The Iron Knight (8 page)

Puck and I leaped aside in opposite directions, and the tree struck the space between with an explosion of mud and water. Almost immediately, the troll swept the tree across the ground, as if it was whisking away dust with a broom, and this time Puck wasn’t quite able to dodge quickly enough. The trunk hit him and sent his body tumbling through the air, striking his head on another tree and slumping into the
mud several yards away. Red-eyed, the troll turned back to me, stepping forward threateningly. I retreated until my back hit the wall of the embankment, and I tensed as the huge troll loomed over me, raising its club over its head and smashing it down like a battering ram.

Something big and dark lunged between us with a booming snarl, and a monstrous shaggy
thing
slammed into the troll, teeth flashing. The troll screeched and stumbled back, its arm clamped in the jaws of an enormous black wolf the size of a grizzly bear, who growled and shook his head, digging his fangs in farther. Howling, the troll flailed and yanked back, trying desperately to dislodge the monster clinging to its arm, but the wolf wasn’t letting go. I caught my breath, recognizing the creature, knowing who it was, but there was no time to wonder why he was here.

Dodging the wolf, I ducked beneath the troll’s legs and turned, slashing the thick tendons behind its knees. With a shriek, the troll’s legs buckled, and I leaped onto its back, much as Puck had done, as it went down. But this time, I raised my sword and drove it, point first, into the troll’s head, right between the horns, burying the weapon to the hilt.

A shudder wracked the troll’s body. It began to stiffen, its skin turning gray and hard. I yanked my sword free and vaulted off its back as the troll curled up on itself, much like a giant insect or spider, and turned to stone. In a few seconds, only a troll-shaped boulder sat in the mud at the edge of the village.

There was a deep chuckle beside me. “Not bad, little prince. Not bad.”

Slowly, I turned, gripping my weapon, ready to unleash my glamour in one violent, chaotic burst. A few yards away, the enormous wolf of legend stared at me, eyes glowing yellow-green in the gloom, fangs bared in a vicious smile.

“Hello, prince,” rumbled the Big Bad Wolf. “I told you before. The next time we meet, you won’t ever see me coming.”

I
STARED AT THE
W
OLF
, keeping him in my sights as he circled me, fangs bared in a savage grin, huge paws sinking into the mud. Around and inside me, glamour flared, cold and lethal, ready to be unleashed. I couldn’t hold anything back, not with him. This was possibly the most dangerous, ancient creature to ever walk the wilds of the Nevernever. His stories outnumbered all the myths and legends ever told, and his power grew with every telling, every dire warning and fable that whispered his name. His legends were all born of fear; he was the consummate villain, the creature that old wives warned their children about, a monster that consumed little girls and butchered entire herds for no reason. His brethren in the mortal world had suffered terribly for the fears that birthed him—they had been gunned down, trapped, and slaughtered wholesale—but each death reinforced those fears and made him more powerful than before.

The immortal Big Bad Wolf. Meghan and I had met him once before, and he’d almost succeeded in killing me.

That wouldn’t happen again.

“Put that stick away.” The Wolf’s voice, guttural and deep, held traces of amusement. “If I wanted you dead, I wouldn’t have bothered saving your sorry carcass from the swamp troll. That’s not to say I won’t kill you later, but your silly little toy won’t stop me then, either, so you might as well be civil about it.”

I kept my sword out, which I could see annoyed the Wolf, but I was certainly not going down without a fight. “What do you want?” I asked, keeping my voice cautiously civil, but letting the Wolf know I would defend myself if needed.
I was going to walk away from this. It didn’t matter that the Wolf was immortal. It didn’t matter that he’d almost killed me last time we’d met. If it came down to a fight, I was determined to win this time, by any means necessary. I would not die here, on the banks of a gloomy lake, torn apart by the Big Bad Wolf. I would survive this encounter and keep going. Meghan was waiting for me.

The Wolf smiled. “Mab sent me for you,” he said in a voice that was almost a purr.

I kept my expression neutral, though an icy fist grabbed my stomach and twisted. Not in surprise, or even fear, just the knowledge that, as she did with all her subjects, the Winter Queen had finally grown tired of me. Perhaps she was insulted by my refusal to return to court. Perhaps she’d decided that a former Winter prince running around free was too volatile, a threat to her throne. The
whys
didn’t matter. Mab had sent the most feared hunter and assassin in the entire Nevernever to kill me.

I sighed, suddenly feeling very tired. “I suppose I should be honored,” I told him, and he cocked his enormous shaggy head, still grinning. Taking a furtive breath, I calmed my mind, the glamour settling into a low, throbbing pulse. “We won’t get anywhere standing around looking at each other,” I told him, raising my sword. “Let’s get on with it, then.”

The Wolf chuckled. “As much as I’d enjoy ripping your head off, little prince,” he said, and his eyes gleamed, “I am not here to end your life. Quite the opposite, in fact. Mab sent me here to help you.”

I stared at him, hardly able to believe what I’d just heard. “Why?”

The Wolf shrugged, his huge shoulders rippling with the movement. “I do not know,” he said, and yawned, flashing lethal fangs. “Nor do I care. The Winter Queen knows of
your quest; she knows you will probably have to journey far to complete it. I am here to make sure you reach your destination with your guts on the inside. In return, she will owe me a favor.” He sniffed the air and sat down, watching me with half-lidded eyes. “Beyond that, I have no interest in you. Or the Summer prankster. Who, if he wants his head to remain on his shoulders, will think long and hard about jumping me from behind. Next time, try standing downwind, Goodfellow.”

“Damn.” Puck appeared from a clump of reeds, a chagrined smile on his face, glaring at the Wolf. “I knew I was forgetting something.” Blood caked one side of his face, but other than that, he seemed fine. Brandishing his daggers, he sauntered up beside me, facing the huge predator. “Working for Mab now, are you, Wolfman?” he smirked. “Like a good little attack dog? Will you also roll over and beg if she asks?”

The Wolf rose, looming over both of us, the hair on his spine bristling. I resisted the urge to hit Goodfellow, even though I knew what he was doing; taunting an opponent for more information. “I am not a
dog,
” the Wolf growled, his deep voice making the puddles ripple. “And I work for no one.” He curled his lips in a sneer. “The favor of the Winter Queen is a substantial reward, but do not think you can order me around like the weak creatures of men. I will see you to the end of your quest alive.” He growled again and bared his teeth. “The request said nothing about whole.”

“You’re not here for a favor,” I said, and he blinked, eyeing me suspiciously. “You don’t need one,” I continued, “not from Mab, not from anyone. You enjoy the hunt, and the challenge, but to agree to such a request without a kill at the end? That’s not like you.” The Wolf continued to stare at us, his face betraying nothing. “Why are you really here?” I asked. “What do you want?”

“The only thing he really cares about—” A disembodied voice came from overhead, and Grimalkin appeared in the branches of a tree, nearly twenty feet off the ground. “Power.”

The hair on the Wolf’s back and shoulders bristled, though he gazed at Grimalkin with a faint, evil smile on his long muzzle. “Hello, cat,” he said conversationally. “I thought I caught your stench creeping through the air. Why not come down here and talk about me?”

“Do not demean yourself by stating the ridiculous,” Grimalkin replied smoothly. “Just because my species is vastly superior does not mean you should flaunt your idiocy so freely. I know why you are here, dog.”

“Really,” Puck called, craning his head to look up at the cat. “Well then, would you like to share your theory, Furball?”

Grimalkin sniffed. “Do you people not know anything?” Standing up, he walked along the branch, the Wolf’s gaze following him hungrily. “He is here because he wishes to add his name to your tale. His power, his entire existence, comes from stories, from myths and legends and all the dark, frightening and amusing tales about him that humans have invented over the years. It is how the Big Bad Wolf has survived for so long. It is how
you
have survived for centuries, Goodfellow. Surely you know this.”

“Well, yeah, of course I knew
that,
” Puck scoffed, crossing his arms. “But that still doesn’t tell me why Wolfman is being so helpful all of a sudden.”

“You are on a quest,” the Wolf went on, finally tearing his gaze away from the cat to look at me. “The queen told me of this. That you, a soulless and immortal being, wish to become human for the mortal you love.” He paused and shook his head in grudging admiration, or perhaps pity. “
That
is a story. That is a tale that will endure for generations, if you can
survive the trials, of course. But even if you don’t, even if this tale becomes a tragedy, my name will still be in it, adding to my strength.” He narrowed his eyes, staring me down. “Of course, it would be a better tale if you manage to reach your destination. I can help you in that respect. It will make the story longer anyway.”

“What makes you think we need, or want, your help?” Grimalkin asked loftily.

The Wolf gave me an eerie smile, all fangs, and his eyes glinted in the shadows. “I will be in this tale one way or another, little prince,” he warned. “Either as the great wolf that protects and guides you to your destination, or as the tireless evil that tracks you through the night, haunting your steps and your dreams. I have been both, and such roles are easy for me to slip into. I leave the choice to you.”

We stared at each other for a long moment, two hunters sizing each other up, checking strengths and weaknesses. Finally, I nodded and carefully sheathed my blade.

“All right,” I said as Puck blinked and Grimalkin snorted in disgust. “I’ll accept your help for now. But I make no promises about our continued alliance.”

“Neither do I, boy.” The Wolf regarded me the way a cat would observe a mouse. “So, now that we have an understanding, what should we do first?”

Overhead, Grimalkin sighed, very loudly. “Unbelievable,” he said, and the Wolf grinned at him and ran a pink tongue over his jaws. Grimalkin was not impressed. “May I remind you,” he continued in that same bored, annoyed tone, “that out of this entire party, only
I
know the way to the seer. And if a certain dog forgets its manners, you will all be up the river without a paddle, so to speak. Remember that, prince.”

“You heard him,” I told the Wolf, who curled a lip at me.
“No chasing or attacking our guide. We still need him to reach the seer.”

“Please.” Grimalkin sniffed, and leaped to another branch. “As if I would ever allow that to happen. This way, and do try to keep up.”

After leaving the lake and the dead ballybog village, we followed Grimalkin through another tangled forest and across a rocky plateau, the great black Wolf trailing noiselessly behind us. The two animals didn’t speak to each other, but the Wolf kept his distance from the cat, even when traveling across the open plains, so it seemed that they had worked out some sort of truce. A basilisk stirred on a rocky shelf, eyeing us hungrily as we passed beneath, but the Wolf silently curled his lip, baring his fangs, and the monster appeared to lose interest.

After we crossed the plateau, the ground turned sharply downhill and thick, thorny brambles started appearing, choking out the trees. When we reached the bottom of the slope, the briars rose around us like a spiny maze, ragged wisps of fog caught between their branches. The ground was wet and spongy, saturated with water, mud and something else. Something dark had seeped into the earth, turning the ground black and poisoned. The air was still, silent as a grave; nothing moved in the shadows or between the thorns, not even insects.

“This is as far as I go.”

Startled, we both turned to Grimalkin, sitting tightly on a patch of dry ground, watching us. “From here,” he said, regarding each of us in turn, “you are on your own.”

“What?” Puck exclaimed. “You mean you’re not going to venture into the hollow of death with us? Shocking. What kind of monster do you think lives here, ice-boy? It has to be pretty nasty for Furball to flake out on us. Oh, wait …”

Grimalkin flattened his ears but otherwise ignored the Summer faery. The Wolf sniffed the air, growled low in his chest, and the hackles rose along his spine. “This place,” he muttered, curling a lip, “is not right.” He shook himself and took a step forward. “I’ll scout ahead, see if it’s—”

“No,” Grimalkin said, and the Wolf turned on him with a growl. The cait sith faced him seriously, his yellow eyes intense. “You must remain here. The valley will not tolerate intruders. This part of the journey is for them, and them alone.”

The Wolf and the cat locked eyes, staring each other down. Grimalkin did not blink, and something in the cat’s steady gaze must have convinced the much larger wolf. Reluctantly, he nodded and took a step back. “Very well,” he growled. “I will scout along the perimeter, then.” He shot a glare at me and Puck. “If you two need my help, just scream.”

He turned swiftly and trotted away, melting into the shadows and the trees. Grimalkin watched him go and turned to us.

“I have brought you as far as I can,” he said, rising gracefully to his feet, plumed tail waving. “The final few steps are up to you.” His gaze narrowed, watching us grimly. “Both of you.”

A coil of mist curled across the place where Grimalkin sat, and he was gone.

Puck crossed his arms, gazing past the edge of the valley
into the darkness and thorns. “Yep.” He sighed. “A really, really nasty monster, indeed.”