North! Or Be Eaten (49 page)

No
, said Hulwen, a young, weary voice in Janner’s mind.

What?
said the old one.

Let them go
, said Hulwen.
His scars run deeper than mine
.

Then she sank beneath the waves.

The old gray beast’s fury shook the air. Its flanks rippled like a flag in a windstorm. The dragon’s wordless cry stabbed Janner’s mind, and he clamped his eyes shut and pressed both hands against his forehead. The other dragons shared the old one’s rage until the water around the ship foamed like Fingap Falls.

Artham launched himself into the air and waved his sword at the great beast as it descended. With a flick of its nose, the dragon threw Artham against the glacier so hard that hunks of ice crashed into the sea. Artham was stunned, but his wings beat the air as he fell. The tips of his toes touched the water as he swooped up and circled the dragon again.

Janner no longer heard words in his mind. The creature had gone wild. He knew that if Artham hadn’t distracted it, the dragon would have splintered the ship already and they would be dead.

“Janner!” Leeli said. “Get the First Book. Hurry!”

“Why? I don’t know where it is!”

“Ask Errol. Gammon said our things are on the ship. Go!”

Janner had no idea what Leeli had in mind, but he was glad to do something other than wait to be eaten. He took the steps down from the foredeck in one leap. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Oskar still flailing about on his back, unable to
find his feet on the rocking boat. Errol and the rest of the crew had subdued the Grey Fangs and held them against the ship’s rail at sword-point.

“Errol! Where are our packs?” Janner cried.

“In the captain’s quarters, through that door!”

Janner burst into the room and saw his pack in a pile of bedrolls and furs beside a large desk. He rummaged through it and yanked out the old book, wondering what Leeli planned to do.

When he emerged from the cabin, he saw the great dragon wheeling about, snapping its teeth at Artham as he flew around its head like a gnat. The sound of the dragon’s jaws closing on empty air was like lightning splitting an oak in two. Janner wondered why Podo and the others hadn’t sought cover, but he knew as well as they did that it was futile. If the dragon wanted Podo, the dragon would have him. Even if the old man hid in the ship’s hold, the creature would have little trouble crushing the ship with one bite.

Janner bounded up the steps and skidded to a halt in front of Leeli. She frantically flipped through the pages, thrust the book at Janner, and said, “Hold it open where I can see it!”

Janner looked at the page but saw nothing but odd letters and lines.

Leeli reached inside her coat and removed the whistleharp. Light reflected from it and glinted on the dragon’s face. The dragon stilled.

Leeli raised the whistleharp to her lips with trembling hands and studied the markings on the ancient paper. A great silence seemed to descend on the world. The Kimerans, Artham, and even the Grey Fangs waited to see what would happen.

Then the melody broke on them like a sunrise.

After the first few notes, the dragon drew in a slow, deep breath and closed its eyes. Leeli’s song grew in strength and tension and beauty, and as she reached the first refrain, the sea dragon exhaled a warm, mountainous note. Its voice was round and rich and somehow fragrant, like the song a tree might sing when it blossoms in springtime.

“Yurgen’s Tune,” said Oskar, who stopped struggling and lay back on the deck with a big smile on his face. “Good lass, Leeli.”

The dragon raised its face to the sky with careful grace until its gleaming scales caught the sun and the beast towered above them like a giant golden scepter. Soon the other dragons joined it in song, and Janner felt that his heart might burst. He heard the clatter of swords as they slipped from the Kimerans’ limp hands while the big men stood in awe. Artham spread his arms and wings wide and basked in the song as if it were sunlight.

Podo knelt behind Leeli as still as a statue, unwilling or unable to raise his eyes to her or to the dragons. On his face was a look of insufferable shame, both for the killing of young dragons and for the way his treachery had nearly killed those whom he loved.

Leeli lowered the whistleharp when she had played all she could of “Yurgen’s Tune,” but the dragons continued.

“Grandpa,” Leeli said gently. Podo lifted his eyes as if they weighed a thousand pounds. “Get up,” she said. She took his old, crooked hand in her tiny, elegant one and raised him. Janner believed no other force in all of Aerwiar, not the finest words nor the strongest grip, would have been enough to lift the broken old pirate—only Leeli’s voice and tender hand.

The Grey Fangs covered their ears. They howled with pain, but the sound was faint and distant and had no power to disrupt the dragons’ music. Tink squirmed in Nia’s arms. His eyes remained closed, but his claws dug into her skin and drew blood. She held him tighter and kissed his fur.

“Get these beasts below deck,” Errol said. “And see to the wounded.” He and his men bound the arms of the six remaining Fangs. The creatures, groggy and disoriented, were led to the ship’s hold without protest. The dead Fangs had already turned to dust. Clumps of fur collected in the corners and lifted away on the breeze.

Janner hoped that when the song ended, the dragons would sink away as he had seen them do so many times before, but they did not. Instead, the old gray one arced its neck and looked down on them with a fierce stillness.

At last
, said the dragon,
comes one who can ease our sorrow with song. We thought we would never again hear this music. How, little one, did you come to learn this melody? You sang something like it when the half moon rose, but it has been long since we have heard it as it was written
.
¹

“She learned it from this book,” Janner said. “It’s one of the First Books.”

The First Books?
the dragon said.
They have been lost for epochs
.

“And yet,” said Artham, “the Song Maiden has just played ‘Yurgen’s Tune.’ How else could she have learned it?”

Janner sensed the dragon remembering things from long ago, things the sea dragons had forgotten they ever knew, as if Leeli’s whistleharp were a key that unlocked a secret chamber in the dragon’s mind. He saw the ages turn like pages in a picture book. The old gray dragon glided backward through the waters of time with fins like wings, appeared younger by a day every hundred years, and led its herd a thousand times
from Fingap Falls to the deep caverns of the Sunken Mountains, where stones gave light and the walls swirled with pictures.

He saw the dragons in pursuit of pirate ships, young dragons roped and hauled to the decks. He saw that in the days of the pirates, young dragons traveled the waters alone and were vulnerable. Only when they banded together as a herd did the pirates fear them and the hunting cease.

Then Janner sensed the dragon swimming back to an older time, when the world itself felt younger, when the sun was brighter and the waters warm. The old dragon saw itself wrecking ships, battering helpless sailors and their families. It remembered worming its way onto the shore to flatten villages and scar the land while the people wailed. Terror was in their eyes, and the dragon knew its own deeds were once dark.

It pushed further into memory but was met with a gray nothingness. No explanation for its fury, no cause for the killing. It would take another song to open those chambers. Janner felt a new emotion arise in the dragon’s mind—contrition. The dragon had done evils of its own and regretted them.

Hulwen the ruby dragon raised her disfigured head from the water. The gray dragon closed its eyes and nuzzled her. Janner could tell they spoke with each other, but they had closed him off. He could hear nothing of what they said and wondered if the same were true of Artham. When the dragons finished, Hulwen looked into Janner’s eyes and nodded.

A final passage
, she said, and she sank away again.

Janner and Artham looked at each other with surprise.

There is no evil in justice
, said the gray dragon
. The old man himself knows this. Though “Yurgen’s Tune” has awakened pity in my ancient heart, yet the blood of our children cries out for justice. We will allow him the mercy of one last passage across the sea. Scale Raker may live out his last days in peace
.

But should he enter these waters again
, the dragon said,
his days on Aerwiar will end. Without anger, without warning, we will rise from the deep and swallow him. So shall our dead be honored. Do you understand?

Janner and Artham nodded gravely.

“Yes, lords,” said Artham. “We thank you.”

“They’re letting him pass!” Janner ran to Podo and hugged him around the waist. “Grandpa, they’re letting you go!”

“Eh?” The look on Podo’s face alternated between disbelief and joy, which caused
his bushy eyebrows to rise and fall like foamy waves. Nia raised her head to the heavens and mouthed a prayer while Leeli squealed and hopped into Podo’s thick arms.

When the laughter and happy tears subsided, the dragons were gone. The ship rocked on the waves with the cliffs of the Ice Prairies behind and the wide horizon ahead.

Then a voice spoke that killed the smile on every face.

“Put me down,” it said. It was an odd voice, raspy and deep as it was young.

Tink was awake, and he was growling.

He snapped at Nia and scratched her arms. She cried out and let him go, and the little Fang scurried away as soon as his paws hit the deck.

He squatted in a corner and panted like a dog. His eyes darted from his family to the crew of the ship to the sea spray that splashed onto the deck—and it was his eyes that sent a shiver down Janner’s spine.

His brother was no taller than before, and even with the wolfish features he still somehow looked like Tink. But his eyes were yellow and wild. There was no depth or recognition, just a flat, shallow emptiness Janner had seen before. He had seen it when Slarb glared at him in the cell of the Glipwood jail; he had seen it when Commander Gnorm waggled his bejeweled fingers at him; he had seen it in the eyes of Timber, the leader of the Grey Fangs.

This creature might look like Tink, but it was no longer Tink. It was a Fang, through and through.

“Son,” Nia said, her voice thick with sorrow. Streaks of blood colored her skin where he had scratched her. “It’s me. It’s your mama.”

Tink growled.

She took a step nearer, but the wolf boy swiped a paw in the air and curled his lip.

“Don’t come any closer,” he said. “Where am I?” He looked around, desperate to escape. He turned and peeked over the railing at the waves as if he might jump overboard, and Janner noticed for the first time that his brother had a tail. Janner’s stomach tightened, and he feared he might vomit or weep. He didn’t know which.

“Don’t scare him,” Leeli said in the voice she used when she’d set her affection on an animal. “It’s all right. We don’t want to hurt you.” The wolf ignored her and paced the railing, anxious for a place to run.

“What’s your name?” asked Artham.

At this, Tink grew still. He cocked his head sideways like a dog. “I don’t know. I don’t know my name.”

“Shall I tell you?” Artham said carefully. “You might not like it.”

Tink studied the reddish man with wings. He shifted on his feet, licked his chops, and whined. “Tell me,” he said in a small voice.

“Your true name is Kalmar Wingfeather.”

The wolf boy’s ears flattened against his head, and he howled at the sky. He flew into a fit of rage and darted about the deck. He snapped and clawed at his family. Nia and Leeli screamed. Janner and Podo put themselves between the women and the wild animal as Artham struggled to subdue him. Every time he laid a hand on the wolf, its teeth sank into his skin.

The Kimerans took up arms and raced to the prow at the commotion. Several of them trained their bows on Tink and drew back to shoot.

“Put down your weapons!” Artham commanded. “He’s no Fang!” He flew across the deck and at the last moment knocked one of the bows upward so that the arrow whizzed harmlessly into the air.

But as soon as Artham turned his back, Tink leapt overboard into the icy sea.

That was the moment Janner truly became a Throne Warden.

Without a thought, Janner tore off his coat and ran. His heart’s deepest instinct drove him forward and over the ship’s rail to save his brother.

As soon as he hit the water, the world became a frigid, airless black. Too cold to think, he grabbed a handful of fur and pulled it near. Claws raked his skin. He felt Tink’s teeth again and again, but he held his brother close. When every desperate gasp filled his lungs with water, he hugged the Fang to himself with all his strength. The sea turned red with Janner’s blood.

The last thing he knew was Artham’s strong taloned hands. He felt himself lifted on mighty wings from blackness to light, from silence to sound. And though his wounds were deep and bled freely, though Tink still fought to escape his embrace, in Janner’s heart burned great joy.

A
nd so Podo Helmer sailed the Dark Sea of Darkness for the last time.

The Wingfeathers traveled east to the Green Hollows, where many years before a rowdy pirate was tamed by the tender love of a woman named Wendolyn Igiby. Podo was often seen on the deck of the ship late at night while most of the crew slept. He gazed at the star-bright heavens and breathed deep the salty air, for he knew the night held a special beauty when one was far from land. He carried his leg bone wherever he went, and it brought him great pleasure to bang it on the mast to signal mealtimes. He moved through the days in peace and wonder, for his whole story had been told for the first time, and he found that he was still loved.

For days, Oskar N. Reteep was desperately seasick. His face was pale, and every few minutes he staggered like a drunkard to the ship’s rail and provided the fish with rather unpleasant food. But soon the old man’s pate became tanned and leathery. He learned the ropes with gusto and soon became as much a sailor as any of the crew. The Kimerans convinced him to shave his head, and in a fit of recklessness, he even allowed them to tattoo his arm with the somewhat unimpressive inscription, “I Like Books.” Though he ate little and worked hard, at the end of the voyage he was as round and squishy as ever.