The Warden and the Wolf King

by Andrew Peterson

The trolls nodded and scratched their heads and bellybuttons.

  “Smash Gnag good.” The first troll beat his chest. “Yiggit want to go home to Glagron. It too cold here. No trees.” The other trolls grunted their agreement.

  “Will you help us?” Kalmar asked.

  “Why help Fang?” Yiggit said, narrowing his little eyes.

  “He’s not a Fang!” Janner said. “He’s the High King of Anniera. Gnag did this.” He pointed at Kalmar’s fur.

  “Anniera,” said Yiggit, nodding. “Gnag smash Anniera.”

  “Yes,” Kalmar said. “Now, Anniera smash Gnag.”

  The trolls thought about this, then the whole congregation raised their giant fists in the air and shouted, “Smash Gnag!”

  Bonifer banged on the door again and the trolls looked confused.

  “There’s a big spider thing on the other side of that door.” Kalmar waggled his fingers. “A bad monster. Can you stop it?”

  “Easy,” said Yiggit with a shrug, and he grunted some commands at the others.

  “We need to get to Ban Rona,” Janner said. “Down from Throg.”

  “Come.” Yiggit beckoned several of his fellow trolls to follow. The rest parted and allowed the brothers to pass, then grinned and gathered around the castle door, waiting to smash whatever emerged.

  Just as Janner and Kalmar passed through the archway that only moments ago seemed impossible to reach, the door burst open. Janner glanced behind. Spidery legs shot out over the trolls’ heads, the trolls descended on the giant spider, and Bonifer’s voice rang out into the air for the last time.

  “Yiggit help you down,” said their new friend.

  Janner pulled his eyes away from the courtyard and beheld the dizzying expanse of the Killridge Mountains spread before him. Beyond the wall, the mountain fell steeply away. At the brink of the cliff there was another gondola attached to another series of chains. The chains stretched over the precipice and descended to an iron tower built into a distant slope, then to another, and another, down the face of the mountain and around a stony ridge below.

  Yiggit indicated with a grunt that the boys were to get into the gondola, then he moved to an enormous wheel and busied himself with a series of levers. Janner and Kalmar nervously climbed the stone steps to the gondola and ducked inside. It was as filthy as the other, but Janner wasn’t going to complain. He peeked out the window, eyes watering in the cold wind, and waited as several other trolls joined Yiggit at the wheel.

  “Oood is a good boy,” Yiggit said.

  “Yes.” Janner didn’t have the heart to tell them that Oood was gone.

  Yiggit and the others heaved. The gondola lifted from the ground and swayed, then swung out over the open air.

  “We’re in a big hurry,” Kalmar said. “Can you voom us?”

  “Voom!” Yiggit waved the other trolls out of the way. He waited until the boys sat down, then he flipped a lever and the gondola shot out over empty air.

  The brothers leaned back in their seats, heedless of the grime and their perilous speed. They were exhausted and out of words.

  Janner looked behind them at the full height of Castle Throg for the first time. It was beautiful in its way, stone on stone, spired and silent in the freezing heights, a lonely place on a lonely mountain, where madness had made its home. Never before had Janner so longed for green, warm things, growing trees, rolling waves and smiling faces.

  The gondola descended until the highest spire of Throg disappeared among the peaks.

  73

  Across the Chasm

  Down they went, not knowing what had become of their sister, not knowing what lay at the bottom of the mountain, not knowing anything but hunger, thirst, cold, and weariness. They had come further and done more in their few years than most men ever would. They were living lives that would pass into legend.

  Stories would be written about them—stories that would be read by children and parents at bedtime. Brothers and sisters would enact their favorite scenes, dressing up like Fangs or sea dragons or even Podo Helmer. Janner, Tink, and Leeli had done so themselves when they were children, Podo had done so with his siblings when he was young, and so it had been all the way back to the First Fellows, who heard tales from the Maker’s own mouth about other worlds he had made.

  Now, however, all the boys knew was the cold, the worry over their fate, their family’s fate—the world’s fate—and the noisy silence of the wind in the mountains.

  Janner slept for a while, woke in the dark, then peeked out the gondola window at the vast steeps under a crescent moon. Kalmar dozed in the seat across from him, stirring and changing position whenever the gondola lurched past another tower embedded into the stony mountainside.

  They had been descending for hours. Janner stuck his head through the opening in the door and scanned the foothills below for some an indication of how much further they had to go, but he saw nothing but darkness. He rummaged through his pack, then Kalmar’s, looking for food, for crumbs, for apple cores to fend off his growing hunger, but found nothing. No water, either.

  He reached out and strained for the gondola roof, and his fingers stabbed into hard snow. He broke off a chunk and carefully lowered it back inside. He munched on the snow and thought long about Leeli and his family, about Oskar and Sara Cobbler, and was soon lulled to sleep again by the interminable rocking of the gondola.

  “Janner, wake up,” Kalmar said.

  Janner sat up with a jerk. Kalmar pointed out the window at the breaking dawn. They couldn’t see the sun behind the mountains, but it painted the high clouds in the east in pinks and fair yellows. In the west lay a misty flatness that looked like the Dark Sea at dusk back in Glipwood. But it wasn’t the sea. It was the barren desert of the Woes of Shreve.

  The gondola was reaching its terminus. The mountainside was rocky and snowless, and Janner noticed that he wasn’t as cold as he had been all night. The chain that carried them stretched down toward a tiny cluster of buildings.

  “Do you see anyone?” Janner asked.

  “Not yet. But someone’s home. There’s smoke in the chimneys.”

  As Janner studied the settlement, trying to judge the distance, he saw something that took his breath away. The buildings and the little platform where the gondola would come to rest were on the far side of a yawning chasm.

  The gondola lumbered forward, lurched over another pole, and swung the boys out over a rift in the earth so deep that it seemed to swallow the sunlight. It stretched away on either side as far as they could see, as if the mountains had decided one day to detach themselves from the rest of the continent. The chain drooped across it for several hundred yards, connecting to another platform on the other side. Birds—hawks and falcons and at least one rare gryfendril—wheeled in the empty air below them like fish swimming in the deep.

  Janner and Kal held still, as if a sudden movement might snap the chain and send them plummeting into the abyss. The gondola creaked forward, dipping lower and lower, and soon they were below the rim of the chasm, looking up at the platform instead of down on it. Janner could feel the great nothing below his feet and wondered how in Aerwiar anyone was able to get the chain across such a canyon. And who was crazy enough to ride the chain for the first time?

  Neither of the boys spoke. There was nothing to say. They would deal with whatever met them when the gondola stopped. Janner couldn’t wait to put his feet on solid ground again, no matter how many Fangs might await them.

  The gondola edged closer and closer to the cliff as the sun rose. Smoke floated from the chimneys and Janner felt the familiar tremble of fear in his gut. Something was about to happen, and he had no idea what.

  “Maybe everyone’s asleep,” Kalmar whispered.

  “Maybe,” Janner said, but he doubted it.

  With a final lurch the gondola lifted, dragged across the platform, and came to rest. Just as Janner allowed himself to believe that their arrival would go unnoticed, the gondola shifted again and the top thudded
into a mechanism that triggered a resounding bell. The sound shook the air and echoed off the opposite cliff.

  “Great,” Kal grumbled.

  The boys sat frozen, as if their stillness might undo the alarm. Nothing happened, so Janner eased open the door and the brothers stepped out, joints aching, and tiptoed down from the platform. A rocky path led between the buildings and into an open space. With the chasm at their backs, there was no way to go but forward.

  Kalmar sniffed the air and whispered, “Be careful. Fangs.”

  Then the door of the nearest building flew open and out of the darkness emerged the Stone Keeper, skittering across the ground on her many legs. Her hood was thrown back and her sickly, stretched face bore a triumphant smile.

  She rushed forward so fast that Janner had little time to react. He fumbled in his pocket for the stone, thinking he might try the same bargain as before, but the Stone Keeper seized both boys by the wrists. She sent them sprawling to the ground with surprising strength, laughing all the while. Janner lay on his back in shock, dimly aware of another falcon wheeling in the pink sky.

  The boys groaned as they tried to climb to their feet and draw their swords at the same time. Fangs, Grey and Green, streamed from the doors of the other buildings, all with sneers and swords and victory in their eyes. Humans were there, too, Wanderers of the Woes dressed in black, faces painted red with bloodrock dye. Their swords were curved and their faces dispassionate as they watched the Fangs subdue and disarm the boys. Janner felt his arms wrenched behind his back and held in an iron grip.

  “Now,” the Stone Keeper said, “you will return theholoél to me. I know you have it.”

  “But—but how did you—?”

  “Bat Fangs have many uses.” Her smile revealed her sharp black teeth.

  Janner glanced over the Stone Keeper’s shoulder and saw several Bat Fangs flapping about in the sky. They looked clumsy and ridiculous next to the gryfendrils and falcons circling in the chasm. One of the bats dove suddenly and Janner watched with dismay as it snatched one of the beautiful hawks and began to eat it in mid-air.

  “It’s not as pleasant a ride down from Throg as you two had,” the Stone Keeper said, “but the bats aremuch faster.”

  Janner tried not to watch as the Bat Fang snatched other birds—the gryfendril among them—and glided over to alight on the roof of the nearest building, where it squatted and watched with its useless milky eyes as the birds struggled in its claws.

  “Gnag told me you were coming,” she continued. “And I was a fool not to recognize you when you first approached the melding box. I looked forward to meeting you, Kalmar, most of all.” She smiled her horrid smile and stroked Kalmar’s furry cheek. “You turned out quite lovely.”

  He struggled but the Grey Fangs held him fast.

  “What do you want with us?” Kalmar asked through clenched teeth.

  “That’s for the Nameless One to tell you.” The Stone Keeper turned her attention to Janner. “Now, boy. None of your heroics. I’ll have the stone back. It still has some power yet, and I intend to put it to good use.”

  “You’ll never Fang me,” Janner said.

  “Perhaps. But we’ll lock you away and torture you for a few years once Gnag is finished with you.” The Stone Keeper jammed her hand into Janner’s pocket and removed the stone, then waved for the Bat Fangs to approach. “Bind them.”

  Janner struggled as the Fangs tied his arms and legs. Two of the bats loped over, clutched the boys, and lifted them into the air. The Stone Keeper drew her cowl over her head and climbed into a large basket with a rope at each corner. Four more Bat Fangs flapped toward her, gripped the ropes, and lifted her as the Woefolk and Fangs watched in silence.

  “Where are you taking us?” Janner demanded as they rose.

  “Home, of course.”

  Bonifer and the baby, along with old Gineva and the Doonish wetnurse, crossed the Chasm, rode the chains up the Killridge Mountains, and came at last to Castle Throg. Far above the tree line, where the air was thin and the wind screamed, the castle rose like a cluster of knives aimed at the sky. The gate swung open and the travelers stepped from the howl of the wind into the vast silence of Throg.

  The entry hall was dimly lit, and Bonifer saw only shadowy shapes skittering and creeping from pillar to tapestry to nook. ‘Hello?’ he called, and his voice echoed down through the dim hall.

  Soon came the sound of slow footsteps, and Bonifer beheld an old man, old as the mountain. The man’s beard dragged along the floor and he looked so frail that he might have been made of paper.

  ‘Squoon?’ said the man in a voice so deep and strong that it seemed uttered by another being entirely.

  ‘Yes, my lord,’ Bonifer said with a bow.

  ‘My name is Will.’

  Bonifer’s skin went cold. ‘Ouster Will?’

  ‘The same,’ said the man, and his laughter chilled Bonifer like the mountain wind. The rebel son of Dwayne and Gladys, older than epochs, haunt of scarytales and dark songs, stood before Bonifer in the flesh. ‘It’s a wonder what water from the First Well can do,’ Ouster Will said. He hobbled to the nursemaid and tore the child from her arms. He held up the poor creature by one of its legs and turned it about as if he were inspecting a slab of meat. ‘This is the best you could do? It will never be able to walk, and its face is hideous.’ Ouster Will thrust the child back at Gineva. ‘I asked for human children. Not monsters.’ The old man made his way back down the long torchlit hall.

  ‘Wait, my lord!’ Bonifer said.

  ‘Go, before I have my pets gobble you up.’

  Bonifer and the women shrank back at the sight of creatures slinking out of the shadows. There were horse-like heads and oozing bodies heaving themselves along on insectile legs, snakes with boneless and useless wings flopping toward him like fish, a toothy cow with the upper half of a wolf growing from its ribs and both of its mouths snapping at the air.

  ‘This is the child of the High King of Anniera!’ Bonifer cried.

  Ouster Will stopped and motioned for the animals to retreat back into the shadows. He hobbled back to Bonifer and the nursemaid, smiling wickedly. He took the baby again and asked, ‘What is its name?’

  ‘It—it has no name, lord.’

  ‘Then I shall give it a name. And I shall make something of it. Go.’

  ‘The gold, sir?’ Bonifer said with a nervous laugh.

  ‘At Yorsha Doon. Now go.’ Ouster Will stroked the baby’s twisted limbs and misshapen face. ‘I have work to do.’

  Bonifer and Gineva turned to leave, but Murgah the wetnurse bowed and said, ‘My lord, let me stay and care for the child along with my own.’

  So Bonifer and Gineva left the woman behind and stepped out into the howling wind. Squoon took a deep breath and smiled to himself. All that was left to do was to murder the old midwife Gineva. He had decided that she was a risk he wasn’t willing to take, and cast her headlong into the Chasm.

  Bonifer found his ship in Yorsha Doon laden with chests of gold, and when he returned to Anniera, Ortham greeted him warmly and introduced him to his newborn son, Jru. ‘Where have you been these last weeks?’ asked the king, and Bonifer explained that he had been called away because of a Hollish trade dispute.

  Queen Madia was still recovering from her labor, still grieving the supposed death of Jru’s twin. But when Madia saw her old friend she hugged him and welcomed him home, eager to speak of young Illia’s reaction to her new brother. Even as he delighted in Madia’s conversation, Bonifer watched her closely for signs of doubt or suspicion. Soon he was assured that his treachery had gone undiscovered.

  Years passed. Bonifer continued to supply Ouster Will with animals and no longer doubted the ancient lord’s purpose: he was melding animals, using old lore as well as theholoréandholoél to make new beasts. Bonifer often wondered why, and soon he gathered that Ouster Will was building an army. If that was true, Bonifer was glad to be his ally, not his enemy. He would continue to help Will a
ny way he could—and not just because of money or alliance. Bonifer Squoon also wanted to be close to the child, whom Ouster Will had come to call “The Nameless.”

  The Nameless crawled the halls of Throg in the company of horrors. Bonifer Squoon visited a few times each year and told the child stories of Anniera, a kingdom where he said the weak were spurned and exiled. He lied to the child.

  ‘Your real father, High King Ortham, was disgusted by your malformation and planned to kill you. Only I loved you. Only I rescued you from the clutches of Anniera and brought you here to Lord Will, who shall repair what the Maker has done to you.’

  ‘The Maker?’ asked the boy, his useless legs bent beneath him, his twisted visage peering up at Squoon.

  ‘Yes. The Maker is the one who twisted your body. He is the one who willed your birth to a father who would kill you without even giving you the blessing of a name. He is the one who took my Madia, who has cut me off from love. If you would be whole, you must do so yourself. The Maker will not help you. Only Lord Will, who has worked these long years to perfect the Maker’s shabby work, will help you. Men and women are weak. Do you know how long it takes an ordinary human child to learn to walk? A year! Do you know how long it takes a toothy cow to walk? Minutes. Do you know how long you would survive in the cold if I threw you outside tonight?’

  ‘No, Bonifer.’

  ‘You would be dead by morning. But any one of these beasts around you would live many nights, warmed by their blood and their fur and their superior constitution. Man is weak. Let Will make you strong. Let the blood of the beast imbue your bones. Rise above the Maker’s foul work, and break the yoke of weakness. Let Aerwiar crawl with better beasts, and let Ouster Will rule them. Do you know that you are the rightful king of Anniera?’

  ‘I am?’ asked Gnag.

  ‘And one day you shall crush it.’

  Gnag smiled.

  —From The Annieriad