Battlesaurus (2 page)

“A firebird!” Willem says.

“You sound scared,” Fran
ç
ois says.

“You should be,” Willem says.

“Scared? We have ax and bow,” Jean says.

“And that is what scares me the most,” Willem says. “And I need to practice my act for the f
ê
te.”

“Ah, the soon-to-be-famous magician.” Jean laughs.

“The festival is a week away. Perhaps it is courage that you need to practice,” Fran
ç
ois says.

“Come with us, Willem. You can practice on the way,” Jean says.

“This is my last delivery,” Willem says. “Let me think on it.”

He pushes open the gate. The door of the schoolmaster's house opens and Ang
é
lique Delvaux emerges—seventeen, bleary-eyed, tumble-haired, still in her sleeping frock. She comes down the steps with her arms wrapped around herself against the chill and presses a coin into his hand as she takes the last baguette.

She smiles through sleepy, blinky eyes, and the touch of her fingers lingers. It is no accident, but nor does it signify anything deeper. Ang
é
lique simply knows, and enjoys, the effect she has on men, on him.

She turns back at the top of the stairs and waves.

Jean and Fran
ç
ois wave back in unison, gawking, a pair of fairground clowns.

The door closes, but Ang
é
lique appears a moment later at the window, opening the shutters to let in the morning sun.

“It seems only a few months ago that she was but a skinny sapling, all branches and twigs,” Fran
ç
ois says.

“Now the trunk is full and well formed,” Willem says.

Ang
é
lique shivers and wraps her arms around herself again. The action presses her breasts against the fabric of her thin frock.

“And the fruit is ripe,” Jean says.

Willem laughs but Fran
ç
ois says, “Take care of your tongue, cousin, lest it catch the ear of God.”

“I am sure He has more pressing concerns,” Jean says.

“Still”—Fran
ç
ois claps his cousin on the shoulder—“you would not want to reach the afterlife to find there is no place for you in His kingdom.”

“A god that would punish me eternally for a few words in jest is no god of mine,” Jean says.

Fran
ç
ois laughs, but Willem sees him make the sign of the cross behind his cousin's back.

They cut across the school yard, back toward Willem's house.

“So come hunting with us,” Jean says.

“Have no fear, we will protect you from any dangerous saurs,” Fran
ç
ois says.

“Or any chickens,” Jean says.

“I will meet you at the river bridge,” Willem says, making up his mind. “If you two fools do find a firebird, someone will have to protect you.”

The cousins laugh loudest of all at that. Willem laughs along with them. But his words are not spoken in jest.

Jean and Fran
ç
ois are big, strong, and well armed. But that will not be enough. Not against a raptor.

If they find one, they will need Willem.

 

ASCENSION

In 1807, on the eve of the feast of Ascension, Willem, just seven years old, wandered alone in the forest, his eyes red with tears that he wanted to hide from the boys who had waylaid him outside the church. His face bore the marks of their fists.

He had with him one of his father's illusions, and his mood was dark.

They say that saurs cannot be trained. They are too stupid, too smart, too primal, too evil. But Willem's father, the Great Geerts, the most famous magician of his day, had found a way.

Geerts had discovered that a saur could be mesmerized, like a lizard, and in that spellbound state, it could be taught simple tricks. After years of refining his techniques, he had been able to include a trained microsaurus as part of his act, enthralling the audience with a new kind of magic. When Willem was old enough to learn, his father had taught him the techniques. Willem had used the knowledge on several occasions, making friends with the small saurs of the forest—at times his only friends.

He only ever used the skills for amusement.

But now he would find a saur. Nothing too dangerous, a microraptor or a groundhawk. He would mesmerize and train the saur. Then he would set it loose on his assailants.

He found no saurs. Not even a dragonrat. But a saur found him. The largest and most dangerous of all the known saurs.

Some inner sense, or maybe an odd sound, warned him, and he had just enough time to climb high into a tree, his heart pounding, a rush of blood thrumming in his ears, before the raptor bounded out from a patch of bush, its neck quivering, the air filled with a deep screeching sound.

A large, lizard-like creature, taller than Willem, with a long, rounded snout and small, pointed teeth like rows of thorns: a firebird. A sheaf of long feathers extended from each arm as if God had intended it to be a bird but had changed His mind. From each of its great feet protruded a terrible hooked claw. Plumage covered the body of the beast, in flame-like bands of red, yellow, and orange. A comb of spiky, rust-colored feathers jutted back from its head.

It may have just been the imagination of a young boy, but the eyes of the creature seemed to radiate evil. Bright yellow with pure black pupils, those eyes watched him as he scrabbled for a perch in the slender, high branches of the tree. It twitched its head from side to side like a bird, staring at him. But unlike a bird, it was unable to fly, or even climb the tree to get at him.

Willem dared not try to mesmerize this beast. To do that he would have to climb down from the tree and the firebird would have him before his feet touched the ground. There was nothing he could do but wait.

For hours he was trapped in the tree, the firebird circling below.

Around him the forest was silent, as if the usual birds and small creatures that roamed the area were aware of the predator and had moved to safety.

Then the firebird cocked its head, hearing something that Willem could not. It stood on one leg for a moment, then, perhaps seeking easier prey than the boy, it moved slowly away, blending with the brush of the forest.

Willem's first thought was one of relief. While the raptor was distracted he might be able to slip away unnoticed. But then he heard voices. It was not a deer or a boar that approached. It was people. Even so he was saved. While the raptor attacked them he would be able to escape.

Even as this thought passed through his mind he felt a deep shame, revulsion at his own cowardice. He opened his mouth to warn the approaching people of the terror that lay in wait for them. But he had hesitated a moment too long. He watched with horror from his high vantage point as a mother and daughter came strolling along the path. The mother held a basket, perhaps gathering flowers or berries for the next day's feast.

Now he found his voice, but it was already too late.

With two quick steps the firebird emerged from the bush and blocked the path.

The mother was Madame Libert, the wife of a farmer.

The daughter was H
é
lo
ï
se, then a puff-cheeked six-year-old, her hair yet to lose its baby blondness.

Again came the deep screeching sound.

The mother stopped, her eyes filled with terror that quickly turned into a haunted resignation. There was no way to fight, and no way to flee. On this day, at this time, she had taken a path that led only to a catastrophe, for both herself and her daughter.

There was no hope, and yet with a mother's instincts she pushed the girl behind her.

“Run,” she whispered, and when the little girl did not move, she shouted, “Run!”

H
é
lo
ï
se turned and took a couple of stumbling steps down the path. Willem watched her run. He saw the mother swing the basket at the raptor as it approached, and how easily the beast dodged it, with rapid, darting movements. He watched H
é
lo
ï
se freeze in horror as she looked back to see the body of her mother jerking on the ground, her throat in the jaws of the meat-eater.

Not content with the mother, the raptor released her, dying but not yet dead.

Lying on the path, looking up at the trees, her throat torn out, Madame Libert's eyes met Willem's.

The firebird was distracted, and it had other prey to chase. Willem could have escaped.

But her eyes would not allow him to.

Now H
é
lo
ï
se turned and tried again to run, but her legs were small; she was young and slow. The firebird was quick and vicious. It would be a bloody, violent death.

Until a shaking, terrified, seven-year-old boy jumped from his tree between the raptor and the girl. The raptor slewed to a halt, surprised at this sudden appearance.

Neither Willem nor his father had ever attempted to mesmerize a meat-eater of this size. They were simply too dangerous.

Nevertheless, on this most terrible day of days, Willem stepped into the path of the firebird armed with nothing more than a simple conjuring trick.

He expected only to die, and hoped he was spending his life wisely, buying time for the girl, to allow her to escape. To survive.

But God must have been watching this place, at this time, for He gave the firebird pause, and in those few heartbeats, face-to-face with the creature, Willem was able to produce the illusion, the mesmerizing technique. And in a strange kind of miracle, it worked.

With the beast motionless on the path in front of him, Willem stepped even closer, doing nothing to rouse it from its trance-like state.

Close enough to touch the thorny teeth, he took a small pouch from around his neck. A pouch his father had insisted he always wear in the forest.

He emptied it into his palm and, leaning even closer to the snout of the creature, he blew sharply.

A cloud of fine pepper enveloped the beast's head and Willem leaped backward as a thousand tiny grains stung the delicate membranes of the creature's evil, yellow eyes.

It bellowed in agony, thrashing its head around, trying to shake away the pain, wiping at its eyes with claw-like hands.

Blinded and enraged it lunged once, twice, three times at Willem, but its jaws only snapped shut on air where Willem had been.

It turned and ran, stumbling from the path. It disappeared into the forest, careering from tree to tree in blinded rage.

Amazed that he was still alive, Willem took off after the girl.

He couldn't find her.

Afterward he returned and held the hand of Madame Libert as the light faded from her eyes. It was the light of gratitude and unbearable debt. He told her the truth as she was dying. That he could have saved them both. If he had not been selfish. If he had been braver. She must not have understood him, because there was no anger, nor condemnation in her eyes. So he told her again, tearfully apologizing for the cost of her life.

Still the light of gratitude shone.

A few days later the firebird was seen near Brussels, on the other side of the forest, and killed by a hunting party.

H
é
lo
ï
se was not seen for almost six years, and it was assumed that she had died, alone in the forest. But one morning she had returned, standing silently at the saur-gate, dressed only in rags, almost unrecognizable. Her father had left the village by then, and no one knew where he had gone, or how to find him. Madame Gertruda, the healer, had taken H
é
lo
ï
se in, but she was not the same girl she had been. At twelve, she was more like a wild creature of the forest than a girl from the village. Snarling, scratching, biting, untamable, like the saurs.

She spoke little at first, but slowly, with the healer's patient help, her language returned. When asked about the missing years, she was silent. Question her further and she would revert to the wild form, hissing and baring her teeth.

Some said she had lived among the animals.

Some said she had been found by residents of a neighboring village and kept as a slave.

Some said she had lived underground, in vast secret caves that were thought to underlie the forest.

Only H
é
lo
ï
se knew.

 

MAGICIAN

The mayor of the village is working in the kitchen when Willem arrives home. Willem sees him through the window and girds himself to be polite and respectful. The mayor is a friend of his mother.

Monsieur Claude often comes around when Willem is at school, or picking up supplies in Waterloo. Sometimes the mayor helps Willem's mother with heavy chores, but too often he comes around when there is no work that needs doing.

Monsieur Claude is a handsome, gray-haired gentleman in his fifties. He is married and owns nearly half the village. He is well liked and generous to those who cannot afford their rent. He is also, from what Willem can see, a capable mayor, a position that involves being postmaster, banker, justice of the peace, and village administrator.

Willem feels that he understands why his mother is “friends” with Monsieur Claude. She is still in her thirties, and her husband—Willem's father—has been dead for more than three years. She cannot wear a mourning coat for the rest of her life.

But of all the men in the village to be friends with, he wishes she had picked anyone other than Monsieur Claude. There is something in his mother's eyes that he doesn't like, after Monsieur Claude has visited. A certain look on her face. It is as though she has just scratched an insect bite and it has stopped itching, but has started to bleed.

Whenever Willem delivers bread to the mayor's house, the mayor's wife, Madame Claude, a stout, stern woman who smells strongly of rosewater, narrows her eyes, raises her nose in the air, and overpays for the bread. It is her way of showing her superiority.