The Mapmaker's Sons

by V. L. Burgess

  “Hey,” Tom began hesitantly. “Do you understand me?”

  The warriors returned his greeting with a glare of naked hostility. The boy lifted his arm, pointing in the direction from which Tom, Porter, Willa, and Mudge had come. “Go.”

  Willa nodded slowly. “We will. As soon as we can. But first we must find—”

  “This is not your place. You are not welcome here.”

  Tom touched the map. “There’s something we must find. Then we will leave.”

  The two warriors exchanged a look. Moving as one, they stepped forward. “You have been warned. Leave now or we will kill you.”

  Porter withdrew his knife from its sheath. Tom scanned the ground near his feet. For once, there was a weapon at hand. He lifted a heavy branch, wielding it like a sword. Adrenaline poured through him. He crouched low, his knees bent, ready to lunge. Willa drew her blade and nudged Mudge protectively behind her.

  For a long moment, no one moved. The warrior boy and girl took in their weapons and exchanged a look. Without another word, they turned and slipped away, disappearing into the forest.

  Tom blinked. He looked at Porter. “Uh … was that it?”

  “I guess so.”

  “Those are the Djembe, the brutal fighters everyone talks about?”

  Porter watched the bushes for signs that they were coming back. Seeing none, he slowly tucked his blade back into its sheath. “I guess we handled them.”

  Tom wasn’t so sure. “Let’s keep moving.”

  Anxious to be gone, they picked up their pace, moving deeper into the forest. Eerie silence surrounded them. There were no more calls of the Djembe. Even the nasty hissing rodents no longer darted out from underfoot. Somehow the silence was more menacing, playing on Tom’s nerves. The sun reached its zenith and began its descent, signaling the passing hours.

  He finally drew to a halt. “Wait,” he said, breathing hard. “That’s the third time we’ve passed that rock. We’re going in circles.”

  Willa shook her head. “No, that’s a different rock.”

  Porter drummed his sides impatiently. “I don’t care about the stupid rocks. Where’s the lake? We should have been there by now.”

  Tom removed the map and spread it out. “According to—”

  “Look!” Mudge interrupted, pointing. “Up in that tree!”

  Two enormous birds perched within the boughs of a tall evergreen. They were as regal as peacocks, with graceful necks, swelling breasts, and long, extravagant tail feathers. But it was the coloring of their plumage that immediately struck Tom. One was startlingly white; the other, deep crimson. Just like the birds from the map.

  The white bird tipped back its head and released a throaty “Caw!” Moving in unison, the birds drew themselves up. They launched into the sky, hoisting themselves upward with considerable effort, their great wings beating slowly. Up into the sky they flew, almost disappearing from view, before they swooped back down, drifting on air currents like a pair of massive gliders. They swung back and forth in the sky as though engaged in a playful game of midair tag.

  Then, suddenly, their tactics changed. The birds swooped low, wings tucked tightly against their bodies. They dove toward the ground, missing Tom’s head by mere inches, and then pulled up abruptly. The gust of wind left in their wake was so strong Tom stumbled backward. Mudge tripped and fell.

  The birds dove toward them a second time, but this time, as they pulled away, the crimson bird turned and squawked over its shoulder, “Caw!” as if urging them to follow.

  Tom didn’t miss its meaning. “Let’s go!”

  Keeping their eyes on the birds soaring above them, they stumbled along through the forest, running as fast as they could to keep up. They raced uphill, thighs burning, and soon Tom spied a break in the tree line. The lake. They were almost there.

  He glanced over at Porter as they ran. Unable to contain his glee, his brother gave a whoop of victory. Willa flashed a beaming smile. Mudge stuck out his skinny arms and, waving them like wings, mimicked the birds gliding through the forest. They raced together, laughing and shouting, ducking between trees and leaping over bushes, fueled by sheer joy. The birds were guiding them to the lake. They’d made it.

  The forest ended abruptly. They spilled out into a large, open clearing and stumbled to a stop, laughing and breathing hard.

  There was no lake. No water anywhere.

  Tom stared in confusion. It couldn’t be. The map had been so clear. Everything had led them here.

  But there was no lake. Instead, they stood at the edge of a dry, desolate clearing. Within the clearing stood a single structure—the ruins of an ancient pyramid-shaped temple. That was all. Tom’s mind refused to comprehend it. He turned in a circle, convinced that if he just looked hard enough he’d find the lake. But it wasn’t there.

  He cast Porter and Willa a bewildered glance, then moved toward the pyramid. “Maybe we’ll be able to see something from the top,” he said.

  It wasn’t that he had any hope of actually seeing the lake. He just didn’t know what else to suggest. Neither did anyone else.

  Together they climbed a badly deteriorating set of stone steps. The top third of the pyramid had been leveled off to make a platform. A set of tall columns, now in a state of crumbling decay, gave the platform the look and feel of some sort of altar. Centered within the columns was an enormous, circular wooden block. A sacrificial table of some sort, Tom thought with a chill, remembering the Djembe warriors.

  He turned away and scanned the horizon. No shimmering lake anywhere in sight. No water at all. Not even the trickle of a stream snaking its way through the Miserable Forest.

  He looked up and scanned the sky. The birds—his last hope—were gone. A wave of despair washed over him. They’d failed. This was it. The end of their journey.

  “I don’t understand,” Mudge said softly.

  “There must be some mistake,” Willa said. “It’s all right, we’ll—”

  “All right?” Porter echoed. He gave an ugly laugh, rounding on her. “After everything we’ve been through, this is all right? What exactly would you consider not all right? Being ripped apart by dogs, tumbling off the side of a cliff, or maybe just being threatened with death by brutal savages?”

  “Knock it off,” Tom said.

  Porter jerked toward him, his pale blue eyes brimming with barely contained rage. “The map,” he barked. “Give it to me.”

  Tom gave him a hard look, then slowly handed it over. Porter stretched it out over the huge wooden block. He took his knife and drove it through the parchment, anchoring it to the wood.

  “We were supposed to find the sword in the center of the Miserable Forest! Well, you can’t get more miserable than this forsaken place! Right here! The lake is supposed to be right here!”

  Mudge edged forward and touched the map, his eyes transfixed on the parchment. “It has to be. We saw the sword rise from the water,” he protested softly. “It was magic. Marrick’s magic. We saw it.”

  Tom rested his hand lightly on the boy’s shoulder. “There may still be time.”

  “Time?” Porter flung his arm out wide, gesturing toward the horizon. “Do you see that great orange object out there? That’s called the sun. It’s setting. We’re out of time. Unless the prophecy’s deadline was just one more thing Marrick invented.” He turned, glaring at Willa. “You were right. That’s all the prophecy ever was. Worthless ramblings.”

  Willa shook her head, pain etched on her features. “Maybe my grandfather was right. Maybe Marrick just wanted to give the world hope—”

  “Hope? What use is hope? Will you fight a war with hope? Defeat Keegan and The Watch with hope?” He shook his head, breathing hard. “For years my father slaved over that map. Years he spent working in secret, in silence, so that Keegan and his kind could finally be destroyed. All for what? This?”

  “Our father,” Tom shot back, unable to control the anger that surged inside him.

  “At least you ha
d that time with him. With both of them. They chose you. You had a life together.”

  Porter wheeled around, his face a mixture of fury and astonishment. “They chose me?”

  “They kept you. Not me.”

  Porter shook his head in disbelief. When he spoke, his voice was ragged. “Do you know how many hours—no, years—I spent trying in vain to read the map without you? Every day of my life was marked by what I couldn’t do alone. By what our world would have been like if you were with us. I was a failure by myself. Our parents tried to hide it, but I knew. I could see it in them. Our purpose was to find the sword together. Defeat Keegan together. I was worth nothing by myself,” he bit out. “Nothing. Can you even begin to understand that?”

  Tom opened his mouth to speak, not sure what he could possibly say, but Porter turned away. He stumbled against a broken column and, in a fit of anger and frustration, shoved it over, knocking the column and its neighbor to the ground.

  The columns slammed hard and rolled to a stop at the feet of two Djembe warriors. The boy and the girl had returned. This time they were armed with glistening spears. They stood on the opposite side of the temple ground, silently watching them.

  Before Tom could fully absorb the shock of their presence, the boy slammed the bottom of his spear into the ground. “You were warned. You do not belong in our forest.”

  Together the two warriors threw back their heads and released a shrill aiy-aiy-aiy-aiy-aiy. Instantly the air erupted with the pounding, pulsing rhythm of beating drums. The forest exploded. Ten, then twenty, then hundreds of warriors charged from the cover of trees, shrieking an earsplitting cry. They surrounded the base of the pyramid, brandishing swords and spears, their chest armor flashing in the late afternoon sun like a great school of iridescent fish.

  The warrior boy and girl lifted their spears. They pointed them at Tom and Porter. “You were warned,” the boy repeated. “Now you die.”

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  DRAGON QUAKE

  The warrior tribe surged forward. They shrieked and howled, banging their spears and beating their drums, the noise growing louder and louder until it reached a crescendo. On some signal Tom couldn’t identify, the Djembe slammed down their lances, the reverberating din echoing all around them.

  One enormous man stepped to the fore, his broad chest clad in the same silvery, mesh-like armor worn by his people. He bellowed a long string of angry words. With an expression of fierce conviction, he drew his hand toward the four of them and made slashing motions in the air. Then he brought down his lance, slamming it hard against the ground. Although Tom hadn’t understood his words, the meaning was clear. Trial, judgment, and sentencing. The warrior next to him echoed the motion, and then the next, and the next, until the air reverberated with the sound of lances striking the ground.

  Tom’s heart pounded, his blood roared in his ears, and his throat went dry. Willa shrank back against Mudge. Porter reached for his knife and pulled it from the wooden block.

  Suddenly a cry of a different sort shot through the warrior mob. Fear and alarm rang through their midst. The warriors shifted and turned, arms raised, fingers pointing toward the sky in great consternation.

  Tom shot Porter a look, but read only confusion in his face. He twisted sideways, risking a glance over his shoulder.

  The white and crimson birds were back. They soared through the sky, swooping and gliding, then stalling in midflight and plummeting beak-first toward the ground. Another second passed, and Tom realized that the birds were changing right before his eyes. Growing larger somehow—no, enormous—their beaks elongated, their wings leathery, their extravagant tail plumage transforming into a tail with scales.

  Dragons.

  There was no other word for the creatures. The dragons swooped toward each other as though resuming their game of tag, although this time it appeared their intent was to knock the other from the sky. Their harsh caw! became a deafening roar, the beat of their wings a hurricane-force wind. They crashed in midflight with such jarring impact that the ground shook.

  Tom grabbed Mudge and pulled him behind the shelter of a column. Willa and Porter did the same, while the warrior boy and girl crouched low behind the wooden block, their faces masked with terror. The dragon battle grew more and more violent.

  Panic seized the Djembe. Several positioned their spears as though to fight the enormous beasts. A few warriors bowed before the dragons, others retreated into the forest, and still others lay flat on the ground in a position of absolute surrender.

  The crimson dragon knocked down an enormous column with a single beat of its wing. It careened into the adjoining column, then the next and the next, sending them all crashing to the ground like ancient stone dominoes. Willa and Porter jumped to avoid being pinned beneath the massive columns; Tom and Mudge did the same. The ground shook as though in the throes of a massive earthquake.

  The map, no longer anchored to the wooden block by Porter’s knife, rolled off the table and fell to the ground. Tom lunged for it. He’d barely managed to grab the parchment and thrust it inside his sweatshirt when a bolt of lightning lit the air around them. The massive wooden block cracked down the center, splintering into charred, smoking pieces.

  The dragons gave a great roar and clawed the air. There was nothing left to destroy. The pyramid collapsed completely. The ground opened up beneath Tom, pitching him into a gaping chasm. The screams of his friends echoed around him, but he could do nothing to reach them. He went into free fall, plummeting through blackness, with nothing to grab on to but air. Suddenly he felt a cold, stinging slap against his back.

  Water.

  He broke through the surface and was sucked under—the shock, the force of his fall, and the weight of his backpack dragged him down. Disoriented, he choked and gasped for air, only to draw water into his lungs. He peered through the murky depths toward a faint glow of light. It was a subtle glow, but at least it told him which direction to move. Stroking and kicking wildly, he fought his way up to the surface.

  His lungs burning, he drew in deep, ragged gulps of air. A second later Porter’s head broke through the surface, and then Willa’s. Tom scanned his new surroundings. An underground lake within a vast cave. He tread water, waiting. Only he, Porter, and Willa had surfaced.

  “Mudge!” he called. Then louder: “Mudge!”

  Finally Mudge’s head, small and sleek and seal-like, broke through the surface of the water. Mudge gasped for breath, paddling hard, then sank back under the surface. Alarmed, Tom swam toward him. He dove under, grabbed the boy, and tugged him to the surface. “It’s all right. I’ve got you.”

  Panicked, Mudge pummeled him with his fists. “Let me go! Let me go!”

  “Stop fighting me,” Tom bit out as he dragged him, with Porter’s help, to the edge of the lake.

  “They’re drowning! They’re too heavy; I couldn’t lift them!”

  Tom froze, as did Porter. The warrior boy and the warrior girl. He dimly remembered seeing them fall, but he’d forgotten about them. He released Mudge and scanned the surface of the underground lake. The water churned in the center of the lake as though an epic underwater struggle were taking place.

  Porter turned and dove back into the water, stroking furiously toward the center.

  Tom looked at Willa. Just beyond where she stood, thick vines clung to the cave wall and curled on the floor like piles of seaweed.

  “Grab the vines! Throw them as far into the water as you can!”

  Porter was well ahead of him. Tom threw off his pack, turned, and struck out into the water. He reached the center of the lake and dove beneath the surface. A dark shape loomed before him, thrashing futilely. The girl. He swam toward her and caught her beneath her arms, trying to tug her up to the surface.

  She was heavy. Ridiculously heavy for what appeared to be a slight girl. Struggling, Tom inched her upward. It was a slow, painful process. His lungs burned. The edges of his vision began to blur.

  He heard a splash
on the surface above him. Looking up, he saw a long, twisting shadow. The vine. Releasing the girl, he moved toward it, only to have her grab his arm. Even within the murky water, the panic on her face was obvious. He locked his gaze on hers, attempting to communicate that he wasn’t abandoning her to drown. But the girl reached her own conclusion. Bravely accepting her fate, she released his arm.

  There was nothing Tom could do but kick to the surface. He gulped a lungful of air, grabbed the vine, and dove back under, pulling the vine with him as he went. The girl had gone limp. Painfully aware of every passing second, he tied the vine around her chest and then returned to the surface.

  “Pull!” he shouted, his voice hoarse with fear and panic.

  Porter had already managed to get the warrior boy, who was evidently a stronger swimmer, to the shore. Leaving the boy on his hands and knees, weak and gasping for air but otherwise unharmed, he grabbed the vine and tugged. Together with Willa and Mudge, they pulled the girl to the surface of the water.

  She wasn’t breathing. Tom swam beside her, holding her head above water as they tugged her out of the lake. Finally they reached the shallows. Throwing one of the girl’s arms over each of their shoulders, Tom and Porter dragged the unconscious girl out of the lake, supporting her weight between them.

  They eased her down on the rocky shore. Rudimentary first aid surged to Tom’s mind. He rolled her over onto her side to get the water from her lungs. As he did, he understood what had prevented her from swimming. What had weighed her down, making it impossible for him to pull her to the surface.

  Steel. He ran his hands down her ribs, his fingers brushing cold steel. The protective chest plate worn by the Djembe warriors, as bright and shiny as fish scales, was actually made of fine mesh steel. There was a name for that type of ancient armor, for strands of steel knit together. Chain mail. The kind that knights used to wear. The thought repeated itself, lighting up some dark recess of Tom’s mind: the kind that knights used to wear.