A Hero's Curse

by P. S. Broaddus

  “Si-si-since your k-k-king said it.” She dives in on the best way to dry lizards, and I let it go. It is a curious name for a mountain. Not your usual run-of-the-mill mountain label. I let my nose do some work and let my ears take a rest. We are walking through a tunnel that smells unused. Our feet stir up dust that has been still for a long time. The smooth rock tunnels stopped over an hour ago. I drop back a couple of steps, and Tig follows suit. “She doesn’t seem to run out of things to say does she?” I whisper.

  “We need to know everything we can,” says Tig. “Stop being so critical.” I’m so taken aback by Tig telling me to stop being critical I don’t have a response. Comments like these still have me reeling over Tig’s complete change in attitude. One minute he is ready to eat this thing as a rodent, and the next minute he’s telling me to be nice and practically falling over himself to play it up with a ringtail.

  A moment of inward inspiration makes my mouth twitch. Proving it will be tricky. I think about how to word the question for a few minutes before testing my theory. “Tig, tell this ratcat to stop for a minute,” I say, loud enough for Chatter to hear. “I’ve got something in my boot.”

  Tig mutters about humans always fussing over their feet and calls ahead to Chatter. “Hold up, Chatter. Ess has a paw issue.”

  I grin. That’s it. They are as good as married. Apparently Tig doesn’t mind that she’s a cat now. I tap my boot against the tunnel wall. “I’m good, let’s go.”

  Tig grunts. “That was fast.” But he doesn’t argue, and Chatter is going on again, this time about what lives in the tunnels since the swampland dried up.

  “The k-k-king thinks that d-d-desert wyrms have moved in—some of the newer t-t-tunnels might have even been d-d-dug by wyrms, I’ve seen some in the t-t-tunnels but they usually only b-b-burrow in one spot, they don’t live underground if they c-c-can help it. I told M-M-Mactogonii that you could sm-sm-smell wyrms long after they are g-g-gone, and b-b-besides most of these t-t-tunnels are too small for a w-w-wyrm.” That makes me stretch out my arms so that my fingertips can brush both tunnel walls. I shiver. Tig’s earlier description failed to convey what I feel now. Wyrms must be big.

  Sometimes we hear the metallic click of insects scurrying down side tunnels or rodent squeaks that soon quiet as they hear us coming. For the most part the tunnels are quiet and untouched. Our camp that night is uneventful but noisy. Even Tig sleeps loudly this time, snoring and muttering. It takes me a long time to go to sleep, so I think about the otherworldly army marching toward the Kingdom of Mar instead. When I finally do fall asleep several hours into the night I’m no closer to a solution than I was before. It bothers me that I don’t know if King Mactogonii was after more sunfire. But according to Uncle Cagney that didn’t help my dad kill the daemon the first time around.

  Tig puts his tail under my nose to wake me. A swallow of water is all we allow ourselves. I chew on some of the last of the dried out mushrooms as Tig and Chatter share a mummified lizard and a mouse that Tig caught. When we start, Chatter and Tig are ahead again, this time with Tig expounding on the best material for sharpening claws. We haven’t even traveled an hour when my nose tingles. The dust here has been disturbed by something that left a tangy, sour smell in the air. Chatter stops clicking and slows her feet to a ghostly whisper.

  Tig continues unabated so I hiss at him. “Tig.” He snaps his mouth shut, and all three of us come to a halt. The odor isn’t heavy, and it is hard to tell how fresh it is. Without any fresh air in the tunnels smells can hang for days, even weeks. The floor underneath my feet is ridged and packed—something heavy passed through here, rolling rather than walking or shuffling. My spine prickles, and my hands start to sweat. I ball my fists and push my senses out in all directions. I know Tig and Chatter are doing the same. No sounds, insect, rodent, or otherwise. The tunnel is a tomb. That isn’t completely unusual, we have passed these “dead zones” a couple of times. It means we are deep.

  The tangy odor has a sweet and sour smell to it like rotten fruit that has been in the sun too long. I taste the air. It’s a scavenger. I carefully kneel and feel the ridges on the floor with my fingers. The dirt is hard packed along the floor and halfway up the side of the tunnel. The regular ridges have a smooth and sharp edge.

  “It’s nearly the size of the tunnel,” I whisper. “It uses its body to propel it like a snake . . .”

  “Not a snake,” says Chatter softly. “A w-w-wyrm.”

  Chapter 18

  About the time Chatter says “wyrm” is about the same time she begins to panic. She starts to chatter in that characteristic way of hers that lets us know she is too scared to talk. I feel bad for her, but the almost silence is kind of nice.

  “Close?” asks Tig, directing the question at Chatter. I frown. He doesn’t ask anybody but me about the hunt. Chatter clicks again, in what sounds like an attempt to clamp her own teeth together.

  “Could be.”

  Tig speaks next. “We need to get in a different tunnel. We passed a tunnel just before we camped last night, to the right.”

  “There will p-p-probably be a t-t-tunnel off of this one soon,” says Chatter. “We’re sloping upward already . . .”

  “It’s ahead of us, though,” says Tig.

  I hate the thought of turning my back to this thing. “Let’s find a way out,” I hiss, “up ahead.”

  Everyone is silent for a moment, then Tig says, “Okay,” and trots forward. The smooth ridges under my feet do nothing to help my nerves. My stomach lurches at every noise we make that might carry. The air gets heavier, with a moist quality to it as the odor increases. I am pretty good at keeping track of time, but every minute feels like an hour.

  “Up and to the right,” growls Tig, “a tunnel.”

  “It’s could b-b-be an exit,” says Chatter—the first thing she’s said in quite a while. I feel the dirt floor slope upward and have to duck down to crawl after Tig and Chatter as we leave the main tunnel. The floor in this tunnel is soft and dusty again, and I almost breathe a sigh of relief when we hear the high-pitched “scrreeeee” from up the main tunnel. Tig yowls and I hear him scrabbling forward, with me not far behind. Our little passageway is at a fairly steep slope upward, so I keep expecting to hear Chatter or Tig say we are going above ground almost any moment.

  “This end is b-b-b-b-blocked up!” screams Chatter in her high-pitched stutter. I hear her start to scratch at the dirt, growling and barking all at the same time.

  Tig moves forward to help but yowls and backs into me again. “Watch it!” he hisses at Chatter. I can only assume that she must have swiped him in her hurry. A muffled thump comes from down the tunnel behind us and the nauseating smell of sickly, sweet, rotting rolls up to us. Chatter barks again and claws her way back past us. Breath caught in my throat I listen to the ringtail scrabble down the tiny side tunnel and then back down the main passage the way we came.

  “She ran!” screeches Tig. He spits and yowls down the tunnel after Chatter. This probably saves her life. The wyrm thumps into the bottom of our narrow channel, and I hear the horrible sucking mouth chewing up dirt as it slides toward us. Tig leaps back against the roof of our tunnel and starts clawing furiously. Dust and clods rain back at me as he scratches at the opening.

  I don’t have time to say “Hurry” before I hear a wet slithering behind us. I gag at the smell in the air.

  Tig yowls, “It’s open! Get out, Ess!” I scramble forward and feel the cat-sized hole. I don’t complain. I push my head through and scramble forward. A rock doesn’t budge, and I feel a long scratch run down my side but the next moment I’m free. It is still early morning, and the air is cool and fresh after being in the tunnels for so long. I stumble after the hissing that is Tig.

  A startled spit in front of me makes me jump. “What?” I yell.

  “Tentacles!” yells Tig. “It’s digging its way out!” That gets me moving. “This way!” says Tig, and we are off at a brisk trot.

  I wish I had my
stick. I’ve missed it since the Valley of Fire. I have to trust that Tig will let me know if I’m about to run into anything. The ground is almost perfectly level, slightly crusted and dusty. No clumps of grass, no rocks. I trot after the growl in front of me for what seems a long time. Finally Tig calls a halt.

  “Worthless coward!” says Tig.

  “She was scared, Tig,” I gasp, feeling my fast heartbeat and lack of breath.

  “She nearly got us killed! She ran when it counted most!” he spits back. I bend over and put my hands on my knees, taking a deep breath. The morning is heating up. I can feel the sun already hot on my back.

  “You knew she was a runner two days ago,” I remind him. He is quiet for a moment, and I realize with a bit of a shock that Tig cares about someone or something other than me enough to be angry. “I’m sorry, Tig.”

  He doesn’t respond. He just gets up and starts trotting off to the west. I jog to catch up. “I’m sure she made it. The wyrm came after us, and it wasn’t all that fast.” He still doesn’t say anything. “She helped us a lot,” I say. Silently I can’t believe I have to defend her. “We probably wouldn’t have made it without her,” I admit. “Not everyone has your nerves of steel.”

  He still doesn’t say anything, but he slows his trot to a walk, which is nice for me. I fall into step beside him. “Not everybody’s perfect.”

  “I guess she did have a couple of quirks,” he says.

  “You mean something like a character flaw?” I joke.

  “I wouldn’t know,” he says loftily. “I suppose that’s what others call them.”

  “Welcome back, Tig.”

  “There’s a dark smudge that looks like a tree line at the foot of some pretty serious mountains. I think we might make it there before we cook,” he narrates.

  I adjust my nearly empty pack and pick up the pace a bit. No sense in cooking if we can help it. We reach the trees just after things get hot. And by hot I mean Tig has me carry him because his feet can’t stand the ground. The ground goes from hard cracked earth to soft pine needles with no transition. Under the pine needles the ground is soft and damp. I’m finally able to find another stick. Not as nice as Dad’s, but it will do. We decide to rest a few hundred feet under the trees beneath a giant root. The woods up the mountain are sleepy and peaceful, but not quiet. Birds sing in the trees. Squirrels mock us. Insects crawl through dried leaves. Crickets play their music.

  A cicada on our stump joins the chorus. Tig gets up and eats it. I listen to his crunching and massage my own stomach. “Taste good?” I ask.

  “Sure, if you like crunchy protein,” he says.

  I wrinkle my nose. I’m not that hungry yet, but I’m getting there. “What do you think about this mountain? How will we know where to find it?” I wonder aloud.

  Tig bounds up the trunk of the tree next to us. “I don’t think that will be a problem,” he says from the branches above me. “There’s only one mountain around with its top covered in clouds.”

  “Syteless Peak?” I ask.

  “It looks that way,” says Tig. “Every other peak is as clear as day. I can see for miles. Not a cloud in the sky. Except for that one.”

  “Is it bigger than the rest of them?”

  “No. It just looks unnatural.” It has a blindfold, too, I say silently. “Let’s head straight for it and hope we bump into water on our way,” suggests Tig. I scramble to my feet, grab my stick, and follow Tig.

  There are more obstacles here than there have been on our entire journey. No trail exists here. Logs lay in the path. My boots seem to find every small depression or loud twig. Branches slap me in the face. Thorny vines reach out and grab my tunic. I hit my shins more times than I can count. Tig is having a much easier time, but I can still hear him struggle through undergrowth. Tig finally finds a small animal trail, and the going gets much better.

  Squirrels scold us as we follow the meandering track for several hours. We cross a stream. I dig a small hole next to the stream and wait patiently for it to fill with water, like Dad taught me. I can still hear his deep voice, rough but kind. I can tell he is looking at the hole he is digging as he speaks. “Dig a hole next to the water, Brightstar. Let the water filter through the dirt. There, like that. As water comes in it’ll be clean. It may taste muddy, but you can drink that without worrying about getting sick.”

  It is good to sit and wait for a minute. I haven’t discerned any sign of large hunters. I haven’t even heard game bigger than squirrels. The shade is cool. A soft breeze tickles my face and sets the trees to whispering. Even Tig is relaxed. So much demands to be touched and breathed. A rough piece of bark, a smooth sapling, and a citrusy smelling vine leaf—all call out to me. Then Tig finds gold. Better than gold really, because I couldn’t eat gold. Berries. Hundreds of them on a tree only a few yards from the stream. He sees squirrels and birds eating them, and other small rodents have been eating the ones that have fallen to the ground, so we assume they aren’t poisonous. Good enough for my starving stomach.

  I eat handfuls of berries. Just as the edge wears off my hunger, I take a break and find my small water hole. It is full. I take a long time drinking little sips off the top, careful not to stir up the dirt from the bottom. When I’ve finally gotten enough water, I meander back to the berry tree and spend the rest of an hour picking berries. If a berry feels firm enough I drop it into my bag. Everything else goes in my mouth. I wander back to the stream with my bag about half full of berries. At least one more meal, which is good because we only have a couple of dried mushrooms left rolling around on the bottom of my pack. I rinse out my water skin and begin the slow process of filling it. Tig disappears for a half hour, and when he slinks back to the creek it’s with the proud growl that says he caught something.

  “The mice here are fat!” he says, dropping something soft and heavy on my foot. “You should partake,” he invites.

  “No thanks. I’m pretty full. I can’t eat that stuff raw anyway. You go ahead.”

  Tig grunts. “Your loss.” He goes to work on his rodent while I have another long, slow drink. I finish my drink and decide to wash my bandana. My piece of red. A link to home. I use it to wipe the last of the sand from the Gray Wastelands off my face, and then after a final rinse I reach to put it away in my pack. I pause and let my fingers whisper through the silk. It is comfortable around my eyes, protecting even when we are out of the wind. I shut my pack and wrap red back around my eyes.

  “There’s some kind of nut on a tree a few yards from here,” he says in between bites. “Squirrels are fighting over those, too. They might give you something that sticks longer than berries.”

  “That would be good,” I admit.

  “Come on,” he says. I grab my pack and water skin as he gulps down a last bite and leads the way over the creek. We struggle through the brush for a few yards before stopping in the clear area under a tree. He drops his mouse again. I didn’t realize he’d brought it.

  “Aren’t we going back to the creek?” I ask.

  “We’ve been there too long,” he says. “Everything comes by the creek. We needed to move.” Inside I agree, but I feel like he should have asked me before deciding it was time to leave. We’re supposed to be a team.

  “I think we could have stayed a little longer,” I say.

  “You’re entitled to your opinion,” Tig replies.

  I squeeze my eyes shut behind my bandana and focus on controlling my voice. “Tig, we’re a team. You’re not in charge.” I take a breath and wonder whether I should say “please.” I decide no. “We make decisions together.”

  “Sure,” Tig says. I want to lash out. The feeling is right there. No one pushes me like Tig. But then the scene at the Red Giants comes rushing back at me, and I stoop to find nuts on the ground instead. They are familiar. Uncle Cagney brought some with him three winters ago. We sat around the fire at the house, and Dad cracked them open just by squeezing them. I try that trick and only end up hurting my hand. I’ll have to f
ind a rock later for this project. I pour all my berries out on the ground and stuff the bottom of the pack with nuts. Then I pad the nuts with green pine needles, which are good for a headache and are just good to chew on if you don’t have anything to eat. Last, I pack the berries back on top, covering them with another layer of pine needles just for good measure.

  As the afternoon dies we head out. Not before one more good drink from the stream though. Tig scouts ahead, and all is quiet where I dug the hole, so I thread my way back rather than waiting for another pit to fill with water. All the sand has settled, and the water is pure and fresh. Fresher than any I have tasted at home and without the rusty taste of the water under the Valley of Fire.

  We leave the stream and walk for a couple more hours toward Syteless Peak, most of the time using the small trails that crisscross the forest. There is a gradual slope and a dull ache in my knee reminds me it was only a few days ago I fell at the Red Giants. I can feel evening coming on when Tig has us stop.

  “We are just about to the base of the mountain,” he says. “A few hundred feet and we are going to leave these trees behind, and we’ll be out in the open on rocky ground for the rest of the climb.”

  “We should find a place to camp here under the trees,” I say.

  “I travel well at night. We could push through and find the door,” he suggests.

  “Hunters travel at night. We haven’t seen anything yet, but if something bigger than we are goes on the prowl tonight they’ll run into us on the mountain face.”

  “Good point,” Tig admits.

  “Do you see anything that might make a good shelter?” I ask.

  Tig takes a moment to scramble into a tree beside me. “It looks like there is an old deadfall about fifty feet off to our left,” says Tig. “It was a pretty big tree. We can sleep under that.” The undergrowth is thick here, so it takes us a few minutes to get to the dead tree Tig spotted. Tig sniffs around until he finds the right place.