Hercufleas (12 page)

At last they reached the bridge called Two Tears, where the river separated the town from the woodn't beyond. Miss Witz had spread word of the new hero, and a small crowd gathered behind her to see him off. Most of the surviving Tumberfolk were there. As well as the cinderwikk men, there were the bakers of Butterbröt Lane; cossack hunters with huskies, curly pipes and long knotted beards; the roost-wives, who braided their hair into baskets to hold chickens on their heads; and Mayor Klare, with his ledger and quill.

Hercufleas shook his head. So few people for such a big town.

‘Good Tumberfolk, I present to you… our hero!' Miss Witz announced as Artifax drew close. ‘Small he may be, but—'

‘Good gracious!' said a roost-wife. ‘He's a giant chicken!'

‘No,' said Hercufleas. ‘That's Artifax. He's helping me.'

‘Is that a talking earwig?' said a baker, pointing at Hercufleas.

‘I believe he's a woodlouse,' corrected Mayor Klare.

‘No,' said Hercufleas nervously, hopping onto Artifax's head so the crowd could see him. ‘I'm a flea.'

The astonished Tumberfolk strained their ears to hear his words.

‘What did it say?' someone whispered.

‘It said it was a bee.'

‘It doesn't
look
like a bee.'

Hercufleas rolled his eyes. ‘A flea, not a bee.'

‘He's not a bee!' Greta shouted.

‘Then why did he
say
he was a bee?' someone called back.

‘He's certainly acting very suspiciously for a woodlouse,' said Mayor Klare. He was a thin man with a bald, bobbing head, a beaky nose and skin pink as a baby's. Round his neck was a golden key threaded through a red ribbon. On his shoulders was a black cloak. In his hands was a white goose-feather quill. Tucked under his arm was a brown ledger, containing all the laws of Tumber, and the punishments for breaking them.

‘He's not a woodlouse either!' Greta yelled.

‘Whatever he is,' said a loud voice, ‘he doesn't look much like a hero.'

The words came from a house beside the crowd. A woman stood above them, framed in an open window. She resembled a portrait of an extremely fat, very cruel queen – one who enjoyed beheading her subjects. Probably while eating éclairs.

‘Mrs Lorrenz!' Miss Witz's voice was sharp as a pin jab. ‘Heroes are like the cakes you bake. To make them, you must follow a precise recipe.'

‘He looks like he's missing a few ingredients to me,' sniped Mrs Lorrenz. ‘About 250 pounds of muscle, for one. I've made truffles bigger than him!'

‘You're right,' Hercufleas called out to the Tumberfolk. ‘Greta had to kidnap me to come here. And when she was in trouble, I betrayed her. That's why I'm going on this quest. I'm not a hero yet, but I want to be. I'm going to try. And I promise I'll never give up.'

Mayor Klare gawped. Mrs Lorrenz turned the colour of cream. The Tumberfolk went quiet.

‘That,' said Mayor Klare, ‘was the least heroic speech I've ever heard. And I've heard a few. We haven't got a chance!'

‘We're doomed,' whimpered Mrs Lorrenz, slumping on the windowsill like a collapsed blancmange.

Uh oh. Hercufleas looked around at the panicking faces. The Tumberfolk didn't want to hear the truth, he realised too late. They wanted nice, comforting lies about how everything was going to be all right.

Mayor Klare rounded on Greta. ‘This is all the child's fault!' he told the crowd. ‘
She
stole the last florins in the treasury. Have we forgotten? She is a thief, and thieves must be punished!'

Miss Witz cracked her cane on the cobbles. ‘Listen to me—'

‘According to the laws of Tumber,' said the mayor, consulting his ledger, ‘thieves are required to wear a special hat fitted with a wind chime, so we know where they are at all times.'

Greta scowled. ‘Nice speech,' she hissed at Hercufleas, spurring Artifax past the startled mayor. They sped away through the crowd and over the bridge. Greta dropped two tears down into the water, then they were off into the woodn't. The town vanished behind them, but whenever Hercufleas closed his eyes he could still see the despairing faces of the crowd. The cries of Mayor Klare and Mrs Lorrenz echoed around his head.

We haven't got a chance.

We're doomed.

A
rtifax picked his way through the woodn't, guided by Greta past the seed-shaking rattlesnoaks. Once, they had to outrun a grizzly squirrel that caught their scent.

They headed north, always north. The Czar's fortress lay somewhere beyond the Sorrows, in the frozen Waste. Hercufleas tried not to think about where they were going and what he would have to do there. The idea of drinking the drop of Black Death made him shiver, even more than the increasing cold. He snuggled in the folds of Greta's green scarf, nipping her awake whenever her head nodded down on her chest.

After many hours, even Artifax was too exhausted to carry on. They took shelter beneath a tree. Hercufleas glanced up at the branches.

‘Are you sure this one's not… hungry?' he asked.

But Greta was already asleep, cuddling her axe. All night in her sleep she mumbled about everpines, green giants and gardens of the world.

Next day they passed the first of the Sorrows, the great salt lakes where nothing could live. These lay between the mountains like shards of fallen sky. Greta explained how they got their name.

‘It comes from one of the old prophecies. God adds one salty tear to the lakes for every new evil in the world. But the prophecy's end has been lost, so people argue about what happens next. Miss Witz says a day is coming when evil will be gone and life will return to the Sorrows. Mayor Klare says that soon God will add so many tears the lakes will overflow and flood Petrossia with bitterness.'

‘Whose ending do you believe?' Hercufleas asked.

Greta gave a short bitter laugh. ‘I don't believe in anything.'

Gradually the landscape changed. The lifeless Sorrows disappeared. Beyond them, the everpines grew more sparse, until the woodn't became a featureless grey tundra. There were still brambleberries for Artifax to eat, but they were black and sour. Greta dug up particular roots, mashing them into a bitter paste for her supper, but then the trees changed and she no longer knew which ones were safe to eat.

They were too far from home.

Every evening Greta pricked her finger with a pin, squeezing a drop of blood into a thimble for Hercufleas to drink. It tasted more bitter each time. He felt miserable for hours afterwards. He tried drinking Artifax's blood instead, but the morning after he woke up squatting on the ground trying to lay an egg, so he stopped.

It grew bitterly cold. In the mornings Greta's blanket and scarf were stiff with ice and Artifax's feathers glittered with tiny diamonds of frost. Hercufleas woke so frozen he couldn't move. Greta had to cup him in her hands and blow steaming breath, like a tiny sauna, until his limbs softened.

The deeper they went into the Waste, the less Greta spoke. Silence layered over her, like ice. A scowl froze solid on her face and wouldn't thaw.

Hercufleas talked endlessly, trying to break through to her. She just buried her chin in her scarf and ignored him, as he chattered about his fleamily and life before the adventure. It was hard, because that had only been one day, so he kept running out of memories. But thinking back to when he was an egg, he remembered all the sounds that had passed through his shell.

He remembered hearing Burp and Slurp sneak down to the pantry for midnight feasts. And Tittle, who liked to sing, but would only do it under the kitchen table when she thought no one was listening. Or Dot, who used to talk to him endlessly, trying to convince him that he should hatch out as a girl, not a boy.

He missed them all. Just talking about the tall stacks of blood in the pantry or remembering the boingy-boing room seemed to make him feel warmer.

But nothing could melt Greta. Hour after hour, she grew colder. Artifax was suffering too. Since entering the Waste, his feathers had faded from white to grey. Not even bits of sugarstick could cheer him now. He was so weak, they were barely plodding along.

Three days from Tumber, they saw a black castle in the distance.

‘That's not it,' said Hercufleas. Miss Witz had told them the Czar's fortress was star-shaped – the castle ahead of them was a square jumble of turrets.

But Greta's whoop echoed around the bleak hills, and she spurred Artifax into a gallop. ‘Shelter!' she cried, her silence cracking at last. ‘Fires! Food! Maybe even a hot bath!'

But the black castle was a deserted ruin. There were signs of a great battle, years past, but only vines scaled the walls now, toppling them one by one.

‘Hello?' called Greta. ‘Anyone?'

A rusty gate screeched as the wind blew it open and shut, open and shut. Entering the keep, they saw the murder-holes above their heads. This was one of the Czar's old castles, where he stationed his armies, or perhaps imprisoned his enemies.

‘We can still shelter here,' said Hercufleas. ‘Keep out of the wind.'

But something about the place scared Artifax. Cold and shivering as he was, he wouldn't stay inside the keep. Greta said nothing, but that night Hercufleas tasted something fresh and black in her blood. It was despair, and it filled him too.

They began to pass more ruined castles – barbicans and kremlins and ostrogs. This was the frozen heart of Petrossia, once the centre of the Czar's empire.

They were so close.

That night, out in the Waste, was the coldest yet. They huddled together – Hercufleas in Greta's hands, and Greta under Artifax's wing – while the boreal winds howled around them like wolves, gnawing at their bones. Above, the aurora shifted from emerald to violet to colours that have no name and cannot be seen. But neither Greta nor Hercufleas craned their heads skyward to watch, for nothing can be beautiful to those with despair in their heart.

Next morning, drifting in the wind like ghosts, they came upon a frozen lake. It stretched in front of them like a quarry of blue marble. Greta edged Artifax across it, testing the ice with each step.

‘This isn't like the Sorrows,' she whispered. ‘Something actually lives in here. The nomads that follow the reindeer herds across the Waste must stop here – look.'

She pointed. There were old fishing holes in the ice.

‘We have to catch something,' she trembled, stiff fingers unravelling a long ball of twine from her pocket. ‘Artifax won't survive another night on berries and roots. Not when it's this cold.'

Hercufleas looked at the poor bird, and saw it was true. Artifax had grown shiveringly thin, with frost dripping from his beak. Prince Xin had bred him for beauty and speed, not for weather like this.

‘There's just one problem though,' said Greta.

‘What?'

‘We need bait.'

Why was she staring at him?

‘Oh no!' He jumped backwards, waving his hands. ‘
Me?
Not
me
! Why
me
?'

‘Because you're a fat, tasty bug,' Greta said, grinning for the first time in ages. ‘Relax. I'll tie you to the line, yank out any fish that bites, and cut you from its belly in a flash.'

She actually wanted him to get swallowed whole? ‘No. No way.' He pointed at her satchel. ‘Use a tinderfly!'

‘I won't.' Her grin dropped off her face like an icicle. ‘They're precious.' She scowled.

‘
I'm
precious!'

‘I only have five of them left.'

‘You only have
one
of me! I'm the
hero
!'

‘Prove it.' She laid a hand on Artifax, who gave a miserable cluck and buried his head under his wing. ‘Do something heroic, something that tells me all this cold and hunger is worth it.'

She stomped off to sharpen her axe, leaving Hercufleas staring down at the dark hole in the ice. He gulped. What might swim down there? How sharp were its teeth? He pushed the thoughts from his head. Greta was right. If he couldn't face a fish, how would he fight Yuk?

Hopping over to the twine, he looped it around his waist, double-treble-super-tight.

‘Go on then,' he called. ‘Let's go fishing.'

Greta took up the line. She dangled him above the ice hole. ‘Take a deep breath,' she said. ‘Give three tugs when you want to come up.'

Hercufleas nodded as she lowered him down. There was a snapping sound (like when you break a biscuit in two) as he split the thin rime of ice covering the hole. Then a sploshing sound (like when you dunk a biscuit into a mug of tea) as he fell into the black depths of the lake.

I
t was like plunging into an alchemist's cauldron and slowly turning to lead. There was a flash of unspeakable cold, then Hercufleas went numb. The freezing water turned his arms and legs into dead weights. His eyes were heavy but he forced them open. Bubbles escaped his lips as his jaw dropped.