Hercufleas (16 page)

Inside the glass, the tiny black speck shifted. It
moved.
He'd woken the Black Death. It could sense him. And he could feel it too. It hungered for life. It had to take life to live.

Min's voice came to him then:
Be careful, Hercufleas. You are what you eat.

He shoved the phial back into the box and slammed the lid shut.

He couldn't. Mustn't. Eating something so monstrous would make a monster of him. With one leap he bounded back towards the light. In the dark he thought he heard a howl of rage – or was that just the wind whistling through the keyhole?

Suddenly he was back in the courtyard, gasping. He gazed up at the expectant faces.

‘Hercufleas?' It was Greta. ‘Do you have it? You were gone for ages. What happened in there?'

He couldn't tell her he'd let her down again. So he looked at Sir Klaus. ‘I made a choice,' he said, and nodded.

The mouse slumped with relief, his red eyes filling with tears. He turned to Greta. ‘Trust in this flea,' he said. ‘He is a great hero. Believe in him, and he will never fail you.'

Greta smiled. ‘Of course he won't! He's Hercufleas, the most unbe
flea
vably powerful parasite in the world! Now he can destroy Yuk with a single bite!'

She thought he had the Black Death. Of course she did. Why wouldn't she? Hercufleas couldn't meet her eyes. Freezing in the tundra, getting swallowed by a fish, duelling a mouse… It had all been for nothing, because he couldn't bring the Black Death back into the world. Now he risked everything he cared about.

His fleamily.

The Tumberfolk.

And perhaps more important and fragile than any of those things: Greta's smile.

The Mousketeers loaded Artifax with supplies before they left: tiny waxed wheels of cheese, seeds and salted meat, and an enormous blanket stitched together from hundreds of their spare quilts, to keep out the cold.

When the time came, Sir Klaus assembled his troops in the courtyard. The worry had fallen away from him, now he knew the Black Death was still in its chest. The old mouse looked young again.

‘Before you go,' he called, ‘I have a gift for Hercufleas! Bring it here!'

The sandy-haired Mousketeer from Hercufleas's room hurried across the courtyard, holding a plump scarlet cushion. On it was the shard from the tip of Grimm that had splintered off during the duel. It had been reforged and fitted with a minute handle.

‘Go on,' Sir Klaus urged. ‘It was made just for you.'

Gingerly, Hercufleas picked up the sword and swept the blade left and right. It felt perfect in his grasp – like an extra fang.

‘Every hero must go on a quest to find his weapon,' Klaus said, smiling.

‘Thank you,' Hercufleas replied solemnly. ‘I shall name it
m
, because it came from the end of your sword,
Grimm.
And the letter
m
, if you trace it in the air with your paw, makes the shape of a jumping flea.'

Sir Klaus laughed. ‘I do believe that is the smallest name for a sword in all the world. Which is fitting, for it belongs to the smallest hero.'

Hercufleas nodded, trying his best to hide his fears. ‘What will I do?' he murmured to Sir Klaus, too quietly for Greta's human ears. ‘A splinter-sized sword won't be enough to defeat a giant.'

Sir Klaus stroked his whiskers, nodding. Then he leaned forward and gave Hercufleas a crushing hug. ‘Trust me,' he whispered. ‘When you reach Tumber, look in the faces of the people there. A way to defeat Yuk will appear, I promise you. Just look at the Tumberfolk, and you will see it.'

‘What do you mean? What way?' But Klaus was squeezing him so tight the words came out in a croak. The Mousketeer put him back on the floor.

‘Time to go,' said Greta, pointing at the sun melting on the horizon. As they watched, it dripped below the earth and sputtered out like a candle. Night fell quickly up in the Waste, and they had to get back to Tumber before Yuk came.

Hercufleas gulped. He wanted to ask Sir Klaus more questions, but there wasn't time. Before he could open his mouth, Greta scooped him up and leaped on Artifax.

Out from the red-brick fortress they went, while the Mousketeers lined the walls and played a fanfare on tiny brass bugles.

‘Three cheers for the Mousketeers!' they cried. ‘But Hercufleas is the bee's knees! And Greta is even better!'

Greta laughed, waving goodbye. She took the Howlitzer, which the mice had helped her scrub free of rust, loading it with her own goodbye. She fired it into the air, so loud it made the whole fortress shake.

‘And Sir Klaus is the world's greatest mouse!'

Off they rode, heading for Tumber. It would be a close thing. The half-moon shone above them. They had journeyed twelve days, then stayed with the mice for another four. In just under a fortnight, when the moon was new and the night was darkest, Yuk would return.

‘We
will
make it.' She grinned at Hercufleas, hopping anxiously on her shoulder. ‘We've got food, and protection from the cold, and I know the way now.'

Hercufleas forced a smile. Two weeks to find a new way to defeat Yuk – one that didn't involve the Black Death. He counted in his head what he and Greta were bringing back from their quest:

1. A splinter-sized sword.

2. A gun that fired noise.

3. A week's supply of cheese.

That was it. It didn't seem much. Not anywhere near enough.
A way to defeat Yuk will appear
, Sir Klaus had promised.
Just look at the Tumberfolk.
He tried to make himself believe it.

Artifax ran on, faster than a cheetah, racing through the many layers of the Czar's fortress. Then they were out on the Waste again, wind howling, frost crunching underfoot.

Towards Tumber.

Towards Yuk.

Towards a battle Hercufleas did not know how to win.

T
he journey back was different. Now it was Hercufleas who sat moody and silent, while Greta talked about her family from dawn to gloaming. She told him of evenings spent eating plumpkin pies, drinking nettle tea and listening to Papa's stories in the warm treacly light of the tinderfly lamp. Days when Mama came back late from the woodn't and hugged Greta tight, her coat thick with the smell of pine needles. And Wuff, with his scruffy fur and floppy ears. How he used to sit, paws crossed, by the stove. She told Hercufleas things she hadn't let herself remember for a long time, fearing they would be too painful.

Then Greta found she wanted to talk about the future too. About how life would be when Yuk was gone.

‘I'll build a new home from everpines and invite the Mousketeers to stay… I'll brew nettle tea, and it'll always taste sweet… I'm going to find where the green giants sleep and wake them up.'

That roused Hercufleas from his gloomy thoughts. ‘Haven't you had enough of giants?'

She laughed. ‘Not all of them are like Yuk, you know.'

And that night by the fire, huddled under the blanket, Greta explained: ‘Papa told me about the green giants. Before them, all Petrossia was like it is out here on the Waste. Then they came along, planting the forests and bringing life.' She made her voice deep and dreamy: ‘
Long ago, back in the time when trees could speak and laugh and rhyme, green giants walked among the firs, like Mother Nature's gardeners.
'

Hercufleas was sleepy. ‘What happened to them?' he yawned, cuddling up in her scarf.

Greta shrugged. ‘They fell asleep. No one knows where. Just think… somewhere out there, so deep in the forest that the trees still whisper to each other, there are these enormous people. Big as cathedrals. All sleeping on beds of wildflowers.'

‘Wish we could wake them,' Hercufleas mumbled. ‘There'd be no more woodn'ts, only woods. No more rattlesnoaks. No more pine-needlers. No more Yuk either.'

Greta smiled. ‘We don't need green giants for that,' she said, burying her chin in her scarf. ‘We've got you.'

Hercufleas went quiet. Ever since leaving the fortress, he had fixed a confident smile upon his face and never let it slip. It was like wearing a mask. And if Greta saw behind it, she would know the truth.

‘How will you do it?' she asked him, the next night.

‘Do what?'

‘Give Yuk the Black Death,' Greta said. She took a wheel of cheese from their supplies, speared it on a stick and began toasting it over the flames. ‘Do you just have to bite him somewhere? Or does it have to be a weak spot? And then what happens next? How long until he drops down dead? Will he swell up and go pop? Do his eyes fall out? Will his insides turn to mush?'

‘I don't know,' Hercufleas said, trying to hide his discomfort.

Greta's eyes burned as she stared at the flames. ‘Hope it hurts,' she whispered.

Hercufleas shuddered. Greta took the bubbling cheese from the embers, sliced off the soft wax and dipped some roots she had gathered in the gooey centre. Artifax clucked as he gulped them down. Greta smiled and scratched his neck while he ate. Then she pricked her thumb again and gave Hercufleas a thimble of her blood – it was the sweetest and coolest he had ever tasted it, with another flavour too, dark and breathless.

It was anticipation. Greta couldn't wait to destroy Yuk. To finally get her revenge.

‘Hey,' she said, looking up. ‘What's that?'

Hercufleas followed her gaze. Down from the dark sky a white and silent speck fell towards them. It settled by the fire, like the ghost of a tinderfly come to spark itself back to life.

Another flake came down, out of the breathless cold. Then dozens, hundreds, uncountable thousands. Artifax stared in confusion. Cautiously he pecked a few from his wing.

‘What are they?' whispered Hercufleas.

Greta looked up at the clouds. ‘Miss Witz told us about this in school,' she whispered back. ‘I think it's snow.'

‘Snow,' breathed Hercufleas. Then he said, ‘Why are we whispering?'

Greta opened her mouth, then shrugged. It was as if something wonderful was coming close and if they talked too loud, they might frighten it off.

She stood up, peering into the night around them, Hercufleas in her palm.

‘Miss Witz said, if you see snow, it means the Snow Merchant is close.'

And, her voice a murmur, she told him the legend. Of a silver-haired old woman who travelled the world with a stone bird upon her shoulder, bringing snow wherever she went, working a sort of alchemy upon winter: changing it from something ugly into something beautiful. And whoever gave her a place to stay, she signed her name as ‘Snow Merchant' in blue ink upon their ledger. But why she walked, and where she came from, and where she was going, the legend didn't say. Greta's breath caught in her throat. ‘There!'

Upon the faraway hills Hercufleas saw a tiny flickering light as someone with a lantern made their lonely way across the Waste.

‘Is that the Snow Merchant?' whispered Hercufleas. ‘Is the legend true?'

Greta smiled her fragile smile, that grew stronger and fiercer with each day, and said quietly, ‘I don't know. But I believe.'

Next day Artifax took them across a pure white landscape, glittering and silent. The Waste was still desolate and cold, but the Snow Merchant had made it magical too.

Hercufleas thought a lot about that. Believing was not a weapon, but it had a quiet power nonetheless. He might not be bringing the Black Death back to Tumber, but Greta was bringing back her belief. Perhaps that would be enough. It had to be.

P
ast the Sorrows and through the woodn't they went, miles and days rushing past.

Twelve nights later, an exhausted Artifax reached Tumber at sunset. Greta rode him across the bridge, stopping to take two sips of water from the banks of the river.

‘Taking my tears back,' she said.

Up ahead, the town was dark and silent.

‘
HEY!
' called Greta. ‘
HEEEY! WE'RE BACK!
'

A light winked on by the bridge, and Mrs Lorrenz pulled up her sash window. Her fat face was smeared with cream cheese and she had pink macaroons on her eyes.

‘Who is shouting?' she bellowed. ‘Stop interrupting my beauty sleep! If I'm going to be guzzled, I want to look my best!'

‘It's Greta, Mrs Lorrenz! And I've brought the mightiest hero in all the world to save us!'

Mrs Lorrenz pulled the macaroons from her eyes. ‘Who?'

The Tumberfolk were emerging from their homes now, timid as hedgehogs, for the new moon was tonight and Yuk would return in a few hours.

Mayor Klare came bobbing down the road, golden key jangling around his neck. ‘The mightiest hero?' he said. ‘Do you mean Teresa the Weightless, the greatest alchemist ever to have lived?'

‘No, she must mean Peter!' said Mrs Lorrenz. ‘Petrossia's last genius!'