When they emerged from behind the new building that housed the Ancients, they stopped to rest and take in the scene. Pirates and Artiméans lay lifeless on the ground, but unlike at the other posts, there were more dead pirates and fewer dead Artiméans here.
A small band of pirates was waging a full attack on Sky’s team, with Sky keeping four of them at bay on her own. Carina was there too, with her team in the trees, as was Kaylee with hers. Kaylee had four or five pirates trying to best her, and she held them off, though it wasn’t clear how long she’d be able to keep it up. Claire and her team were close in on the white boat, and as Aaron and his group looked on, Claire’s team eased their way off the white boat and came creeping up through the shallow water toward the shore.
“Stay quiet,” Aaron whispered to his group, and pointed to Claire. “Let’s take our cue from Ms. Morning. When her team attacks, and the pirates turn to see what’s happening, we’ll come in from behind them and strike where they are most defenseless. I think we’ve got a chance here to do some damage. Stay strong!”
Ms. Morning spotted them and lifted her chin, looking straight at Aaron between the attackers. Aaron lifted his as well, and pointed at her to tell her that he was going to follow her lead.
Aaron’s team members crouched behind rocks and buildings, and when Ms. Morning signaled to her team to move, Aaron did the same to his.
Together they ran toward the melee from opposite sides, components drawn, and when the pirates turned to see Claire’s team emerging from the sea, Aaron raised his dagger in the air. “Now!” he cried. With his other hand he flung three heart attack components at the biggest pirate near Kaylee. Wings sprouted from the heart-shaped components and they flew straight and true, and struck the pirate in the back. His body jerked, and then his sword fell from his hands, and he hit the ground.
Everyone in Aaron’s and Claire’s teams dove into the fray. Aaron sent off another round of heart attack spells, hitting the next pirate near Kaylee, and then he did it once more, striking a third, his pockets emptying rapidly. Kaylee, realizing what was happening, focused on the fourth pirate. She kicked the woman’s shield aside and stabbed her sword into the pirate’s ample girth. Aaron saw it happen, and sent a single scatterclip flying at the pirate to finish her off, crying, “Die a thousand deaths!”
The woman fell, and all of Kaylee’s opponents were down. Kaylee wiped the sweat from her forehead and took a breath or two before continuing on. Aaron pivoted and began to work on the next group of pirates. Soon out of heart attack components, Aaron switched to scatterclips.
The other Artiméans were quickly running out of their strongest components as well. The battle raged on, though the numbers grew to be much more even than they had been. With few components left, the Artiméans made use of the swords and shields strewn about, with varying degrees of success—some had never touched a sword until that moment, while others had taken several classes with Mr. Appleblossom. Still they struggled to fend off the remaining pirates, with Kaylee and Sky taking point and Claire consistently firing noncomponent spells until her concentration was shattered by lack of sleep and the intensity of the battle. But their efforts paid off, and the pirates dropped one by one.
Out of components, but armed with his immortality and swift healing, Aaron valiantly threw himself in front of several of his comrades in danger, taking the brunt of many swords and saving a few lives in the process. He cringed and fought off the pain, and checked to make sure the wounds were shedding little blood and closing up as swiftly as the first one had. They were.
Momentum grew on the side of Artimé, and finally the last of the pirates dropped. The north-side Artiméan teams had prevailed, but barely. There was little celebration. Everyone was exhausted, and no one noticed that Charlie the gargoyle had been waving from the boat for the past thirty minutes to try to get the attention of anyone who could understand him.
Finally, as Sky limped to the sea to wash the blood off her hands and face, she saw the gargoyle and signed back to him.
Charlie went on a tear, signing desperately, but Sky knew the language well and followed it all. After a quick response, she turned to the ragged crew of Artiméans.
“Everyone!” Sky shouted, her voice crackling with dust and fear. “We have to hurry! The head pirate, Captain Baldhead, is attempting to take over the mansion. He has hundreds of pirates still coming ashore!”
A Solemn Discussion
The remaining members of the teams of Aaron, Liam, Gunnar, Sky, Kaylee, Carina, and Claire counted off. There were fewer than fifty of them in good enough shape to continue fighting. Several squirrelicorns circled above them, waiting for instructions.
Claire took everyone’s canteens to the boat just offshore to refill them from the fountain. “I can take ten of you with me,” said Claire, handing the full ones to one of her team members to distribute. “We’ll go east around the jungle side of the island to the lagoon so we won’t be seen, and then we can attack from that end of the lawn. The rest of you will have to cross the island on foot. We’re exactly straight across the island from the mansion right now—it shouldn’t take you too long to get there. Then, if our timing is right, we can do the same thing we did here and attack from multiple directions.”
Aaron frowned. “We need more components.” He called out to a squirrelicorn. “Can you find a way to get us some spell components? I know Alex has sacks of them in his living quarters. Maybe you can figure out a way to get up there and bring them to us.”
“Yes, sir!” said the squirrelicorn. “There’s a hole in the side of the mansion that leads right into Alex’s living quarters. Two of us can go. We’ll deliver the ammunition to you before you arrive there.”
“A hole in the mansion?” said Sky, eyes wide. “I’m afraid to know what else has happened.”
Carina gave the squirrelicorn a grim smile. “That’s perfect. Thank you,” she said. “Scout out the situation and let us know if we should take a different approach.”
“Yes, ma’am!” said the squirrelicorn. She called to one of the other squirrelicorns, and the two of them set off through the air to Artimé.
Aaron approached Ms. Morning. “How would you like to divide us up?”
Claire pressed her lips together. “I’ll take Gunnar and Sky,” she said, and picked eight others who would give her a variety of skills, both in close combat and in spell casting. “Everybody grab swords and shields. Take extras if you can carry them. Let’s move.”
Claire, Gunnar, Sky, and the rest of her team wasted no time and struck out for the boat, while Aaron, Kaylee, and the remaining warriors looked to Carina as their leader.
Carina shoved a sword in her belt and grabbed a shield. “All right. Let’s go. We need to move fast if we’re going to time this right and get it done before nightfall.”
Carina set the pace at a jog. Aaron caught up with her and matched her stride, and soon Kaylee made her way to the front and moved in place next to Aaron.
Aaron was curious to know the details of the original north-shore attack. “How did you all end up together?” he asked Carina and Kaylee.
“We stayed in sight of each other,” said Carina. “But there were really only a couple of natural places for the boats to reach land because of the rocks. So once we anticipated that the pirates would probably take smaller boats to shore, we talked through our plan. When the squirrelicorn delivered the news about the shields being magically protected, we decided the best option was to attack from multiple sides.”
“It was going pretty well,” said Kaylee, “especially at first, but then the pirates figured us out. We were in a pinch there for a while when you showed up.” She poked Aaron with her elbow, startling him. “Thanks for helping me out. I’m glad you came back with Alex.”
“Oh,” said Aaron. “Sure. I didn’t have a choice, really—I couldn’t stay there wondering what was going on. It would have driven me crazy.”
Kaylee looked sidelong at him. “I’m still g
lad,” she said.
Aaron wasn’t sure if the run was making him sweat or if it was Kaylee.
Kaylee looked closer at Aaron’s various injuries. His clothing was mostly free of bloodstains, unlike most of the others. “You sure don’t bleed much,” she said.
Aaron shrugged. “Fast healer, I guess,” he said. Feeling parched and winded, sore from his many healing wounds, and a bit bewildered by Kaylee’s continued deep interest in him, he slowed a little, pulled his canteen from his belt and drank from it. Kaylee and Carina were moving along very briskly. It was painfully clear that Aaron was not nearly in the shape they were in. His lungs burned, and he checked on his wounds. They had all closed by now, but were by no means gone. He struggled to catch up.
“We’ve lost a lot of people,” Carina said gravely. “I can’t even think about it now. I’m scared to see what Artimé looks like. Who’s at the mansion with Alex? Sean’s in the ship with Ms. Octavia, I know.”
“Simber’s there with a team,” said Kaylee. “And Florence, and a couple of the Warbler children. Mr. Appleblossom too. And a bunch of others.”
“I’m glad Florence is back,” said Carina.
“Lani’s team is next to Simber’s,” said Aaron. “And Samheed is beyond her. Hopefully they’ll be able to help protect the mansion.”
“Yeah, if they haven’t been totally demolished,” said Kaylee, breathing hard. She shook her head. “I honestly think I was safer on the Island of Graves.”
“All I know,” said Carina as they ran across the desolate area of Quill and approached the road that led to Artimé, “is that we have to prevail. I don’t care if we need to pull every human, statue, and creature out of the mansion to help us—if we fail, we may as well be dead. Because if the pirates and Warblerans take over, you know we’ll be their slaves. We’ll never be free again.”
They ran without talking for the remaining stretch, and as a squirrelicorn approached with a small bag of spell components hanging from her mouth, all Aaron could think about was winning at all costs, because he and all of Quill were finally free of serving dictators. And while his future was uncertain, Aaron knew that there were only two possible options he wanted to pursue. Living out his quiet, peaceful life on the Island of Shipwrecks . . . or taking control of this island.
He couldn’t decide which he wanted more.
When All Is Lost
Artimé was in chaos. The mansion windows were all broken, tar balls and rubble littered the shore, and hundreds of pirates stormed across the lawn fighting every human, creature, and statue they could find. The ostrich statue lay on its side by a tree, missing its legs. The tiki statue was now three individual heads. The girrinos were battered and bruised, and Jim the winged tortoise could only hobble slowly through Quill as he returned from his post, his wing broken.
Florence stood near the front door of the mansion, picking up pirates whenever they ventured close enough and throwing them as far as she could onto a pile of frozen pirates, trying to knock them out. Her quiver and bow lay on the ground—all the magic arrows long gone by now since she’d had to use one every time Alex was about to get decapitated. She tried to stop the pirates from entering the mansion, but with the windows smashed, they had a dozen ways to get in. Finally she had to give up and focus on keeping people alive. And while most of the ships had stopped the flaming tar ball attacks now that their pirates were on shore and in the line of fire, the lead ship continued shooting them at the mansion. Florence could only guess they were trying to take out Simber and her.
Simber soared and dove, dodging the tar balls, picking up two or three pirates at a time and flinging them into the depths of the sea. But for every three he got rid of, six more arrived in a boat to take their place. Simber began to destroy the smaller boats so they couldn’t be used to transport more pirates, but the task was made infinitely more difficult by the various rescues he had to make whenever an Artiméan nearby was about to die—which was often.
And Artimé’s supply of lethal components had dwindled so low that Alex hadn’t been able to give the squirrelicorns many to deliver to the other teams around the island. In a desperate move, Alex sent Fox to bob in the shallow water along the shore to see if he could find any heart attack components that had bounced off the pirates’ shields, unused.
Thus, the spell casters were stuck using temporary spells like fire step and slam poetry, causing even more chaos and confusion with the pirates running this way and that as a result. One helpful spell was the freeze spell because it stopped a pirate in his tracks, but the spell only worked if it wasn’t blocked by the pirates’ shields, which was less than half the time. Using a permanent version of the spell took a lot more concentration than the temporary version, and after the night they’d had, the Artiméans didn’t have concentration to spare—especially when there was no guarantee the spell would hit its mark. So when it did, the effects wore off quickly.
It soon became abundantly clear: There were so many pirates, so few spell casters, and hardly any deadly spell components left, that the task of stopping the pirates with magic was impossible.
Alex was the first to realize Mr. Appleblossom hadn’t been seen or heard from in quite some time. With the world fighting around him, Alex used a huge pile of rubble to climb to the roof of the mansion so he could check on him. Once he pulled himself up, he looked all around, then crawled up to the tallest peak. He searched the rooftop, and his eyes widened. Mr. Appleblossom was lying on the shingles, unconscious, with a huge bloody gash in his chest that looked like it came from a sword. Had pirates climbed up here to stop Mr. Appleblossom’s aerial attack?
“Mr. Appleblossom!” Alex shouted, crawling over to him. He slapped the man’s face trying to wake him up, but the theater instructor didn’t respond. Alex scooped him up and slung him over his shoulder, then maneuvered sideways to the edge of the roof and looked down.
“Florence!” he called.
Alarmed, Florence bashed her current attacker in the face and turned to see where Alex’s voice was coming from. When she saw him carrying Mr. Appleblossom, she ran over and reached up so Alex could lower the man into her arms.
“Oh, Siggy,” she said, horrified. She vanished inside the mansion with him.
Alex stayed on the roof, fury rising up inside him at seeing Mr. Appleblossom like that. With hot tears blurring his sight, he noticed all the tar balls in the gullies and on the flat parts of the roof that would make excellent weapons. Fueled by anger, he began flinging the heavy balls down on unsuspecting pirates.
Florence returned to find Alex. “The hospital ward is full!” she shouted to him. “I had to put him on the floor.”
Alex, exhausted, could hardly process the horrible statement. On the floor? The hospital ward full? Alex’s face was stained with sweat and dirt and blood. His clothes were ripped, and his body was covered in bruises and cuts. He looked down at the quickly deteriorating mansion, and at the masses of pirates tearing up Artimé and his people, and at all the dead and injured that littered the grounds, and at all the ships that surrounded the island with even more enemies still hiding aboard. He looked around for familiar faces of his friends, his team leaders, and he didn’t see any of them. Not one. Were they dead? All of them? Where was Aaron? What if Ishibashi was wrong about the seaweed? He couldn’t bear to consider it. How could he stand the grief of losing another friend? And then he choked on a ragged sob, and all the hope he’d ever held in his heart drained out in that moment.
That hope was replaced by the somber truth. Artimé was destroyed. There would be no prevailing this time. Soon there would be no more people for the pirates to kill, because they would all be dead, except maybe Aaron—and the pirates would just torture him until he finally outlived them all.
“Florence,” Alex said, his voice anguished.
Florence turned again to face the mage. “What is it, Alex?”
“I think we need to surrender.”
One More Try
Florence
looked at Alex. And without blinking, without reacting, without arguing, she shouted in her loudest, most booming voice, “SIIIMBERRR!”
Alex looked at her, aghast. “What are you doing?”
Florence shook her head in disgust. “I want to see you make that suggestion to Simber. I could use a good laugh right now. SIIIMBERRR!” she called again.
“Stop!” said Alex. “Don’t do that. He’s busy.”
Florence opened her mouth to call again, but Alex skittered down the slant of the roof.
“No!” he cried, and jumped on her, fists flailing. She caught him and held him up with one hand. “Really, Alex? You want to break your fists punching me?” Quickly she stuck out her other arm and clotheslined a pirate who was running by. He hit the dirt, and Florence grabbed his sword. She stabbed it through his chest, barely taking the time to look at what she was doing.
Alex deflated. He’d lost his mind. He stopped punching the air and hung limply in Florence’s grip until finally she set him down on the ground. She pulled the sword out from the pirate’s chest, wiped it clean, and gave it to Alex.
“Moment of insanity,” Alex mumbled, taking it. “Can we just pretend that didn’t happen?”
“I’d certainly like to,” said Florence. She saw Simber flying at full speed toward them.
“You’re not going to tell him?” asked Alex anxiously.
“Not today.”
“Good. Thank you. And sorry. I’m out of here.” Alex ran off to start swinging his sword at pirates.
“What’s wrrrong?” Simber asked Florence.
“Nothing,” said Florence. “Only I see Claire and Sky at the edge of the lawn by the jungle. Do you see them?”
Simber turned to look. “I do now. And the rrrest of the teams arrre hiding on the otherrr side of the mansion, including Samheed and Lani, whose teams took some of the worrrst action. They just arrrived afterrr a skirrrmish with a group of pirrrates coming frrrom the lighthouse, and found the otherrrs setting up forrr an ambush.” Simber snarled at a pirate, clamped her in his jaws, tossed her into the air, and batted her out to sea.