A Hint of Hydra

by Heidi Lang

  “What are we hunting? Greg told you?”

  Master Slipshod smiled. “I promised not to ruin the surprise.” He paused. “Be careful out there. A dead apprentice is no use to me.”

  “You’re not coming with me?” Lailu’s heart sank.

  “Sunrise, I’m, er . . . no, I can’t. Sorry, Pigtails.”

  “Why not?”

  “It has nothing to do with cowardice,” Slipshod said quickly, his scowl back in place. “But I have things to do, places to visit. Besides, you need to start hunting more without me.”

  Lailu frowned. “The last time I hunted something dangerous without you, you called me reckless.”

  “Yes, well, that was then. Now, what are we cooking for this evening’s festivities, hmm?”

  “We don’t have a lot of griffin, but we still have some of that leftover goldhorn we hunted last week,” Lailu said. She tried focusing on possible recipes, but she couldn’t help but wonder if Hannah was right: Was her mentor gambling again? She didn’t think so, but then she hadn’t wanted to believe it last time either. And one thing was for sure: Master Slipshod was definitely up to something.

  9

  GREG’S FAVOR

  After the last diners left at midnight, Lailu managed to snag a few hours of sleep before it was time to get ready for her hunt with Greg. The sun wouldn’t be up for another few hours, but enough moonlight poured into the room for Lailu to weave around Hannah’s stuff and get to her own. She tiptoed around, gathering all she would need for the hunt ahead. It was difficult, since Greg hadn’t bothered telling her what they were hunting, but she did her best. A grappling hook, her two largest chef’s knives, a couple of weighted steak knives for throwing, and her best, most supple pair of dragon-skinned boots.

  Lailu adjusted her pigtails and pulled a hat low over her ears, then slung her pack of hunting gear over her shoulder before quietly making her way down the stairs. She didn’t have to wait long before the heavy clomp-clomp-clomp of Greg’s carriage announced his arrival.

  Lailu wrote a quick note to Slipshod letting him know she would be back that afternoon in time to prep for the evening’s crowd, and then she slipped out into the night. The damp cold wrapped around her like a soggy coat, the rest of the city quiet as people finally made their way to their beds after the night’s festivities.

  Lailu frowned at Greg’s carriage. It was more of a cart—not his usual sleek affair at all. “This?” she demanded, gesturing to the large flatbed, the bales of old hay, and the completely open top. “This is what we’re riding in to . . . wherever it is?”

  “What’s the matter?” Greg twitched the reins. “Not fancy enough for you?”

  Lailu scowled and climbed up. She was not looking forward to the cold ride trapped with Greg.

  “So, did you miss me?” Greg asked as she took a seat.

  “Like an ulcer.” Lailu pointedly turned away from him. If he could ignore her at a big event like Lord Elister’s, then she could ignore him now.

  They rode in tense silence for a few minutes. Lailu could feel Greg watching her, but she refused to look at him or say anything at all. There was nothing he could say that would make her talk to him. Nothing.

  “So, we’re hunting hydra, by the way.”

  “We’re what?” Lailu spun around so fast her neck creaked.

  Hydra were big, nasty creatures that bred like bunny rabbits, and their magic created swampy marshes wherever they nested. Because they were so dangerous to people—not to mention destructive to the landscape—master chefs didn’t often get a chance to go after these beasts; heroes were usually sent out immediately at the first sign of a swarm. To take one of them down would be glorious. To cook one would be absolutely delectable. Already a half-dozen different recipes sprang to mind. But as Greg’s grin widened, Lailu remembered she was still mad at him. It didn’t matter what they were hunting.

  “Don’t try to hide it. I know you’re impressed,” he said.

  “Whatever.” She stared at the passing scenery as their cart pulled out of the city, leaving the tall gates behind. The road they were on skirted the Velvet Forest, winding its way down onto a narrow wooden bridge and over the West Dancing River. The sky was just starting to get lighter on the horizon, a thin line of softness brushing the dark like a hint of butter on a well prepared pastry. Lailu could practically feel the city falling away from her as they crossed the river, heading deeper into the rolling hills and farmland of the outlying villages.

  Greg cleared his throat.

  Lailu kept her back to him.

  “Lailu,” he tried again.

  She ignored him harder.

  “Look, if we’re going to be hunting together, don’t you think we should at least be on speaking terms?”

  She turned, but just so she could glare at him. “You weren’t so big on speaking terms the other night.”

  “The other night? What do you . . . Oh. You mean at Lord Elister’s party? Is that what this is about?” Greg ran a hand through his hair. “I was busy with my friends. Just like you were busy with yours. I don’t see how it’s a big deal.”

  Lailu’s eyes widened. Did he really not realize what a jerk he’d been? Unbelievable. “You ignored me.” How could she explain how hurtful that had been? It was like being transported back to her early days when she was nothing but the scholarship student, the girl with the secondhand uniform and shabby books. The one no one wanted to be seen with.

  “Well, you ignored me first,” Greg said.

  “When did I ignore you?”

  Greg muttered something under his breath. Lailu just caught the words “dance” and “shifty guy.”

  “Excuse me?” she demanded. “What’s it to you if I danced with Ryon?”

  “Oh, so you admit he’s shifty.”

  “Of course he’s shifty. So?”

  Greg’s eyes were angry slits. “So maybe I was trying to ask you to dance, but you were too busy ignoring me and went dancing with him instead.”

  Lailu’s jaw dropped. “When did you ask me to dance?”

  He looked away.

  “When?” she demanded.

  “I never actually asked you,” he mumbled. “But I was thinking about it.”

  Lailu opened her mouth, then shut it. Greg had wanted to ask her to dance? Her . . . and Greg? Dancing? For some reason, the cart seemed awfully stuffy all of a sudden, despite its open top. “Well, I’m not a mind reader,” she managed.

  Greg’s shoulders slumped. “I know.” A moment passed, then another, each as uncomfortable as eating cold soup. “I’m sorry,” he said finally. “I shouldn’t have been . . .”

  “Such a jerk?” Lailu suggested.

  “That’s probably accurate.”

  She snorted.

  “Okay, that’s definitely accurate.” He glanced sideways at her. “Does that mean you forgive me?”

  She thought about it. “I’m still half hoping a hydra eats you,” she decided.

  “But only half hoping. Sounds like progress to me.” He smiled. “And, you know, if I had . . . if I’d asked you to dance, would you have?”

  Lailu wasn’t sure what to say. For a second, she pictured Greg asking her, pictured stepping onto the dance floor with him instead of Ryon, his hand on her waist . . . Her face burned like she’d been cooking over a stove in summer. “I—” she began.

  The horses in front whinnied and dug their heels in, and the cart screeched to a halt, almost throwing Lailu over. She and Greg exchanged glances, then peered out around them.

  The edge of the horizon glowed a deep crimson red. Set against the sky, the sea of weeping willow trees stood forlorn and ominous, their leaves trailing into the murky waters of the swamp below.

  “Looks like the place,” Greg said.

  Lailu’s stomach clenched with nerves. The best time to hunt hydra was daybreak, since they were weaker right around sunrise. But with hydra, “weaker” was a very relative term. They shouldn’t have wasted so much time on the rid
e here. They should have been planning the whole way. Lailu wasn’t ready for this; she’d never hunted hydra before.

  There was something very eerie about a swamp trailing across the middle of the road. A swamp that hadn’t been there a couple of weeks before. She could smell it, the foul rotten-egg odor reminding her unpleasantly of the last hunt she’d gone on with Greg, back when they’d taken down a dragon.

  Greg removed a coppery boxlike object from under the driver’s seat and hopped down.

  Lailu shivered and adjusted her knife belt, checking that her blades were set. “I’m ready,” she lied.

  “Don’t worry.” Greg slung the box over his back, pulling the straps of it onto his shoulders. “Hydra are much easier to hunt than chickens.”

  Lailu blanched. “Why’d you have to bring that up?” She hated fyrian chickens, hated them. Their scaly feet, that awful scratching noise their talons made, the way their beaks opened just before they prepared to roast you. “You always bring them up before a hunt.”

  “I know. It’s a terrible habit.” Greg grinned.

  Still shuddering, Lailu followed him off the safety of the road and into the heart of the swamp.

  10

  A SUITABLE TARGET

  Moisture hung in the air, suffocating and stinky. Despite the sun creeping above the horizon, very little light made it through the fog and the old blackened branches of the trees around them. Even Greg, mere feet ahead, seemed to fade into the mist until Lailu felt like she was alone. Just her, the swamp, and her set of extra-sharp knives.

  Lailu tried to ignore the feeling of mud sucking at her boots and water seeping into her pants. Instead, she searched under every willow for signs of a den, even as strands of her hair clung to her face and swamp flies buzzed around her head.

  It was hard to believe that only a couple of weeks ago, this swamp had been a sparsely wooded area, the ground a mixture of dirt and leaves instead of this soft, stinking bog. Then hydra moved in and began nesting, their essence flooding the woods, churning the dirt, and transforming the whole area into the swamps they preferred. Of all the mystic creatures in Savoria, hydra changed their surroundings the most. And the only way to remove a hydra-made swamp was to find the Heart Hydra and relocate her. The rest of her swarm would move with her, taking the magic along with them.

  But since that was usually a job for a whole troop of heroes, Lailu figured she and Greg could do their part and at least slim down the swarm a bit in the meantime—if they could even find the swarm. She’d had no idea hydra could infect such a large area of land!

  Click-click-click, whirrrrrrrrr.

  Lailu spun, a knife already in hand. Was something behind her? She narrowed her eyes, barely making out a shape in the fog. A human shape. And it wasn’t Greg, either; she could hear him splashing just up ahead. Was someone else hunting hydra?

  As the figure moved closer, bounding quietly from tree stump to fallen log, Lailu realized they were trying to avoid the water, and she began to wonder if they were even hunting hydra at all. But if they weren’t hunting hydra, then what were they doing here?

  She shivered and slipped another knife from her sheath. She felt better with a blade in each hand. Hydra were one thing. Suspicious, lurking people were something altogether different.

  Someone tapped Lailu on the shoulder, and she spun, blades raised.

  “Whoa,” Greg said quickly, hands up. “Maybe put the knives down?”

  “Shh,” Lailu hissed, but she lowered her knives.

  “What’s the matter?”

  Lailu shook her head, peering through the fog, but the figure was gone. Whoever was out here with them could be anywhere by now. Frowning, she put one of her knives away, but kept the other in her hand. “I thought I saw . . .” She stopped. “Never mind. Let’s just find this hydra and get out of here.”

  “Okay,” Greg said carefully. “Let’s stay closer together, yeah?”

  Lailu nodded gratefully. Even though she’d beaten Greg in almost all their knife fighting classes back at school, she felt safer having him next to her as they sloshed silently through the murk.

  “Wait. You see that?” Greg dropped his voice to a whisper as he pointed at a mound looming out of the muck of the swamp. Once a basic wooded hillside, it was now an ominous lump that had been hollowed out by something large. Moss clung to it, and dead trees and branches formed a barrier around the opening. The surrounding weeping willows finished the décor, giving the nest swaying curtains of long, dangling vines.

  Lailu’s heart beat faster. “I see it,” she whispered back.

  “It’s got to be a den,” Greg said, studying the mound. “Got a plan?”

  “Isn’t this your hunt? Shouldn’t you be the one with the plan?”

  Greg wiped a hand across his face, leaving a trail of mud. “I mean, I can come up with a plan, if it’s too hard for you to think of one—”

  “I can think of a plan just fine,” Lailu snapped. “I can think of a hundred plans.”

  “Great. I look forward to hearing them.”

  Greg’s grin was wide and smug, and Lailu resisted the urge to punch him. She hated when he tricked her, but there was nothing for it; she’d have to think of a plan now, or there would be no hearing the end of it. She chewed her lip, concentrating, ignoring the taste of sweat and the tang of bitter swamp water. “Well, first we want to find out how many heads we’re dealing with—”

  “ ’Cause you know that’s going to be easy.”

  “And then,” she continued, talking over him, “we need to figure out how to stab it in the heart, so its heads don’t multiply.”

  Greg stared at her. “That’s it? That’s your plan? Just count the heads and stab it in the heart?”

  “I don’t see you coming up with anything better.”

  “Well, I’m not the one who took down a mountain dragon.”

  Lailu turned on him. “So you admit it! Finally!”

  Roooaaarrrrr!

  Lailu and Greg froze, then slowly turned to look at the cave, the swampy ground beneath them vibrating with the approaching footsteps of something large.

  “New plan,” Lailu whispered. “Hide in the willow tree branches.”

  They sprinted through the knee-high water to the nearest tree. Lailu tucked her blade into her belt as Greg propelled himself up to the lowest branch, then gave her a hand up. Any other time, Lailu would have refused his help, but she knew that each vibrating step was bringing the hydra closer to spotting them.

  She climbed after Greg, moving higher into the tree branches. With all the straggling leaves and vines around her, she felt like she was battling a kraken again.

  Snap!

  The branch Lailu was reaching for broke off in her hand. She froze, suddenly very aware of the creaking branch beneath her. Willow trees were known for having weak wood, a fact that she hadn’t really considered until about two seconds ago.

  “Er, I don’t think we should go any farther up,” Greg whispered next to her.

  “I think you should actually climb farther down,” Lailu corrected.

  “Yeah, that’s definitely not happening.”

  The hydra had stomped its way to the cave entrance below them, bringing with it the sickly stench of decay and a stronger burst of rotting eggs. Lailu breathed shallowly and shrank back against the trunk of the tree, grateful for the comforting curtain of weeping willow vines.

  This beast was much bigger than she’d been expecting. It remained half-inside its cave, but she could tell its body was taller than Greg’s wagon, the three heads doubling its height. As it extended those heads farther, Lailu suddenly realized they had climbed right to its eye level. She froze and caught her breath, praying to the God of Cookery that what she read about the hydra’s poor eyesight was true.

  Three pairs of tomato-red eyes scanned the ground, looking for them. The creature’s gray-green skin glistened with moisture, the perfect color to blend right into the fog. On top of each head quivered a spiky red
crest, which told Lailu that this was a prime male, full-grown and ready for roasting.

  With one last roar, the hydra backed up, vanishing inside the den.

  Lailu let out her breath. She was relieved it hadn’t spotted them, but a little disappointed it hadn’t come all the way out so she could get a better look at it.

  “Oh, butter knives,” Greg breathed. “It’s huge!”

  “I know. Think of the feast we can prepare.” Lailu already had the perfect seasonings, spices, and sauces in mind for each part of it, and she had mentally noted what parts she would want to tenderize with a good dry rub.

  “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?” Greg asked.

  “That we can make the world’s largest and tastiest hydra tri-tip?”

  Greg frowned. “I’m more of a rib eye fan, personally.”

  “That’s only because your cooking lacks subtleties.”

  “Subtleties!” Greg sputtered. “That’s way harsh coming from someone who is obsessed with lebinola spice.”

  “I am not obsessed with lebinola spice. I just think most recipes call for a pinch of it.”

  “Anyway, I was thinking that maybe, just maybe, we might have bitten off more than we can chew with that one.”

  “No way,” Lailu said.

  “Way.”

  “But we’re already halfway to taking this one down.”

  “Just how are we halfway done with taking it down?” Greg demanded, running a hand through his hair. The humidity made his curls wilder than normal, and they puffed around his head in a tangled cloud.

  “Easy.” Lailu swatted away a bloodsucking fly that was trying to dine on her like a fine wine. “We needed to know how many heads we were dealing with, and now we know. So, we are halfway done with taking it down.”

  “Okay, maybe according to your two-step plan, we are,” Greg grumbled. “But somehow I think stabbing it in the heart is going to be a bit harder than counting heads.”

  “I’m surprised at you, Greg. I never took you for the cowardly type.”

  “I’m not the cowardly type. I’m the ‘don’t want to die mangled by a hydra’ type. And you know what? I don’t think that’s a bad thing.”