by Lian Tanner
‘Waiting is always difficult,’ declared Grandpa. ‘But this is not nearly as bad as the time I fought the savages of Outer Frenzia.’
Pummel’s face was a picture of admiration. ‘You’ve been to such amazing places, Lord Rump.’
‘I have indeed, lad. And rubbed shoulders with some very important people.’
Duckling forced a smile. ‘I’ll wait out here. If I see anything, I’ll shout.’
And she slipped through the curtain.
She could still hear Grandpa making up stories. Every time he stopped, Pummel begged for more.
If he knew the truth, thought Duckling, Pummel’d run a mile.
The night passed slowly. Duckling walked up and down the passage countless times, shielding her candle with her hand. Every time she reached the corner, she peered around it and saw the guards wide awake.
The air was cold, but not Harshman-cold.
Maybe he won’t come tonight. She groaned silently at the thought that she might have to do this again tomorrow night. And the night after.
We should be taking it in turns to keep watch. But Grandpa said we can sleep during the day, and that this is more important than a bit of tiredness.
At one point, Pummel came out and walked up and down with Duckling. But when the notches on the candle showed that midnight had come and gone, and nothing had happened, he went back to Lord Rump and his stories.
Grandpa was talking about the Harshman now. Or rather, he was boasting about how he would beat him.
‘It will take more than a little ice to vanquish me. Why, just twenty years ago I fought the frost giants of Upper Groania. I was there at the notorious Battle of the Lost Glacier, and let me tell you, I stood to the bitter end. While younger men collapsed, weeping from the cold, I kept going. Why? Because it was my duty, just as it is – my duty now to – my duty – now – to—’
A deep snore resonated up and down the passage.
‘Lord Rump?’ said Pummel.
Duckling shoved the curtain to one side just in time to see Grandpa’s knees buckle. His cane fell from his hand and he sagged forward.
Pummel caught him. He couldn’t hold the old man up for more than a second or two, but that was long enough for Duckling to reach him. Between them, the children lowered Lord Rump to the mattress.
‘The Harshman must be here!’ cried Pummel. ‘Come—’
But when they tried to run, they couldn’t. The cold had crept into their bones as quietly as a saboteur, and Duckling’s feet were sliding out from under her. Beside her, Pummel struggled to stay upright. Ice formed on the tips of their ears and eyelashes.
The tune, thought Duckling. And she began to hum.
Or rather, she tried to. But that treacherous ice had gripped her throat, and she could not make a sound.
She heard a squalling cry from the direction of the Young Margrave’s bedchamber. The cat!
‘Have – to – go,’ groaned Pummel. But he couldn’t move his feet.
His hand, however, was lifting from his side, so slowly that Duckling wanted to scream with frustration. He held the raashk between his fingers, and as it came closer, she could feel the warmth of it.
It touched her throat. The ice melted, just a tiny bit.
Duckling hummed.
It wasn’t a shiny little tune, not at first. It creaked out of her, as if she was a hundred years old.
It’s not going to work!
The cat squalled again, more feebly this time.
Duckling concentrated harder than she’d ever done in her life. She hummed and hummed—
The breeze came like a breath of summer. The ice on Duckling’s ears turned to water. The frost in her bones melted. Pummel shook himself, and grabbed her hand.
‘Wait!’ cried Duckling. She dived for the floor and grabbed Grandpa’s walking cane. She pressed the secret button. The shaft of the cane fell away, and she was left holding a very sharp rapier.
‘Now,’ she said.
Pummel took her hand again, and they stepped through the wall into the Heir’s bedchamber.
It was just as well Duckling was there with him, because for those first few moments Pummel was too dizzy to help anyone.
He saw the Young Margrave’s sleeping form, and Otte, almost asleep himself, but still trying to protect his friend with one of his wooden crutches. The cat was there too, snarling and spitting, even while the ice clung to her whiskers.
Four white mice and a chicken crowded close to Otte – Pummel had no idea where they’d come from, but they too were covered in ice.
Above them all, descending like a hurricane with claws outstretched and beak agape, was the hawk.
Pummel tried to raise his hand to point to it. But Duckling was already racing towards it, with that astonishing blade in her hand. ‘Hiiii!’ she shouted, and thrust the blade right through the bird.
It should have been dead, but it wasn’t. It shrieked its fury and flew at Duckling, as fierce and strong as ever.
Just in time, Pummel’s head cleared, and he drew back his arm and threw the raashk.
The hawk jinked, and for the space of two breaths, Pummel thought he’d missed. He stumbled forward – and the bird vanished.
The room fell silent, apart from the sound of three children breathing too hard and fast. Slowly, Duckling lowered her blade. The cat, the mice and the chicken began to clean their fur and feathers.
The Young Margrave slept on.
Duckling’s hand was trembling. ‘I saw it!’ she whispered. ‘I saw the hawk! I thought I’d killed it, but it hardly noticed.’
‘I saw it too.’ Otte shivered and brushed the ice from his hair. ‘Frow Cat kept me awake. But we could not have held the bird off much longer.’
‘Naaasty,’ said the cat, looking up from her cleaning.
The mice squeaked agreement. The chicken clucked. They all wore bandages of some sort, and one of the mice had its leg in a tiny splint.
That’s the one that was limping, thought Pummel. The Young Margrave said he was going to kill it—
He realised, quite suddenly, that he was surrounded by pretence. On their first day in the Strong-hold, Duckling had seemed to be too clumsy to fight. But there had been nothing clumsy about the way she’d attacked the hawk.
And the Young Margrave had seemed cruel and ungrateful. He’d given the mouse to Otte, saying he’d kill it later. Yet here it was in his bedchamber, carefully bandaged and very much alive.
‘Did you see the Harshman?’ asked Duckling, peering into the corners of the room. ‘He’s not here, is he?’
‘No,’ said Pummel. The raashk was in his hand again, though he hadn’t picked it up.
‘Why not?’ asking Duckling. ‘If someone’s trying to kill the Young Margrave, why send the bird by itself?’
‘I do not know,’ said Otte. He turned back to the Heir, who still hadn’t moved, though the ice was melting down his cheeks. ‘Will Brun be all right?’
‘The guards didn’t come to any harm last night,’ said Pummel. ‘But Duckling and I’d better go before he wakes—’
He stopped. He had that itchy feeling again, as if there was a bull walking up behind him. Or a ghost tapping his shoulder.
He put the raashk to his eye – and realised that the room was full of ghosts, and every one of them was pointing urgently towards the wall he and Duckling had walked through.
Pummel didn’t go through it this time. He flung the bedchamber door open, leaped over the sleeping guards and raced down the passage and around the corner. He could hear Duckling close behind him, with the rapier in her hand.
They reached the alcove at the same time, and ripped the curtain to one side.
There was the mattress, wet with melted ice.
There was the wooden chest.
But of Lord Rump there was not a trace.
AN ARRANGEMENT
Lord Rump was dreaming of slommerkins, those terrifying creatures that had once roamed the coastal plains of the Faroon Peninsu
la.
He had never actually seen a slommerkin, of course, because they had been extinct for hundreds of years. But when he was a small boy, half-starved and living on the streets of Lawe, someone had told him about them.
They had roamed his nightmares ever since.
He dreamt that he was being chased, and that when the slommerkin caught him – which it would do very soon – it would roll on him to soften him up. Then it would eat him.
‘Help!’ he cried, in a voice far more like that of a homeless boy than a grown man. ‘No, please! Heeeeelp!’
To his relief, that last cry woke him. He lay there for a moment, thinking that he was in his bed in the back streets of Berren, and that he must have been eating oysters, which nearly always brought bad dreams.
I must give them up, he told himself. Though I do love them.
But then he realised he wasn’t in bed at all. He was lying fully dressed across a table, in a room he had never seen before. A candle glowed beside him. He was very cold.
He gripped the edge of the table and hauled himself up to a sitting position. Where am I? How did I come to be here?
There was little to see in the room, apart from the candle and a woven screen tucked into the far corner. Rump did not like the look of that screen.
He climbed down from the table and was making for the door as quickly as he could, when he heard a muffled sound, like a foot scraping against wood.
There was someone else in the room.
He stared at the screen. ‘Who is there?’ he demanded in his most authoritative voice. ‘Why are you hiding?’
The reply was no more than a whisper. ‘We have interests in common, Lord Rump.’
A whisper tells the hearer almost nothing. Rump thought it was a woman behind the screen, but he wouldn’t have sworn to it. He edged closer to the door.
‘Two boys,’ continued the whisperer. ‘The first must die. I thought we had an agreement that the second would take the blame.’
Rump froze. The first boy must be the Heir. In which case the second was Pummel, who could walk through walls, and was going to make Rump extremely rich—
‘But your granddaughter defends both of them,’ whispered the voice. ‘And now you join her. Have you changed your mind, Lord Rump? If you do not want to lose the second boy, I will need to find another scapegoat. Your granddaughter, perhaps.’
Rump often told people that he had advised kings, negotiated with queens and hobnobbed with archbishops. It was a lie, but it was also true. He had advised the king of thieves in the back streets of Lawe. He had negotiated with the queen of murderers in the slums of Spoke. He had hobnobbed with the archbishop of assassins in the deadly warrens of Golin.
He knew every ruse in the book, plus a few more.
He tapped his forefinger against his useless watch, as if he was considering the matter. ‘The girl thinks she is my granddaughter, but she is not really. I bought her as an infant, and she has been a useful investment. I suppose I could let her go—’
‘So we are agreed? The second boy lives, the girl is sacrificed?’
‘On the other hand, it would be a pity to waste all those years of training. I confess I would rather keep both the boy and the girl.’
‘I need a scapegoat, Lord Rump. Unless you wish to offer yourself in their place?’
Rump chuckled. ‘A little joke. Very good. But tell me, how is it going, this death of the first boy? Everything working out according to plan, is it? Apart from my girl’s interference?’
‘You know it is not. The second boy has some sort of native trick—’
‘And your assassin cannot get past it,’ said Rump. He folded his arms, not bothering to hide his satisfaction. ‘In that case, I believe we can come to an arrangement. One that suits us both.’
I KNEW IT WAS EVIL
‘The Harshman must have taken Lord Rump while we fought the hawk,’ whispered Pummel.
That made a horrible sort of sense to Duckling. It was a classic trick to send everyone running in one direction, while you committed the real crime somewhere else.
‘But why?’ she said. ‘Why take Grandpa? I mean—’ She bit her lip to stop it trembling.
‘We’ll find him,’ said Pummel. ‘We’ll search the Strong-hold. Maybe we could ask the hunt.’
Otte had caught up with them by then. He shook his head. ‘The hunt cannot be trusted. If it turns wild, it will kill him.’
Duckling swallowed. ‘He might be dead already.’
‘No!’ cried Pummel. ‘He fought off the frost giants in the Battle of the Lost Glacier. He’s alive, I’m sure he is.’
Duckling picked up the cane and slotted the rapier back into it, so its true nature was hidden. She didn’t say a word about the frost giants. Right now she needed Otte and Pummel to believe in Grandpa. Otherwise they wouldn’t help her search the rest of the Keep.
The guards outside the Young Margrave’s bedchamber stood extra-straight as Duckling, Pummel and Otte hurried past. But their expressions were confused, as if they had no idea how they’d come to fall asleep on duty, and were wondering whether they should report themselves or not.
‘I hope they don’t get into trouble,’ whispered Pummel.
Duckling didn’t care about the guards. She was too worried about Grandpa.
They searched the floor above the Heir’s rooms, and the floor above that. They couldn’t look in the bedchambers, because there were people asleep. But Duckling didn’t really think Grandpa was in a bedchamber. She thought his body was probably tucked behind a door somewhere, or down a well, as dead as the beekeeper. She was trying very hard not to cry.
And then she saw him, staggering out of the darkness. ‘Grandpa!’ she cried.
At the sound of her voice, Lord Rump sagged so badly that he had to cling to the wall to hold himself upright. Even as Duckling and Pummel ran forward to grab him, he stumbled and almost fell.
The three children helped him down the stairs to Duckling’s alcove, where he collapsed onto the mattress, groaning terribly. His hair was dishevelled, his cravat was torn and his cheek was red and scratched.
‘I – fought him,’ he croaked. ‘I fought – that creature.’
Otte goggled at him. ‘You fought the Harshman?’
‘Hand-to-hand combat,’ said Grandpa, and he touched his cheek and flinched.
‘But you were asleep,’ said Pummel.
Grandpa managed to sit up, though it obviously caused him a lot of pain. ‘I was overcome, my boy. But only for an instant. I woke myself up again through sheer willpower, and staggered out into—’ He waved a hand in the direction of the passage. ‘There I saw a creature striding towards the Heir’s bedchamber. It was barely visible, but I knew it was evil.’
He wiped his hand across his eyes, momentarily overcome. Otte offered him a kerchief; Pummel dashed out of the alcove and came back with a beaker of small beer.
Grandpa waved them away. ‘No, my dears, I must tell my story. Well, perhaps the beer will give me strength.’ He drained the beaker in one gulp. ‘Now, where was I?’
‘Evil,’ whispered Pummel. ‘But Lord Rump, what about your heart?’
‘It beat so hard that I thought it would break open.’ Grandpa shook his head sorrowfully. ‘But I did not step back. I have seen evil many times in my life, and have dedicated myself to fighting it. I threw myself in front of the creature, crying, Go no further, monster!’
Duckling gasped along with the others. But the truth was, this was beginning to sound awfully like the story about the Three-Headed Cave Troll of Exudia.
She inspected the old man more closely.
He certainly looked as if he’d been in a fight. But then she had looked as if she’d fought with the cat, in that narrow passage near the top of the Keep.
It was an old trick. No one expected you to tear your own clothes and take a fist to your own cheekbone. If they saw damage, they thought someone else must have caused it.
‘I confess,’ continued Grand
pa, ‘that I underestimated its strength. It picked me up by the scruff of my neck as if I was a kitten, and dragged me off to its vile den.’
‘Where is this den?’ asked Otte. ‘Could we find it?’
Grandpa waved the question away. ‘I was dazed. It might have been anywhere in the Strong-hold. What was I saying? Ah, yes. There, in that terrible place – which is lined with bones and furnished with gristle – the Harshman bent over me. Iron teeth, yes?’
‘Yes,’ breathed Pummel.
‘And burning eyes?’
‘Yes!’
‘I thought I was done for. But then I remembered the time when I fought the Man-eating Dwarves of New Zumpy. And I knew that I must not give up.’
Duckling tuned out the rest of it. Grandpa had been somewhere and done something, and she had no idea what. But he was lying about it, so it must be important.
AN AMAZING TALENT
Pummel thumped his pillow into shape. It was almost dawn, and he was desperate for sleep.
I hope the Young Margrave doesn’t want us for anything today, he thought.
He was about to blow out his candle and lie down when the curtain whispered back, and Lord Rump crept into the alcove. ‘Still awake, dear boy? I shall not disturb you for long; I just wanted to check on your welfare. Duckling told me you leaped through the wall.’
‘I’m all right,’ said Pummel. ‘A bit tired, maybe.’
‘Tired?’ Lord Rump lowered himself onto the wooden chest, and rested his cane against his knee. ‘I am not surprised. You must be careful. If you walk through walls too often—’ He broke off and chuckled. ‘Now that is a sentence I never thought I would hear myself say. It is an amazing talent you have, my boy.’
‘It’s not really me. It’s the raashk.’
‘Ah, yes. The mysterious raashk. I wonder – could I see it again? I have seen many wondrous things in my time, but this tops them all.’
Pummel took the leather pouch from his boot – and there was that feeling of reluctance again. That lack of trust.
