“Him?” the man said, his voice rich with disbelief.
“Well, he’s not usually so dirty,” Rayna pointed out, exasperated.
Anders looked back at the woman. “If you follow this road,” he said, pointing, “you’ll end up at the market. There’s a lot of food there.”
Go on, he silently urged her.I’m giving you a way to get what you want. Just take it.
The woman paused, then nodded at her partner. “Let’s go,” she said.
The man walked past Anders, Rayna, Sam, and Pellarin on the stretcher. He took his time sauntering, as if to make sure they knew that he could stop if he wanted, that he could do anything that he wanted. He took a good, long look at Pellarin, who closed his eyes.
The wolf in Anders wanted to growl in the back of his throat. But he kept himself quiet.
As soon as the man and the woman were gone, thechildren hurried on down the uneven road, heading for the gate.
“Come to think of it,” said Rayna, puffing now, “whereisthe mayor?”
“Out at the camps, probably,” Sam said.
“The camps?” Anders asked.
“They’re outside the city,” Sam supplied, “where nothing can fall off a building and land on top of you. Most people are going there. They’ve gone out the west and northwest gates and they’re sheltering along the banks of the Sudrain River.”
“Have they gone to Upper Vadobrun?” Rayna asked, no doubt imagining the lay of the land from her now-usual view high above it, and thinking of the village to the north of the city.
“Too far,” Sam replied. “That’s nearly a full day’s walk, and it’s too small anyway. Nowhere for us all to fit.”
“But there are still people left in here,” Anders protested. “The mayor can’t just leave, not to a camp and not to a village.”
“Notmanypeople,” said Sam with a shrug, “and they don’t care about people like us. Who’d miss us if we were gone?”
“Us,” said Anders. “We would miss you.”
But he knew that Sam was right. The man who had thrown the rock at the Wolf Guard had been right. The elementals never thought about the people who were caught up in their troubles, just like the people of Holbard had never thought about the street children.
But Anders would. He would help Sam and Pellarin, and he would find Jerro.
He would help everyone.
Somehow.
Chapter Three
IT TOOK MORE THAN A LITTLE WRANGLING TO GETthe stretcher suspended underneath Mikkel, but they managed it in the end. When he and Rayna touched down at Cloudhaven with Anders, Lisabet, Sam, and Pellarin, there was a surprise waiting for all of them.
Ellukka and Theo had returned safely from Drekhelm, but they weren’t alone. Waiting with them on the landing pad were three more of the Finskólars. Quiet and thoughtful Bryn, their languages expert—whom Anders had been wishing were here only the night before—was standing beside Ellukka. A little way behind them, staring up at the sky, was the absentminded Isabina, the Finskól’s resident mechanics expert. Waiting with his usual broad grin, his golden curls lit up by the sunset, waving enthusiastically, was Ferdie, who was studying medicine at the Finskól. Orhadbeen studying medicine, perhaps, if he was here. Werethe three of them even Finskólars anymore, if they’d left Drekhelm?
“What happened?” asked Anders as he slid down from Rayna’s back. He reached up to help Sam down so they could start pulling off Rayna’s harness. “I mean, it’s good to see you, hello, but also what happened?”
He shot a quick, inquiring glance at Ellukka, though, and she flashed him a smile, confirming it was indeed good news.
When Mikkel and Theo had made their escape from Drekhelm a couple of days before, it had been the Finskólars who had gotten in the way of the Dragonmeet pursuing them. What they hadn’t known at the time was whether their classmates were tripping up the adults and buying the boys time to run for it accidentally or on purpose. The presence of Bryn, Isabina, and Ferdie answered that question now.
“What?” said Ferdie. “You thought that Leif was going to give us all those talks about loyalty and none of them were going to sink in? You’re Finskólars. You need us. We’re here.” He paused, craning his neck to look over at where Lisabet and Theo were carefully unstrapping Pellarin’s stretcher from Mikkel’s harness. “And I think,” he continued, “I’m needed over there.”
“He’s hurt his leg,” Lisabet called. “Probably broken it.”
Sam and the dragons crowded around to help untie the stretcher and carry it across the landing pad toward the entrance hall. Anders jogged ahead of them, to where the wolves were emerging from the arch. Judging by their expressions, they hadn’t realized that extra dragons were waiting for them outside.
