Knavish had struck a deal with thehellhounds. He had promised them a mammoth each, whatever those were, for anescort down to the skog village, whateverthat was. The wolves had not replied in wordsbut immediately began to carry out their sideof the bargain.
Cyrus wrestled againsthis bindings, trying to formulate some plan of escape. He wondered for the hundredth time ifhis people were still alive, or if the crumblingfossil that sustained them had vanished into the sea. Cyrus reflected on thelast time he had seen its shores.
Several months earlier, Cyrus’village had collapsed, and his brotherhad died in the destruction. The misguided villagers had blamed Cyrus’ trespass over the Dead Fence forthe cause of the disaster and had sentenced him to death for bringing a curse downon their homes. If it were not for Sarah Heiler risking all to help Cyrus escape, he would surely have hanged. He owed her so much. Sheoften invaded his thoughts. He wanted to tell her everything that had happenedsince his escape, but would she understand?
He had been forced to venture outto sea in search of a new land, a new home. Instead, he had discovered that anancient evil known as the Sea Zombie had corrupted his people’s hearts andcaused his village’s downfall. With Fibian and Edward’s help, Cyrus had foughtand defeated the Sea Zombie, yet the immortal witch still lived.
Cyrus again thought of the prophecy. Was it truly hisdestiny to destroy the Sea Zombie and scatter her ashes across the ocean? Howwas he to kill something that could not bekilled, and how was he to reunite hune and alve, and save his people’ssoul?
Cyrus had won the fight, but not the war,so the trio had fled north in search of the mighty Yeti Kingdom. Cyrus had hoped that the wise yeti would have knowledgeof the hune’s whereabouts. Instead, the three friends had stumbled across the crumbledremains of a fallen ice fortress and were taken prisoner by its few remainingsurvivors.
Cyruslearned that a mysterious queen had destroyed theYeti Kingdom and enslaved most of its population. Any knowledge of the hune hadvanished with the slaves into the mountains. He had also uncovered more of hisalleged prophecy. Child Eater, the yeti had called him.
Cyrus had decidedon a new course of action: find the queen, rescue the yeti, and discover themysterious hune’s secret whereabouts.
With Tier’sguidance, the rescuers had infiltrated the klops mine and driven its slaves torebel. Cyrus had nearly been destroyed in the upheaval. He had had no choice butto fulfill his dark fate. Child Eater, they had called him, and drinking infants’blood is what he had done. The klops blood had granted Cyrus size and strengthbeyond his wildest imagination. With his newly forged flesh, he had easily overpoweredGeneral Morte, beating the large klops to a pulp, before cleaving the mighty queen’shead from her body.
Cyrus had killed adefenseless woman, Fibian had claimed. What he had done, there was no comingback from, the froskman had said. Well, to hell with Fibian and his blind morality.The queen had taken so much from the yeti, so much from Cyrus. Look what shehad done to Edward. Without his fangs, the spider had become a mere shell of hisformer self. He would never be the same. Cyrus wished he could kill the queenone hundred times over. He could no longer trust Fibian’s judgment.
The freed slaveshad discovered Knavish trying to escape the mine through a secret tunnel. The yetihad pressed the lieutenant and learned that the cave led to a klops legion armoringthe living hune. Finally, Cyrus had had a clear goal to his quest. So how had hecome so far only now to be outwitted by a filthy klops?
They continuedtheir trek until morning’s first light. Frozen slopes gave way to tree-dappledhills. Then the sparse trees thickened into dense forest. Cyrus counted threemassive skeletons laying along the snowy path. Large, hooked tusks protrudedfrom the animals’ boulder-like skulls. Klops bones and the remains of smallercreatures also littered the trail.
The wolf pack ledKnavish and his prisoners to a cave den inhabited by a mountain lion. The wolvesmade their presence known, growling low. The big cat hissed as it emerged fromthe darkened crack in the rock. It took in the strange intruders, then preparedto pounce.
Bang!
The lieutenant firedhis weapon and the wolves feasted.
The strange groupof eight rested in silence within the den for most of the day. The wolves laidCyrus and Fibian on the ground, bound up, against opposing walls. Edward remainedtrapped around Knavish’s neck. The klops spent much of his time inspectingFibian’s mechanical hand, seeming to want to understand the yeti technology atplay.
The cave stank offrozen meat, bones and animal musk. Cyrus tried to cut his ropes against therock wall, but the surface was too smooth. He eyed his saber sheathed in the lieutenant’sbelt.
Dusk arrived. The wolvescontinued on. The clouds shifted with the rising moon, and for once the sky wasclear. They mounted a forested ridge, then descended into a steep valley. Cyrussaw the moon reflect off a large body of water. An inlet. The ocean.
He spotted tiny, twinklinglights along the northern shoreline, clustered together like a swirl of stars.The village, he guessed. Then he saw two islands off-shore, in the center of thebay, domed and wooded and speckled with small pinpricks of firelight. Cyrus hadseen similar islands once before, as he fled his crumbling home. The resemblancewas undeniable. Cyrus felt hope mixed with defeat. Again, he strained againsthis bonds, his sorrow and frustration pouring over. He was so close to savinghis doomed village, and yet so far.
“Come, Child Eater,”Knavish said, descending into the slumbering valley, “Your hune awaits.”
Chapter 4
WOLVES AT THE DOOR
THE WOLFISH PROCESSION neared the village lights. Several darklookouts crouched high above in tall, snowy trees. The sentries whistled andhooted warning signals to one another. If the klops were attempting to impersonatewildlife, they were failing miserably, Cyrus thought.
The wolves carriedtheir prisoners past a large, tusked skeleton harnessed to an old, broken-downcart. Snow buried both carriage and bone, and bits of frozen meat dangled fromthe thick ribcage.
They neared the village wall. Cyrus felt
