The Merchant of Death

by D. J. MacHale

  Loor stood stunned as well. Only Uncle Press wasn’t surprised. Finally he kicked into gear.

  “The quig pens, go!” he commanded. Then as an aside to me he said, “Cutting it a little close, aren’t you?”

  He knew I had the whistle all along! How could he have known that? Maybe he didn’t know I had dropped the one he gave me in the mountains. Either way, he was calm because he knew I would use the whistle to stop the quigs. I gotta say it again, the guy is cool. And I’m glad he was back in action now because my plan didn’t go beyond blowing the whistle to stop the quig. I had no clue of what to do next, but Uncle Press did. That was good. His plan had us escaping through the only avenue open to us…the holding pen where the quigs were kept. That was bad. But he was right, there was no other way, so we all ran for the door.

  The crowd watched in stupefied awe. It was Kagan who made the first move. She jumped off her throne, ran forward still clutching her turkey leg and squealed out, “Stop them!”

  One of the Milago spectators yelled out an impassioned, “Run!” The other Milago spectators took his lead and started to cheer for us too. It was like they had all suddenly snapped into delirious football fan mode as they cheered for us like we were running a hundred-yard kickoff return. It was the most life I had seen from these people since I got here. Maybe seeing us escape from that ring was the first time their side had a chance of winning. For those few moments it was like every one of those Milago were down on that field with us, running for freedom.

  But what lay ahead was every bit as deadly and dangerous as what we were escaping from. As we ran I continued to blow the whistle and the quig kept writhing in agony. Suddenly I felt a hand on my shoulder and I was jerked to a stop. It was Uncle Press. It was a good thing he stopped me because if I had taken one more step I would have walked right into the path of a spear that was thrown from the top of the stadium by one of the knights. The spear screamed down and stuck into the ground like a javelin in the exact spot where I was headed. I had been so focused on the quig that I forgot there were Bedoowan guards swarming the place. I looked up and saw them all running down the stadium steps toward us. Worse, several had unleashed their spears and the dark, deadly shafts were raining down on us from above.

  “Keep your head up, keep moving,” commanded Uncle Press.

  Uncle Press had the presence of mind to grab the spear that had barely missed me. Loor took one as well. I didn’t grab one. That little metal whistle was every bit as powerful a weapon as those spears and I wasn’t about to lose this one the way I lost the whistle on that sled. I’d leave the sharp stuff to those who knew how to use it.

  With the Milago miners cheering deliriously and the spears stabbing the ground around us, we made it across the field and into the dark tunnel. Just before ducking in I glanced up at the royal box and at Mallos. I didn’t like what I saw. I expected him to be leaning out of the box, shouting commands at the knights to stop us. After all, this was his big demonstration to the Milago and it was falling apart before his eyes. But that’s not what I saw. Instead I saw Mallos standing next to the throne with his arms folded, looking calm. I could swear that he had a smug smile on his face. Maybe I was reading too much into it, but it was almost like he wasn’t surprised by what was happening. No, it was like he was enjoying it! Could he have anticipated this? Were things playing out the way he wanted them to? I remembered his words to me back in the palace. Though he was sending us to certain death, he spoke as if this wouldn’t be the last battle between us. Of course, the question was, if this wasn’t the last battle, what was?

  I couldn’t think about it too long, for we were in the process of jumping into the fire outside of the frying pan and I needed to keep my head on straight. I was the last one into the tunnel and away from the falling spears. But before I got too far along I heard a command barked from behind, “Stop!”

  I looked back and saw two Bedoowan knights standing in the large open doorway. They each had their spears drawn back, ready to throw, and I was way too close for them to miss. The others had already disappeared into the gloom of the quig pen ahead of me, so it was just me and the knights. It looked as if after all I’d been through, it was going to end with one of these knights skewering me with his harpoon.

  As I stood there staring back at the knights who were about to kill me, I froze…and stopped blowing the dog whistle. It was still in my lips, but there wasn’t any blowing going on. I was too scared. That’s what happens when you are seconds away from death.

  The knights cocked their arms ready to throw their spears. All I could do was hold my breath and brace against the impact. My only thought was: “Oh man, I hope this doesn’t hurt too bad.”

  That’s when my savior arrived. With a screeching howl the quig from the ring came back into play. It charged the knights from behind and slammed them both to the ground with a giant paw on each. When I stopped blowing the whistle, the quig had gotten its act back together…and now it wanted revenge. I actually felt bad for the two knights because they were seconds away from a bloody death. The quig let out an angry bellow that shook the ground. Though the two knights had been about to kill me, I couldn’t stand seeing anyone die the way they were about to. So I took a breath to blow the whistle and stop the quig. Before I could blow, Uncle Press grabbed my hand.

  “Save them and they’ll kill you,” he said soberly.

  He was right. If the knights got away, they wouldn’t be grateful, they’d try to kill me again. Then they’d go after the others. No, this was war, and the knights were going to be the next victims. I nodded to Uncle Press and he let me go. He walked further into the dark pen and I turned to follow. I don’t think I will ever forget the sounds I heard behind me as I ran. I won’t even describe them to you because it was too horrifying. I will say this: Their deaths weren’t as quick as the Milago prisoner’s. That’s because the quig had to work its way through the knights’ armor first.

  For a moment I felt a surge of guilt. Not about the two knights who were being devoured, but for the poor Milago miner who had died in the ring earlier. I had been so stunned by the quickly unfolding events that I hadn’t thought to use my whistle. Could I have saved him? I don’t know for sure. I’ll never know. My only solace came from the fact that if I had tipped my hand back then, we wouldn’t have gotten together with Uncle Press, who was now helping us make our escape. Maybe all things happen for a reason.

  But our escape was not yet complete. We now faced a different danger. We were in the bowels of the quig pen. I could only hope that there was another door somewhere that would lead us out. There had to be another way out. The trick was to stay alive long enough to find it. Sunlight snuck in through the cracks in the rock walls, sending bright slices of light throughout the place. Because these light beams were so bright, they created deep shadows everywhere. That’s what I feared. The shadows. There could be quigs lurking there, ready to spring.

  The quig pen was nothing more than a big cave that had been dug out of the rock. The cavernous space was broken up by low walls made of stone that acted as corrals for the quigs. I figured that out because a few of the pens had heavy metal chains attached to the walls that I was sure were used to restrain a quig. In each of the large pens there was some kind of haylike material spread out, I guessed to soak up whatever the beasts decided to deposit. It wasn’t doing a very good job, though. The place smelled vile. Remember how I described the smell that came from the latrine hole in the Milago hut? Well, multiply that by about a thousand and you’ll have the smell of the quig pen. It was a combination of quig waste, rotten meat, and death.

  Uncle Press turned back to me and said, “Keep that whistle handy.”

  Yeah, right, like he needed to remind me of that. If I held that metal whistle any tighter it would have snapped in two. Uncle Press walked on cautiously, with his spear at the ready. I walked close behind him, though I didn’t like being last. I kept glancing back over my shoulder to make sure nothing snuck up from behind
. After walking for a few moments, I heard something that made me stop short. It was a growl and it was coming from the pen to my right. I snapped a look and saw a quig lying there on its side. It must have been the quig that just ate the Milago prisoner, because it was looking all sleepy and relaxed. This monster had no interest in us. It was grooming itself by licking its giant paw. The blood it licked off was the final clue that it was indeed the quig who had just feasted. Gross. I continued walking while keeping my eyes on the bloated quig…and tripped over something. When I looked to see what it was, I swear I almost barfed. It was a leg bone. A human leg bone. I knew it was human because the skeleton foot was still attached. I scanned more of the floor and saw that there were tons of bones scattered about. It became disgustingly clear that feeding time for the quigs meant the death of more Milago.

  We continued to walk along and I saw that there were many quig corrals, but no more quigs. I guess they didn’t keep many down here at one time. That was fine by me. Maybe the two quigs I saw today were the only quigs down here. But looking around this dark labyrinth I saw many tunnels that led off to places unknown. There could very well be a quig down any one of them who would catch a whiff of us and come running. I wasn’t about to relax until we were out of there.

  Then Uncle Press stopped and held out a hand to still me. He had heard something. I listened and heard it too. Something was coming toward us. Fast. I put the whistle to my lips, ready to blow my lungs out, but Uncle Press stopped me. He wanted to make sure what it was first. Good thing too, because as it turned out it wasn’t a quig. It was Alder. If I had blown the whistle, I might have woken up a napping quig.

  Alder ran up to us out of breath and said, “Loor has found the way out. This way!” He then turned and ran back the way he came.

  Excellent. We were one step closer to getting out of there. Uncle Press nodded to me and took off running after Alder. I followed close behind. We ran through the dark tunnels as quietly as possible so as not to sound the dinner bell. After a few turns I began to see light up ahead. We were headed toward a section of the quig pen that was brighter than where we’d been. We made one last turn around a rock outcropping and I saw why.

  There was a large, round hole in the rock ceiling. I saw blue sky above. I even heard the sound of crashing waves. We were right on the edge of the bluffs. The hole was big, maybe about the size of your above-ground pool, Mark. It was just about the right size for a quig to fit through. I now saw how the Bedoowan managed the quig pen. All they had to do was shove a quig into the hole from above and it would fall into this cavern and be trapped. The only way out was through the door to the stadium. I guess once a quig was down here, it never left because the hole was too high for an animal to crawl back out. Of course, that also meant it was too high forus to climb out of too. Our freedom was a mere thirty feet away, but it was thirty feet straight up and out of our reach. I had no clue how we could possibly make it.

  But Loor did. When Alder and Uncle Press and I arrived at the hole, she was busily tying a long vine to the end of her stolen Bedoowan spear.

  “There is a rope up there,” she explained quickly. “I will get it down for us to climb out.”

  I looked up and saw that sure enough there was a thick rope that looped down below the hole. My guess is that this was an emergency escape route for any unlucky Bedoowan who happened to stumble down here. One of his buddies could drop the rope from above for him to climb out.

  “Make it fast,” said Uncle Press. “We gotta get out before the knights catch up.”

  He was right. Even if we got out of here, that didn’t mean the Bedoowan knights wouldn’t be waiting for us on top. They may have been barbaric, but they weren’t idiots. If this were the only way out, they would be headed for this hole for sure. The faster we got out, the better chance we had of getting away. Suddenly I was less concerned about the quigs than about what we might find above.

  Loor expertly tied the long vine to the spear and stood up. She tested its weight since it was now imbalanced because of the vine. Then she looked up at her target. To be honest, I had no doubt that she would nail this on the first shot. That’s how good she was. With a grunt of air, she javelin tossed the spear up at the dangling rope. It flew toward the ceiling with the long vine trailing behind like a contrail. The spear made a perfect arc through the loop of the hanging rope and careened back toward the ground. Loor had just threaded a needle thirty feet in the air. The trailing vine draped over the loop of rope with both ends now touching the ground. Alder quickly grabbed the vine and gave it a yank, pulling down the rope. Our escape route was set. Loor had done it. I told you, she was good.

  Now as I looked up at that rope, all that came to mind was the dreaded rope climb in gym class. I hated that. Some guys could climb that rope like monkeys. I wasn’t one of them. Sure I could get up, but it wasn’t quick. And right now, speed was a good thing. But what choice did I have? None. All I could do was hope that adrenaline would help me climb this thing.

  Loor started up first. I wasn’t surprised to see that she climbed it like one of the aforementioned monkey boys. I don’t think she even used her legs. She muscled up the rope as if gravity weren’t an issue. She got to the top in seconds and climbed up through the hole. She scanned the outside and leaned back down to say, “We are alone. Hurry.”

  That was good. The knights hadn’t figured out what we were doing yet. Maybe theywere idiots after all. Loor then threw something down to us. I had to duck out of the way or it would have hit me. When I looked back, I smiled with relief. It was a rope ladder. I guess not all the Bedoowan were as strong as Loor. Some of the weenies had to take the easy way up, like me. I had no problem with that.

  Uncle Press grabbed the bottom of the ladder and held it taut.

  “Alder, go,” he commanded.

  Without hesitation our Bedoowan friend began his climb. He was kind of a big, clumsy guy so he wasn’t as quick on the rope as Loor. Still, he was on his way up and that was good. As he climbed, Uncle Press looked to me and for the first time he smiled.

  “That was a brave thing you did, Bobby,” he said. “Jumping in the ring like that.”

  I was feeling pretty good about myself. Granted, I was pretty sure the whistle would work, but still it was a scary thing to do. Maybe I even impressed Loor. But even though I was feeling all proud, I had to act the way all good heroes act at a time like this.

  “No big deal,” I said with as much humility as I could muster. “You would have done the same thing.”

  I looked up and saw that Alder was struggling, but he was almost at the top. I took the few seconds left before it was my turn to ask something that was bugging me.

  “You weren’t surprised to see me,” I said to Uncle Press. “How come?”

  “I know you, Bobby,” was his answer. “Maybe better than you know yourself. I knew you’d come after me. And since you had the whistle, I knew you’d use it.”

  I don’t think Uncle Press realized how close I was tonot coming. I thought back to where my head was when I first arrived on Denduron and I was ashamed to remember how rescuing Uncle Press was pretty low on my list of concerns. But you know, the bottom line is that I made the right decision. So maybe it’s okay to think like a weenie sometimes, so long as you don’t act like one. There’s a grand philosophy in there someplace. I’ll leave it up to you guys to figure out what it is.

  “You were right,” I said. “Except for one thing.”

  “What’s that?” Uncle Press asked.

  “This isn’t the whistle you gave me. I lost that when we hit that boulder.”

  Uncle Press gave me a quizzical look. It was the first time I saw doubt in his face since we started this adventure.

  “I don’t get it,” he said. “Did you make another one?”

  I held up the silver whistle and said, “No, this is from home.”

  Uncle Press quickly let go of the rope ladder, then swiped the whistle out of my hand.

  “How d
id you get this?” he demanded. “Did you bring it with you?”

  Uh-oh. Something told me I had done a bad thing.

  “N-No,” I said nervously. “I wrote to my friends and told them I needed one. Then I took the flume back to the subway and—”

  Uncle Press did something stunning. He took the whistle, whirled, and threw it up and out of the hole in the ceiling!

  “Throw it in the ocean!” he shouted to Loor above. “Now!”

  Loor obeyed without question. She picked up the whistle and threw it. Uncle Press then spun back to me and stared me down with a look of intensity that made my knees buckle.

  “I told you,” he seethed. “We can only use what the territory has to offer! That’s why I didn’t bring the gun with me.”

  My mind was spinning. That’s exactly what he had warned me about, but frankly, I forgot.

  “Did you get anything else from home?” he asked.

  Uh-oh again. Not only had I gotten some other things, I left them scattered all over the Bedoowan palace. I wasn’t sure why this was such a bad thing, but from the look on Uncle Press’s face, I had made a grave mistake. Before I fessed up we heard a noise. It came from deep down in one of the tunnels that stretched out behind us. Uncle Press and I both whirled toward the sound. We listened a moment…then heard it again. Yup, it was a growl. Turned out there were more than two quigs in the cavern after all and from the sound of things, our new company had just woken up.