The Pitchfork of Destiny (9 page)

Will raised his arm and pointed dramatically to the horizon off to their right. “We go north!”

“Will, that's south,” Charming said dryly, pointing at the afternoon sun, which was behind them.

Will put his arm down, raised his other, and pointed in the opposite direction.

It was at this point that the trail they'd been riding on for the better part of the day simply stopped. They were surrounded by trees and bushes.

Charming grunted in disgust and began to turn his horse around, saying, “The last turning I saw was around noon. I suppose we will have to backtrack.

“No.”

“Well, what would you suggest we do?” Charming asked, turning back around.

“We skip the road and go north until we find a new road,” Will said, pointing at the dense forest.

“That's a terrible idea,” Charming said.

“I know, but you are the one who's been trying to convince me to change my approach,” Will said with a flicker of a smile.

Charming wondered if any man in the kingdom had ever been so pigheaded and stubborn. As he contemplated that question, he felt certain that someone had.

The next few hours were spent hacking their way through the dense brush. The day had faded to evening when they finally emerged onto a new road. They were covered with scratches and cuts from pushing through the thick branches of the woods, and Charming knew after only the most cursory of inspections that his clothes were ruined. They looked like vagabonds. Charming resigned himself to the fact that unless they fixed their appearance, not only would they not receive assistance along the way, but it was likely that they would not even be allowed into respectable establishments. They had lost one of the few advantages they had started with: noble names and noble bearings. They were common travelers now.

No,
he thought grimly.
We are worse than common travelers. We will be seen as either brigands or beggars. If only I could make him believe that sometimes, just sometimes, clothes do make the man.

“Charming!” Will shouted from somewhere ahead. “A road, and it goes north! While we still have the sun, onward!”

Charming emerged onto the road to see Will riding south. “Other north, Your Majesty.”

Will reined his horse in and, without comment, turned about and headed the opposite direction. Charming followed, muttering darkly about mad kings and the fools that followed them, a topic he found was rich with poetic possibilities. It had been a long time since he had used ­couplet.

He was trying to decide which was more euphonious,
insane
and
fame
or
inflamed
and
brain
when Will interrupted his train of thought. “What are you mumbling about, Charming?”

“Nothing, Your Majesty. I was just trying to determine how to put our journey into verse.”

Will's response was utterly unprintable.

Will's idea of “having the sun” was extremely liberal as they continued to ride long after the sun had set. Suddenly, Charming had the strongest feeling that the road was going to make a bend ahead and go between two large oaks, and it did. A little later, Charming knew that the road would take a sharp dip, and it did that also. Either he had developed the Sight—­a distinct possibility as he had always considered himself peculiarly sensitive—­or he had recently been along this section of road, which, given the distance they'd traveled, seemed improbable.

Finally, the eerie and continuous sense of déjà vu became overwhelming, and he felt he had to say something. “Will.”

“If this is about stopping, poetry, or fashion, I am not in the mood,” Will barked back over his shoulder.

Charming glared at Will's back, and said with barely contained disdain, “I thought you should know that I think I have been in this forest before.”

Will drew his horse to a stop so that Charming could catch up. “Do you actually know where we are?”

Before he could reply, he heard someone coming fast along the path, then a voice yelled, “Run!”

Charming swiftly drew his blade and rode in front of Will.

Three terrified men came into sight running down the road. They wore ill-­fitting dark green and brown clothes that had enormous rips and tears in them. All of them were badly injured and sported blackened eyes and bloody gashes along their faces and bodies.

“You can tell from their clothes that they are desperate men, Your Majesty,” Charming said, as the men continued to approach. “Let me handle them.”

Will waved his consent. “Just don't let this delay us any longer than necessary, Charming. We will soon lose the light.”

“What light?” Charming asked under his breath, looking up at the stars that filled the now-­night sky.

Will made a show of ignoring him.

Charming moved slightly forward and into the middle of the road to block the fleeing men's path. As they came nearer he boomed in his most authoritative voice, “Halt!”

Charming raised his hand and positioned his blade so that somehow, the edge caught the light of the moon as it filtered through the trees, causing the steel to gleam. The men froze on the path.

“Oh, Lor' bless us, it's robbers,” one of the men said, and held up his arms in surrender.

The others followed his example, and one said, “I told you that going it alone as outlaws was too dangerous. We should have stayed with the Heinous Hooligans.”

“Don't you mean the Boisterous Brigands?” the third countered.

“I don't know,” shrugged the second. “I could never remember what the Violet Varlet wanted to call us!”

“Don't you mean the Green Phantom?” the first asked.

“No,” the third said confidently, then, as though reciting something he had memorized, continued, “If you recall he gave up the title Green Phantom because it didn't have the proper ‘all-­it-­er-­ative im-­pri-­matur.' ” He pronounced these last two words as though they might be dangerous if said incorrectly.

“The proper what?” asked the other two.

“I don't know, that's what the Scarlet Scoundrel said last time he was on about the subject, ‘all-­it-­er-­ative im-­pri-­matur.' ”

“Alliterative imprimatur,” Charming interjected to startled glances from the men, who had clearly forgotten he was there. “That would be a first-­consonant rhyming scheme that would serve to give the name additional gravitas, like the Daring Duke or the Dread Dragon. I have never been one to subscribe to such cheap poetic flourishes, but there are those that find them useful.”

“Oh,” said the men.

Will moved his horse forward. “Can we get on with this, Charming? We are wasting time.”

Charming cleared his throat and pointed his sword at the men. “Why have you accosted the King? Answer or forfeit your lives to his just doom.”

The men dropped their hands and squinted their eyes in the feeble light. One of them, Will wasn't sure which, said, “That's never the King then. Look at his clothes.”

Another of the men said, “Yeah, what do you take us for, fools? No respectable king would be caught dead in that.”

Charming dropped his sword to his side and sighed piteously. “I warned you this would happen, Your Majesty. And, how can I argue. They are both proper and correct, no king would be caught dead in that outfit.”

“Never mind all that,” Will said to Charming, then growled. “I am your King, and if you do not move aside, I will order my man to cut you down where you stand!”

The men scattered to the edge of the road, and Will began to spur his horse forward.

“Wait!” Charming said sharply enough that Will hesitated. “What were you men running from? What attacked you? What is ahead on this road?”

“A witch!” said one.

“A demon!” countered the other.

“A werewolf!” replied the third.

“A monster!” all three shouted together, with one of them adding, “Of an undetermined nature.”

Charming sighed and turned to Will to tell him that he thought they were lying, but there was a mad eagerness in Will's face.

“Could the monster have been a dragon?” Will asked

“That's it!” they all cried in ready agreement. “It was definitely a dragon!”

Will rose in his stirrups and pulled his sword from his scabbard. “Where is this dragon? Tell me now!”

“Back at the house!” said the first, pointing behind them.

“It's just off the road!” said the second, following the man's gesture with one of his own.

“In a clearing in the woods!” said the third, repeating the first two men's gestures just in case there was any confusion as to direction.

“We were trying to rob . . .” the first started to say, but a sharp elbow in the ribs cut his confession short.

Will didn't notice the slip, but spurred his horse past the men, screaming, “Give me Elle, you monster!”

Charming paused for a moment trying to decide what to do with the men. They were clearly criminals, but it was just as clear that Will could not be trusted not to get himself killed. He shrugged. “You have my leave to continue running for your lives, but if I ever catch you around here again . . .”

“You won't!” the men shouted.

“Good,” Charming said sheathing his sword. “Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm afraid I have to save the King.”

The men scattered, and Charming urged his own horse after Will. By galloping hard, he managed to reach the clearing in time to see Will, sword drawn, marching resolutely toward a moonlit cottage nestled quaintly in the trees, an orange glow flickering warmly from behind curtained windows. The sight of the clearing and the cottage froze Charming. This was not just any cottage or any clearing, but one utterly familiar to Charming. It was utterly familiar because it was the one he and Liz lived in. He was home.

Several thoughts struck him at once and with enough violence to send his head momentarily spinning. First, that they had just spent a week traveling in a big circle, which meant both that he had a terrible sense of direction and was not clairvoyant. Second, that King William was about to batter down the door of his home to kill a dragon that could not possibly be inside. Third, that if those brigands on the road had been telling the truth, then someone or something dangerous was in his house. And lastly, that if Liz was in there, then she was in there with someone or something dangerous.

Charming sprang from his horse before this last thought had even had time to fully form. Somewhere between the saddle and the ground, he drew his sword, then sprinted to catch up to Will. He watched as Will reared back his foot to kick open the door.

“Will, stop” he cried.

It was too late. The door broke inward under Will's assault, and the man disappeared into the cottage, a guttural cry of challenge on his lips. A terrible, inhuman noise issue from within, followed by the sound of a mighty struggle as furniture crashed, crockery shattered, metal rang, and bodies fell. Will's scream of rage was transformed into a bellow of pain. Perhaps there was a monster. Charming put on a burst of speed and launched himself through the door.

What he saw by the flickering light of the fire would have been enough to cause even the most inveterate of drunks to swear off booze. The room was in chaos. Furniture and odds and ends were strewn about. In the middle of the destruction lay Will. He was breathing, snoring actually, and seemed uninjured with the exception of some scratches and bruises to his face and forehead. Over him stood a swayback donkey with a long gray beard, a thick-­bodied black-­and-­brown dog with a squashed face, a rather chubby orange cat with white stripes down its sides and white circles around its eyes, and a scrawny, red-­feathered rooster with an inordinately long, skinny neck. The rooster was actually standing atop Will's chest.

This scene would have been extraordinary in and of itself, and for the ordinary man might have frozen him into inaction, but Charming was trained for the extraordinary, and so the presence of the animals and Will's state of unconsciousness actually didn't bother him in the least. What did bother him, what froze his blood in his veins, was that Liz was nowhere to be seen.

C
harming's paralysis lasted long enough for the animals to turn their gazes on him, and for the donkey to say in a drawling bray, “Not another burglar. Man! This neighborhood is going downhill. Let's get him, guys!”

The animals moved toward him as one. The donkey lowered his head and charged, the dog leapt over a broken cabinet, teeth snapping, the cat launched itself from the back of a chair toward Charming's chest, with its claws outstretched, and the rooster took flight in a flurry of wings and talons.

There are many things you can say about Edward Charming. He is vain, conceited, and often an ass, but it is also true that he is accounted the best swordsman of his generation, and some say of all time. On this day, at this moment, his skill was augmented by a towering rage, and the results were terrifying.

Charming took two long strides across the room, meeting the animals' charge with his own. Then, in one fluid movement, he dodged out of the way of the charging donkey so that it barreled past him to slam into a bookshelf, kicked the dog squarely in the ribs and pinned it to the floor with his foot, pivoted his body so that the flat of his sword knocked the leaping cat back, sending it flying across the room to smash into the far wall, while at the same moment he plucked the rooster out of the air by the neck with his off hand. By this time the donkey had recovered and was turning to charge again, but Charming had reversed the grip on his sword and lunged so that the tip of his sword came to rest against the donkey's throat.

Everything froze, then the donkey, whose rolling eyes were fixed on the blade touching his neck, asked, “Can we help you, man?”

“Yes, you can,” Charming said with icy calm. “You can answer a question for me.”