For my brother Jeff, who once told me his spirit animal was a hippopotamus
— S.H.
Cover
Hawk Emblem
Greencloak Letter
Quote page
Title Page
Map
Dedication
1
GERATHON
2
THEFT
3
SAMIS
4
PIA
5
AIDANA
6
DANGEROUS TRAVEL
7
COMPASS
8
THE ARDU
9
ICE CITY
10
FROZEN
11
SUKA
12
POLAR BEAR ATTACK
13
DEPARTURE
14
MAYA
15
THE DOCKS
16
FIRE
17
THE BILE
About the Author
Online Game Code
Sneak Peek
Spirit Animals Game
Copyright
GERATHON MOVED. HER BLACK SCALES, THICK AS PLATE metal, clicked against the sandstone. Her mouth was open, tasting the air. Her tail flicked playfully behind her.
Life! She thrilled with life, with her own body sliding over earth, and the earth sliding under her. Life is a pulse, a twitch, a flutter, an inhale. Life is movement. She wagged her tongue and tasted human on the breeze. More life! She wasn’t hungry at the moment. Flocks of animals skittered, lumbered, and scampered after her, trembling with fear yet unable to turn away. Anytime she wanted a snack, she simply extended her great neck and snatched up a kangaroo or wild dog. She had not known hunger since her escape. All the same, life filled her with the desire to grab pulsing things and squeeze.
She changed directions toward the lone human, her weaving body frisky. She could move nearly silently, of course, but there was no need. What creature could outrun two tons of cobra?
This creature did try — a young man, his face still full of childhood when he looked back at her with wide-eyed fear. She hissed, a happy kind of giggle, and buzzed with the strength of her muscles and long, strong body. She spread the elegant hood of skin on her neck, coiled, and sprang.
Life! This life between her jaws thrashed, kicked, his heartbeat galloping against her tongue. He screamed heartily as her fangs pressed into his back, and her thick, black venom oozed inside him. His heart graciously pumped the venom along with his own blood throughout his body. He twitched for a time before going limp. But his heart was still beating, slow and lovely, as she swallowed him whole, her fantastic muscles pulling him foot by foot through her soft pink mouth into the final darkness of her belly.
She curled up and rested in the hot coral sands, enjoying the sensation of that second heartbeat beside her own, another life inside her, slowly dying by her own power.
She laughed now to remember how she had raged and seethed for centuries beneath her prison of rocks and dirt, the weight trying to crush life, swallow movement, end her. But new freedom made everything more delicious. Warm with sunlight and fresh food, she felt giddy and just a bit mischievous. She couldn’t possibly eat another thing, yet her hunger for life was only piqued.
Her yellow eyes turned white as she reached out with her mind. Many white spots of heat vibrated behind her eyes, each one representing a person, all known to Gerathon as a shepherd knows her sheep.
Gerathon chose a sleeper. Easier to slip into the unconscious ones. This was a woman, elderly by human standards, living far away in Nilo. Gerathon’s consciousness filled the woman’s mind like sand fills a jar. She made her stand, leave her little house, and look around. Night in Nilo was brown and warm, scented with jasmine. Gerathon could almost feel the crack of dry grass beneath the woman’s bare feet, the soil still holding heat from that day’s sun.
Through the woman’s eyes, Gerathon saw a cliff ahead. She moved her toward it, faster, faster, running now.
The woman flinched then, as if trying to wake up. Gerathon hissed pleasantly. Life is movement.
She moved the woman over the edge and fell with her, abandoning the woman’s consciousness a moment before she hit the canyon floor.
A waste perhaps, considering Gerathon’s plans for the future. But she needed to collect all the talismans first anyway, and in the meantime, a Great Beast deserves to play.
She licked the wind. The curl of her scaly mouth was always smiling.
THE WIND WAS BLOWING FROM THE SOUTH, PUSHING AGAINST Meilin’s back, urging her on. Not that she needed any urging. Lately fire seemed to rage inside her, flaring and snapping, insisting she move forward. The others sometimes complained about the endless travel and relentless pace through Zhong and now Northern Eura, but in Meilin’s opinion, they couldn’t move quickly enough.
Sunlight flared against the roadside river, and Meilin squeezed her eyes shut. As always, the same images were waiting for her behind her eyelids:
The Great Crocodile, jaws open, eyes deepest black.
Her father still. Gone.
Meilin quickly opened her eyes and heeled her horse into a faster trot.
The wind shifted. A breeze from the northwest rolled over her face. She rubbed the goose bumps prickling on her arms.
“It’s going to get a lot colder,” Rollan said, trotting his horse up beside her. “Unfriendly cold. Bite-your-nose-off-and-bully-your-toes cold.”
“Yes,” she said.
“I once saw a fellow lousy, good-for-nothing street kid dare a rich kid to lick an iron lamppost in the dead of winter. The rich kid’s tongue stuck there — just frozen stuck — while the street kid robbed him of his coat and shoes.”
“You don’t say,” said Meilin.
“Ah, but I do say, my lady panda!”
“And I don’t suppose the street kid in your story had a name that begins with R and ends with n?”
“Certainly not! I was never lousy. And I only tell you this story as a warning because, you know, you do have that unfortunate habit of licking lampposts.”
Meilin almost smiled. Ever since the battle at Dinesh’s temple, Rollan had spent a lot of time near her, saying ridiculous things more often than not. Trying to distract her from her grief, she assumed. Their journey for the Great Elephant’s talisman had been the most costly one yet. Striking out alone, Meilin had finally found her father leading an embattled resistance from within Zhong’s Great Bamboo Maze. Then, almost as soon as she’d found him, he was gone — killed before her very eyes. At first Meilin had felt . . . quiet. Numb. It was an awful emptiness, like she had nothing left to give. But then, slowly, a heat began to kindle. A fire burned inside her, reminding her that somewhere the Devourer was free — and killing. Meilin wouldn’t let sympathy or silly jokes put this fire out. She kicked her horse even faster.
“Crossroads ahead,” Tarik announced. “Let’s stop for the night.”
“But there’s still a little daylight left,” said Meilin.
“The river veers away from our path at the crossroads,” said Tarik. “We need to water the horses before we continue on north.”
Meilin wanted to complain, but Tarik was looking at her again with understanding and sympathy. Jhi often gave her the same understanding and sympathetic look — which was why she kept Jhi in passive state as often as possible. It was becoming unbearable. The next person who looked at her with understanding and sympathy was going to get ??
?
“Meilin?” said Abeke.
“What?” Meilin snapped.
“Oh!” said Abeke, starting back. “Um, I was just going to ask you if you wanted to help me gather firewood —”
“Yes, I do,” Meilin said forcefully.
The flat ground around the crossroads was filling up, travelers and trader caravans setting up camp for the night. Their team was traveling up a flat, grassy expanse of Northern Eura. It was nowhere near Glengavin, sadly, or Finn, but the road was quiet and safe for once. There was even a minstrel troupe — a lute player strumming, a woman in a blue veil singing softly as if rehearsing.
Abeke didn’t talk as they scavenged driftwood and broken branches from the riverbank. Good. Silence allowed Meilin to focus entirely on the burning inside, her whole being tuned to the idea of the Devourer, as if she were an arrowpoint and he the target.
With armloads of wood, they headed to where Tarik, Rollan, and Conor were unsaddling the horses. Laying stones into a circle for the fire pit was the ginger-haired Euran Greencloak Maya, whom Tarik had asked to join them on their quest back to the North. She was older than Meilin by a handful of years, but her small pale face beneath her abundant curly red hair could be mistaken for someone younger.
Maya pushed up the sleeve of her purple sweater, exposing a small lizard-shaped tattoo on her forearm. With a burst of light, her fire salamander emerged from passive state and scurried up her shoulder. The black salamander bore bright yellow spots all over its body and was small enough to curl up in her palm. Meilin smiled sadly at Maya, certain the girl had been disappointed in her spirit animal, as Meilin had been with her panda. A salamander couldn’t possibly lend any useful talents in battle.
Meilin and Abeke unloaded their wood, Abeke dumping some into the fire pit. Meilin was about to correct her. To start a fire, they needed smaller pieces of kindling first, and then —
Maya lifted her hand, and a ball of fire formed above her palm. She blew, and the fire shot into the wood, seizing the whole bundle in instant flames.
“Oh!” said Meilin.
“Hadn’t you seen Maya’s trick before?” asked Conor.
Meilin shook her head.
“I’m not much of a fighter, I’m afraid,” said Maya with a generous smile. “I’ve got the one trick and that’s about all I’m good for.”
“That one trick might be indispensable for us in the icy North,” said Tarik.
The veiled singer paced by; she and her lute-playing partner were on their way to the water. “You’re heading north?” she asked. “Whatever for? Nothing is north of here but cold, more cold, and then really, really cold.”
“And walruses,” said Rollan. “I’m determined to see a walrus. If they’re actually real.”
“Rollan, I’ve told you,” said Tarik, “I’ve seen them with my own eyes.”
“Finned, legless elephants?” said Rollan. “I’ll believe it when I see it.”
“We’re headed to Samis,” Abeke said to the minstrels. “Have you been there?”
“Oh, Samis, that’s right,” said the lute player. “I’d almost forgotten there was any town between here and Arctica. No one bothers to go to Samis.”
“We tried once, years ago, didn’t we, my love?” said the veiled woman, holding her partner’s hand and twirling around him. “Traders warned us that Samis turns away all visitors. But surely they’re starved for entertainment, we said. So up we rode . . .”
“And, can you guess?” said the lute player. “Turned away at the town gate.” He played a chord on his lute as if announcing the end of a song.
The pair danced off.
“No traders?” said Abeke. Uraza lay beside her, stretched out, and Abeke petted the leopard thoughtfully, evoking a bone-rattling purr. “In my village, without traders, we’d have no metal goods — no pots and pans, shovels, anything like that. If we purchase some metal items here to give to the people of Samis, maybe we can get in their good graces.”
Tarik nodded. “A fine idea.”
He removed a few coins from his purse and gave them to Abeke. She left to shop for the gifts, Uraza padding behind her.
A few minutes later Meilin heard angry shouts from across the camp. She stood, lifting her arm to call out Jhi, but resisted the urge.
“Are Abeke and Uraza still out there?” Meilin asked.
“Stay here,” said Tarik, running toward the noise.
But that fire was burning in Meilin, and she couldn’t sit still. She raced after Tarik, Rollan following, leaving Conor and Maya to tend the fire and watch their things.
In the center of camp, two men rolled around in the dirt, throwing punches and yanking hair. Tarik’s spirit animal, the otter Lumeo, rode on his shoulder. With his abilities enhanced, Tarik dove into the fight as easily as an otter into water and separated the men.
“Enough!” Tarik said, and the catcalls and shouts died out. “What’s going on here?”
“He robbed me!” The speaker was a stout, bald man. His nose was bleeding, his shirt torn. “I’d been saving up for years now, a coin here, a coin there. I almost had enough to take home, get my mother out of that dirty city, buy her a farm in the country. Almost had it! Till he cut the purse from my belt.”
He lifted the corner of his shirt, showing the cut ends of two leather straps still tied to his belt.
“I’m telling you, it wasn’t me!” said the other. “Bill, I’ve traveled with you for years. Why would I rob you now?”
“I don’t know! But you’re the only one I told about it, and if you didn’t take it, where’d it go?” said Bill. He sat back in the dirt, crying into his hands. “I saved for so long. . . .”
“Sir, your friend is telling the truth,” said Rollan. “He didn’t rob you.”
Meilin glanced at Rollan. Essix was circling the sky nearby. In the past, she had to be touching Rollan to enhance his intuition. Perhaps the bond between the boy and his gyrfalcon was improving at last, though Meilin had still never seen Essix take the passive form.
The one called Bill looked up, his dirty face streaked with despair. “Then who did?”
Rollan scanned the crowd of traders, musicians, and travelers who had gathered to watch the fight. A curious hush fell over the group.
Rollan’s eyes stopped on one lanky young man wearing a crisp white shirt and cravat, who was inspecting a wagon wheel, his back to the fight. Rollan’s brows narrowed.
“I’d check fancypants over there,” said Rollan, nodding in the man’s direction.
Tarik grabbed the lanky man’s arms, holding them behind his back.
“What are you doing?” Fancypants shouted.
“I mean, that is a stunning wagon wheel,” said Rollan, “but maybe not quite fascinating enough to pull your attention from a camp brawl? Unless you’re just trying not to be noticed.”
Meilin and another trader patted him down. Meilin felt a bulge in his boot and reached in, pulling out a leather sack heavy with coins, its strings cut. She tossed the bag to Rollan.
The man struggled, cursing. Meilin stood, her hands in eager fists. That fire inside her flared, threatening to burn her if she did not strike a blow, take down the Devourer and all his followers. Perhaps this petty thief would do for now. But Tarik held him tight, and Meilin exhaled, letting her fists relax.
Rollan held the bag up to the man’s cut strings.
“That looks like a match to me,” said Rollan.
Rollan handed Bill the purse.
“Thank you,” Bill whispered, clutching it to his chest.
“At the last crossroads someone was robbed too,” said an older woman with pulled-back white hair and rough riding clothes. “That was you as well, wasn’t it, Jarack?”
The man called Jarack just thrashed in Tarik’s iron grip.
“Traders have a code!” said the woman.
“You broke it. Jarack, you are banished from this caravan and from ever trading in the North.”
Jarack looked as if he would speak, but a dozen traders moved in behind the woman, some with folded arms, some bearing weapons. Tarik let him go. Jarack cursed, grabbed a pack from his wagon, and ran off into the night.
When Meilin and Rollan walked back to camp, Bill and his friend were shaking hands.
“Nothing like a robbery and caravan scuffle to get you warmed up for supper,” said Rollan.
Meilin slowed her steps so she could walk beside him. She opened her mouth, readying a retort, something that might make Rollan laugh or fire back, start a conversation that would keep them talking for hours. But instead of words in her throat, she felt only searing heat — anxious, needy. She picked up the pace, leaving him behind as she neared their camp.
Up ahead, she saw Conor, lying back against his wolf, Briggan, petting his head. Maya was on her stomach, holding her fire salamander, Tini, on her palm and talking earnestly.
All Greencloaks spoke to their spirit animals, but Maya was holding what appeared to be an intense one-sided conversation with an amphibian! Perhaps she was mad, but she seemed so content, at ease. Everything Meilin was not.
Perhaps Jhi could help . . . no. Meilin clenched her fists, refusing the thought. Jhi would calm her down. But Meilin didn’t want peace. She wanted a fight! The rage in her flared hotter, scalding her chest, her throat. She pressed her eyes shut to keep from crying and saw the image again: Her father, still, his eyes vacant.
A sob hit her throat like a fist. She opened her eyes and released Jhi.
The panda landed on the ground, turned, and looked at her. As always, Meilin thought the panda looked comical, black limbs over a white body like ill-fitting clothes, the black rings around her eyes drooped down as if sad. Everything about the beast was round and cuddly. Meilin wanted to be angry yet again that she hadn’t bonded with a predator, fierce and battle ready.
But Jhi’s silver eyes stared at her, intent. Meilin returned the gaze, took a breath, and suddenly everything seemed to slow.
Meilin became aware of the cool breeze against the hairs of her arms, of the rich, velvety blue of the evening sky. Sounds seemed to break apart, and she could easily separate voices from the rushing of the river — the many conversations at camp pulling apart into their own pieces, the footfalls from Rollan coming up behind her, and just beyond him, faster footfalls. Running.