The Adventures of Sir Roderick, the Not-Very Brave Page 4

  Sometime later he woke. It was still dark. His tent didn’t have a door flap and outside he could see the fire’s embers. Next to it, the pot in which the rabbit stew had been cooked hovered at chest height above the ground. It was floating in mid-air! Roderick’s heart galloped. The pot tipped to one side for a few seconds, then righted itself. After a few more moments of hovering, it tipped again; then after a few seconds, again righted itself. This happened several times, and then the pot slowly lowered itself to the ground. Roderick kept staring at it, but the pot did not move again. Everything was quiet except the beating of his heart.

  Next time he woke it was daylight. Outside, it was sunny, and Fromley and Shamus were packing up and washing cutlery, plates and bits of themselves in the river.

  The pot stood by the ashes of the fire. He approached it carefully. It appeared to be a normal pot on a normal patch of ground. He poked it quickly with his finger. He touched it again, then picked it up and examined it. Nothing unusual. Its inside was covered with the remnants of last night’s dinner.

  Something smashed into his back. ‘Roderick, you greedy guts!’ It was Fromley.

  ‘What?’

  ‘You’ve eaten it all before we woke up, you rat. Or did you have a midnight feast? Me and Shamus had to have stale bread and cheese again! There was enough left for us all to have some for breakfast!’

  ‘It . . . it wasn’t me.’

  ‘It didn’t eat itself. Well, you can at least clean the pot.’ Fromley stomped off.

  If there had been enough stew left for three breakfasts, where had it all gone? He looked about to see if there was any on the ground. There wasn’t. Had the mysterious force that had lifted the pot been hungry?

  After they’d packed and loaded the horses, they rode through hills densely covered with trees, seeing no sign of human existence. The Great Northern Highway was now just a rough track upon which only two of them could ride abreast. Sir Shamus kept up a constant stream of stories, many from his time as a guard on the Nareean border. He didn’t like Nareeans.

  ‘They’re treacherous. Decent fighters, but beware of their tricks. Never trust a Nareean.’

  At last, as the track narrowed further and forest closed in on them, blocking out the sun, even Sir Shamus ran out of words. Roderick pulled his cloak tight around him, as much to warm his spirit as his body.

  Just before lunch they came to a side road on their left marked by a decrepit wooden sign with the chipped and faded words Forest Of Gilderang on it. Below in smaller writing were the words, Beware Giant Cockroaches. Below that, in even smaller letters it said, probably best not to go this way.

  Roderick gulped. ‘I guess this is me.’

  Fromley manoeuvred his horse beside Roderick’s and looked at him. Then he gave him a huge punch on the shoulder. ‘Ahh, Roderick,’ he said with an uncertain grimace. There was an uneasy silence, and then he added, ‘You’ll be fine!’

  Then Sir Shamus did something Roderick had never seen before. He smiled. He may have been trying to appear cheery, but it looked terrifying. Luckily, it vanished as suddenly as it had arrived. ‘Good luck, Sir Roderick,’ he said seriously. He wasn’t even shouting. ‘Carry the nobility and fearlessness of our mighty order of knights with you as, er, best you can. And, uh, try to take care of yourself.’ Then he glanced about and whispered. ‘Look, if you get into trouble, well, I wouldn’t say this to everyone, but you just turn yourself around and hurry home, lad. No point dying for naught, is there?’ He gave another hopeless smile, turned his horse and set off, with Fromley following. Fruitcake began to move after them until Roderick pulled his reins tight.

  He watched them trot away, already feeling lonely. They weren’t like him, but they were company. He felt hopeless and afraid. Shamus’s smile had been too humiliating to bear. Both he and Fromley obviously thought he was totally incapable.

  He stared at the ground for a long time, feeling sorry for himself. Then another feeling grew. Anger. He didn’t want Shamus and Fromley’s concern, or their stupid smiles, or especially their pity. He would be all right on his own!

  He pulled Fruitcake’s head around hard, kicked his sides and surged forward. He kicked again until Fruitcake reached a gallop. The wind was in his face and he felt a burst of exhilaration. He leant forward in the saddle, carried along by the rush of adventure. He knew that it would probably pass, but you had to take what you could get.

  Best of all, his bottom had stopped hurting.

  CHAPTER 4

  THE HOLE IN THE TREE

  Before too long Roderick allowed Fruitcake to drop back to a walk. As their pace slowed, his unease rose.

  He was alone in a spooky forest. Not the Forest of Gilderang yet, just the forest that didn’t have a name that you had to go through to get to the Forest of Gilderang. Tall trees interlocked over the top of the track, blocking out all but the most determined rays of sunshine. With every gust of wind, shadows danced. The track narrowed even more to a sketchy path criss-crossed with vines, forcing Roderick to slow Fruitcake further, and to draw his sword and slash and hack his way through as he gripped the horse’s reins tightly with his other hand.

  Ever since they’d left their campsite that morning, Roderick had had the strange feeling that something was following him. He had looked back over his shoulder one hundred and twenty-six times, but had not seen anything. On several occasions he had heard a crack of a twig or the rustling of leaves but maybe it was just the wind or a squirrel? Nonetheless, as the forest crept in on him, the feeling that he was not alone grew.

  He looked behind him again, but all he could see were shadows, vines and tree roots. He urged Fruitcake on, raising his sword to slash another vine.

  And then a snake dropped onto his head.

  Drop pythons lived in the upper branches of tall trees in dense forests, and slithered about hundreds of feet above the ground. Their eyes were low on their head, almost on the underside, and they spent their days looking down for prey. When they saw something tempting they would position themselves directly above it and then drop and land on their victim, wrap themselves around it, squeeze it to death and, after a rest to regain their breath, swallow it.

  This particular drop python was recovering from a bout of food poisoning caused by her latest meal, a diseased squirrel. She had been unwell for five days, but was now feeling much better. She was six metres long, as thick as Roderick’s leg and very hungry.

  The python knocked Roderick off Fruitcake and to the ground. Before Roderick knew what was happening, the python’s coils had wrapped themselves around his body. His sword was still in his hand – amazingly he had managed to hold on to it – but it was pinned to his body by the snake and pointed uselessly at his feet. Roderick screamed. As he did, the snake tightened her grip. He tried to breathe in, but the coils squeezed his chest so tightly that there was no room for the air.

  The snake’s face was right in front of him. Her mouth opened and a long forked tongue emerged to lick at his face. Roderick’s lungs begged for air, but no matter how hard he sucked he couldn’t get any. He realised he was about to die, his adventure over. He had failed, just as everyone expected. What a depressing final thought. He hoped he wouldn’t be stuck with it for all eternity.

  Suddenly a knife materialised from out of nowhere, sticking out of the top of the snake’s head. Blood splattered. The snake’s eyes bulged. Its tongue flapped. The knife rose up out of the snake’s head, disappeared momentarily then once again appeared, stabbing deep into the snake’s head.

  The snake’s eyes looked as though they were about to explode. Blood poured out of her wounds and her head wobbled and flopped. Roderick still couldn’t breathe. Again, he tried and failed to suck in air. The world shook. The edge of his vision was black and the black was closing in towards the centre. Every second, there was more black and less world.

  He wondered if when the black completely
shut out the world that would mean he was dead.

  The last thing he saw was the knife disappearing and then stabbing into the snake’s head a third time. He felt blood splatter over him, and then nothing.

  Sometime later it occurred to Roderick that he was conscious. That meant, with a bit of luck, that he was alive. Or that there was an afterlife. Slowly he opened his eyes. They worked. The snake’s coils were spread out around him. If this was the afterlife, it was very similar to the life he had just left. Cautiously he prodded a coil. No movement. Was it dead? He found the head. It had three big, bloody holes in it, and its bulging eyes were lifeless. Definitely dead. But who had stabbed it?

  He hauled himself to his feet. Fruitcake was nibbling calmly on grass a few steps away. There was no one else in view but he was sure he could sense another presence.

  ‘Hello?’ he called, trying to sound friendly.

  As if in reply, a stick as long as his arm picked itself up off the ground and floated towards him. Roderick jumped back.

  ‘What are you?’

  The stick scratched a line in the dirt, then rose and scratched a shorter line that joined the first one about halfway along. A ‘Y’. A new line appeared, curved and became an ‘o’. A ‘u’ followed it. ‘You’. Letters continued to appear.

  You owe me

  ‘Yes. All right,’ said Roderick.

  More letters appeared. I am invisible

  ‘I can see that,’ said Roderick. ‘Oh! Get it? I said, “I can see that” but you’re invisible.’

  The stick rose up as if to hit him.

  ‘Sorry,’ said Roderick quickly.

  The stick resumed writing, spelling out Voice gone too

  Roderick tried a question. ‘Why have you been following me?’

  The stick scratched out You know spells – fix me

  ‘They’re not really spells. It’s just mixtures of herbs, that when combined in the right way and under the –’ The stick rose threateningly. ‘All right, sorry. The point is that curing invisibility is hard.’

  I saved you

  ‘Yes, okay, I’ll try. Um, sorry to ask this but . . . are you human?’

  Dragon

  ‘What?!’ Roderick started to back away. The stick scratched again.

  Joke. Human. Female

  ‘Oh. Good. And what happened to you?’

  Get my voice back and I might tell

  ‘I’m Roderick, by the way.’

  I know

  Roderick waited for her to tell him her name, but she didn’t. ‘Well, I’ll look for my book then.’ He started rummaging through his saddlebags for his spell book.

  He had found the book five years earlier in a giant oak tree on his farm, one that had strangely always exerted some sort of pull on him. One day he had suddenly decided to climb it – a very un-Roderick thing to do. He had settled himself on a branch fairly high up to look at the magnificent view and, leaning against the trunk, had discovered a hollow with something inside it – a canvas bag containing a small book with a dusty green cover.

  Its yellowed pages were filled with handwritten recipes for potions, ointments and tonics. Roderick had seen recipe books before – his father used them all the time to make cures for everything from hair loss to headaches, poisoning to paralysis, sprained ankles to sore teeth – but never one like this. His father always emphasised that herbs should be used only to help and to heal, and not for any sort of ‘trickery or treachery’. But this book had recipes for mixtures designed to create blindness, to steal a voice, to remove memory and to create nightmares.

  Roderick had left the book where he’d found it and had never spoken of it to anyone, even though he had a strong sense that it belonged to his father. Sometimes he had thought about asking him, but he could never quite find the words, and the following year it became too late – his father fell ill and died.

  Five years later, on the day he left home to become a knight, he had climbed the tree once more, taken the book and slipped it into his pocket. Just in case.

  Now he flicked through it, searching for the recipes for curing invisibility and finding a lost voice. They were both near the back, written in tall, spidery handwriting.

  A CURE FOR INVISIBILITY

  No matter how invisibility is caused, a cure may be created if the subject takes a cup of the following potion:

  Two parts root of Eam tree

  Two parts Crackdown leaves

  Four parts Weaselthistle

  Crush the Eam root in a bowl then slowly add the Crackdown leaves. Add seven parts water and mix into a paste. Boil until half the liquid is gone. Crush the Weaselthistle into a powder then add gradually, stirring in. Leave to simmer until cool. Drink. The return of visibility may take some time.

  On the following page was RETURNING A LOST VOICE.

  If the voice too has been made invisible a similar potion is needed. Repeat the same recipe for curing invisibility but instead of using the root of the Eam tree, use the root of the Yulour tree.

  Roderick had spied crackdown and eam trees in the forest, but had seen no sign of weaselthistle or the yulour tree.

  He shut the book and went searching.

  CHAPTER 5

  RUBY

  The wind gusted the fire’s flames, flicking shadows about the woods that Roderick’s imagination turned into bears, dragons and more snakes. Just as he had begun to get used to the forest by day, night had rolled in and made it scary again. Since surviving the drop python he had been checking the branches above him so often he had a stiff neck. He pulled his cloak tight about his shoulders and turned to the bowl hovering in mid-air beside him.

  ‘All gone?’

  The bowl moved from side to side, which Roderick took to mean no. He wondered if the potions would work. The only eam tree he had found was nearly dead, which made him especially unsure about the anti-invisibility potion.

  ‘It probably tastes worse than the first one,’ said Roderick apologetically. ‘By the way, how come some things you touch turn invisible but others don’t? Like when you touch that bowl it stays visible, and so does that stick you write with, but I could only see the knife you stabbed the snake with when it was in the snake. And then there’s your clothes. They’re invisible, right? Wait. Are you wearing clothes? Because if the anti-invisibility potion works and you don’t have any clothes on . . .’

  ‘I’m wearing clothes,’ said the bowl.

  ‘Okay. Good. Because if you were in the nude, and then your invisibility wore off, then . . . Wait. You spoke!’

  There was a pause. ‘I spoke!’

  ‘You can speak!’

  ‘I can speak!’

  ‘It worked. It actually worked.’

  ‘I can speak! I can speak! Oh thank you! Thank you!’ The voice was female and full of joy, but sounded a little odd. Had he mixed the potion wrongly?

  The bowl was dancing around. It approached him and then fell to the ground. He felt arms wrap around him. She was hugging him!

  ‘Thank you, thank you,’ she repeated.

  ‘Um, it’s fine,’ Roderick stuttered, tentatively hugging back. ‘I’m so sorry though, your voice . . . I don’t think it’s come back quite right. It’s obviously too deep. That can sometimes happen. Maybe I put in too much yulour root. I can try to . . .’

  Roderick’s voice trailed off. She was no longer hugging him.

  ‘What?’ he asked.

  ‘Deep!’ she growled. There was something threatening about the way the empty bowl was now rising up and back.

  ‘I mean normal! A bit deep, but mainly normal,’ he backtracked.

  The bowl flew through the air and hit him between the eyes.

  ‘Oww!’ cried Roderick.

  ‘That’s how it always sounds!’ thundered the air where the bowl had been.

  Roderick held h
is head, and then rubbed it, but it still hurt.

  ‘I’m a bit sensitive about my voice,’ said the voice.

  ‘Clearly,’ replied Roderick.

  ‘Oh come on. Don’t be a baby. It didn’t hit you that hard. There’s hardly any blood.’

  ‘Blood!’ shrieked Roderick. ‘I’m bleeding?’

  ‘Just a few drops.’ A cloth hovered towards him. ‘Here.’

  Roderick pressed it against his head. He felt her hand on his shoulder. ‘I’m sorry,’ said the voice. ‘Come and lie down.’ He allowed himself to be led into his tent.

  ‘You still haven’t told me your name,’ said Roderick.

  ‘Haven’t I? How rude. It’s Ruby.’

  ‘But who are you . . . I mean why . . .’

  ‘First lie down. You’ve had a nasty knock on the head,’ Ruby insisted.

  Roderick did as he was told. He pulled off his boots and stretched out.

  ‘That’s better, isn’t it?’ she said gently. A blanket settled about his shoulders.

  Roderick was suddenly exhausted. On his first day by himself he had been attacked by a snake, rescued by an invisible girl, had found a lost voice and been sconed by a bowl.

  ‘Shut your eyes,’ Ruby ordered. Roderick obeyed. ‘Time to sleep.’ It was nice being told what to do. It meant he didn’t have to think.

  ‘Move over,’ said Ruby.

  ‘Hmmm?’ murmured Roderick.

  ‘I’m cold.’

  ‘Yes, but . . .’

  ‘I can’t sleep outside,’ said Ruby. ‘It might rain. Then I’ll get sick. I just got my voice back. I don’t want to lose it again. Anyway, I’ve done it before.’

  ‘Slept in a tent?’

  ‘Slept in this tent.’

  ‘Huh?’ Roderick opened his eyes again.

  ‘Last night. I finished your stew, which was very nice, thanks, although to be honest I would have liked a bit more salt. Then I waited for you to get back to sleep, and I slept in your tent. You snored.’