Abeke thought Arax the Ram was rather frightening, but he was nothing compared to Rumfuss. The boar was more than twice her height and had narrow, dark eyes. His hide looked more like armor than skin, and the hair that jutted out from either cheek looked like it would cut her hand if she touched it. Most dangerous looking, however, were the two thick tusks on either side of his snout. They gleamed yellow-white and looked like the sharp corners of two glowing stars. Several huge mounds of chewed apples, each as tall as Abeke, surrounded him on all sides.
Rumfuss grunted, stamped at the ground, and then he spoke with a resonant voice that seemed to boom from both inside and outside Abeke. “You . . . want?”
His words were filled with the hesitation of someone who does not speak a language fluently. Abeke thought it had probably been a long time since he’d spoken to any humans.
“Rumfuss,” she said politely. “We seek your talisman — the Iron Boar. We need it to defeat the Devourer.”
“Talisman?” Rumfuss grunted warily. He flicked his tail back and forth, the bundle of hairs on the end whishing at his legs. “Why . . . give it to you?”
“The Conquerors will come for it otherwise,” Meilin spoke up. “They’ve already taken my country, Zhong. And they’ve taken over Trunswick. And two Conqueror recruits are here, in this garden, looking for you — for the talisman.”
“Can . . . handle . . . recruits,” Rumfuss said. Abeke didn’t doubt that he’d be a match for Devin and Karmo, even with their powerful spirit animals.
“We still need the talisman, though,” Abeke pleaded. “We can’t handle the Conquerors on our own.”
“In return?” Rumfuss grunted.
“Um . . .” Abeke frowned. She looked to Meilin, who was equally lost.
“Freedom,” Rollan said. They turned to look at him. He was leaning against one of the peach tree’s branches, arms slung across it casually. He lifted his eyebrows at the girls. “That’s what anyone who’s in a cage wants most, no matter how big the cage is. Right, Rumfuss?”
The boar stamped the ground and nodded his head; Rollan smiled a bit in understanding.
“Wall,” Rumfuss said, turning his head and jutting his snout toward the edge of the peach trees. There was indeed an immense stone wall, which rose up high above even the Great Beast’s head. With all its jutting stones, it would have been nothing for an animal like Uraza to escape, but for a creature more lumbering, even one as huge as Rumfuss, it might as well have been a thousand feet tall.
“Not so fast,” a voice jolted through the dark. A voice Abeke knew. A voice she knew too well.
They whirled around. Uraza hunched and hissed, showing her impressive teeth. Rumfuss stamped the ground and gave a throaty, rolling growl. Even Jhi hunched forward and flexed her muscles.
“What a reception,” Devin said, grinning like this was all a fantastic game. “Abeke! I see you managed to escape. My own fault — I always underestimate how wily vermin can be when they’re cornered.” Karmo, standing beside Devin, looked sour at the joke, though Devin snickered hard at his own genius.
“Rumfuss, we’re going to need that talisman,” Devin continued. He whistled sharply; the wildcat appeared at his side. Karmo’s hammerkop flapped out from the trees, thick bill open and menacing.
Rumfuss looked unimpressed — and Abeke couldn’t blame him. The three of them, their spirit animals, and Rumfuss the Great Beast against Devin and Karmo? They could handle this.
But then Devin grinned even wider, and whistled again. Now the trees were alive with footsteps, footsteps of all sizes, skittering sounds, crunching sounds, the sounds of hooves and paws and human feet on the ground. Conquerors — a dozen or more, and all with spirit animals — poured from the foliage. There was a man with an iguana around his shoulders, and another with a meerkat crouched at his feet. There was a giraffe, a lemur, and a bobcat, each paired with a human who looked armed and ready for combat.
Devin had snuck Conquerors into Glengavin.
“Well, Rumfuss? The Iron Boar Talisman?” Devin said, holding out his hand.
Rumfuss studied Devin for a moment, so long a moment that Abeke began to worry he was going to give in. But then the boar lowered his head. He huffed, nostrils flaring, and his hackles lifted.
Then he charged.
17: Battle
“I HEAR THE OTHERS! THEY’RE UP AHEAD!” CONOR SHOUTED back to Finn. Briggan was in the lead and howled as he blasted through the orchard, leaping over grapevines and dodging tree trunks. Conor wasn’t exactly sure who they were just yet — but he knew they were either in trouble or they were trouble. Animal sounds rose up like a storm in the night — roars, chirps, growls, snarls, hoots, and cries. Overhead, a falcon shrieked.
“That’s Essix!” Finn shouted.
Conor’s heart thrummed frantically. Briggan howled again, guiding them through the vines, until . . .
Conor’s pounding heart stopped instead.
Conquerors. Spirit animals. A boar as large as a carriage — that had to be Rumfuss. And in the middle of it all, Abeke, Meilin, and Rollan. Abeke and Uraza worked as a team, bounding off trees and tackling their opponents. Uraza knocked them down, with Abeke moving quickly behind her to fling the smaller spirit animals away and deliver a few well-placed kicks to her downed opponents’ ribs. Jhi was safely in passive state, a tattoo on the same arm Meilin used to box a Conqueror in the nose. Rollan dove under arms and ducked through legs like someone with a bit of practice at evading authority.
“Conor!” Meilin cried desperately, somehow seeing him between Conquerors. Saying his name took Meilin’s concentration away for a heartbeat too long — a macaw swooped down and blinded her with scarlet feathers and claws. It gave a nearby enemy enough time to grab her by the leg and pull her down.
“Briggan!” Conor shouted to the wolf, who darted into the crowd and heaved the Conqueror off Meilin. Another one, however, took his place in an instant — there were too many. Far too many.
A bobcat leaped for Conor’s face; he threw his staff into the air just in time to knock it away. He bashed it a second time in the head, rendering it unconscious, then ran forward, staff held horizontal so that it crashed into the backs of a few unsuspecting Conquerors. A baboon grabbed hold of his arm, yanking him down so hard Conor thought he might have dislocated his shoulder. Wincing through the pain, Conor whirled around and punched it squarely in the face. Rollan was suddenly there, offering him a hand up, but he’d no sooner found his feet than he realized a group of Conquerors were surrounding the two of them.