chips rained down on the forest floor. Mulrox grabbed the largest pieces, trying to cover their tracks, and then slipped through the opening.
It was dark inside the tree. He couldn’t see anything at first, but as he extended his arms, he realized it wasn’t as cramped as he had imagined; he could stand upright without difficulty. The musty smell of dust and smoke tickled his nose. Yahgurkin was panting on the other side of the opening, Groxor sprawled out at her feet.
The ground rumbled with the thunderous fall of scores of hooves. Mulrox’s own traitorous limbs quivered in echo. The bleating grew louder and more insistent. Tucked up against the charred back of the tree, Mulrox could see Yahgurkin’s terrified face and the triangle of light cast from the tree’s opening against the forest floor. It looked like a giant arrow pointing right at them.
The baas and bleats echoed through the trees. All around them, twigs snapped and bushes rustled as dozens of hooves pounded the forest floor. Mulrox held his breath as he realized the birds and squirrels had stopped their chittering.
The whir and whine of a metallic blade filled his ears. What in Grendel’s name were they doing? He couldn’t see anything from where he crouched. There was a loud crack, and then a moment later the ground rumbled as something slammed against it.
He tried to calm his pounding heart and sidled along the back of the tree until he was standing across from the opening. Still hidden within the shadow, Mulrox made himself lift his head.
At least fifty sheep were milling around—the trip through the woods seemed to have done nothing to mar their bright white coats. They had downed one of the smaller trees and were scampering up and over it. At the front of the pack, its cogs and wheels spinning, was the grinder.
Here.
Its voice pounded against Mulrox’s head.
A sheep at the front of the mob peeled back its lips. “Mulrox, we can smell you.”
>
Mulrox looked at the others. Despite the darkness, he could see the whites of Yahgurkin’s eyes. Geraldine huddled on the left, enraged.
“Smell!” the other sheep bleated in agreement.
“We want the malcognitos.”
Mulrox glared at Yvwi.
“I thought you said they were after me,” Mulrox whispered.
“In a manner of speaking. Us, you, we’re all one, really. Plus, your house, remember that. They really wrecked it.”
“So did you.”
“I wouldn’t say wreck… trash maybe, but—”
“Give us the malcognitos and everyone can go home.” The sheep leapt from the ground onto the freshly shorn tree stump.
Mulrox’s heart fluttered a little at the mention of home.
“If not…” The sheep launched itself into the air again and landed with the full force of its weight on the stump, sending chunks of bark flying in all directions.
“Fuzzlewump?” a voice murmured from the corner of the tree.
“Shh!” Yahgurkin kicked at Groxor’s feet. “They’re bad sheep!”
He had to do something. Mulrox looked toward the huddled figure of Geraldine and then glared at Yvwi. He’d done everything those worthless malcognitos asked and still they’d lied and taunted him. The sheep just wanted the malcognitos.
“You stay here,” he whispered to Geraldine.
It looked for a moment as if Yvwi were about to say something more, but Mulrox shushed him. He took a few steps forward and then took a steadying breath.
“BAD SHEEP!”
Before he could register what was happening, Mulrox was flung to the side. He slammed against the inside of the tree and landed hard amidst a pile of pine needles, spiderwebs, and charcoal. He crawled back toward the opening, struggling to catch his breath.
Groxor had jumped from the tree and was charging the sheep.
He stopped a few feet from the animals and tilted his head. The rope around his feet was gone, but Groxor’s hands were still bound behind his back. Mulrox was regretting the restraints when Groxor flexed. The ropes split open, freeing his hands.
Mulrox and the Malcognitos Page 11