life.
Aamon shifted, then began to rise. Glenn scrambled backward as it crossed the stream and lowered itself into the moonlight.
Ever since she was a little girl, Glenn loved science because it taught her to take new things and incorporate them seamlessly into what she already knew about the world. It was like adding a new room onto an ornate but ever more perfectly constructed house. In science, she learned, everything is connected and everything is explained.
Despite that, when she looked at the nightmare that crouched before her in the moonlight, she couldn’t help but wonder if Dr. Kapoor had been right about her. Had her parents’ madness finally fallen to her?
Aamon Marta’s body was covered in what looked to be thick fur that blanketed the rise and fall of his slablike muscles and his fingers did in fact end in glistening claws. But it was his face that made Glenn’s stomach go cold. It was nearly human, but not quite. It was more like a panther’s, a broad triangle topped with arrow-shaped ears and a dark muzzle. His green, vertically slit eyes glowed with an almost sickly light. When Aamon breathed, his mouth opened, revealing deadly rows of fangs above and below.
“Now that you have seen me,” Aamon said in his deadly growl,
“may we go?”
They came to the edge of the forest late that night. Aamon
shouldered through the tree line and disappeared with Kevin cradled in his arms. Glenn stood frozen at the edge. It was insane, she thought.
There were no villages on the other side of the border. She had seen the pictures to prove it. But what choice did they have? It was too far to go back now. Glenn steeled herself and stepped through the trees.
Glenn’s breath left her in a rush. Before her was not the
devastation promised by a hundred school lessons and satellite photos; instead there was a long grassy clearing and, at the end of it, the towering outer wall of a small village. The wall seemed to be made of stout logs stacked one on top of the other to a height of twenty feet or more. Every turning of the wall featured what looked to Glenn like watchtowers. Each one carried burning torches that cast a flickering light, which spilled down the face of the wall and onto the grassland before it.
Aamon stopped a few steps ahead of her. He was standing just outside the reach of the lights, looking up at the wall.
“If this is it, then let’s go,” Glenn said, striding past him.
She gasped as one of Aamon’s giant hands fell on her shoulder.
The needlelike tips of his claws pressed into her skin. The barest pressure would drive them through.
“I need you to take him,” Aamon said. “It would be better.”
Glenn didn’t look back. The sight of Aamon still unnerved her. It was as if his body was a cypher Glenn’s mind was scrambling to decode and getting nowhere. She forced herself to push it aside. The only thing that mattered now was Kevin. She nodded stiffly and Aamon rolled Kevin into her waiting arms. He was still unconscious and seemed to weigh little more than a puff of air. Only a hint of a pulse fluttered at his throat.
“Do what I tell you and say nothing,” Aamon instructed. “Do you understand? Outsiders are not welcome here.”
Glenn drew Kevin close but before they had taken more than a few steps a bell began to toll deep within the compound. In between the tones, Glenn could hear people moving inside. Shadows leapt into the guardhouses with a clank of metal.
“No farther,” a voice boomed, followed by what sounded like ropes being stretched taut in each watchtower. Small metallic points glinted in the firelight.
“I said no farther, stranger, or we’ll drop you where you stand.”
Aamon didn’t check his stride. Every step brought him closer to the ring of firelight around the village. There was a leather creak as bowstrings were pulled farther back. Aamon was less than a yard from the halo of light now and wasn’t slowing.
“Archers!” the man called out, readying them.
“Stop!” Glenn shouted.
But Aamon didn’t stop, not until he was standing fully in the light. Everything went still. Aamon’s bluish-gray fur shone in the fires’
glow. His clawed hands were clasped behind his back, and his head was slightly down as if he was waiting patiently for a visit from the welcoming committee.
There was activity behind the walls, jostling bodies and panicked voices followed by what sounded like a lock being thrown and a long creak as the front gate swung open. An old man came hurrying out of the village gate. Every step seemed a prelude to his tripping over the fluttering ends of his dark robes and sprawling out into the grass.
When he reached them the man crumpled to his knees before
Aamon. His bald head, fringed in white, fell and his open palms spread out on the ground next to him.
“Aamon Marta,” the man stuttered. “Please forgive us. It’s been so long. I am Decker Calloway. We thought you had gone. We … we all are pleased at your return. We’ll send an emissary to the Magistra right away. I — ”
“No,” Aamon snapped. “Stand up.” Calloway trembled but didn’t rise. “I said stand up!”
Aamon’s voice was a clap of thunder. Calloway flinched, then did as he was told, his body shaking, his eyes on the ground.
“I have an injured human,” Aamon said. “He needs attention.”
Calloway glanced nervously at Glenn and Kevin. His eyes moved over Kevin’s green hair and leather jacket. Glenn stepped back, drawing Kevin closer to her.
“They are returning spies,” Aamon said quietly. “Sent across the border by the Magistra. Is Calle Frit still doctor here?”
“Pardon me, sir, but no. His son is, though he is out with the regent at the moment.”
“Who is the current regent?”
“Sir, it is Garen Tom.”
A sound rose in Aamon’s throat like an idling engine. Calloway tensed as he clearly fought the urge to flee.
“Is he near?” Aamon asked.
“No, sir. He is out near White Oak, hunting a Farrickite traitor.
We could send word — ”
“No. Prepare his quarters for us and bring me the doctor’s spare instruments. We also require food and drink.”
“Of course, sir.” Calloway leapt to his feet and backed away from Aamon, head down, not turning his back until he was some distance away.
Glenn followed Aamon through the gates, studying the wall as they drew closer. In the spill of the firelight, she saw that the spaces between the logs were filled with a mix of mud and hay. High up in the towers, the eyes of the guards, framed in tarnished armor, watched them pass.
Glenn stepped through the gateway and onto a dirt road that led through the center of town. As soon as she did she clutched Kevin tight and had to stifle a gasp.
The road was lined on both sides by ranks of kneeling villagers.
They were all dressed in little more than rags and, like Calloway, they had their heads down, exposing the back of their necks. Their hands lay at their sides, palms up. Each one of them was as motionless as stone.
They looked like prisoners silently awaiting execution.
Aamon stood just ahead of her, staring at the ground as if he expected the stretch of dirt between the
