“I’m with you,” he said.
When we reached the front of the troops, Gethwing raised his arm toward the distance and let it fall. The ground thundered as the army began its long march, and Kem and I rushed along in the excitement of our adventurous mission —
“Stop!” said Kem. He was peering eagerly over the top of Beffo’s bubbling pot.
I frowned at the dog. “What is it?”
“Your words!” Kem said. “Maybe you ‘rushed along in the excitement of our adventurous mission,’ but I didn’t! I sort of clanked and clunked. My armor was made of spare parts and pinched like crazy, you know. Your official Junior Ko helmet wasn’t all that spiffy, either. Silly horns, bull face, weird red eyeholes. It was a miracle you could see at all!”
I stared into the fire, and the images moved again among the flames. “You’re right, Kem. You’re right … left … right … left …”
We marched over the black earth, a nearly unending river of warriors, moving steadily to the north to save our empire from the Destroyer.
What it was, I couldn’t say then, but the beasts had never seemed so valiant as when I beheld them through the red visor of the helmet Ko had given me.
Hours came and hours went until, near dawn, the great army began to slow. One of the troop leaders clambered up the side of a hill and peered over the top.
“Ninns!” he whispered. He waved for Gethwing to follow.
“Come, boy,” said the dragon. “And learn.”
Together, Kem and I scrambled after Gethwing to the top of the hill. Sure enough, a camp of red war tents was nestled in a small valley below. An armed troop of plump, red-faced warriors was milling around. I had heard about the Ninn tribes. They were scattered across Droon, but Ko was uniting them under his power.
“Ninns are a strange lot,” said the dragon. “I don’t trust them. They have their own little villages, but they are mostly loyal to Ko. Let’s see if they know anything.”
We crept down the hill to the Ninn camp.
“Nerona lies ready for war,” said the largest of the red warriors when Gethwing questioned him. “Look.” He turned and we all followed his gaze through a pass in the hills.
A dark city was perched on an inlet of the northern sea. Cramped streets, eerie bridges, and frightening coiled towers were surrounded by a wall whose jagged points ran along the entire length of the city.
“I saw this place on a map in Ko’s war room once,” said Kem, peering through the eyeholes of his helmets. “Nerona is the Droon city closest to Goll.”
“Ugly and scary,” I murmured.
“It has been so forever,” said the dragon.
“And look. Thirty warships have come,” the Ninn commander added. “The droomar are massing to attack us again.”
I scanned the shadowed bay below. What I saw were misshapen vessels, each with a fearsome face on its bow. From each deck rose a single black sail. A pair of ragged iron blades swept up from the pointed stern of each ship.
I had heard about the droomar — or rather, overheard about them — while sneaking around Ko’s palace. The strange little race was ancient, mysterious, and knew very powerful magic.
As I stared at the ships, I heard Ko’s gravelly voice whispering inside my helmet.
The people who built those ships, who built the city of Nerona, helped the Destroyer poison your mother, my young princeling. They showed the poor queen no mercy. The fiends!
Anger rose in me once more.
“The largest, blackest vessel in the bay is the flagship of the Destroyer,” said Gethwing. “Do not forget the purpose of your mission.” Turning to the Ninns, he added, “You warriors know the terrain here. Bring the boy secretly down to the port. Help in whatever way you can. My army and I shall await your signal from our position in the hills. When Emperor Ko has raised the Seven Giants, we shall combine to destroy the port and march on the droomar hideouts. Now, go!”
I tightened my armor as best I could, then Kem and I followed a little band of Ninns carefully down the inside of the valley. We moved quietly past the campfires of the droomar and into the dark city.
As quiet as we were, my heart thundered, and my brain stormed with Ko’s words. I was nervous and afraid, but most of all I could not wait to confront the Destroyer.
“Kem,” I whispered, my voice trembling, “I’ll fight him. I’ll make him taste my sorrow.”
The dog looked up at me and whimpered. “Please, no poetry. And don’t talk about eating at a time like this. I’m really scared!”
Through the narrow streets of Nerona we went. Soon I heard the sound of waves lapping against wooden hulls. A few moments more and Kem and I were in sight of the ships. Their great hulls sat heavy in the black water.
“Prince of Goll,” said the Ninn commander, bowing as he drew away, “we will try to help you as best we can.”
“Too bad you won’t be there with us,” muttered Kem.
Kem and I managed to slip past everyone and quietly enter the water. After a few quick strokes we found ourselves under the hull of the Destroyer’s ship.
I spoke through the speaking tube of my helmet. “Kem, we don’t have much time for this. It’s get inside, plant the green orb, and get out as soon as possible.”
“Or sooner!” he said. “Hurry!”
From my cloak, I pulled a small drill I was given in the palace armory. I jammed it into the hull just above the waterline and began to turn. Minutes later, I had pierced the hull. Drilling three more holes, then connecting them with a handsaw, I made a hole large enough for Kem and me to squeeze through.
I was stunned at the ship’s cargo hold. It was filled from floor to ceiling with ugly weapons, piles of explosives, and giant, many-barreled guns.
“Terrible!” said Kem. “It looks like the Destroyer wants to be true to his name!”
In my ears, I could hear Ko’s voice. To the master engine room. Go now!
“All right, Kem. Let’s do it.”
But no sooner had we stepped into the passage than our way was blocked by a large man — an enormous man! — dressed from head to foot in a frightening suit of armor. A tattered cloak as black as oil hung from his shoulders to the floor.
“The Destroyer!” I gasped.
“Me?” said the giant. “I don’t think so!”
I reached to my side, and the sword Ko had given me flashed up in my hand. Its curved blade shone like a crescent moon. “Perish, you murderous fiend!”
“Again, I don’t think so,” he said. “Do you think maybe we should talk about this? For instance, who are you?”
Ignoring him, I leaped with my sword raised high. Jumping back, he drew a sword twice as long as my own. It had five blades! They all whirled in different directions and gave off sizzling sparks.
In seconds, we were battling for our lives!
Glonk! Flang! Boomf!
I tried my best, carving all sorts of slices and cuts into the air, but the knight quickly overpowered me. He was so huge! Finally, he thrust at me with his sword and the green orb fell from my hand. It spun on the floor and began to smoke noisily. Eee-ooo-sssss-tssss-eeeee!
“What’s that nonsense?” boomed the knight.
“The nonsense that will sink this ship!” cried Kem, tugging on my cloak. “Sparr, we’re supposed to be gone by now!”
“Sparr?” cried the knight, lowering his sword. “Sparr! Wait. Who are you?” All of a sudden, he grabbed my special helmet by the horns and pulled it right off my head.
He nearly choked when he looked at me.
I nearly choked when I looked around!
First of all, the giant knight shrank suddenly to a figure only a little taller than me. Second, his massive sword became a gently curving staff, twinkling with silvery light. Finally, the scene around us was no longer a cargo hold full of bombs and weapons. We were in a bright pink-draped cabin full of bundles and packages.
“Where did all the weapons go?” I asked. “And pink? Why pink?”
/> “This is Relna’s ship,” the knight said. “She’s a girl and a princess. She likes pink. And we don’t have any weapons. This is all food for the hungry people of Nerona!”
Kem tore his helmets off sooner than you could say Goll. “Food? Did you say food?”
“Kem, wait. This is some kind of magic,” I said. “This knight is tricking us!”
“Oh, you’ve been tricked, all right,” the knight said, holding my helmet up and peering through it, then doing the same with Kem’s. “But not by me. Your helmets are charmed. From their eyeholes you see what their owner wants you to see —”
“And hear!” said Kem. “Ko’s magical voice is in there, too!”
The knight paused. “I can’t believe I’ve found you. Sparr, do you know who I am?”
“What —”
All of a sudden the orb stopped smoking at our feet and exploded with a boom, hurling us violently across the cabin. The hull cracked and water surged in, sending the heavy cartons of food tumbling and crashing across the floor. I was pinned under a stack of them.
“Kem!” I cried. “Our secret mission! This is not the way it was supposed to happen!”
“No kidding!” he snarled, using both of his heads to chomp his way out of the food bundles he was trapped behind.
Even as flames spread across the room, the floodwaters surged over me. Without a thought, the knight thrust my helmet back on my head and pulled me free of the cartons.
Just in time! The next moment, I heard the terrible snapping of timbers. The hull caved in completely, and we were thrown out into the freezing water.
I tried to swim to the surface, but the flames kept me away. Diving to avoid the sinking hull, I could not find my way in the black water. What I saw instead were the splashing, flapping fins of a mighty sea serpent, darting out from behind a coral reef.
“Ahhhh!” cried Kem. “A sea monster! He’s coming right for us!”
The creature’s massive pair of fang-filled jaws opened wide.
I couldn’t swim away. The beast came so swiftly! Before I could move, its horrible teeth closed over us, and — snappp! — we were swallowed!
Beffo whirled around from his sizzling soup pot. “A sea serpent … attacked you?”
“Yes!” said Kem. “We were sucked down into the darkness of its throat and then —”
“And then,” I said, “we sat up and found ourselves on the floor of a Ninn submarine!”
Beffo stared at us for a second, then howled with laughter. “Ha-ha! The Ninns! They had promised to help you — and they did!”
All five little monkeys squeaked and squealed along with the troll. Still laughing, Beffo spooned out bowls of soup for us while they began stirring the pot again.
And I kept remembering.
Thwunk! Thwunk! Clunk!
I jumped up from the floor of the submarine. The moment I threw off my helmet, I realized that Kem and I weren’t the only ones swallowed by the sub.
The Destroyer — or whoever he was — was there, too. In a flash, the Ninns pinned him to a chair and pulled his helmet off. When they stepped away from the chair, I gasped.
“Sparr!” croaked Kem. “He’s … you!”
He wasn’t me, but he looked a lot like me! He was a few years older, but his face was very like mine.
“All right. What sort of trick is this?” I said. “More magic? You stole the voice of Ko from my ears. Now you steal the face my mother gave me?”
He was silent for a long while. Finally, he said, “Your mother gave me this face, too. I’m Galen….”
The name triggered a long-forgotten memory in my mind.
“Galen? Galen …” I whispered, trying to remember. “I think my mother told me that name long ago, when I was small. But she was forbidden to say it in the palace. I’ve never spoken it since … since … she died.”
The boy closed his eyes for a second. When he opened them again, they were wet. “I guessed that it was so. Sparr, listen. I’m your brother.”
I felt my throat swell up and my eyes grow moist. “My brother? My brother!”
I thought about all my lonely years in Ko’s palace, not daring to believe I had … a family. My thoughts raced, but then, something else began to surface. Anger.
“Brother?” I spat. “So, where have you been all these years? How could you have abandoned me?”
“I didn’t!” he said.
“You must have! Or else I would have known more about you. After my mother died, Ko took me in; he cared for me as his own son, as his Prince of Goll!”
“Ko?” said Galen. “Ko is a master of evil and of lies. He didn’t care for you! He kidnapped you. I’ve spent the last ten years in Droon looking for you, Sparr!” He stepped closer. “Ko has woven a cloak of lies all around you. Gethwing has, too. I’m no Destroyer, as you called me. Nothing is the way it has seemed to you. You’ve been under Ko’s curse for all these years. You’re lingering under his curse now!”
I searched my mind. No, no, it couldn’t be!
“There’s proof. Look,” he said, pointing out the vessel’s porthole at the city of Nerona.
No longer the shabby black city I had seen through Ko’s cursed helmet, Nerona was a glittering vision. Its towers rose high and caught the first rays of dawn from the east, turning its brilliant white stone a shimmering golden color. I couldn’t believe the beauty of the city. Nowhere in all of Goll was anything as bright or as beautiful as this.
“Sparr, if you can’t believe your eyes, or your ears, listen to your heart. Deep down, you know it’s true. Queen Zara is our mother — our mother.”
Jamming my eyes shut, I thought of her. I remembered the painting on the wall in her chamber, and that terrible dark figure behind her bed. The look on Ko’s face.
He lied to me. For ten years they’ve all lied to me!
Now my heart told me the truth. I leaped up and embraced my brother. “Galen!” I cried.
“Sparr,” he said. “It’s been a long time.”
“Ahem!” said a voice behind us.
Turning, we saw the Ninn warriors clustered together, their faces bright with candlelight. Among them, they held a cake glowing with candles!
“Family,” they said. “Ninns like family!”
Even through our tears, Galen and I laughed as the Ninns began to eat the cake themselves. Kem scrambled around their feet, eagerly catching the falling crumbs.
Finally, my brother wiped his face with the cuff of his cloak. “Sparr, this is amazing. You have to stay with me, of course. Together, we’ll find my — our! — older brother, Urik. Maybe return to the Upper World. Or live here in Droon. We’ll fight the beasts. We’ll do it all together —”
“The beasts?” I said, suddenly remembering Ko’s own secret mission. “Galen, the emperor has gone off to the Iron Gate!”
The smile dropped off his face. “The Iron Gate. I’ve heard of it. It’s a half-day’s journey from here. What does he plan to do there?”
“He’s going to raise the Seven Giants,” said Kem. “Big giants. Awful ones, I’m told!”
Galen blinked. “Your dog. Does he speak?”
“All the time,” I said. “And I mean, all the time!” Then I snapped my fingers, and when Kem repeated what he had said, everyone could understand him — not just me. Hearing his words, the Ninns grumbled among themselves about the Iron Gate, but still managed to eat more cake.
“Ko wants to battle the Droon army and destroy Nerona,” I said. “You’ve seen his magic. We might never be able to stop him.”
Galen smirked. “This is Droon, Sparr. Never say ‘never.’” But his expression soon changed to one of fear. “Seven giants, huh?”
“Bigger than big,” said Kem. “Humongous! At least that’s what the legends say. They’re headed by the giant leader. His name is Zor.”
Galen stroked his bare chin as if he were scratching a long beard. He kept pacing the small cabin of the submarine, seeming to run something over in his mind. Finally,
he stopped. “Nope. There’s no time to get help. We’ll have to take on this mission ourselves.”
“And do what?” asked Kem.
“Stop the giants. Try to stop Ko. Maybe prevent a huge war,” said Galen.
“Are you including me in this?” said Kem. “And will it be dangerous? Answer the second question first!”
Galen laughed. “This is Droon, Kem, so, yes, our mission will be full of danger. And since Sparr’s personal friend is a personal friend of mine, you’re definitely invited.”
Kem nodded both heads. “As long as I don’t have to wear any funny armor, I’m in.”
My heart was thudding with excitement. “Uh, Galen, you said a word before.”
“Danger?”
“No.”
“War.”
“No.”
“Friend?”
“Uh-uh.”
“Mission?”
“That’s it!” I shouted. “It’s Kem’s and my favorite word!”
“Well, yours,” said the dog.
“And now we’ve got at least part of a family, and even maybe some … help?” I said, turning to watch the Ninns lick the last of the cake off their six-fingered hands.
The chief of the red warriors grinned a toothy smile. “Ninns have no love for Ko. If Sparr is against Ko, Ninns are against Ko!”
The Ninns raised their hands and all slapped them together. It was a strange moment. I felt that nothing would ever be the same for me again. My heart was pounding, my mind was in a whirlwind. I had just met my long-lost brother. I no longer felt alone in this world. Being with him made me feel like my mother was closer. Even if it meant turning my back on everything I knew, my whole life in Ko’s palace for the last ten years, it seemed right. It seemed perfect.
I almost laughed out loud.
In a single night, was I really going from being Goll’s youngest prince to … an outlaw?
I turned to Galen. The look on his face made me sure. “Ten degrees south, seven degrees east. To the Iron Gate!” I cried.
His eyes twinkling, Galen spun the submarine’s wheel. “Full speed ahead!”
Vroooom! The submarine dived deep under the surface and sped toward the east.