The Warden and the Wolf King

by Andrew Peterson

  “Kal!” Janner cried as he scooted along the wall. “Your name is Kalmar, son of Esben, King of the Shining Isle.” The words came so fast they sounded like gibberish. He was answered by another growl. He heard Kal picking himself up from the ground.

  Janner wanted to draw his sword, but he couldn’t bring himself to do it. He couldn’t hurt his brother, even if he was a Fang. It would be better to let Kal kill him. He heard Artham’s voice in his head:Protect! Protect! Protect! But how? What was he supposed to do? If Janner fought, he might kill his brother. If Janner didn’t fight, he might be killed—and when Kalmar came to his senses, he would realize what he had done. That would cast his brother into a shame even deeper than Artham’s.

  “Kal, please. Please come back. Your name is Kalmar, son of Esben . . .”

  Janner couldn’t go on. His voice broke and he couldn’t speak without sobbing. He was afraid for his life, for Kal’s soul, and he couldn’t stop thinking about all the people who loved them both, people who would never know how deep Gnag’s evil ran, how wretchedly the warden and the wolf king would die in the Deeps of Throg.

  Janner was thankful that he couldn’t see. Those yellow eyes were too horrible. He heard the shuffle and scrape of Kalmar coming closer, then another low growl. “Please, Kal. I love you.”

  The growl turned into a roar, and Janner’s hand went to his sword hilt. He drew it halfway out, then slammed it back into the scabbard and waited for the end. He couldn’t think of anything else to do.

  A scream rose from Janner’s belly and burst from his mouth as he prepared for the pain. But Kalmar’s snarling turned into a mournful howl that filled the tunnel. When the howl faded, Janner realized the distant song had stopped too. Maybe the singer had heard them.

  As this frightening thought came to Janner, he heard a whine, then the sound of Kalmar padding off into the tunnel alone. Janner had been holding his breath, and he let it out in short gasps, clutching at his chest and blinking away tears. He was so sure he had reached the end. But he wasn’t dead.

  No. This might be something worse.

  Now he was all alone in the darkness.

  61

  Alone in the Deeps of Throg

  Alone.

  Alone in the Deeps of Throg.

  Janner felt the weight of the mountain, miles of stone reaching to the cold ceiling of the world, all of it pressing down on the tunnel where he sat in the damp darkness.

  Janner called for Kalmar, but the echo only taunted him, his own lonely voice as frightening as anything else he might have heard. He was in the cellar of Anklejelly Manor again, or in the Strander burrows under Dugtown, or worse, in the coffin at the Fork Factory. Why did his road always lead into blackness?

  Please don’t let me die here. Please let me find my way out.

  Janner opened his eyes, half hoping that it was as simple as that; maybe there would be some light, some magical messenger to lead him back to the surface. But there was nothing. He had his matches, along with the bone torch and the oil flask, but in the same way that his voice only made him feel more alone, he was afraid the torch light would only illuminate his isolation.

  He was lost and alone in the worst place he could imagine. The place that had driven his father mad, his uncle mad, and made monsters out of nearly every Annieran—including Kalmar.

  What was he to do? Crawl deeper into the mountain? Or turn back, though that only led to the Blackwood and a horde of angry cloven?

  A word came to his mind:Protect.

  Protect Kalmar, who couldn’t seem to escape his shame. Kalmar, running through the tunnels with his yellow eyes. Kalmar, who had almost killed him.

  How was he supposed to protect a Fang? Janner was angry, but his anger wasn’t directed at Kal. His anger was aimed at the one who had allowed all this to happen.

  So tell me, Maker, what am I to do? What other torments do you have in store?

  The word came to him again, clear and bright as a jewel:Protect.

  This time he imagined Artham’s voice. Esben’s voice, too. Suddenly he heard Nia, Podo, Oskar, and Leeli, all speaking quietly, urging him as he had been urged since he was born:Look out for your brother. You’re a Throne Warden. Kalmar needs you.

  But he left me! He attacked me!Janner thought.The Throne Warden protects the king, but who protects the Throne Warden?

  Janner gritted his teeth and banged his fists on the stone floor. It was a childish thing to do, but he didn’t care. He wanted his father. He wanted a home. He wanted to live for just one day without any fear of evil, within or without.

  Rest.That was what he wanted. He was so tired of running, so tired of the constant fear that each day held some new danger, or treachery, or lie. He wanted a good meal, a good book, a little fire in the winter and a little shade in the summer. Could there be some world where such a thing existed?

  Even before Gnag rose to power there were wars and skirmishes and threats to peace—Aerwiar was a terribly broken place. He didn’t have to look far to see it, either. Podo’s missing leg: because he was hunting young sea dragons for money. Artham’s madness: because he had abandoned his brother. Grigory Bunge, the Fangs, the Kimerans who were so treacherous that Gammon had to work in secret. Was every heart so prone to deceit? Was there no one trustworthy in all of Aerwiar?

  Sara Cobbler.

  The name came to him like the strum of a whistleharp.

  He remembered her bright eyes in the Fork Factory. He remembered her beauty shining through the soot on her weary face. And he remembered the night he left her, remembered his terror as he drove the carriage through the night. That night,he had done the leaving. He had wanted to go back, but he didn’t. He had driven away and left her to the Overseer’s coffin. Had sweet Sara cursed him as he was now cursing Kalmar? Had she lain in the dark that night in the coffin and wondered why Janner had sped away?

  Janner was as weak as everyone else in this fractured world, and he knew it.

  Protect.

  The word came to him again and again, as steady as a drum beat. Indeed, it had been beaten into him since he was a baby. And now the rhythm of his mother’s word, his uncle’s word, drove back the anger—not completely, but enough that he thought less of his own misery and more of his brother’s.

  He remembered old tales, stories about self-sacrifice and the way a single, beautiful act done for the sake of another could shine out across the dark of the ages like a breaking dawn. When he was little, he and Kal had made swords out of sticks and defeated dragons, Fangs, and villains, and Janner had lain awake in his bed at the Igiby cottageyearning to be one of those heroes. Maybe now the Maker was only giving him what he wanted. Maybe the Maker was answering the prayer of his little boy heart by leading him here and giving him the chance to live one of those stories.

  Janner bowed his head in the blackness and quieted the clamor of the angry voices in his head. When they persisted he told them to shut up. He drew in a long breath and thought of Anniera again, where he came into the world in the glow of a great love for some great purpose. He thought of green fields and soft rain falling in shafts of sunlight, of the laughter of children on the white shores of the Shining Isle, of the ancient dream of every soul for peace and good work and better rest. It was a dream he had nursed in Glipwood, in Ban Rona, and he discovered that it was a dream that still ran like a deep river even in the Deeps of Throg.

  His heart grew quiet.

  Janner pictured Kalmar, as alone in the dark as he was himself.

  “Protect,” he said aloud. And the echo of his voice brought him comfort this time. It was a defiant sound.

  Janner felt around on the floor and found the matches, then he tied a strip of cloth to the end of the bone, soaked it with oil, and lit it, discovering that the tunnel was smaller and wetter than he thought it would be. He shouldered his pack and draped his muddy Durgan cloak over it.

  “My name is Janner Wingfeather, Throne Warden of Anniera,” he said, adjusting Rudric’s sword on hi
s hip. “Hold on, Kal.”

  He followed the Fang deeper into the mountain.

  62

  The Queue of Destruction

  The tunnel ran straight for several arrow shots before it opened into a circular chamber where four other tunnels intersected. Janner swung the torch close to the floor and saw Kal’s paw prints dampening the dry spots. They led into the tunnel on the left, and when Janner had gone but a few paces in he came upon a stair that climbed steeply upward.

  He climbed for a long time, repeatedly stopping to catch his breath before reaching a landing where the passageway split again. The floor was dry, and there were no tracks to guide him. Each direction led to more stairs, so Janner closed his eyes and listened. All he heard was the flutter of his torch and his own breathing. He wanted to call for Kalmar again, but instinct told him to stay quiet.

  He heard—or thought he heard—a faint shuffling sound coming from the left stairway, so up and up he went, ignoring the burning in his thighs, until from somewhere above he was certain that he heard signs of life other than his own. A snorting, grobbling sound. He eased his sword from the scabbard and crouched, trying to steady his nerves and control his breathing.

  A furless, dog-like cloven flopped around a bend in the stairway, spilled down two steps, and came to rest in front of Janner. Its legs, as far as Janner could tell, had no bones. Its jaw flapped open, and the tongue lolled about, dampening the stone. Its pitiful eyes stared at him out of a mass of gray, wrinkled flesh and it managed to mumble something indecipherable in a voice that was disturbingly human. It was hideous and stood no chance of making it out of the Deeps.

  It mumbled again, and Janner said, “I’m sorry.” He uncapped his canteen and edged forward, pouring a few drops of water into its useless mouth. It lapped it up clumsily, then flopped down the stairs and out of sight.

  Gnag, Janner thought, clenching his jaws.We have to stop this.

  He started up the steps again, trying to ignore the gooey trail the doggish cloven had left, and came to a large, open chamber ringed with unlit torches. Janner lit one of them and tossed his bone-torch aside.

  Here, at least, was some sign of progress. He was no longer creeping through a cave, but a dungeon. Such was his good fortune, he laughed grimly to himself, that a dungeon was an improvement.

  In the chamber were seven rusty iron doors, all of which stood open. The doors led to hallways lined with cages where living things scuttled and rasped. He couldn’t help but imagine Esben and Artham chained to the walls of one of those cells.

  He tiptoed down the nearest corridor. He didn’t want to look, but his torch flung light into each cell as he passed, and he saw chains on the walls, some of which shackled human skeletons. In other cells he saw animals hunkered in the corners, scrawny and listless. There were wolves, snakes coiled and watching him pass with cold eyes, flabbits and gugglers with noses twitching, and horned hounds and saggy hounds growling. Bats as big as goats clutched the ceilings of some cells, rustling their wings as he passed.

  Some of the forms looked human, but with twisted or half-formed animal features—like Artham’s talons, he thought. They lifted their sad eyes and moaned pleadingly as he passed. He came to the end of the hall and found another round chamber with another set of corridors. The cells held more of the same: people, or the remains of people, and animals, all in varying degrees of melding, most of whom seemed broken beyond repair. Who were these poor souls doomed to the Deeps?

  On and on the dungeon stretched. Whenever Janner came upon stairs that led upward, he took them. Sometimes the corridors twisted and turned, sometimes they were long and straight. Some of the cells were so full of ordinary animals hissing, barking, hooting, roaring, gribbiting, and mooing that he felt like he was in a barn. And that led Janner to wonder what happened to all these animals after their melding. Did they shrivel up and die? Did the animal and the human actually combine somehow, forming one being from two? Or was there a wolf somewhere that was part Kalmar, just as there was a Kalmar that was part wolf? And if so, did that mean there might be a bear here that was part Esben?

  Janner walked for so long that he grew careless. The dungeon was so noisy with chattering and mumbling and moaning that he didn’t bother to hide the sound of his footsteps, and when he came to a door, he stopped listening before he opened it, stopped peeking around the corners before he stepped into a new room. Even surrounded by the half-living, he began to feel alone again. So when he came to the chamber where the Stone Keeper sang, he pushed through the door and nearly screamed in shock.

  The room was so big it was difficult to see the ceiling. The steady glow of many lanterns illuminated the faces of a multitude waiting in a line that coiled around the room, filling the chamber. At the center of the room was an iron box, a bigger version of the Overseer’s coffin, but standing on its end. It was crowned with spikes, with a little window in the door and a lever on one side.

  Beside the box stood the Stone Keeper, a haunting figure draped in a robe and hood. Soothing music came from the shadows of her cowl, and the people in line swayed with the song. Janner slipped back into the passageway and stomped on his torch until it was out, then he peeked in at the throng, trembling with relief that no one had seen him.

  On the opposite side of the chamber was a large door, flanked by Fang guards. They held spears and watched the people with lazy satisfaction.

  Suddenly, the room flashed with yellow light that emanated from slits in the iron box. The door swung open and smoke poured out, then a creature emerged. It was glistening with some kind of fluid, and it blinked in confusion.

  The Stone Keeper announced in a musical voice, “Your name is Raknarr!”

  The creature spread two black, moist wings and shrieked. Another Bat Fang had been born.

  The multitude answered with a muted cheer before quieting into a murmuring chant: “Sing the song of the ancient stones and the blood of the beast imbues your bones.”

  Two Green Fangs guided the new Bat Fang through the large doors as a young man stepped up to the dais. The Stone Keeper spoke to him quietly, then he stepped into the box with a chilling eagerness.

  “Wait,” she said, gesturing to a nearby Fang. “This bat is spent. Bring me a fresh one.”

  She reached into the box and removed a steaming, withered bat—a big one, like those Janner had seen in the dungeon. The Fang handed her a healthy, struggling one. She cradled it and stroked it like a baby, and the bat was calm when she put it in the box then ushered the young man in after it. When she closed the door, Janner heard the man sing, then came another flash of light, and he emerged damp and trembling like a baby from a womb.

  “Your name is Murgle!”

  He—orit—spread its wings and screeched.

  Another Green Fang sat at a desk beside the dais, writing in a large book. Janner watched as more and more people stepped into the box, one by one. Again and again, they conferred with the Stone Keeper, sang the song, then emerged as Fangs. Every couple of meldings—depending on the size of the human—the Stone Keeper declared the bat spent and asked for a fresh one.

  Janner watched all this with grim fascination. Kalmar had described what had happened in the Phoobs, but to see Gnag’s machinations with his own eyes was another thing altogether. He couldn’t understand why the people were so eager to become monsters. He wanted to stop them somehow, to snap them out of whatever evil spell had convinced them to give up their names. Children, women, and men of all ages seemed content, happy, even, for their turn to sing the song of the ancient stones and lose themselves for the twisted transformation.

  He knew Kalmar had done the same; but he also knew that his brother, and Artham and Esben for that matter, had not gone willingly—not at first, anyway. They had been broken. They had been worn down by pain and loneliness so that melding seemed the better choice.

  How long had Artham and Esben resisted? Months? Years? Janner doubted he would have lasted so long.

  Janner’s anger
at Gnag the Nameless grew tenfold as he watched the way he had built his army all these years: first by capture, then by torture and isolation, then by this strange power he had discovered. Janner even felt sorry for the bats, who were drained of—he could think of no other word—theirbatness, then discarded like garbage.

  Then he saw Kalmar.

  63

  The Making of Grimgar

  Kalmar stood among the other Fang guards, watching the line of prisoners. Janner couldn’t see his eyes, couldn’t see the yellow glow that surely filled them, but there his brother stood, a willing Fang among many.

  Before Janner could think or mourn or act, a Fang guard flung open the door and spotted him. “What do you think you’re doing in here?” it said, snarling.

  “Nothing, sir. Just—just looking around.”

  “Get back in line.” The Grey Fang growled at Janner and jerked him by the arm.

  Janner, thankful that his cape hid his pack and sword, kept his head low and joined the queue, pretending that he wanted to be Fanged. He shuffled forward with the crowd and lost sight of Kalmar.

  Again and again came the flash of yellow light, followed by the emergence of a newly melded Bat Fang or Grey Fang or Green Fang and the Stone Keeper’s announcement of the Fang’s new name. The line moved in a circle, first around the outer edge of the chamber, then weaving closer and closer to the center dais. Janner felt more conspicuous with every melding. The people around him all seemed so darkly gleeful whenever the new Fang stepped from the box, but Janner couldn’t hide his revulsion. He couldn’t understand why anyone would be so happy to lose themselves.

  And was it his imagination that the skinny, bearded fellow in front of him glanced his way too often? Did the woman and older boy behind him seem quieter than the rest? Were they were suspicious of the Annieran boy with the dirty black cloak that hid a sword and backpack?