Let Sleeping Dragons Lie

by Garth Nix

  ‘That sounds like dangerous talk to me,’ said ‘Hilda’ as her ancient, hooded father poked at the end of a protruding stump with a booted foot, making sparks fly up from the fire. ‘If word were to reach the Adjustor of what you were saying—’

  The carpenter’s eyes narrowed and his hand closed on a chisel in the box at his side.

  ‘I’ve already lost everything,’ he said grimly. ‘Or at least I will have if those doors don’t arrive tomorrow. And I doubt anyone here will betray me to the guards. They’d better not try, anyway.’

  ‘Peace! Your loss is my loss, friend.’ Hundred leaned closer and spoke so softly that Odo could only make out a fragment of what she said. ‘Perhaps … you and I … solution to both our problems …’

  The carpenter sized her up with a long look, then nodded. Together, they moved out of the firelight to talk in private.

  Odo watched them go, wondering what she was up to.

  ‘Yes!’ Eleanor clapped her hands in triumph, then reached out to shake hands with her fallen opponent, a boy her age who accepted defeat with a surly grimace. ‘Shall we play again?’

  A chorus of disillusioned nays was the reply, and gradually the other children wandered off, leaving Odo and Eleanor alone.

  ‘If you’ll keep an eye on, uh, Grandfather here,’ he said, ‘I’ll go check on the horses.’

  ‘Right you are, Otto. I’m happy to stay here in the warm.’ Odo walked off through the ring of wagons to where the ten horses were hobbled in two close lines, each mount under a warm blanket. They whinnied and shifted restlessly as Odo approached, their hooves crunching and squeaking on the snow. The night was bright from the moon and stars, but very cold, Odo’s breath billowing out in soft white clouds. There was no sign of Hundred. Whatever she was doing, she had to do it soon if they were to pass Kyles Frost in time to save the prince.

  He raised both hands, as though warming his fingers on his breath, and spoke softly through them.

  ‘All quiet out here?’

  ‘Nothing to report, Sir Odo,’ said Biter from his hiding place.

  ‘I f anyone comes too close,’ said Runnel, ‘we’ll do our best talking-horse impersonation to scare them off.’

  ‘You’ll do no such thing!’ snapped Biter. ‘A talking horse is hardly less conspicuous than a talking sword—’

  ‘Obviously. Let me have my joke. I t is boring out here with no one but you and the horses to listen to. They are pleasant creatures, but one can only bear so much on the subjects of oats and eels.’

  With a flutter of wings, Tip dropped out of the sky and clung to Wiggy’s bridle. Half a moth protruded from his mouth.

  ‘Any movement around the gates?’ Odo asked him.

  Tip gulped down the moth. ‘n! o!’

  ‘Do you know where Hundred is?’

  ‘b! e! h! i! n! d! y! o! u!’

  Odo turned and there she was, coming out from between two of the wagons and walking towards him.

  ‘We need to shed six horses,’ she told him in a low voice. ‘I’ll leave you to choose. Have the remaining four ready to leave as quickly as possible, but do so without making it look obvious. Wait for me here.’

  ‘We won’t be able to carry all our supplies.’

  ‘We don’t need them. Where’s your sister, Ethel?’

  ‘By the fire, with, uh, Engelbert.’

  ‘Good. I have a job for her too.’

  With that, Hundred vanished back into the dark, as though she had never been there.

  Eleanor was playing with Egda and marvelling at how he could catch the knucklebones he couldn’t see when Hundred suddenly appeared next to her.

  ‘Father,’ she said to Egda. ‘You’re looking unwell. This cold is not good for you. Our new friend Wilheard has generously offered us shelter in his wagon. This way.’

  She lifted Egda by one elbow and Eleanor took the other. He played the weak, old man with aplomb, shuffling listlessly away from the fire. Those remaining in the warmth offered their sympathy while at the same time wishing that they too had the opportunity to find protection from the freezing night.

  ‘Wilheard is the carpenter,’ Hundred whispered to Eleanor and Egda. ‘His caravan is the covered blue one – you can see the pile of doors poking out the back. Knock twice and do as he says. I will meet you there in a moment.’

  She disappeared again, leaving the two of them to wind their way through the wagons and horses forming the temporary camp.

  ‘What’s she up to?’ Eleanor wondered aloud. Egda tapped the side of his nose, but said nothing.

  Odo had just finished choosing the horses and reorganising the supplies when Hundred returned. He had picked Wiggy among the four. With Tip securely hanging from her bridle, he turned at the sound of footsteps.

  ‘Bring them all,’ Hundred said, taking the reins of her preferred horse and leading him after her. The rest trailed obediently along, Odo and Wiggy alert for stragglers. They came around the camp to a long wagon with a blue canopy covering the front third and a high load of rectangular doors securely roped into the back two-thirds. Four worn but worthy nags were hitched to the back of the wagon. Hundred rapped twice on the side.

  The carpenter opened a flap in the canvas. Past him, Odo could see Eleanor and Egda sitting at a narrow table, still warmly dressed despite the heat of the small travelling stove next to them.

  ‘We’re ready,’ said the carpenter from within his thick, looping scarf.

  Odo blinked. It wasn’t the carpenter’s voice. It was Egda’s – and the person sitting at the table wearing Egda’s hood wasn’t Egda at all, but a man similar in size whose face Odo had never seen before. The girl wasn’t Eleanor, either, but a woman in Odo’s spare woollen hat. They had switched places!

  The real Eleanor peered out past Egda. She was wearing different outer clothes too, most notably a huge, brightly coloured scarf wrapped many times around her neck and over most of her face.

  ‘I’m much warmer now,’ she said with a grin. ‘Got the horses?’

  Hundred nudged Odo inside and shut the flap behind her.

  ‘Six horses, as per the arrangement,’ she told Wilheard. ‘Fair trade for the wagon and your clothes. We will do our best to deliver the doors, or see that you are paid for them in full at a later date. If you go back to Ablerhyll, we will send word to you there.’

  ‘If not,’ the carpenter said, ‘the horses will fetch a good price. They are fine beasts.’

  He spat in his palm and held it out to Hundred. They shook.

  ‘Don’t forget to carry on the act until the morning,’ Eleanor said. ‘Offer to play knucklebones with the other kids. That’ll scare them off.’

  The carpenter and his wife left the wagon, doing a passable impression of an ancient old man and his great-granddaughter. It was just possible, Eleanor thought, that this plan could work.

  ‘What about me and Hundred?’ Odo asked. ‘There’s no disguise for us.’

  ‘You and your grandmother have to get through in search of mountain wort to cure her joint fever, and we’re simply helping you along.’

  ‘But why would they let a granny and her grandson through when they won’t let anyone else?’

  ‘Because the grandmother will have something that will convince them to do so.’

  ‘What?’ asked Odo.

  ‘Leave that to me,’ said Hundred. ‘I heard something promising from the others who’ve tried to get past, and I can be very persuasive when I have to be.’

  Egda chuckled. ‘Wasn’t that what you told Headstrong Harold at the siege of Dysig?’

  ‘It was indeed,’ she said. ‘That’s how he got his new nickname, Headless Harold.’

  Eleanor didn’t feel nervous until the wagon started moving, drawn by their four remaining horses up the road towards the gate. She sat inside with Hundred, peering out through a hole in the canvas while Odo drove, Egda sitting comfortably at his side, disguised as the carpenter. Both swords were hidden again, this time in a long storage spac
e under a seat, Biter grumbling about being constantly kept in the dark.

  ‘Fear not, little brother,’ Runnel reassured him. ‘I f this plan goes awry, you will have your time in the light.’

  The gate was brightly lit by many torches set in iron stands along the road, as well as two big lanterns above the gate. The guards must have heard the wagon before they saw it, because half a dozen had already turned out, archers with arrows notched.

  The wagon trundled onto the rock bridge and stopped as one of the guards held up her hand. Tip circled overhead, invisible in the gloom.

  ‘Go back!’ yelled the guard. ‘Go to sleep!’

  ‘We’ve got papers now!’ Egda shouted back in a surprisingly good imitation of the carpenter’s voice.

  The guard looked over her shoulder. A moment later, an officious-looking woman in the red-and-silver uniform of an Instrument, with a huge bearskin cloak thrown over it, emerged from a sally port in the main gate. She stalked over to the wagon, chin up and nose wrinkled as if facing something highly unpleasant and much beneath her.

  ‘You again, Wilheard? I’ve already told you you’re not going through.’

  ‘I beg your pardon, Instrument Colvert,’ Egda said, keeping his head down as if being extra humble but really to keep his face hidden under his hood, deep in the shade of the canopy. ‘The thing is, this young lad and his grandmother have special dispensation from the regent to pass through, and I’ve volunteered to drive them.’

  ‘Dispensation? What are they, spies?’

  ‘Not our business to know. I suppose the regent has her reasons too.’

  ‘And I suppose you thought you could deliver your beloved doors into the bargain, I bet.’

  ‘Ain’t no harm in turning a good turn into a profit, is there?’

  ‘I suppose not.’

  Instrument Colvert chewed the inside of her lip uneasily. Odo tried to look superior and threatening in a non-knightly way. He had never met a spy before, but supposed they looked much like ordinary people, or else they wouldn’t be much use as spies at all.

  ‘Dispensation, eh? Well, I guess they’ve got a letter to prove it. With the proper seal. Let’s see it.’

  Egda fished under his winding scarf. ‘I’ve got it here. Seems in order to me, but you’d know better than a humble tradesman.’

  A leather scroll case passed from Egda’s hands to the Instrument’s. She opened one end and tipped it up. Blank parchment slid into her waiting palm – and so did six gold nobles.

  She looked at the coins, eyes widening in surprise, then up at Egda and Odo.

  Odo held his breath. A bribe! A massive bribe. Six gold nobles was more than a simple carpenter could make in a year, maybe two! But this was where everything could go entirely wrong. If Instrument Colvert’s loyalty to the regent was fierce enough, she could expose them with a word, and then the arrows would fly.

  Her eyes gleamed as brightly as the coins, then narrowed in speculation.

  ‘Do you feel that chill?’ said Egda with a shiver. ‘Must be hard up here, night after night, listening to the likes of me complaining. At least we can turn around and go home whenever we want. How long since your family saw you last, eh? A week? A month? Longer? If only you could offer them comfort until you return …’

  Instrument Colvert’s hand closed over the coins and slipped them into her pocket.

  ‘These look in order to me,’ she said, replacing the paper and the lid of the scroll case and handing it back to Egda. ‘I will order the gates opened.’

  ‘And our friend the Adjustor?’

  ‘The Adjustor is asleep. I’ll let him know in the morning. Who are we to interfere with the regent’s business?’

  With that she turned and reentered through the postern door. A moment later, with a great clunking and groaning, the gates swung out, revealing the road beyond.

  Odo kept his face carefully neutral, praying his relief was perfectly concealed. So far, so good, but there was a way yet to go.

  Inside the wagon, Eleanor, who had followed the conversation but not seen the coins, marvelled at the ruse.

  ‘How— ?’

  Hundred explained. ‘I had heard this Instrument was open to bribes, but the others waiting simply couldn’t offer enough. These Instruments are lackeys brazenly seeking advantage in a new regime; greed is the one thing they all share. Let us hope that the Adjustor is no less greedy, and they share the bribe and keep their mouths shut.’

  The wagon rocked over uneven flagstones through the gateway. It was more than twenty paces deep, with a portcullis at the far side that was raised by the time they reached it. Odo flicked the reins, willing himself not to look back, and urged the horses out into the open air.

  The moon had risen higher and now lit up the land ahead, including the teardrop-shaped lake Hundred had described to them. It was as large as Lenburh, a tarn fed by glacial meltwater from the surrounding mountains. This, then, was the source of the Foss, the waterfall he could still feel rumbling underfoot. And yet, as he approached the lake, following the snow-covered track that led down the rock bridge to the nearest shore, he could see that it was frozen. Obviously, the ice didn’t penetrate entirely down to its depths, otherwise there would be no water to flow anywhere.

  ‘Keep going,’ said Egda, ‘onto the ice. It is very thick, and will carry us. Aim for that spur of rock on the far side, the one that looks like a flag. It marks the road down.’

  ‘Is there another gate to get through?’ Odo asked.

  ‘No, but there will be a small garrison stationed on the other side. They do not normally stir, as the gate is the main defence. With luck they will pay us little heed.’

  Odo urged the horses warily onto the ice. It held, as promised. Many other wagons had come this way, and their iron-shod wheels had scored a rough road across the surface. Even so, horses and wheels slipped from time to time, and they could only move slowly across the ice. Tip swooped down to fly alongside them, wings flapping hard.

  Eleanor came out of the canopied cabin and sat next to Odo on the driver’s bench. With a whoop of delight, she marvelled at them heading across a lake of ice in the middle of the mountains, under the moon! She couldn’t wait to tell her father when they got home.

  ‘We made it!’ she cried. ‘I thought we were going to have to fight our way through for sure.’

  ‘Do not tempt fate,’ cautioned Hundred, sticking her head out between them to look ahead. ‘We are not safe yet.’

  ‘What can they do now?’

  Odo told her about the garrison on the other side of the lake.

  ‘Just remember that you are supposed to be Wigburg,’ said Hundred. ‘She has likely been this way many times and is no longer prone to whooping.’

  ‘How could anyone ever get tired of this view?’ Eleanor craned her neck to take in the complete moonlit vista. Looking behind them, she asked, ‘Do they always let off fireworks when people come through the gate?’

  Odo risked a glance over his shoulder. A bright red light was shooting up into the sky, dripping fiery sparks and casting a bloody pall across the snow.

  ‘No!’ exclaimed Hundred. ‘That is a flare alerting the garrison ahead that we are to be stopped. The Instrument has betrayed us!’

  Odo instinctively flicked the reins to drive the horses faster, but Hundred reached out and made him loosen them again.

  ‘We cannot risk speed,’ she said. ‘If a horse falls or we overturn, then all is lost. Keep up the pace.’

  They were perhaps halfway across the lake.

  ‘Who gave us away?’ fumed Eleanor. ‘It couldn’t have been Wilheard or Wigburg, could it? And the Adjustor took your money!’

  ‘Unfortunately, those who can be bought do not always stay that way. I think this proves that the Adjustors are more afraid of their superiors – and the regent – than we expected.’

  Odo concentrated on the horses. The pretence was done. All that mattered now was escape. Eleanor called for the swords, and they instantl
y appeared, Runnel joining her knight as she clambered up onto the top of the load of doors at the rear of the wagon, following Hundred, and Biter floating in the air next to Odo like a giant dart. Egda remained with Odo on the driver’s bench, staff at the ready.

  ‘Hurry the horses as we leave the ice and pass the garrison fort,’ Hundred told Odo. ‘Trust in speed to throw off the aim of the archers and the horses’ hooves to deter any guards who try to bar our passage.’

  At speed, the gate was barely a minute away. Already he could see the wooden palisade of the guardhouse, torches flaring and metal helmets shining as guards raced to get onto the walls.

  Suddenly, Tip was flying next to him, chittering urgently.

  ‘What’s that you’re saying?’ he asked.

  ‘l! o! o! k! l! e! f! t!’

  He glanced in that direction and saw a large shape loping across the ice. It was a bear, such a dark brown it looked almost black in the night, and it was running right for them.

  ‘a! n! d! r! i! g! h! t!’

  Two more shapes, larger even than the bear and with long, lethally sharp-looking horns and teeth. Also running.

  ‘Gore yaks!’ cried Hundred. ‘It seems we have craft-fire to contend with too.’

  ‘Look,’ said Eleanor, pointing in the rough direction of Twisletoth, on whose flanks a green spark flickered, sign of a craft-fire. ‘That flare wasn’t just to alert the guards ahead.’

  ‘Would that we were up there rather than here,’ Hundred growled. ‘Then we would see a match! How do we go, Sir Odo? Will we outrace these creatures before reaching our human enemies?’

  ‘I … I don’t think so,’ he gasped, panting with the effort of controlling the horses. They could smell the bear and were anxious to flee from it. Both the bear and the gore yaks were running along such a path as to cut them off some distance from the top of the road, where the guards awaited them. ‘They’re going to get to us first.’

  ‘You and I will take the bear, Sir Odo,’ said Biter. ‘I t will be no match for our combined strength.’