D. MacHale - The Merchant of Death

She did. The rope whiplashed away and we all fell back. A second later I heard the heavy sound of the quig hitting the ground below. It let out a yelp of pain. Good. Served it right.

As we all lay there, trying to catch our breath, I looked down the bluff toward the stadium. It was about three hundred yards behind us. We had traveled quite a way in the quig pen. It was hard to believe that a huge stadium was dug below the surface, and even more amazing was how, beneath the stadium, was an elaborate, multileveled palace.

A moment later I realized that we weren’t safe yet. The Bedoowan knights had finally figured out what we were doing. Several of them were now climbing up out of the stadium to come after us.

“We gotta move,” I announced while pointing back to the palace.

Without another word we all jumped up and ran for the woods. Our best hope was to lose them in the dense forest that surrounded the Milago village. Compared to what we had just come through, this was going to be a piece of cake.

Loor led the way again. She took us on another romp through the forest, but this time I knew what to expect. I was in for another grueling cross-country trek, but I didn’t care. The further we got away from the palace, the more I realized that we had done exactly what we had set out to do. Uncle Press was running next to me because we had saved him. We went in, we found him, and we got him out. How cool was that? Better still, my adventure was almost over. As soon as we got him back to the Milago village, he could take charge of their rebellion and I could go home. So even though we were running like scared deer through the forest, I began to relax because my job was nearly complete. I already started plotting how I would go back down into the mines, make my way to the flume, and launch myself home, for good.

Loor ran us a long way around. We were on the far side of the farmland, maybe a half mile from the Milago village.

“Can we rest awhile?” asked Alder.

I was happy that it wasn’t me who burned out first, for a change. So we stopped and the four of us stood together to catch our breath. After a few seconds I looked to Loor and smiled, but she didn’t smile back. Neither did Alder. I looked to Uncle Press and he scowled back at me. What was going on? Was it because I had used the dog whistle from home? Okay, maybe it was against the rules, but if I hadn’t done it, we’d all be on the inside of some quig by now. I think I deserved a little more credit than I was getting. Before I had the chance to say something about it, we heard a sound. It was a loud, sharppop, like a firecracker. No, it was louder than that. It was more like a cherry bomb. Both Loor and Alder tensed. Uncle Press shot a glance in the direction of the sound too. From the look on his face I could tell that something was wrong. It didn’t seem out of the ordinary to me, though. I hear sounds like that at home all the time. It could be a car backfiring, or fireworks, or even somebody’s TV. But we weren’t at home. Whatever made that sound was something out of the ordinary for Denduron.

There were two more pops.Crack. Crack. Uncle Press jogged toward the sound. The rest of us followed.

We traveled a short distance through the woods until we came upon the edge of a clearing. This was an area I hadn’t seen before. It was past the Milago farmland and not exactly on the beaten track. Uncle Press hid behind a tree to watch what was going on. We all followed his lead. What we saw seemed to be some kind of target practice. On one side of the clearing was a line of scarecrow-type figures that were crudely made out of straw. Opposite them was a group of Milago miners, each holding one of the slingshots I had found down in the mines. The miners were practicing throwing stones at the scarecrows. They each had a pile of rocks at their feet that were about the size of walnuts. They would put one of the stones in the slingshot, spin it overhead, and release it. They were pretty accurate, too. But still, a small stone being flung from a slingshot wasn’t going to do much to stop a knight in full armor.

I then found out how very wrong I was.

Someone stepped forward holding a small basket. It was Figgis, the crafty little salesman. He walked up to each of the throwers and held the basket out to them. The throwers reached inside and took out another kind of rock. These new stones looked very different. They were about the same size as the stones they had been flinging, but they looked soft and rusty red colored. It seemed to me these new rocks would do even less damage than the rocks they had been flinging, yet the shooters held them gingerly as if they were precious. The first shooter loaded a new stone, spun the slingshot over his head and let it fly. The rust-colored stone shot across the clearing toward its target. When it hit the scarecrow, the scarecrow exploded in a ball of fire!

Whoa! The Milago had some kind of explosive that detonated on impact! Those were the loud pops we were hearing. I looked to Loor and Alder. They were just as shocked as I was. Uncle Press watched intently. Nothing surprised him.

The next miner flung his stone at a scarecrow and it too erupted in a ball of fire. Figgis jumped up like a child and clapped with delight.

“Where did they find such a thing?” asked Loor.

“They didn’t find it,” answered Uncle Press. “He did,” he said, pointing to Figgis.

The odd little man held the basket of explosives over his head and danced a jig. He was having a great time.

“I knew that little guy was up to something,” said Uncle Press. “But I didn’t know what…until now. He must be selling the stuff to the Milago.”

One word sprang to mind. Tak. That’s what Figgis was trying to sell me. It was a weapon. An explosive. He said that “tak was the way” and maybe he was right. If there was enough of that stuff around, the Milago could use it against the Bedoowan and the odds of beating them would suddenly be very good. Maybe there was hope for them after all. Tak may indeed have been the way.

But Uncle Press looked worried. He didn’t like what he saw.

“What’s the matter?” I asked him.

“If the Milago use that, it will be the end of Denduron,” he answered soberly.

We all looked to him in surprise.

“End of Denduron?” I said. “Am I missing something here? That stuff could help the Milago beat the Bedoowan. Isn’t that the point?”

Before Uncle Press could respond, all hell broke loose. We were attacked. But it wasn’t the Bedoowan knights who caught up to us, it was a group of Milago miners. They jumped us from behind and wrestled us to the ground. One put a knee to my back and jammed my face into the dirt.

“Hold them,” someone commanded.

I struggled to look up and see who was giving the orders and saw Rellin stride up past the miners. What was happening? These were the good guys, right? Why were they attacking us? Did they think we were Bedoowan? Rellin surveyed the scene to make sure that none of us could escape, then his eyes fell on Uncle Press.

“Hello, Press,” he said. “I wish I could say that I was happy to see you.”

Two miners pulled Uncle Press to his feet and held him opposite Rellin.

“You can’t do this, Rellin,” said Uncle Press.

“I am glad that you are alive,” said Rellin. “But do not try and stop us.”

“Listen to me,” said Uncle Press with passion. “I want you to defeat the Bedoowan. You know that. But using that weapon is wrong. It will change everything.”

“Wrong?” spat Rellin. “How could it be wrong to end our misery? Without tak we have no hope of defeating the Bedoowan. But with it, we can return centuries of pain and torture to them in a few short seconds.”

“But at what cost?” asked Uncle Press.