by Garth Nix
“No, don’t hurt them!” Eleanor called out. “They’re just stupid, not dangerous.”
If the sword murdered the twins, that would bring their brief adventure to the worst imaginable end. Eleanor and Odo would be outlawed at best, if not hanged from the justice tree on the hill above the village. She wanted to be remembered as a famous knight, not as an infamous murderer of dull-witted baker boys.
Aaric stood up, face red in outrage. “You could’ve killed me!”
“Wait till Da hears about this!” said Addyson.
“A knight has a right to defend himself from all forms of mockery,” said the sword, slicing a figure eight through the air despite Odo’s efforts to keep him grounded. The baker twins retreated a few more steps and looked at each other as they slowly realized Odo wasn’t somehow faking the sword’s voice, and that he was honestly straining to keep the sword back from them.
Biter was a real enchanted sword — and he apparently wanted to kill them.
“Or herself,” said Eleanor.
“And any who fall under his protection,” added the sword in a magnanimous tone.
“Or her protection.”
“We don’t need protection, Biter,” said Odo. He smiled nastily at the twins. “They’re just a nuisance. Like gnats.”
Aaric opened his mouth to utter a cutting retort, but closed it after Addyson pulled at his arm. Neither of them took their eyes off the shining silver sword that quivered in the air, only barely restrained by Odo’s powerful arms.
“Well, Sir Odo, if they are not your true enemies, let us go find them and dispense justice!”
Biter surged forward, dragging Odo along the path. Aaric and Addyson screamed and bolted back towards the village.
“Skelpie!” called Aaric.
“Murder!” shouted Addyson. Their cries of protest were plaintive bleats that did not slow them down one jot.
“That showed them,” said Eleanor, seeing the possibilities now that shock had turned to amusement. “What about Old Master Croft? He yelled at us once for stealing his fennel even though we didn’t steal any.”
“Lead me to this Old Master Croft,” ordered Biter. “He will trouble you no more!”
“No, no,” said Odo, struggling in vain to control the sword. Biter was swinging from side to side, reacting excitedly to anything that moved, which included Pickles the ginger cat, who had stopped by on her way to inspect a den of field mice and a branch swaying in the wind. Cat, mice, and branch all narrowly avoided being sliced into several pieces.
Meanwhile, Eleanor had years of injustices to make up for. “Reeve Gorbold spent our tithes on a blue linen dress with beads for his daughter once, remember?”
“Sir Halfdan made him pay it all back,” said Odo patiently. “Being beheaded isn’t going to teach him any lessons. Or do us any good.”
“What about the Wicstuns? They’re too tall anyway.”
“Yes, take me to the wicked Wicstuns!”
“Stop it! Both of you!” The loudness of Odo’s shout startled all three of them. Biter drooped at his side and Eleanor bit her lip. Odo had never shouted at her before, not seriously.
“Don’t even joke about chopping heads off, Eleanor,” he said more calmly, although his hands shook with more than just physical exhaustion from trying to control the sword. “We have no enemies here, Biter. Just annoying people, and thoughtless ones, but no one who deserves what you want to do to them.”
“I am no mere executioner’s skewer,” said the sword sullenly. “I am also skilled in the art of poetic justice —”
“There’s no need for your justice!” Odo could feel his voice rising again and struggled to keep Biter under control. “We have a reeve, and the village moot, and even old Sir Halfdan. If there was a problem, they would take care of it.”
“Well, there is the river,” Eleanor pointed out. “No one’s taking care of that. If it stops running, there won’t be a village or any people. Annoying, thoughtless, or otherwise.”
Biter twitched.
“The river isn’t flowing?” he said. “It must be blocked by something.”
“Probably just a rockfall upstream.” Odo had heard his mother tell his father this more than once. “It’ll wash away in the spring rains.”
But the sword wasn’t listening to him.
“Blocked by something … or someone! Sir Odo, it is no coincidence that you woke me this day.”
“Sure, because no one would even have seen you at the bottom of the river —”
“Our quest lies before us. We must seize the chance to save the helpless villagers of … ah …”
“Lenburh,” Eleanor supplied.
“Lenburh! It is our destiny. Sir Odo, let us depart this minute!”
“No, wait!”
The sword dragged Odo several feet along the path again, but this time Odo really dug his heels into the ground and bent his knees. He was getting the hang of it now. The trick was not to let Biter get him moving. Once he was off balance the sword had all the power. “We can’t just leave without telling anyone!”
“Without telling anyone what?” asked a voice from behind them.
Eleanor spun around. Her father, Symon, was looking at them with a rather bemused expression on his face, his overflowing gathering basket evidence he was returning from the huge clump of nettles that grew around the standing stone farther along the path.
“We’re going on an adventure!” she said.
“I see. Right now?”
“I hope not —” Odo started to say even as Biter swung him around to present his shining blade in Symon’s face.
“State your name and allegiance!”
“Ah, I thought I’d heard someone else,” said Symon. He did not seem unduly perturbed and did not back away. “An enchanted sword. It has been a long time —”
“State your name and allegiance!”
“But you are the visitor here. Is the obligation not yours to introduce yourself first, according to custom?”
“Er, yes, I suppose so,” said the sword. “Please pardon me, for I have been long asleep. I am Hildebrand Shining Foebiter and I think I used to also be called the Scourge of … something or other … something quite terrible, I’m sure …”
Eleanor’s father bowed, losing some of the nettles from his basket in the process.
“My name is Symon. I am healer, herbalist, and apothecary of Lenburh, and my allegiance first and foremost lies with my daughter, Eleanor.”
“Squire Eleanor,” said Biter. “Now in service to Sir Odo.”
Symon looked at Odo and raised one eyebrow. Odo shrugged unhappily.
“We found Biter in Dragonfoot Hole,” Eleanor explained excitedly. “He knighted Odo and now he’s taking us to find out what’s happened to the river upstream!”
“I see.” Symon set his basket down and cupped his chin thoughtfully.
“It is a noble quest, Master Symon,” Biter said. “Though we may perish, we must not quail.”
“I think that two children would perish more easily than an enchanted sword,” said Symon. “But it is true someone should investigate what is happening with the river. Is there no one more suitable?”
“They may be young, but Sir Odo found me and awoke me. The mighty quest is his,” said Biter. “By the same token, your daughter is small but seems valiant, and my knight must have a squire.”
“Don’t try to stop me,” said Eleanor mulishly.
“Oh, I can see there’s little point in me doing that,” Symon said with a glance at Eleanor that she couldn’t read. Was he angry or sad? Or both at once? “Minds have been made up, plans made … You have made plans, I assume? Gathered supplies … a map at least?”
“Um, not yet,” Eleanor admitted. “That’s … that’s exactly what we were going to do next.”
“It’s all happened so quickly,” said Odo. He gave Symon a beseeching look, hoping that the herbalist could somehow make the sword let them go so they could get back to their ordi
nary lives.
“I know what knights are like,” Symon said, putting a hand on Eleanor’s shoulder. “Always rushing off on quests, never thinking of the things they might have forgotten. But there’s no stopping them, not once they’ve set their hearts on a particular path. And you have your mother’s heart, Eleanor.”
Definitely sad, she thought. For an instant her resolve wavered.
“Promise me,” Symon said, looking away from her, “that my daughter will come to no harm.”
“Sir Odo will keep your daughter safe,” Biter replied.
Odo gulped. Symon wasn’t seriously thinking about letting Eleanor go, was he?
Symon looked from the sword to Sir Odo and back again.
“Swear on it.”
“A knight’s word is —”
“I’m asking you, not the boy.” There was sudden steel in Symon’s voice. “Swear on it. By your blade.”
“By my blade!” Biter came upright in a salute, painfully wrenching Odo’s wrists.
“Good.” Symon reached out and ruffled Eleanor’s hair. It was blond and cut short like his, so stray strands wouldn’t foul his potions. “You have my blessing.”
She beamed up at him, even though her eyes were suddenly full of tears. Where had they come from? Eleanor hadn’t cried since her mother’s vigil, when she and her father had sat alone overnight before the procession through Lenburh the next morning. For all that she had dreamed of leaving the village, it did not truly strike her until now that it would mean leaving him too.
“Thank you, Father,” she said.
“Come, Sir Odo and Squire Eleanor,” said Symon. “You have much to do, starting with getting that mud off you both.”
Eleanor and her father lived in a thatched cottage just over the boundary of Sir Halfdan’s lands, within a short walk of the manor. The knight was old and had many ailments, and his squire, himself in his sixties, was a frequent caller at the cottage, seeking unguents and remedies that Symon patiently supplied, knowing that half of them provided relief more for the mind than the body.
“I’ve been expecting this day,” he told the children. “Though it has come sooner than I … hoped. I have supplies for you, Eleanor, enough for three days. I traded an ounce of yarrow leaves for this leather jerkin, and this bedroll is the finest down from Enedham …”
The list was long, but the pile collapsed neatly into a pack that Eleanor could just about lift. Odo volunteered to carry it for her, knowing that he would have nowhere near as much.
But Symon did have something for him, unexpectedly.
“In here, I think,” Symon said, rummaging through a deep chest. “I’m sure of it … Ah!”
With a clatter of discarded odds and ends, he produced a long, black shape attached to a leather belt.
“This belonged to your mother,” Symon told Eleanor, even as he presented it to Odo.
The scabbard was the perfect size. Biter was larger and heavier than any weapon Odo had ever seen before, much larger than the hunting hanger Sir Halfdan wore, and his arms ached as much from holding him as from trying to control him. But would Biter allow himself to be contained?
“May I?” Odo asked the sword.
“I insist upon it,” Biter replied. “Fine steel such as myself must be cared for and protected. As well as a scabbard, I will require sandpaper and tung oil, and a sharpening block, and …”
His demands went on, but with a twinkle in his eye Symon returned to the chest and produced everything Biter required. He also added a small leather pouch, which upon investigation proved to contain sixteen silver pennies, five halfpence, and some copper farthings.
“Do you have another sword in there, Father?” asked Eleanor hopefully.
Symon shook his head. “Your mother’s sword was buried alongside her in accordance with her wishes.”
Eleanor nodded. She had only the faintest memories of her mother, who had died when Eleanor was a little girl. Once a year she and her father visited the grave, which was in a dense copse on Sir Halfdan’s lands inhabited only by sheep. Her memorial read, Rest, brave Sir Quella, a true knight, beloved of husband and daughter. Eleanor had traced those words with her fingers a thousand times, wondering how Quella had been brave, imagining the glorious moments of her knighting during her last battle, while shying away from the fact she had died at the end of it. Eleanor had to imagine the details because her father talked very little about it.
Now there were other things Symon wasn’t saying — this time about Eleanor’s departure, and how it was destroying him. Symon still had that sad, resigned look. It made Eleanor feel guilty, but there was no way she was changing her mind.
“Thanks, Father,” she said, hugging him.
“It’s a parent’s duty to let go,” he said. “Speaking of which, Odo …”
Odo had been dreading this moment. As they headed down the hill to the mill, new scabbard banging against his legs with every step, he tried to find the words to tell his mother. Mertice the miller was a big woman with blunt features that matched her tone. She operated the small millwheel without pause or complaint; her arms were strong, and it was her turn.
“Fixing the river, you say?” She regarded her middle child with a distracted eye.
“Yes, Ma.”
“Will it take long?”
“I don’t know, Ma.”
“And you say that’s an enchanted sword you have there?”
“Yes, Ma.”
“Can’t just sell it? It might fetch a goodly sum —”
“No, Ma,” replied Odo hastily as Biter harrumphed in his scabbard.
“Ah, well, and so it knighted you.”
“Yes, Ma.”
“Don’t suppose you can stop being a knight, then.”
Odo was silent. He had been wondering about that.
“It’s in the blood,” said Mertice, rather surprisingly. “Your great-grandfather was a miller who became a knight.”
“He did?”
“Oh, yes — we used his old helmet as a flour measure when I was a girl. Don’t know where it went. Worked out all right for him on the whole. He liked the life, wandering about and so on. Came back to the mill when he was old to tell his stories. I knew him a little, although he must have died when I was six. Maybe seven. You take after him a bit … in the eyes mainly.”
“I do?”
“Yes. Anyway, you’ll be doing some good if you can fix the river, and Hedley can take your turn at the wheel. If a knight’s what you have your mind fixed on being, best to get started young.”
Odo was far from sure he wanted to be a knight at all, but he knew better than to argue with Eleanor nudging him in the side with one bony elbow and his mother actually giving him permission.
“Thanks, Ma.”
“Take Barton’s pack from his room and Aldwyn’s hat. You can have the loaf and sausage you see on the counter there, plus the flask of cider in the pantry. And your da’s put aside thirteen silver pennies for you, one for each birthday. Take it from the strongbox. That should do you.”
It was a far cry from what Eleanor’s father had given her, but Odo was glad for that much. His family would miss the provisions more than they would miss him, most likely, with the river so low and the mill practically at a standstill.
Eleanor watched him closely as he collected his supplies. She knew that Odo had never dreamed of leaving home so soon. He probably never wanted to leave Lenburh at all. But he had the sword, and she couldn’t leave without him. They were a team when it came to having adventures, as they were in the catching of eels.
She saw him dart into the room he shared with two of his older brothers and collect a small memento, which he tucked into his pack. It was a wooden duck called Enid that his father had carved for his fifth birthday. She opened her mouth to tell him to save the weight, then closed it.
“I suppose I’m ready,” he said, standing in the upper landing with a pack on each shoulder.
“Then let us depart!” Biter’s
voice rang out clear and unmuffled despite his new home within the scabbard.
“Promise me one thing.” Odo was talking to the sword, but he looked at Eleanor so she would know the message was for her too. “One quest, and then I retire.”
“A knight never retires,” said Biter.
“Well, I’m going to. When the river is fixed, we find a proper knight, someone more suitable to give you to. I never asked for this, and I don’t want it.”
“So you want to be a miller?” asked Eleanor.
“It’s all I know.”
“That doesn’t answer the question.”
A commotion from outside drew their attention: raised voices, growing nearer.
“I know he’s in there! No one fights my boys without fighting me as well!”
Eleanor recognized that gruff voice. It was the baker, no doubt with twins Aaric and Addyson in tow.
“We’ve got to get out of here,” she hissed.
“Not until you promise.”
“Come on out, you reeky coward!”
“No man calls a true knight a coward and lives!”
Odo put both hands on the sword’s hilt, trapping it in the scabbard.
“Promise!”
“Oh, all right,” said Eleanor, tugging him towards the mill’s back entrance. “If that’s what you want.”
“A good sword always obeys his master’s wishes,” said Biter.
That would have to do, even though Odo was aware, like Eleanor earlier, that this didn’t really count as a promise.
It was perfect weather for an adventure, Eleanor thought as the three of them walked along the old sunken road out of Lenburh, bordered on both sides by high ramparts of blackberry bushes, and from there to the path by the river’s edge. The sun had passed its afternoon peak but still cast a heavy, autumnal heat across the river, which seemed, if possible, more sluggish than before.
Their eel basket remained exactly where Odo had been knighted. Neither volunteered to venture back out into the mud to rescue it. Someone else could do that, someone without a magic sword.
