New Lands (THE CHRONICLES OF EGG) (32 page)

“I can’t budge it!” said Millicent.

“Lemme at it,” said Adonis.

“Millicent, come down,” said Kira. “Let him do it.”

There was some jostling in the narrow space. Adonis elbowed me in the gut.

“When
who
comes to earth?” I asked Kira.

“Ma. Thunder God. Moku worship him. When there is a storm, with thunder and lightning, Ma is present. And they will offer your sister as a sacrifice, to increase Ma’s power. Along with your father, and all her servants.”

From somewhere up the ladder, I heard Adonis snort. “Says
her.
Them savages ain’t killin’ Dad. He’s square with ’em.”

“Your brother is a fool,” Kira told me.

I felt woozy and sick. The darkness didn’t help. “He doesn’t know. I’ve got to tell him.”

“Don’t be stupid. It’s too late for that.” She raised her voice, calling out to Adonis. “Do you need help?”

“Almost got it,” he grunted. “Stuck on sumpin’.”

My mind was racing.

The tunnel’s not long. He’s right down the street. If all the Moku are distracted by the Rovians…off in the square…and Dad’s in his house…

I pushed past Kira. “I’ll be right back.”

“NO!”

“I won’t be long!”

I ran in a crouch down the tunnel, my arm stiff in front of me. They were calling out behind me, but I was too busy trying to work things out in my head to listen.

If he’s not there, I can leave a message…Scrawl it in the dirt…What if the shadow’s with him…? I’ll just peek out. Go right back to the tunnel if the coast isn’t clear…It’s not far…Fifty yards, there and back…

I was already at the top of the ladder. My body seemed to be moving without much input from my brain. I started to push the stone away, feeling the shudder through the earth as it rumbled across the floor. A square of light opened up around the corners of the stone.

“Don’t…!” I heard Kira hiss from below me.

I didn’t answer. I wasn’t thinking about whether what I was
doing made any sense. I was thinking about how I was going to pull it off.

Still got the stones. In my pocket. The sharp one, and the one for throwing…Keep the throwing one in my right hand, just in case…

I shoved the stone back just far enough to squeeze through the opening. The old man’s house was still empty. In the distance, I could hear the clop of hooves on stone. I went to the door and peered out.

The street was empty down to the avenue, where a double line of soldiers in Rovian blue were trotting past on horseback, headed for the main square.

Is that…?

It was. Dad was standing in front of his house, his back to me, watching the troops go by. He was alone.

I looked behind me to make sure the street was empty that way, too.

Deserted. Not a Moku in sight.

Run.

I sprang forward, my head low and my legs pumping hard—

Then I was on the ground, colors exploding in my eyes and a hammer blow of pain across the top of my head. I’d run headlong into something that hadn’t been there a second ago. Pieces of wood—
wood?
—were tumbling down on top of me.

I heard someone cry out.

I lurched to my feet, trying to make sense of what had happened.

The old man was sprawled on the ground in front of me, split wood lying all around him.

He must have come around the corner of his house with an armload at the exact moment I started my sprint, and I’d hit the wood head-on.

But I didn’t figure that out in the moment. There was too much else to worry about.

Like what I was going to do next.

The old man was on his back, staring up at me in terror. His lower lip was trembling so much that the whole bottom half of his face quivered along with it, all saggy wattle and spit.

His mouth gaped and puckered, and I could see his Adam’s apple bounce in the middle of his throat. He was trying to scream, but he couldn’t make the sound come out.

The long, narrow stone was still in my left hand. I’d pulled it from my pocket before I started running, and somehow I hung on to it even as I dropped the other stone when I fell.

Kill him before he screams.

I had to do it. If he raised an alarm, I was doomed.

I switched the stone to my right hand and raised it up, closing in on him.

Do it quick.

His watery eyes were locked on mine, piteous as a broken-winged bird staring up at a cat.

Kill him.

He was old and feeble. He wasn’t going to put up a fight. All I had to do was bring the stone down on his head.

Do it!

I was still clenching my upraised hand over the stone, trying to will myself to bring it down, when the scream came out of him in such an earsplitting shriek that it hardly sounded human.

“Shut up!”
I fell on him, knees across his arms, and covered his mouth with my free hand.

He bit me hard on the fleshy part of my palm. When I drew my hand back, he screamed again.

I looked up. Down the road, Dad was staring at us, his mouth open in shock.

And two Moku warriors were running toward me, rifles in hand.

Where they came from, I don’t know.

I leaped up. I knew if I went for the tunnel, they’d catch me there and find the others as well.

So I turned and sprinted in the other direction, toward the city wall.

Get to the tree.

I reached the path by the wall and turned left.

The tree was up ahead, its branches drooping over the wall.

If I can get there…

I could hear the Moku shouting behind me. I passed a side street and saw a blur of movement—
more Moku
—but paid them no mind.

The tree was close. A few more seconds.

How to climb it?

The lowest branch was at least a foot above my head. It was thick and sturdy, but I’d have to leap up just to reach it.

Jump!

I sprang into the air, fully extended. I managed to catch the branch with both hands, but my momentum carried me forward so hard I nearly lost my grip. I stiffened, trying to steady
myself—and too late, I realized I should have tried to use my momentum to get my legs up onto the branch.

Now I was hanging there, dead weight. I swung my legs. Once, twice—

I got a leg up over the branch. I was going to—

Someone grabbed hold of my midsection, trying to pull me down.

I hung on with everything I had. I could feel the bark rip at the inside of my forearms.

Then someone else grabbed me around the legs, and that was it.

THERE WAS A WARRIOR
on either side of me, marching me by the arms down the avenue toward the main square. There was a third one in front, and two more behind. I could see the horses up ahead in the square, and I wondered if Venus might actually get her pony.

It didn’t matter. Eventually they’d kill her. Dad too.

I heard his voice behind us, out of breath.

“Wot happened, boy?”

One of the Moku barked a warning at him.

“You’ve got to leave while you can,” I said. “They’re going to kill you both.”

One of the warriors grabbed me by the jaw and slammed it upwards, knocking my teeth together. They didn’t want us talking.

“Wot ye mean?”

Dad was trotting alongside us. One of the Moku from the back stepped up to cut him off.

“They’re going
tomph smrf
—” The Moku on the right grabbed my head and pulled it to him, yanking me forward in a headlock.

They marched me the rest of the way to the square like that—bent at the waist, my face smothered, tripping over my feet.

I wasn’t an honored guest anymore.

I could hear Dad behind me, trying to argue his case to men who didn’t understand a word of what he was saying.

We entered the square. I couldn’t see a thing, but I could hear a clatter of voices in both Moku and Rovian, along with the clop and
pbbllth
of horses.

As they dragged me deeper into the square, the individual voices kept falling away as we passed, like people were stopping their conversations to stare at me.

By the time they quit dragging me forward, it was nearly silent. The warrior who’d been pulling me by the head let go with no warning, and I fell to the pavement.

There was a little ripple of laughter from the crowd.

I looked up. I was in front of the temple steps. Three men were staring down at me.

The first was the old grasshopper with the headdress.

The second was the big ox of a chief.

The third was Roger Pembroke.

H
is clothes were dusty and grime-streaked from traveling, and there was a week’s growth of beard on his sun-browned face. I’d never seen him like that—to me, he’d always been a creature of the frilly white shirts and velvet cushions of Sunrise Island.

But he seemed to thrive on it. As he stared down at me with his ice-blue eyes, he’d never looked more powerful or alive.

“Where is Millicent?”

“Gone away,” I said.

“Gone away where?”

“Leave ’im be!” Dad’s voice rang out. Getting to my feet, I turned toward the sound of it, and for the first time I got a look at the crowd.

It was much smaller than I’d expected. There were just twenty or so Rovian soldiers, and maybe twice that number of horses, all weighed down with provisions. There were about a hundred Moku, most of them armed warriors.

Several of the Moku surrounded Dad, their rifles trained on him as they waited for orders.

“Oh, my…” I heard Pembroke say. I turned back to him. He was looking at Dad with wide eyes and a hint of a smile. “
This
is rather curious.”

Pembroke looked at the Moku chief.
“Ma le ba?”

The chief gave him a long answer. Pembroke’s Moku must have been pretty good, because he seemed to follow along with no trouble. Occasionally, he interrupted with a question.

Their tone and body language were casual, like they were speaking to each other as friends, or at least equals.

That struck me as a very bad thing.

Dad was trying to push his way toward us, but the Moku guarding him were having none of it.

Still explaining things to Pembroke, the Moku chief gestured to the top of the temple, where Venus lived.

“Aaaaah…,” said Pembroke, nodding. He started to say something to the chief, but I broke in.

“They think my sister’s an Okalu goddess,” I told him. “And they’re going to sacrifice her to their god. Please tell them—”

Something struck me hard in the back of the knees, knocking me to the ground.

As I scrambled to get back on my feet, I heard Pembroke say something in a sharp tone, like he was telling the Moku who’d just hit me to cut it out.

“Wot’s this, boy?”

Dad was staring at me, confused.

“They’re going to sacrifice you both!” I yelled to him. “At the next thunderstorm!”

I turned back to Pembroke. “Please don’t let them do it.”

Pembroke’s eyebrows rose along with his shoulders, like he was helpless to do anything. “I’m afraid I’m just a guest here. It wouldn’t be my place to question their religious practices.”

“Look here!” Dad bellowed. “I got no quarrel with yer lot. This boy don’t, neither. Leave us be, we’ll make our way out with no harm done.”

Pembroke pursed his lips and nodded thoughtfully, like he was considering the offer.

“The trouble of that is…” He gestured toward me. “This one’s got something I need.”

“Ye don’t give us no trouble, I’ll see he gives it to ye,” Dad said.

“I do appreciate the offer,” said Pembroke in a mild voice. “But I have to admit, I’m a trifle confused as to why
you’re
dictating terms to
me.
”

Dad drew himself up straight, squaring his wide chest. He raised a meaty hand to point to the temple, just like the Moku chief had done.

“Me daughter’s up in that temple. Wotever she is to this lot, fact is they do as she says. I say the word, she’ll call this whole pack o’ savages down on yer heads.”

“Will she, now?” Pembroke was smiling so wide I could see his teeth.

“Dead certain,” said Dad. He started toward me. “Come on, boy. We’re leavin’.”