The Hero's Guide to Saving Your Kingdom (38 page)

“Because she’s right,” Liam said. “There are loads of people out there who consider themselves heroes, and they’re going to come. I would.”

“Well, snap out of your funk, hero,” Ella said. “Because you and I need to get out of here and stop her before anybody else shows up.”

“You’re right,” Liam said. “We should have several hours at least. Maybe even until morning. We need to get out of these vines before then.”

“Ooh-hoo-hoo!” Zaubera howled gleefully. She was standing over by the observatory’s big westward-facing window. “First guests have arrived! And it’s an entire army. I have to say, that was even faster than I expected.”

“Impossible,” Liam muttered. He and Ella glanced out the west window. Men on horses—hundreds of them—were rising up over a distant hill, riding fast toward the fortress. They couldn’t be more than twenty minutes away.

“But how?” Liam asked.

“I’m sorry, Liam,” Ella said. “I sort of sent your sister for help. That would be Erinthia’s army.”

“Is Lila with them?” Liam gasped.

Ella tried to shrug, but the vines had suddenly tightened to a point where they didn’t even allow that much movement. Zaubera was dashing about in a wild fury, taking quick peeks through all of the observatory’s other windows.

She scrambled to the east-facing window and, without really looking, called out, “Reese, we’ve got an early curtain! Ready the props!” The tree she was speaking to, of course, did nothing.

Zaubera then ran to the northern window and yelled, “Bards, take your places!” Liam and Ella heard the bards whimpering outside as the purple vines dragged the songwriters to perches along the fortress walls.

The witch zipped to the southward window and grumbled. “Where are those bandits? No-shows, eh? Oh well, I was just going to kill them when I was done anyway.”

She turned back to the center of the room. “And now for the stars,” Zaubera said.

The witch twirled her hands. Liam and Ella struggled fruitlessly against their bindings as the animated vines slithered around them both, peeling them from the black stone pillars and lifting them upward toward the opening in the ceiling. Zaubera checked on the approaching army again and saw that the soldiers were being led by a golden coach.

“Excellent,” the witch purred. “We’ve got royalty in the house.”

Lila!
Liam thought. “You don’t need to do this,” he begged. “Kill me if you must, but leave the people out there alone.”

“So chivalrous,” Zaubera mocked. “Can’t bear the thought of others being harmed, can you? That’s why it will be so much fun to make you watch their deaths.”

“No,” Liam wheezed, as the vines squeezed the breath out of him.

That was when he heard the familiar sound of Gustav’s growl. The bald and burly prince bounded up from the stairwell and rushed toward Zaubera with his sword drawn. The witch quickly worked up another ball of blue energy and hurled it at him.

“Gustav, this was all a trap!” Liam yelled. “She’s going to kill that army out there! My sister’s with them! Duck!” Gustav ducked. The glowing blue orb sailed over the prince’s head and blasted a hole right through the northern wall of the tower. Orange sunlight poured into the observatory as bricks, debris, and hundreds of rejected doom-plan diagrams rained down onto the lawn below.

As dust and smoke filled the air, Frederic appeared at the top of the steps.

“Frederic!” Ella called. Frederic had imagined this moment—him running to Ella with open arms, calling her name—but being as winded as he was, doubled over with his hands on his knees, all he could do was nod in her general direction.

Gustav set upon the witch, repeatedly slashing at her with his sword. Zaubera dodged the blows but seemed to be struggling.

“Not so good fighting in close quarters, eh, old lady?” Gustav taunted as he kept on swinging.

“Ella, I can’t believe you’re here,” Frederic called up as he attempted to cut the magical bindings that held her and Liam suspended halfway through the hole in the roof.

“My sword’s doing nothing to these vines,” he said.

“She controls them with her mind,” Ella said.

“Frederic, we need to break her concentration,” Liam said.

“She’s in a wrestling match with Gustav—
that’s
not breaking her concentration?”

“She’s incredibly powerful,” Liam stressed. “We need to
really
break her concentration. And fast.” He looked westward. The army was getting closer. Ten minutes, tops.

“Gustav will do it,” Frederic said. “Look, the witch is starting to flag. You know she’ll tire out before Gustav. Nothing stops Gustav.”

Frederic was right. Zaubera was slowing down. Gustav finally managed to land a blow against her. His sword sliced through the witch’s gown of rags and into her left arm, drawing blood.

Liam tried the vines again, but they were still tight.

“Man, she’s tough,” he groused.

Gustav landed another slicing blow across Zaubera’s shoulder. The witch stumbled backward and braced herself against the eastern windowsill.

“You’re done, old lady!” Gustav roared as he advanced on her. But before he could strike a third time, he spied something outside that stopped him cold. “You’re kidding me,” he said. “My brothers?”

Zaubera grabbed Gustav with her uninjured right hand, lifted him over her head, and threw him clear across the room. The brawny prince’s body smashed into a marble column. Gustav slid to the floor with a thud.

“I miss my armor,” he groaned.

Zaubera turned to look out the window behind her. Gustav’s brothers were weaving their way around the base of Mount Batwing. They’d be at the fortress in six or seven minutes. “Well, well,” the witch said as she wiped a trickle of blood from the corner of her mouth. “A whole gaggle of
princes
. That’s priceless.”

Frederic hacked wildly at the vines, but to no avail. “I’m so sorry,” he panted. “There’s nothing I can do.”

Zaubera licked her colorless lips as she cracked her knuckles and formed a huge ball of sparking blue energy between her hands. It was triple the size of any of the magic bolts they’d yet seen her throw.

Suddenly a strangely melodious sound rose from the top of the stairwell, drawing everyone’s attention.

“Wild card!” Duncan sang as he pranced into the center of the room. Zaubera’s ball of energy fizzled out as she stared, agape, at the newcomer. “Check it out, witch! Meat!” Duncan exclaimed as he opened a damp burlap sack, whipped out a muskrat steak, and chucked it at Zaubera. The slab of stinky meat slapped into her forehead—
thwap!
—and slid to the floor, leaving a trail of viscous grease and greenish chunks of fat along the witch’s puzzled face. It was an attack that was so unexpected, so … stupid, that it left Zaubera completely flummoxed.

“Ack!” she barked, as she tried to wipe the gooey muskrat fat from her eyes. In a panic, the witch shot fireballs and lightning bolts blindly around the room. One shattered a pair of magic mirrors on the wall. Another sizzled her black cat (What? You thought she didn’t have one?). A third almost hit Gustav, but instead sent a series of cracks coursing through the pillar he was hiding behind.

The fourth blast smashed directly into Duncan. It lifted him off his feet and sent him careening backward. Daring Duncan, Prince of Sylvaria, sailed through the gaping hole in the tower’s back wall, out into thin air, and plummeted out of sight.

Everybody stared in horror at the empty space where Duncan had just been—including Zaubera, who, with grease in her eyes, hadn’t actually seen what happened to him. It was during that moment, when the only sound was that of brick and tile dropping to the floor, that Liam made a crucial discovery. He felt the ivy around his chest give.

“The vines!” he whispered. “They’re loose! Duncan did it! He finally broke her focus!”

Frederic swung with all his might and chopped through Ella’s vines at last. She tumbled to the floor and Frederic helped her untangle herself. Ella touched her palm to Frederic’s cheek and whispered, “Thank you,” before grabbing his sword and rushing to cut down Liam.

By that point, Zaubera had managed to gather herself. She noticed Frederic and Ella freeing Liam and raised her arm in their direction.

“Hey, Lady Lipless! Over here!” Gustav shouted.

Zaubera zinged a quick blue bolt at him. It hit him in the chest and slammed him into a cracked and chipping pillar. As Gustav hit the floor, the top of the pillar dislodged from the crumbling ceiling, and the enormous stone column began to topple—with dazed and wearied Gustav directly below it.

Frederic saw the huge hunk of gothic architecture about to crush his friend. With all the speed he could muster, he sprinted across the room. Only a few feet away, and with Gustav disappearing under the shadow of the falling pillar, Frederic dove. He slammed his outstretched palms into Gustav’s side and shoved his friend to safety, just as the crumbling column crashed down.

Gustav rolled over and hoisted himself up onto his hands and knees. “Thank you,” he panted. He grabbed Frederic’s hand and gave it a squeeze of gratitude. The hand felt lifeless and cold inside his. That was when he realized that Ella was screaming Frederic’s name. His head still in a daze, Gustav looked over to his friend. Frederic’s hand, which Gustav still held tightly, jutted awkwardly out from among the strewn chunks of fallen marble; his body was crushed beneath the pillar.

“No,” Gustav whispered.

Ella joined Gustav, and the two hurriedly tossed aside heavy chunks of stone, clearing enough space to let Gustav peer under the fallen column. In the cramped darkness below the debris, he could see Frederic’s gentle face. Frederic’s eyes were closed. Gustav finally knew what real fear felt like.

“I’ll get you out,” Gustav said softly. He planted his shoulder against the pillar and started pushing.

On the other side of the disintegrating observatory chamber, Liam steeled himself for battle. He had no weapon, and the witch was obscenely powerful. His only hope was to take her out the same way she’d taken out Duncan—through the hole in the wall. By this time, the crumbling bricks had widened the opening into a gap that stretched several yards across. He just had to get the witch over to it. With that goal in mind, he tried an old Gustav move: the running tackle.

Liam lowered his head, released a wild scream, and charged directly at Zaubera. He pounded, shoulder-first, into Zaubera’s gut, and the two hit the floor together in a flailing of limbs and flapping of rags. They rolled to within a few feet of the broken wall before coming to a stop. But the witch got to her feet first. She stood over Liam and laughed.

“You fools!” she cackled. “Why do you keep trying? Don’t you see you can never—”

She didn’t get to finish. Ella ran up and socked her in the jaw with a surprisingly powerful uppercut. The witch staggered backward to the edge of the crumbling hole in the wall. She waved her arms wildly, trying to right herself. One heel inched over the edge, then the other.

Then she regained her balance. And smiled with satisfaction.

“Aw, come
on
,” Liam muttered.

“You people are not listening to me,” Zaubera said, as she held out her arms once again to conjure up her diabolical bolts of magical energy. “Zaubera will not be ignored.”

Suddenly a loud flapping sound filled the air, and the sky that could be seen through the ruined wall behind her was blotted out by the dragon rising up outside the tower. The enormous red creature beat its powerful leathery wings as it hovered directly outside the hole. Sitting astride the dragon’s neck was Duncan.

“Hey, guys,” he called. “Look what the dwarfs just showed me how to do!
Kwanchuk!
”

The dragon belched a huge plume of fire that Zaubera barely managed to duck. Ella and Liam dove to avoid the flames themselves. The witch shrieked, her gown of rags ablaze. Duncan shrieked, too. “Oh, no! That’s the wrong one!” he shouted. “Um,
chik-chunk
?”

The dragon sailed forward, plunging its enormous head into the observatory through the hole in the tower wall. The beast opened its mouth and curled its anaconda-like tongue around Zaubera. Howling, the witch clawed at the giant tongue, but to no avail.

“
Kolchak
?” Duncan guessed.

“Heroes,” Zaubera hissed as the dragon pulled her into its mouth and swallowed her whole. One small fiery hiccup later, the witch was gone.

“Well, that was far more gruesome than I’d hoped,” Duncan said with a grimace. “But we beat the witch. Hooray for that, I suppose.” He flashed an uncomfortable smile at Liam and Ella.

With every beat of the dragon’s wings, more rafters tumbled down, and roofing tiles flew loose.

“Duncan, go!” Liam shouted over the din. “We’ll meet you downstairs! The whole room’s going to cave in!”

Duncan nodded. He and the dragon veered off and headed back down to the ground.

Liam and Ella dodged raining rubble as they ran over to Gustav. The big prince had strained every muscle in his body to roll the big stone pillar off of Frederic. He was kneeling over his friend’s broken body when Liam and Ella approached. Liam went cold at the sight of his gravely injured friend.

“Let me help you carry him,” Liam said. “We’ve got to get out of here fast.”

Gustav waved him away. “I’ve got him,” he said, without looking up. “Go.” He picked Frederic up as carefully as possible and limped down twenty flights of stairs behind Liam and Ella. From several stories below, they could hear the remaining walls of the observatory crash down.

As they emerged from the fortress, Duncan and Snow ran to greet them.

“The dragon caught me!” Duncan called out excitedly. “I thought I was a goner, but then—ha!—suddenly I was on a big lizard. And then I finally convinced Frank to tell me … dragon … words…”

Duncan’s voiced trailed off. Gustav laid Frederic’s motionless body on the grass. “Oh, dear,” he said.

“Is he alive?” Ella asked.

Gustav put his head to Frederic’s chest. “He’s breathing, but only barely. It doesn’t look good.”

Ella buried her face in her hands and wept. Duncan’s legs went wobbly. He leaned against Snow White for support as he wiped the sloppy tears from his cheeks.