“Do you think the others are okay?” Conor asked. “You said Finn was just a scout. He doesn’t fight, does he?”
“But Meilin does,” Tarik said. “Very well, as we keep finding out. And Finn still has his wits. I am optimistic. But we’d better get going. It’s not far. But with me like this, it will probably feel that way.”
Tarik tried to be valiant, but it was clear that his condition was darkening with the evening. By the time night had fallen, he was quivering and clammy. Rollan wondered just how fast this antidote would work.
Finally, Tarik breathed, “There. There it is.”
Conor exclaimed, “That’s a castle!”
Rollan squinted at the single tower, gray and ghostly in the rainy dark. There was only one very short door and no discernible window openings. It looked like the sort of building an unimaginative child would build. “If it’s a castle, where’s the rest of it?”
“Beggars can’t be choosers,” Tarik said. “Help me down the path.”
At the small door, he did a complicated knock.
Nothing happened.
He did it again. He told them, “Sometimes she pretends to be deaf.”
The door opened. An old woman, tiny and as wizened as an ancient fruit tree, stood on the other side. She said, “I am deaf.”
Rollan and Conor exchanged a look behind Tarik’s head.
“Tarit,” croaked the old woman. She had a voice like wood shavings. A faded green cloak hung on a peg just beside the door, but it looked as if it hadn’t been moved for quite a while. “It’s been a long time.”
“Tarik,” corrected Tarik.
“That’s what I said,” she replied. “There seems to be less of you than last time I saw you.”
“A snake and a weasel ate the rest,” Rollan said. “A Euran adder, to be precise. I’m not sure what kind of weasel.”
The old woman noticed Conor and Rollan for the first time. “And two new Greencloaks, I see.” Really, her voice sounded more like someone eating pebbles.
“One,” corrected Rollan. “By which I mean, not me.”
“Lady Evelyn,” Tarik said faintly. “These are the ones you must have heard about. The children who summoned the Fallen Beasts.”
The lady eyeballed them closely. It was not an entirely comfortable experience. She had a little bit of a mustache. Just a few white hairs. Rollan tried not to stare.
“Oh, no, Tarin, you must be mistaken,” she crackled. “There are four of those children. This is certainly only two.”
“Tarik,” he corrected again. “There was a scuffle on the road. We have lost touch with the other two for the moment.”
“You lost half of the Fallen? That seems careless,” the old woman — Lady Evelyn — said. Now her voice was more like stepping on a very large beetle. “Well, come in before you lose another half.”
Inside the tower was the opposite of the grand Greenhaven Castle. Straw covered the floor. Threadbare tapestries hung over the narrow window slits to keep the wind out. Something thin and gray boiled in a pot hanging over the fire. Circular stairs led up to nowhere. Rollan could see clear up into the blackness that must be the top of the tower; Essix had already soared up there to explore.
“I know what you’re thinking, not-a-Greencloak,” Lady Evelyn said. She was already puttering around in a collection of glass bottles and dried herbs, fingers searching across the cluttered windowsill. “Not a very pretty castle, that’s what you’re thinking. It wasn’t meant to be pretty. It was just a place to keep cattle after you stole them.”
“Who steals cattle?” Conor asked.
She cackled. “Who doesn’t?”
“Me,” he said.
Turning, she sniffed him. “Ah, you’re a shepherd’s son, though. You’re a guardian, not a thief.”
Conor, surprised at her intuition, sniffed his wet sleeve as if he possibly still smelled like his old life.
A soft whicker interrupted them.
“Ah,” said Lady Evelyn. “This is my spirit animal, Dot.”
Rollan grimaced. Another horse. Dot was a sway-backed black-and-white miniature horse the size of a dog. She also had a bit of a mustache. Just a few white hairs.
He whispered to Conor, “It’s the opposite of a Great Beast.”
Lady Evelyn chose that moment to be deaf. She instead knocked several plates and scrolls off the table and said, “Why don’t you lay Tarbin down here, so I can get to mending him? You boys can dry off by the fire and help yourselves to dinner.”
The boys hesitantly stripped off their cloaks to dry by the fireplace and peered into the bubbling cauldron. Every now and then, something white and shapeless would boil up to the surface and then descend into the gray liquid again. Conor whispered, “I don’t know if that’s food or laundry.”
Rollan’s stomach growled. It didn’t care. “I ate my fair share of laundry on the fine streets of Concorba.”
Conor poked it with a ladle. He scooped something brown and stringy from the bottom.
“Food,” Rollan declared. “Laundry is never stringy.”
Conor didn’t seem eager to sample it. Apparently shepherds’ sons had more refined palates than street urchins. Rollan tried the stew, or whatever it was. It tasted like a puddle in the bad part of town.
“How is it?” Conor asked.
“Delicious.”
Conor looked over to where Lady Evelyn was ministering to Tarik.
“Do you think he’ll be okay?” he asked.
Rollan didn’t want to lie. So he answered, “I don’t know.”
They ate in silence for a short time. Tarik was not entirely successful in stifling his pain. Eventually he quieted too. Neither Rollan nor Conor was sure of what this meant.
“Greencloak boy,” Lady Evelyn ordered from behind them. “And not-a-Greencloak boy. I need to talk to you. About your quest.”
They joined her at the table.
“Taril is fine now,” she told them in a low voice. “I gave him something to help him sleep. He will recover. But it will take some time. He is lucky the serpent didn’t strike closer to his heart. As it is, the venom will be hard to counteract. He will need constant rest and even more constant attention. Luckily, I never rest and am constantly attentive. However, he won’t be able to travel with you.”
“What?!” Conor cried. Both he and Rollan peered at Tarik. Though their mentor’s face was more peaceful now, his skin looked strange and slack, and his lips were oddly parched. His breath came unevenly and his fingers still shook with the tremors Rollan had felt on the journey here. It was obvious he’d used the very last of his strength bringing them all here.
Rollan struggled with how to feel. Since he wasn’t a Greencloak, he technically didn’t owe Tarik any allegiance. But still — Tarik had trained him and protected him; he’d never been anything but kind to Rollan, even if Rollan wasn’t sure if that was only because of Essix. It was difficult to see him like this. Utterly vulnerable. So close to death.
“He tells me another elder Greencloak — Fonn? Finn? Fann? — should find his way here with the remaining Fallen. If they don’t get here by morning, though, you need to set off alone.”
“Alone?” echoed Conor, dismayed.
“Time is of the essence. The Greencloaks are not the only ones who seek Rumfuss.”
“But we don’t know where to go,” protested Conor.
A gaping chasm of uncertainty opened in Rollan’s stomach, and it only grew wider and blacker the more he considered. They had just barely survived an encounter with a few Conquerors. Tarik had been doing this a lot longer than either Rollan or Conor, and now he was flat on a table being fed gruel. The last time the boys had faced off against a Great Beast, they’d had the help of adults. Even if by some crazy stroke of luck they managed to meet back up with Finn, the other Greencloak didn’t fight. Which meant that the plan on offer right now involved Rollan and Conor heading into the wilderness and then taking on Rumfuss on their own.
“I have
a map,” Lady Evelyn said. When neither of them looked excited by this confession, she added, “Do you children know what a map is?”
Rollan and Conor exchanged another dismal look.
Lady Evelyn spread a map over Tarik’s sleeping chest. She pointed to a town near the top. “This is Glengavin. The rumor says that Rumfuss is near here. Now, I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking, that’s far north, and up there they paint their faces blue and eat foreigners.”
That hadn’t been what Rollan or Conor was thinking, but it sure was what they were thinking about now.
Lady Evelyn continued, “But the Lord of Glengavin is amicable toward the Greencloaks. He should provide a welcome, or at least no hindrance. The surroundings are quite wild and I doubt you’d be able to find it without this.”
“Where are we now?” Rollan asked.
Lady Evelyn traced a line southward. “Here.”
“Oh!” Conor said in a surprised, glad sort of yelp. “We’re near Trunswick. It’s on the way.”
“What’s Trunswick?” Rollan asked. “And why does it make you say ‘oh!’ like an overexcited pigeon?”
“It’s where I used to be a servant,” Conor said. “And my family works the land near there.”
“You don’t have time for detours, Greencloak boy,” Lady Evelyn said. “Stick to the task.”
Conor’s face fell. “Right. Sure. Of course.”
Rollan couldn’t help it. He hated to see Conor looking so crestfallen. “Maybe we could still spend the night in Trunswick tomorrow. Not home, but close, right?”
Immediately Conor’s face brightened. “I’m sure they’d give us a warm welcome. And my mother —”
Lady Evelyn interrupted with a vague frown. “I feel as if I have heard a rumor about Trunswick.”
“Good or bad?” asked Rollan.
She tapped her remaining teeth with a stick. “Something about Greencloaks and the Devourer. Or maybe it was Trynsfield. Or Brunswick. Trunbridge? Was that the one we were talking about?”
Conor pointed to the map. “Trunswick. Right there.”
She said, “Lovely place, I’m sure.”
6: Hawkers
THEY — FINN, MEILIN, AND ABEKE — WERE HIDING.
Along with Uraza, they were tucked between two boulders. As far as the eye could see, which wasn’t very far in the darkness, there were man-sized, teeth-shaped stones pressed shoulder to shoulder. While Abeke marveled over the strangeness of the landscape and listened to the night, Meilin and Finn argued.
“Tonight is not a night to die,” Finn whispered hoarsely.
Meilin’s voice was cross. “I wasn’t suggesting we die. I was suggesting we go back for the others.”
“At this point, both of those things are the same,” he muttered back.
“Shh,” Abeke shushed them as quietly as she could. She jabbed a finger into the darkness.
Finn and Meilin turned to look where she pointed. Uraza was already looking, her ears swiveling to and fro. The black night kept most of its secrets, but Abeke could hear the wet squelch of a man’s footprint on stone. One of the Conquerors. Close by.
Meilin opened her mouth. Abeke held her finger to her lips.
It had taken them hours to rid themselves of the group they’d first encountered in the forest. By then they had lost track of Conor, Rollan, and Tarik, and would have lost their way as well, if not for Finn’s knowledge as a guide.
The sound of the man’s footsteps came closer. Uraza stiffened. Abeke felt the vibration of an inaudible growl through the leopard’s ribs pressed against her. Finn stretched out a hand: Don’t move.
Holding their breath, they listened to the man climb over the boulders near them. All he had to do was clamber over two or three more, and he would discover them and alert his allies.
The Conqueror scraped over another boulder. His breath huffed out noisily as he landed at the base of it. Abeke suspected that he wasn’t truly looking for them, or he would’ve minded how loud he was. But then again, maybe not. Abeke was always surprised by most people’s ignorance of their own noisiness. It was one of the reasons why Finn’s deliberate stealth impressed her.
Suddenly the Conqueror’s breath was quite near. He was on the other side of the boulder Abeke knelt behind. If there had been any light at all, she probably would have been able to see his face through the gap between the rocks.
Every muscle in Uraza’s body was knitted solid.
Abeke’s heart pounded so loudly in her ears that she could barely hear anything else. She pressed her fingers into Uraza’s fur. Slowly, her pulse calmed. Now she heard the sound of the man’s palm as he felt his way along the stone.
He was so close.
Finn closed his eyes. Strangely enough, he looked quite serene. One of his arms hugged his chest so that his fingertips could touch his upper bicep. Is that where his spirit animal is? Abeke wondered.
Needle-fine claws scritched on stone as the Conqueror’s spirit animal joined him. Abeke heard the click of hungry jaws. Somehow, a small, hungry spirit animal seemed more terrifying than a large one in this darkness. As if you maybe wouldn’t notice it until it was right on you.
Then the Conqueror’s voice sounded roughly. “Come on, Tan.”
His footsteps receded as he headed away with whatever sort of animal Tan was. After a very, very long silence, Finn blew out a relieved sigh. Abeke released her handful of leopard fur. Uraza’s tenseness oozed from her.
Meilin turned to Finn. “Do we have a regroup point? To reconnect with Tarik and the others?”
Abeke was unsurprised to hear her sounding efficient and strategic. That girl’s heart was a battlefield.
“We did,” Finn said. “A local Greencloak waypoint. But we’ve passed it, and we’d have to risk fighting back toward it. I think we should continue on to Trunswick. Even if the others aren’t there, we can try to get a message to Greenhaven.”
Abeke thought of the terrible fight in the woods and shuddered. She hoped the others were all right. “Message? How?”
“Gilded pigeons carry messages from many large towns in Eura,” Finn answered. “Most Greencloaks know where to find someone who runs the birds.”
I wonder if I could send a message to my family, Abeke thought.
Finn must have sensed her interest, because his expression softened and he added, “I will teach you how to send messages if it comes to that.”
Meilin eyed Abeke suspiciously, but said nothing.
What? What did I do? Oh, Abeke thought dismally. I wonder if she thinks I want to send messages to the enemy.
She wished there was a way that she could reassure the other girl, but there didn’t seem to be a way to without sounding even more suspicious. So she just said, “So we go now to Trunswick?”
“It’s still quite a ways from here,” Finn said. He pushed to his feet stiffly. “Let’s find a place to sleep. Someplace a bit more comfortable.”
By more comfortable, Finn meant sleeping under rocks instead of on top of them. They spent a rather brittle night beneath a rock overhang on the edge of the boulder field. It wasn’t cozy, but at least it was dry and out of the wind. Abeke and Uraza curled up together like siblings and fell asleep.
In the morning light, their surroundings looked quite different. Coming from Nilo, Abeke had never seen anything like the landscape. Behind them was the expanse of strange, square boulders, and before them was a flat, purple-green field that went on and on. Finn looked somehow at home here: All his green-purple tattoos matched the colors of the grass, and his silver hair matched the clouds that pressed low.
“Those rocks are called the Giant’s Chessboard. And this is a moor,” he explained to them. “It looks quite innocent, but it can be treacherous. The ground is soft in places and will happily swallow a person. Or a panda.”
Meilin, stretching elegantly, said, “I’ll keep Jhi in passive form today.”
“Do you think it’s safe to let Uraza walk?” Abeke asked, resting
her fingers on the leopard’s shoulder blades. “She prefers to run when she can.” Like me.
“I think so,” Finn said. “Cats are careful. But if we see anyone coming, it would probably be best to hide her.”
“I guess there is no mistaking her for an ordinary leopard,” Abeke said. Uraza preened at the admiration in Abeke’s voice.
“Not many ordinary leopards in Eura anyway,” Finn noted. “Much less extraordinary ones.”
They set off across the moor. The ground beneath them shifted from hard-packed rocks to watery silt without warning. If Abeke hadn’t been paying attention, she could’ve been in hidden water above her head before she had a chance to cry out.
In fact, only a few moments had passed before disaster struck. It wasn’t that Abeke heard something — it was that she suddenly didn’t hear something. A second later she realized that it was Meilin’s breathing. She didn’t hear it anymore because Meilin wasn’t there anymore.
Abeke spun this way and that, but there was only motionless moor ahead and behind her.
“Finn!” she cried.
Finn understood immediately. “Where?”
“I don’t know!”
They both scanned the moor for any sign of the other girl, but even Uraza couldn’t pinpoint where she had gone. Abeke was too aware that every second that passed was a second Meilin couldn’t breathe.
“Uraza,” Finn said urgently, “any ideas?”
Nothing.
Then Meilin’s arm burst into sight. It looked as if it grew from the tufted grass. Her fingers felt for the foliage, seized it. There was no way she would be able to pull herself out, but she was going to try. Leaping forward, Finn gripped her forearm with one tattooed hand. He stretched out his other hand to Abeke.
“Don’t let us both go in,” he warned. Grabbing his hand, Abeke braced herself. Then she hauled, and Finn hauled, and the moor gave Meilin up like a newborn calf. She sprawled across the grass rather unbeautifully and spat out some muddy bits of water.
“Welcome back,” Finn told Meilin, a little out of breath.
“I was doing fine,” she retorted, spitting out another glob of dirty grass.