Hercufleas

by Sam Gayton

  With a thunderclap sound, the giant fell headfirst into the river.

  Suddenly the tide of battle turned. The Tumberfolk swept off Yuk and into the water and came up spluttering. Their weapons sank to the riverbed. The hens bobbed downstream, out of reach.

  Yuk looked down at the people floating in the river. Now they were the helpless ones.

  ‘YUM,’ he grinned. ‘SOUP.’

  Below him, the Tumberfolk splashed and floundered, praying to Saint Duffy, patron saint of mercy. Their courage was gone. They weren’t an army any more – they were croutons, floating in Yuk’s dinner.

  ‘Help!’ they cried. ‘Hercufleas, save us! Bite Yuk now!’

  But Hercufleas was nowhere to be seen.

  Perhaps he had drowned in the river. Maybe he had run away. Whatever the truth, he was gone. No one could save the Tumberfolk now.

  35

  Yuk’s nostril was a tunnel, fading into the distance. Bogeys sprouted like enormous mushrooms from all sides, glowing a fungal green. Stuck to them were skeletons of bats and birds who had flown inside by accident and become stuck. Hanging upside down, Hercufleas stared at the bones in despair.

  So close. They’d been so close. He had tasted victory on his tongue, like the sweetest drop of blood. For a moment, he really had been a hero. Then something went wrong, and he’d found himself sliding into the cavern of Yuk’s nose. Why did he always end up in nostrils?

  He tried moving again. Kicked and squirmed and twisted. No good. His back was stuck on a piece of snot, sticky as treacle and smelly as over-boiled cabbage. It was no more than he deserved. Echoing around Yuk’s nose were cries from outside. The Tumberfolk pleading with him to save them. He covered his ears with his hands. He couldn’t bear to hear their shouts.

  If only he had taken the Black Death.

  If only…

  A shadow passed over the far-off entrance. Something wriggled up the nostril towards him.

  An enormous finger!

  Hercufleas gasped. The disgusting brute was picking his nose!

  He looked around the dim green glow of the bogeys for m. There! The sword glinted, just beyond his reach, embedded in the giant’s nostril. M must be what was irritating him. Hercufleas strained to reach it. A little further. The finger wriggled up towards him, like an enormous worm. He gripped m’s hilt and pulled with the last of his strength.

  The sword came out with a squelch. In two slices, Hercufleas was free. He dropped to the ground, the finger right behind him, and fled further up Yuk’s nose. The nostril narrowed until it sloped sharply down. Foul air rushed overhead and there was a sound like enormous bellows wheezing. Where was he now?

  ‘Aieeeeeeeeee!’ A terrible scream echoed up from somewhere below. Perched above Yuk’s tonsils, Hercufleas saw a dim shape tumble down the giant’s throat and vanish with a faraway plop.

  ‘Mayor Klare!’ he called out.

  ‘Dooooooooooooomed!’ There was another high-pitched scream as Mrs Lorrenz followed him. She was so fat she got stuck halfway down. Yuk gulped, and she slid away into his stomach.

  Hercufleas could not go down, only up. Drawing m, he pointed his sword above his head and prepared to jump. He crouched, eyes shut, legs shaking with tension, until at last he could hold it no more. Like a javelin, he pierced deep into Yuk’s head. He couldn’t breathe – something wet around him squelched and clenched and burst apart – then suddenly he gasped air and opened his eyes.

  Where was he?

  Greta was the only person left clinging to Yuk. Soaked, sodden, she watched from his shoulder as the giant wrenched a tree from the bank and used it like a broom to sweep all the Tumberfolk into the middle of the river. Then he snapped a tall chimney off the bakery on Butterbröt Lane and used it like a straw. He sucked up water and squirted it at the poor Tumberfolk. He blew bubbles under their feet and stirred them round and round.

  ‘HA HA HA.’

  Yuk was playing with his food before he ate it!

  Then he began to guzzle.

  First Mayor Klare, then Mrs Lorrenz… Greta watched in despair. She didn’t know what had happened, only that Hercufleas was gone. Perhaps he had drowned. Or even abandoned them. She choked back a sob. She had believed in him. They all had.

  Greta looked up. Yuk’s head rose like the peak of a mountain. Suddenly she remembered the fleamily. She scowled. Tumber was doomed, but she could still save someone.

  She tossed the Howlitzer down into the water. No need for it now. All she needed was her axe. She checked the edge. Keen. Slinging it over her shoulder, she began to climb.

  36

  Hercufleas thought Yuk’s brain would be tiny – the size of a walnut maybe – but it was enormous. It looked like a spider’s web – the most intricate, shimmering web that he had ever seen. White light pulsed along its threads, like a cityscape of interlocking streets and racing lantern-lit carriages.

  Yuk’s thoughts, he realised suddenly. And the threads carry them around his head.

  It was dazzling and baffling at the same time. How could a creature that only cared about guzzling have a brain so complicated?

  As he stood in awe, a little grey creature crawled quickly from a nexus of threads and looked nervously about. It was something between an octopus and a chimpanzee. It had eight legs, which it used to swing and jump from thread to thread, as if they were branches in a forest, and only one eye.

  Hercufleas ducked out of sight, gripping his sword tightly. As he watched, the creature spat out a new thread, like spaghetti from its mouth. Then it connected the thread to several others.

  Hercufleas couldn’t believe it. The octopanzee-thing – was it making the web of Yuk’s brain even more complicated? Did that mean the giant was learning new things?

  And if he could learn, could he change? Could he be taught that what he was doing to Tumber was wrong?

  It was a staggering thought. Peering inside the giant’s head, it was obvious that Yuk wasn’t just a mindless monster that thought about nothing but his next meal. There was more going on here.

  ‘I beg your pardon, but are you a germ? A microbe or virus? A parasitic worm?’

  Hercufleas peered up to see the little octopanzee-thing dangling from a thread, talking to him. He’d been spotted! Now what?

  ‘Perhaps you’re a plague? Or a fever of the head? Whatever you are – find another place to spread!’

  Hercufleas stared dumbly at the strange creature. How could such a tiny part of Yuk’s body be talking? How could it sound smarter than Yuk did? And why was it rhyming?

  The creature squeaked in terror, and seven hands pointed behind Hercufleas. ‘Whatever you are, you REALLY need to run – that rattleroot behind you is about to bite your bum!’

  Hercufleas whirled round. The rattleroot looked just like the shaft of Greta’s axe, but was only the thickness of a cotton thread. It must be newly grown. A small head the size and colour and shape of a pumpkin seed had formed at the tip. While Hercufleas had been distracted by the strange sights of Yuk’s brain, it had slithered up behind him. Now it bared its fangs.

  What was a rattlesnoak root doing here, inside Yuk’s head?

  Hercufleas trembled. His hand twitched to the sword by his side. The rattleroot raised its head to strike.

  Above Hercufleas, the octopanzee-thing tossed a gleaming thread down at his feet.

  ‘Climb, up to me! Up here, to safety!’

  Hercufleas focused on the rattleroot. He might be in danger, but he wasn’t about to trust the creature above him. It was part of Yuk, after all.

  The octopanzee-thing closed its one eye and sighed. ‘So you wish to die? Well, what a shame. I thought I’d found someone to save Yuk’s brain.’

  ‘What?’ Hercufleas looked up.

  And the rattleroot struck.

  37

  Greta climbed up Yuk’s earlobe, ignoring the disgusting toffee-coloured wax that smeared on her hands. Finally she stood on the giant’s mossy head. The world pitched and swayed beneath h
er as Yuk turned his head this way and that, guzzling the Tumberfolk one by one. Throat raw, heart pounding, she made her way towards the tree sprouting from his skull.

  The rattlesnoak’s leaves were blood red, and its spindly branches swayed black against the starry sky. At the tips of them, seed pods shook like maracas. Around the trunk, rattleroots coiled and hissed. Greta took a cautious step forward, and saw tiny silhouettes leaping up and down on the leaves above. She waved at them. The fleamily waved back.

  ‘We’re being rescued!’

  ‘By that girl who kidnapped Hercufleas!’

  ‘Have you seen him anywhere?’

  Greta didn’t answer.

  She ran for the trunk, green scarf streaming in the wind, swinging her axe as she went.

  Hercufleas whipped his sword up as the rattleroot lunged. M sliced the thing off at the head, and the root fell down dead. He wiped its poison from the blade and looked up at the octopanzee-thing above him.

  ‘What did you mean?’ he said, jumping up to balance on the thread beside it. ‘Why does Yuk’s brain need rescuing?’

  The creature blinked its one eye. It mouth hung open, a grey thread dangling out. Then it began to babble excitedly.

  ‘At last! We’re saved! What a foolish mistake I made… You’re not a germ! Now I’m sure. You’re the opposite, aren’t you? The cure!’

  ‘Cure?’ said Hercufleas, but the octopanzee-thing didn’t answer. It swung from thread to thread, deeper into the brain. Hercufleas jumped after it. ‘Come back! Hey!’

  ‘I suppose I should explain,’ the creature said as it went. ‘I’m a noggin: guardian of Yuk’s brain. Noggins connect his thoughts together… But we are being held prisoner. Now you have come to set us free! You can fight the dreadful tree!’

  The Noggin stopped talking and shook hands with Hercufleas eight times. The little creature blinked its grey eye and gave a grey smile, showing grey teeth.

  ‘Tree? Do you mean… that rattlesnoak on his head?’ Hercufleas asked the noggin.

  ‘Don’t worry, I’ll tell you everything. But before we can begin… we really ought to go inside. There’ll be more rattleroots coming. We must hide!’

  Turning round, Hercufleas saw the noggin was right: rattleroots were slithering towards them from every direction. The noggin’s eight hands tugged Hercufleas back to a hiding place, a part of the web where thousands of strands met together, forming a tiny silken nest.

  Hercufleas let himself be bundled inside. The noggin plastered its hands over his mouth as the rattleroots slithered past.

  ‘Don’t fear! We’re safe here.’ The noggin folded and unfolded all his arms nervously. ‘I haven’t been to this part of the brain, since the dreadful rattleroots came. Here, perhaps, you will be able to peek, at some of the answers that you seek… But why do you look so upset? Are you bothered by my rhyming couplets?’

  ‘It’s just…’ Hercufleas looked at the pulsing, flashing weave of threads surrounding him. ‘You said you were a guardian of Yuk’s brain?’

  The noggin gave him an enthusiastic thumbs-up, eight times.

  ‘Then that makes us enemies,’ Hercufleas said sadly.

  The noggin turned the colour of ashes. It hung its head. ‘So you came here to destroy us? I suppose it must be. Go on… put us out of our misery…’

  ‘I tried to,’ admitted Hercufleas. ‘Then everything went wrong, and I fell into Yuk’s nostril, and before I knew it, I was here. Now you’re telling me that it’s the giant who needs rescuing, and I want to know why.’

  ‘Because he’s a prisoner! Don’t you see? His brain’s been invaded by a rattlesnoak tree. I escaped: I’m the noggin in charge of Yuk’s rhyme. But the rest have been captured for such a long time.’ The noggin was so upset he broke down, weeping grey tears.

  ‘I don’t have time for crying!’ Hercufleas shook the creature. ‘Yuk is guzzling people, and I have to stop him! Tell me what to do. What happened here?’

  The noggin looked up, blinking. ‘It’ll take too long to say.’ It sniffed. ‘But I can tell you the story another way?’

  ‘Yes, yes,’ said Hercufleas impatiently. ‘Just hurry up!’

  From the left, a rattleroot the size of a python sprang up from Yuk’s hair. It swayed in the air, tongue flicking at Greta. With one swing of her axe, she lopped the head clean off. The rattleroot twitched and fell down dead. Three more roots slithered up from the right. They were stumps before they could even strike.

  Greta held her axe the way a painter holds a brush, the way a sculptor holds a chisel. She wasn’t a woodcutter, but an artist. She swung in sweeping arcs, slices, uppercuts. Dead rattleroots thumped the floor around her and she walked on towards the tree.

  ‘Don’t make it angry!’ called Pin from the branches.

  ‘It’s not angry,’ Greta answered. ‘It’s afraid.’ Axe ready, she reached up towards the branches. ‘Come on, everyone! Time to go!’

  Hopping from the branches one after the other came the fleamily. They clustered together on her hand.

  ‘Let’s get out of here!’ Greta called.

  Min pointed behind her. ‘Watch out!’

  Greta jumped forward, dodging another rattleroot. It lunged past her, and she spun round and lopped off its head. Another two rose up. She cut them down too. But for every one she killed, another two took its place.

  Soon there would be too many of them.

  She cut the heads off another five rattleroots, but ten more sprouted up to attack. They lunged at Greta from different angles, and her axe spun like a deadly windmill. Nine rattleroots died, but one got through – it knocked the axe from her hand and she fell back with a cry. The snake head lunged forward, hissing. Greta saw the pink inside of its mouth, the flicking black tongue, the teeth like crescent moons.

  38

  Inside Yuk’s head, Hercufleas hopped around the noggin’s nest impatiently. He wanted answers, but the stupid creature was making him what looked like a meal – a meal of noodles, made up of various threads from Yuk’s brain. The noggin had carefully chosen them from around its nest, tugging individual threads free from the web. It sniffed at them, nodded and plonked the whole tangled mess at Hercufleas’s feet. It looked a little like grey spaghetti.

  ‘Tuck in!’ said the noggin.

  ‘I’m not eating that!’ Hercufleas snapped. ‘Just tell me about Yuk.’

  The noggin blinked irritably. ‘It might not look like much of a treat, but to understand, first you must eat!’

  Hercufleas started to protest, at which the noggin picked up a strand of spaghetti and shoved it in his mouth –

  – The high wind tickles your hair

  and your belly rumbles like a storm.

  Far down, the soup makes noise.

  You like that. Noisy food is wriggly fresh.

  Which one to guzzle next? Which one looks juicy?

  You pick up one by its ankle – old and wrinkly, with

  a gold key around its neck. You open your mouth.

  In it goes, down it goes, wriggling all the way

  down to your belly. Yum yum.

  A beautiful white bird pecks your ankle.

  You pluck it up and guzzle it too.

  ‘YUM,’ you say. ‘TASTE LIKE CHICKEN.’

  Then you get your straw and start to suck

  up the Tumberfolk again –

  – and Hercufleas spat out the brain spaghetti. He was back in the noggin’s nest.

  ‘That was… I was Yuk,’ he gasped, feeling sick. ‘I just ate Mayor Witz! I ate Artifax! They’re gone… Artifax…’

  The noggin grasped him with eight hands and shook him. ‘It was just a recent memory! I gave it so that you could see: what Yuk is now… and what he used to be.’

  The creature offered up another noodle of memory-spaghetti. More memories? Hercufleas gagged. He could still feel poor Artifax wriggling in his stomach… But the noggin fixed him with a pleading stare. Closing his eyes, he slurped it up –

  – The sky
is a pale pink above the mountains,

  but night still holds fast here upon the Waste.

  You stand, swaying in the dark, looking out on the hills.

  The emptiness. There is much work to do before sunrise.

  Forest to plant, marshes to dredge,

  meadows to seed, rivers to –

  – and Hercufleas came back to himself again. He sat there, trying to understand the memory he had just experienced. Across from him, the noggin watched intently.

  ‘Yuk was a green giant!’ Hercufleas whispered. ‘Like in the legend Greta told me.’

  The noggin nodded. ‘If I had told you, you wouldn’t believe. Words wouldn’t do: you had to see.’

  ‘But then why is…?’ Hercufleas shook his head, reached forward and stuffed the rest of the memories in his mouth. They whirled through him, one after the next –

  – You step back, your work done.

  All night you worked, sowing life upon the Waste.

  Now the sun is coming –

  – the first beams touch upon the earth,

  and your wildflowers bud and bloom lavender-purple,

  blossom-pink, amaranth-red –

  – silently you gaze out at the Waste.

  The forests surge up in the sunlight –

  – you lay down upon the ground. You are tired.

  Time to sleep, while the forests grow over you –

  – Hercufleas leaped up, trembling all over.

  ‘The tree on Yuk’s head,’ he said. ‘It’s a rattlesnoak. A seed fell on his head, and the roots grew into his brain.’

  The noggin nodded. ‘The roots invaded him while he snoozed. Now they control his every move.’

  Hercufleas looked out of the nest. Above them was the roof of Yuk’s skull, like an upturned basin. Spreading from where the basin plug should be, a knotted twist of thousands of rattleroots wound down into the giant’s brain.