The Hero's Guide to Being an Outlaw (5 page)

S
everal months earlier, about the same time Frederic left Harmonia, Prince Liam had struck out on his own as well. He didn’t know exactly why Briar Rose had decided to annul their marriage, but he didn’t want to risk sticking around and giving her the chance to change her mind. He raced out of Avondell, telling himself that the best times of his life were just beginning. He didn’t have to be a hero anymore. No one was hounding him with calls for help; no one was begging him to rescue their kidnapped grandmother or to save their farm from invading bandersnatches. He was finally free to live whatever kind of life he wanted. The only problem was, he had no idea what he wanted to do.

He tried his hand at goatherding for a while; but after several weeks without a single wolf attack, he grew bored and traded his goats for a new cape. He attempted to make a living building log cabins for woodland families, but his very first clients fired him for adding too many escape hatches. He even took a shot at setting up a roadside stand and selling homemade acorn-head figurines—but he had no artistic talent and most passersby assumed his statuettes were clumps of trail mix. On the morning that one of his customers chipped a tooth trying to eat a Prince Gustav figure, Liam knew he’d made a mistake. Being a hero was the only thing he knew how to do.

And it was all he wanted to do.

He just needed to figure out where to do it. He certainly wasn’t going to stay in Briar’s home kingdom of Avondell, and he had no desire to face his parents back in Erinthia, so he trekked to nearby Hithershire—a land that, as far as he knew, was sorely lacking in big-name national heroes.

Hithershire has bandits and monsters and natural disasters, just like any other kingdom
, Liam said to himself as he galloped over the hilly, green countryside of his newly chosen homeland,
but no champion to protect its people. Until now
. Sitting astride his sturdy black stallion, Thunderbreaker, with a gleaming sword at his side and a deep-blue cape fluttering behind him, Liam felt energized and ready for anything. It didn’t take him long to come across a situation that was crying out for some heroic intervention.

An apple cart had been overturned on a dirt road, with half a dozen bodies lying unmoving around it.
Bandit attack,
Liam thought. He spurred Thunderbreaker and sped up to the cart, where he leapt down, drawing his sword before his feet hit the ground. Two apple vendors flinched when they saw him.

“Have no fear, citizens,” Liam said. “You’re safe now.”

“Yeah, we know,” said the first vendor, a tall, messy-haired young man in a dirty apron. “It’s pretty great, isn’t it?”

“Who are you anyway?” the second fruit seller asked.

“I’m Prince Liam of Erinthia. I’m here to rescue you.”

“A bit late for that, eh?” the man chuckled, elbowing his partner.

Maintaining his battle stance, Liam looked around. Now that he could see them up close, the bodies on the ground all appeared to be bandits—each unconscious, with his hands and feet tied. Liam frowned.

“Did you see the fight?” the tall vendor asked. He had a huge smile on his face and a dreamy look in his eyes. “She was amazing.”

“She took ’em all out in about ten seconds flat,” the shorter man added.

“Who did?” Liam asked.

“Our new hero,” the tall man beamed. “Ella, Mistress of the Sword.”

“Ella?” Liam asked skeptically. “Short brown hair? Swishy pants?”

“Oh, you’ve seen her then?” the tall one asked giddily. “Isn’t she incredible?”

“Ella did this? Why is she even in Hithershire?” Liam mused. “And where’s Frederic? She wasn’t with a very, er,
elegant
man, was she?”

The tall merchant shook his head. “No, just her.
Wonderful
her.”

The shorter vendor clutched his hands to his chest. “I can’t wait till we get robbed again.”

“So, just to be clear, you guys
don’t
need any more rescuing?” Liam asked.

“Nope.”

Liam sighed and turned back to his waiting horse.

“Hey, wait!” the tall merchant said. “You’re, like, a hero, too, right? A hero wouldn’t make us clean this all up by ourselves, would he?”

Liam surveyed the four hundred or so apples scattered along the road and sighed again. Ninety minutes later, with the cart righted and all the apples back in place, Liam finally remounted his horse and bade the merchants farewell.

“Don’t worry,” the tall one said. “We’ll tell everyone about you—Prince Liam, Retriever of Fallen Fruits!”

“Oh, please do,” Liam droned as he rode off.

Over the next couple of weeks, Liam heard the citizens of Hithershire singing Ella’s praises in every village he visited. But Ella herself always seemed one step ahead of him. He would show up mere minutes after she’d chased a gang of thieving goblins from a candy store, pulled frightened toddlers from a burning nursery, or hog-tied a disappointed mugger.
I’ve got to find her,
Liam thought—and there was only one way he could think of to get her attention.

“Help! Help!” he called. He stood alone by a windmill on the outskirts of the town of Digglesbury. “Help!” he cried again. Then he crossed his arms and waited. As he expected, it wasn’t long before Ella appeared, dropping down from the windmill blades with her rapier drawn, ready to strike.

“What seems to be the . . . huh? Liam!” She threw her arms around him in a warm embrace. “It’s so good to see you. But what gives? You don’t need help.”

“I needed help finding you,” he said. “So . . . thanks.”

Ella crossed her arms and narrowed her eyes. “I don’t appreciate the trickery. And what if there’s some poor person who
really
needs my aid out there right now?”

“I wouldn’t be too worried,” Liam said with a sly grin. “I think you’ve already taken out every criminal in this kingdom.”

Ella couldn’t help but grin too. And Liam couldn’t help but notice how perfectly she seemed to fit into the role of adventuring hero. She wore a laced green vest over a puffy-sleeved swashbuckler’s shirt and a pair of her trademark satiny “fighting pants” tucked into tall black boots. Her hair was cut into a short, asymmetrical bob—a look she’d decided to keep after getting an impromptu restyling by the fangs of a bladejaw eel the previous summer.

“Thank you,” she said. “So, what are you doing in these parts anyway?”

“I came here to be the hero of Hithershire.”

“Job’s already taken.” Ella grinned again and performed a fancy flourish with her blade. “Besides, why would you want it? Two kingdoms not enough? You’ve already got Erinthia
and
Avondell. Speaking of which, I’m surprised Briar let you this far out of her sight.” She suddenly hunched up, her eyes darting back and forth. “Wait, she’s not lurking under a rock somewhere, is she?”

“No, I haven’t seen Briar since our marriage was annulled.”

Ella’s eyes widened. “Whoa. You really ended it? How in the world did you convince her to agree to that?”

Liam cleared his throat. “I, um, can be very persuasive when I want to be. And I decided I’d finally had enough of her.”

“Wow,” Ella said, running her fingers through her hair, trying to process the news. “I’m just surprised. I mean, the last time I saw you, you seemed pretty content to head back to Avondell and be Briar’s dutiful husband.”

Liam bristled. “The same way you went off with Frederic.”

“Yeah, well . . . ,” she began sheepishly. “That only lasted long enough for us to get back to Harmonia. I haven’t seen him since then. I sort of . . . broke up with him.”

Both of them were silent for quite some time.

“Well, this is interesting,” Liam finally said. “We’re both, um, available. I suppose we could—”

“We could be partners,” Ella said. “Partners in fighting crime. Let’s thwart the evildoers of Hithershire together and . . . see how it goes.”

Liam offered his hand, and Ella shook it.

“Partners it is,” he said. “Let’s show ’em what we’ve got.”

Fig. 5
FORGED PARTNERSHIP

Liam and Ella’s partnership lasted approximately forty-five minutes.

In the next town, they stumbled upon a burglary in progress—thieves ransacking the mayor’s house. Ella wanted to swing in through an open window and surprise the robbers; Liam insisted on a head-on attack through the front door. Neither was willing to compromise. They each did their own things; and by the time it was over, the house was a wreck, Liam was tangled in the living room drapes, Ella had a flour sack over her head, and the crooks were safely back at their hideout with a wheelbarrow full of stolen loot.

“I was better off on my own,” Ella huffed.

“Then you should stay on your own,” Liam snapped.

“I will!” Ella growled, getting right in his face.

“And so will I!” he snarled back.

“As soon as we clean this place up!”

“Yeah! As soon as . . . oh. Uh, sure, all right.” He sheepishly rehung a picture frame that had been knocked down.

Two hours later, when the house was spotless, Ella and Liam stormed out in opposite directions. Neither noticed the sheriff only a few yards away, hanging a Wanted poster on the mayor’s fence—a poster with their faces on it.

The following afternoon, while patrolling as a solo hero once again, Liam heard another call for help.
Man,
he thought,
Hithershire is
not
a safe place
. He followed the cries to a secluded field behind a rickety barn, where he saw a white-haired old man dangling upside down from a peach tree.

“Oh, thank goodness,” the man croaked. “All the blood is rushing to my head.” He pointed up at his right foot, which had a rope looped around the ankle. “It’s a trap,” he said with an embarrassed shrug.

That was when Liam spotted movement out of the corner of his eye—Ella! She was entering the field from the other side of the barn. As soon as she and Liam made eye contact, they each took off in a mad dash for the tree.

“My rescue!” Ella shouted, running as fast as she could.

“I was here first!” Liam grunted, charging forward.

When they were each within a few yards of the hanging man, they both dove. The old man nimbly pulled himself up and out of the way, letting Liam and Ella crash into each other, forehead to forehead.

“Well, that was easier than I’d hoped,” the old man said. With one hand, he gracefully slipped the rope off his ankle and hopped down to the ground. He motioned to an unseen partner in the branches of the tree and stepped back as a weighted net fell onto his would-be saviors. Liam and Ella, still clutching their throbbing heads, looked up in shock at the old man’s nearly toothless grin.

“I
did
say it was a trap.” He chuckled. “You two have had the pleasure of being captured by Wiley Whitehair, oldest bounty hunter in the Thirteen Kingdoms.”

Pinned under the heavy net, Liam and Ella couldn’t even think about drawing their swords. Instead they glared at each other.

“This is all your fault,” Ella hissed.

“My fault?” Liam scoffed. “You’re the one who couldn’t stand back and let me make one stinking rescue.”

“If you didn’t feel such a burning need to out-hero me, we wouldn’t be in this mess,” Ella said.

“Come on down, boys,” Whitehair called up into the tree. Three more bounty hunters leapt down from among the leaves. The first was a rotund man with thick mutton-chop sideburns, the second a wiry teenager in a mask, and the third . . . Well, Liam and Ella recognized the third immediately.

“Ruffian,”
Liam growled. “I should have known this had something to do with Briar Rose. Fine, take me back to Avondell. But let Ella go.”

“Ooh, sounds like a confession,” said Whitehair, rubbing his hands together. “But I’m afraid I have to say no to your request. We’re gettin’ money for both of you. Hey, Ruffian, since you’ve got a history with this fella, why don’t you be the one to tie him up for us. Yellow Tom, you take care of the girl.”

Ruffian the Blue, Briar’s bounty hunter of choice, stared at Liam from under his dark hood. But as the stocky Yellow Tom bent to lift the net, Ruffian thumped the man over the head with the handle of his sword, knocking him flat.

“What’d you do that for?” sputtered Whitehair. “We were supposed to split the money four ways. I shoulda known you’d turn on us, you greedy moper.” He drew a long dagger from his belt and turned to the masked teenager. “C’mon, kid,” he said. “He can’t fight both of us at once!”

The ancient bounty hunter started to run at Ruffian. But after only one step, he fell chest-first into the dirt, tripped up by the fast-moving staff of the masked teen. Whitehair rolled over and bounced to his feet. “Traitorous brat! You’re teamin’ with Ruffian?” the old man snarled. He brought his arm back and prepared to hurl his dagger. “I shoulda known better than to work with a little boy.”

“I’m not a boy,” the young bounty hunter said, pulling off her mask and releasing a bouncy wave of chestnut curls. Whitehair blinked in confusion before she whomped him over the head with her staff.