“It’s always good to try new things,” Liam said.
“All right,” Gustav mumbled. Then after a pause, he added, “Can I kill the dragon?”
“Please don’t,” Liam said, humoring him—Gustav actually defeating the dragon was not something he was worried about. “We need it for another part of the plan.”
“If you insist,” Gustav said grudgingly.
“While the two of you have the giant and dragon occupied,” Liam said, “Duncan and I will sneak into the fortress to get the map. Now, last time I was in the witch’s stronghold, I got hit with a big surprise: the dragon. And in case there’s another surprise waiting this time, I’ve got you, Duncan. You’re my wild card.”
“Wild card, got it,” Duncan said. “Just like in Crazy Eights. I can be a diamond; I can be a spade. Whatever you need me to be, I’m that thing. That is so me.”
“Once we have the map, we’ll head back out and help Gustav,” Liam said. “Between three of us, we should be able to redirect the dragon and get it to attack the giant like it did last time.”
“How do we do that?” Duncan asked. “With steaks?”
“That could work,” Liam agreed, pleasantly surprised to hear a logical a suggestion. “Then, while the giant is dealing with the dragon, we grab Frederic and run off. Then we use the map to track down the prisoners and free them. So, everybody ready?”
The other three nodded and mumbled.
“Not good enough,” Liam said. “I expect a bit more enthusiasm from my teammates. I am a hero, and I know I will succeed.”
He stood up, pointed to Duncan, and dramatically posed the question: “Duncan, what are you?”
“Human!” Duncan cried, trembling with excitement.
“More specific,” Liam said, still dramatically.
“A five-foot-two human!”
“I’m going for hero here,” Liam hinted under his breath.
“Hero!” Duncan shouted. “I’m a hero!”
Liam pivoted. “Frederic, what are you?”
“I am a hero,” Frederic answered, proudly puffing out his chest. “A different type of hero, perhaps, but still....”
Liam pivoted once more. “Gustav, what are you?”
“Too corny. Not doing it,” Gustav said, crossing his arms.
“You’re a hero, Gustav,” Liam said. “We all are. And maybe I didn’t completely believe that when I said it an hour ago, but I do now. We may be unsung heroes, but give us time. That’ll change. So, come on. Let’s do this. We’re a team.” He held his hand out over the center of the table, waiting for the others to rise and place their hands on top of his.
Duncan jumped up and slapped Liam’s outstretched hand hard. “Too slow!” he shouted giddily.
Frederic and Gustav laughed. “Fine, we’re a team,” Gustav said.
“Well, all right, then,” said Liam. “We need to equip ourselves. The Bandit King took pretty much everything we had that was of value, though. I’m not sure what we can use to barter with.”
Frederic dug deep into a hidden inner pocket of his jacket and came out with a diamond ring. “Well, the bandits missed this. I had planned to give it to Ella after I found her, as a way to woo her back,” he said. “But I suppose it would be of more use to us here and now.”
“Thank you, Frederic,” Liam said, and gave Frederic’s shoulder a grateful squeeze. “Let’s go visit the bartender.”
The four princes used Frederic’s ring to trade for supplies with Ripsnard, who loaded their arms with changes of clothing and a rucksack full of rancid-looking muskrat steaks (“It doesn’t have to look tasty to us,” Liam reminded them. “Just the dragon.”).
Fig. 38 MUSKRAT STEAKS
“We could use some new weapons, too,” Liam said to the bartender.
“Can’t help you there, Prince,’ Ripsnard replied apologetically. “I don’t allow implements of violence in my establishment.”
“But everybody in here is armed. How can you say—,” Liam protested. “Ah, never mind.” At least they still had two dwarven swords.
“Hope ya enjoyed your lemonade,” the bartender added as Liam walked away.
“That was lemonade?” Liam gaped.
He joined the others in the tavern’s back storeroom, where they changed into their new garb. The quartet drew stares when they strode back into the main dining room.
“Heh-heh,” Ripsnard laughed. “I still can’t believe you lot are famous princes. You certainly don’t look very Prince Charming, do ya?” The four princes, clad in black, looked like a band of thieves.
“That’s okay,” said Liam. “We’re off to handle some very unprincely business.”
The tavern’s tough-guy customers looked the princes up and down. “Don’t worry,” said the bearded pirate. “Cutting a picture the way you fellers do right now, I don’t think anybody’ll be getting in your way.”
“I think we actually look scary,” Frederic whispered excitedly to Gustav.
“I look scary,” Gustav said.
“Toodle-oo,” Ripsnard said, waving them off. “You and your league of princes will always be welcome at the Stumpy Boarhound.”
“League of Princes,” Frederic echoed. “I like the sound of that.”
“Ooh, how about the League of Princes Charming?” proposed Duncan.
“No,” Liam and Gustav said in unison.
“League of Princes,” Liam said. “Just League of Princes.”
“It makes us sound like we should be bowling,” Gustav complained.
The four princes exited the Stumpy Boarhound. As they stepped out into the waste-strewn alleyway, they were nearly bowled over by a burly black-clad stranger who was on his way into the pub.
“Oi, am I late?” the grizzled stranger asked, eyeing the outfits of the men he’d just bumped into. “Didya give up on me so soon?”
“Come again?” asked Frederic.
“We were supposed to meet inside the tavern, right?” the man said. “You four are the witch’s other couriers, right?”
Duncan stepped forward, struck a pose, and began to announce, “We are the League of—”
Liam bumped him out of the way with a quick hip-check. “Couriers,” Liam said. “The League of… Evil Couriers. That’s right.”
“Oi, I didn’ know you were part of the League,” the stranger said. “I’m jus’ freelance, myself. I wouldn’a kept ya waitin’ if I knew.” He reached into a satchel that hung over his shoulder and pulled out five scrolls. “Anyway, here’s the messages.”
The courier handed each of the princes a rolled-up scroll. “This one goes to Sylvaria. This one to Harmonia. Um, Avondell for you. And … you get Erinthia. I’ll deliver the one to Castle Sturmhagen myself.”
The princes took quick peeks at their parchments, scanning for the main points of the messages within: “Your bard is mine… Mount Batwing … sundown on Midsummer Day … slaughter unlike anything the world has ever seen… Yours abominably, Zaubera.”
“I should have the Sylvaria one,” Duncan said to Frederic. “Wanna trade?”
Gustav gave Duncan a shove to shut him up.
“We’ll get these notes to where they have to go,” Liam said. “Gustav, you want to give our friend a tip?”
Gustav socked the witch’s courier with a powerful fist to the jaw. The man fell instantly unconscious. Gustav grabbed the fifth scroll from his hand and shoved his limp body into a nearby barrel, which he then tossed through an empty window into an abandoned building across the street.
“Um, people?” Frederic said, a look of dread creeping across his face. “You all understand what these notes mean, right?”
“Yeah,” Gustav said. “It means there’s a change of plan—I’m going home. There’s no way I’m running out there to save the guys who ruined my life.”
“Gustav,” Frederic scolded. “None of us may be too happy with the treatment we got from those bards, but they’re innocent people!”
“I don’t know about innocen
t,” Gustav grumbled.
“We’re not going to abandon them, though,” Frederic said. “Liam, please back me up on this.”
Liam was silent, mired in thought. He was never one to hesitate when a life was in danger—but he’d never been called upon to rescue bards before. And not just any bards: One of them was Tyrese the Tuneful, the man who’d ignored Liam’s heroics for years and then robbed him of his deserved fame by turning him into a generic Prince Charming. This is a test, Liam thought. I can’t think of anybody I like less than Tyrese.
“Liam?” Frederic tried again.
“Given the information in these notes, I see no choice but for us to change our plan,” Liam said.
“You want to leave the songbirds with the witch?” Gustav asked, incredulous. “I honestly wasn’t expecting that.”
“No,” Liam said. “We have to make sure those prisoners are freed, no matter who they are. But it’s midsummer eve; the witch is planning on killing them tomorrow. Even if we get the map as planned, we won’t have time to reach all those towers before noon.”
“That’s a good point,” Frederic said. “So what do we do?”
“We get help,” Liam said. “And the nearest place to get it will be Castle Sturmhagen. Once we have the map, we take it to Gustav’s brothers. There would be twenty of us then; we can split up and hopefully get to all the towers in time.”
“You want me to ask my brothers for help?” Gustav gasped. “The only worse thing would be to ask Rapunzel for help.”
“We need the extra manpower,” Liam said. “It’s our only chance.”
“Our only chance to save the lives of people we despise,” Gustav sighed.
“Gustav, I know you feel that your brothers get more attention than you,” Frederic said. “But look at it this way: They’ve simply had more time to build their reputations. Most of them are much older than you, I assume.”
“Only by a year or two!” Gustav said.
“All sixteen of them?” Liam asked. “How is that possible?”
“My mother had two sets of octuplets and then me,” Gustav stated bluntly.
“Eesh,” Liam winced.
“Gustav, we need you to be on board for this,” Frederic said. “Please.”
“Look,” Liam said, “sometimes being a hero isn’t about getting the glory. It’s about doing what needs to be done.”
“I understand that, but this is where I put my foot down,” Gustav said. “I’ll help you rescue the tune-chuckers, but just the four of us.”
“Okay. If that’s the way it has to be,” Liam said.
“Hey, guys,” Duncan burst in. “I think I figured out who the witch has in those towers: the bards!”
“Nice detective work, Duncan,” Liam said. “Now, let’s get out of here before the real couriers show up. We’re the only hope those bards have.”
“That is correct, Your Excellency,” Pennyfeather said, bowing before King Olaf and Queen Berthilda in the fur-carpeted throne room of Castle Sturmhagen. “The witch will smite Lyrical Leif in a manner most dastardly. Three other of my fellow music masters as well.”
“We can’t have that now, can we?” the hefty king said, patting his cloudlike beard. He shifted his glance to the sixteen statuesque, heavily armored men who were standing by in a long, well-organized line. “Henrik, make sure all your brothers are armed and suited up; then head to Mount Batwing.”
“We’re all ready to go,” said Henrik, the eldest of the Sturmhagen princes. “Well, except Gustav. He’s off playing by himself again somewhere, I suppose.”
“No matter,” King Olaf said. “You sixteen will be enough. Head out.”
With Henrik at the lead, the brothers all turned and marched from the room with military precision.
Meanwhile, in a different royal palace:
“I still can’t believe you came back here without my prince!” Briar Rose snarled. She picked up the golden bowl of dried figs that sat beside her throne and flung it angrily. It crashed through a stained-glass window, sending a rain of colored shards onto the marble floor. “You had one simple job! One! Bring me Prince Liam. And instead you show up with his bratty little sister.”
Ruffian the Blue moaned and stared at his feet. “I’ve already explained why,” he mumbled.
“Briar, get a grip,” Lila said. “Believe me, the last thing I want to see is my brother in your arms. But if you don’t get your army out to Mount Batwing immediately, Liam’s going to end up dead. Do you get what that means? No wedding.”
Briar wrinkled her nose at Lila. “I know that, you annoying flea. I’m just having a tantrum, which is my royal right as a princess.” She turned to a nearby guard. “I want Avondell’s entire army mobilized in ten minutes. And have my carriage waiting as well.”
“Your carriage?” Lila asked.
“Do you think I’m going to risk Ruffian the Whiner failing again?” Briar said, arching her brow. “I’m riding along to see to it myself that Liam comes back home with us. And so are you.”
Ten minutes later, five hundred armed cavalry men rode off in unison under the Avondellian flag (which Liam had never wiped his feet on, by the way), cutting through forests along Ruffian’s secret shortcut to the Orphaned Wastes. And at the head of the military force: a ridiculous gold-plated carriage, in which a sweating Lila sat sandwiched between Briar Rose and Ruffian the Blue.
Ruffian locked Lila’s wrists into a set of shackles. Briar snatched the key from the bounty hunter’s fingers and tossed it out the window. Ruffian just stared at her, puzzled.
“I don’t trust this brat,” Briar said.
“This is going to be a long ride,” Lila sighed.
On another road, in another kingdom, Henrik of Sturmhagen and fifteen of his equally brawny brothers marched cheerily along, twirling battle-axes, flexing muscles, and singing war songs.
On yet another road, another army was on the move—an army of men in black, some on horseback, some on foot. They pulled wagons loaded with pikes, clubs, and swords, cooking pots and sleeping bags. Deeb Rauber, the Bandit King, perched up on the roof of a supply wagon, giggling maniacally as he launched walnuts into his followers’ backsides with a slingshot.
Not too far away, a smaller wagon rumbled through the woods. Flik, Frak, and Frank said nothing as they rode along. They never even changed expressions. Inside the vehicle, Snow White was feverishly weaving her forty-seventh potholder of the day, trying desperately to keep her mind off Duncan.
In a different section of those woods, though far from any road, Ella was sprinting as fast as she could to outrun a hungry wolf. She hurdled a thick gorse bush and shimmied into a hollow log to avoid the animal’s scratching claws. The muscular beast tried to squeeze itself in after her and promptly got its head stuck. Ella laughed, slid out the other end of the log, and kept on running.
On still another road, a green-haired man wobbled by on peppermint-stick stilts; a fiery-plumed bird of paradise perched on his shoulder. But he’s not in this story, so don’t pay any attention to him.
Ignoring roads altogether, Zaubera meandered through the forest, flash-frying any squirrels or baby bunnies that dared to cross her path. Behind her floated a large but cramped green bubble, holding four terrified bards. They’d witnessed her anger upon discovering that the goblins had let Pennyfeather escape. None of the four bards ever thought he’d be able to eat bacon again.
The witch was heading to Mount Batwing—just like everybody else. It was midsummer eve.
22
PRINCE CHARMING IS A SNEAK
The princes were in high spirits as they tromped through the forest. Duncan serenaded the others with his favorite dwarven campfire song, “Flames and Beards Don’t Mix.” As he finished with a flourish—“So don’t bend over the coooooooooals!”—Liam and Frederic applauded.
“Thank you, Duncan,” said Liam. “I actually kind of liked that.”
“Yes, marching off to a deadly showdown has been much more enjoyable this time ar
ound,” Frederic said. “I really do wish we’d been able to get our horses back, though.”
“Me too,” Duncan said.
“You didn’t lose a horse,” Gustav reminded him.
“Not on this trip,” Duncan said. “But I lost one a few months ago. His name was Papa Scoots. I rode him down to the stream to look for shiny stones one day, and while I was naming some trout, he took off. I think I embarrassed him.”
“My horse had been with me through all my greatest adventures,” Liam said. “If I didn’t have him during my battle with the evil fairy, I don’t know if I would have made it out alive. Mark my words: If I get the chance to go back to Rauber’s castle and look for Thunderbreaker, I will.” He was interrupted by snickering. “What, Gustav?”
“It’s a bit over the top, isn’t it?” Gustav said. “Thunderbreaker?”
“He’s a powerful warhorse. What’s wrong with giving him a powerful name?” Liam replied.
“Warhorse—pah!” Gustav scoffed. “Mine was a real warhorse. Did you see the size of its haunches?”
“And what, may I ask, is the oh-so-perfect name of your horse?” Liam inquired coolly.
Gustav mumbled something.
“What was that?” Frederic asked with a smirk.
“Seventeen,” Gustav grumbled, a bit more audibly.
“Seventeen what?” Duncan asked.
“Seventeen,” Gustav repeated. “That’s the horse’s name. I didn’t name him. Every child in our family was given a horse when he came of age. And the horses were named according to our birth order. So mine is Seventeen.”
“My horse’s name was Gwendolyn,” Frederic said. “It’s not like I had any kind of history with her, though. I only met her the day I left on this journey. But considering the way she tolerated my poor riding skills so well, I have to say I grew quite fond of her. I do hope I get to see her again someday.”
“Isn’t that her there?” Duncan asked, pointing at a tan mare that was grazing just beyond the trees ahead of them.
The four princes stopped in their tracks. Indeed, the Harmonian crest was emblazoned upon the horse’s saddle. The four men crept closer.