Accidental Heroes

by Lian Tanner

  For the briefest of moments, he found himself wondering if Duckling’s grandpa was pretending too …

  Don’t be silly, he told himself. If there’s one person in the Strong-hold who I’m sure of, it’s Lord Rump.

  And he made himself hand over the pouch.

  Lord Rump inspected it carefully, turning it over several times before untying the string and taking out the tooth. ‘It is very old,’ he murmured.

  He’s seen enough, thought Pummel. I should ask for it back now.

  But he didn’t want to sound ungrateful. So he made himself wait.

  Lord Rump held the raashk up to his eye – and sighed. ‘Nothing. Not a thing.’

  Now, thought Pummel. But still he waited.

  ‘You are the only one it works for. I wonder why?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ Pummel took a breath. ‘But could I have it b—’

  Lord Rump’s knee twitched, and the cane fell to the floor with a clatter. Pummel’s eyes followed it automatically. He leaned over to pick it up.

  ‘No no, I can get it!’ cried Lord Rump. ‘Oh, you have it already. You are very kind to an old man.’ He took the cane and laid it across his knees. ‘But here, I can see you do not like having this mysterious tooth out of your possession.’ He slipped the raashk back into its pouch and twisted the string.

  ‘Sorry,’ said Pummel, trying very hard not to snatch it.

  ‘No need to apologise, my boy. I understand completely.’ Lord Rump handed over the pouch, blew out the candle and stood up. ‘Now get some sleep. Tonight we will stand guard again.’

  WHERE IS MY CANE?

  ‘Why did you not tell me?’

  ‘What—’ Duckling was dragged out of a deep sleep so quickly and suddenly that she was on her feet before she knew it.

  The Young Margrave stood in front of her, his face bright with anger. ‘You knew, Tanglefoot,’ he shouted. ‘Do not say otherwise. You should have told me.’

  Otte edged into the alcove behind him. ‘You would have put yourself in danger, Brun. You know you would.’

  The Heir spun around. ‘That is no reason!’

  On the other side of the curtain, Grandpa said quietly, ‘This is no time for arguing, Young Ser. The sun has set and we must be ready for when the fiend comes again.’

  I’ve slept the whole day, thought Duckling.

  ‘This time,’ continued Grandpa, ‘we will not let ourselves be separated. We will wait in your bedchamber, all of us. I have taken the liberty of ordering supper. I understand there is a rather interesting porridge.’

  They ate their supper in near-silence. Pummel was there in the bedchamber, as well as Otte, the Young Margrave, Duckling and Grandpa.

  Everyone was nervous – Duckling could see it in the way they fidgeted and pushed their porridge away half-finished. Even Grandpa cleared his throat a little too often, and forgot to make up stories.

  Just before the guards were due to take up their night posts, the cat limped into the bedchamber. The Heir straightened up, as if he was about to protest. Otte whispered in his ear and he subsided.

  Duckling wondered just how much Otte had told his friend, and what would happen if the cat spoke.

  But the cat said nothing.

  After supper, the Young Margrave took out three dice and set about rolling them across his bedside table in grim silence. The cat slept, Grandpa closed his eyes but didn’t sleep, and Otte and Pummel talked quietly.

  Duckling nibbled her fingernails.

  The night wore on.

  At one point, Otte took a length of cord from one of the wooden chests. ‘If I tie myself to you, Brun, the Harshman will not find it so easy to snatch you away.’

  ‘No,’ said the Heir.

  ‘Let me do it, Brun. I cannot fight the Harshman, but I can help save you.’

  ‘No,’ said the Heir.

  ‘It makes sense,’ said Duckling. ‘The harder it is to take you—’

  ‘Did I give you permission to speak?’ demanded the Heir.

  Otte said, ‘She has helped save your life twice, Brun, at risk of her own.’

  the Young Margrave reddened, and Duckling thought he was going to start shouting again. But Grandpa sat up. ‘No need to thank my granddaughter, Young Ser. None of us do this for reward. All we want is to serve.’ His voice deepened, and Duckling knew he was about to launch into one of his speeches. ‘And when the fiend comes, we will throw ourselves in front of you, armed to the teeth—’

  He broke off, and looked about him. ‘My cane, where is my cane?’

  Everyone but the cat set about searching the room. But Grandpa’s cane was nowhere to be found.

  ‘It has a very thin sword inside it,’ Otte explained to the Young Margrave. ‘Duckling fought the hawk with it last night.’

  ‘It was useless,’ said Duckling. ‘The bird didn’t even notice.’

  ‘All the same, I do not feel right without it in my hands,’ said Grandpa, still poking in corners. ‘Dear me, I must have left it in my room. Is there time to fetch it, young Otte? If there is not, I will have to do without—’

  Otte studied the notches on the candle. ‘It is just past middle-night. If the Harshman is coming, I think it will be soon.’

  ‘Then I shall return,’ said Lord Rump, ‘with great haste.’ He fixed them all with a stern look. ‘Tonight we stand together, my friends. Tonight, we defeat this vile creature, once and for all. Tonight we win!’ And he threw the door open and marched out.

  Pummel looked after him with a worried expression on his face.

  Duckling was silently counting down the seconds, starting at twenty. When she got to zero, she put her hand to her mouth and said, ‘Wait, I don’t think Grandpa’s cane is in his room. I’d better go and tell him where I saw it. Won’t be long. Make sure you let us in when we come back.’

  She dashed out of the room, past the guards – and caught up with Grandpa at the top of the stairs. At least, she would have caught up with him if she hadn’t stopped at the corner and peeped around it.

  There he was, the old villain, just starting downwards. Duckling crept after him, ready to dart out of sight if he turned around.

  But he didn’t turn. He went straight down three flights of stairs, then swung right, towards his room.

  Maybe he was telling the truth, thought Duckling. Maybe he did leave his cane there.

  She hung back all the same, and watched. Grandpa went into his room and immediately came out again, carrying the cane. But instead of returning to the seventh floor, he looked around cautiously, then headed down the next flight of stairs.

  When he came to the ground floor, he hurried out of the Keep and across the first bailey towards the kitchen huts.

  He must be meeting someone, thought Duckling, as she sidled after him. I wonder who. I’ll have a quick look, then go back. I don’t want to leave them to face the Harshman without me.

  The door of the main kitchen was ajar, and Duckling could hear the faint rumble of speech. But she couldn’t quite make out what was being said.

  She hummed, so quietly that the sound hardly reached her own ears. A breeze lifted her hair, then flickered away from her. Duckling gazed up at the outside of the Keep. Pummel would be wondering where she was by now.

  I’ll be back in just a moment. I need to know what Grandpa’s up to.

  But when the breeze returned, circling her like a pet sparrow, she was none the wiser. It brought the smell of spices, the creak of a roasting spit as it settled in its sockets – and a muffled voice. But the words were still hidden.

  Duckling slipped through the door, and flattened herself against the wall.

  The inside of the kitchen was so dark that she couldn’t see her own hand. Ears, nose and skin, she thought, remembering Grandpa’s lessons.

  There was a banked fire close by; she could feel the warmth of it on her face. She could smell fish, as well as spices. She could hear mice in the walls.

  She couldn’t hear the voice, though. It had van
ished completely, as if its owner had left by some other door.

  Duckling inched along the wall, sliding her feet so she wouldn’t kick something and give herself away. She turned her head from side to side, trying to pick up the slightest sound.

  To her right, something rattled against stone. It might have been a mouse. But then again, it might not.

  Duckling took a step backwards. Her heel clipped the stone wall.

  A hand snaked out of the darkness and grabbed hold of her wrist in an unbreakable grip.

  BAD THINGS

  At first Pummel was too worried about Duckling and Lord Rump to notice the growing cold.

  Why aren’t they back yet? Is something wrong? Are they in trouble?

  Doubt was creeping into his mind again. He paced up and down the bedchamber, watching the closed door. In one hand he held the leather pouch, in the other, his staff. He was as ready as he could be, except for the absence of his friends.

  He opened his mouth to suggest that he go and look for them – and saw his own breath, as white as a cloud.

  By the time he spun around, the Young Margrave was asleep on his bed, with Otte frantically tying his friend’s wrist to his own with the cord. The mice and the chicken had appeared from nowhere, and were standing guard over Otte, with ice forming on their whiskers and beak. The cat was limping towards the bed.

  The cold didn’t sneak in, the way it had done last time. After that first breath, it crashed down upon Pummel like a wave, so that he felt as if he was drowning.

  He saw Otte tie the last of several knots so slowly that the boy’s fingers hardly moved. He saw the cat struggling to raise her head.

  And he knew that he was on his own. Duckling wouldn’t come back in time and neither would Lord Rump. It was up to him.

  I’ve still got – the raashk, he reminded himself. I just have to – stay awake – for long enough – to throw it.

  He fumbled the tooth out of the pouch, and held it in the palm of his hand.

  Any moment now – it’ll grow warm.

  But it didn’t. It felt cold and lifeless. It felt too small. Too blunt …

  Pummel shook his head, trying to make sense of it, but his mind was addled by the cold, and the only thought he could hold for more than a second or two was that he must protect the Heir, no matter what.

  He took an agonised step towards the bed – and the Harshman walked through the closed door. Above his head flew the hawk.

  Pummel could smell something burning, something that caught in his throat and made him cough. Behind him, the cat growled.

  Otte croaked, ‘Sti-ink—’

  With a monstrous effort, Pummel managed to raise his hand just enough to throw the raashk. It flew through the air in a wobbly curve, and hit the Harshman right in the middle of his armoured chest.

  I’ve done it, thought Pummel. I’ve saved the Young Margrave!

  But the Harshman didn’t vanish. Something was wrong. The raashk had failed.

  With despair in his heart, Pummel saw that awful figure pick up Otte and the Young Margrave and sling them over his shoulder.

  Then the cold overcame him, and he fell into a deep sleep.

  Duckling threw herself against the hand with voiceless fury. She wriggled and squirmed. She kicked. She was about to try biting when a voice spoke in her ear.

  ‘Be still, my dear.’

  Duckling froze. ‘Grandpa?’

  ‘Who did you expect? You followed me all the way from the Young Margrave’s rooms.’

  ‘Who were you meeting? What are you doing down here?’

  ‘Keeping you safe, my dear. Keeping us both safe. Bad things are happening in the Keep tonight, and I do not want either of us to be anywhere near them.’

  It was only then that Duckling realised how she’d been fooled. ‘You wanted me to follow you—’

  Grandpa chuckled. ‘I have forgotten more tricks than you will ever learn. That is why I have lived so long.’ He paused, then added, ‘And why I will live a lot longer.’

  Duckling stared into the darkness, her heart pounding. ‘But if the Young Margrave is murdered, Pummel will be blamed for it!’

  ‘Correct.’

  ‘But Grandpa, he can walk through walls. You don’t want to lose him, remember?’

  ‘And I will not,’ said Grandpa. ‘Trust me, it is all arranged. Now, will you stay here with me, or are you going to run off in some strange belief that you must save your “friend”?’

  Duckling knew what she must say. Trying to sound as obedient as she’d ever been, she whispered, ‘You and I don’t have friends, Grandpa. We just have each other.’

  ‘Precisely, my dear. But I think I shall keep hold of you all the same. Just in case.’

  TWO BOYS

  The man with the iron teeth was beginning to think.

  When he had first been summoned from the crypt, there had been nothing in his head but a sullen sort of darkness, and the need to obey. But the bones from which he was made had once belonged to a great man, and the longer he stayed out of his grave, the more he remembered of his former existence.

  The woman who had summoned him had told him to sniff out the Heir and kill him. And because he was bound to her, he must do it.

  But not straight away. The spell might gnaw at him like a hungry dog, but something else was there too.

  The desire to be great again.

  He had been told to kill a single boy. But here he had two boys tied together, and he could not tell which of them was the Heir.

  Sniff sniff sniff. Sniff sniff sniff.

  No, they were too close to each other, and the knots too tight for barely alive hands to undo.

  And so, instead of immediately killing them, the man with the iron teeth found a dark place where no one would come upon him, threw the boys to the floor and stood over them.

  He remembered two important things from his life before the grave. The first was that every battle, big or small, is won by making the right decision at the right time. The second was that a wrong decision can have enormous consequences.

  If he killed both boys, would that work in his favour, or against it?

  If he only killed one of them, which should it be?

  It hurt to hesitate, but to a man who had been dead for hundreds of years, pain was nothing.

  It hurt to pull the cold back into his bones too, but he did it.

  Then he stood very still, with no sound except his iron teeth clicking together, and waited for the boys to wake up.

  STINK ROSE

  Duckling made herself stop struggling and relax. Grandpa’s right. I should’ve trusted him all along. He knows best.

  She felt his grip loosen a little. ‘I suppose I did get a bit carried away,’ she mumbled.

  ‘Carried away?’ Grandpa said. ‘My ankles will be bruised for weeks.’

  ‘Sorry,’ said Duckling, and she leaned against him, the way she used to do when she was small. ‘So what’s the plan? Are you going to tell me?’

  She heard Grandpa tap his finger against his head. ‘It is all in here. Soon you will see it unwind before you like a lantern show, and you will gasp with admiration.’

  Duckling laughed, just loud enough to be heard. ‘You’re a rogue, Grandpa.’

  ‘I am, my dear.’

  Another minute passed. Duckling said, ‘You’re sure it’ll work?’

  ‘I am positive.’

  ‘But Pummel’s got the raashk. The tooth. What if he fights off the Harshman—’

  ‘Correction,’ said Grandpa. ‘Pummel thinks he has the tooth.’ He released one of Duckling’s wrists, unbuttoned his waistcoat pocket and placed something in the palm of her hand.

  ‘I have tied a string through the hole,’ he said. ‘Hold it tightly. Given half a chance, it will wriggle away from you.’

  Duckling grabbed the string just in time. ‘How—?’

  ‘He showed it to me, I distracted him, et cetera et cetera. It was the very devil to keep hold of – I thought it was
going to jump straight back to him.’

  ‘So the one he’s got—’

  ‘Is just a tooth. If he tries to walk through walls with it, he will get nothing but a very bad headache.’

  ‘You’re not just a rogue,’ said Duckling. ‘You’re an out-and-out villain.’

  Grandpa’s belly shook with amusement. ‘Thank you, my dear.’

  ‘So what happens now?’

  ‘We wait here just a little longer to make sure the Young Margrave is dead.’

  Duckling’s real thoughts almost showed themselves then. She didn’t want the Young Margrave dead. He might be annoying, but he wasn’t a chess piece – he was a boy with friends and family. And she and Pummel had made a vow to protect him.

  But Grandpa had always been far too good at guessing what she was thinking. So she tucked her real thoughts away again, and said, ‘And Pummel gets the blame?’

  In her hand, the raashk wriggled like a trapped bird.

  ‘Of course,’ said Grandpa. ‘That is part of the plan. The lad will be sent to the dungeons to await execution, at which point you and I will visit him, to express our horror and disappointment.’

  ‘And we’ll have the tooth,’ said Duckling.

  ‘Exactly. So Pummel can escape, and the three of us can leave the Strong-hold.’

  ‘But we can’t, Grandpa. We can’t get out.’

  ‘We couldn’t get out, my dear. But now we have a young man with a very useful talent.’

  Duckling stared into the darkness. ‘You think he could—’

  ‘If he can walk through stone walls, he can surely walk through whatever is keeping us here. I should have thought of it straight away. I must be getting old.’ Grandpa’s hand – the one that still gripped Duckling’s wrist – loosened a little more.

  Duckling didn’t even let herself think about what she was about to do. Instead, she filled her head with the sort of thing Grandpa would approve of. I’m just standing here with him. Chatting away. Sorry for going against him earlier. Of course I trust him. He always knows best—

  When she moved, it was so sudden that for once she managed to take the old man by surprise. She ripped her arm from his grasp, and ran for the kitchen door, which showed in faint outline against the darkness.