The others sat there on their horses, staring out at the foreboding fortress. Its dark-gray stone and sharp silhouette were in stark contrast to the lush green meadow that filled the valley and the luminous pink, blue, and yellow blooms that sprouted in bunches all around it.
“Is it just me,” asked Duncan, “or is this place a lot prettier than last time?”
“It’s spring,” Ella said with a shrug.
“No, Duncan’s right,” said Frederic. “It’s more than just the change of seasons. When we raided this castle last year, the land around it was dry and barren. This place used to be called the Orphaned Wastes, remember? We haven’t seen this valley lush and vibrant like this since . . . well, since Zaubera lived here.”
“I’d completely forgotten,” said Ella, leaning down to pluck a small white flower. “But, yes, when she died, all the plants and grass died with her.”
“This valley is a wasteland by nature,” said Frederic. “Her spells were what brought it to life the first time, and they must be what has revived it again now. Interesting that, even in her weakened state, she felt the need to . . .” He stared, as if mesmerized, at the flowing waves of greenery.
“What is it, Frederic?” Ella asked.
Frederic shook his head. “Probably nothing,” he said. “We’ve got a bigger question to deal with right now—and a familiar one. How do we get past that wall?”
Liam scanned the battlements. “Well, first we can . . . No, maybe we . . . Perhaps . . . Ugh. I don’t even know how we reach the wall, let alone get past it. There are five times as many guards up there as there were last time. A couple of giants would help. Too bad Maude dragged Reese away to ground him. She said we humans and our covered feet were bad influences.”
“What if we had an army?” Ella asked.
“Sure, that would be nice, too.” Liam sighed. “Too bad every single one of us sent our nation’s soldiers off to fight other battles.”
“Not every one of us,” Ella said, grinning. She pointed westward, toward the mountains. Pin-striped soldiers were marching into the meadow by the hundreds, followed by cavalry on silver-armored horses. And cannons—gorgeously painted, rainbow-swirl cannons—were towed alongside them on sturdy war carts. At the head of the charge was a golden coach emblazoned with the flag of Avondell.
“Briar!” Liam said, hopping to his feet. They spurred their horses and raced to meet the Avondellian army. They caught up with the coach when it was about two miles from the Wall of Secrecy and waved down the driver. The man pulled up on the reins and brought his horses to a stop. The entire army came to a halt as Briar stepped out of her coach.
“What’s going on here?” Briar snipped. She was clad in a red-and-black dress, with sharp-angled shoulder pads and reinforced leather sleeves. “Are you losers late for the invasion, or have you started without me?”
Fig. 32
BRIAR, combat ready
“We were late,” said Duncan. “Because Liam doesn’t know how dates work.”
Liam shot him an exasperated look, then turned back to Briar. “How did you know to come here?” he asked.
“That messenger boy told me. He said you’d sent him. Did you not?”
Liam grinned and shook his head. “I told him to give the message to the other members of the League.”
“And he thought that included me—how cute,” Briar said. “Well, I’m here. And I’m wearing my combat gown. So what do you need?”
“Rundark’s got a wagonload of magical bombs in there,” Liam said. “Apparently he’s constructed some sort of mega-cannon. Based on its assumed size and the angle of trajectory needed to fire it, the weapon is most likely located on the roof. So—”
“You need to get inside, Liam—just say that. I swear, nobody on Earth wastes more time talking than you do,” Briar said with a snort. “But you’re in luck, because I brought an army.” She turned around, cupped her hands around her mouth, and shouted, “General Kuffin! Tear down that wall!”
With elegance and precision, the nattily dressed Avondellian warriors advanced on Rundark’s castle. As soon as they got within range, the Darian archers began unloading scores of arrows upon them. The Avondellian cannons fired in return, blowing huge hunks of stone from the upper edges of the wall and crumbling the ramparts on which the archers stood. With a creak, the huge iron gate swung open, and platoons of snarling Darians flooded out into the meadow. They met the Avondellians head-on, and soon the entire field echoed with the clashing of blades and the clattering of armor.
The heroes stood, watching the chaos from afar. “Okay,” Briar called as she stepped back into her coach. “Say ta-ta to your horsies for now and get inside.”
“In there?” Liam asked.
“With you?” added Gustav.
“Well, if you’d rather ride openly across the battlefield—” Briar began.
“Slide over, sister,” Ella said, climbing in. The princes squeezed in after her.
Frederic, who was squished against the far door next to Gustav, cleared his throat. “So, um, Briar . . . are you sure this coach can make it through—”
“I brought Worthingham,” Briar said, nodding slyly. “He’s the driver I used to send through treacherous obstacle courses for fun. You know, back when I was cruel and awful. Hit it, Worthingham!”
The driver cracked the reins, and the coach took off with a jolt. It whipped left and right, narrowly avoiding dueling warriors and wild, riderless horses. A squad of Darian spearmen tried to block the coach, but it pivoted, kicking dirt up into their faces. Everybody inside held on for dear life except Briar, who hummed cheerily.
The coach barreled through the gateway and across the drawbridge, and skidded to a stop at the front doors of the castle.
“Last stop,” Briar said. “Everybody out.”
Gustav threw open the door and stepped directly into the castle’s entry chamber, where he clobbered two bewildered sentries. Frederic, Duncan, Ella, and Liam filed out after him.
“Hey, losers,” Briar called as they rushed down the hall. “Do me a favor?”
They paused briefly to turn back to her. “What?” asked Liam.
“Try to win for a change, okay?”
Liam nodded as Briar closed the door and screamed something at Worthingham. The coach took off again.
“To the roof, people,” Liam said to his team. “Let’s end this.”
40
AN OUTLAW CAN BE A HERO
And so it was that the League of Princes faced off against their two greatest foes in a climactic battle that would forever cement their places in history. But rather than dwell on that horrible, violent conflict, let me instead recount to you an interesting conversation that occurred between Reginald the valet and Frank the dwarf.
“Sir Dwarf,” said Reginald. “I hear you will be petitioning the Inter-Kingdom Dictionary Guild to have ‘dwarves’ recognized as the official plural of ‘dwarf.’”
“That’s right,” grunted Frank. “What of it?”
“I happen to have some connections on the Guild Board,” said the valet, straightening his tie. “You may not know this, but it was through my influence that we no longer need to pronounce the B at the end of ‘comb.’”
Aw, who am I kidding? Let’s get to the battle.
After leaving Briar’s coach, the League crawled into the first dumbwaiter shaft they found and climbed straight to the castle’s roof, where they immediately noticed that Rundark had made significant changes. All of Rauber’s candy kiosks and ringtoss booths were gone. The rooftop was now one big rectangle of flatness—except for the dome (stolen from a Svenlandian cathedral) that still rose up from its center.
“Where is he?” Gustav asked. “Where are the bombs? And the big cannon?”
“Maybe Gabberman was wrong?” Frederic suggested. “Maybe that cart was just bringing in a load of melons?”
Liam grunted. “I hate melons.”
Then a loud noise rose from beneath their feet, like t
he grinding of a thousand metal gears. A cracking sound followed, along with a hurried hiss of air, as the huge dome split down the middle and its halves began to separate.
“Ooh, I hope it hatches a giant chick.” Duncan beamed.
Inside the open dome they could see a complicated weave of moving mechanical parts. With a chorus of screeches and crunches, a circular platform appeared: a gleaming steel disk two feet thick and fifty feet across that rose up into the air on a tall, rotating column. Rundark stood on the platform, along with six brutish bodyguards. Beside the Warlord was a vision orb, sitting on a pedestal of carved bone. But what caught the heroes’ eyes most of all was the cannon—thirty feet-long, bloodred, and wide enough to load a cow into (if, for any reason, you’d ever want to load a cow into a cannon). And right next to it sat a large wooden bin piled high with glowing, cauldron-size bombs.
Rundark caught sight of the stunned princes and let out a bemused huff. “It takes a special type of fly to revisit the web of the spider it was lucky enough to escape,” he said.
“Heroic flies,” Liam said proudly.
“I was thinking stupid,” the Warlord replied.
“Yeah, that’s us,” said Gustav. And with that, he leapt up onto the slowly rising platform, grabbed one of the bodyguards by the ankle, and tossed him off. Ella and Liam jumped for the edge of the disk and pulled themselves up. But Frederic and Duncan were too late; they couldn’t quite reach the lip of the platform. While Ella drew her sword and fended off bodyguards, Liam leaned down and grabbed the outstretched hands of his fellow princes.
As the disk continued to rise, Frederic and Duncan felt their feet leave the floor—but Liam didn’t have the strength or leverage to haul them both up at once. Gustav did, though. He head-butted a guard off the edge of the platform and then pulled all three men up.
“Everybody good?” Gustav asked. “Okay, let’s fight.”
He and Liam drew their swords and joined Ella in battling the remaining four guards. Liam quickly disarmed one enemy and kicked him down to the roof. Ella tricked a pair into tackling each other and tumbling off the side. Gustav picked the last one up by the collar and simply dropped him over the edge.
The five heroes faced Lord Rundark. He still stood by the vision orb with his arms folded across his chest. He’d made no move to join the fight, nor did he seem to care that his men were rolling and groaning on the roof below.
And the platform rose still. It passed flying birds. It appeared to pass clouds. It passed what might have been a flying hat. Duncan peeked over the edge and watched the men on the roof become mere specks. Frederic tried to mentally calculate how high up they were but started hyperventilating once he’d counted past three hundred feet. Then, suddenly, with a loud, metallic screech, the disk came to a halt. Ella and Liam grabbed the others and formed a human wall between the Warlord and his mega-weapon.
“What’s the matter, Rundark?” Liam said to their silent, smirking foe. “Afraid to take on all of us?”
“No,” the Warlord said. “I was just waiting until we were high enough to guarantee that the fall would kill you.” His lips curled. In the bright light of day, his glowing green aura had not been so easy to see. He raised his hands and shot forth five bolts of blue lightning. Everybody went down. The heroes rolled and skidded across the platform, moaning as smoke wafted up from their singed clothing. Duncan slid perilously close to the edge, but Ella caught him by the neck ruff.
“And that’s right—Zaubera’s here, too!” cackled the ghostly witch as her spectral form separated itself from the Warlord’s body and flew gleeful loops in the air. “I never get tired of zapping you guys,” she clucked.
“Yes, but you failed to knock them off the platform, witch,” Rundark said.
“That would be too easy,” Zaubera replied. “We need to have some fun with them first.”
“Bah!” Rundark barked. “It’s time to destroy the world.” Ignoring the smoldering heroes, he ran his hands over the vision orb to activate it. In each of the Thirteen Kingdoms, citizens outside their royal palaces jumped, startled to see the giant Mega-orbs crackle to life. Most people had practically forgotten about the enormous crystal balls, thinking of them as nothing more than oversize public art displays. But everybody’s attention was drawn to the orbs now. Mists swirled within them, and an image appeared—the Warlord of Dar standing by an enormous cannon with the clear blue sky as his backdrop and five writhing people at his feet. Slowly but surely, crowds began to gather.
In Sylvaria, Snow White and the royal family huddled close, horrified to recognize Duncan amid those writhing figures. In Harmonia, Rapunzel gripped Reginald’s hand as she spotted Frederic in the orb’s image. Val pounded her fists against the giant sphere in Erinthia, as if doing so would help her reach Ella. Lila, who had just chased a Darian general from Svenlandia’s royal palace, started cursing herself for not being there to help her brother. And in Sturmhagen, Jerica saw Gustav’s prone form within the orb and stomped on Wrathgar’s hand (which was still sticking out from under it).
By the hundreds, people came together around the orbs, watching with bated breath. And back on the sky-high platform in New Dar, Rundark looked out upon thirteen different crowds at once. Thousands of faces flickered within the mists of his orb—the faces of people he was about to obliterate.
“People of the Thirteen Kingdoms,” the Warlord said. “I offered you paradise in a world under my rule. But you have refused my benevolence. And now you will reap the consequences. I thank you in advance for so cooperatively gathering around my targets.”
He strode over to the bin and hoisted out a bomb. It sizzled and glowed with a throbbing light. He loaded the bomb into the cannon and turned a crank to raise the barrel to a steep angle. He drew a tall match from his pocket, struck it across his leg to light it, and brought it near the cannon’s long fuse. Before the match made contact, though, its tiny flame went out.
Rundark turned and glared at ghostly Zaubera, who was hovering over his shoulder with her lips still puckered from blowing out the match. “What do you think you’re doing?” he snapped.
“You don’t kill the audience before the show,” the witch said. “We didn’t plan on it, but we’ve got those loathsome princes right here. And snivelly Cinderella, too. We can’t let this golden opportunity slip by! We destroy them first. In front of the whole world, just like we planned before.”
“Like you planned before,” Rundark said. “I neither need nor desire your brand of theatricality. I crave only destruction. Besides, it’s not as if these people are going to have long to ruminate on the deaths of their heroes. In a matter of moments, they’ll all be dead themselves.”
“And where’s the art in simply surprising them with their own obliteration,” Zaubera scoffed. “You’re always so practical. Let’s toy with their emotions first!”
As the villains bickered, Frederic dragged himself to Rundark’s skeletal pedestal and pulled his head up to stare into the vision orb. “Everybody, listen!” he shouted to the far-off crowds. “Rundark has super-powerful magical bombs. And they will be headed straight toward those giant vision orbs you’re watching. You need to get as far away from those orbs as possible!”
And all around the Thirteen Kingdoms, seven people turned away from the orbs and fled. Yes, that’s right: seven. The thousands of others stayed glued to the action. They’d discovered a new form of moving-picture entertainment, and nothing was going to tear them away.
“Seriously, leave!” Frederic tried again. But he was quickly cut off by Zaubera’s phantom form swishing by and startling him back onto the floor.
“Nuh-uh-uh,” the witched cooed. “No interfering with my spectacle.” She hovered before the orb and addressed the audience. “Ladies and gentlemen, we now present for your viewing pleasure: the Death of the League of Princes.”
“Bah! Enough nonsense,” Rundark spat as he lit another match.
Duncan crawled over to Gustav. “Throw me at him!” Dunca
n said.
“Didn’t that go badly once before?” Gustav asked warily.
“Yes,” Duncan replied. “But nothing can fail that horribly twice”
Gustav shrugged. “Can’t argue that logic.” He stood up, grabbed Duncan, and hurled him headlong at the Warlord. Rundark dropped the match to catch him.
“Aha! See?” Duncan crowed, lying cradled like a baby in the Warlord’s arms.
Then Rundark hurled Duncan, spear-like, back at Gustav. The collision sent both princes hurtling dangerously close to the platform’s edge. Ella and Liam ran to pull them to safety.
“Guys,” Ella barked, “we can’t keep saying it’s five against one and then attacking him individually!”
“She’s right,” Liam said. “We do this together. On the count of three . . .”
“Let’s finish them off now!” Zaubera hissed. “Open yourself up to me! We’ll fry them slowly while their loved ones watch!”
She wafted toward Rundark, but he raised his big, calloused hands and waved her away like a foul odor. “No!” he barked. “I shut my mind to you. I’m tired of giving power to a petty old spirit. I am Warlord of Dar! Not the stoolie of some dead hag.”
“Three!” Liam shouted. He, Ella, Gustav, and Duncan leapt as one at Rundark. Frederic, who was on the other side of the platform, took a deep breath and ran to join them. Or, rather, he tried to. On his first step, he slipped in a puddle of his own sweat. Viewers in far-off cities screamed as he tumbled off the platform—and gasped as he gripped his fingers around the rim of the disk.
While his friends struggled to take down the Warlord, Frederic dangled hundreds of feet in the air, his legs flailing wildly, hoping to find a foothold that simply wasn’t there. He glanced down and bit his lower lip, wondering if he could perhaps use his coat like a parachute and glide gently to the soft grass.
The soft grass! The soft, lush, vibrant grass. That just might be the key to saving them all.