Elisheva had almost run after Tink, only to buffeted backwards by the force of the passing crowds.
"Come on, Tink, stop it!" Janner stood motionless at first.
It wasn't just that Tink had run away, though the thought made Janner so angry he wanted to punch his brother in the nose-it was that Tink had abandoned them.
"Ugh, fine!" Janner then grumbled under his breath. "Let him find his own way to the burrow."
He knew his little brother was uncomfortable with the idea of being king, but Janner was unprepared for this as much as Elisheva.
The river of Dugtowners seemed to grow in speed and size and hostility. The burrow where they desperately hoped the others waited suddenly seemed impossibly far away, as unreachable a destination as the moon itself.
Janner reached out to comfort Elisheva, but she pulled away, her face a mixture of anger and sadness.
Maybe such hurtful words wouldn't matter to anyone with thicker and more jaded skin, but they stung regardless. She didn't need to be reminded about how she failed to keep her father and little brother safe from the Fangs and from Gnag the Nameless.
"I can't believe he said that," Elisheva muttered under her breath. "After everything we've been through."
Perhaps this was Tink's way of proving himself to his older brother. It was true Janner had been hard on his younger brother, probably too hard. But this?
Janner watched his friend, torn between his loyalty to Tink and his concern for Elisheva. He reached out to comfort her, placing a gentle hand on her arm. "Elisheva, I'm sorry. Tink didn't... he shouldn't have said that."
Elisheva took a deep breath, trying to steady herself. "I know, Janner. And it hurts. We can't let this - we need to find him and bring him back."
So inevitably, they joined the mad flow of traffic on Riverside Road. They tripped, hopped, and ducked, straining to read the street signs over countless heads as he passed. Ronchy said if they took a left at Crempshaw Way, then a right on Tilling Street, they would eventually merge with Riverside again. He said it was the best way to bypass the busiest and most dangerous stretch, where the Fangs were ferried across the Blapp to Torrboro.
Elisheva looked left and right. Janner looked for Tink, craning his neck in every direction as he bustled along, but saw no trace. It would have been hard to find anyone in such chaos, especially someone as small and quick as Tink. Janner began planning the many things he would scream at his little brother once they were safe in the burrow again. His thoughts were interrupted by the glimpse of a street sign: CREMPSHAW WAY. A crow perched at the top of the pole.
"We have to find Tink and get to the burrow." Elisheva said.
"But... but it's not safe out there." Janner pointed out. "There's almost no cover."
Angry as they both were at Tink, Janner hoped to catch up to him here. He told himself he was mainly worried for Tink's safety, but he was just as worried for his own and for Elisheva's. He tried not to imagine what might happen if they were to lose their way in this maze of streets.
Both young woman and boy zipped between fishermen, seamstresses, and donkeys harnessed to carts laden with fish meat, until he stood with his hands on his knees, winded, only a few doors past Crempshaw Way.
The door behind them swung open, and out came four Fangs of Dang. They laughed and staggered down the step to the sidewalk where Elisheva and Janner stood. He froze and stared at his feet, she pretended to be fixing her cloak. The Fangs burped and cackled past, then disappeared into the crowd. Elisheva and Janner darted past a store that sold fishnets, then around the corner to Crempshaw Way. Crempshaw stretched upward from the river and into the heart of Dugtown.
A woman with a kind face carried a basket down the street toward Janner.
"Excuse me, ma'am?" he said timidly. "I'm looking for my brother. Have you seen a little boy, a little shorter than I am...?"
She regarded him sadly, then passed without a word and turned into the rush of Riverside Road. The same was true of everyone who saw them. They looked at the two with great sorrow, said nothing, and moved on.
Elisheva sighed. "Look, I didn't get a chance to tell you, your sibs, your mom and your grandpa, and Oskar, but... I intended we split up. By that I meant you guys could go on to the Ice Prairies, and I'd stay in Dugtown to look for my family."
Janner frowned, "You're telling me this now?"
"The thing is I overheard your grandfather saying there was a chance that my father and brother might be..." Elisheva said sadly then her face hardened. "But I refuse to believe it. I just don't want to imagine if they're gone, not without proof."
Janner didn't say anything for a few minutes. "I might've figured that." He said stuffing his hands in his pockets.
"Wait, so you're not ticked that I was ready to go off on my own?" Elisheva questioned.
Janner admitted. "Don't get me wrong, I'd like it better if you come with us, especially if Gnag's after you too. But I understand why you you'd have to. I just thought I had to... prepare for a new home without you in it."
"I meant what I said, I promised your mother I'd look after you." Elisheva said. "First thing's first..."
They were approaching the location Ronchy had told them about.
"OK... if it makes you feel better, we'll head for Tilling Street, catch our breath, and plan our next move from there. Ready?" Elisheva said.
Janner nodded. "Let's go."
And they walked the streets, the inevitable feeling of fear and growing paranoia unsettling them both.
"It's a public area..." Elisheva tried to rationalize.
"Maybe it's Fangs."
"I don't hear anything other than the usual sounds in a city – not like my own." Elisheva whispered back.
"Jan, we just gotta double back, maybe we-" but there was no answer from Janner. "Jan? Janner?" She looks around "Don't tell me you've lost me!"
Janner followed Crempshaw past several cross streets, dirt roads lined with plain gray houses much like the one where they had emerged the previous night, until he finally saw the word TILLING on a street sign.
The road stretched away in both directions, another gray lane littered with clucking chickens, shards of pottery, and old broken boards. The street boasted no houses, only deserted storefronts with broken windows, the doors long since stolen and used elsewhere.
Behind Janner, men and women moved up and down Crempshaw in forlorn silence, but Tilling stood empty as a graveyard. Janner was glad it was still morning, because he wasn't sure he would have the courage to walk such a dead street in the dark of night.
"Who cares that I'll be the one who gets in trouble even though he's the one that broke the rule?!" Janner complained. "Do you ever had-?"
The moment Janner turned to ask Elisheva, she wasn't with him. "Elisheva?" he murmured.
He'd lost sight of her. Not good.
There was no echo. The empty windows and doorways seemed to swallow the sound. Broken glass cracked beneath his feet. Rats scurried in the walls of the old buildings. Crows cursed and fussed on perches in the windows of the upper rooms and on the rails of crooked balconies.
"Elisheva!" he called in a loud whisper. "Tink?"
Janner didn't notice that as he walked right into the street, several dreary looking people noticed him. One watched from a corner, another spied him from inside a building, watching like a fox stalking a pheasant.
Elisheva's heart pounded in her chest as she scanned the bustling street, searching for any sign of Janner. Panic welled up inside her, threatening to consume her. She pushed her way through people, calling out his name and Tink's, but there was no response.
As the minutes ticked by, Elisheva's worry turned into desperation. She retraced her steps, searching every nook and cranny, hoping to find Janner hiding or lost somewhere. But neither he nor Tink were anywhere in sight. They were alone in a dangerous city, separated from the group, and now they were separated from each other.
Elisheva's mind raced with thoughts of what could have happened to Janner. Had he been captured by the Fangs? Had he been taken by someone else? The possibilities were endless, and none of them brought her any comfort. She felt a deep sense of responsibility for the Wingfeather children, and the guilt of losing sight of Janner weighed heavily on her shoulders.
With a heavy heart, Elisheva made a decision. She would continue searching for both the boys and her family in Dugtown, retracing their steps and asking anyone who would listen if they had seen a boy matching his description. She would not give up until she found him and they were reunited.
But as she walked the streets alone, fear gnawing at her insides, Elisheva couldn't help but feel a growing resentment towards Tink. He might be eleven years old and scared of the responsibility that came with his identity, but that didn't change the fact that he'd ditched both her and Janner.
As Elisheva weaved through the labyrinthine streets of Dugtown, her heart heavy with worry and her mind clouded with fear, she clung to the hope that she would soon find both the boys and her family. She knew they couldn't stay separated for long, if they were ever gonna keep one step ahead of Gnag the Nameless and his Fang stooges, they had to stick together.
Janner then reached the far end of Tilling Street where Ronchy had promised it emptied onto Riverside Road again.
But the road came to an abrupt end.
"What?" Janner before a stone wall as high and flat as the old brick buildings on either side. There was no way out other than the way he'd come.
Why would Ronchy send him this way? He had seemed so kind, so helpful, and the little man had been certain this was the safest, shortest route to the east side of Dugtown. Janner turned his back to the wall so he could see the street down which he had just run. Nothing moved. That was good. If anything had been lurking in the shadows, it would have attacked by now.
In the distance, Janner heard the muted sounds of a busy street. If he could just get over the wall, he could find his way to Riverside Road without having to brave the creepy emptiness of Tilling Street again. He crept to the alley between the two nearest buildings, but the rear was blocked by another wall. After inspecting a few more alleyways, he discovered that the wall stretched seamlessly behind every building on either side of the street. He was at the very end of what would make an excellent trap.
What worried him most, even more than Ronchy's faulty directions, was that Tink wasn't here either any more than Elisheva. Janner sighed. Some Throne Warden he was turning out to be. He now had to find both Tink and Elisheva, and he couldn't do that by cowering at the end of Tilling Street.
He took a deep breath intending to walk back the way he had come. Janner spun around, and felt chills go down his spine.
Twenty yards away were several gaunt men and women in rags reaching out towards him, and faces frowled at him with all the venom of the Fangs of Dang.
"Come here, child!" they hissed.
And they were closing in!
Frightened, Janner ran up a thick wooden scaffolding. He got his foot stuck when oit crashed though one plank but his fear, helped him get free.
The Street was anything but empty. It crawled with men and women even more broken and forgotten than the buildings where they lived, and they were doing their best to keep Janner from getting away.
He reached a small wooden henhouse, large enough to hold three people. Janner pounded on it frantically until part of it broke down so he could get inside just a ragged man and a hag nearly reached him.
"Don't be so slippery, laddie!" taunted the hag.
Arms sprouted from the boards, clawing at the air. A feather fell inches from Janner's face as he heard multiple twittering. He glanced up to see six skittish fazzle doves looking down at him from their perches.
He remembered reading something about them. When a fazzle dove gets nervous or scared, it releases a smelly gas to ward off any danger.
Getting an idea, Janner took one of the birds in his hands and began to shake it, before extending it so that one of his pursuers could grab ahold of it.
One of the ragged people took the fazzle dove and pulled it out. How could they not notice the feeling of the bird's feathers?
"What's this?" one of the beggars questioned as they held the tense fazzledove in their hands.
Janner didn't stay around for when the bird released its stenchy defense mechanism. He was already racing across the rooftop.
He took a running jump to get to the next rooftop.
"There he is!"
The alley below was a mass of dirty, angry faces. Janner was surprised to find that he felt pity for these poor souls. What had driven them to this?
On the other rooftop behind Janner, the other beggars hadn't given up.
"He's here!"
Janner felt his heart pounding as his eyes darted from them to the other rooftop.
The crowd below muttered hungrily. It was oddly comforting to know that if he fell, the mob would catch him.
In a split second, Janner made up his mind and jumped. However in the secnds it took for him to reach the other side, two ragged men held up a rug.
Janner landed on his back right into it. His arms and legs were pinned as the rug closed around him so that only his head stuck out.
"Does this belong to any of you?" one of the men that caught him sneered to the mob below.
"No." Those below responded.
"To the Overseer, then." The man shrugged as he and the other began carrying Janner downwards.
"To the Overseer! To the Overseer!" the men and women chanted.
The sound of many people breathing, rasping, and whispering was so terrifying that it was several moments before Janner cracked an eyelid. Legs everywhere, like tree trunks in a forest, except the roots of these trees bore ugly yellow toenails as long as toes themselves, curling up and down like monstrous ribbons.
Janner was carried over their heads, a cork bobbing on the surface of a dirty river. "Please, let me go!"
"But we've only just caught you, dearie!" laughed one of the hags.
After straining again at the ropes and finding them as tight as ever, Janner spotted the street sign on the corner. What he saw made his cheeks burn and a black rage sizzle in his chest. The sign said Tilling Court. Not Tilling Street.
Moments later, another street sign appeared that said Tilling Street, a road that, compared to where he had just been, seemed as safe and pleasant as the lane to the Igiby cottage. It stretched away east, just as Ronchy McHiggins had said, and in the distance Janner saw where it intersected with Riverside Road.
That was why he never saw Tink or Elisheva. Those two were smart enough to read the street signs.
"Ugh, I took the wrong Tilling!" Janner grunted in frustration.
Now he was captured and being taken to who knows where.
To be continued…
Author's note: Yeah, I decided to try something different here, rather than Elisheva join one of the boys in their upcoming ordeal. Keep your eyes peeled, the next chapters and upcoming fanstuff for this Isekai are in the works.