The Pitchfork of Destiny (7 page)

Later that night, they both squeezed into Liz's room to see if they had learned anything useful.

“Totally useless,” Tomas groused as he leaned against the wall at the foot of her bed. “I don't think a single one of them has ever seen a dragon or would even know a dragon if it came up and bit them on the ass. One of them had the nerve to tell me that the creature was half lion, half snake, and quarter raven. I'm no scholar, but that doesn't even add up. If you ask me, they have no idea what they're running from or where they're running to. Half of them seem to think the dragon is in the north and are running south, half seem to think the dragon is in the south and are running north, and the other half are running west or east, depending on which way the wind is blowing that day.”

“I know,” Liz said, pointing down at her map of Royaume, which she had marked with dozens of neat little
X
s, all of which represented a “confirmed” dragon sighting. “I can't say for sure if the dragon is even in Royaume anymore, much less where it might be or be heading.” She sighed, and tucking her legs under her, leaned back against the headboard of the bed. “Did you learn anything that might lead you to believe that
we
are headed the wrong way?”

Tomas thought carefully for a moment and shook his head. “No. Your logic still makes the most sense. But . . .” he began, then seemed to think better of whatever it was he was going to say, and instead said, “No, I say we go on to Prosper like we planned.”

Liz studied him over the edge of her map. “Out with it, Tomas.”

“It's nothing, Your Ladyship,” he said, twisting his hands nervously.

“Tomas . . .” she said, letting the warning note of her voice do the work.

He let out a deep breath. “Well, I heard a ­couple of ­people talking about a Dracomancer down south in Two Trees who's been telling everyone that he knows how to kill the beasty. If he's the fellow I think he is, he certainly had a reputation for knowin' about dragons.”

Liz glanced back at her map and chewed her lips in thought. “It would add a day's worth of riding to get to Two Trees. Do you think it's worth it? What could he do for us? Are we sure he's a real sorcerer?”

Tomas studied the ground at his feet intently for a moment, then raised just his eyes and fixed them onto hers. “Well, I don't know anything about magic or sorcerers or the like, Your Ladyship, and I don't know if this will be a count for or against him, but he is the one that gave the original prophecy to King Rupert that his son, your Charming, was going to rid the kingdom of the last dragon.”

“Right,” Liz said stiffly after a minute of bitter silence, “we will stop in Two Trees. I've always wanted to have a word with that man.”

 

CHAPTER 4

NORTH BY SOUTHEAST

T
he Kingdom of Royaume is known for many things, including the number of public houses with disturbing names, such as the Boiled Badger, the Dead Drunk, the Pernicious Porcupine, Something in My Mustache, and the Cooked Goose.
*
It also holds the distinction of being particularly well endowed in abandoned manor houses and darkened woods. However, without question, Royaume is best known for having the single most confusing road system ever devised.

This confusion arises principally because Royaume has an inordinately large number of roads for a kingdom of its size, but paradoxically, also an embarrassingly small number of road signs. The fact is if one goes off the beaten track in Royaume, one is likely in short order to find another beaten track, which to all appearances rightly resembles the first beaten track. Many believe that lost towns and hamlets lie undiscovered in the interior of Royaume, hidden not by wilderness, but a maze of roads winding this way and that. And some say that the disproportionately large number of little hooded girls that go missing in the woods of Royaume each year is the direct result of the lack of any meaningful way of telling where you're going unless you've already been there.
**
That and the wolves that like to eat them, of course.

While Will and Charming never admitted out loud to each other that they were lost, it could be stated as fact that a week after leaving his sister's home, Will was pacing along the side of one of Royaume's many unmarked roads, having no idea where he was. What was more, and this he was more than a little embarrassed about, Will had no idea how they'd gotten wherever it was they were either.

He had, admittedly, been distracted over the last week worrying about Elle and the dragon and trying to absorb the bizarre bits and pieces of dragon-­slaying lore Charming kept throwing out, but the fact was, after giving Charming the order to head north, Will had simply stopped paying attention to the hows, whys and wheres. What was driving the King of Royaume to distraction was that Charming, though he had ostensibly been leading them, also seemed lost.

Will had been watching Charming ponder a merging of paths for at least a quarter of an hour when he finally boiled over. “Charming, do you have any idea where we are going?”

“None whatsoever, Your Majesty.”

“Do you have any idea where we are?”

“None, Your Majesty,” Charming said, gazing up and down the dirt path they found themselves on. “I suppose that tree looks a bit familiar, but I don't know if that's a good sign or a bad one.”

Will's head began to hammer, and he put a hand against his temple. “Well, which way goes north? We'll take that one.”

“Neither, Your Majesty,” Charming said.

“How is that possible?”

“Well, if my sense of direction has not failed me,” Charming replied in a tone that seemed to dismiss the idea as an absurdity, “then that one”—­he pointed right—­“is going mostly west and south, while that one”—­he pointed left—­“is going mostly south and east.”

“Fine,” Will barked. “Pick the one that is going more north.”

“Right,” Charming said, and began moving his finger between the two trails while mouthing, “eeny, meeny, miny, moe.” Finally, his hand settled on the way to the right. “That one, Your Majesty.”

Will grunted in disgust and spurred his horse into a canter along the right-­hand path.

The week had been filled with these twists and turns and forks in roads, sometimes left and sometimes right. Will was increasingly frustrated by the fact that, despite the enormous distances they were covering, they did not seem to be getting anywhere, much less anywhere north. Sometimes, they had gone east to go north. Sometimes, they had gone west to go north. And, at more than a few points, they had gone south in the hopes that the particular road they had chosen would eventually turn north.

They traveled down this new road into a sinking sun until it dipped below the horizon. It was only after full night had fallen that Will let them stop. In short order, Charming had snared a pair of rabbits and was cooking them over a crackling fire. Because of Charming's bizarre fixation on trivialities like styles of cuffs and collars or the number of buttons on his lapel, this having been the subject of a two-­hour lecture the previous day, it was easy for Will to forget that Charming had been trained to be a master campaigner. He'd studied under the greatest woodsmen and hunters of the time. Which suddenly made Will even more frustrated that the man couldn't seem to figure out something as simple as which way was north.

The more Will thought about this, the more irritated he became. The way Charming was lounging against that log was irritating. The way he was buffing a shine into his leather boots was irritating. The way he was now studying the sleeves of his coat to see if they had been dirtied by the day's ride was exceedingly irritating.

“Why can't you find a road north?” Will asked sharply, his voice disturbing the peace of the night.

“What?” Charming asked vaguely. “Road?”

“Yes,” Will said, sitting up straight. “Are you purposefully trying to prevent me from going after the dragon?”

“What are you talking about, Will . . . I mean, Your Majesty?” Charming peered across the fire at him. “Have you been drinking? If you have, you know you ought to have shared. In the haste of our departure, I left my flask behind.”

“No, I haven't been drinking.” In a sudden eruption of anger, he spit, “If you're this great hero, why can't you find a bloody road north?”

Charming's face clouded briefly with anger, but the expression passed, and a nonchalant smile lifted the corners of his mouth. “I think you are laboring under a few misconceptions about heroes, Your Majesty. First”—­he held up his thumb—­“I didn't learn woodcraft to find a creature like Volthraxus, I learned it to hunt game. As for my dragon, the Great Wyrm of the South, I knew exactly where she lived. Everyone knew where she lived. She dwelt in Dragon Tower, so there was no need to track her.”

“Second,” he said, adding his forefinger to his thumb, “as I think I explained to you in great detail last time we rode out together on a quest, if you are going to be a hero, you must look like a hero. I think you understand about buttons after yesterday, but perhaps I never explained properly the importance of looking impressive. You may think you're alone out here, Will, but you never know when you might meet the public or some traveling minstrel or bard. Unfortunately, looking impressive while riding takes a great deal of concentration. You must always lift your gaze to the far horizon. So, while it is true that I have ridden over nearly every hill and dale in Royaume, I never actually looked at where I was, only where I was going.”

Will was nearly speechless, as was often the case after Charming “explained” something to him. “Didn't . . . didn't you get lost?”

“Never.” Charming said emphatically. “Getting lost is simply not heroic. No, I always had Tomas with me. He handled mundane matters like directions.”

A thought occurred to Will. “Charming, when we rode out together to fight the troll, you were always in the lead.”

“Of course,” Charming said as he happily ironed the points of his collar between two smooth rocks he'd been heating by the side of the fire. “A hero must always be in front.”

“If you were in front, how could Tomas be picking the direction you were going?” Will asked in earnest confusion.

“He would lead from behind,” Charming said, as though this was the most obvious thing in the world.

“Lead from behind?”

“Yes, it's one of the essential skills of being a squire,” he said as he frowned at a speck of dirt on the breast of his shirt. “A good squire must be able to give direction without appearing to give direction.” He appeared satisfied with the outcome of his inspection because he gave Will a big smile. “But, you know all this. You've been doing it since we left the cottage. You're actually quite good at it—­very subtle.”

A rush of dread went through Will as the sudden realization struck him that they had been traveling at random for nearly a week.

“Oh, God, no!” Will said with a strangled yell, rising to his feet, unable to contain the sense of failure and futility that washed over him. “I've wasted a whole week.”

“What?” Charming asked. “Seriously, have you been drinking?”

“I HAVE NOT BEEN DRINKING, YOU HALF-­WITTED MORON!” Will shouted. “THIS IS ALL YOUR FAULT! YOU ARE MY SQUIRE! YOU ARE SUPPOSED TO GUIDE ME!”

Charming raised an eyebrow at him. “Your Majesty, I have as little idea about how to be a squire as you have about how to be a dragon hunter.”

A cloud of blind rage descended on Will, and he launched himself at Charming with arms outstretched. Tangled in his clothes as he was, Charming had no chance to react. Luckily or unluckily, depending on your perspective, Will's foot caught in a depression. He tumbled to the ground, and his head struck the side of the log Charming had been leaning against. Will heard a roar of light and noise, and before he could figure out how light could roar, everything went black.

C
harming spent the night by Will's side, applying cold cloths to the bump on his head and bandages to the fingers where Will had chewed them down to the quick. He wondered at the change that had come over his friend. Charming had long marveled at how Will seemed to rise to any occasion. With Gnarsh, with the fairy, with Gwendolyn, with the bandits in the woods, even with the Wyrm of the South, Will had seemed immune to the sort of panic that would have overwhelmed most ­people. Until now, he had seemed incapable of being overawed, and it had made him a great king, far better than Charming thought he himself would have been. But, Will now more closely resembled the type of man Charming had been when they met: emotional and brittle.

Elle's loss had broken something in Will. It was understandable, but Charming needed Will to see that trying to become “Prince Charming” and fighting this dragon was not the solution, it was just a way to die. Liz would have been the best person to help her brother. He had considered suggesting that they return to the cottage, but even if he could have convinced Will to acquiesce, an uncertain proposition at best, his friend was so reckless with despair right now that he was a danger to everyone around him. Charming would not risk Liz, not even to save his King. On balance, wandering aimlessly along Royaume's roads for a while might be for the best.

Wandering also gave Charming time to consider what they should do about Volthraxus. In the past, he would have been in Will's camp: ride forth, swords flashing and pennants flying and his white charger charging . . .

Charming shook his head, and the glorious vision faded. “That is the sort of thinking that got us into this mess in the first place,” he chastised himself.

He placed a cold cloth over Will's forehead. The “old” Charming would have had no doubt that they could outwit and slay even a dragon as mighty as Volthraxus, but the “new” Charming suspected that the “old” Charming felt this way because the “old” Charming had never thought about the consequences of any of his actions. Now all Charming could think about were the logistics of fighting such a monster. Ostensibly, they were going to face one of the most powerful Wyrms alive, but they had no armor, no shields, no men-­at-­arms to support them or archers to distract Volthraxus while they made their charge. And that was assuming that they could lure him to the ground in the first place. Trapping Volthraxus in a lair where he couldn't fly would be ideal, but where was he sleeping? The list of problems seemed endless. He wondered if these were the sort of details his squire Tomas used to fret about.

“That would explain why he was so grumpy all the time,” Charming muttered. “But is it also why he was so fat and bald?”

Charming ran a worried hand through his thick brown hair. He was still pondering the question and his waistline when the soft blue light of dawn began to seep into the land around them. Charming cooked a very light breakfast and waited for Will to wake up.

Finally, Will murmured, “I didn't kill the dragon. I'm not a dragonslayer. I don't even know how to kill a dragon! Take my crown. Just give me back Elle.”

Charming leaned close, and said softly, “Your Majesty, it is okay. I am here.”

On reflection, Charming wasn't sure whether Will would see him being there as reassuring, particularly given how the previous night had ended.

Will shook his head and blinked open his eyes. “Charming?”

“I'm afraid so, Your Majesty.”

“Where are we, and what time is it?” Will asked with a groan, and levered himself to a sitting position.

“Well, Your Majesty,” Charming said, biting his lower lip. “It is about six in the morning, I think on a Tuesday, if that helps. As for where we are, we seem to have misplaced ourselves.”

Charming watched carefully for another explosion, but it didn't come. Instead, Will just sat there, stupidly looking at the dancing flames of the fire.

“Would you like some breakfast, Your Majesty?”

Will gave a shake of his head.

“How about some water, Your Majesty?”

Will nodded, and Charming handed him a waterskin he'd filled earlier in a nearby stream.

The cold water seemed to revive Will. “I'm sorry about last night.”

“No apology necessary, Your Majesty. No harm done. Well, to me anyway,” Charming said wryly, trying to raise Will's spirits.

Will glared at him.

“Don't mock me, Charming” said Will coldly. “I am still your King, and we are on a serious quest. Instead of trying to play the fool, why don't you work at being my squire and get us ready to move out of here.”

They stared at each other, but Charming could see the doubt and guilt creep into his friend's eyes. It was a familiar, haunted look, and Charming felt that it was the precise look the Beast had seen in his own eyes when they first met. Will was lost, and it would be up to Charming to lead him back home. But first, Will was going to need to be knocked off his pedestal, and Charming knew he needed to do it before he was tempted to knock the King on his backside.