“Pretty soon things will get better,” said Kenny.
“Uh-huh,” said Lizzie, who was imagining how it would be to come into town with Doon holding her arm and everyone seeing that she had saved him.
“Come on, let’s go,” said Torren. This was one of the few chances he’d had to be away from where he lived, and he wanted to make the most of it. Roamers didn’t stand around looking back at the place they’d just left. They moved on.
Ahead stretched one line of hills after another, each ridge higher than the last, rolling toward the mountains in the distance. It was a vast and empty landscape, and when they contemplated it, each of the three travelers felt a shiver of doubt.
“Which way do we go?” Kenny asked Lizzie.
Lizzie wasn’t sure, but she didn’t want to say so. “It’s sort of that way,” she said, waving a hand out to the right. “After a while, you get to a stream, and then you just follow that.”
“See those trees?” said Kenny. “The ones that look like a hand?” He pointed to a clump of oaks that grew in a sort of mitten shape near the top of a hill about three ridges away. “Let’s aim for there. We can see a lot from that high, and I think it looks close enough so we can get home before dark.”
So they set out, downhill this time, across fields of wet grass. Lizzie scanned the landscape for anything that looked familiar, but nothing did. At the same time, everything did, because it all looked the same. She was pretty sure they were going the right way, but still she was glad that Kenny set down his red rag markers every now and then, just in case.
All three of them slipped or stumbled sometimes, because they were not looking at the ground they walked on but were scanning the slopes all around, searching for any sign of Lina and Doon. But even after an hour of walking, when the sun had fully risen and their feet were already starting to hurt from rubbing against their shoes, they saw no sign of anything moving anywhere in the landscape except, far off in the distance, some birds with motionless wings floating in circles in the sky.
CHAPTER 20
________________________
The Battle at the Rock
Once he had rewrapped the diamond and put it back in his pack, Doon’s first thought was of Lina. She couldn’t have traveled during the night. There was a chance she might still be nearby, might just now be starting her journey to Sparks. How could he find out? He would have to get up high and look out over the hills to the west.
Even in the near-dark, it wasn’t hard. He scrambled up the mountainside, finding roots and jutting rocks for handholds and footholds, until he came to a place flat enough to stand on. He turned around. The folds of the hills lay before him, receding into darkness. Was she out there? He filled his lungs with air and shouted. “Lina! Lina! Hello, hello, hello-o-o-o!” Would she hear him? Was she so far away that his voice might seem nothing more than the wind or the cry of an animal?
He waited, hearing no answer. Weariness overcame him; he might as well rest here a moment, he thought, before starting home. He sat down on the ledge with his back against the rock. His eyes closed—and when they opened again, the sky was lighter, though the sun was still behind the mountain.
He stood up and called again. “Lina! Are you out there? Lina! Hello-o-o-o-o!” And then he realized there was something else he could do. He slung his pack off, reached into it, and pulled out his generator. In a moment, his light was shining.
Doon’s shouts flew out through the cold morning air and across the fields. Lina didn’t hear the first one—she was still too far away. But she heard the second one. Though it came from a distance, she knew it was a human voice. Her heart jumped. Was it Doon? She had been walking now for half an hour and was within sight of the shoulder-shaped rock. She raced toward it, stumbling over clumps of wet grass. “Doon!” she called. “Is it you? Call again, call again!”
The voice rang out. “Hello, hello, hello-o-o-o!”
The Ember mountain loomed huge and dark against the sky, but toward its base she saw a dot of light—a bright, steady light that could only be one thing. “I’m here!” she yelled at the top of her lungs. “I’m coming!” But had he heard her? Could they find each other? With the wind at her back, she made her way to the great rock and climbed up its sloping side to the top. Here she shouted again and waved her arms. “Doon! Do-o-o-o-o-n! This way!” He’s out of the city! she thought. We’re all right now. We’ll find each other and go home together.
She saw his light move, fade, and go out. He must have heard her, then. He’d put the light away and was coming. Lina waited on the rock. Little by little, the sky grew brighter at the edge of the mountain, though the mountain’s shadow still darkened the fields. Every few minutes she called out, and she heard Doon’s answering call grow closer. There was another sound, too. What was it? A sound of rustling, a sound of breathing. And then suddenly, right below her, a growl. She looked down to see three long, lithe, shadowy shapes in the grass. Animals. Their tails twitched; their heads were like spear points aimed in her direction.
Doon had heard Lina’s answer to his call and with huge relief had made his way down the mountainside and started toward her. He put away his generator and strode as fast as he could out into the fields. He thought she must be near the big humped rock that thrust up from the ground near where the stream made a bend. For a while, they called back and forth. He guided himself by her voice, and soon he could see her, still small in the distance, standing on top of the rock and waving.
His spirit rose. He forgot for the moment how tired he was and hurried on, almost running. Behind him, the sky grew lighter. Lina wasn’t calling anymore, probably because she could tell that he knew where she was. He went down the slope of a hill, losing sight of the rock for a moment, and veered slightly to the right and then up again, until the big rock looked hardly more than a five-minute walk away.
That was when he heard the scream. And with the scream came another sound—a sudden frenzy of barking. He stopped, baffled. Dogs? Why would there be—Then he remembered. Wolves were like dogs, Kenny had said. Wolves would bark.
His heart jolted, and he dashed forward. Another scream rang out, and Doon gave a shout in answer, too breathless and panicked to form words. He ran, stumbling, until he was close enough to see what was happening: Lina on top of the rock, and below her the wolves, stretching their long faces upward, growling and snapping their jaws.
Doon’s knees went loose, but he willed himself to stay standing. He knew Lina had seen him. She was gazing at him with horrified eyes, too frozen with fear to call out. He was on a slight rise, perhaps fifty feet from the base of the rock, behind the wolves and a little above them. Their growling was terrible. It came from deep in their throats, a sound charged with threat and power. As he watched, one wolf darted forward from the rest. It rose on its hind legs, and suddenly it was immensely tall, its front feet reaching up the slope of the rock only a yard or so from Lina’s shoes. Could wolves climb? Could they jump the distance up to Lina? Would they, at any moment, circle the rock and climb up the slope behind her?
Somehow he must scare these creatures away. He had no weapon but his own voice. He gathered his strength and gave a tremendous shout, packed with all his fear and horror. The wolves heard him and looked in his direction. Now he could see their faces clearly—the long, narrow mouths jagged with teeth, the slanting yellow eyes. He shouted again, and this time called, “Lina! Scream at them! Make noise! Throw rocks!” The word “noise” jogged his memory, and he reached down and yanked up a blade of grass. In a second, he had what Kenny called a wolf-scaring whistle. He blew, making a long ragged shriek. The wolves glowered at him, but they did not retreat.
Lina yelled, and the wolves turned back toward her. Without taking her eyes from them, she bent her knees and clawed at the rock beneath her, scratched away a handful of loose stones, and flung them down. For a moment, the wolves fell back, but only for a moment. Then all three animals leapt upward again, snarling and yelping, and Doon forgot
his own safety and ran forward, yelling out terrible noises, flinging his arms about wildly. He stumbled, his foot twisted, and he felt a quick pain but ran on, hardly noticing. If only he had a weapon! Even a stick! But he had nothing, nothing, and Lina was in peril, and he was getting so close that any moment he would be among the wolves himself. If he could only somehow frighten them, scatter them—
He stopped short. His pack thumped against his back, and he ripped it off and reached in and pulled out the diamond. In one quick motion, he tore aside its yellow wrap. There was a split second when a needle of grief pierced him. Then he flung the diamond with all his might into the midst of the wolves.
But the diamond missed the wolves and struck the rock. It shattered into a million pieces, an explosion of glass splinters. The wolves yelped, ducked their heads, and staggered backward. Once again Doon yelled, and so did Lina, kicking down more stones. The wolves backed away, giving quick, violent shakes to their heads, still growling. Doon saw that their gray coats were thin and patchy. The stripes of their ribs showed on their sides, and on their faces and shoulders was the faintest sparkling where the light caught bits of the shattered diamond.
One of them seemed to make a decision. It trotted a short distance away and looked back, and the others, with a last glance at Lina, followed. They loped off, down the hillside to the north, and in a few moments they had vanished over the crest of a ridge.
Doon took in a long, trembling breath. He stood where he was, suddenly weak, as Lina climbed down from the rock and started toward him. “Are they gone?” she cried. “Are you all right?”
“Yes,” said Doon, though he found he couldn’t say it very loudly, and as soon as he took a step, a pain shot up his leg. His knees folded, and he crumpled to the ground.
Behind him, the sun at last rose above the mountain. Light flooded the sky, spilled out over the grassy hills, and glittered on the chips of glass that lay scattered over the ground below the rock. The remains of the diamond.
CHAPTER 21
________________________
Stranded
Lina ran to Doon and collapsed beside him. The energy of terror drained suddenly away, and she felt as if her whole self had turned to jelly. For a moment, she couldn’t speak. She sat there in the wet grass, breathing in long shudders. Doon turned to her. “You aren’t hurt, are you?”
She shook her head.
“Good,” he said.
The wind blew against the side of Lina’s face, and she shivered. “What was that you threw at them?” she asked.
“I’ll tell you about it,” Doon said, “in a minute.”
Far up in the sky, big birds flew in circles without moving their wings. Lina remembered: they followed the wolves and picked over what was left. Go away, birds, she thought. There’s nothing for you here.
“I’m going to go get my pack,” she said after a while. “I left it on the ground behind the rock.”
Doon just nodded.
Lina went, and as she came back, she saw Doon getting to his feet. But as soon as he stood up, he staggered and fell. She heard him give a grunt of pain.
“What’s wrong?” she said when she came up to him.
“My ankle,” he said. “I think I twisted it.”
“Can you walk at all?”
“I don’t know,” he said. They stood up, and Doon held on to Lina’s arm. At the very first step, he gasped when his foot touched the ground and yanked it up again. “It’s not too bad,” he said. “Maybe in a little while . . . maybe after I’ve rested some . . .”
“No,” Lina said. “We can’t make it back to Sparks by tonight; we mustn’t even try. We’d have to go too slowly. Dark would come, and we’d be stranded out in the middle of nowhere.”
Doon closed his eyes. He lay back on the ground with his face to the sun. It looked as if he was going to sleep. Lina jiggled his arm gently. “We need a plan,” she said. “We have to get away from here. What if the wolves come back?”
Doon sighed and sat up again, propping himself on his hands.
“I know where we can go,” Lina said. “Come on.
Lean on me. Hop on your good leg.”
Doon struggled to his feet and put his pack on. He laid an arm around Lina’s shoulders, and together they started across the hill, back the way they’d come. The wind came at them from behind now, blowing their hair into their faces, and the morning sun glared in their eyes.
Doon was silent the whole way, and Lina worried. Could he have broken his ankle bone? If he tried to walk on it, what would happen? But if he couldn’t walk, then she was back where she started, having to go for help alone.
They headed uphill. It was a long, hard walk. Doon hopped and limped, and every several steps he had to pause just to give himself a rest from pain. They reached the cave entrance at last, but Lina turned away and led Doon through the thicket of trees to the room that Maggs had showed her. He would want to see it, she was sure.
“This is where the book was,” she said. “That book you bought from the roamer. This is where they found it.” The room was just the same as when Lina had seen it before—the smooth walls, the overturned table, the few dry leaves scattered across the floor.
Doon looked around. Lina had thought he’d be excited, but he seemed too tired even to be very interested.
She spread out her blanket, and they sat down. “Those wolves,” Lina said. “They scared me right down to my bones.”
“They were hungry,” said Doon.
“Yes. I think I smelled like a sheep to them.”
“You do have a sort of sheepy smell,” Doon said. So Lina explained about Maggs—that she was the roamer who’d come to Sparks, and also the shepherd she’d stayed with last night, and also Trogg’s sister, who’d been delivering food to his family.
“The lamb,” said Doon. “We ate it last night.” He told Lina about seeing her tricky note and how relieved he was to know that she was out safely.
“Did you eat any breakfast this morning?” Lina asked him.
“No,” said Doon. “I’ve been up all night. A lot has happened. I have to tell you about it.”
“Yes,” said Lina. “We’ll eat and talk.” From her pack, she took the food Maggs had given her. “Here,” she said, handing him some dry cheese and carrots and crackers. “It’s kind of strange food, but it tastes all right.”
So Doon and Lina ate, and he told her what had happened—how he’d got the key from Minny, how Scawgo had helped him escape, and how he’d cut Ember’s power and trapped the Troggs in the Pipeworks.
Lina was worried by something in his voice—a sadness, a hopeless tone that wasn’t like him. “Are you afraid Trogg might be coming after you?” she asked.
“He might,” said Doon. “But if he does, I’ll just tell him the truth: that I disconnected the generator so no more water will come from the pipes. And no more light from the lamps. He’ll know he doesn’t have a fortress to protect anymore.”
“But wouldn’t he be furious about that? And maybe try to punish you somehow?”
“He’d be furious, but I don’t think he’d actually hurt me. Unless . . .” Doon trailed off. “We’ll listen for voices or footsteps,” he said, “and close the door of this room if we hear any.”
For now, they left the door open. Day was brightening outside, and they could see the sunlight coming through the tree branches and hear the birds’ first twittering.
“We’ll stay here today and tonight,” Lina said. “Tomorrow I’m sure your foot will be better, and we’ll go home. Everything will be fine.”
Doon nodded slightly, staring into the air.
“Really,” said Lina. “It’s all okay.”
“There’s something else I haven’t told you,” said Doon. “There was a diamond.” He told her the story. “It was what we came here looking for,” he said. “It’s what the book was about.”
“The jewel!” Lina said. “Maggs told me they found the book and the jewel together in this room. No
thing else was in here but those two things.”
“And now the diamond is gone,” Doon said. “It’s what I threw at the wolves. I had such a strange feeling about it—that it was supposed to come to me. Maybe the reason was so I could use it to save you.”
“That seems like a good reason to me,” Lina said. “I’m going to go find some wood,” she added. “We’ll need to make a fire later on.”
Kenny, Lizzie, and Torren had been walking for a long time now; the sun was past the noon position. Torren wasn’t enjoying himself anymore. He hadn’t done this much walking since the town hall burned down and he almost burned with it—would have, if it hadn’t been for Doon. He’d scorched his feet in that fire, and even though they had healed now, a hike like this brought the soreness back. This wasn’t turning out to be the thrilling adventure he had imagined.
“There wouldn’t be any roamers out here,” he said, “because there’s nothing to collect and nobody to sell it to. It’s boring.”
“But roamers have to cross land like this,” Kenny said. “This is what’s between one place and another.”
Torren frowned. “How much farther to those trees?”
At the moment, they were down in a valley between ridges of hills, so they couldn’t see the clump of trees that was their destination. Maybe it was farther away than it had looked. It did seem to be taking a long time to get there.
“Well, we don’t have to go all that way,” said Kenny. He was a little tired himself. “We could just go to the top of this next hill. Probably we can see a long way from there.”
No one objected to this. They climbed with renewed energy, and before long they came out on the wide, rounded crest of the hill, where the wind blew more strongly and the hills beyond looked steeper and rockier.