Orsugal had been listening to three adventurers describe a disastrous encounter with a manticore, and he was jealous.
They sat outside the inn sharing a loaf. One had lost a boot. Another kept interrupting to explain that the tree had been much higher than the others remembered. Every time they reached the part about the trousers, all three laughed so hard that the story stopped.
Orsugal could have swallowed their manticore. He could have swallowed their tree. He lay across the opposite hillside, his chin between two apple orchards, and tried to remember when anything had last happened to him that required telling twice.
That afternoon he presented himself at the temple of the district's two adventuring gods. They came outside to receive him, warm and breathing, one with antlers woven through with votive ribbons, the other with six hands. Worshippers knelt on the temple steps and offered little bundles of food for luck on dangerous journeys. The towns of the district had entrusted their adventurers to these two, and their charter was carved over the door.
Orsugal liked the part about discovering wonders. He approved of the part about recovering treasures. When the six-handed god unrolled the compact, he read as far as dangers commensurate with your abilities, which seemed a pity, but perhaps they had some exceptionally large dangers in reserve.
"I have brought my own equipment," he said, spreading wings that put the temple in shade.
"Read the terms before you sign," said the god.
Orsugal examined the space for his name. It was scarcely wider than one of his scales. Below it, further clauses crowded together in very small letters.
"I have made treaties," he said, and signed with the point of a claw.
The antlered god touched his forehead.
The temple shot upwards. His stomach dropped; his chin struck the ground. For a moment Orsugal thought the gods had buried him. Beside his face, something he would once have mistaken for a speck of dust had become an acorn.
He stood up. He was the size of a lean hound.
"No," he said.
The gods waited while he said it again.
He spread his wings and sprang into the air. They flapped hard enough to stir the dust. He landed on his nose with an involuntary honk, and a woman on the steps made a noise inside her helmet.
Orsugal swung round. "Was that laughter?"
"No." The helmet made the noise again. She took it off. She was a grown woman with a narrow face, a bright red cloak, and armour apparently bought for a much broader person. "Yes. Sorry. It was the noise you made."
He turned his back on her and approached the compact. He could read the small letters now.
Every new adventurer begins at level one. Native endowments exceeding that level are suspended for the duration of enrolment.
His fire emerged as a short, blue-tipped flame, barely enough to light a candle. The effort left him panting.
"I am over two thousand years old."
"And newly enrolled," said the six-handed god.
"Make an exception."
"We make none. You may retire here, and we will release you from the compact. Until then, its limits hold wherever you travel."
Orsugal looked towards the hillside. His outline remained in the flattened grass. He could go back to it. There was a cave full of gold beyond the ridge, and by evening he could be asleep on it, having moved three irritating coins out from under his elbow.
The woman put her helmet back on.
"I'm Melicent," she said. "Also one. Though I was more or less this size already."
Orsugal faced the gods. "Where do you keep the adventures?"
The task Melicent wanted involved a silver festival cup, a picnic hamper, and a tusked badger that had carried both into an abandoned hunting lodge.
"How large a badger?" Orsugal asked.
The woman who had lost the hamper held her hands apart, considered, and moved them farther apart.
"It frightened my pony. I don't want anyone hurt over a cup."
"Ponies are frightened of wheelbarrows," said Melicent. "Let us try."
She reached for the task slip at the same time as Orsugal. Her gauntlet and his claw pinned opposite ends.
"I have experience with treasure," he said.
"And I've got a sword."
"I have teeth."
Melicent looked at his teeth. He closed his mouth before she could comment.
The six-handed god set two wooden counters beside the slip. "You may undertake it together. Return the cup and you will both earn advancement. Killing the animal is unnecessary."
Melicent slid one counter towards Orsugal. "You get the cup. I'll hold it off."
He was going to object to the distribution of glory, but she had already borrowed a coil of rope and was striding down the steps. He had to hurry to catch her. His legs had become absurdly numerous for the speed they provided.
On the woodland road she tried a sword flourish. The point caught her cloak and pinned it briefly to an oak.
"A difficult manoeuvre," Orsugal observed.
"It works without the cloak."
"Then why wear the cloak?"
She pulled the blade free. "I've had it nine years. I bought it when I first meant to leave. I'm wearing it."
He had been about to suggest that she abandon the sword instead. Something about the way she shook the leaves from the red cloth made him keep that suggestion to himself.
"What detained you?"
"My father's shop. Then my own shop. Then finding somebody who'd buy the shop. What detained you?"
"Nothing."
She looked down at him.
"I was occupied," he added.
"With what?"
Orsugal stepped over a root. It grazed his belly, and he stopped to inspect the pale scratch it left between two scales.
"We should concentrate on the expedition."
The lodge stood in a clearing, its roof sagging over a single long hall. Behind it was a kennel run enclosed by high stone walls. An iron gate connected the run to the back of the hall; a feeding hatch, knee-high to Melicent, opened through the run's outer wall.
They approached from behind. Orsugal looked through the hatch. The run was empty. Beyond it, through the open gate, he could see a table, a torn hamper, and a great deal of striped fur.
"As big as a boar," he reported.
Melicent bent to look over his head. "Can you get through that hole?"
He squeezed his shoulders into it, his horns brushing the upper stone. A twist would get the rest of him through. He backed out.
"Obviously."
"You could creep in and fetch the cup while it sleeps."
Through the gate he could see the silver handle beneath the badger's forepaw. Its tusks rose beside its muzzle, yellow and thick as Melicent's thumbs.
"I shall require it to surrender the cup."
"You'll wake it."
"I should prefer it awake when it surrenders."
Melicent considered this, then drew her sword. "All right. I'll stand beside you."
They went round to the front. The entrance was half blocked by a fallen door. Inside, sunlight slanted across the table and two benches. The badger slept underneath, its nose in the wreckage of the hamper. At the far end of the hall the iron gate stood open into the room, leaving a narrow space between its bars and the side wall. Its lifting latch faced the hall.
Melicent held out her flat palm. Orsugal stopped. She swept it towards the opening. He started forward, just as she stepped through herself. Her breastplate caught against the fallen door; her boot came down on his tail.
His cry woke the badger. "You waved me on!" he said, hauling his tail free.
"I meant follow me."
The badger came out from beneath the table. Crumbs clung to its whiskers. It lowered its head.
Orsugal planted his feet. "I am Orsugal. You are in possession of—"
It charged.
Melicent swung her sword too late. A tusk caught the flat and knocked it spinning under a bench. She scrambled onto the table, dragging her cloak clear. Orsugal inhaled, braced, and breathed fire directly into the approaching face.
His little flame singed three whiskers. The badger sneezed into his open mouth.
He ran.
The table was just large enough to keep between himself and the badger, provided he never stopped moving. His claws skidded at the corners. He could hear its feet on the flagstones, the scrape of its tusks against the legs, his own breath coming in small, disgraceful squeaks.
"Up here!" Melicent shouted.
He leaped, beating his wings. His foreclaws caught the table's edge, slipped, and he fell against a bench. Pain spread through his left wing. He had struck harder things without noticing. This pain stayed.
The badger rounded the corner. Orsugal shot beneath the bench and came out on the other side. Its tusks struck the wood behind him.
"Up here!" she shouted again.
"I can't!"
She thrust her hand down. He seized the cuff of her gauntlet with both foreclaws and felt himself lifted clear just as the badger's teeth snapped beneath his hind feet. Halfway up, the gauntlet began to slide off.
"My gauntlet!" said Melicent.
"Pull me!"
She caught him under the forelegs with her other arm and heaved him onto the table. He struck her breastplate headfirst. They collapsed together. Her helmet bounced against the boards and rolled over the edge, vanishing beneath a trestle.
For several breaths he could do nothing but lie across her knees. Below them, the badger scratched at a table leg.
"You could have told me you couldn't fly," she said.
"You saw me fail outside the temple."
"I thought you'd get it right next time."
"So did I."
She sat up, helping him off her lap. His wing hurt when he folded it. One scale on his flank had lifted, and beneath it was an alarming tenderness he did not want the badger to investigate.
Melicent peered over the table's edge. "We can jump down together. It can't chase both of us."
"It only needs to catch one."
She brought her foot back from the edge.
Orsugal looked towards the front door. Once, without even getting up, he could have destroyed this building. Now twenty feet of floor separated him from the daylight, and he could not cross it. He looked at those twenty feet with a concentration he had not bestowed on anything in years.
The badger thrust its snout over the edge. Melicent snatched her cloak from its teeth. She kicked at it, missed, and nearly slid off. Orsugal caught a fold of red cloth in his mouth and leaned back until she regained her seat.
"Thank you," she said, very quietly.
He released the cloth. It tasted of dust and oak leaves.
Under the table, the badger went back to the hamper. Orsugal crouched to look. The cup had rolled against the far leg, handle uppermost. Beyond it lay a clear strip of floor leading to the iron gate. Beyond the gate, the run. Beyond the run, the hatch.
"I can get out through that feeding hole," he said.
"I can't."
"I know. I need you at the gate."
She looked from him to the opening, then down at the badger.
"You'd have to make it follow you."
"It has shown some willingness."
"And I'd shut it in?"
He nodded. A loud crack came from below. The badger was worrying the end of a wooden peg out of the trestle.
Melicent drew her legs beneath her. "I can do that."
"Wait until it's all the way through. Then shut it and drop the latch."
"Yes."
He stared at the gap between the table and the gate. "Don't let it turn back on you. If it turns, get up here again."
"I said I can do it."
Her voice was loud enough to lift the animal's head. She drew a breath which caught halfway in, then drew another.
"I know," he said, though he knew no such thing. "I need you to."
She swallowed, then took the rope from her shoulder.
"I'll tie this to the latch. We can let it out when we're away."
Orsugal would gladly have left the badger in the kennel until it died of extreme age. But she was already uncoiling the rope. He shifted his sore wing out of her way.
He lowered his tail over the front edge of the table and flicked it.
The badger lunged. He whipped his tail up; its teeth closed with a click. Behind him, Melicent dropped to the floor. He flicked his tail again. It was a repellent use for a tail that had once felled siege towers, and he wished very much that it were somebody else's.
Melicent reached the back of the hall. She crouched in the gap behind the open gate, tied one end of the rope to the latch lever, and passed the rope over a roof beam above the gate. She tugged; the lever rose. She let it drop again, leaving the coil at her feet.
Orsugal waited for her to look at him. She put up her thumb. He pointed a claw at himself, then at the cup, and she nodded vigorously.
The table lurched.
He had meant to descend gracefully on the far side. Instead, one trestle folded, and he slid down the tilting boards in a cloud of dust. The badger backed away from the crash. Orsugal landed beside the cup, caught its handle in his teeth, and ran for the gate.
The cup banged against his knees. He could not see the badger, but the sound of its pursuit filled the hall. He passed Melicent's boots and plunged into the kennel run.
Iron scraped stone behind him.
He turned. She was shutting the gate already. It struck the badger's rump, leaving its hind legs in the hall. The animal twisted back towards her.
Orsugal dropped the cup. "Wait! Its back legs!"
Melicent shoved the gate open again. The badger's head swung towards the movement of her arm.
He slapped the silver cup with his forefoot. It rang against the flags, and the badger turned. For an instant he could see the full width of its open jaws, the strands of spit between its teeth. He had called it back. It was coming because he had called it back.
He seized the cup and fled.
The hatch waited ahead, square and bright. He ducked his head, pushed through, caught his injured wing on the jamb. His back feet scrabbled at the stone. Behind him the gate clanged shut. He heard the smaller clack of the latch dropping, but the badger was on his side of it.
Fold the wing. Fold it.
He did, and pain shot along his ribs. His body slid through. A tooth snagged the tip of his tail and pulled him backwards half an inch. He kicked, tore free, and tumbled into the grass with the cup still in his mouth.
The badger's nose filled the hatch. Orsugal rolled out of reach and lay still. His heart thumped so hard that he could feel it in his horns. The sun was hot on his face. A green beetle climbed across his front foot.
He laughed around the handle of the cup.
It hurt. He laughed again.
Melicent appeared round the corner with her recovered sword. She had lost her helmet. There was a new dent in her breastplate and a pale stripe across her nose where dust had stuck to sweat.
"Are you bitten?"
He put down the cup. "A little."
She crouched beside him and examined his tail. Her hands were shaking. They made his tail shake too, which set him laughing again.
"Stop that. Hold still."
"You shut the gate on its bottom."
"I know. I was there."
He tried to stop. She pressed her lips together, but a laugh escaped her. Then both of them were helpless, which made the badger snort through the hatch and send them scrambling farther away.
She led him back round to the front, picked up the coil she had dropped in the doorway, and paid out the rope as they retreated behind a boulder beyond the clearing. Melicent pulled. Through the front doorway, Orsugal saw the latch lift and the gate swing into the hall under the badger's weight. They stayed behind the rock until the animal returned to its ruined picnic.
"My helmet's in there," Melicent said.
Orsugal looked at her. She looked at him.
"I'll buy another."
The owner of the cup met them on the temple steps. She took one look at the scratches and torn cloak and brought out the food she had saved from the picnic. Orsugal gave her the cup, ate a honey cake in three bites, and accepted another.
The gods heard their account. They had some difficulty, because Melicent kept acting out the gate and Orsugal objected to the height at which she held her hand to represent him.
"Second level," said the antlered god when they had finished, touching each in turn.
A warm pressure passed through Orsugal's bones. His claws lengthened a fraction. He spread his wings, hopefully, and discovered that the left one still hurt. He remained the size of a hound.
Melicent lifted her sword. "Feels lighter."
She tried the flourish again. Orsugal stepped well back. This time the blade missed her cloak.
The six-handed god knelt beside him. "Do you wish to retire?"
"Certainly not."
Melicent glanced down at him and put her sword away.
"Come on, then. I want to sit somewhere with a back on it."
She headed towards the inn. Orsugal limped after her, carrying the remaining cake. Outside, the three adventurers were still at their table. The one without a boot moved a chair aside to let him through.
"Rough afternoon?"
Orsugal put his cake down. "We were beset," he began, "by an animal of extraordinary ferocity."
Melicent sat down so hard that the chair creaked. "It was a badger."
"A tusked badger. Show them the dent."
She turned in the chair to display her breastplate, and one of the adventurers whistled. Orsugal climbed onto the chair beside her. From there he could see all their faces.
"First," he said, "there was a misunderstanding about who was to go through the door."
Melicent began to laugh before he had even reached the badger. He waited, impatient and delighted, for her to stop.