“What do you mean?”
“When I left, it was still snowing. I thought it would cover my tracks. But by the time I got here it stopped. I started to leave and saw my footprints, and I realized they’d lead straight to Chimney Hill, and they’d know it was me. It would ruin everything.”
Janner froze.Turalay. When they caught Kalmar, they caught Nia. Janner had been rubbing Kalmar’s shoulder to soothe him, but he pulled his arm away. The implications screamed in his mind. Nia would go to the dungeon. They would lose Chimney Hill. They might be exiled from the Hollows. Nia wouldn’t be able to marry Rudric. All because Kalmar was hungry for raw meat. All because he couldn’t control his impulses.
Kal was right. He had ruined everything.
Janner knuckled his forehead and ground his teeth, trying to think, trying to stay quiet, trying most of all not to unleash his temper on Kalmar—partly because he was afraid to wake the wolf again. He knew that was a fight he couldn’t win.
“I didn’t know what to do. I’ve been here for hours, asking the Maker to help me. Asking him to fix me. I don’t want to be a Fang anymore, Janner. I just want to go home.”
“You can’t go home. They’ll follow the trail.”
“But what do I do?”
“I don’t know.” Janner hung his head and tried to think. “So it was you, then? All those animals?”
“Yes.”
“But there were hundreds! Were you really that hungry?”
Kalmar was silent for a moment. Then he said, “I didn’t eat them all.”
“What does that mean? Did you kill them just for fun?” Janner wished there was more light so Kalmar could see his face. He wanted Kal to know he was disgusted with him. Then he remembered that his wolf eyescould see in the dark. Good.
“I didn’t kill them for fun. You won’t understand unless I show you.”
“Show me what?”
“Will you come with me? Please?”
“Where? Why?”
“Please,” Kalmar said.
“What can it hurt?” Janner muttered. “You’ve ruined everything already.”
“I know,” Kalmar whispered, and he slipped out from under the coop with a dead hen in one hand and waited for Janner at the corner of the house.
40
Bones and Bones
Janner no longer bothered to walk in Kalmar’s tracks. It didn’t matter anymore. In the morning, whoever owned the chicken would discover the bloody mess in the coop, call the Durgan Patrol, and follow the footprints straight to Chimney Hill. It wouldn’t be hard to figure out that they were Kalmar’s tracks, and then things would unravel.
Janner wished it would snow again, enough to wipe the trail clean, to erase the knowledge of Kalmar’s terrible hunger—but there wasn’t a cloud in the sky. In fact, the sky was clearer than Janner had ever seen it. The stars vied with the moon for brightness and seemed close enough to pluck out of the heavens like apples from a tree. The boys could try and cover their tracks, but the Durgans weren’t stupid. It would be obvious that someone had disturbed the snow.
Janner also thought about running away. But of course that would make it even more obvious, and it probably wouldn’t save Nia from the dungeon. Even if she weren’t arrested, her boys would be fugitives and she would never see them again.
There was nothing to do but carry his grieving heart through the snow to whatever Kalmar had to show him. Every step was a silent farewell to Chimney Hill, and every minute brought him closer to the end of the peace he had found there.
Kalmar said nothing. His head hung low, and the dead hen left vivid specks of blood in the snow. He led Janner back the way they had come, and when they crested the last hill on the outskirts of the city, Janner could see the steep, snow-white roof of Chimney Hill in the distance. Kalmar paused and looked out at the moonlit valley.
“It’s so pretty,” Kalmar said. Frost clung to the tips of his ears and dusted the fur that framed his face; steam clouded out of his snout in little bursts; his black Durgan cape caught the moonlight; his brow shadowed his eyes with mystery; his back was bowed as if he carried a great weight, and Janner sensed his fight to bear it and his sorrow that it had to be borne. Even with the dead hen drooping from his claw, he shone with a kingly grace. He smiled, and Janner had the sudden urge to bow.
Janner’s emotions swung like a pendulum between anger and awe, grief and confusion. One moment he was mourning his father’s death and the next he was happy for Rudric; one moment he was frightened and the next he was angry; and now he was awestruck by the undeniable truth of Kalmar’s kingship. He could do nothing but hold his tongue and follow.
The boys followed the road to the creek, crossed the bridge, and climbed up to Chimney Hill, where Podo, Bonifer, Nia, and Leeli slept. They crept past the house, and for one baffling moment Janner thought Kalmar was going to bring the dead hen inside. But they passed Chimney Hill and slipped past Freva’s cottage and the barn. Leeli’s dogs stirred at the scent of henmeat and watched the brothers creep over the fence and down into the pasture.
It wasn’t long before Janner lost his bearings, especially with the snow repainting the landscape. He had the sense that they were heading east, but he couldn’t be sure. Kalmar sniffed the air and strode ahead without hesitation, and now that they were in the sparseness of the prairie neither of them bothered to keep quiet.
Soon the rickety skeleton of the abandoned barn loomed ahead, and Janner recognized it. He remembered seeing a rooster perched in its rafters, but now the rooster was gone, like so many of the animals in the Hollows. A stone’s throw beyond the old barn, the land fell away to a pond, an unfrozen black oval in the valley’s white bowl.
Kalmar was taking him to the cave.
Janner imagined it in the earth under his feet, dark and dripping, an empty place secreted from wind and sunlight and every good thing. He felt its hollow presence beneath the hill. Janner had read about dens like this, places where monsters made their homes, places where rockroaches lured animals to gobble them up, places where bomnubbles sucked the marrow from wolf bones and slept in the stench of decay. Now, he supposed, it was Kalmar’s den.
The little wolf bounded down the slope and looked up at Janner from the bottom. Janner wanted to run away, back to Chimney Hill, and duck under his blankets and pray this was all a nightmare. Whatever Kalmar had to show him in the cave was something Janner didn’t want to see.
He found himself staggering down the hill without meaning to, as if his legs knew his need for answers and drew him on in spite of his dread. He reached the bottom as Kalmar ducked through the entrance. Janner saw his tail disappear into the dark. He took a last look at the pond, the sinking moon, and quiet stars, and then he crawled into the cave.
As soon as he cleared the low ceiling and stood, he was slammed with a terrible stench. He gagged and staggered forward and felt things snapping under his boots. He heard a sound like the breaking of twigs, and he knew there were bones everywhere he stepped. Janner’s vision starred in the utter darkness, and he fought to keep his feet. The last thing he wanted was to fall to that sordid floor.
Kalmar grabbed Janner’s elbow to steady him and said, “You look like you’re going to throw up.”
Janner twisted out of Kal’s grip and bent over with his hands on his knees.
“It smells terrible in here,” Janner panted. “How can you stand it?”
“You’ll see.” Kalmar took Janner by the elbow again. “I’ll guide you. A few more feet and you’ll have to step over the little creek.”
Janner straightened and pulled the collar of his cape over his mouth and nose. It helped a little. He stepped over the water and let Kalmar lead him deeper in. The smell worsened, as if it were getting wetter and warmer. He blinked away tears and said through the cloth over his face, “What have you done?”
“The only thing I could think to do,” Kalmar replied. “Turn right and duck a little. We’re almost there.”
Janner fumbled a
round the corner and ducked, still crunching bones with every step.
Then he heard it.
41
What Janner Found in the Cave
Somewhere in the darkness, something was breathing. But it wasn’t ordinary breathing. It rattled and bubbled and wheezed, and now that Janner heard it his mind wouldn’t let him hear anything else.
“Stay here.” Kalmar let go of Janner’s elbow and crept deeper into the cave.
Panic sizzled in Janner’s chest, and he would have run if he knew which way to go. He may as well have been at the bottom of the ocean or buried in a tomb. If he dropped to all fours he might have been able to navigate his way out, but that would mean crawling on the slick, bone-rotten floor.
Kalmar murmured a few indistinguishable words, and the rhythm of the thing’s breathing changed. It grunted and snuffled. Kalmar said something else, and the thing gurgled something close to a word. Then Janner felt Kalmar’s hand on his elbow again. “Ready?”
“Is that what I think it is?”
“What do you think it is?”
“A cloven,” Janner whispered.
“Not justa cloven,” Kalmar said. “It’s the one we saw. From the window.”
Janner tried to remember how long it had been since they’d seen it. Two months, at least. Not long after they had arrived.
“I found it in the cave,” Kalmar said. “It was wounded.”
“Wounded? How?” It was hard for Janner to clear his mind enough to remember details from that night so many weeks ago.
“The Durgan Patrol. Remember Rudric told us that they hurt it? He said it would either run back to the Blackwood or find someplace to die.” Kalmar paused. “Well, this is it. I showed you the cave, remember?”
“And this thing was in here that day?”
“Yes. I wanted to show you, but—I got scared. I thought you would be mad at me.”
“You should have told someone, Kal.”
“But if I told anyone, they would come in here and kill it. I couldn’t let them do that. I saw its eyes. That night from our window, remember? I saw something in its eyes that scared me worse than anything.” Kalmar swallowed, then whispered, “I saw myself.”
The cloven grunted. Janner heard bones crunching and a sound like the stirring of noodles in a pot, and he realized the thing was moving, crawling closer.
“I couldn’t just let it die, Janner. And I couldn’t let them kill it. What was I supposed to do?”
“It’s coming,” Janner said.
Bones snapped. The cloven huffed and mewled from just a few feet away. Janner felt its breath on his face. He imagined sagging flesh and twisted fangs. He saw it in his mind, lurching closer with its knotty jaw drooping open.
“I had to take care of it,” Kalmar continued. “It started with wild animals. It wasn’t hard to hunt down a flabbit or a hen out on the prairie. No one noticed. I even found a few wild goats. I thought I could help it get better and convince it to go back to the Blackwood. But it was hurt worse than I realized. There was a spearhead lodged in its back. I pulled it out and tried to bandage the wound, and I even used some of that gadbalm Mama gave you. But for days it bled and bled. I thought it was going to die.”
Janner heard it sniffing just inches away. He knew if he reached out he would feel the moist skin of its face as it smelled him. Janner wanted more than ever to flee, but he knew it was useless.
“But it didn’t die. It’s still hurt, but it got a little better. And the better it got, the hungrier it got. I hunted all the way to the wooded vales, near Ban Yorna, but I couldn’t find any more wild animals. I know it was wrong, but you have to believe me, Janner. I couldn’t let it starve. And I couldn’t let them kill it.”
Janner felt something moist and cold touch the side of his face. It was all he could take. He screamed and careened backwards, crashing into the wall and then to the ground. The cloven moaned and withdrew to the rear of the cave. Janner sat on the muck of the floor, panting, wiping his cheek with the back of his glove.
“Kalmar, I want to get out of this place. Now.”
Kalmar sighed. “We can go. I just wanted you to know why I took the animals. I’m sorry about all this.”
“Please, Kal. Get me out of here.”
Kalmar spoke to the cloven. “I have to go. No one is going to feed you anymore. You’re well enough now, so it’s time to go back to the Blackwood.”
The monster grunted.
“Do you understand? I have to go. I can’t come back.”
It grunted something that sounded like a question. Surely the thing couldn’t understand what Kal was saying. Could it?
“Please, just go back to the Blackwood. They won’t hurt you there, and there’s plenty of food. It’s almost morning, so wait until tonight and go back. Please.” Kal’s voice trembled with emotion. “Goodbye.”
The cloven howled mournfully and approached, and Janner knew that Kalmar was hugging it, crying into its shoulder. The monster’s howl turned to a pitiful wail, and the cave seemed to shake with the sound of sadness.
Janner heard Kalmar pull away, and then the little wolf took Janner’s hand and pulled him to his feet.
When the boys turned the corner, a hint of pale blue light was visible a little way ahead. The cloven wept and wept, but by the time they reached the exit, the monster was barely audible.
Janner dropped to his hands and knees, so glad to leave that he didn’t care about the bones on the floor anymore. He scrambled out, gulping clean air as if he’d been underwater. A moment later he realized the light wasn’t from the moon at all. A band of gold showed in the east. Dawn had come to the Green Hollows.
Kalmar appeared, his face slick with mud and tears, and sat on his haunches.
“I always took a dip in the pond. To wash off the smell,” Kal said, looking out at the cold water.
The boys sat for a moment in the silence of the waking day. Janner could think of nothing to say. He didn’t blame Kalmar. He was only eleven years old, after all. It was hard enough to survive, even without Gnag the Nameless and Fangs ruining your life at every turn. Janner tried to imagine what he would have done in Kalmar’s place, and he doubted it would have been much different. What was done was done. Now they had to get home and tell Nia. She would know what to do.
Janner said, “Come on, Kal. Let’s get back to Chimney Hill while we still can.”
Kalmar bowed his head and rested it on his forearms, still sniffling. “What’s going to happen?”
“The Maker only knows.” Janner saw a flicker of movement at the top of the hill. “But we need to get home right now.”
He heard the snap of a twig in the weeds beside the pond. The Durgan Patrol had found them. If it wasn’t the Durgans,someone had found them. It was over.
As the first ray of sunlight reached the top of the hill, Janner saw a face he recognized, stretched with wicked satisfaction: Grigory Bunge.
The boy stood, and Janner saw that he held a bow with an arrow already nocked on the string. Movement flitted somewhere to the left. That meant at least three people. Probably more.
They were going to ambush Kalmar, and Kalmar was going to fight. If that happened, the Durgans would kill the Grey Fang in their midst. Not only that, if the cloven heard and came to Kal’s rescue, there was no telling what would happen.
There was only one thing he could do.
“Kalmar, don’t fight me.”
Kal lifted his head and narrowed his eyes. “What is that supposed to mean?”
“NOW!” someone screamed, and Hollowsfolk rushed down the hill.
42
Sara and the Maintenance Manager
Sara should have been exhausted at the end of her shift. She had been standing at the grinding tool in a spray of sparks for eight hours, with few breaks for water and food. Her back ached, her hands were numb from the constant vibration, and she was so dirty she felt like she was made of soot and grime. But as soon as the bell rang and children began filin
g in and out of the doors, she trembled with anxious excitement.
She had asked herself a thousand times during the shift if she was a fool, and a thousand times she answered herself, yes, she was a fool, but she would rather die a fool than live a half-life in a hopeless, helpless fog. And she was willing to risk the danger to the children who trusted her. She wanted them to know it was better to fight and lose than to sink away into nothingness under the Overseer’s evil grin.
She joined the line of slaves and walked to the dining hall. Instead of eating, though, she continued on to the bunk hall, straight to her cot. But something was odd. Four Maintenance Managers leaned against the walls with their chains and pipes, watching the children with suspicion. The boy who had stopped her earlier was among them, and Sara pretended not to see him. She didn’t have to look to know he was staring at her.
She passed many familiar faces: Borley, Veera, Grettalyn, and the others, all of them staring at the floor like good tools ought to do. She prayed none of the children would say anything to her. But like professional spies, they passed without a single glance to betray them. She was terribly proud of their courage, especially knowing they all had weapons stashed in their clothing.
Sara reached her cot and stretched as if she were going to lie down. She had planned to sneak into the bunk hall, grab her dagger, and follow the next shift out to the factory floor without anyone noticing. But with the boy watching, she couldn’t.
She lay down on the cot. There was her dagger, just where she had hidden it. The rest of the weapons in her bunk were gone, taken sometime during the shift by her little army. She slid the dagger up her sleeve and peeked over her pillow at the boy against the wall. He had turned his back to Sara to talk to another of the Maintenance Managers, and she knew it was her only chance.
She crept out of bed and fell in step beside another boy, who yawned and rubbed his eyes on his way to his station. She imagined the Maintenance Manager’s eyes on her back, imagined him staring at her, imagined that he could see through the sleeve of her shirt to the dagger hidden there.
The Monster in the Hollows Page 24
