Hero Page 10

  “All these caves look mean,” said Saturday. “Full of teeth, like they intend to eat me alive.”

  Peregrine blinked at the scene, trying to see it with new eyes. He’d felt the same way when he’d arrived, but in the period that followed the caves had changed. Mellowed. As he had. “The longer you stay, the kinder they appear.”

  “Is it true that time doesn’t properly pass in this place?”

  “Oh yes,” answered Peregrine. “There is no day or night here, only sleeping and waking. The sun and moon pass overhead, but Lord Time and his brothers have no hold on this mountain. We could live up here a thousand years and never age or die.”

  “How do you know?”

  Peregrine shrugged. “I’m not dead yet.”

  He dodged the swat she intended for him. “You try my patience.”

  “Take care with that. If he decides he likes your patience, he’ll take all of it,” Betwixt chimed in.

  Saturday pointed at the gryphon with the rake. “Did you used to be the beetle-thing?” Peregrine had to give her credit; he hadn’t caught on to Betwixt’s nature so quickly. Her cleverness aggravated him, but he quashed the feeling. Now that she’d finally come to him, he did not want to ruin it.

  “I was. Forgive me for not introducing myself earlier. My name is Betwixt.” The gryphon bowed his head.

  “Is that really your name? Or is ‘Betwixt’ a part you’re playing as well?” She looked askance at Peregrine. He simply shrugged his shoulders helplessly.

  “It might have been something else so long ago, I’ve forgotten it. Betwixt is the only name I have to give you.”

  “I’m sorry,” said Saturday.

  “It’s not that bad a name,” said the gryphon.

  “I mean that you’ve forgotten your old name,” she corrected. “That happened to a brother-in-law of mine when he was enchanted. Are you enchanted? Is there anything I can do to help? I’m a maiden,” she said bluntly.

  “So am I!” said Peregrine.

  “You are an im—” Saturday stopped before she finished the insult. Her restraint surprised him. He really wished she’d stop impressing him. It made her lack of interest that much harder to bear.

  “Cat got your tongue?” Peregrine asked her.

  Betwixt yowled in nasally feline laughter.

  Saturday stuck out said tongue to prove that she was still in full possession of it. “I need help,” she said.

  Finally! Peregrine resisted the urge to hug the lute giddily. “You need a bath” was all he said in reply.

  “Are you going to help me or not?” said Saturday. Her knuckles around the rake handle were white.

  “Are you asking or not?”

  Saturday put her head down, sighed, and started again. “The witch gave me this”—she thrust the disgusting rake in Peregrine’s direction—“and told me to clean her wretched bird’s nest.”

  Peregrine backed away from the rake. He didn’t want it to accidentally touch him. “And . . . ?” he prompted.

  “The cursed thing doesn’t work! The more soiled peat I rake, the more there is, multiplying instead of diminishing. It’s some sort of foul magic.”

  Peregrine wrinkled his nose. “Something in this cave is certainly foul.”

  “I gave up on the rake and tried shoving out the moss with my bare hands for a while.”

  “Oh no,” said Betwixt.

  “Oh my,” said Peregrine. He wasn’t sure even he had the stomach—or the nose—for that level of degradation.

  “But nothing happened! I worked from the time I woke until the time I fell asleep and the room looked the same as it had when I started.”

  “So you tried the rake again,” said Peregrine.

  “Yes,” said Saturday. “Disaster. Can you help me?”

  Peregrine sat and stared at the girl for a while, letting her stew. He suspected she knew what he was doing, but she remained quiet. “Yes, I can help you,” he said finally.

  “Name your price,” said Saturday.

  “I didn’t say there was one yet.”

  “I have siblings,” said Saturday. “I know how this works. Go on, state your conditions.”

  Peregrine was torn between the desire to kiss Saturday and the desire to strangle her. It was an intoxicating feeling that amused him no end, but her stench made the decision for him.

  “I will you give you a number of sacks,” said Peregrine. “When you clean the bird’s nest, collect the soiled moss in these sacks.”

  “Done,” said Saturday. “Is there a supply of clean moss to replace the old?”

  “I’ll make sure you have it,” said Peregrine.

  Saturday nodded, but she did not thank him. And because she did not thank him, Peregrine continued his list of demands. “I will also have a bath ready for you. When you are done cleaning the nest, you will take it.”

  “All right,” she said easily, for this was more of a benefit than a hardship. He’d hoped she’d take it as such. But she still conveyed no expression of gratitude.

  “You will come with me wherever I decide to take you, and you will keep a civil tongue in your head.”

  “Fine,” spat Saturday. “Is that all?”

  “One last thing,” said Peregrine. “You have to fight me for it.”

  “For what?”

  “For all of it: the sacks, the bath, and the answer to your enigma.”

  The smile she gave him was wicked and wonderful. “My pleasure.”

  He might have returned the lute first and taken a longer, more circuitous route to the armory, but the girl’s smell was more than he could bear. Betwixt led the way, half slinking and half flying, ever keeping upwind. When Peregrine passed through the archway to their destination he lifted his lantern and turned to see her expression, hoping that he might catch a glimpse of happiness, however small.

  He was not disappointed.

  Peregrine saw a moment of unabashed joy on Saturday’s face before she noticed him watching and stifled it. “Where did all this come from?” She set down the rake and brought her own lantern in for a closer look.

  “If there is one thing a dragon’s lair does not lack, it is the weapons of defeated foes.” One by one, Peregrine lit the torches around the room. He had chosen this section of the caves for its natural shelves, on which he’d separated the weapons into categories. “Axes, maces, lances, bows, arrows. The swords are in a pile over there. There are so many, I’m never quite sure how to sort them.”

  “And clean, polish, and sharpen them?” Peregrine nodded in answer to her question. “This must have taken ages.”

  “It’s an ongoing project. I enjoy a hard day’s work.”

  “Me too,” she said. Peregrine heroically refrained from comparing his “hard days” with her exhausting path of never-ending masochism.

  “The results of my work on the weapons are easier to see. Armor is less salvageable as a whole, but there’s still plenty to be had, and it’s excessively useful. Even a dented helmet makes a passable mixing bowl.”

  “A mixing bowl.” Saturday seemed to find the notion blasphemous. She let her hand hover over a shelf of oddities, but did not touch them. “I don’t even know what some of these things are.”

  “Nor do I,” Peregrine admitted. He picked up one item that had very long spikes connected by a chain. “This one could be a very dangerous whip.”

  “Or a collar,” Saturday suggested. “Maybe something attached to a helmet?”

  “More likely. Though the skeleton I took it from had it like this.” Peregrine wrapped the chain around his fist, so that the spikes pointed out from his knuckles.

  “Wicked,” said Saturday cheerfully.

  Peregrine tossed the chain back onto the shelf. “And completely pointless when fighting a dragon. If you’re close enough to punch it, it’s close enough to roast you and eat you.”

  Saturday walked to the next shelf, which was full of daggers and sharp throwing implements. “May I?”

  “Of course. Th
ey come in handy when one needs to chop ice from the walls.” Peregrine had replaced his own broken dagger earlier.

  He’d destroyed many a dagger while hacking at the walls of his prison, but there was still a plethora to choose from. Silver, iron, bent, curved, and serrated, they stretched out before Saturday like a smorgasbord of pain. After lifting and balancing a few of the knives, Saturday added only one more to her swordbelt with its empty scabbard.

  “Did you bury the skeletons?”

  “Of course! Thankfully one of the knights who died here brought a magic shovel that could cut through icerock like freshly churned butter.”

  Saturday rolled her eyes at him but did not stomp away. Perhaps there was hope for a friendship between them yet. “Bones have useful properties,” he said seriously. “The warriors here are long dead, as are the ones who mourned them. The only living being to come up this far in recent years was Jack.”

  “Right,” said Saturday. “You mentioned that.”

  Peregrine took her hand. “You really haven’t seen your brother, have you?”

  Saturday pulled her hand away, scalding him again with those eyes of fire. The feeling that he’d known her forever struck him again.

  Peregrine wondered why he kept trying to please her and realized it was because of Jack, but Jack had enjoyed himself during his stay. Peregrine couldn’t stop from asking, “Do you enjoy anything?”

  Saturday exhaled. “Can I just fight you now? Please? I’d rather die than continue this conversation.”

  “Oh, this is going to be fun.” Betwixt leapt to a shelf beyond sword’s reach and settled himself comfortably.

  Peregrine curtseyed. “As milady wishes. But you can’t have so little faith in your abilities. I’m sure you’ve had teachers more recently than I.”

  “My sword was my nameday gift. As you know, it’s enchanted. I’m not so good without it, despite my teachers’ attempts.”

  Peregrine indicated the pile of swords. “So choose another one.”

  Saturday put her hands on her hips. “None of them is my sword.”

  “But many of them are enchanted,” said Peregrine. “Most of them, I’ll wager. One doesn’t hear many tales of men going up against beasts like our dragon with only their wits and cold steel.”

  “Unless those tales are about Jack Woodcutter,” she said under her breath.

  Peregrine had heard few tales of such men as a boy in Starburn; bedtime stories in the north typically ventured into the realms of gods and monsters. But having met Jack, he could imagine the kinds of stories that confident swagger left in its wake. As many hearts broken as curses, he’d wager.

  “Well, then, let’s see if you live up to your reputation, Mister Woodcutter.” Peregrine pulled a sword from the pile at random and unsheathed it. The hilt’s basket was ornate and set with dull jewel chips. The blade was thin and glowed a red that tinted the crystal walls around them a sinister pink.

  “What does that sword do?” asked Saturday.

  “No idea,” said Peregrine. “Hurry up and pick one so we can find out. Who knows? You might decide you like something here better than the one you had.”

  “Doubtful.” Saturday took a little longer over her selection. The sword she chose was far less decorative, with only crude runes etched haphazardly into its pommel, grip, and cross guard. It looked ancient, and heavy, and didn’t have much of an edge. She’d have more luck using it as a club. Perhaps that was her plan.

  Peregrine took up the stance his father and swordsmaster had taught him: arm held up and blade pointed down. Conversely, Saturday held the hilt at her center of mass with blade pointed skyward. He tried to remember which of the regions of Arilland Jack had said her family was from. “En garde.” He hoped she knew what he meant.

  He did not expect her to say, “This grip is warm.”

  “You’re welcome to choose another sword,” he offered. “We have all day, night, afternoon, and evening, or until the witch finds us.”

  “No, this sword is fine. It’s just . . .” As she spoke, the sparkling runes from the hilt duplicated themselves on the skin of her hands, her wrists, and then her arms. She drew in a sharp breath, but she did not let go of the blade.

  Peregrine worried for her safety. “What’s happening? Saturday, talk to me. Are you all right?”

  She looked up from her silver rune-covered arms and her bright eyes flashed above that impish smile. The dirty locks of her hair framed her face. “I’m perfect,” she said, and struck out at the red blade.

  Peregrine dropped his sword.

  He did not drop it on purpose; he’d fully intended for the two of them to fight evenly and fairly. But what Peregrine had just seen beyond that ancient blade, atop smelly limbs and a neck now covered with glowing runes, was neither the face of Jack Woodcutter nor that of his far less likeable sister.

  The face that had grinned at him with those bright eyes was the face of the woman from his visions.

  Betwixt had been right: Elodie of Cassot was not the woman of his dreams after all. The image he’d been seeing for most of his life had been that of Saturday Woodcutter.

  The familiarity he’d been sensing crashed like a wave in his heart. No words sprang to mind to describe the feelings this epiphany swept through him, but the ones that came closest were not meant for mixed company.

  “Peregrine?”

  Peregrine snapped out of his trance. “I’m sorry,” he said to the chimera, and he picked up the sword again. “You’re completely covered in those runes now,” he said to Saturday. “Are you sure you’re all right?” He was amazed he was all right enough to string coherent sentences together.

  “Perfectly lovely,” Saturday said pettily. “Are we doing this or not?”

  He wanted to stop the argument, sit her down, and ask her a barrage of questions. But more, he wanted to watch her, to see the face burned on his soul bearing down on him in real life. Peregrine resumed attack position. “Best two out of three?” he asked cheerfully.

  “Prepare to die,” said Saturday.

  9

  Decision

  “TELL ME what to do!” Saturday screamed up at the catbird.

  Betwixt took wing and dropped down to where Peregrine now lay dying at her feet. “I don’t know,” he answered.

  “I didn’t mean it,” she said, “when I told him to die. I didn’t really mean it.”

  “I know that. So did he. It’s all right.”

  “This”—Saturday pointed at Peregrine’s prone form—“is not all right.” She was a killer. She’d killed Trix and heavens knew how many innocent people, and now she’d killed Peregrine, when she was just starting to like him.

  Saturday’s mind spun. She begged the gods to hear her: she hadn’t really meant it. Mama’s oft-spoken warning repeated itself in the back of her mind: Words have power.

  The message had always been meant for her little sister, or for Mama herself. It had never applied to the ax-wielding giantess who traded quips in the Wood with her father and brother all day but couldn’t tell a proper story to save her life. Yet here she stood, over a boy she’d threatened to kill, watching him die.

  “Think, Saturday, think!” She tossed the heavy blade aside and felt the runes fade from her body. He’d been right; the feeling was reminiscent of her own sword, not that it could ever take its place. The symbols had turned her skin into armor, impervious to any blow. By all rights, Peregrine should have won first blood with his ruby blade, but thanks to her magical protection, he had not.

  They had fought long and hard, longer than she should have and not half as hard as she’d wished to. They were well matched: he was as rusty with his weapon as she was untrained. After much teasing and taunting and running and jumping, she’d turned the tables and scratched him first instead. Peregrine fell to his knees almost immediately, but not in mock defeat as she’d first supposed.

  Saturday’s blade hadn’t just been decorated with enchanted runes. It had also been poisoned.


  The moment Peregrine’s hand left the hilt of his sword, the blade’s red glow faded and the walls around them regained their shimmering powdered-sugar whiteness. Similarly did the blood leave Peregrine’s face, rendering him deathly pale. It had been only a scratch on his wrist, but he was already beginning to shake.

  Saturday’s hand instinctively moved to the bag that was not at her side. “If I were in the Wood, I would have crushed jewelweed,” she told Betwixt. “Is there anything like that here?”

  “Maybe in the witch’s caves,” he said. “But they are far from here and difficult to reach. And it wouldn’t be a plant.”

  “Right.” Proper plants couldn’t grow in caves. Saturday didn’t know the first thing about magic spells, but she knew a little bit about poison. There was one option left.

  Saturday removed the ornate dagger Peregrine had sheathed in his belt and used it to cut deeper into the angry wound. Moving his confounded skirt out of the way, Saturday lowered her lips to Peregrine’s wrist.

  The gryphon put a paw on her shoulder. His dark fur was soft and his feathers tickled as they brushed her dirty skin. “You might be poisoned too.”

  “I’ll be fine,” said Saturday. She hoped the catbird took her at her word. She didn’t have time to explain her recent indestructibility, though it would have been nice to have her sword to help her on that front. She sucked the blood from Peregrine’s wound and spat it onto the icy stone floor. She could taste the poison’s taint amidst the copper on her tongue. Peregrine’s eyes rolled back up into his head.

  Saturday sucked and spat again. “Go find that witch of yours. Tell her that her daughter is dying.” She didn’t want to involve the witch, but she saw no other choice. Jack Woodcutter would take the blame for this, though it was Saturday who deserved the punishment. She resolved to tell the witch everything if this boy died.

  Betwixt did not argue. He leapt toward the archway through which Saturday had entered, only to be stopped by a mass of cerulean wings. The raven was blue now? Fantastic. She’d probably be blamed for that, too. Well, if that loathsome bird was here that meant the witch wasn’t far behind. Saturday hoped the lorelei wasn’t too addled over the state of her “daughter” to cast some sort of antidote spell.