The Emerald Atlas (27 page)

The young warrior wiped his falchion on the back of the Screecher, then faced Emma and Dena.

“All right, we’ll find your brother and sister.” He looked at Dena. “And you can help kill any Screechers we meet on the way.”

Together, the three of them moved out of the house and along the edge of the square. Groups of
morum cadi
continued to spring from the shadows of the city, and the young warrior had to force Emma and Dena to take cover as the creatures ran by. At one point there was an explosion when a gas lamp ignited. It collapsed into a building, and soon a fire was raging on the far side of the square. Their views of the battle were fragmented and confusing, but even so, it soon became clear that Gabriel’s fighters were badly outnumbered.

And then something unexpected happened.

Emma and Dena and the boy had paused in an alley between two ruined buildings and were watching the fighting with sinking hearts when a group of men rushed past from the direction of the cages. It took Emma a moment to realize that the men were prisoners and must’ve somehow gotten free. Her next thought was of Michael. Had he been freed as well? Was he safe? From the alley where she and her companions crouched, they couldn’t see to the cages themselves, but more and more men were running past. They were a sight to behold: thin and ragged and wielding such weapons as they could scavenge, they fought with a ferocity that even Gabriel’s men couldn’t match. They had been prisoners for nearly two years. This was their moment.

And they weren’t alone. Emma saw the stout blond dwarf, flanked by several other, smaller dwarves, chug past, huffing and puffing through his thick beard. He literally bulldozed into a pack of Screechers, knocking them to the ground, and then, without stopping, he set about chopping his way through the Countess’s army. Rather than surrounding Gabriel’s band, the
morum cadi
were now being forced to fight enemies in front and behind. The tide of the battle was turning.

After they had opened the last of the cages and the last of the men had half stumbled, half charged toward the battle, Wallace made Kate and Michael climb to the third floor of one of the buildings overlooking the square.

“Look!” Kate cried when the three of them had gathered at a blown-out window and could take in the scene in its entirety. “They’re winning!”

The two groups of men—Gabriel’s band and the newly freed prisoners—had surrounded the amoeba of dark figures and were steadily carving it into smaller and smaller pieces. A yellowish haze hung over the battle, which puzzled Kate until she recalled the rancid vapor that escaped the bodies of expired Screechers.

“They aren’t screaming as much,” Michael said.

It was true. The air was being rent less frequently by the creatures’ inhuman shrieks, mostly, it seemed—and this was the encouraging fact—because there were fewer of the monsters. Just then, one of their cries was cut short. The sound echoed away across the cavern before finally fading into the darkness. Kate held her breath. The next cry came a few seconds later. It was followed by another, then another, but these were not the dead shrieks of the
morum cadi;
the shouts came from the men, yelling because the battle was over and they had won.

“They did it,” Kate marveled. “They really did it.”

“You deserve credit too, girl.” Wallace’s eyes glowed warmly under his dark brows. “Hadn’t been for your quick thinking, whole affair would a’ gone very different. Aye, no doubt a’ that.”

Michael clucked his tongue. “It’s just such a shame.” He saw the other two looking at him like he’d lost his mind. “Not having my camera. It’s a historic moment.”

Footsteps pounded toward them. Wallace whirled about, raising his pickax. Kate just had time to glimpse the figure charging at her and think, No, it can’t be, and then Emma was in her arms. And it was her! It really and truly was her! Kate and Emma hugged, cried, broke apart to look at each other, then hugged and cried some more. Even Michael, whose sense of personal dignity as the only boy in the family kept him from ever appearing too effusive, had to remove his glasses and rub at his eyes because he “got some dirt in them.”

“Emma, it’s you, it’s really you; oh, Emma …” Kate kept repeating her sister’s name over and over, pressing her close as if she would never let her go ever again.

“I’m so sorry.” Emma had tears streaming down her face. “I know I shouldn’t have disobeyed you. You said not to go back, but—”

“No, shhh. It’s okay. You’re here now.”

“Yes, but she did disobey you,” Michael pointed out.

“Michael—” Kate gave him a warning look.

“Oh, who cares,” he said generously. “All’s well that ends well, right?” And he gave Emma a manly pat on the shoulder.

“Are you sure you’re okay?” Kate asked. “Really, truly okay?”

“Yes, I’m fine. I was with Gabriel. I saw you both before the battle, then I spotted you in the window here. Oh, this is Dena and I-Don’t-Know-His-Name.” Emma gestured to the two figures who’d followed her up the stairs and who Kate was only now noticing. One was a dark-haired, serious-faced girl not much older than Emma herself; the other was a teenage boy who held a fearsome-looking weapon similar to the one Gabriel carried. “Gabriel told him to watch out for us, though we kinda saved him—”

“Hey!”

“This is Wallace!” Michael blurted, pointing at their companion.

“Hi,” Emma said. She turned to Kate. “You wouldn’t believe all that’s happened—”

“Wallace is a dwarf!” Michael was grinning broadly.

“Yeah,” Emma said, a little annoyed at being interrupted. “I figured that out.”

“Dwarves are real!”

Emma rolled her eyes and groaned. “I knew he was going to do this.”

“Just tell your story,” Kate said. “I want to know everything. What happened after you left us?”

“Right! So I got to the bridge, the rope one, remember, and Gabriel was fighting these Screechers, and I saved his life! But then I got shot in the stomach!”

“Oh! I had a dream, I saw you hurt—”

“I’m okay now. Gabriel took me to his village—on the way he had to kill this monster; I was asleep for that part so I couldn’t help—and there was this wisewoman named Granny Peet, and she fixed me! She said you found Dr. Pym! Is that true? I wish you could meet Granny Peet, she’s one of the good ones, she—”

Kate wanted to tell her to slow down. But before she could, there was a high-pitched shriek from the square.

“FOOLS!”

They turned. The Secretary had climbed onto a massive mound of rubble. Kate was shocked he was alive, much less moving around, and she watched as the men—who with the battle over had begun seeing to their wounded—stopped and faced him. The Secretary’s head was bleeding, his suit was ripped, and there was something wrong with his right arm, which he cradled against his body. The man was shaking with hatred and rage; Kate could see spittle flying from his mouth.

“You are all fools! You think you can fight the Countess? Defeat the Countess? You have no idea of her power! You will all die! All of you will die!”

“Is he crazy?” Emma said. “He lost. Why doesn’t someone conk him on the head?”

“What’s that noise?” Michael asked.

Kate listened, and at first heard nothing. What was Michael talking … She stopped; there was a soft pattering in the far, dark reaches of the city. It grew louder, and Kate realized it was moving toward them. Glancing down, she saw the men in the square had heard it too.

“You will all die! All of you!”

The sound quickly became a thrumming, a pounding. She felt it through her feet. The windowsill vibrated under her hands. And then Kate saw the blackness beyond the lights become liquid and surge toward them.

“No,” Wallace whispered. “Can’t be …”

“What?” Kate grabbed at his arm. “What is it?”

“There!” Michael shouted.

The dark tide had reached the perimeter of the gas lamps.

Kate stared, and all hope inside her died.

The Secretary was giggling hysterically, hopping up and down. “Yes! Yes! Yes!”

There were hundreds of them, a gray-green mass of hunchbacked figures, scurrying along the streets, scrambling over the ruins, close enough now the children could hear the snarling and growling, the scrape of their claws on stone, and still, under and above it all, the pounding of their feet, like the onrush of a storm.

“What are those?” Emma cried.

“The
salmac-tar
,” Wallace said. “The witch has summoned them.”

Kate, of course, had seen such creatures before. In her dream, she had watched Gabriel fight one as Emma lay unconscious on the floor of the maze. They were the sightless, razor-clawed monsters that lived in the deepest bowels of the mountains. She remembered Wallace telling them how the Countess had made alliances with the creatures. This was her doing. The witch had called up this evil to destroy them.

“TO ME!” Gabriel roared. “TO ME!”

No! Kate thought. No! They had to run. There were too few of them. They were tired. Wounded. The Secretary was right. They were all going to die.

But already a line was forming with Gabriel at its center, and she watched as men and dwarves alike raised their weapons, and then Gabriel, tall, fearsome, bleeding from a dozen different wounds, stepped forward so that he stood in front of the line, alone, waiting for the wave to crash.

“What’s he doing?!” Michael said. “He’s crazy!”

“Shut up!” Emma cried; her voice was desperate, breaking, betraying all her fear. “He’s showing them how to be brave! He’s—he’s—”

She threw herself against Kate, burying her face in her sister’s chest and sobbing. Below them, the creatures poured into the square, snarling, hissing; Gabriel raised his falchion; Kate pressed Emma to her breast even more tightly—

Brrruuuuaaaawwwhhhh!

Instinctively, Kate’s head whipped toward the sound. It had come from somewhere off in the darkness. A horn, she thought. That was a horn.

“They stopped!” Emma cried.

Kate looked back. The
salmac-tar
were only yards from Gabriel; their numbers filled the square. But the entire gasping, drooling mass had indeed stopped and was turned toward the sound.

“ ’Ells bells,” Wallace said, and Kate saw that the dwarf was grinning. “It’s about time.”

BRRRRUUUUAAAAAHHHH!

Michael suddenly let out a yelp (it sounded sort of like “Wah-ha-hoo!”) and jumped, jabbing his finger in excitement. “Look look look look look! Look who it is!”

A short figure was racing up one of the half-lit streets toward the square. He was encased head to toe in dark armor so only his face and beard were visible (the plaits of his beard slapping against his breastplate as he ran); he held a great, shining ax in one hand and a bone-colored horn in the other. Despite the darkness and the distance, Kate recognized him immediately.

“It’s Captain Robbie!”

“Who?” Emma asked.

“He’s our friend!” Michael said. “Well, he did lock us in jail, but that was just following procedure. You can’t fault him for following—”

“Why’d he come alone?” Emma interrupted. “He’s gonna get murdered. Dwarves are so stupid.”

Before Michael could argue, Captain Robbie reached the edge of the square, planted his feet, and blew once more into the horn.

BRRRRUUUUAAAAWWWWWWWHHHH!

The sound echoed across the cavern, fading, fading, and then silence. No one stirred. Not the
salmac-tar
, not Gabriel or the men, not Wallace or Dena or the young warrior, not the children. Then they heard it—a rhythmic, metallic pounding, growing louder and louder, and then legions of dwarves were charging out of the darkness, filling the streets, their axes reflecting the glow from the lamps, their armor clanking and jangling, their collective breathing an even, reassuring
huph … huph … huph
. When they reached the square, Captain Robbie stepped forward and barked a command. The army stopped.

“What’s he doing?” Emma demanded. “He needs to attack. He should be killing those things! Dwarves are so stu—Whoa!”

Kate reached for her sister. The entire building had begun to sway and rock. Dena fell into the young warrior, knocking them both to the floor. Looking out the window, Kate saw that everything, the whole ruined city, was in motion.

“What’s going on?” Emma yelled over the tumult. “What’s happening?”

“Damn my soul!” Wallace shouted. “It’s a bloody earthquake! Hold on! Hold on!”

“No!” Michael was gripping the windowsill as you would a ship’s railing during a storm. “It’s Dr. Pym!” He pointed, and Kate and Emma saw the white-haired wizard, standing atop a building, his arms raised out over the city. “He’s doing it!”

“What the bloody ’ell for?” Wallace shouted. “He’ll kill us all!”

“Kate!”

Emma tugged at her arm, and Kate looked toward the square. At first, she didn’t understand; the main body of the monsters seemed to be sinking. Then she realized—the earth was opening up under them. The thought barely had time to register before fully half the horde was swallowed up in a screeching, tumbling mass, disappearing into darkness. Just as quickly, the fissure closed, the shaking and rolling stopped, and the children’s own building came to rest. Kate turned back to Dr. Pym. The old man had lowered his arms and was calmly taking out his pipe. She made a mental note never to doubt the wizard’s power again.

“Dwarves”—Captain Robbie raised his ax—“ATTTTTAAAAACCCK!”

The remaining
salmac-tar
turned and fled.

“No! No!” The Secretary was jumping up and down, tearing at his meager strands of hair. “Fight! You must fight!”

But his cries were useless. The
salmac-tar
were clambering over each other in a panicked attempt to escape. Gabriel and the men had stepped back to let the charging dwarves pass through, and above it all, above the clashing of the armor, the thunderous stamp of boots, the frenzied terror of the monsters, Kate could hear the voice of the dwarf captain, filling the cavern:

“Drive them, brothers! Drive them to the pits! Drive them! Drive them!”

And she knew then, finally, the battle was over.