by Sam Gayton
‘I’m sorry I left you to Ugor,’ he said quietly. ‘He was threatening my fleamily.’
She sniffed. ‘You lied to protect them.’
‘Are you still angry at me?’
‘No. I don’t think I ever was angry. I was jealous. Because I couldn’t save my Mama and Papa, but you still can.’
Hercufleas looked up. The stars were still falling. Which of the hopes they had named tonight would come true tomorrow? He closed his eyes and went to sleep, not knowing.
When they woke in the morning and climbed the last hill past the lake, though, the answer was there on the horizon. There, on the flat and featureless Waste. Star-shaped, as if it had fallen from the sky the night before.
The Czar’s fortress.
25
The Czar’s fortress had six towers, twelve walls and one hundred and forty-four turrets, all made from granite. It was an intricate, colossal star, built to withstand any siege or battle. Once it had been a place where dread armies gathered under the smouldering stare of that long-dead king. Now it was a deserted ruin.
As Greta rode Artifax closer and closer, Hercufleas hopped with nerves. All their travelling had come down to this: the single drop of plague in the heart of this fortress.
‘We should be careful,’ said Greta, snapping him from his thoughts. ‘What if some of the Czar’s armies are still here? Miss Witz told me the outer walls were defended by Frost Titans that the Czar conquered and forced to serve him.’
‘Frost Titans!’ Hercufleas whispered. Maybe, if they were friendly, they could come back to Tumber and fight Yuk in his place.
But as Artifax ran across the vast drawbridge, it became clear the fortress was deserted. The walls either side were pockmarked and scorched from ancient sieges. The iron gate had disintegrated – perhaps from cannonballs, or maybe just from the freezing cold. And no Frost Titans stood upon the battlements.
‘They must have been defeated,’ Greta said in the eerie silence. ‘During a siege of Lava Imps, it looks like. Up there!’
The walls were lined with crumbling statues of terrifying gargoyles. At first Hercufleas thought they were part of the fortress’s design, but then he saw they were made of much darker stone. Every one of them was frozen in a posture of battle.
‘Looks like the heat of the Lava Imps melted the Frost Titans,’ said Greta. ‘But at the same time, the Imps were frozen too. Miss Witz said that after the Czar died, all the armies he had conquered began fighting among themselves.’
Hercufleas didn’t understand – he thought the fortress had been designed to be impenetrable, but if a few Lava Imps managed to breach it…
‘It doesn’t seem like a very good fortress,’ he began.
Then he saw.
Inside the walls was another fortress, the image of the first, only half the size. It had the same six towers, twelve walls and one hundred and forty-four turrets, but made from white marble rather than black granite.
‘A castle inside a castle,’ Hercufleas breathed.
‘It’s like a matryoshka,’ said Greta. ‘You know, those wooden dolls they sell at the souvenir stalls in Avalon? Each doll is hollow, with a smaller one inside. When they’re all stacked together, you can’t tell how many there might be.’
Hercufleas gazed at the fortress. ‘And how many layers does this matryoshka have?’
Greta shrugged. ‘Only one way to find out.’
She spurred Artifax on. The white marble fortress was a lifeless ruin too.
‘I think this layer was guarded by Cloud Ogres. Look – see the scorch marks from their lightning bolts? They defeated the last of the Lava Imps, but a horde of Wind Wolves attacked soon after and blew them all away.’ She shivered. ‘Wind Wolves. Sometimes they come into the woodn’t. Filled with huff and puff. Papa put a boiling cauldron in the hearth whenever they were prowling outside. He said it stopped them coming down the chimney.’
The next fortress was smaller again, and made of yellow sandstone. It was strewn with broken brass lamps.
‘This looks bad.’ Greta scowled. ‘First the Frost Titans, then the Cloud Ogres and now the Sand Genies. Maybe someone fought past them and took the Black Death long ago.’
She urged Artifax on. Within the sandstone fortress was another made of brass, which Greta said had probably been defended by General Pachelbel and his canons. She found an old rusted Howlitzer in the gatehouse: a blunderbuss weapon used by the Czar to defeat the Orchestras of Hertzenberg. The barrel was made from a gramophone horn, and it fired terrifying screams and howls straight into an enemy’s ears. Greta slung it over her shoulder along with her axe.
The fortresses got smaller and smaller in size, until at last they came to one the size of a house, made from red bricks. Unlike the others, there were no breaches in its walls. Its rusty gate was shut.
‘No way in,’ Greta fumed, stalking around the brick fortress. ‘We must be close to the Black Death now.’
‘I could jump those walls easily,’ Hercufleas said. ‘Why don’t you wait here?’
Greta gave a snort. ‘Artifax could jump them too,’ she said. ‘He just needs a run-up.’
Pop! Pop! Pop! Tiny puffs of smoke floated up from the red-brick battlements, and Hercufleas saw three black specks whizz towards them. His heart leaped – could it be there were fleas guarding this fortress? Fleas like him?
‘Hello?’ He looked around for them. ‘Where did the fleas go?’ he asked Greta.
She looked down at her hand, clutching her side. ‘They weren’t fleas,’ she said.
Artifax reared back and Greta lost her balance and fell. Hercufleas tumbled down with her. They thumped onto the frozen ground. ‘Greta?’ he said, bouncing up and down on her nose. ‘Open your eyes! Are you hurt?’
She didn’t answer, but her hand rolled from her side, and he saw blood.
26
Usually, blood made him think yummy and dinner and hooray. Not this blood. It oozed from a wound in Greta’s side, red and hot and awful. Those black whizzing things were minute bullets. Something in the red-brick fortress had shot her!
‘I’m OK,’ she gasped. ‘I’m fine.’
‘They hurt you!’ He hopped up and down with rage. ‘They hurt you! Now I’m going to hurt them. I’m going to—’
‘Calm down,’ she winced. ‘First you’re going to calm down.’
‘But they HURT YOU!’ he roared. His anger was scalding hot; his heart pounded in his chest and his head.
‘Only a little bit,’ she grunted, squeezing with her fingers at the wound. Out onto her fingertip came a little black ball, the size of a peppercorn. ‘Humans are big, Hercufleas. It takes more than a little cut like this to kill us.’
‘So you’re OK? When you fell off Artifax, I thought…’
‘I fell off Artifax on purpose,’ she said, through gritted teeth. ‘To buy us some time. Hercufleas, listen – someone’s still guarding the Black Death. They’re in that fortress, guns trained on us right now. It’d take dozens of shots like this to kill me and Artifax… Whoever’s in there isn’t stupid. They know that. If they’d wanted me dead they’d have fired a hundred times, not three. Which means they weren’t aiming for me – they were aiming for you.’
Hercufleas ground his teeth together. ‘They’re going to wish they had hit me,’ he growled.
‘Just listen,’ Greta urged. ‘On the count of three, I’ll create a diversion. You jump over the walls. While they’re looking out, you find a way in. The Black Death is in there somewhere. Get it, and get out. I’ll meet you back here. But hurry – I won’t be able to distract them for long!’
‘But…’
‘You know those shooting stars last night?’ she said. ‘You’re like them. You’re carrying all our hopes. You can’t let them fizzle out. I don’t want them to fizzle out. Are you ready?’
Hercufleas nodded. He crouched on her shoulder, feeling the tension build in his legs.
‘One…’
This was going to be the great
est jump of his life.
‘Two…’
Or the last.
‘Three!’
WHOOSH! Up, up he went, catapulting over the redbrick walls of the fortress, while Greta shrank beneath him. He saw her aim the rusted Howlitzer and fire. A wailing shriek flew from the barrel, and the shadowy figures on the fortress battlements ducked down, holding their ears.
Hercufleas landed in the corner of the courtyard. The first thing he noticed was that there were no more fortresses inside this one. Instead there was a stone chest, sealed shut. That was it: the Black Death – the only weapon capable of destroying Yuk – was within reach.
He was about to hop towards it when he noticed the creatures guarding the fortress. They scurried over the battlements, peered out of the towers and barricaded the portcullis, aiming tiny cannons at Greta…
They were everywhere.
The whole fortress was infested with dirty brown mice.
And a column of them marched straight towards him.
27
The mice carried gleaming muskets the size of pencils, filled with saltpetre and shot, and wore faded uniforms of burgundy, gold and zaffre. They had high leather boots, and floppy hats with budgie feathers in them. At the head of the column was an old albino mouse, with fierce red eyes and pure white fur and a slender silver sword in his paw.
It was too late to hide – they’d spotted Hercufleas the moment he landed. There was nothing he could do except stand and wait.
‘I am Sir Klaus,’ the albino mouse said, ‘the smallest hero in Petrossia! These,’ he gestured behind him, ‘are my Mousketeers.’
‘All for one, and one for all!’ the Mousketeers cheered.
‘And this,’ said Sir Klaus, sword pointing straight at Hercufleas, ‘is Grimm.’
Hercufleas looked cross-eyed at the blade’s needle point.
‘Hello, Grimm,’ he said. ‘Can you tell your master to stop shooting his guns at the girl outside? He says he’s a hero, but it doesn’t seem very heroic to me to shoot an innocent human child.’
Sir Klaus narrowed his blazing red eyes, but raised his left paw and called, ‘Cease!’ The pop-pop-pop of tiny cannons fell silent.
‘No one that seeks the Black Death is innocent,’ Sir Klaus said. ‘Especially not a child travelling with a flea. You have come for the plague, have you not?’
Hercufleas nodded. ‘Yes.’
There were mutterings from the mice around the fortress. Sir Klaus’s pink tail went rigid with fury.
‘Then you would unleash it upon the Earth a second time! We are sworn to stop you!’
‘I only want to bite one creature, that’s all,’ Hercufleas insisted. ‘He’s a giant called Yuk…’
Sir Klaus laughed. ‘The Black Death won’t end its killing with one death. It will spread. Millions of victims are not enough to satisfy it.’
Hercufleas looked around in dismay. ‘But listen, it’s for the good of—’
‘No good can come from the Black Death, only evil.’ Sir Klaus raised his sword. ‘Die, you monster!’
Hercufleas bounded back from the weapon. ‘I’m not a monster, I’m a hero!’ he said indignantly.
‘Lies!’ cried Sir Klaus. ‘We Mousketeers are the heroes, sworn to protect Petrossia and the world! You are a villainous evil-doer!’
‘No, I’m trying to save the world too!’ shrieked Hercufleas. ‘You’re the villains – shooting children, poking swords at defenceless bugs.’
Sir Klaus’s ears twitched, eyes burning with rage. Grimm snagged in the air, mid-swipe. ‘What did you just say?’
‘How do we know you’re the heroes?’ answered Hercufleas, raising his voice to talk to the Mousketeers in the fortress around him. ‘In my experience, it’s easy to mistake the two. I’ve come here for the Black Death, but to save lives, not destroy them. Maybe I’m the hero. We can’t both be right, can we? Shouldn’t we have a duel or something, to decide?’
Sir Klaus looked at his Mousketeers, who were frowning and nodding, and his tail whipped the ground. He whirled on his heel with an irritated huff. ‘Agreed!’ he snapped, marching to the far side of the courtyard. ‘A duel it shall be: you versus me.’
Hercufleas gulped and nodded, but Sir Klaus was three times his size, and his sword was long and deadly. What chance did he have? He was utterly terrified, but he knew he could not let his fear show. So he grinned and picked up a grain of sand to sharpen his tiny fangs on, and in Sir Klaus’s red eyes he saw a flicker of fear.
‘Very well,’ Hercufleas called. ‘If my blood is spilled, then I’m clearly not the hero, for heroes never lose. You may squash me under your paw.’
Sir Klaus smiled thinly. ‘I shall.’
‘But,’ continued Hercufleas, and as he spoke he began to hop in excitement, for in his head he felt the whirrings and stirrings of a plan. ‘If I win, then I am the hero, and you must swear to give me the Black Death I need.’
The Mousketeers looked at each other in bewilderment and anger.
‘Give up the plague we have sworn to protect?’ snarled Sir Klaus. ‘To a flea, of all creatures? Ha!’
‘Fine,’ said Hercufleas with a shrug. ‘Then you are a coward that refuses to fight me, afraid that you are wrong…’
Sir Klaus’s whiskers twitched. ‘Never!’ he bellowed. ‘It is agreed! I will fight this flea. Mousketeers, you will stand and witness our battle. Watch for the first drop of blood that is spilled. Let the duel begin!’
28
Sir Klaus leaped forward, blade whirling, forcing Hercufleas back against the fortress walls. Raising Grimm, the mouse raked his sword against the red bricks. Grimm’s tip snapped off, and sparks leaped from the steel. Blinded, Hercufleas hopped behind Sir Klaus, smacking straight into the knight’s tail.
The Mousketeers cheered as Hercufleas lay dazed on the tail’s tip. His head was reeling, but so far everything was going to plan.
Come on, he thought, while Sir Klaus grinned and high-pawed his soldiers. Come on…
‘Dizzy, Hercufleas?’ laughed the mouse as Hercufleas clung to his tail. ‘I must admit, I did not think you would surrender so easily…’
Hercufleas said nothing. He crouched, ready to jump.
Come on, he thought again, willing the mouse to strike. Come on!
And Sir Klaus raised his sword.
Yes! He’s fallen for it!
When Sir Klaus struck, Hercufleas would leap clear of the blade. The mouse would slice the tip from his tail, spilling his own blood, and defeat himself.
‘Die!’ cried Sir Klaus.
Hercufleas jumped.
But something was wrong. Sir Klaus was swinging too high! The sword wasn’t heading for where Hercufleas had been – it was slicing towards where he was going!
Sir Klaus had seen through the trick.
He’s outwitted me! I’m jumping straight into Grimm’s path! I’ll be chopped in half!
Somersaulting in the air, Hercufleas reacted on impulse as the blade sliced towards him. Everything slowed down in his mind. He saw Grimm’s razor-sharp edge, and at the last moment he kicked his legs sideways. His feet hit the edge of the sword, deflecting it an inch upward. It glided harmlessly above him. Just.
Sir Klaus hissed in annoyance and cracked his tail like a whip. It struck Hercufleas and catapulted him into the floor – oomph – where he skidded among the pebbles and frost.
What should he do now?
‘You say you are a hero?’ Sir Klaus paced back and forth, waiting for him to get up. ‘Yet you use sly tricks more worthy of a knave!’
Hercufleas had no time to answer before Sir Klaus launched another deadly attack. Left and right, high and low, Grimm stabbed and swept and slashed and hacked and spun. Hercufleas hopped back, retreating, desperately trying to think of a new plan. He needed one quickly. Already he was exhausted. But so was Sir Klaus.
Sweat dripped from the old mouse’s whiskers as he pursued the flea up a tower staircase, across the fortress walls, down a turret roof
, trying to land a killing blow.
The Mousketeers looked on in awe. Never before had they seen such stunning swordsmanship, or such amazing acrobatics. It was like a dance – a grim fandango – and everyone could see that it could not go on for much longer.
Hercufleas tumbled back down into the courtyard. He lay there, while Sir Klaus descended the turret steps slowly, panting.
‘I do declare,’ he said, ‘you have entirely exhausted my right paw. I have not had to fight left-pawed since defending my cousins the rats in Hamelin.’
As Sir Klaus switched his sword from right paw to left, Hercufleas’s mind raced. He was running out of time.
Then he saw it.
His only hope.
Hercufleas jumped –
Sir Klaus glanced up –
‘Where did he go?’ blinked the mouse, whirling round.
On all sides of the castle, the Mousketeers gasped. In torment they watched their champion turn left and right, looking for his enemy. Each one yearned to tell Sir Klaus where Hercufleas was, but this was a duel and they were honour-bound not to interfere.
Clinging to Sir Klaus’s back, Hercufleas was utterly still. He wouldn’t be able to hold on for much longer. It didn’t matter. His fangs, slender as syringe needles, sank into his enemy’s fur and drained a thimble of blood.
Sir Klaus felt his shoulder itch. He squeaked and stabbed backwards, but his broken sword couldn’t reach. If he swung too recklessly, he could injure himself and lose the duel. Finally his tail wrapped around Hercufleas like a python and whipped the flea round to face the mouse’s ferocious stare.
‘You fought well,’ he said, in the absolute silence of the courtyard. ‘But you have lost this duel, and therefore your life. Die, monster.’
And with the jagged edge of Grimm, Sir Klaus stabbed Hercufleas in the belly.
