by Lian Tanner
The cat crouched beside her. Its lameness was completely gone now, and the bandage had fallen from its ribs. “Doooon’t knoooow.”
“It must be,” whispered Goldie, although she did not understand how salvation could lie inside an iron casket. “There’s nothing else here. I’ll have to steal it.”
The thought filled her with horror, but she could see no alternative. With her heart stuttering inside her, she crept toward the idle-cat. The closer she came, the bigger it looked, until, by the time she was an arm’s length away, it loomed above her like a cliff face. She glanced over her shoulder at Broo and the cat, but they seemed a hundred miles away, and she knew they could not help her.
She thought of the ancient armies of soldiers and rats that were marching through the museum at this very moment. She thought of her friends, harrying them from every side with harp, wind, bow, pistol and beak, trying to slow them down so that she, Goldie, would have time to walk the Beast Road and save the city. She thought of Toadspit.
She swallowed the fear that was trying to clamber up her throat and focused her mind until all she could see was the casket and the paws on either side of it. I can do this, she told herself. I’m a thief. I’m Fifth Keeper.
Her fingers were as soft as velvet, as quiet as a wish. As she wrapped them around the top of the casket, the idle-cat grunted in its sleep. Goldie froze. But the great beast did not wake, and she lifted the casket and sidled away with her prize held tight in her arms.
Broo and the cat were waiting for her. “What is inside the box?” asked Broo.
“I don’t know.” Goldie hesitated. Every instinct told her that they should leave this place as quickly as possible. But what if she was mistaken? What if the casket wasn’t what they were seeking?
She placed it carefully on the ground, took out her knife and began to pry at the lid. It was stiff and rusty, as if it had not been opened for hundreds of years. She wiggled the knife all around the edge and back again, and the rust fell away and the lid creaked open. Full of hope and expectation, the three companions peered inside.
The iron casket was empty.
Goldie rocked back on her heels, stricken with disappointment. She could have wept. She could have lain down on the rocky path and cried like a baby. She had failed. She had failed her friends and everyone in Jewel.
That last thought was enough to drag her to her feet again. She mustn’t fail! Too much depended upon her. She gazed around the great cavern, wondering where it was hidden, the thing that she was supposed to bring back. The sighing breath of the idle-cats curled around her ears, as regular as waves on a beach.
And suddenly all her tiredness returned and she found herself yawning.
“Froooown,” said the cat, gazing up at her.
Goldie yawned again, and this time Broo yawned with her. She pinched her hand. It didn’t help. The breath of the sleeping beasts seemed to spin around her like a cocoon, and her eyes grew heavy. She was so tired. . . .
“Ooooout!” said the cat, nudging her sharply. “Oooout noooow!” But then its mouth opened, and it began to yawn.
With a groan, Broo sank to his haunches. Goldie took a step toward him and her foot kicked against a naked skull.
Death comes to those who linger.
“Broo, wake up.” She had to force the words out. “Wake up!”
But instead of waking, the brizzlehound sighed and closed his eyes.
“Hhhhound!” spat the cat, in between yawns, and the disgust in its voice was so deep that Broo’s eyes opened and he lurched to his feet again.
“We must not—LINGERRRRRR!” he growled, wobbling from side to side.
“No,” whispered Goldie. But her own desire for sleep was overwhelming. It fogged her mind and crept into her heart. She gazed stupidly at the nearest idle-cat and wondered why she had been afraid of it.
Its paws looked as soft as pillows. . . .
She leaned against the idle-cat’s flank. It was so warm and comforting that her legs folded and she slid to her knees again.
“Ooooout!” wailed the cat in her ear.
“Mmmm,” mumbled Goldie, her eyelids fluttering. “In a minute.” She felt as if she were asleep already, and dreaming. She fumbled for her pillow. It was furrier than she had expected, but she was too tired to care. She lay down and closed her eyes.
There was a moment of blissful silence; then, somewhere nearby, Broo grunted. “Leave me alone, useless cat. I am— sleeping.”
“Sssstupid!” hissed the cat. “Sssstupid hhhhhound!”
“I am—not stupid. Be quiet”—the brizzlehound yawned hugely—“or I will—kill you.”
“Pupppp!” spat the cat. “Sssstupid pupppp!”
Broo growled deep in his throat, as if this new insult had stung him. “I am not a pup!”
“Ffffeeble pupppp!”
“I am NOT A PUP!”
Goldie forced her eyes open. The brizzlehound was struggling to his feet, his lips drawn back from his teeth. She thought she should probably do something before the two animals came to blows, but her limbs were so heavy she couldn’t move.
“Cat,” she whispered. “Leave him alone.”
The cat responded by flattening its ears against its skull and hissing even louder. “Puuuuny pupppp! Crrrrringing mmmmilk-fed puppp!”
Such an insult from his mortal enemy was too much for Broo. He growled furiously, “I will KILL you!” and launched himself at his tormentor.
The cat sprang out of the way. But it lashed out as it did so, and its claws raked across the brizzlehound’s tender muzzle.
As if in a dream, Goldie heard Broo howl with rage. She saw a line of pink flesh open up on his nose, as neatly as if the cat had drawn it with a pen. A single drop of blood welled up from it.
The pillow under Goldie’s cheek twitched.
The blood seemed to take a lifetime to fall. It hung suspended from Broo’s jowls, as bright as a ruby in the gloom. The cat crouched, unmoving. The whole cavern seemed to hold its breath.
Broo snorted and shook his head. The drop of blood flew from his nose in a great arc—and splashed onto the floor of the cave.
Goldie woke up suddenly and completely. Her pillow pitched sideways, and she rolled away from it and stumbled to her feet. Broo was beside her in an instant, and the cat too. They pressed against each other, their hearts beating wildly. Goldie stared in horror at the spot where her head had rested just seconds before.
The idle-cat was waking.
Muscles stretched and flexed beneath the gray-spotted coat. Claws slid out of their sheaths and scraped against the floor of the cave. Enormous jaws opened in a yawn.
Goldie edged backward, trying not to tread on the scattered bones. They had to get out of here. Now!
But when she turned around she saw another idle-cat waking up, and another, and another. The brizzlehounds were stirring too. All over the cave, enormous beasts shook their heads and licked their lips and stretched their long legs out before them.
Then they opened their eyes and, in a single wave of motion, rose to their feet.
Goldie stuffed her knuckles into her mouth. She was going to die here; she knew that now. In a moment, a thousand pairs of eyes would turn to look at her. . . .
Broo growled and stepped forward.
“No!” hissed Goldie. “There are too many of them! You can’t fight them all!”
“I can fight ANYTHING,” rumbled Broo. His eyes burned; his coat was as black as cinder. “I am a BRRRRIZZLEHOUND!”
His roar was a challenge to every creature in the cavern. Their heads swiveled and they glared at the intruder. Broo growled again. Beside him, the cat wailed. It was tiny in comparison with the idle-cats, but it did not seem to notice. Its tail thrashed and it stood poised, ready to attack.
Goldie groaned aloud. Her companions—her foolish, mad, beautiful friends—were about to throw themselves against a foe so great that they would be dead within seconds. She would have to watch it happen—and then she t
oo would die.
In the back of her mind, Princess Frisia whispered, If you must die, die with pride! Die fighting!
All around the cavern, the hissing and growling was building to a crescendo. Enormous paws padded in ever- diminishing circles. Brizzlehounds threw back their heads and roared so loudly that pebbles fell from the roof above them. In front of Goldie, Broo and the cat stood four-square and courageous, ready to fight for their lives.
I’m a part of this, thought Goldie, whether I want to be or not. And before she could change her mind, she stepped forward to stand beside her companions.
The nearest idle-cat turned its yellow eyes toward her and hissed. Goldie flinched. How she wished she had a weapon! How she wished she had Frisia’s sword in her hand!
The idle-cat stretched out its enormous paw. Goldie was on the brink of panic and, in a desperate attempt to contain it, she told herself that she did have a sword. It was right there by her side! Look, she could wrap her fingers around the smooth hilt, like this! She could loosen it in its sheath! If the idle-cat came any closer she would draw it—no, she would draw it anyway!
As the weight of the imaginary sword fell into her hand, she felt a sudden heat in her belly.
The wolf-sark.
It rose up inside her, huge and fierce. Briefly, instinctively, she tried to push it down. But then she realized. This was her weapon!
“Yes!” she whispered. “Yes!”
A blaze of heat surged from her toes to her head, like molten silver, and the fear burned away to nothing. A red mist filled her . . .
“Yes!” cried the warrior princess, and she bared her teeth and snarled. She did not need a sword! She would pick up these foolish creatures and tear them apart with her bare hands!
With the wolf-sark roaring in her chest, she screamed a battle cry—and threw herself at the idle-cat.
Salvation
In the cleared space in front of the museum, the Fugleman and the boy were fighting. The firelight danced on their faces as they drove one way and then the other, grunting with effort.
The Fugleman watched the boy’s eyes, anticipating the next blow. When it came—a vicious thrust to the stomach— he blocked and parried, then launched a series of return thrusts.
But the boy darted under his blade and drew first blood.
“That’s for Bonnie!” he cried as the Fugleman stared in disbelief at his torn shoulder.
With a scream of fury, the Fugleman threw himself at the brat, driving him back and back until Frow Carrion was behind him and there was nowhere left to run.
The Fugleman smiled and raised his sword, sure that this was the end. But as his blade fell, the boy dived beneath it and skipped to the other side of the circle.
The duel was not over yet.
“Victory to the Wolf!” screamed the warrior princess, launching herself at the idle-cat. Her hands were swords. Her voice was a knife, honed to a lethal point. “Victory to the Wolf!”
But instead of fighting her, the idle-cat leaped out of her way with a snarl.
Disappointed, the warrior spun around. There were enemies on every side of her, roaring like a thunderstorm. They surged toward her in a mass, their teeth slavering, their backs ridged with fury. But when she challenged them—“The Wolf! The Wolf!”—they fell back. And when she stalked toward them, burning for a fight, they fell back even farther, as if the ferocious energy of the wolf-sark were a shield they could not break through.
She stood in the middle of the cavern and howled with frustration. Her eyes fell on the one creature that had not backed away. It was a brizzlehound, and it watched her with a curious look on its face, as if it knew something about her that she had forgotten.
The red mist was like a dreadful thirst inside her. “Blood!” it whispered. “Blood and death!”
The princess picked up a shattered leg bone. It was as sharp as a sword, and she held it before her as she strode toward the brizzlehound.
“Blood!” she roared. “Blood and death!”
The brizzlehound did not move. “Goldie,” it said.
The warrior princess raised her sword.
“Goldie,” said the brizzlehound again, cocking its head to one side. “It’s me.”
The words meant nothing. The sword slashed down, and the great hound leaped out of the way just in time. The princess shouted with rage and dived after it. But before she could attack, a burning pain sliced across the calf of her leg.
She turned, as quick as wink, and saw a cat growling up at her. “Oooouuut,” wailed the cat. “Oooouuut nooooow!”
There was something about those words that struck her. She had heard them before, and they meant something. Something important . . .
No! Nothing was important except blood! She raised her sword and dashed at the cat.
“Goldie!” roared the brizzlehound behind her. “Remember your TRRRRUE enemy!”
Her true enemy? The red mist cared nothing for truth! Her enemy was anyone who stood in front of her!
She expected the cat to run. Instead, it stood its ground. As her sword slashed toward it, it glared up at her and hissed, “Ffffugleman! Harroooow!”
The two names, spat out with such hatred, stopped her in her tracks. Her sword came to a halt no more than a whisker from the cat’s head. Her arm trembled with the effort of keeping it there, but she did not let it fall.
Fugleman. Harrow. Her TRUE enemy.
It was like a bugle call in the darkness. The red mist parted a little, and the warrior princess knew what she must do.
It was not easy to turn away from the monsters in front of her. Every part of her was tuned to the madness of battle. Her muscles twitched. The blood raced through her veins in a torrent. She felt as if she was trying to harness a great ravening beast, only the beast was inside her, gnawing at her bones and demanding slaughter.
She almost gave in to it. But . . .
Fugleman.
The very sound of the word filled her with loathing. It drew her through the cavern with her sword raised like a banner, and the idle-cats and brizzlehounds fell in on either side of her, as if they too had caught a glimpse of their true enemy.
It was the strangest of passages, that march through the cavern and the tunnels beyond. The wolf-sark rode the warrior princess every inch of the way, making it almost impossible to think. But somewhere in the depths of her mind she saw herself as a fire ship, sailing into the middle of an unsuspecting fleet and burning everything around her, at the same time as she herself was reduced to ashes.
And somewhere even deeper, where a shred of sanity still lurked, she knew that the wolf-sark was the only thing that kept her safe from the monsters that stalked beside her, and that she must not let go of it, on pain of death.
The cat trotted in front of her, unafraid. One of the brizzlehounds was there too, and every now and again he looked over his shoulder and addressed her as Goldie. She ignored him. A single word drummed inside her, drawing her onward through the tunnels.
Fugleman.
The Fugleman was tiring. As he ducked a two-handed blow that would have taken his head off, his mind raced, trying to work out how to turn the tables before he grew so weary that he made a fatal mistake. He must get in closer, where his strength would count. What he needed—
There was a hoot of laughter from the mercenaries as he stumbled on a pile of rubble. He caught himself just in time, and jumped sideways. The boy’s sword whistled past him, so close that it shaved the skin from his ear. His Guardians hissed with anger.
What he needed, he thought savagely, was something that would shake the brat’s concentration! Just for a second or two . . .
He gathered his strength and lunged forward. At the same time, his eyes flickered to one side and back again, as if he had seen something unexpected in the firelight. Out of the corner of his mouth he rasped, “Guardian Hope, there’s the sister! Quick, shoot her!”
It worked. The brat yelped, “Bonnie!” and broke away. Hope, who was looking
around in bewilderment, waggled her pistol at him. The boy stalled, just for an instant, and the Fugleman struck a glancing blow that wounded him in the leg. Then, with a second blow, he disarmed the boy and knocked him to the ground.
Field Marshal Brace nodded bleakly. But the Blessed Guardians cheered, and the mercenaries stamped their feet in a frenzy of approval. Guardian Hope’s face shone red with delight.
The Fugleman rested the tip of his sword on the boy’s chest, just above the heart. His ear burned, his shoulder was beginning to hurt, and his mood was growing more vindictive by the second.
But even as his muscles tensed for the death blow, someone shouted a warning. The Fugleman spun around. What he saw, advancing through the firelight toward him, was so astonishing that the weapon almost fell from his hand.
Marching out of the museum in old-fashioned costumes came rank upon rank of barbarian soldiers. They carried flaming torches and muskets and swords and pikes. Their feet shook the ground. Their eyes glittered murderously.
In the space between one choked breath and the next, the Fugleman realized who they were. The barbarians from behind the Dirty Gate! Had the keepers released them, to protect the museum? Whatever their purpose, they did not look as if they would be easily turned from it. But surely he could reason with them? Surely he could charm them, persuade them . . . use them?
With a smile of welcome, he strode toward the flaming torches—and stopped. The ground beneath those torches was moving. All around the barbarians, scuttling over walls, streaming between their feet and on every side of them, it heaved and surged like a grotesque living carpet. A carpet made of—the Fugleman took an involuntary step backward—of rats! Of enormous rats, gray and black and filthy brown!
An enormous bird was diving at them, trying to drive them back. A little girl and an old woman shot fiery arrows in front of them. But their efforts were in vain. There were too many of the creatures, just as there were too many soldiers for the pathetic figures who were trying to slow them down with harp, pistol and song.
For only the second time in his life, the Fugleman found himself at a loss. What use was charm against a horde of vermin?