The Last: Endling #1

Endling: The Last is a novel by best-selling children’s author Katherine Applegate. This novel is the first in a three-part series that follows Byx, a dairne—a dog-like creature that walks and speaks like a human—and the ragtag group of companions she gathers around herself. Byx’s pack is killed by the Murdano’s—the king—soldiers. Byx is rescued by Khara, a human who recognizes her importance as a member of a rare, governing species. Khara takes Byx and her new friend, a wobbyk named Tobble, to a scholar whom Khara hopes can help Byx. However, they arrive just in time to discover that dairnes have been declared extinct. Endling: The Last is followed by The First and The Only.

This study guide refers to the Kindle e-book published in 2018 by HarperCollins e-books.

Plot Summary

Byx is a young dairne—a dog-like creature who has the innate ability to tell truth from lies. One day, Byx has trouble sleeping, so she slips outside the mirabear hive—a large wasp-like hive that serves as the home for her entire pack. Her mother comes outside to check on her, telling Byx that they will be moving north the following day. Byx’s mother encourages her to go back to bed, but Byx requests a few more minutes outside. When her mother is gone, Byx decides to see what the ocean looks like in the sunlight; she has never seen this particular view because her pack always travels at night for safety. However, as Byx approaches a cliff, she notices a small boat slamming against the rocks below and realizes that its small passenger is about to drown. As Byx debates whether it is worth defying her mother to rescue a stranger, she smells approaching humans. Byx has never seen a human, but she was taught that humans are dangerous to dairnes; the most dangerous humans of all are those who wear the colors of the Murdano, who is the ruler of these lands.

The humans, who are poachers, spot Byx and begin to fire arrows at her. To escape, Byx jumps off the cliff and uses her glissaires—the excess skin under her forelegs—to glide away from the cliff and down toward the struggling boat. As Byx approaches the boat, she grabs the small figure huddled inside of it and pulls him to safety along with her. They land on a small bit of sand exposed by the receding waves and manage to make their way up a rock spur that hides them from the poachers. As they reach flat land, they hear the humans approaching once more and overhear them chastising a guide for losing their prey. However, Byx has the impression that the guide knows she is nearby and has chosen to keep her presence hidden.

Byx learns the small creature she rescued is a wobbyk—a small, round creature with three tails—named Tobble. As Byx makes her way back to her pack, Tobble refuses to leave her, insisting that Wobbyk Code dictates that he must now save Byx three times to repay Byx for saving his life. Byx is annoyed by this development and is not sure how to explain Tobble’s presence to her family, especially since her pack occasionally eats wobbyks. However, as they approach the mirabear hive, Byx discovers that a group of Murdano soldiers have attacked and killed everyone. Byx attempts to charge the soldiers, but she is struck with an arrow that stops her.

Byx awakens on the back of a horse and learns that the guide shot her with the arrow to stop her from making herself known to the soldiers. The guide takes Byx to a cave and feeds her, revealing that she is a girl named Kharassande, or Khara for short, who disguises herself as a boy in order to work as a poacher. When Khara goes to sleep, Tobble sneaks into the cave and frees Byx. They escape but are attacked by large snakes when they try to take a nap in a tree. Khara comes to their rescue and takes them back to the cave. Khara explains that she wants to help Byx and claims that a friend of hers named Ferrucci can help.

To find Ferrucci, Byx, Tobble, and Khara make the long trek to Cora di Schola. When they arrive, they learn that large crowds are gathering on the isle to celebrate an eumony, the celebration of the end of a species. This particular eumony is in honor of the end of the dairnes. Byx is heartbroken to learn that she might be the last living dairne. Khara takes Byx to Ferrucci but is shocked when Ferrucci orders Byx taken to a prison cell, where she meets a fellow prisoner named Gamble, who is a felivet, a cat-like species. Gambler tells Byx that the dairnes are not the only species being eliminated. Gambler believes that the Murdano is attempting to eradicate the felivets as well. When Luca returns to free Byx, the young dairne insists that they free Gambler, too.

Byx, Luca, and Gambler meet up with Khara and Tobble in a building undergoing renovations near where the eumony ceremony is taking place. Constables discover their hiding place, forcing Gambler and Byx to hide. Khara, Tobble, and Luca tell the soldiers that they are there for romance and are shooed away. The soldiers begin searching the room for valuables and expose Byx’s hiding place. Cornered, Byx jumps out the window and glides down onto the stage, where the Murdano’s seer, Araktik, is giving a speech. Byx manages to escape with Gambler’s help and reunite with Khara, Tobble, and Luca once again. They escape the island on a smuggler’s boat. Khara leaves the decision of what to do next up to Byx, who decides that she would like to search for the legendary island where other dairnes live.

Having escaped Araktik’s clutches, Khara, Tobble, Luca, Gambler, and Byx make their way north. However, they soon learn that Araktik has sent a group of soldiers and a Knight of the Fire to follow them. The knight can control sentient fire and is a very dangerous adversary. They escape the soldiers thanks to a stampede of garilans—huge beasts with six legs and long necks—and the help of a few crows. They arrive soon after in the capital city of Saguria, where Luca betrays them and causes them to be arrested by the Murdano’s Pale Guard. When Byx is brought before the Murdano, he tests her ability to tell truth from lies, and she successfully identifies the lies that Araktik tells him about the status of the dairnes. Realizing the political advantages of controlling the truth-sensing talents of the last remaining dairne, the Murdano decides to keep her. However, when Byx makes the Murdano aware that other dairnes may still exist, she and Khara convince the tyrant of the importance of owning all the remaining dairnes. The Murdano frees Byx and her friends, allowing them to go in to search of the remaining dairnes, but he sends six members of the Pale Guard with them.

As they continue their trek north, Byx and Gambler realize that the Knight of the Fire is still following them. Byx creates a strategy to engineer a battle between the Knight of the Fire and the Pale Guard in hopes that they will destroy each other, thus leaving the protagonists to continue searching for the dairnes in peace. However, though the knight destroys the Pale Guard, he survives the fight and continues after Byx and her companions. Khara then tricks the knight into falling to his death into a small gully in which she has planted sharpened wooden stakes. With the knight dead at last, Byx and her companions are now free to continue north to find the island that Byx believes is home to more of her kind.