North! Or Be Eaten (17 page)

Claxton Weaver stood aghast, his face so wretched and alarming that even Tink stopped chewing his meat. Nia pulled Leeli close. Janner’s body tensed, and he wished his sword were at hand because he feared he would soon need it. The Stranders around the fire sat still as stone.

Podo stood and looked into Claxton’s eyes. “But listen here, Weaver. I can see you rule this bend in the river. I’m old and one-legged, but I’m no fool. If it’s strangers ye don’t like, then save it for the next ones that scrape into yer bend. I’m as much a Strander as you are, I’m no Fang, and I’ve offered you everything we have. If that’s not enough, then me boys and I’ll fight like dragons.” Podo took a step nearer the tall man. “And
you’re
the first one I aim to lay me teeth and me bushy eyebrows on.”

Janner’s skin prickled with pride, and he curled his fingers into fists. He knew they were nothing like Podo’s weathered hands, but they would have to do.

Claxton’s eyes flitted to Janner and Tink, then Oskar, considering Podo’s threat. “Ye crept the West Redoubt?” he asked. “Really?”

“By the light of the Hanger Moon.”

Claxton’s eyes narrowed and burned with a cold light. Such a fierce look passed between the two men that Janner cringed, as if all the darkness in each man’s soul poured out and fought a great battle in the space between them. It wasn’t clear who won, but Claxton appeared satisfied that Podo was at least a worthy enemy, if not a comrade.

The tension faded from the bearded man’s face, and he smiled. “Then I’ve found a reason to allow ye to live, Podo Helmer. You’re gonna tell us a tale—an account of the Strand in the days of yer youth. Me clan and I will sleep tonight with the thrill of old stories in our bones.” Claxton’s smile vanished and he lowered his voice. “But if what ye have to give ain’t good enough, old man, then it’ll be the Blapp or my blade for you and your company. We Stranders can fight like dragons too, remember.” Claxton turned to his clan. “Can’t we?”

The Stranders bared their teeth and hissed. In one deadly motion, the men, women, and children around the fire drew their knives, ready to leap over the fire at Claxton’s order.

P
odo stood before the Stranders, shifting his weight from his good leg to his stump and back again. Claxton sat on a log in the center of his clan, his arms folded across his chest. The Igibys and Oskar gathered behind Podo. The fire had burned down to a steady red glow that turned the air the color of a bad dream.

“Podo Helmer,” Claxton said, “proceed.”

Janner looked at his grandfather in a new light; it seemed the old man had no end of secrets. But as much as Podo hated his past, and as much as Janner hated to imagine his dear grandfather running with such a wretched band, there was a chance it might save all their lives. He knew his grandfather had a story in mind, but he had serious doubts that Claxton and his hissing, knife-wielding people would turn them loose no matter how rousing the tale.

Podo closed his eyes for a moment and took a deep breath before he began.

“Stranders! I stand before you with but one leg, me hair white with age, and me belly full of yer good meat. This fire here burnin’ low sends me thinkin’ about Growlfist the Strander King on the night I first met ‘im.”

The Stranders murmured and nodded their heads.

“Aye, I met ‘im, all right. Fierce he was, and a full head taller even than Claxton here. It was said his eyes were so mean he could cook a fish just starin’ at it, and I’m here to tell ye it’s true. Saw ‘im do it any number of times.

“Many years ago I was fishin’ in a bend of the Blapp not far from here, bobbin’ in a boat with a bucket full of redgill, when I saw a dark parade wend its way down from the north hills. Filthy they were, and a cloud of dirt hovered above ‘em like a storm set to burst. Indeed, lightning cracked from the dirt cloud, and a miry thunder rolled.
Stranders!
I thought, and I shivered in me boat.”

The Stranders cackled with pride.

“I’d never seen ‘em up close—not
real
Stranders, mind you. Some of those closer to Dugtown
call
themselves Stranders, but you at the East Bend know the men from the girls, don’t ye?”

The clan snarled and laughed and pounded fists on knees, including the girls, Janner noticed, Maraly loudest of all.

“Well, I’d been driftin’ for a few days. I knew folks this far downriver could only be dangerous, and to tell it straight, that’s why I floated as far as I did. Danger was nothin’ for Podo Helmer, scrabbly and young as I was.

“Then a voice comes tearin’ at me from the tallest man I ever saw. He was the eye of the dirt-storm, and the Stranders around him swirled like the wind. ‘Come near!’ he commanded in a voice deep as the river, and my boat fairly paddled itself across the current to where Growlfist the Strander King stood. The nearer I came, the more fearsome was his appearance. Teeth like clamshells, a jaw like a tree root, a shaggy beard as brown and muddy as a bumpy digtoad’s hind feet.”

Again, the Stranders muttered their approval.

Podo continued. “I stood before Growlfist on both me feet—this was before I lost one, see—shaking like a belcher’s belly. I’d seen tall men before, and dirty men too, but there was none wickeder than the Strander King, and I told him so. He asked by whose permission I was fishin’ redgill in his waters, and I told him straight: nobody’s. He bent so close to me face that I could see the fleas in his beard.

“Then I did somethin’ so foolish and so desperate that I can’t remember deciding to do it. If I’d stopped to think, I never woulda tried. Now, you Stranders know this, but for the sake of me family here what don’t know yer ways as well, I’ll tell you the Stranders are a slimy bunch.”

Janner expected the clan to be angry at this, but they carried on with their usual backslapping agreement.

“Slimy as the bottom of the Blapp!” Podo said.

“Aye!” they cried.

“And if there’s anything a Strander respects, it’s someone as slimy and wretched and thievin’ as themselves, eh?”

“Aye!” they cried again, louder.

“So ye want to know what Podo Helmer did?” he cried.

“Aye!”

Podo lowered his voice to a near whisper. “I picked Growlfist’s pocket.”

The Stranders stared at him open-mouthed. Even Claxton looked surprised.

“Ye picked
what
?” Maraly asked.

“Picked his pocket. Picked it right there on the banks of the Blapp with all his clan watchin’, and they didn’t see a thing. I’m mighty swift when I’ve a mind to be,
and I decided that me only chance was to prove to Growlfist the Strander King that I was fit to ride in his company.”

Podo let the silence reign for a few moments, relishing, as he always did, a tale well told.

“What did ye steal?” someone asked.

“The only thing I could lay me fingers on. Stole his pone.”
¹

At this, the Stranders gasped.

“Didn’t know what I’d done at the time, of course. It was right there in the front pocket of his breeches—a golden bird no bigger than a baby’s fist. Growlfist had me by the collar with his dagger at me throat, all his clan laughin’ and beggin’ him to put an end to me. But before he did, I said, ‘Growlfist, if you kill me and throw me in the river, you’ll lose yer wee golden bird.’ The Strander King patted his pockets and narrowed his burnin’ eyes at me as I raised the trinket to his face—and winked.”

“You winked?” Claxton said, now as lost in the story as the rest of his clan.

“Aye. Old Growlfist’s eyes opened as wide as his mouth, and he started laughin’ so hard it scared his clan as bad as it did me. Something unnatural about a man as wicked as Growlfist laughin’ like that. Stopped his clan dead in their tracks, and we all stood there wonderin’ what he would do.”

Podo paused, his hands out, palms open to the night sky. “Growlfist set me on the ground, hit me so hard in the face that I still have proof”—Podo turned his right cheek into the fire glow so that all could see the finger-length scar along his cheek-bone—“and welcomed me into the clan. Snatched his pone right back, and since he was the mighty Growlfist, nobody challenged it. Wasn’t long before I was runnin’ with the Pounders, and not long after that, Sharn the Torr sent his troops to try and clean up the Strand.”

“And you crept the West Redoubt,” said Claxton, the suspicion back in his voice.

“That’s right.”

“Well, old man, it’s a good story. I’ll give you that.” Claxton stood and stretched. Janner’s blood went cold, because it was clear from Claxton’s swagger that Podo’s story hadn’t satisfied him—or if it did, he was unwilling to admit it. “But not good enough,
Podo Helmer, because I don’t believe a word of it. No man could’ve picked the pocket of Growlfist the Strander King with his whole clan watching.
I’m
the finest thief in Skree—once in Dugtown, I snicked the shoes right off a feller, and he didn’t even know it till he got home—but not even I could’ve slipped the pone from Growlfist the Strander King.”

Claxton drew his dagger. Just as Podo tensed to spring at the clan leader, Leeli cried out. A Strander held a knife to her throat. Podo closed his eyes and trembled with rage. Janner’s heart pounded. The Fangs were evil to the bone, but these people were worse somehow. Other than their dirty appearance, they didn’t look so different from Dugtowners—or from Glipfolk, for that matter. He was used to the Fangs being evil, but not ordinary men and women.

“Clan!” Claxton cried. “Podo Helmer, the fat man, and the woman will be sleepin’ sound at the bottom of the Blapp tonight! The children we’ll keep, of course.”

The Stranders surged forward with knives drawn and teeth bared. They tore Nia away from Leeli. Oskar breathed a deep sigh and hung his head as they pulled him to his feet.

But Tink worried Janner most. His brother stared at Claxton with an odd look, not of fear or worry, but—was it fascination? admiration? Even as the Stranders jerked Tink to his feet, his eyes stayed on the tall, bearded brigand, and Janner’s eyes stayed on Tink.

One minute Podo had held the Stranders in thrall with his tale, and a breath later the Igibys, Podo, and Oskar were surrounded and firmly in the grip of the clan again. Weaponless, with no leverage, no money for a bribe, it felt to Janner that they had finally reached their end. There were far too many of the smelly men, women, and children to fight, and unless Podo had another trick in his brain, the Jewels of Anniera would soon be caged and their guardians would be in the cold black depths of the Mighty Blapp.

I
n the midst of the clink of knives and the cackle of black-toothed men and women, Janner heard a wonderful sound. It was a sound he had known for as long as he could remember, one that never failed to bring a smile to his face and a warm fire to his belly.

Podo was laughing.

His laugh was like the sound of trees bending in the wind, the bubbling of a river where the mill wheel spins. All the tension in Janner’s neck and face eased away, and he laughed too. Leeli giggled.

Nia glared at her father. “And
what
is so funny?”

Podo struggled to control himself. “I just wanted to thank you all. Ye’ve been very kind and generous.”

Everyone, Strander and Igiby alike, was confused.

“What are ye blatherin’ about, old man?” asked Claxton.

Podo breathed out the last of his mirth, then looked into Claxton’s face and arched a bushy white eyebrow. “I said I wanted to thank you all. Yer generosity is very great. It’s so thoughtful of you to weigh me down so that me trip to the river bottom is as swift as possible. Didn’t know Stranders had it in ‘em to have such compassion on those they mean to murder.”

Podo winked at Janner, then reached inside his shirt and removed an iron cup. He dangled it from his finger, and the way the Stranders’ eyes followed its motion back and forth as they struggled to understand struck Janner as one of the funniest things he’d ever seen. He snorted and covered his mouth.

“That’s me cup,” said an old man in the back.

“Is it?” Podo reached into his shirt again and removed a shiny dagger.

Claxton snatched it away. “Which one of you oafs does this belong to?”

A woman with a patch over one eye raised her hand, and Claxton hurled it to the ground at her feet.

Podo reached into his shirt again, his eyes atwinkle, and removed a handful of coins, two green-jeweled earrings, a bigger knife, a bracelet made of snail shells, and a
toy boat. One of the children rushed forward and tore this last item from his hand. On and on this went, and just when Janner was sure Podo had no more folds in his clothes in which to conceal the things he had taken, out came another necklace or box of matches or an iron arrowhead.

With each new revelation, the Stranders oohed and aahed and gave Podo more and more of their respect. Even Claxton’s face softened a little as he stood with his arms crossed, his eyes and Podo’s still locked in contest.

“Finished?” he asked.

Podo made a show of patting his shirt and breeches, then nodded. “Aye, that’s it.”

“Well, then. This has been a fine display, Podo Helmer. It’s shown what fools inhabit the Strand.” He glared at the shamed faces of his clan. “I must admit, I’m inclined to believe ye might have crept the West Redoubt, and maybe even met Growlfist himself.”

Janner smiled. Podo had clearly bested Claxton and shown himself worthy of the Stranders’ esteem, if not their friendship.

“But
no
man picked the pocket of Growlfist the Strander King,” Claxton said, his voice booming over the camp, “and no man picked mine. Let your last breath be a drink of the river, and let me clan remember to keep watch when strangers enter the fold. Take the children to the cages and their keepers to their grave.”