The Warden and the Wolf King

by Andrew Peterson

  Claxton didn’t seem to notice. “Where’s the birdman now?”

  “I don’t know, Strander King.”

  “What about the other fellow? Gammon?”

  Maraly’s heart kicked at the mention of that name. She also noticed that Claxton’s dark eyes were on her when he said it, and though she tried to conceal her hope, she knew Claxton saw it in her face.

  “I don’t know where he is, either,” said Jimbob.

  “So why did you come?” Claxton asked Jimbob, though his eyes were still fixed on Maraly.

  “The Fangs say they need our help.” Jimbob’s voice trembled. “They say that if you don’t come and fight, they’ll treat us like all the other Dugtowners.”

  “Is that what they said,” Claxton muttered, turning his attention back to Jimbob.

  “But you told us we didn’t have to fight nobody!” one of the Stranders said. “We don’t fight for nobody but ourselves! You told us that!”

  “Aye, you said we just had to hide here until the fightin’ was over! We ain’t nobody’s soldiers.”

  “And you said we’d get some cupcakes!”

  “Quiet, all of you!” Claxton roared. “First of all, the cupcakes were fer the ones who came with me to Snoot’s. I said I’dtryto bring ye back a few. I’dtry. Ain’t that what I said, Poggy?”

  “Exactly,” Poggy said. “And even us that went didn’t get none.” Maraly noticed her face was smeared with bright yellow icing.

  Others noticed it too. “What’s on yer cheeks?” one of them shouted.

  “It ain’t icing. It’s—it’s water.”

  “Sticky yellow water?” said the second man. “Poggy, that makes no brains!”

  “Quiet, I said!” Claxton bellowed. “Forget the cupcakes! If ye want some, we can get ’em tomorrow after the Fangs have run of the place again. Second of all, no, we don’t have to fight. Jimbob here’s going to send word back to the Fangs that he found us fighting the Dugtowners out in the mudfields to the north. It’s all part of me plan. He’s gonna tell ’em how brave we are, aren’t you, Jimbob?”

  “If it means I can get one of those cupcakes tomorrow, then yeah,” Jimbob said, rubbing his hands together. “I’ll tell ’em anything.”

  “Can I have a dip of some of that yellow water on your cheeks, Poggy?” the first Strander asked.

  “Nobody’s eatin’ cheek water!” Claxton shouted, banging his fist on the wall. “I don’t care what color it is! Now listen,” he continued in a conspiratorial tone, “we just have to hide here and keep quiet. The Fangs will do their battling, my mammy will keep bringing me soup, and in the morning”—Claxton thrust out his chest and beamed—“I’m the King of Dugtown. Actually, I would like a nibble of that goop on yer cheek, Poggy.”

  “But what if the Fangs come to this house?” the second man asked.

  “We duck into the burrow.”

  “What if they come into the burrow?”

  “They don’t know about the burrows, you dafter! Burrows are for Stranders!”

  Claxton pumped his fist and the Stranders, on cue, shouted, “Aye!”

  “But ain’t the burrows how you snuck all the Fangs into the city?” the man asked.

  “Aye!” the crowd shouted uncertainly.

  Claxton paused and scratched his beard. They all stared at him in silence.

  Then Maraly heard a strange sound—a high-pitched, wheezing sound coming from the floor behind Claxton. It was Nurgabog. She was curled up in a ball like a little girl, one hand on her wounded side and the other covering her mouth while she cackled.

  “What’s so funny?” Claxton snapped. He leaned over Nurgabog menacingly, and Maraly felt herself tense. If he hurt the poor old woman again Maraly wouldn’t be able to keep quiet.

  “Claxton . . . Claxton the Strander King!” Nurgabog said between breaths. “Too dumb to realize he dug his own pit!”

  Claxton reared back as if he were about to punch her when a knock came at the door. It was more than a knock. Someone was pounding on the door as if they meant to break it down.

  Jimbob opened it and a Green Fang filled the doorway. “Out!” it ordered.

  “I’ll take care of this,” Claxton said, turning from Nurgabog. “I’m Claxton the Strander King. What do ye want?”

  “Greetingsss, Claxton. I was sent to summon you. Commander Varaggo says, ‘The time hassss come to prove your loyalty.’ What shall I tell him?”

  “Tell him—” Claxton looked around at the Stranders. “Tell him I’ll be there when I’m good and ready. Nobody tells a Strander what to do.”

  He pumped his fist again, and the Stranders said, “Aye!” with even less enthusiasm than before.

  “And Stranders fight for none but our own,” Claxton continued.”You tell him that.”

  “Are you ssssseriousss?” the Fang said with surprise.

  Claxton answered by marching across the room and slamming the door in the Fang’s face.

  Maraly was only a young girl, but it was obvious that Claxton had no idea what he was doing. First he was allied with the Fangs, now he was slamming the door in their faces? She was surprised the Fang didn’t smash the door to pieces.

  The very second she had that thought, the Fang smashed the door to pieces.

  33

  Maraly’s Name

  The Stranders may not have wanted to fight in the Fang war, but they had no qualms with fighting for their own lives. The first Fangs through the door met a grisly end that involved knives and a few stubby Strander teeth.

  But Maraly could tell from the snarls outside that there were plenty more Fangs where those came from, not to mention the fact that for some reason, Stranders from the West Bend were fighting those from the Middle, and both East and Middle Benders were fighting those from the West.

  Maraly decided it was time to go. She worked her way awkwardly to her knees, looking for a hiding place where she might be able to remove one of her knives and cut the rope around her ankles. On the other side of the room there was a table that she might be able to scoot under.

  Just before she started to crawl forward, she realized with a terrible shock that Claxton’s eyes were fixed on her from across the room. They regarded one another for a terrible moment, then he was shoving his way through Fangs and Stranders alike, trying to get to her.

  Maraly scrambled toward the nearest door, dodging men and women and snakes and knives, praying she would make it through before her father laid his enormous hands on her.

  She shouldered the door open and tumbled inside to discover a cluster of Stranders jammed up to the waist through a high kitchen window. All of them were scraping and screaming at one another in their madness to escape. Out of the corner of her eye Maraly saw a closet door swing shut and heard movement on the other side. It had to be the entrance to a burrow.

  She hopped to the door, too afraid of Claxton to stop and try to cut her bonds, and turned the doorknob with both hands. Sure enough, there was a trapdoor below the scattered bags of flour and jars of food. She hopped inside and pulled the door shut behind her, trying to ignore Claxton’s bellowing in the main room, and sat, dropping her feet into the dark hole.

  She knew Claxton would be close behind, but there was a chance she might have time to cut her bonds and vanish into the maze of tunnels. She had to try.

  “Ow!” someone said. Maraly couldn’t see much, but a sliver of lantern light speared out of the tunnel below, illuminating the head she had just stepped on. Several Stranders were shimmying down the ladder and into the burrow. Maraly followed, hopping down one rung at a time, struggling to keep a grip on the ladder with her wrists bound.

  When she reached the bottom she heard Claxton shouting her name from above: “MARALY! YOU’LL HAVE NO FATHER BUT ME!”

  As the other Stranders sped away with their lantern, Maraly hopped over to the wall beside the ladder and fumbled with her pant-leg, searching for her knife, dreading the moment when Claxton would darken the entrance above.

 
; “MARALY!” he boomed. Maraly jumped, her trembling fingers straining to reach the knife at her ankle, but the bonds around her legs held it fast. Light fell through the shaft from above. Claxton’s silhouette appeared, and he sniffed. “Are you down there, girl? I can smell the clean on you.”

  Maraly held her breath. She squinted her eyes shut and worked the handle of the knife back and forth, edging it out with agonizing slowness. There was no way she would be able to remove it before her crazy father found her.

  She wanted to hide, but there was nowhere to go, so she pressed herself against the earthen wall and held still. The sound of Claxton’s boots thudding on the ladder mixed with the booms, crashes, and shouts in the house above and with the violent pounding of Maraly’s heart until she was no longer able to tell them apart.

  Where was Gammon? He had promised to protect her, but where was he? She felt a strange thickness in her chest and realized it was a sob trying to make its way out. How long had it been since Maraly Weaver had cried? She didn’t remember ever feeling this afraid or this sad.

  She saw the outline of Claxton’s body as he reached the bottom of the ladder and turned around, sniffing the air. The faint light from the kitchen fell on his forehead, on the bridge of his nose, and now as he smiled, on his round cheeks above the ratty beard.

  The sadness she was only beginning to recognize swelled inside her until it dwarfed her fear. This man, this monster, was supposed to love her. She had belonged to him at some point, and fathers were meant to care for their daughters, even on the Strand. Was she so unlovable? Was she as worthless as a bad dog, something to be caged and hunted, as he had done—to be put down, as he might have tried to do?

  As Claxton stood over her with his big arms folded and his ratty beard trembling with a sinister chuckle, Maraly gave way to her tears. She sobbed and was shocked by the inhuman sound she made. Maybe shewas just an animal. Her father certainly was.

  Someone poked his head into the trapdoor.

  “Don’t come this way,” Claxton barked. “There are Fangs everywhere! Run!”

  The Strander shrieked and disappeared, slamming the trapdoor and plunging Maraly and Claxton into total darkness.

  “There,” he said in his muddy voice. “Now we’re alone.” Claxton struck a match and lit a lantern stashed behind the ladder.

  Maraly put her head down and cried like she had never cried before. She didn’t think he would kill her. He had, after all, gone to a lot of trouble to get her back from Gammon. But she knew his fists. She knew his anger. He had caged her before.

  “Why don’t you love me?” she said.

  Claxton placed the lantern on the floor between them and cracked his knuckles. He squatted in front of her and stroked his beard. “Why should I?”

  Maraly’s eyes were closed, but she could feel him smiling. Then she felt his hand on the collar of her shirt. She screamed as he jerked her to her feet and pinned her against the wall, his hand around her throat.

  “Because—you’re—my—father,” Maraly sputtered, kicking him and scratching at his face as he smiled on unfazed.

  “I thoughtGammon was your father.” Claxton’s smile turned to a hateful sneer.

  Maraly was out of words. She stopped fighting. She could still breathe, but barely. She closed her eyes and waited for whatever punishment Claxton had to give, thinking of Gammon and Sara Cobbler and the good days she had spent among them.

  “Your friends have made you weak. Did they teach you how to cry like a babe at her mammy’s side? Stranders don’t cry, Maraly.”

  “I’m not a Strander,” she said, looking him in the eye.

  “Then I’ll have tomakeyou one,” Claxton barked. “You’ve got my blood in yer veins, girl, and nothin’ can change that. You’ve gotmyname written in yer bones. Maraly Weaver. You can go take yer bath and eat yer fancy food and giggle with yer friend, but you’ll always know deep down that you were born in the mud of the Strand, along the mud of the Blapp, and once that mud gets on you,nothin’ ever gets it off.”

  Claxton seemed to know Maraly’s deepest fear and was speaking it aloud. She had lain awake at night, fighting to believe that Gammon’s fatherly love was real, that the change she had been feeling—the lightening of heart and the almost painful flashes of joy—was more than a silly girlish notion. She thought back to the day of the Battle of Kimera, when Gammon had looked her in the eye and held out his hand and asked if she would let him care for her. Even then something had bubbled up in the dry well of her soul, and over these last months she had felt that spring slowly, slowly fill her. With the coming of the warmer sun she had finally allowed herself to believe that the water was pure enough to drink—but every word Claxton spewed poisoned the water, darkened it, muddied it like the Mighty Blapp, and now she felt herself drowning in it.

  “I’m going to give you one last chance, girl. Either Claxton is yer father or Gammon is. Only one of those names is true to your nature. Answer carefully now. Who’s your father?”

  Maraly shook her head and wept. She wished the Fangs would appear, or more Stranders—she had given up on wishing for Gammon. That sort of thing only happened in storybooks.

  “Who’s your father?” Claxton bellowed. He struck her in the face. Stars spun in Maraly’s head and she tasted blood in her mouth. “You’re a Strander down to the bone, girl! Who’s your father? What do you think runs thicker than the blood in your veins?”

  Maraly mumbled.

  “What?” Claxton shouted, clenching her throat tighter.

  She blinked through her tears and took a trembling breath then looked him in the eye as fiercely as she could manage. “Love.”

  “Love,” Claxton sputtered. He snorted with laughter.

  Maraly sniffled and said, “Love runs stronger than blood. Deeper than any name you could give me.”

  “You worthless dog,” Claxton spat. He balled his fingers into a fist and reared back to strike.

  Maraly smiled through her tears. She knew she had chosen well, because she hadbeen chosen. She believed in her heart that Gammon was even now fighting to find her, that his affection was more real than the hand that gripped her throat and the fist that was about to pound her. She closed her eyes and waited for the pain.

  But Claxton’s blow never fell. He gasped and made a choking sound, and his grip on her neck loosened. Maraly crumpled to the ground, looking up at Claxton in confusion. He staggered backwards and spun around, and she saw a knife in his back, buried to the hilt.

  “Maker help you, boy,” said a woman’s thin, quavering voice. “Maker help me, too.”

  Nurgabog stood with one hand on the ladder and the other clutching her wounded side. She was bent over, but her face was lifted to the lamplight and wore a look of tortured triumph.

  “There’s only one soul in Aerwiar I love more than you,” Nurgabog rasped, “and it’s her.”

  “But—but—I’m the Strander King!” Claxton said between gasps. He dropped to his knees in front of his mother and held out his hands. “You can’t hurt me.”

  “And you can’t hurt her,” Nurgabog said with a weary smile. “Not anymore.”

  She hobbled forward and hugged Claxton, and the two of them collapsed to the ground in one another’s arms. Claxton buried his face in his mother’s shoulder and coughed.

  “Run, girl,” Nurgabog said. Her breathing was watery and weak. “The Fangs are coming. Go, find him.”

  Maraly pried her knife free and sawed at her bonds. She struggled to her feet and staggered down the tunnel blindly.

  “Gammon!” she cried, turning the knife around to cut at the ropes on her wrists as she ran. “Gammon, I’m coming!”

  34

  Artham’s Shame

  Artham flew with all his strength for Riverside Road to find Errol. For months he had been dimly aware that the Skreeans were readying for an impending battle. Gammon had sent emissaries far and wide to proclaim their victory in Dugtown and to summon more Skreeans to war—Maraly and Sara had t
old him as much. But in Artham’s madness, during which he was aware of his babbling but was unable to stop it, he knew little but the general facts. He couldn’t explain why his mind had been clear since Maraly disappeared, but he was thankful for it. He was the only person in Skree with wings, and right now, wings were one of their only advantages.

  “To arms!” he shouted, skimming over the heads of Skreeans as he flew deeper into the city. “The Fangs are in Dugtown! War is upon us!”

  Artham didn’t look back to see whether or not they believed him. They would believe him soon enough, whether they wanted to or not.

  Artham passed over Crempshaw Way, then zoomed over Riverside Road, screeching, “The Fangs are in the city! The Fangs are in the city!”

  His eagle eyes narrowed and he scanned the Dugtowners and Kimeran soldiers thronged among the tents and merchant stands that spread along the riverside. He recognized a few of the men and women, then his gaze locked on a man leaning against a wall with his arms folded: Errol. Gammon’s second-in-command.

  As soon as Errol heard Artham’s shrieking voice, he stood at attention and drew his sword. Artham tipped his wings and dove straight for him. He landed in a rush of feathers and grabbed Errol’s shoulders.

  “It’s Claxton and the Stranders. They’ve been smuggling Fangs into the city through the burrows.”

  “How many?” Errol asked.

  “I don’t know. Hundreds. They started at the eastern edge, out near the mudfarms, but I think they’ve infiltrated the whole city.”

  “Where’s Gammon?”

  “Last I saw him, he was riding the rooftops like the Florid Sword.”

  A crash came from the eastern end of the market, followed by cries of alarm. But Artham’s warning had done some good. Instead of fleeing, the Dugtowners in the market surged angrily toward the commotion to meet the Fangs in battle.