“Oh, turning the key wasn’t easy,” Snow said. “It got stuck sometimes.”
“I know what you mean,” Duncan said sympathetically. “Keys have never been my friend either. Except for Mr. Key, the pirate. Although he did turn out to be a traitor. Hmm . . .” He thrust his finger in the air. “I am never locking anything again!”
“Anyway,” said Liam. “It seems we’re back to where we were: We need a bard.”
“Or four,” said Frederic.
“So I take it we’re heading back to the Bandit Brat’s old place,” Gustav said.
“Huzzah!” cheered Duncan. “Off to rescue the bards again! Just like old times!”
PART V
ON THE ATTACK
35
AN OUTLAW IS SPEECHLESS
There was nothing special about Deeb Rauber’s old castle. It was rather plain and blockish looking, as if its builders had simply piled up hundreds of bricks in a big square; more of a hideout than a fortress. The whole thing was very un-Rauber-like, really: unthreatening, unimposing, unexciting (which is why he abandoned it in the first place). Yet the heroes wisely approached it with caution. Well, most of them.
“Hey, remember the last time we were here, and we all piled on top of Frederic in the mud?” Duncan asked giddily.
“Shh!” Liam hissed as the group crouched among the shrubs on the eaves of the forest. He surveyed the grassy plains around the castle, which stood little more than a hundred yards away. “Only two guards out front,” he whispered. “And my guess is there aren’t too many inside either. It’s not as if the bards are a high priority for Rundark.”
“So let’s take ’em out,” said Gustav, cracking his knuckles.
“Not so fast,” said Liam. “We don’t want word of this mission getting back to Rundark. It would be ideal if we got in and out without being seen.”
“Is there a rear entrance?” Rapunzel asked.
“Or a low window?” asked Frederic.
“Or an imaginary door?” tried Snow.
“No, no, and . . . I’m going to say no,” replied Liam. “But that’s why I brought this grappling hook. We’re going up to the roof.”
“Why don’t Rapunzel and I stay here and watch the front-door guards?” Frederic suggested. “If they go inside, or if anybody new shows up, we’ll sound some kind of signal to warn you.”
“Good idea,” said Liam. “What’s the signal?”
Duncan drew a small wooden whistle from his pocket. “Use this,” he said, handing it to Frederic. “It’s a buffalo call. If we hear it inside, we’ll know there’s trouble. But if the bad guys hear it, they’ll just assume it’s a buffalo.”
“What does a buffalo sound like?” asked Rapunzel.
“Like that whistle,” Duncan replied.
He, Snow, Liam, and Gustav crept along the line of trees to the rear of the castle, where they left the safety of the forest and approached the castle. They were surprised to see a rope already dangling down the back wall, attached at the roof by a glinting steel grappling hook.
“That’s odd,” said Liam.
“That’s lucky,” corrected Duncan.
“Guess we don’t need this,” Gustav said, chucking their own rope into the woods.
After testing the mystery rope and finding it secure, they slowly climbed up.
“Hey,” Duncan chirped. “Remember the last time we were here, when we all fell off this wall? That was awesome.”
“Shh!” Liam hissed.
They reached the roof and, one by one, crawled up onto it, happy to find no sentries awaiting them.
“Hey,” Duncan peeped. “Remember the last time we were here, when the Bandit King was going to duel with me and—”
“I have an idea,” Liam interrupted. “Why don’t Duncan and Snow wait up here and keep an eye on the rope?” The couple saluted in response.
Liam and Gustav opened a trap door in the roof (the same one they’d once been pushed up out of when they were Rauber’s prisoners) and stealthily climbed down the stairs into the castle. They tiptoed along stone corridors that had once been filled with the Bandit King’s looted treasures but were now bald and featureless. Suddenly, Liam motioned for Gustav to stop. There were bodies in the hall—two Darians, both unconscious.
“That’s odd,” Liam muttered again.
Even more on the alert, the duo inched down the hallway. They remembered that in the next corridor they would come to a wooden door, behind which lay the castle’s prison cells—the most likely place for the missing bards to be held. Gustav crept past Liam and poked his head around the corner to check it out. An ample fist smashed him right between the eyes, and Gustav stumbled to the floor.
“Oops,” Val said as the big prince staggered back to his feet. Liam darted out of hiding.
“What are you doing here?” Ella snapped in an angry whisper. The door to the jail stood directly behind her.
“What are you doing here?” Liam snapped back.
“We came to rescue the bards,” Ella said.
“Well, you can go now,” said Liam. “Because we came to rescue the bards.”
“No way,” Ella barked. “We tracked Deeb for days until we finally caught up with the brat and plied him for information. He’s the one who told us the bards are here. This is my rescue!”
“Well, we just saved all of Avondell,” Liam retorted. “This is my rescue!”
Ella, who had no desire to waste time or energy on a war of words with Liam, turned and reached for the door. Liam lunged forward and grabbed her from behind before she could get her hand on the knob.
“Hey!” Val said, grabbing Liam’s shoulder. “Lay off my best friend!”
Gustav grabbed Val by the sleeve. “And you lay off my . . . cape-guy.”
Ella swung her head back, smashing into Liam’s nose. He had no choice but to let go of her. And as soon as he did, Val tugged away from Gustav, her sleeve ripping off at the seam. She lifted Liam from the ground and hurled him into the wooden door. The door burst open into the prison chamber, and Liam skidded across the floor, coming to a stop right in front of a cell full of startled bards. But the bards weren’t the only ones in that prison chamber. Two Darian guards, who’d been playing cards at a small table, jumped to their feet and drew their swords.
Ella didn’t give the guards so much as a glance as she charged into the room, drew her sword, and took a swipe at Liam. He ducked, and Ella’s sword clanged against the helmet of a dumbstruck Darian guard. The man dropped like a rotten apple from a tree. Completely ignoring the second guard, Liam whipped out his own sword and began trading blows with Ella. The Darian stood there in bewilderment until he was bowled over by Val and Gustav, who rolled, fists flailing, into the room like a human tumbleweed. The guard was knocked backward and crashed through the card table, out cold.
Two more Darians, having heard the commotion, barreled into the prison chamber, waving hefty axes above their tattooed heads. But when they saw the scene before them, they paused. There were four armed invaders, but they all seemed to be battling one another. “Which ones do we fight?” one guard puzzled, right before being knocked out by an off-target chair that Val had thrown at Gustav.
The remaining guard ran to the window and leaned out to shout for help. But his shout turned into a scream when Liam shoved Ella into him and he flopped out the window, landing on the two front-door guards. From somewhere outside the castle, a strange, low mooing sound could be heard. It was Frederic, desperately blowing his buffalo call. But as nobody knew what a buffalo sounded like, the noise was completely ignored.
Ella and Liam grunted and snarled, their swords locked together, as the bards looked on, hopping excitedly.
“Give up,” said Liam.
“No, you,” said Ella.
Each gave a final push, and both lost their weapons. They stumbled forward, falling into each other’s arms as their swords flipped through the air. The two quickly stepped away from their accidental embrace. It was then t
hat they first seemed to notice the unconscious Darians piled around them.
“We’ve made a mess of things, haven’t we?” Ella said.
“Both literally and otherwise,” Liam replied. Feeling suddenly very self-conscious, he grabbed the keys from the belt of an unconscious guard.
Gustav and Val, in the meantime, stood with their hands on their hips, catching their breaths. “You know, you’re not a bad scrapper,” Gustav said. “For a girl.”
Val socked him in the jaw.
Fig. 29
JAW, socked
Liam opened the cell door, and the bards flooded out gleefully. Pennyfeather the Mellifluous, royal bard of Harmonia, was there, clapping his dainty hands, as were Sturmhagen’s Lyrical Leif, Erinthia’s Tyrese the Tuneful, and Sylvaria’s Wallace Fitzwallace. The four colorfully clad men doffed their floppy caps and bowed graciously. They were obviously very happy about their rescue, but something was off. They were quiet. And bards are never quiet.
“Pennyfeather,” Ella said with concern, “I’ve never known you to go more than two minutes without giving some sort of long speech. What’s wrong?”
All the bards began touching their mouths and shaking their heads.
“What? Have they all become mimes now?” Gustav asked. “Mimes are worse than bards.”
“Can you not speak?” asked Liam.
They all shook their heads.
“What happened?” he asked.
The songsmiths each began gesturing and moving about as if competing in a game of charades. Arms waved, heads bobbed, men pirouetted.
“Even without speaking, these guys are too loud,” griped Gustav.
“This is getting us nowhere,” Liam said. “Follow me, everyone.”
He led them down the hall and upstairs to the roof, where Duncan and Snow were waiting. Frederic and Rapunzel had joined them.
“I blew the whistle as loudly as I could,” Frederic began. “But I had no idea if you’d heard. So we climbed up to— Oh, Ella and Val! How nice to find you here.”
“The bards can’t speak,” Liam said, all business. “Duncan, give them a quill and some parchment.”
Duncan pulled the requested supplies from his belt pouch and handed them off to Pennyfeather.
The bard sat on the castle ramparts and wrote:
’Tis a woeful situation we merry songsmiths find ourselves in. That foul and fury-filled tyrant, Lord Rundark—he of the woven whiskers and sinister, arched brow—hath stolen that which we of the bardly persuasion hold most dear. That vile criminal hath robbed us music makers of our most cherished gift. With an ignominious vo—
Gustav ripped the paper and pen away from him. “Someone who uses less words!” he called out. Wallace Fitzwallace raised his hand and took the paper. On it he wrote:
IT IS “FEWER WORDS.” NOT “LESS WORDS.”
Gustav yanked the bard’s cap down over his face. He took the paper back and shoved it into the hands of Tyrese the Tuneful.
Tyrese wrote:
Rundark forced a potion down our throats. It took away our voices.
“I’m sorry,” said Liam, trying to sound like he meant it. He was not a fan of Tyrese. “But with your help, we will be able to defeat Rundark and depose the Darians. We will avenge your lost voices.”
“We need you to help us change the minds of the people,” said Frederic. “We need you to write new songs, telling the truth about Rundark.”
Tyrese began to write.
A good plan, for certain. Alas, we cannot help you.
“Why not?” Liam growled.
Tyrese raised an eyebrow at him and pointed to the part he had written about the bards losing their voices.
“So?” Ella said. “You don’t have to sing the songs. Just write them. There are plenty of minstrels out there to perform them.”
Tyrese scribbled furiously.
This only shows how little you know about bards. A bard never puts his compositions on paper. The music of a bard is an aural art—meant to be heard, not read.
“I understand this is a tradition of yours,” Frederic said. “But surely you can make an exception when we’re talking about the fate of the world being at stake.”
Sorry. No.
The other bards stood behind him with their hands on their hips, looking quite determined. The Leaguers were stunned.
“Well, what do we do now?” Rapunzel asked.
Frederic’s eyes brightened. “We’ll just have to be our own bards,” he said.
“I’m not singing,” Gustav said.
“And I’m not exactly up on my songwriting,” added Ella.
“I’m a writer. I’ll do it!” Duncan said. He put one hand on his chest, the other in the air, and began to croon. “Listen dear hearts to the tale I now sing, / of bad guys from Dar and something something!” He stopped and scratched his chin. “I should probably only use one ‘something.’”
“We don’t need to write songs,” Frederic said. “We just need to be heard. We need to speak to the people of our kingdoms—convince them of the truth.”
“I fear that you’re right,” said Liam.
“He is,” Ella agreed.
“And as much as I hate to suggest this, I think we should split up,” Liam continued. “Time is of the essence. Each of us princes should head to his own kingdom, to the people he knows best. We need to gather a crowd together, as many people as possible—and persuade them to rise up and fight for their freedom.”
“How exactly are we going to do that?” Gustav asked. “We don’t have the best track record when it comes to public speaking.”
“And even if we split up and join you, you’re only talking about two people for each of your kingdoms,” said Ella. “How are just two people supposed to sneak into an enemy-occupied territory, avoid Darian soldiers, and gather a large enough crowd?”
“Who says we have to be alone?” Frederic said. “We have allies out there—people who know us and who will believe us. Frank and the dwarves. The trolls. Smimf. The folks at the Boarhound. Maybe even the giants.”
Liam swept his hair back and flourished his cape. “We can do this, people,” he said. “We can—”
“Ooh, ooh!” Duncan bobbed up and down, raising his hand high. “Can I give the hero speech this time? I never get to give the hero speech.”
Liam sighed and took a step back.
Duncan beamed. “We can do this, my friends!” he began. “We can save the day! And be heroes! Because heroes are awesome! And we are awesome! Don’t be afraid. Being afraid is not for heroes, which we are. Being afraid is for . . . Well, I suppose if it’s not for heroes, then it must be for villains. But who are the villains afraid of? Oh, I know! Us! The heroes! Um . . . Nothing can stop us, bring your A-game, a stitch in time saves nine, and don’t count your chickens before they’re hatched. Heroes rule!” He then ran in a circle, hooting and looking very proud of himself.
“What about the rest of the kingdoms?” Ella asked.
“Hey, if we can actually overthrow the Darians in these four kingdoms, we’ll have taken down a third of Rundark’s empire,” Liam said. “That’s a pretty good start.”
“I’ll go with you to Harmonia, Frederic,” said Rapunzel.
“And Dunky and I will go home to Sylvaria, of course,” Snow said.
“What about you?” Liam asked Ella.
“The League has fewer allies in Erinthia than anywhere else,” she said. “I’ll join you.”
“Me, too,” Val said.
“Are you sure?” Ella asked her gently. “Why don’t you go with Gustav?”
“I don’t like Gustav,” she said bluntly.
“That’s all right,” Gustav said loudly. “I work better by myself anyway. Well, what are we waiting for? Let’s go.” He walked to the grappling hook and slid down the rope to the grass below. The rest of the League followed. Liam was the last to the rope. As he climbed over the edge, Tyrese ran up to him and waved a paper in his face. It read:
&nb
sp; What about us? How will we get to safety?
Leaning the paper on the rampart wall, Liam took the quill from Tyrese’s hand and quickly scrawled his answer:
SAVE YOURSELVES.
36
AN OUTLAW HANGS OUT WITH A BAD CROWD
While her brother and his friends set off to change the hearts and minds of their kingdoms, Lila was on a mission of her own. Wrapped tightly in her woolen cowl, hood up to shroud her face, she darted among the busy fishermen of Yondale Harbor (most of whom would be forced to turn over their entire hauls to the Darians in exchange for the promise of fancy bandannas at some point down the road). As she wended her way along the docks, she popped into every inn and tavern she saw, inquiring of sketchy bartenders, salty-tongued sailors, and grime-coated anglers for any news of Ruffian the Blue.
“He hasn’t been seen for months,” said the innkeeper at the Filthy Parrot. “Not since he tried to pilfer some goodies from that greedy tyrant, King Edwyn.”
King Edwyn is a good man, Lila thought angrily. But she held her tongue.
A grizzle-bearded seafarer leaned over from his bar stool and added, “I heard Old Edwyn and Ruffian the Blue both ended up snacks for the snake.”
“That big sand snake that the Darians brought with ’em?” asked another curious customer.
“Aye, that’s the one,” said the seafarer. “Swallowed them whole.”
“But that’s just rumor, right?” Lila said. Her voice sounded so high and young—and worried—she was afraid it would give her away. She cleared her throat and deepened her tone. “I mean, there’s no evidence of that, right?”
“You sound pretty determined to get some news on Ruffian,” the innkeeper said as he poured a mug of grog for a customer. “If that’s the case, I suggest you try the Skewered Sea Horse at the west end of the pier. It’s a big bounty hunter hangout. If there’s news to be found, you’ll find it there.”