by Garth Nix
“I thought Quenwulf was a legend.” Odo gulped. “Those stories … they can’t all be true.”
“Why not?” asked Eleanor.
Odo didn’t have a good answer to that.
“Though my memories are not … precise,” said Biter thoughtfully, “I do remember Quenwulf. She was real enough. I think I even met her. A parley, perhaps? Something nags at my mind … I do recall a great creature, far bigger than your family’s mill, Sir Odo.”
Everyone was silent as they thought about that.
“But why would a dragon want to dam the river?” asked Eleanor. “I’ve never heard a story about a dragon doing that.”
“Perhaps the dragon breathes fire upon the water and boils it away,” Firman offered. “Some fear Quenwulf wishes to dry out the lands surrounding the river, then to burn it all in some vast and unholy pyre. Dragons are said to worship flame.”
Odo imagined Lenburh burning, and shuddered.
“How are we supposed to fight something like that?” he asked, his voice sounding very small.
“Maybe you shouldn’t,” said Firman. “That’s why I’m telling you.”
“We can’t go back,” said Eleanor, although her voice was not as steady as she would have liked. “We promised to save the river. And besides, we have Biter.”
“Is he going to be enough?” Firman asked.
They looked at the sword to see if he had an opinion on the matter. He was unusually silent. Maybe he didn’t want to be melted into slag by a dragon’s fiery breath, or crumpled to junk in a dragon’s powerful claw.
“Hildebard Shining Foebiter,” said Biter, “Scourge of something or other, but now that I think of it, also … Dragonslayer!”
“That does sound impressive, I’ll admit,” said Firman.
“All right, then,” said Eleanor. “Wielding Biter the Dragonslayer, I’m sure you will succeed, Sir Odo. Nothing has changed.”
“Except for the dragon being the most famous, most powerful one anyone has ever heard of,” muttered Odo. As always, he was glad to have Eleanor’s company, but now he was more worried than ever that this adventure would end up with one or both of them dead. Eleanor was just too brave. It would be sensible to turn back right now, but he knew he could never convince her to give up their quest. Or Biter, for that matter.
Besides, he also had a clear image of what it might cost Lenburh and all its people if they failed. He had seen fires in the forest, and the night that Swein Cow Drover’s hut had burned. He imagined that on a greater scale, the whole village a writhing thing of red flame, black smoke across the sky, ash falling for miles around …
“Well, that’s all I’ve heard, and now you know it too,” said Firman. “My day has been a long one, and you have many long leagues ahead of you. Full belly cures faint heart — isn’t that what they say? Let’s sleep on it and see what tomorrow brings.”
The children agreed. Biter volunteered to keep watch, but Eleanor found it difficult to sleep. Her thoughts were full of her father and how he would feel if he knew she was going off to do battle with a dragon. Her mother, Eleanor knew, had died in a forlorn hope, assaulting a much stronger enemy. She wondered in the darkest hour before the moon rose if she was marching off to the very same fate … But her mind slid away from that thought, and soon Eleanor fell into a weary sleep.
For his part, Odo was exhausted from knightly training. He fell instantly into a deep slumber, disrupted only once, when he woke to the sound of shuffling footsteps along the river path.
Through bleary eyes he saw Biter scooping earth upon the dying coals of the fire, extinguishing the faint light from the embers. In the darkness the sword was visible only as a few disconnected glints of starlight reflected in his steel. Odo winced as Biter swooped down near his face.
“Firman is not the only traveler on this road tonight,” the sword told him in a whisper.
Odo raised his head and opened his eyes as wide as they would go. It didn’t help, but in the dim starlight he could just make out a dark lump that was the forester and another that was Eleanor. He was about to lay his head back down when a sharp odor struck his nose. It was like the harsh smell of the wood-ash lye Lenburh’s tanner used to clean her hides, but sweeter, somehow. Stranger.
“Urthkin,” whispered Biter.
Odo jerked up, alarmed, but the sword added, “Fear not. There is no danger, provided we do not provoke them.”
“Really?” asked Odo. All the childhood stories, whispers, and rumors he’d heard about urthkin were bubbling up in his head, and he was now very much awake.
Urthkin lived in subterranean warrens, occasionally hollowing out mountains to make giant nests, like termites. They hated the light and wore elaborate, shady costumes with enormous broad-brimmed hats when forced out into the day. They were prodigious miners, trading precious metals and gems for products grown or made on the surface. They were said to be savage fighters who never took prisoners.
Odo had never seen one before. No one he knew had. Briefly he wondered if he should wake up Eleanor to tell her what was nearby, but the strange smell slowly faded, and he could no longer hear the muffled footsteps on the path.
“They have gone,” whispered Biter.
“You’re sure?” asked Odo nervously.
“I am sure,” said Biter. “But I will keep watch. Sleep, my knight.”
Odo lay back down, doubting that he would ever get to sleep again. His mind was too busy with thoughts of a great dragon boiling away the river and urthkin emerging from the ground and swords flashing this way and that and … he fell asleep again.
When he woke the next morning, the near-encounter was pushed abruptly from his mind by Eleanor’s angry shout.
“Firman’s gone! And look — the ill-bred varlet took the last two pieces of hare!”
Odo shot upright, blinking sleep from his eyes. Every muscle hurt from the unfamiliar exercises Biter had been giving him, making him groan as he twisted around looking for the forester.
What Eleanor said was true. The camp was empty apart from the two of them and Biter, and the remains of the carcass were gone.
“I thought you were on guard,” Odo scolded the sword.
“I was.” Biter sounded offended. “I told the artisan to take the meat. We will hunt more as needed.”
“I was looking forward to eating that!”
Eleanor resented the sword giving away meat she’d prepared, although Biter had probably expected her to give her share to Odo anyway, or at least serve it to him. A squire’s work was never done.
Odo was already laying out their supplies and meager dishes. Firman had considerately cleaned up after himself before he left, filling in his toilet hole and burying his rubbish.
Maybe, she told herself, I should concentrate on the positives.
“So, a dragon,” she said, taking the chunk of hard, brown bread Odo offered her. “Quenwulf the dragon. Do we know what her strengths are? Does she have any known weaknesses?”
“Let’s concentrate on finding her, first,” said Odo, rubbing his aching calves while he chewed. In his mind, he was planning how to redistribute the weight in the packs so Eleanor could carry the smaller one.
“Do you think we’ll get to keep her head?” Eleanor asked.
“I seem to recall the skull of the dragon Axcræfta measured the length of five tall men from ear to chin,” said Biter, neatly slicing the wings off an unwary fly that chose that moment to investigate the sausage. “King Ormod turned it into a boat and was burned in it when he died.”
“Are there ever any queens in your stories?” asked Eleanor.
The sword ignored her. “There is no time to lose, Sir Odo. If even the urthkin are on the move, the situation must be truly dire.”
“Urthkin?” said Eleanor.
“The urthkin!” exclaimed Odo, suddenly remembering the strange smell and the soft footfalls in the night. “We heard some coming down the road before moonrise. They didn’t stop.”
“It’s all happening, isn’t it?” Eleanor’s mind filled with of visions of dragons, night creatures, and exotic travelers, in descending order of interest to her, but greater interest nonetheless than anything she had left behind in Lenburh. “This really is an adventure now!”
“I guess it is,” said Odo, not very happily.
Eleanor wasn’t discouraged by his lack of enthusiasm.
“An adventure,” she said happily, her eyes bright. “Just what I’ve always wanted!”
It might be an adventure, but all the usual boring tasks of ordinary travel had to be completed too. Breakfast, toilet, and repacking gear took up a good hour before they were on the road again, heading northward as before. After a few miles, the path veered away from the muddy trickle that had once been the river and joined a road, though it was mostly just a wider stretch of dirt. Every now and then there were sections of ancient paving, and even a milestone with an inscription so eroded it was impossible to tell what it said.
Eleanor and Odo were amazed. They had never known that Lenburh lay so close to a real road, a road that looked like it went somewhere important.
They passed an actual signpost an hour into their journey — another sign of greatness that Lenburh lacked. There, if you needed directions you had to ask someone. But here, between two small hills, the road forked and there stood a tall post that had once held two signs. Only one remained, pointing off to their right, the eastern fork. Despite severe weathering, it was still possible to read the deeply etched word Ablerhyll.
Eleanor had actually met someone from Ablerhyll once — an herbalist who came to learn healing lore from her father. He had been tall, shiningly bald, nervous of children and animals, and had become the subject of intense curiosity after his departure. Apparently he was a very good herbalist but a poor healer, since he was frightened of his patients.
Eleanor looked along the eastern road and wondered what Ablerhyll was like and whether the bald herbalist was still there, refusing to look anyone in the eye. She’d like to go and see, but not until their quest was complete. She knew that as a knight, or even as a squire, duty came first, certainly before mere curiosity. When she was a knight herself —
“Concentrate, Sir Odo. I will repeat the Seven Certain Blocks for you while you commit them to memory.”
Eleanor switched her attention firmly back to where Biter was dragging Odo’s hand around, and concentrated on learning the Seven Certain Blocks herself.
But before she could do this, another distraction arose. A group of people suddenly came over the crest of the hill.
“Ambuscade!” roared Biter, lunging forward toward the broad-shouldered man who had the misfortune to be closest. Odo, obeying his naturally peaceable instincts, did not follow the sword’s movement, but instead tried to hold it back.
This was just as well, since this was far from an ambush. It was simply a shepherd and his family traveling along the same road. The man held a rather flimsy crook, not even a quarterstaff. Behind him trailed a perfectly harmless flock of sheep, with his wife and three small children bringing up the rear.
“Help!” cried the man, leaping backward into his sheep, who scattered in all directions. His wife, clearly made of tougher stuff, drew a knife from under her kirtle and advanced, the children behind her.
“State your name and allegiance!” boomed the sword.
“I’m a — I’m a — I’m a —” The man’s sword-induced stammer was impenetrable.
“He’s a shepherd!” said Odo, desperately failing to wrestle the sword back into the scabbard. “He’s harmless.”
“You leave us alone!” called the shepherdess, who was weaving her way between the sheep, her knife held high. “I’ll give you what for, robbers on the high road!”
“How dare you, woman!” roared Biter. He whisked himself through the air, just missing a sheep. “You stand before a knight-errant and the mighty sword Biter the Dragonslayer, Scourge of the … the …”
“Sheep?” muttered Eleanor as Biter cut the wool from the back of a ewe that tried to get past Odo. The ewe turned away in fright, bleated, and jumped into a muddy hole by the roadside, where it promptly got stuck.
“Everyone calm down!” shouted Odo. Using both hands, he managed to force Biter’s point down to touch the road. “Please! We are not robbers.”
“Bet we’re going to be shepherds for a while, though,” said Eleanor, looking at sheep bolting in every possible direction. She had a low opinion of ovine intelligence. “Now we have to catch them!”
By the time they had brought the flock back together, the farmer had regained his voice and one of the younger children had fallen asleep on his mother’s lap. The shepherdess was not impressed with being delayed by an apparently deranged magic sword.
“If it isn’t one thing it’s another,” the woman complained. “First the dragon steals our sheep, now it’s enchanted slicers —”
“A dragon?” asked Odo urgently.
“Where?” questioned Eleanor at almost the same time.
“Sheppy, two days north of here,” said the shepherdess. She looked at her husband and scowled. “His village. I never liked it. We’re going back to my family, down south at Wichslyn. They don’t have dragons eating sheep there, I tell you. We won’t stand for it there.”
“Might not have been a dragon in Sheppy, neither,” said the shepherd, keeping a tight hold on his crook and maintaining a respectful distance from the sword. “Could have been wolves.”
“If it was wolves, they were doing her bidding anyhow,” said the shepherdess. “Queen of the Wolves, ain’t she? That’s what her name means, don’t it?”
“You mean Quenwulf?” asked Eleanor. It did sound a bit like queen wolf. “I never heard she was queen of any wolves. I mean why would a dragon —”
“All wild animals will obey a dragon,” said the shepherdess with certainty. “She’s made a nest in the Upper Valleys, they say, and when there’s no sheep left to eat, she’ll eat people. Leastways those not smart enough to get away.”
“I don’t want to be eaten, Ma,” whined the oldest child.
“And you won’t be,” his mother told him. “Not at Wichslyn, where sensible folk live. No dragons or magicked-up toadstickers there.”
She shot Biter a sour look, and Odo judged it wise to keep moving.
“Again, I am sorry we … er … startled you,” he said.
“Are you really a knight, Sir Odo?” asked the middle child. “You don’t have any armor.”
Before Odo could answer, Biter shot half out of the scabbard, scaring the shepherd family yet again.
“He is indeed, for a knight is not known by his armor —”
“Or her armor,” interrupted Eleanor.
“But by his sword!” continued Biter. “Know ye that I am Hildebrand Shining Foebiter, Dragonslayer and Scourge of … er … None but a true knight may wield me and live!”
His last words were delivered to the backs of people and sheep as they hurried away, which rather lessened the awesomeness of his pronouncement.
“Nonetheless,” he added thoughtfully, “the child does have a point. Armor. You are insufficiently equipped, Sir Odo, for an assault on any dragon, let alone one with the reputation of Quenwulf.”
“I don’t see what I can do about that,” Odo replied. He was tired of failing to meet Biter’s expectations. It wasn’t helping him believe that he could actually succeed at their quest, even though he was relieved they would be walking only to the Upper Valleys, not all the way into the mountains. “We haven’t got anywhere near enough money to buy armor.”
“Never underestimate the value of a good deed, Sir Odo. Many a knight has been provisioned by those he has helped.”
“We rounded up those sheep,” said Eleanor.
“Yes,” Odo said, “but only after we scared them off. Besides, what could they give us? Woolly vests? Good deeds or not, no one around here will even have any armor to give us.”
“Where there’s
a road, there will be a crossroads,” said Biter portentously.
“What does that mean?” asked Odo.
“Smiths can be found at crossroads,” said Biter. “Just as divines at natural springs, or cider-makers by orchards.”
“I wouldn’t mind some cider,” said Odo with a sigh. They’d finished all the cider in the flask his mother had given him.
“If there is a smithy ahead,” said Eleanor, “they might give you armor if we promise to kill the dragon for them. Maybe they’ll give both of us armor. And me a sword.”
“I suppose we can hope,” said Odo. “But it seems unlikely to me.”
“If you never stand, you’ll never fall, but never standing, you’ll never be tall,” Eleanor said sharply, reciting a childhood rhyme she often used to goad Odo into taking even the small risks of their adventures back home.
“Used to happen all the time in the old days,” said Biter. “My knights and I were showered with gifts. Armor, horses, jeweled scabbards, hunting dogs, a special whetstone I particularly enjoyed …”
The sword continued to burble on about all the things he had been given as Odo and Eleanor started walking again. The miller’s boy raised his eyebrows at Eleanor, indicating his doubt that anyone would give them such gifts. Or any gifts.
“Anything’s possible,” whispered Eleanor, her voice hardly loud enough to be heard over Biter’s continuing catalogue of presents. “You never thought you’d be a knight, did you?”
“No,” said Odo heavily, and concentrated on setting one foot after the other, while not listening to the sword.
“A brace of peacocks, a bed in the shape of a swan, a very fine baldric, a sword-rest of black oak …”
* * *
Later that day, Odo wondered if Biter did know what he was talking about, at least as far as smiths and crossroads went. The road had meandered back down from the low hills to run along the river again, and Odo could see another road coming down to meet it somewhere up ahead, beyond the ever-present clumps of willow and alder. There, where the roads would meet, he saw a tall column of smoke. Darker smoke than from a typical cottager’s fire, and much more of it. It could easily be a forge, though he doubted any smith would be as generous as Biter thought.