The Warden and the Wolf King

by Andrew Peterson

  “Janner, stay with her!” Nia shouted as she dragged a wounded warrior from the fight. “Do you hear me?”

  Gnag’s laughter resounded in the sky and Janner’s heart sank.He must be winning, Janner thought.

  Yes. I am, nephew.

  Janner looked over Hulwen’s shoulder and saw Gnag grinning at him from the hilltop, watching the battle with his white arms folded.

  “Get out of my head,” Janner said.

  Gnag reared back and laughed again.I’ll get out of yours if you get out of mine.

  Janner’s nose stung with an odor that was both rank and comforting, and he turned to see Oood trotting toward him. Janner wanted to ask the troll how he was alive and how the cloven had come to their aid, but all he said was, “You’ve grown.”

  “Brother give Ooodgooooood water.” Oood thumped his chest. “Make Oood better. Want some?” He offered Janner a large canteen.

  “No, that’s all right,” Janner said with a weak smile.

  Oood pointed at Hulwen. “Oood give dragon good water? Make her better, too.”

  The troll knelt beside Leeli and patted Hulwen’s jaw. She opened her mouth, revealing rows of sharp, white teeth, and he poured some of the water onto her huge, ruddy tongue. Hulwen worked her jaw and dragged her tongue across the roof of her mouth. She sighed.

  Leeli laid her head against Hulwen’s snout. “She’s dying.”

  Song Maiden, Hulwen said, her voice seeming stronger in Janner’s mind.My fins hurt.

  Leeli scooted along the dragon’s body, took one look at the glimmering red fins, and gasped. “Janner, she’s changing! Look!”

  The wounds along Hulwen’s flanks steamed and sealed shut. Indeed, her whole body seemed to expand—but especially her fins. There was a cracking sound, and her bones straightened in short jerks.

  “Dragon have wings?” Oood said, scratching his chin.

  “Oood, where did you say you got that water?” Janner asked.

  Oood pointed east. “When Oood was hurt by cloven, Kahmmer bring him water. When Oood wake up, he go to find more good water, find pool in middle of trees. Big,fattrees! Come back and brothers gone.” Oood looked sad, then he patted his canteen and smiled. “Brother give Oood good,good water.”

  Leeli laughed. “Janner—Kal found the First Well!”

  Hulwen groaned, whether in pain or pleasure Janner couldn’t tell. But hecould tell that her fins were changing. But not into something new. They were being restored after ages of disuse.

  Janner remembered the medallion his mother had given Commander Gnorm, the one with the Annieran symbol of the dragon. The dragon withwings.

  “Leeli,” Janner said. “They can fly.”

  “What?”

  “Before the dragons sank the mountains, I think they could fly.”

  I never knew, Hulwen said.Yurgen kept us to the sea after the mountains sank.

  With a resounding grunt, Hulwen heaved herself over onto her belly and stretched out her fins—herwings. They crept outward, wide and gleaming in the driving rain, and the bones snapped into place. The rear fins had changed too. No longer were they sleek and slender, but robust and strong. The spikes that had jutted out from the tips now bent and flexed like claws. She had feet. She stood on her wobbly legs and worked her wings.

  Song Maiden, Hulwen said,I need a song.An old one. Help me to fly.

  Leeli flung her crutch aside and climbed onto Hulwen’s back. The dragon rolled her neck to one side, situating Leeli between her shoulder blades, just in front of her wings. Leeli clamped her legs tight around the base of Hulwen’s neck, her eyes wide. She took a deep breath and then played “The Flame of Anyara,” one of the oldest Annieran tunes she knew.

  When Hulwen flapped her wings and lifted herself from the muddy earth, Janner’s knees went weak and he plopped to the ground in wonder. Leeli Wingfeather, Song Maiden of Anniera, was riding a dragon.

  Throne Warden, Hulwen said as she rose,heal my kin.

  “Yes ma’am,” Janner whispered. He blinked away his tears and looked for the other three wounded dragons amidst the fighting.

  The Hollowsfolk, cloven, and dogs alike had separated into several attack formations—and the Fangs and ridgerunners were weakening. Gnag waved his arms and shouted frantically at his army. Janner spotted Rudric and Kalmar fighting side-by-side, driving deeper into the enemy with every swing of their weapons. Oskar, meanwhile, had employed his finest tactic, which was to spin like a top with his sword outstretched, flaying anything and everything within reach. (Fortunately there were no hounds or Hollish soldiers nearby.)

  Then Janner spotted the three other dragons, each of them surrounded by the thickest of the fighting. There was no way to reach them.

  “Oood!”

  The troll pulled away from the Fangs he was pounding and smiled at Janner.

  “We need to get to those dragons.” Janner pointed.

  Oood lowered his head and ran straight into the Fang ranks with Janner at his heels. They skidded to a stop beside a green dragon’s head. Janner asked it to open its mouth, poured a bit of the water in, then pointed Oood toward the next dragon. The troll drove his way through the battle and protected Janner as he administered the water again. Janner glanced back at the green dragon and saw its wings unfolding just as Hulwen’s had.

  “Go!” he shouted, and Oood ran to the final dragon.

  By the time the canteen was empty, all three dragons were rising into the air to join Leeli and Hulwen. The Fangs grimaced and covered their ears as Leeli’s melody rode the storm winds. Roaring with elation, the dragons rose, hearkening to Leeli’s song. Ridgerunner and Fang arrows bounced off Hulwen’s hide and fell to the ground as Bat Fangs flung themselves at the flying dragons and were swatted away like insects. Leeli’s music disoriented the Fangs and Gnag alike, bending them to the ground with its beauty.

  At last, the enemy fled. Terrified Fangs and ridgerunners scurried up the hill to their master, but they found no safety there. Gnag the Nameless was wild with fury, crushing them as they approached. “Fight!” he screamed. “Fight, you cowards!”

  Some obeyed Gnag and ran madly back towards the Hollish line while others ran for the hills. Fang collided into Fang halfway up the slope, and they began fighting each other. The ridgerunners, shrewd enough to sense their folly, scattered like thwaps in every direction, disappearing as quickly as they had come.

  The rain stopped. The air stilled, and the rear of the cloud-wrack drifted past them. A crisp gray sheen of high clouds softened the firmament, and the air felt clean and new as the Hollowsfolk and cloven banged sword on shield and rejoiced in their victory.

  The only thing that sullied the sky was Gnag the Nameless. He winged a circle above his hilltop, paying no mind to his scattered army. The monster rose higher and higher until he looked as small as a bird, then he folded his wings and dove.

  He gained speed as he fell, then aimed himself at Hulwen and Leeli.

  84

  Beloved

  As Leeli played, Hulwen veered hard to the left to dodge Gnag’s attack. Leeli was forced to let go of her whistleharp and hold tight to Hulwen’s neck as Gnag zoomed by, clawing the dragon’s right wing as he did.

  While the other three dragons harried Gnag, Hulwen flew Leeli back to the Hollish army. She skidded to a stop and lowered one shoulder so Leeli could slide down into Nia’s arms.

  Hulwen took to the sky again as Gnag roared and swiped. He punched the green dragon squarely in the jaw, and it tumbled backward like a windblown leaf. Gnag growled in triumph before tackling the blue one in midair. They fell together as Gnag tore with his claws. The dragon bit Gnag’s shoulder and black sludge oozed from the wounds. Just before they hit the ground, they broke apart and soared into the air again. Gnag wiped the blood from his shoulder and smiled, but as the dragon rose, its strength gave out, and it tumbled to the ground.

  Now only three dragons remained: a green, a gold, and Hulwen, red as embers. They looked tired and wary, hovering i
n the air around Gnag as he taunted them.

  “He’s winning,” Kalmar said.

  Gnag scanned the earth until he spotted the Wingfeathers. He narrowed his eyes and was about to dive when Hulwen rammed into him.

  “Why does he hate us?” Nia asked quietly.

  “Because Queen Madia cast him out,” Leeli said.

  Nia looked with surprise from the battle to Leeli. “What do you mean?”

  “He’s our great uncle,” Janner said. “The abandoned brother of King Jru.”

  Oskar sputtered, looking like he was choking on a berrybun.

  Nia clenched her jaw and straightened. “That’s absurd. Jru Wingfeather had no brother.”

  “In the words of—of—” Oskar blurted.

  “Gnag told me they were twins,” Leeli said. “One was deformed. Madia cast him out, but Bonifer saved him and took him to Throg.”

  Oskar fumbled with the First Book and flipped through the pages at the back. “In the words of—”

  “She would never have done such a thing,” Nia said.

  “In the words of Madia Wingfeather,she didn’t!” Oskar jabbed his finger at a few lines written on the final pages of the First Book. “She didn’t cast him out! She loved him!”

  “What are you talking about?” Nia asked.

  “She wrote it right here!” Oskar jiggled with urgency. “The end of the First Book is a brief accounting of the kings and queens of Anniera. Each sovereign added their own words to these pages. I read it ages ago, but I didn’t think it mattered!”

  “So Bonifer . . .stole Gnag?” Kalmar asked.

  “He must have,” Oskar said, turning his eyes to Gnag. “And then fed Gnag the lie that he was unwanted. But Madia wrote here that she held the brothers in love before she lost consciousness. When she woke, Bonifer told her the twin had died. He convinced her and Ortham to spare the kingdom the sorrow of the boy’s death, so they told no one there was a twin. Madia grieved for weeks. She even named him.”

  “What was his name?” Kalmar asked without taking his eyes from the battle in the sky.

  “I don’t even want to know,” Janner said. It didn’t matter anymore. Gnag was about to conquer them all anyway.

  “This doesn’t make any sense!” Nia clung to Leeli. “What does hewant?”

  “He wants to be king,” Leeli said.

  “No,” Oskar said. “That’s what hethinks he wants.”

  Nia shook her head again. “I don’t understand.”

  Gnag broke away from the three dragons and flew straight toward the Wingfeathers. Hulwen and the other dragons flew alongside him and bit at his flanks until Gnag reared up and attacked them again.

  “What are you saying, Mister Reteep?” Janner asked.

  “What Gnag really wants,” Oskar said as he held out the First Book and pointed at a line of script, “is a name.”

  Janner read the name, and all at once he understood. He closed his eyes and pushed his way into Gnag’s mind. Deep in the darkness he saw a crippled little boy. A boy wandering through a castle of horrors, a boy who had been told every day of his life that he was unwanted and unloved—worst of all, no one had even bothered to give him a name. Gnag had, after a time, named himself, choosing one that sounded as hideous as he believed himself to be, and of course it brought him no peace.

  He haunted the cold halls of Throg in bitter sorrow, hungry from an emptiness he couldn’t explain. It left a cavity in his soul that had hardened his heart until it was as cold and silent as a gravestone. A gravestone as nameless and blank as Gnag himself.

  He destroyed Anniera to repay his mother Madia’s cruelty with a greater cruelty. If he had no name, then he wouldmake one for himself. More than that, he yearned to make himself beautiful, desirable, a thing of such striking aspect that if Madia could see him, she would never have cast him off like a dead rat.

  And then, after the Castle Rysen was sacked, Gnag learned of the Fane of Fire and the children—the Jewels of Anniera. Treasures to their parents and their people, protected, named, and loved. Gnag’s bitterness had tightened to an unholy knot of contempt. The hole in his heart was like a whirlpool, sucking life and love and beauty into itself, not to absorb but to destroy, to wipe the world clean of what had become poison to his soul.

  It all unfolded in Janner’s mind like a terrible dream, and he gasped for breath. He looked up at Gnag through the storm of dragon wings. The white-skulled beast caught Janner’s eye in the midst of the clash, and it was clear that Gnag knew Janner had invaded his mind.

  Gnag thrashed against the dragons and drove his knee into Hulwen’s ribs. She shrieked and tumbled toward the earth. When she landed, she slid down the hill, leaving a muddy gouge in her wake, and lay still. An eerie silence followed, broken only by the flapping of wings. Though Hulwen was younger and smaller than the other two dragons, her defeat shocked them.

  As the two dragons—the green and the gold—stared at Hulwen, Gnag lunged forward and grabbed each of their necks and flung them straight toward the earth. They slammed into the hillside, broken and dying.

  Janner felt a surge of emotion in his mind, sensing Gnag’s elation. Tears leaked from the corners of Gnag’s black eyes as he glided over the Field of Finley with an insane smile stretched across his face.

  His eyes roved the Field for another enemy who might oppose him, but all that was left was a rabble of cloven among a rabble of weary men and women, all of whom stared up at him as if at the face of death itself. Their fear was to Gnag like perfume.

  A coldness coursed up through Janner’s legs when Gnag’s eyes came to rest on him and his family. Gnag alighted on the Field of Finley and approached, dragging his tail through the mud and stepping over the dead dragons. None of the Hollowsfolk or cloven moved. They knew their defeat.

  You see, boy?Gnag’s voice in Janner’s mind was calm now.All I have set out to do, I have done. All that I want, I have.

  “No, you don’t,” Janner said.

  “Behold the dead,” Gnag said, towering over the Wingfeathers. “Behold the mighty dragons, slain by my mightier hand. Think on the ruins of Anniera. Think on the death ofEsben.” Gnag gestured grandly at the death-strewn battlefield. “Behold the beauty of my works!”

  He crouched before the Wingfeathers, bringing his face close. When he breathed, Leeli’s hair blew back from her shoulders. “You say I don’t have what I wanted? I say there is nothing left to want.”

  “Davion,” Janner said.

  Gnag stared at him. “What?”

  “That’s your name.”

  After a pause, Gnag snorted. “I have no name.”

  “You always have,” Kalmar said. “Your name is Davion Wingfeather. Beloved of Madia.”

  The muscles in Gnag’s face sagged a little. He blinked slowly. His wings drooped and the veins in his arms diminished. He shook his head and narrowed his eyes again. “What do you mean?”

  Oskar jostled his way forward with the First Book over his head. He cleared his throat. “In the words of Madia Wingfeather, ‘I gave birth to two sons—one hale and whole, the other broken and so beautiful. I named the younger Jru, and the elder Davion, for I loved him with a special love. My heart burned for them both, fierce as sunfire. But when I awoke, Bonifer told me the elder—poor Davion!—had died. I wept for a fortnight. How I longed to see how the Maker would have shaped his lovely heart.’” Oskar held the book out for Gnag to see.

  “She always loved you,” Leeli said.

  Gnag recoiled, staggering backwards. A thousand emotions washed over his face and pulsed in Janner’s mind. He shook his head and his breaths came in gasps. “No,” he muttered. “Youlie!”

  “Bonifer lied,” Janner said. “Ouster Will lied.”

  “Quiet!” Gnag screamed.

  Janner sensed Gnag’s thoughts—a storm of questions and hopes and regrets swirling in a sea of confusion. “You have a name, uncle.”

  “It means nothing,” Gnag spat.

  “It means everything,” Ka
lmar said.

  Gnag bared his teeth. “Madia is dead. Whatever love she had for me is DEAD.”

  “She may be dead,” Leeli said, “but her love for you was real. It happened, and it will always have happened. Whatever you do, you can never change the truth that a baby was born, was loved, and was given a name.”

  Gnag coughed and dropped to one knee. He shut his eyes and gritted his teeth. “But Bonifer said . . .” He doubled over and clutched his stomach.

  “What’s your name?” Kalmar asked.

  “I have no name.” Gnag’s voice had lost its enormity. His gray lips moved, and he convulsed with a sob.I have no name. I have no name. I have no name. I have no name—

  What is your name?Janner asked in his mind.

  Gnag tumbled forward, lay on his side, and hugged his knees like a child. His wings splayed in the mud around him.I have no name.

  Leeli, Janner, and Kalmar stepped closer to Gnag’s head. It was as big as a boulder, white and wet and quivering. The Song Maiden reached out her tiny hand and placed it against Gnag’s cold flesh.

  “What’s your name?” she whispered into his giant ear.

  Gnag’s hands covered his face. He sobbed, and it was the saddest sound Janner had ever heard.

  In a wrecked, shivering voice, he answered at last, “My name is Davion Wingfeather.”

  85

  Aftermath

  Gnag the Nameless—Davion Wingfeather—rolled onto his back. His hands slid from his face and he opened his eyes. To Janner’s surprise, they had turned to a soft blue, the same color as Kal’s.

  He stared at the sky as tears flowed back from the corners of his eyes and pooled in the mud. The black sludge that had oozed from his wounds was now bright red and streaming from a hundred cuts and punctures. And though his monstrous size hadn’t changed, he seemed smaller somehow. All his soft white flesh had gone limp like an empty sack. It was easier to see the man in the monster now.