THERE ARE SOUNDS that you don’t just hear, there are sounds that you feel. There are sounds that shake you until your teeth rattle, then hurl you to the ground and stomp on your brain with black-glazed boots.
Ji curled into a ball, his hands clapped over his ears, weeping from the deafening boom of the bell. He writhed on the floor until the shattering clamor quieted to an agonizing hum. Then Roz’s half-troll face appeared in front of him, and she opened and closed her mouth like a trout.
“Stop playing around!” he said, rubbing his stinging eyes. “Where’s Chibo? Is he okay?”
She pointed past him, and Ji saw Chibo swooping wildly through the evening air outside the bell chamber. Strange streaks appeared in the glow of his wings, and Ji gasped when he realized what they were.
“Darts!” he said, though he couldn’t hear himself. “They’re shooting darts at him with atlatls! That’s why he’s flying like that!”
When Roz rumbled at him, he only heard a faint whisper: “. . . wall . . . run!”
“What? Louder!”
She leaned closer and shouted. “The palace soldiers are at the outer wall! We have to run!”
“So carry me!” he said into the deafening hum. “Let’s go!”
“I can’t, Ji! I’m not sure I can stand.”
He blinked his stinging, watery eyes at Roz. Blood trickled from her mouth and she looked even more stunned than he felt. Which made sense: she was the one who’d rung the bell with her face, while he had just flopped around like a broken shoelace.
He pushed to his knees, waited until a wave of dizziness passed, then touched one of Roz’s four-fingered hands. “Lean on me.”
“I’ll crush you!” she said, through the finally fading hum.
“I’m stronger than I look,” he said.
Which might’ve been true, but he still wasn’t strong enough to carry a half troll down a spiral staircase. Still, they managed to stumble downstairs together, with Roz leaning against the wall, her shoulder scraping the stone.
By the time they reached the ground floor, Ji’s legs felt better and his hearing worked again. Maybe merfolk had sore eyes, but they sure healed fast.
“Those poor books,” Roz moaned, staggering toward the splintered front doors of the bell tower. “That poor library.”
“Oh, uh . . .” Ji squinted at her. “There wasn’t any library.”
“What?”
“I needed to make you mad enough to ring the bell,” he explained.
She muttered a word that Ji was surprised she knew—then a groan from outside caught his attention. Oh, no. Sally. With his heart in his throat, Ji ran from the tower and scanned the avenue.
One swordsman lay limply on the cobblestones, and Sally cowered near him, paws raised to block a clay hatchet eight inches over her head. But the hatchet wasn’t moving. Flowerface the terra-cotta warrior stood motionless over her, frozen in midblow—another two seconds, and his hatchet would’ve split Sally in half.
A dizzy weakness rose from Ji’s legs and into his head. Another two seconds and Sally would’ve died. The thought sickened him and the evening dimmed. . . .
“Ji!” she yelped. “You did it!”
“Roz did.” He took a deep breath. “Are . . . you okay?”
Her muzzle lifted into a fierce grin. “Who cares about flying? I can fight.”
“I’ll take that as a yes,” he said faintly. “Where’s Chibo?”
“Here!” Chibo called from above, then slammed into the ground. “Ow! My landings need work.”
Sally rolled out from under Flowerface. “And Nin can sting. He chased the other soldiers away. And look!—” She kicked Flowerface in the shin. “We stopped the terra-cotta warriors.”
“Yeah,” Ji said. “And now we have to—”
Bunnyrun! Nin’s voices piped up. You saved the goblins.
“Roz saved them,” Ji said. “Using her love of books.”
“Serves me right for trusting a liar,” Roz groaned, sitting on the tower steps with her head in her hands.
A louder blare of trumpets sounded, and Ji said, “Quick! Run to Ti-Lin-Su’s house!”
“I can’t run,” Roz grunted. “I’m not entirely sure I can crawl.”
“You need to,” Ji said, trotting closer to her.
“Let me catch my breath!” she said with a half sob.
“Sorry. I didn’t mean to rush you.”
“Except that we’re in a rush.”
“Yeah, except that.” He took her stony hand. “C’mon, before anyone sees us.”
She groaned and rose shakily to her feet. The sound of soldiers marching came from higher on the mountain, and Ji looked toward the wall with the seaweed-and-coral-reef mosaics. The bronze-banded entrance to Ti-Lin-Su’s property was only a block away.
“They’re almost here,” Sally growled. “Stay close, Chibo.”
Roz made a rocky noise in her throat, then grabbed the top of the urn. When Ji took her free hand and pulled her down the block, the urn rattled and clinked across the cobblestones.
“You can do this, Roz,” Ji said. “You can do anything.”
“She can’t fly!” Chibo fluted.
“They’re here,” Sally said.
A dozen black-clad soldiers jogged onto the avenue fifty feet away, drawing scimitars and clubs. Too close. Too fast. A lump of failure curdled in Ji’s stomach, and his eyes stung with unshed tears.
“What should we do?” Chibo asked. “They saw us.”
“Stick to the plan,” Ji said, pulling harder on Roz’s hand. “Get behind Ti-Lin-Su’s walls and—”
“We’re not going to make it,” Sally growled.
You run, Nin’s voices chimed, loud and insistent. We’ll hold them off.
“They’re too many of them,” Sally said.
Ant lions poured from the urn, dropping onto the avenue like a rose bush shedding petals. You saved goblins. Now ogre saves you.
“No way,” Ji said. “We stay together. Whatever happens, we stay together.”
Missroz, Sallynx . . . take care of Sneakyji.
“You’re an ogre of honor, Nin,” Sally said, and jumped on Ji’s face.
Blinded by the sudden furball, Ji reeled backward, away from the soldiers, shouting muffled swears at Sally. He staggered a few steps. Then Roz’s hand grabbed his shoulder and Sally leaped away.
“—doolally fuzz-faced hobgoblin!” he screamed.
Roz tugged him toward the bronze-banded door with one hand and dragged Nin’s urn with the other. The clay rattled and dirt spilled onto the ground. Only a few ant lions still clung to the papaya seedlings: hundreds more fanned across the avenue.
“Let me go!” Ji snarled, struggling in Roz’s grip.
“Sincere . . . apologies,” she rumbled, trudging closer to the bronze-banded door.
Ji punched her arm, and pain burst in his knuckles. “Ow! Sally! Help me!”
“What do you think I’m doing?” Sally asked, backpedaling between him and the soldiers. “Hey!” she called to them. “I challenge you to a duel!”
“The monsters!” one of them said. “They speak.”
“Let’s see if they scream,” another said.
“A duel of honor,” Sally growled.
“Nobody duels an animal,” the first soldier snarled.
Ji squirmed and kicked, but Roz didn’t loosen her grip. She just pulled him closer to Ti-Lin-Su’s bronze-banded door, panting with effort.
“How about jousting?” Sally asked the soldiers. “We could joust.”
“We could skin you and use the fur for— Aaaaaaah!” The soldier screamed and pounded his calf with the hilt of his scimitar. “Scorpions! There’s scorpions in my armor!”
Eat buttsting, human! Nin’s voices crowed. I’m inside your legholes, peeking your knees!
The other soldiers started screaming and whacking at the ant lions inside their armor. Pain and panic scattered them . . . for a moment. Then one soldier grunted an order, and they started stomping on the cobblestones. Squashing ant lions.
Nin didn’t say anything in mind-speak, but Ji felt bursts of pain each time another ant lion died.
“How many ant lions can Nin lose,” he asked Roz, limp in her grip, “before the whole colony dies?”
Sneakyji? Nin sounded weak and faint. Take care of everyone, stonefriend. . . .
The ant lion voices faded into silence, and Roz dropped Ji beside the big bronze-banded door, then slumped against the wall.
“Nin?” Ji said, staring into the empty urn. “Nin!”
Roz struck the door with the side of her fist. “I’m too . . . weak, Ji. I can’t break through the door.”
Six black-clad soldiers stalked toward them, driving Sally backward with flashing blades—and Ji couldn’t do anything. He couldn’t do anything except watch with his stupid stinging eyes and his useless merman scales.