Hercufleas

by Sam Gayton

  Hercufleas couldn’t meet her icy stare.

  ‘Miss Witz made me go back and find you. She’s my teacher… was my teacher. Before Yuk guzzled the school. She’s the reason you’re here, and not still stuck on that tree trunk.’ The ice in her voice softened a little. ‘Me and Artifax rode back to the clearing. It was easy – we could see the fires from Tumber. And I heard you. Shouting those things, about your fleamily. Saying their names, over and over, like prayers. And then I realised. You might not care about me, but you care about them, don’t you?’

  Hercufleas looked up. ‘Greta, I…’

  Her gaze went from icy to burning. ‘And Yuk took them from you, didn’t he?’

  Hercufleas nodded, and Greta said very quietly, ‘I know how that feels.’

  ‘Greta? Why did Miss Witz make you come back for me?’

  She shrugged. ‘You’ll have to ask her.’

  ‘Ah! Awake are we?’ said the old babushka from the door.

  Hercufleas jumped. How long had she been there? She was very stealthy for an old granny.

  ‘I am Miss Witz,’ she said, hobbling right up to the windowsill. ‘And you are Hercufleas. And Greta brought you back from Avalon, the island of heroes. But you are not a hero, are you?’

  Hercufleas shook his head. ‘No.’

  Miss Witz paused, and Greta looked at the copper bell on the babushka’s ear, but it did not ring.

  ‘You see, miss? I told you he wasn’t. He’s not interested in saving Tumber.’

  ‘Pff!’ said the babushka. ‘It shows only that Hercufleas believes he is not. There is a difference. But not a great one. Believe something and it is halfway to being real. Besides, I say, So what? Many heroes have come to Tumber before, and all failed to protect us. Yet Hercufleas has bought us some time.’ The copper bell rang on her ear, and she smiled. ‘Yes, I suppose that isn’t strictly true. It was those two villains and that pig who filled Yuk’s belly for another month. Now he is gone, sleeping somewhere deep in the woodn’t. But as always, he will wake up and come back. So we must prepare to fight once more, and if we win, perhaps Hercufleas will see his fleamily again.’

  Hercufleas thought of Min and Pin and the others, in that broken-down house-hat on Yuk’s head. Miss Witz was right. If they could survive up there for a month, the giant would bring them back to Tumber when he next came to guzzle.

  ‘But we are getting ahead of ourselves,’ Miss Witz said. ‘Hercufleas, you must tell me – if you are not a hero… who are you?’

  Greta scowled. ‘I’ll tell you who he is,’ she said. ‘A coward. A liar. A weakling.’

  ‘I did not ask you, Greta.’

  Hercufleas stood on the windowsill, looking at his reflection, searching it for an answer. It stared back, blank-eyed. Who was he? A sad little sultana-sized flea with a cracked arm and a broken heart, sitting on the windowsill.

  ‘I’m alone,’ he said. ‘I see,’ said Miss Witz. ‘And now that you know what you are missing, you can tell me what you want.’

  Once, Hercufleas would have cried out, Adventures! But he was not a little hatchling any more.

  ‘I want my fleamily back,’ he said, turning to look at Miss Witz and Greta. ‘I want to stop Yuk from taking anyone away, ever again. But how can I do that?’

  Miss Witz said very solemnly, ‘That is the question that only your quest will answer.’

  ‘Quest?’ Greta shook her head. ‘Is this a joke? Why isn’t your bell ringing? Heroes go on quests. Hercufleas isn’t a hero!’

  ‘Good,’ Miss Witz said. ‘No hero can defeat Yuk, because no hero can wield a weapon big enough to destroy him. To Yuk, Excalibur is a toothpick. An arrow from Rama’s bow is a pinprick. Ugor’s Bazuka did nothing much. A blade big enough to chop off Yuk’s head would need to be many houses high. Who could lift such a thing? This is what Greta made me realise, the night she stole the florins and went to Avalon seeking a giant-slayer. And she found one: you.’

  ‘Me?’ Hercufleas groaned. ‘Haven’t you been listening to Greta? I’m not a giant-slayer. I’m just a flea.’

  Miss Witz’s face wrinkled into a smile. ‘Which is very lucky indeed. For a flea is exactly what Tumber needs.’

  Hercufleas looked up. ‘It is?’

  ‘Yes. Because there is only one weapon capable of destroying Yuk. And only a flea can wield it.’

  Miss Witz sat on the desk by Greta and took from her pockets two knitting needles and a tangle of wool. In her lap she began knitting her wool into a green scarf; in the air, she began weaving her words into a story.

  20

  ‘Long ago,’ Miss Witz began, ‘your ancestors, Hercufleas, were more than just pests. They made a name for themselves as the greatest giant-slayers of all. Across the world fleas went, killing humans who were ten thousand times their size. To people, fleas were like grains of sand, yet they killed them with a single nip of their fangs.’

  Hercufleas looked at Greta. Were fleas really once so mighty? It sounded like a fairy tale.

  ‘It’s true,’ Miss Witz whispered hoarsely, ‘every word I say. And you may wonder, Hercufleas, why your ancestors killed with a single bite and you cannot. The answer, I tell you, is this: you do not have the weapon that they carried.’

  She paused. The only sounds were the tinderfly’s buzzing and her needles clack-clacking together.

  ‘This weapon was not a sword, or an axe, or a Bazuka, or a bow,’ she continued. ‘It was a plague. The deadliest disease of all. And its name was the Black Death.’

  Greta breathed in sharply. Beside her, Hercufleas felt her prickle of fear.

  ‘The Black Death,’ repeated Miss Witz, shivering. ‘Carrying this weapon inside them, your tiny ancestors killed millions upon millions of people.’ She smiled grimly. ‘Fleas killing humans… Tell me, Hercufleas, what is that, if not giant-slaying?’

  ‘But the Black Death is gone,’ Greta blurted out. ‘It doesn’t exist any more.’

  ‘Ah,’ said Miss Witz. ‘For the answer to that, I must finish my story. The Black Death was a dreadful weapon, yes, but it had one weakness: feeding on death and destruction, it had to constantly kill to survive. Eventually it became too deadly. Killing too quickly, before it had a chance to spread. And so the plague destroyed itself and humanity survived. And yet…

  ‘Even after all that suffering and loss, some saw the terrible power of the Black Death, and wanted that power for themselves. Evil men, who loved to conquer and kill – warlords, emperors, generals. One of them was the old king of Petrossia.’

  ‘The Czar,’ Greta breathed, and Hercufleas remembered the portrait on the stamp above the stairs back in the house-hat. The man with the smouldering eyes.

  ‘The Czar.’ Miss Witz nodded. ‘The most fearsome, bloodthirsty king Petrossia has ever known, and he did not see the danger of the Black Death; only its power. Sacrificing whole armies, he managed to take a single drop of the Black Death and contain it within a phial. Then he sealed the phial in a lead box, placed the lead box in a stone chest and put the stone chest in the heart of his great fortress in the northern Waste. And then he told his enemies exactly where it was.’

  ‘Why would he do that?’ said Hercufleas.

  ‘To terrify them,’ said Miss Witz. ‘To let them know he had the most dreadful weapon in all the world, and that he could unleash it at any time. Knowing this, who would be mad enough to attack him? Now, of course, the Czar has been dead for many years, murdered in mysterious circumstances. His fortress has fallen to ruin… yet there the Black Death remains.’

  ‘No one can take it,’ said Greta. ‘Because anyone who opens that phial…’

  ‘… will die from the Black Death themselves.’ Miss Witz nodded again.

  ‘Except for me,’ said Hercufleas.

  Greta looked down at him. At last Miss Witz stopped knitting. Curled up in her lap was a finished green scarf.

  ‘Except for you,’ she said. ‘Like all fleas, you are immune. You can carry the Black Death without being harmed
by it yourself. Go to the Czar’s old fortress, Hercufleas. Find the chest. Open the lead box. Break the phial. Drink the drop inside. Then we will have our weapon – the only weapon that can defeat Yuk.’

  ‘Miss Witz!’ Greta hugged her teacher. ‘You’re a genius! He really is a giant-slayer!’

  But Hercufleas didn’t feel like one. Something nasty coiled inside him, like a drop of cobra blood. ‘You don’t just want me to defeat Yuk,’ he said to Miss Witz. ‘You want me destroy him. Kill him.’

  ‘Yuk kills,’ Greta said, whirling round, ‘and he’ll keep on killing. If you don’t do this, it will be your fault when he guzzles everyone in Tumber.’

  Miss Witz leaned down, joints cracking like snapped pencils, until her chin was resting on the windowsill. ‘Greta is right,’ she said. ‘I wish there was another way. We are at the end of our hope here in Tumber. It all comes down to you. I have never begged for anything before, but I am begging you now.’ She clasped her mottled blue hands together. ‘Please, Hercufleas. Please. Save us.’

  21

  There was no time to lose. Somewhere to the north was a fortress, and inside that fortress was the only weapon that could stop Yuk, a weapon only Hercufleas could carry.

  ‘Every hero must go on a quest to find their weapon,’ Miss Witz said as she carried him out of the school. ‘Roland of Breton received his sword, Durendal, from an angel. Albion’s Arthur pulled Excalibur from a stone. The vorpal sword that killed the Jabberwock was—’

  ‘But how do I get my weapon?’ said Hercufleas.

  ‘You must go far to the north. Beyond the great lakes we call the Sorrows, somewhere in the endless tundra of the Waste. Find the fortress. Travel to its heart. Bring the Black Death back to Tumber.’

  Hercufleas tried not to tremble. This was what he’d wanted ever since he’d hatched – a real adventure, with real danger. But now it was happening, he wasn’t excited. He just felt sick and scared.

  ‘You will need help,’ said Miss Witz, taking the green scarf she’d knitted and draping it around Greta’s neck. ‘Go with him, Greta.’

  ‘Me?’ Greta gawped.

  So did Hercufleas. ‘Her?’

  Miss Witz cut them off. ‘I know what you will say! He was a coward in the woodn’t. He betrayed you. I know. Hercufleas is weak. Which is why he will need your strength, child.’ Miss Witz leaned forward and kissed her, leaving a red lipstick mouth on Greta’s cheek. ‘Make him brave. Keep him on the quest. And no matter what, return to Tumber by the next new moon. Take Artifax. Speed is everything.’

  Greta scowled at Hercufleas, then stormed off to pack.

  ‘Isn’t there someone else I could go with?’ he asked hopefully. ‘What about you, Miss Witz?’

  She cackled, thumping her walking stick on the path. ‘I am too old, dear little flea.’ She watched Greta leave, adding quietly, ‘And do not think it is just her who will be helping you. For Greta is also on a quest – yes, she is. To find a way to heal her heart, which was broken by Yuk many guzzlings ago.’ The old babushka sighed. ‘She did not used to scowl so much, you know. When she was a child, she did nothing but smile.’

  ‘She’s still a child,’ said Hercufleas.

  Miss Witz smiled sadly, because her copper bell was ringing. ‘Maybe.’ She left him there and started off down the road. ‘Now I will go tell our plan to the survivors.’

  Two hours later, Greta and Hercufleas rode Artifax out of Tumber. It was sunset and the blue stars winked on, one after the other, across the violet sky.

  In the town the warm orange street lamps formed constellations of their own. The ruined church of Saint Katerina was silent on the hill. Artifax trotted past house after empty house. Hercufleas read their names: Old Barrow, Stove Cottage, the Saltpots. Each one beaten up, like boxers gone ten rounds too many. Doorways gaping, windows knocked out. Nobody home.

  ‘Where is everyone?’ Hercufleas asked.

  ‘Guzzled,’ said Greta. ‘These are the dead streets. There aren’t many of us left.’

  They stopped by the houses of the cinderwikk men, with their singed fingers and tinted goggles, who bred tinderflies to fill Tumber’s street lamps. Greta refilled her silver tinderbox, taking a stack of sugarsticks too. She broke off a nub from one and popped it in Artifax’s beak.

  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—’

  ‘Acco
rding 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.

  22

  Artifax 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.’