North! Or Be Eaten (4 page)

As the Igiby children settled in for a bedtime story from Podo, Oskar N. Reteep struggled to read by the fading light that drifted through the window in the ceiling of his
secret room. He squinted through his spectacles at the last few sentences of a book titled
The Anatomy of an Insult
.
³

“Daft old hag,” Oskar muttered as he tossed the book aside. It landed on a heap of other books in the narrow space between the bed and the wall. “Wouldn’t know a good insult from a digtoad.”

Oskar remembered falling asleep before he could warn Joe about Zouzab. He doubted the little traitor was still around, but Joe and Addie should know the ridgerunner was in league with the Fangs, just in case.

Oskar was dreadfully hungry and suspected he had slept for more than a day, though without a visit from Joe, he couldn’t be sure. He also felt stronger. He had crossed a threshold in his recovery and could now speak without coughing.

He grimaced as he leaned forward and swung his feet to the floor, one hand placed gingerly on the bandage wrapped around his torso. Early that morning, by the light of his lantern, Oskar had found he was able to stand and even shuffle around the small space afforded by his quarters. He was excited to demonstrate this for Joe at his next visit, but to Oskar’s disappointment and mounting concern, Joe never showed. He had heard none of the familiar bumps and voices from the kitchen or common room. All day he had read and reread books, trying to quiet the nagging fear that something was wrong.

Every day, Joe or Addie had changed his bandages, brought him water and food, and when Oskar was lucid enough to listen, they spoke to him in hushed voices about the Fangs and the Igibys and Podo. Oskar was careful not to tell them the true identity of the Igiby children. The less they knew, the better.

At first, his concern was only for the Shoosters. Now he was thirsty, his stomach growled, and he was beginning to consider the seriousness of his own situation. He doubted he could yet care for himself or even squeeze through the small door on his own, and the thought of starving or dying of thirst in his hidden room made it seem like a tomb. He wondered if some day years from now, someone would discover his skeleton lying on the bed, surrounded by books. He wondered what book he might be reading when he finally breathed his last, and determined to grab a good one as soon as he sensed the end coming so that whoever discovered him would know he had good taste in literature.

Oskar removed his spectacles and cleaned them with the corner of the bed sheet.

He replaced his spectacles and adjusted a long tendril of hair so that it draped across his head. Oskar was no more able to admit defeat than to admit he was bald as a boulder. He looked at the small doorway on the opposite wall. His wound had stopped bleeding, but he was in no condition to crawl through the little door. He chuckled at the thought that his sizable belly might prove more of a hindrance than his stab wound.

His musings on his girth and its bearing on his escape were interrupted by a scream that worked its way through the wooden walls of the inn. Oskar tensed. The scream trailed off and gave way to the muted snarls of Fangs. The old man’s lips moved with whispered prayers as he looked desperately around his shadowy cell, wondering what to do. He gathered his strength, took a deep breath, and stood. Stars filled his vision, and he heard another scream. It sounded like Addie.

Oskar made his way to the door one painful step at a time, cursing his weight, his wound, and the Fangs of Dang with insults heavily influenced by his recent study of Helba Grounce-Miglatobe’s book. He reached the door and placed a hand on the wall to steady himself, breathing heavily and noticing with a stab of panic that new blood stained his bandage.

He lowered himself to his knees with great effort and placed a shoulder against the back of the chest of drawers that served as his door. The sounds of struggle coming from outside the inn were clearer now, and the Fangs weren’t just snarling, but laughing.

He had no idea what he would do once he made it out of the room, but his instinct demanded he do
something
. He didn’t know the right course of action, but clearly the wrong one would be lying in his bed and listening to the sounds of his friends being captured—or killed—by the Fangs.

Oskar heaved with all his might, and the chest of drawers slid out of the way.

Wincing at the pain in his chest, he crawled to the open window and gasped. Shaggy’s Tavern was a ruin of broken planks. Across the street, what was left of Ferinia’s Flower Shop sat broken and sad as a trampled lily. Beside it, to his relief, Oskar’s own Books and Crannies still stood, just as Addie Shooster had assured him it did, intact except for a strip of wooden shingles missing from the roof.

Oskar’s shock at the battered state of the Glipwood Township turned to dread when he spotted the source of the screams.

A team of black horses stood harnessed to the Black Carriage. But it wasn’t the Black Carriage Oskar had seen the night Podo Helmer and Peet the Sock Man
battled the Fangs. This carriage was longer and sleeker, and was, to Oskar’s horror, more frightening to behold than the other. Instead of one chamber, there were several horizontal compartments just big enough for a man, as if the carriage were a wagon bearing a stack of iron coffins turned on their sides. Long spikes rose from the top of the carriage, creating a fortlike enclosure where two Fangs perched with crossbows.

Joe Shooster lay motionless in the street. A cluster of Fangs surrounded him and jabbed him with the butts of their spears. Another Fang clutched Addie’s arms behind her back and pushed her down the steps from the jail. One of the Fangs on top of the carriage turned a switch, and the lowest of the horizontal doors clanged open. Two of the Fangs dragged Joe to the carriage and threw him in. Addie screamed as they forced her into the box above Joe’s. The Fangs slammed the coffin doors and laughed as the hooded driver whipped the horses and drove the carriage out of sight.

Then a conversation drifted up through the window.

“That was fun,” said a Fang standing in the street below.

“Aye. Nothin’ like the squirmin’ and the screamin’,” said another wistfully. “Wish there was more of it these days. Been standin’ around in thisss town for days with nothin’ to do but pick at me scales.”

“Won’t be long afore we have some action,” said the first.

“Eh? What do you know that I don’t?”

“The ridgerunner says the Igibysss are in the forest.”

“Imposssible.”

“Why?”

“Because the cows woulda swallowed ‘em up by now.”

“Nah. They’re with that socky fella. The mean one. He ain’t afraid of the toothy cows. The ridgerunner says he’s got bridges all through the trees. Says they’re livin’ in a tree house.”

Oskar’s eyes widened, and he smiled in spite of his pain. The Igibys were alive!

“Livin’ in a what?” said the Fang.

“A tree house.”

There was a pause.

“What’s a tree house?”

“Don’t know. Sounds familiar, though. Something about it gave me an odd sorta sick in me gut.”

“Well, we’ll find out tomorrow. Tonight the rest of the troops arrive; then we’re
movin’ into the forest to find ‘em. Leavin’ tomorrow after first feeding. Catch ‘em by surprise.”

“No,” Oskar breathed.

Then his strength snuffed out like a candle, and he collapsed to the floor of room eight, unaware of the small puddle of blood that gathered beneath him.

T
he next morning after breakfast, Peet the Sock Man returned to the tree house, carrying a skinned and gutted cave blat over his shoulder. He mentioned casually that there might be a pack of horned hounds hot on his tail, at which point Podo roused Nugget to be on alert. As Peet pulled himself and the cave blat carcass up through the tree house door, the howl of a horned hound curled through the air, and Nugget bounded into the woods after it.

Janner and Tink sat cross-legged on the floor of the tree house, trying their best to attend to their T.H.A.G.S. though their minds spun with excitement about the journey ahead.

Tink was busy sketching the Igiby cottage from memory at his mother’s request. She said they might never go back to Glipwood, and wasn’t it nice that Tink had his father’s sketchbook to peruse so he could see bits and pieces of his family’s past? At eleven years old, Tink wasn’t able to imagine passing his sketchbook on to anyone, let alone his own children. But he liked to draw, and Janner knew he had a vague sense of the value of archiving his work, of telling his story with the pictures he made.

Janner focused on his journal, trying to describe the intense anticipation he felt over the impending journey to the Ice Prairies and his frustration at having to wait around while preparations were made. Leeli sat in the crook of a fat tree limb, memorizing lyrics from a book of songs.

Janner heard Nugget bark and looked out the window to see the dog returning from the deeper forest, carrying the limp body of a horned hound in his mouth. Nugget was so gentle with the children that it was hard to imagine him attacking anything, but the giant dog was capable of killing more than just horned hounds. He and Peet had faced an assault of hundreds of Fangs of Dang and survived without a single wound that Janner ever saw.

At the base of the tree, Peet was hard at work, digging a hole to bury a chest full
of his journals. There were too many to carry, and he didn’t want them to fall into the Fangs’ hands. He yelped when Nugget dropped the dead hound atop the pile of dirt beside the hole and shooed the great dog away.

“Hounds are bad flavor! Bad tastiness in your stew and worse on your books.”

Nugget whined and dragged the hound back through the trees.

Just as Janner dipped his quill into the ink bottle and resumed writing in his journal, Nia’s voice called from below.

“Boys, come down. I need you to try on your packs.”

Janner and Tink tossed their books aside and clattered down the ladder.

Nia stood with her back to a pile of odds and ends and regarded her sons with her arms folded. She had spent the last few weeks working diligently at sewing packs out of Peet’s old blankets and a few animal skins piled in the corner of the tree house and now handed each of the boys a completed backpack covered with flaps, ties, buttons, and compartments.

Janner slung it onto his back. He knew they’d need food, but he didn’t know what other supplies a long journey required.

“Here’s the book your father gave you,” Nia said, placing it in Janner’s pack. “I’ve wrapped it to keep it safe. And you’ll need these.” She handed him Tink’s sheathed sword, pointing out the leather ties with which to lash it to his brother’s pack.

The packs grew heavier and heavier as Nia filled them with necessary items: a box of matches, an oiled tinderbox in case the matches ran out, satchels of dried meat, packets of salt, a coil of rope, a folding knife Nia had scavenged from the weapons chamber of Anklejelly Manor, and the extra tunic and breeches. Nia lashed Janner’s unstrung bow and a quiver of arrows to the side of the pack opposite the sword; then she did the same for Tink.

Nia stepped back and narrowed her eyes at the packs on her sons’ backs. “The packs will suffice,” she said with a nod. Then her eyes moved to her sons, and Janner moaned. “But your appearance will not. Come on.”

Nia subjected Janner and Tink to a painful scrubbing. It felt to Janner like his mother intended to rub the skin from his bones. Then she set to work on their hair. Using one of the folding knives she’d placed in their packs, Nia sawed at their hair, grunting and tugging until locks of Janner’s and Tink’s shaggy hair lay in clumps at their feet.

When Nia was satisfied, she retrieved a looking glass and held it up. Janner looked at himself with surprise. In the harrowing weeks since they had first rescued Leeli from Slarb, a lot had happened. Janner could see it in his own eyes: a look of gravity, a
maturity that he hoped might someday become wisdom. He handed the mirror to Tink, wondering if his little brother would notice the same thing of himself.

Instead Tink immediately made the goofiest, ugliest face he could muster and burst into laughter. Leeli encouraged it with laughter of her own, and Tink went on for several minutes, inventing silly faces and laughing until he couldn’t breathe. Hard as he tried, Janner couldn’t help grinning at his brother’s antics, and he noticed their mother smiling too.

Behold
, Janner thought,
the High King of Anniera. Maker help us
.

His thoughts were interrupted by a strange sound in the forest.

Janner peered into the trees, wondering if it was his imagination. After weeks in Glipwood Forest, he had come to recognize the shriek of the cave blat, the gribbit of the bumpy digtoad, the horrible moo of the toothy cow, and the wail of the horned hound. Peet had even taught Janner and his siblings about the various birds that sang in the boughs and how to tell which ones were hostile, which were mischievous, and which were singing dirges for fellow birds that had been gobbled by a gulpswallow.

But this sound was different. It was almost human. Janner took quick stock of his family to be sure everyone was present, and to his increasing alarm, all were.

“Shh!”
Janner clamped a hand over Tink’s mouth. “Hear that?”

“Mmmf,” Tink replied.

The sound got louder, now accompanied by the faint
kshhh-kshhh
of snapping twigs and brush trampled underfoot. Podo and Nia heard it too. They all stood, heads turned, listening. Nugget whined and paced back and forth until Leeli hushed him.