Once Upon the End (Half Upon a Time) (20 page)

CHAPTER 42

M
ay’s execution day turned out to be chilly and rainy, which was the perfect kind of weather to have on your execution day, she figured. Her goblin guards delivered a black cloak to her and waited with swords drawn until she put it on. At that point, they opened her cell and led her back through the castle in silence.

There was enough noise outside anyway.

At some point early that morning, May had heard a familiar calling, familiar but completely creepy. It’d taken her a good hour of listening to it before she realized what the noise was.

Sharks were growling. Loudly.

Somehow, Phillip had managed to get the Sea King to bring his armies to the Wicked Queen’s door. From the tiny silver fairy that appeared in her window, then disappeared as the goblins shouted at it, she figured the mermen weren’t the only ones out there either.

So all in all, rain or no rain, May was feeling much more optimistic than she had in days, black cloak with the hood up and all.

In what had been an empty courtyard a few days ago now stood a raised platform of darkened wood. The Queen waited for her there, the hint of a smile on her face. Behind her was a smaller crowd of nobles than had been in the throne room.

“You look happy for someone who’s about to be invaded,” May told her from beneath the black hood that one of the goblins had pushed up.

The Queen just smiled wider. “We shall see.”

Next to the queen waited the Wolf King as well as row upon row of goblin, troll, and ogre soldiers.

The Queen nodded at the wolf, who nodded back. She smiled and turned to May.

“Before you die, I know you’ll be interested to see this,” she said.

“You getting your behind handed to you?” May asked.

“My invasion of the free kingdoms,” the Queen said, then opened a circle made of blue lightning. The circle flickered, then solidified, and on the other side, May could see a very surprised-looking woman in a crown, and panicking soldiers.

“Phillip’s kingdom,” the Queen said, and gestured for the Wolf King to step through.

Before the wolf could move, voices raised from beyond the palace walls, and a song drifted through the courtyard. The blue lightning circle fizzled and disappeared, and the Wolf King turned to look expectantly at the Queen.

“Oh wow, look who else Phillip found,” May said. “Sounds like he’s got a few fairy queens out there. Maybe all eleven of them?”

The Queen smiled again and gestured for a pair of goblins to carry something up to the platform, covered like May was in a black cloak. The goblins pulled the black cloth off, revealing a golden harp with a statue of a woman on it.

The harp that Jack had brought back. The day he’d died.

“Let’s try that again,” the Queen said, and again, the blue lightning circle opened.

The voices outside raised once more, but this time, the Queen laid a hand on the harp, and the statue of the woman opened her mouth and began singing as well. Only . . . it wasn’t just one voice. Or several. It sounded like thousands, all incredibly off-key, all overpowering the voices beyond the palace.

If the goblins hadn’t been holding May’s arms, she would have covered her ears. The goblins didn’t look too happy either.

The Queen stroked the harp’s head, and the thousands of voices quieted. The blue lightning circle, meanwhile, was still going strong.

“Melodies are such a fragile thing,” the Queen said, her hand still resting on the harp. “They can be disrupted so very easily.”

“He’s still got an army out there,” May said, feeling much less confident than she had a second ago.

A sudden wind behind her almost knocked May off her feet, and she turned to find something large, green, and toothy beating its wings slowly as it landed behind her on the platform. An enormous green dragon stared down at her as if it wanted to bite her in half, while its rider, wearing black armor with a white circle on it, saluted the Queen.

The dragon had landed, but the wind hadn’t stopped. May looked up, then more up, and up some more, the dragons extending farther than she could see, at least with the goblins holding her down. A few spat fire into the sky ahead of themselves, either too excited or too ready to fight to hold themselves back.

Phillip’s armies, fairy queens, and mermen wouldn’t have a chance.

The Queen turned to the assembled human lords and ladies, a smaller group than she’d seen only a few days before. “
Behold
!” she shouted, and her voice echoed far beyond the palace walls.
“Look upon the reward for any who would defy me! The pitiful armies of the free kingdoms have gathered, yet they are helpless before my dragons! And while they flee for their lives, I shall send my armies into each of their kingdoms to take over while their protectors are gone. Any living free-kingdom soldier will return to find their kingdom under my rule!”

“Princess,” said a voice from May’s side, and she turned to see the Wolf King now holding her arm where a goblin had been.

“I’m already going to be executed,” May whispered. “Isn’t that enough for one day? Now I have to put up with you, too?”

The wolf narrowed his eyes. “I have given some . . . thought. To what you did for me.”

“Now I ask you, my former subjects and present
revolutionaries . . .
do you still question me? Do you still wish to follow this girl down her path toward death?”

“Better tell me quick,” May whispered. “Sounds like I’m not going to be around for long stories.”

“I owe you,” the Wolf King growled low. “You did indeed save my Beauty and return her to me, whether you knew it or not. I cannot stay here, not anymore. I cannot let the Queen know that Beauty is free once more, so I’m leaving. And without my nose, she’ll be unable to track me down.”

“That’s amazing for you,” May said. “Tons of warm and fuzzy feelings while I’m waiting to die, so thanks for that.”

“I have something for you,” the wolf said. “It is as much a risk as I am willing to take. And I do this for the sake of my Beauty, and for her sake alone.”

May felt something soft and delicate in her hand, and she felt the Wolf King let go of her arm, then the goblin on her other side let go as well. She looked down at the object in her hand, and then up at the Wolf King, who once more stood in front of the open lightning portal.

Was he serious?!

“And what of this girl? What of this child who you would follow down the path toward destruction? If you would follow her, who will offer to take her place here now?!”

The crowd below was silent, but May hadn’t expected much.

The Queen gestured for the goblins to bring May forward, still looking out toward the crowd.

Instead, now goblinless, May ran full-tilt straight into the Wicked Queen, knocking her off the platform and into the crowd. And from there, everything began to move very, very quickly.

The crowd panicked, shouting and screaming and running all at once.

The goblins shouted, struggling to reach their Queen, only to find the Wolf King’s hand on their heads, knocking them back down against the wooden platform. The wolf glanced at her once more, then disappeared into the crowd below.

And May found herself with her arms still tied together, facing an unhappy dragon and a smiling Eye riding on his back.

“That was it?” said the Eye, whom May had never seen before. “
That
was your entire escape plan?!”

May snapped her ropes with the knife she’d stolen from the goblin guard, then leapt forward and sliced through the dragon’s saddle straps. The saddle slid straight off the dragon’s back, slamming the strapped-in Eye right into the wooden platform.

“It’s a start,” May told the unconscious man.

Behind her, the Wicked Queen slowly floated into the air over the platform, her eyes wild, and magic crackling all around her.
“Dragons! Attack the armies! Kill them all!”
She pointed at the enormous green dragon behind May. “And you . . .
kill the girl
.” She looked down at May, her eyes filled with rage. “You had your chance, May. But now I will burn your friends’ kingdoms to the
ground
!”

And with that, the Wicked Queen gestured, and both she and the harp disappeared.

The dragon shrieked at May, then launched its open jaws right at her head.

And just like she’d seen Jack do six months ago, she took the flower bridle that the Wolf King had taken from Malevolent almost as long ago and given to her now, dodged to the right, and held the magical bridle out right where she’d been standing.

The dragon bit down and began to shudder. May grabbed the end, then leapt up on the dragon’s leg to its back, pulling herself up by the bridle.

Above her, forty or fifty dragons were beginning their attack dive on Phillip’s helpless armies below.

In front of her lay a blue lightning portal to safety. All she needed to do was jump through it, and she could be away from all of this.

It didn’t take even a thought.

“What say you and me go for a quick flight?” May said to the dragon, then yanked back on the bridle.

With a horrible shriek of rage, the green dragon beat its wings and shot into the air like a rocket—a rocket aimed right at the attacking dragons.

CHAPTER 43

M
erriweather was the first to fall, but not the last. One by one, the fairy queens collapsed to the ground as Phillip watched in horror.

And that is when he realized that this was all going exactly as the Wicked Queen had planned. After all, the fairy queens might have fought her if they had been spread around the free kingdoms. But here on the front lines, her magic had removed them all from the battle at once.

Lian looked at her father, then nodded and disappeared completely from sight as the shrieking dragons overhead began to advance, breathing fire in their excitement.

“You people do seem ta have a knack fer findin’ some dangerous-type situations,” Bluebeard said from Phillip’s side. “What’s the plan?”

“Can your magic help us with the dragons, Your Majesty?” Phillip asked the Sea King.

The merman shook his head, his shark growling up at the great flying monsters. “Not this far inland. If they were over the water, I could do something. Here on land, I might take down one, maybe two.”

The goblins atop the castle gates shouted insults and mockery, dodging arrows in between them. “They’re not coming out,” Penelope said from Phillip’s right. “That doesn’t seem like a good thing, them leaving us alone out here.”

“She means for the dragons to burn us alive,” Jack’s father said. “Unless you can put some wings on those sharks, Your Majesty, I’d say it’s time to unleash our secret weapon.”

“Drop them,” Phillip said quietly, and his general raised a flag in the air.

All among the armies, soldiers with belts and straps dropped something into carefully dug holes, then stepped back. As the dragons descended toward them, the ground began to rumble, and the human soldiers readied themselves.

“This is gonna be close,” Bluebeard said, squinting up against the rain.

“It always is,” Phillip told him as the first beanstalk broke the ground.

A moment later, a second, then a third beanstalk broke through, and soldiers began to strap themselves to the stalks, rising into the air as more and more beanstalks grew. Bluebeard was right . . . it would be extremely close, as the dragons would reach them before the stalks had fully grown.

Fortunately, they’d come prepared.

“FIRE!” Phillip shouted, and the soldiers riding the beanstalks took their bows off their backs and began launching arrows at the advancing dragons.

“Shark-tooth arrowheads,” Bluebeard said with a grin. “That oughta knock a few scales off those things!”

And then Phillip watched something explode up from the palace itself, flying straight at the advancing dragons. “HOLD YOUR FIRE!” he shouted, and the order went out.

“What are you doing, Phillip?!” Jack’s father yelled. “You don’t change the plan in midplan! That is not
how things go, not when
I
plan them!”

Phillip just smiled as an enormous green dragon flew straight into the dragon in the lead, knocking it into the second one. “It appears that we have more friends around than we thought.”

Bluebeard roared with laughter. “That’ll teach the Queen ta mess with our little princess, won’t it?”

“Send the order up, General,” Phillip said. “Hit any dragon EXCEPT the green one. DO NOT hit the green one, even if it means not taking the shot. Am I clear?”

“Clear, sir,” his general said, and ran off to speak with his subordinates. Within moments, the archers were firing again, this time nowhere in the vicinity of the green dragon, who now had its claws locked on to the back of a red dragon.

Behind him, someone shouted, and Phillip looked up to find a burning beanstalk slowly crumpling to the ground. “Out of its way!” Phillip shouted, and everyone—sharks, mermen, human soldiers—scrambled out of the dying plant’s collapse. A dragon crashed into a second stalk, that stalk slammed against a third, and both toppled to the ground.

“The dragons have the advantage, even with May up there,” Jack’s father said. “We need the fairy queens back up if we’re going to have a chance here.”

“Any suggestions along those lines?” Phillip asked him.

“I’ve got my only daughter on it,” he said with a smile. “But we still need to buy ourselves some time. And other than running for our lives, I’m all out of ideas.”

Just then, the castle’s front gates opened, and goblins too numerous to count poured out of them, screaming for blood.

“I take that back, I say we attack,” Jack’s father said, and Phillip nodded, while the golden fairy in Penelope’s hair shouted some sort of battle cry, holding up a tiny sword and waving it frantically at the goblins.

“Your Majesty?” he said to the Sea King. “Shall we?”

The Sea King smiled. “I’m actually sorry I tried to drown you with a tidal wave, human.”

“You apologized to
him
?!” Bluebeard shouted as they both rode away on their sharks toward the goblins. “You’ve NEVER apologized to me, and you apologize to him? He didn’t even DO anything! That princess of his and the little Eye did all the work!”

“You saved me, Phillip,” Penelope said, and nodded at the goblins. “I think that was pretty amazing, personally. Now, are you ready?”

“Very,” Phillip said, and together they spurred their horses toward the goblins, Phillip with his sword, Penelope with her splinters of wood.

Lian slowly moved through the castle, the glow of her sword visible only to her. The harp had to be dealt with, or Phillip’s armies would be massacred outside. From the sounds of the dragons overhead, maybe now was a good time to hurry.

The corridors were fairly empty, which was good, because she didn’t have time to run into a distraction. Goblins would be one thing, and easily handled. Another Eye would be a bit of an issue. And even worse would be—

“Jillian,” said a voice from about her knee level. “I have to say I’m a bit disappointed in you.”

Yup. That would be worse. Jill sighed and dropped the invisibility, as Captain Thomas could see right through it anyway.

“I will accept your surrender, then,” Captain Thomas said, gracefully saluting her with his sword. “And then I shall take you to Her Majesty for your punishment.”

“I’m going to pass on that one, sir,” Jill told him, and launched out with her sword.

Unfortunately, Captain Thomas easily countered it and smacked it out of her hand. “You must have known that wouldn’t work. There’s been only one Eye who was ever my match with our swords, and you’re not even close to as good as the Charmed One.”

The tiny man leapt up, grabbed Jill’s hood, and slammed her to the ground, then placed his sword to her throat. “Now, shall I accept your surrender?”

Jill started to say no, never, or something suitably impressive along those lines, but before she could get a word out, Captain Thomas flew from her side and slammed into first one wall, then the other, then the first again, before dropping unconscious to the floor.

“There’s your first problem,” Jack told Jill, giving her a hand to help her to her feet. “You know you’re supposed to hold
on
to your sword, right?”