The Emerald Atlas

by John Stephens

  “Must be punished, yes. Disobedient. The Countess has ways. Ways to make you obey. Bad birdies must learn—”

  He was still hissing threats when Kate turned her head and bit down on his ear. It tasted foul and sweaty and the man shrieked, but she kept biting, harder and harder, till she tasted blood and he let go of her wrists. Then, using all her strength, she pushed against him. She’d only planned on getting him off her back, but she heard his shriek change and looked in time to see him disappearing out the open wall. She crawled to the edge. The Secretary lay without moving on the ground. Well, Kate thought, serves you right, and she spat to clear her mouth. Turning back, she reached under the Screecher, took hold of the keys, and yanked them free. Then it was down the stairs, out the building, and across the square.

  Michael had squeezed through the crowd of men and dwarves, and they embraced awkwardly through the bars. She wanted to ask if he was okay, but there was no time.

  “Gabriel’s here!” Michael began. “He—”

  “I know. He needs help.”

  She was looking at the ring of keys. There were a half dozen. She would have to try them all.

  “The silver key! With the hole in the center! Hurry!”

  It was a man who’d spoken. He was as thin and filthy as the others, but there was still fire in his hollow eyes. Something about him struck Kate as familiar.

  “Hurry, girl!”

  With nervous fingers, Kate started to fit the silver key in the lock.

  “Oi, now! That ain’t the way!”

  A hairy-knuckled hand reached through the bars and grabbed at the keys.

  “I’m the king, right? Only fittin’ I’m the one opens the door! Protocol and such!”

  “Stop it!” Kate yelled. “There isn’t time!”

  “Stop it?” Hamish snorted, still yanking at the keys. “Who’re you to tell me to stop anything, eh? Who’s the bloody king here?”

  “Watch out!” Michael cried.

  Kate looked over her shoulder. A Screecher was running at her, sword raised to strike. Suddenly, the creature jerked about and collapsed. Two arrows were buried in its back.

  “See there? Now quit actin’ the brat and let go or—woof!”

  The keys were released. Wallace had stepped up and calmly punched his king in the gut.

  “Go on,” Wallace said. “Open the door.”

  Kate fit the key in the lock, turned it, and a flood of men came pouring out. The man who’d told her which key to use was among the first.

  “Free the others,” he commanded. “Do it quickly!” And he picked up the sword from the fallen Screecher, shouted, “Follow me!” and charged toward the battle. Weak and sickly as the men had seemed minutes before, they ran after him, grabbing what weapons they could—swords, shovels, axes—along the way.

  Hamish lumbered out, still gasping, and pointed a sausagey finger at Wallace. “You’ll get yours one day, laddie. Don’t you worry.” Then he snatched up an ax, marshaled the other dwarves, and charged into battle. Kate had to admit, whatever else Hamish was, he was no coward.

  Michael nearly knocked her over with his hug.

  “I know,” Kate whispered as she hugged him back, “I know; it’s okay.”

  Wallace stood a few feet off. He’d picked up a short pickax. Kate could see he wasn’t going to leave them. She kissed the top of Michael’s head. His hair was unwashed and greasy, but she couldn’t have cared less.

  “Come on. We need to free the others.”

  “Lemme go!”

  “Gabriel said—”

  “My brother and sister need me!”

  The moment Gabriel and the other men had charged into the square, Emma had set off. Kate and Michael were nearby and in trouble. She wasn’t going to wait around with her hands in her pockets. She would free Michael from his cage (she wasn’t quite sure how yet), the two of them would get Kate away from the Secretary (she wasn’t sure how she’d accomplish that either, but it would probably involve her being incredibly brave while Michael scribbled some nonsense in his notebook), and then they would all three finally be together (of that she was absolutely sure). There was just one problem. The young warrior, her and Dena’s appointed guardian, had intercepted Emma as she made her break and now held her, struggling, a foot off the ground.

  “You gotta let me go!”

  “Gabriel wants you to—stop!”

  He grabbed Dena by the ankle just as she was climbing out the window, knife in hand, clearly intent on joining the battle.

  “Let go a’ me! I’m gonna kill a Screecher!”

  “And I gotta help my brother and sister!”

  They continued like this for several minutes, the two girls struggling, pleading, threatening, Emma warning the boy (he really was just a boy) that if he didn’t let her go by the time she counted to five, he was going to be really, really sorry, then counting to five and announcing she would give him to ten, but then that was it (Emma knew the boy was only doing what Gabriel had told him, so she didn’t think it really fair to bite and kick her way free, which made her threats finally somewhat empty), and Dena doing much the same on her side of the young warrior, prying at his fingers, digging her nails into his hand, and the boy wondering what he had done to make Gabriel punish him like this, when they heard a low, raspy hiss.

  They turned as one. The Screecher stood there, sword drawn and watching them.

  Immediately, the young warrior dropped Dena and Emma and reached for his falchion. But the girls had sent him off balance and he stumbled backward, tripping over a pile of rubble and falling just as the Screecher’s sword cut the air in front of him. Without thinking, Emma grabbed a stone. The Screecher was moving in for the kill when the stone bounced off its head, drawing the creature’s attention. At the same moment, Dena attacked from the other side, burying her knife in the Screecher’s leg. The creature let out one of its terrible, breath-crushing shrieks and sent Dena spinning with a backhand blow. It pulled the knife free and—

  There was a thick, crunching chunk. Everything stopped. The creature looked down. The young warrior had buried his falchion halfway through its body. The boy stood, yanked the blade free, and then brought it down, driving the monster to the ground. The creature’s body lay there, smoking. The whole thing had only taken a few seconds.

  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, withou
t 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 ag
ainst 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.