Elder Grendish, Page 3

Rogiere drew his blood once, so we know better. He is mortal, and can be wounded, which means he can be killed.

  “However, it won’t be easy. All who have tried have failed. Most never return, some--like Rogiere--have barely escaped with their lives. His hide is like a supple stone, his teeth are blades. He strikes like a snake. And what’s more, he has an army of his own. To get close to him, you must first get through legions of spiders, turtles, serpents, crows, coyotes--all the other animals who have turned to his cause for their own gain and protection.”

  The butterflies in Kir’s stomach had multiplied so much that now she felt them winging their way up her throat. A giant, unstoppable alligator guarded by an army of snakes and coyotes? And spiders? She summoned every ounce of courage she could muster, imagined that every hero from all her favorite books and cartoons were there by her side. She had been seen in the prophecies of a flamingo. She was a Champion! Capital C! She tamped down the part of her that wanted to grab a cat and hide in the closet with it, sobbing, until her parents found her and instead nodded sagely. She pulled out her juice pouch and took a few sips to wash down the crackers.

  “And what do we have on our side?” Kir found herself asking.

  “We have possibly fifty on our side, maybe more,” Veraska replied. “Several of the cat clans have joined us, as well as no less than five bird tribes. The lizards, of course. The raccoons are with us. Most of the mammals.”

  “And where does the Grendish live?” Kir asked.

  “In the basement,” Spark said. Kir hesitated.

  “The basement of this building?”

  Spark, Tibbs, and Veraska nodded in unison.

  Kir wasn’t sure how best to proceed. If she was a Capital-C-Champion, foretold to do battle against the great Grendish, then that’s exactly what she would have do. She didn’t think the Brackwater Alliance would let her go home until she did, anyway. She furrowed her brow again and slurped up the last of the juice pouch.

  “Where is Rogiere?” Kir asked.

  Before the leaders of the Alliance could answer her question, there was a movement in the back of the menagerie and a scuffling on the floor as all the animals moved aside to make way for a lumbering shadow that coalesced into the shape of a black bear as it passed in front of the window. His fur was sleek and polished, his nails clicked neatly against the wood floor where he stepped. Kir saw that one of the bear’s eyes was missing, a squinted scar was all that remained. The bear gave a deep growling yawn, showing off all his huge teeth for full effect, then stopped directly in front of Kir, inches away from her face.

  “Rogiere is here,” he said. His voice was a rumble, a rolling thunder from miles away. Kir twitched her nose at the smell of his bear breath and nodded.

  “You are definitely coming with me,” she said firmly.

  “I have skirmished with the Grendish once before and lost my eye as payment for my folly,” Rogiere said. “I will not risk another.”

  “I’m not asking you to fight for me,” Kir said scornfully. “You can be my... sidekick. Yeah. I need you for backup.”

  “But--”

  “Do you want a Champion or not?” Kir interrupted hotly. None of the animals replied, though Kir thought she saw something akin to satisfaction in the bear’s remaining eye. “Alright then. Rogiere, you’re with me. Spark, I need you and some of the cats and raccoons on recom.”

  “Do you mean ‘recon,’ o champion?” The raccoon she’d fed a cracker to spoke up.

  “That’s what I said! Recom! While we’re getting ready, go scout out the basement and find out how many are down there with the Grendish. Don’t fight unless you have to.”

  “We’re on it,” Spark said, and her tail lashed side to side with anticipation for their mission. “Let’s get down there, people!”

  Spark, the raccoons, and half a dozen cats marched out of the room, ears sharp and tails held high. Kir looked around at the others.

  “Birds, er... flying birds. I need some of your fastest to go spread the word--if it comes to a big battle, we’ll need all the help we can get.”

  “Understood!” Chirped the sparrows. They darted out the window with the seagulls on their tails.

  When they had left, all there was for Kir to do was wait with the others. She nestled up against the bear’s warm, supple fur, but it did not relax her. Pepper Lord poked at her through the pocket of her overalls, a constant reminder of the life in the flamingo pink rental house that she was putting at risk.

  “How did you come to be Warlord?” She asked Tibbs at last, tired of the tense silence. The cat looked at her in surprise and twitched his ears back and forth a bit before answering.

  “I suppose it’s because I was the only one who wasn’t looking around for someone else to follow,” he said at last. “The others nominated me and I didn’t say no.”

  “Oh.” Kir wasn’t sure what she had been expecting him to say. Something heroic, maybe. “Have you been in many battles?”

  “Only against the Grendish’s lesser minions.” Tibbs licked at his paws modestly and cleaned his ears. “Crows, grass snakes, that sort of thing. Won every skirmish, I’m proud to say.”

  “Do you have any tips for fighting the Grendish?” Kir asked hopefully. Tibbs stopped his grooming and looked up at her steadily.

  “Look for any opening you can find,” he said firmly. Then a bug on the window sill caught his attention and the conversation abruptly ended.

  By the time the scouting party returned, the butterflies in Kir’s stomach had become such a part of her that she couldn’t remember how it felt not to have them fluttering about. She imagined they were giving her strength and speed instead of paralyzing fear and remembered something her uncle had said once about “winged victory.” The butterflies must have been what he meant by it. The closer one got to victory, the flutterier they got. By the time Spark and her crew returned, the butterflies were positively thundering.

  “It’s not as bad as we’d feared,” the cat reported to the group. “Six or seven crows nesting, a few snakes. The spiders, of course, but they’re easy to deal with.”

  Kir nodded.

  “And the Grendish?”

  “He’s there, against the far wall. Much of the basement is flooded, so be careful where you step. It was hard to make out much, even with our eyes, but we saw his head above water. I think he’s sleeping, although you can never really tell with his kind. Watch your back, and your feet.”

  “Do we have any weapons?” Kir felt foolish for even asking. The most advanced weapon she had ever used against anything was a well-packed snowball last winter. The animals exchanged confused glances.

  “We don’t really have much use for that kind of thing,” Tibbs explained apologetically. “I forget sometimes that you humans have to find makeshift claws. Perhaps the former residents of this place left something behind? You should have a look around.”

  Kir rummaged through the long-abandoned suite and the two on either side of it, but the furnishings and objects had been long since picked clean by vandals. Eventually she found a heavy wrench under the bathroom sink and decided that was as good as she was likely to find.

  “Alright,” she spoke up, giving the wrench a few experimental swings. “Rogiere, are you ready?”

  The bear nodded gravely and showed some teeth.

  “Then let’s go.”

  Kir kept a hand on Rogiere’s side as they made their way through the hotel to the basement. They said nothing; both of them were straining to hear for any signs of the enemy’s approach. As the pair grew closer to the Grendish’s lair, the hotel’s dank, musty odor grew overpoweringly foul, and Kir thought if it got any stronger she would surely choke on the cloying aroma of mold and animal carcass.

  At the final steps to the basement, water began to leak into Kir’s shoes, filling the spaces between her toes with murky cold liquid. She thought she felt something crawling along under the arch of her right foot, but whispered a prayer to the gods of reckless ad
venture that it was just her imagination. Rogiere leaned his large bear head close to Kir’s and whispered gruffly in her ear.

  “Do we have a plan, Champion?”

  As a matter of fact, Kir did. She explained it to him as quietly as she could, and when she was certain they both knew what to do, Kir stepped down into the basement, wrench held high. The water was evidently not as deep on this side as it was against the far wall, where the alligator was said to be sleeping. The air was black as ink and humid, like someone had pulled a wet felt blanket over her head. Thin cracks of light, delicate as spiderwebs, filtered down through the floorboards from the foyer above, but to her human eyes, there may as well have been nothing at all. Kir quickly realized that her plan had not included a light source.

  “Rogiere,” she hissed, “I can’t see!”

  “Come back up the steps,” Rogiere said behind her. “There’s a switch.”

  Kir fumbled at the wall over the handrail until her fingertips brushed against a plastic switchplate. She flipped it up and around them a dozen red emergency lights flickered to life. Now Kir could see clearly how the basement, lined with shelves stacked high with decaying crates and unidentifiable hotel equipment, was laid out on two tiers. A series of shallow steps midway led out to a lower level that looked like it may have at one time been a large-scale laundry room. Kir could make out piles of old linens abandoned on top of an industrial sized washing machine.

  There in the