When the laughter and happy tears subsided, the dragons were gone. The ship rocked on the waves with the cliffs of the Ice Prairies behind and the wide horizon ahead.
Then a voice spoke that killed the smile on every face.
“Put me down,” it said. It was an odd voice, raspy and deep as it was young.
Tink was awake, and he was growling.
He snapped at Nia and scratched her arms. She cried out and let him go, and the little Fang scurried away as soon as his paws hit the deck.
He squatted in a corner and panted like a dog. His eyes darted from his family to the crew of the ship to the sea spray that splashed onto the deck—and it was his eyes that sent a shiver down Janner’s spine.
His brother was no taller than before, and even with the wolfish features he still somehow looked like Tink. But his eyes were yellow and wild. There was no depth or recognition, just a flat, shallow emptiness Janner had seen before. He had seen it when Slarb glared at him in the cell of the Glipwood jail; he had seen it when Commander Gnorm waggled his bejeweled fingers at him; he had seen it in the eyes of Timber, the leader of the Grey Fangs.
This creature might look like Tink, but it was no longer Tink. It was a Fang, through and through.
“Son,” Nia said, her voice thick with sorrow. Streaks of blood colored her skin where he had scratched her. “It’s me. It’s your mama.”
Tink growled.
She took a step nearer, but the wolf boy swiped a paw in the air and curled his lip.
“Don’t come any closer,” he said. “Where am I?” He looked around, desperate to escape. He turned and peeked over the railing at the waves as if he might jump overboard, and Janner noticed for the first time that his brother had a tail. Janner’s stomach tightened, and he feared he might vomit or weep. He didn’t know which.
“Don’t scare him,” Leeli said in the voice she used when she’d set her affection on an animal. “It’s all right. We don’t want to hurt you.” The wolf ignored her and paced the railing, anxious for a place to run.
“What’s your name?” asked Artham.
At this, Tink grew still. He cocked his head sideways like a dog. “I don’t know. I don’t know my name.”
“Shall I tell you?” Artham said carefully. “You might not like it.”
Tink studied the reddish man with wings. He shifted on his feet, licked his chops, and whined. “Tell me,” he said in a small voice.
“Your true name is Kalmar Wingfeather.”
The wolf boy’s ears flattened against his head, and he howled at the sky. He flew into a fit of rage and darted about the deck. He snapped and clawed at his family. Nia and Leeli screamed. Janner and Podo put themselves between the women and the wild animal as Artham struggled to subdue him. Every time he laid a hand on the wolf, its teeth sank into his skin.
The Kimerans took up arms and raced to the prow at the commotion. Several of them trained their bows on Tink and drew back to shoot.
“Put down your weapons!” Artham commanded. “He’s no Fang!” He flew across the deck and at the last moment knocked one of the bows upward so that the arrow whizzed harmlessly into the air.
But as soon as Artham turned his back, Tink leapt overboard into the icy sea.
That was the moment Janner truly became a Throne Warden.
Without a thought, Janner tore off his coat and ran. His heart’s deepest instinct drove him forward and over the ship’s rail to save his brother.
As soon as he hit the water, the world became a frigid, airless black. Too cold to think, he grabbed a handful of fur and pulled it near. Claws raked his skin. He felt Tink’s teeth again and again, but he held his brother close. When every desperate gasp filled his lungs with water, he hugged the Fang to himself with all his strength. The sea turned red with Janner’s blood.
The last thing he knew was Artham’s strong taloned hands. He felt himself lifted on mighty wings from blackness to light, from silence to sound. And though his wounds were deep and bled freely, though Tink still fought to escape his embrace, in Janner’s heart burned great joy.
1. See Book One, where Leeli sings with the sea dragons.
65
The Final Voyage of Podo Helmer
And so Podo Helmer sailed the Dark Sea of Darkness for the last time.
The Wingfeathers traveled east to the Green Hollows, where many years before a rowdy pirate was tamed by the tender love of a woman named Wendolyn Igiby. Podo was often seen on the deck of the ship late at night while most of the crew slept. He gazed at the star-bright heavens and breathed deep the salty air, for he knew the night held a special beauty when one was far from land. He carried his leg bone wherever he went, and it brought him great pleasure to bang it on the mast to signal mealtimes. He moved through the days in peace and wonder, for his whole story had been told for the first time, and he found that he was still loved.
For days, Oskar N. Reteep was desperately seasick. His face was pale, and every few minutes he staggered like a drunkard to the ship’s rail and provided the fish with rather unpleasant food. But soon the old man’s pate became tanned and leathery. He learned the ropes with gusto and soon became as much a sailor as any of the crew. The Kimerans convinced him to shave his head, and in a fit of recklessness, he even allowed them to tattoo his arm with the somewhat unimpressive inscription, “I Like Books.” Though he ate little and worked hard, at the end of the voyage he was as round and squishy as ever.
Nia and Leeli tended to the brothers.
When Janner woke, he ached from head to toe. He knew his wounds were severe because of the look on his mother’s face when she changed his bandages. He lay in bed for days and listened to the creak of the ship and the thump of footsteps overhead. All his life he had dreamed of sailing, and now that he was finally on the open sea, he was confined to a bed. But he had plenty of time to reflect on his journey from Glipwood to Dugtown to the Ice Prairies to the bed where he now lay, and in the end he was grateful.
He also had plenty of time to talk to Tink.
The wolf lay on the bed next to Janner, strapped down with leather cords. He refused to eat soup or even cooked fish but devoured hunks of raw meat that Nia and Leeli tossed into his mouth. He snapped at anyone who came near, and whenever they tried to talk to him, he howled and snarled.
At first Nia tended to him with grief plain on her face. But soon a change came over her, and she kept her back straight and her chin high. She spoke to him firmly and told him, “I love you, Kalmar,” whether or not he growled at her. And every day when she arrived and before she left, she looked him in the eye and asked him his name.
His answer was always violent: “I don’t know,” he would say, or “I have no name.” His howls rattled the windows.
But at night, when moonlight passed through the small, round window and slid across the floor, Janner whispered stories to Kalmar, and Kalmar listened.
“You were fast,” Janner said. “You could outrun me backward if you wanted to. In the summer when the days were long, we would run up the hill to the Blaggus boys’ house and play zibzy until it got too dark to see.”
“What’s zibzy?” Tink whispered, and Janner told him.
“Once, you hid a thwap in Grandpa’s underwear drawer,” Janner said with a hiss of pain because it hurt to laugh.
“Then what happened?” asked the wolf.
“Grandpa jumped so high his head put a hole in the ceiling. You weren’t allowed to play zibzy for a week, but we could tell Grandpa thought it was funny.”
In the morning when Nia and Leeli arrived with breakfast, Nia would ask the Grey Fang his name, and Tink would be all teeth and howls again. His eyes stayed that awful, empty yellow. Janner began to ache for the nighttime so he wouldn’t have to see those wolf eyes watching him. At night he could stare at the moon and tell his brother stories and pretend for a little while that the animal was gone.
More than once, Artham strode into the cabin and spoke to Tink, but whenever he appeared,
the wolf was ferocious.
“Your name is Kalmar,” Artham would say with impatience, and Kalmar would howl with pain. Soon, Artham stopped coming at all.
Then one night, something changed.
Janner told his brother of the Fork Factory and his escape through the streets of Dugtown. He told of his decision to rescue Tink from Claxton Weaver’s cage and of the despair he felt when he was too late. There was no moon that night, so all Janner could see of his brother was an outline by the little window.
The wolf spoke, stopping Janner in midsentence.
“I remember,” Tink whispered.
Janner didn’t know what to say, so he lay in the dark for a long time, hardly daring to breathe. The seas were calm, so the waves made little sound against the hull. Then Janner heard, so soft that he thought it might be his imagination, the Grey Fang crying in the dark.
Janner fell asleep with hope in his heart.
In the morning, when Nia and Leeli entered the room, Janner lay still, afraid to open his eyes and find that Tink’s tears had been but a dream, the little Grey Fang as wild and vicious as ever. Janner begged the Maker to answer his prayers.
And the Maker did.
“Good morning, Janner,” Nia said. She sat on his bed and kissed his forehead. “Your grandfather spotted land this morning. He said we’re only two days from the Green Hollows. And good morning to you,” she said to Kalmar. The furry creature stirred. “What’s your name?”
“My name,” the creature said with its eyes still shut, “is Kalmar. My father was Esben Wingfeather, and I am his son, the High King of Anniera.”
If an artist were asked to paint a picture of perfect joy and wonder, it would look exactly like Nia’s face in that moment. She wept. Leeli covered her mouth with both hands and squealed. Janner leapt out of bed and ran to his brother’s side in spite of the pain that shot through his body.
“Tink?” he said.
Kalmar opened his eyes, and they were clear and blue.
A passage from the First Book, as translated in Kimera by Oskar N. Reteep and Nia Igiby Wingfeather:
A traditional Hollish children’s rhyme about the infamous Will, son of Dwayne, from Fencher’s Scarytales and Spooks
Ouster Will
Ouster Will, Ouster Will.
He breathes on your ankles beneath your bed,
Waits ‘til you’re sleeping and sneaks in your head,
Darkens your dreams ‘til you wish you were dead
Under the ground on the graveyard hill
With Ouster Will, Ouster Will.
He tickles your neck like a spider’s twine,
Smells like the sweat of a snorting swine,
Shivers your bones and rattles your spine,
Grins in the dark on the windowsill.
It’s Ouster Will, Ouster Will!
Open the shutters and brighten the lamp!
Let in the light and wake up the camp!
Your heart is a panic, your forehead is damp!
He’s there in the corner to frighten and kill—
You open the shade, the dark is distilled.
Your eyes roam the room for the wickedy smile,
For the form of the fiend in the laundry pile,
For the shadowy shape of the villain so vile.
Your voice is shrill: “Oh, Ouster Will!”
But it’s only a chill, not Ouster Will!
‘Tis the shade of the tree on the bedroom wall
And the creak of the boards in the basement hall
And the skritch of a mouse in the floor, that’s all,
Not Ouster Will. Peace, be still.
Oskar’s Map
A rendering of the whistleharp that belonged to Madia, Queen Sister of Anniera. The same whistleharp later came into the possession of Leeli Wingfeather, Song Maiden of the Shining Isle.
From the sketchbook of Kalmar Wingfeather
About the Author
ANDREW PETERSON is the author of On the Edge of the Dark Sea of Darkness, Book One in the Wingfeather Saga, and The Ballad of Matthew’s Begats. He’s also the critically acclaimed singer-songwriter and recording artist of ten albums, including Resurrection Letters II. He and his wife, Jamie, live with their two sons and one daughter in a little house they call The Warren near Nashville, Tennessee.
Visit wingfeathersaga.com for more information about Aerwiar and its dangerous creatures.
NORTH! OR BE EATEN
PUBLISHED BY WATERBROOK PRESS
12265 Oracle Boulevard, Suite 200
Colorado Springs, Colorado 80921
The characters and events in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to actual persons or events is coincidental.
eISBN: 978-0-307-44666-4
Copyright © 2009 by Andrew Peterson
Illustrations © 2009 by Andrew Peterson
Published in association with the literary agency of Alive Communications Inc., 7680 Goddard Street, Suite 200, Colorado Springs, CO, www.alivecommunications.com.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
Published in the United States by WaterBrook Multnomah, an imprint of the Crown Publishing Group, a division of Random House Inc., New York.
WATERBROOK and its deer colophon are registered trademarks of Random House Inc.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Peterson, Andrew.
North! or be eaten : wild escapes, a desperate journey, and the ghastly Fangs of Dang / Andrew Peterson.—1st ed.
p. cm.—(The Wingfeather saga; bk. 2)
Summary: Jealousies and bitterness threaten to tear apart the three Igiby siblings, heirs to a legendary kingdom across the sea, just when they must work together to battle the monsters of Glipwood Forest, the thieving Stranders of the East Bend, and the dreaded Fork Factory.
[1. Brothers and sisters—
Fiction. 2. Adventure and adventurers—Fiction. 3. Fantasy.] I. Title.
PZ7.P4431No 2009
[Fic]—dc22
2009015368
v3.0
North! Or Be Eaten Page 38
