The Hero's Guide to Being an Outlaw

by Christopher Healy

PRINCE LIAM of ERINTHIA;

  PRINCE GUSTAV of STURMHAGEN;

  PRINCE FREDERIC of HARMONIA;

  PRINCE DUNCAN of SYLVARIA;

  PRINCESS LILA of ERINTHIA;

  PRINCESS SNOW WHITE of SYLVARIA;

  the LADY ELLA, swordswoman of HARMONIA;

  and the LADY RAPUNZEL,

  mystic of STURMHAGEN.

  Frederic looked up. “I can’t believe what I’m seeing,” he gasped.

  “I know,” Gustav said, sounding offended. “Those girls aren’t in the League! It’s the League of Princes, for Pete’s sake!”

  “How could I be accused of murder?” Rapunzel snapped. “I’ve devoted my life to healing people!”

  “It doesn’t make any sense,” Frederic stammered. “And . . . and . . . whose murder?”

  “Read on,” Gustav said solemnly. Frederic unrolled more of the Wanted poster.

  The LEAGUE has been found GUILTY

  of the MOST CRUEL MURDER

  of HER MAJESTY BRIAR ROSE,

  PRINCESS of AVONDELL.

  “Oh, no,” Frederic gasped. “Briar has been . . . ?”

  “Apparently so,” Gustav said. “And some blasted bard wrote a song about how we did it. It’s all anybody’s been talking about for the past couple days. I can’t believe neither of you has heard it.”

  “This is beyond horrible,” Rapunzel said. “I saved Briar’s life just a short while ago. That snakebite almost killed her, but I brought her back. And now . . .”

  “It’s too awful for words,” Frederic said.

  “I know,” Gustav added. “I mean, she may not have been the friendliest person we’ve ever met . . . and she did force Capey to marry her against his wishes . . . and she did throw us all in prison for no good reason . . . and she did try to sacrifice all of us so she could steal a magic jewel and take over the world . . .” Gustav paused. “Sheesh, no wonder everybody thinks we did it.”

  “But there’s no evidence,” Frederic said, still rattled by the news. “I mean, there can’t be, since we didn’t do it. Who told the bards we were responsible? Who would set us up like that?”

  “And people really believe we’re killers?” Rapunzel asked, looking slightly green.

  “Based on the things they’ve thrown at me, yes,” Gustav replied. “Axes, bricks, flaming barrels—and those were just random farmers outside my door. The real bounty hunters didn’t catch up to me until yesterday.”

  A terrifying thought crossed Frederic’s mind. He read the last lines of the Wanted poster.

  ANYONE WHO DELIVERS

  the FUGITIVES—ALIVE—

  to the ROYAL COURT in AVONDELL,

  SHALL RECEIVE, as his REWARD,

  UNTOLD RICHES.

  “Those bounty hunters are still chasing you, aren’t they?” he said. “And now they’ll find all three of us?”

  “Don’t get your pj’s in a bunch,” Gustav said, waving his hand dismissively. “I ditched those jerks way back by the Carpagian border. It’ll be days before they pick up my trail again.”

  At which point they suddenly found themselves surrounded by bounty hunters. Six men stepped out of the trees, including one who held three pony-size, gray-furred creatures on leashes.

  “See, giant ferrets,” Gustav said.

  “These ain’t no giant ferrets. They’re giant mongeese,” drawled the beady-eyed man who held the leashes. His pets hissed and bared their glistening fangs. “Vicious, cunning, snake-eating mongeese.”

  “Mongooses,” Frederic corrected.

  “You can’t help yourself, can you?” Rapunzel said to him.

  “They’re mongeese!” the bounty hunter snapped. “They’re my animals, and I say they’re mongeese!”

  Fig. 3

  BOUNTY HUNTERS, assorted

  “You know, I have been telling you for ages that ‘mongeese’ is incorrect,” said another hunter, a slender elf with a longbow slung over his shoulder.

  “Look, it’s ‘goose’ and ‘geese,’ right?” the first replied. “So ‘mongoose,’ ‘mongeese.’”

  “You gotta admit, though,” added a stout, orange-bearded bounty hunter, “‘mongeese’ does sound kinda dumb.”

  “Enough!” A hooded man stepped forward; two curved swords formed an X on his back, and his belt was lined with daggers. He pulled back his hood, revealing a creased face and thin lips that curled over a mouthful of misshapen, discolored teeth. “The next person who argues grammar gets a dagger in his eye.”

  He sauntered up to Frederic and yanked the Wanted poster from the prince’s hand. He pointed to the sketch of Frederic’s face. “That you?” he asked.

  Frederic took a closer look at the drawing. “Uh, yes, that would be me. No point in denying it. The picture is an unfortunately accurate likeness. It figures, you know. The artist we hire to do our family portraits makes me look like I’m half goblin, the sculptor who crafts the League’s victory statue gives me a nose like a toucan, but the guy who draws the Wanted poster? He nails it.” He sighed and continued, “But now you have us at a disadvantage. You know who I am, but you have yet to introduce yourself.”

  The leader smiled. “I’m Greenfang,” he said. “I like you. You’ve got moxie. Shame they’ll probably kill you when I turn you in.” He called to the others, “Take him; the girl, too.” A pair of tall, blond twins grabbed Frederic and Rapunzel. While Frederic feared for his life and that of his friends, he couldn’t help feeling at least a smidgen of pride—no one had ever told him he had moxie before.

  Greenfang, in the meantime, walked over to Gustav, who was still stuck on the ground. The bounty hunter drew one of his long scimitars, jammed the blade between the teeth of the trap, and pried it open, freeing Gustav’s leg.

  Gustav slapped a hand to his forehead. “Starf it all!” he cursed. “I have a sword! I could’ve done that!” His forgotten weapon was then, of course, quickly taken away.

  As the three prisoners were led through the thick woods, Gustav hopping slowly along on one leg, the elven archer kept his bow trained on them.

  “Give it a rest, Pointy Ears,” Gustav snarked. “It’s not like I can run.”

  “Oh, you wouldn’t be able to escape even if you were in prime physical condition,” the archer replied coolly. “And since you so callously feel the need to bring it up, there is no race in the Thirteen Kingdoms with more finely crafted ears than us elves.”

  “Aren’t you a little tall to be an elf?” Gustav said. “Shouldn’t you be off making toys somewhere?”

  The archer sniffed haughtily. “I am an Avondellian elf. You are thinking of those uncultured craftsmen, the Svenlandian elves. Pudgy little cretins, always baking cookies or mending shoes. And those ridiculous, curly-toed slippers they wear! Feh! Those lowly creatures don’t deserve to go by the name of Elf. They might as well start posing for lawn ornaments like the gnomes.”

  “Pete!” Greenfang snapped at him. “I’m gonna shove your silky ponytail down your throat if you go off on one more rant about the Svenlandian elves. Better yet, I’ll cut you out of the reward money.”

  Pete huffed but kept his mouth shut. They exited the forest, coming out onto a gravelly road, where the prisoners were loaded into a large iron cage that sat on the flat bed of a waiting wagon.

  “So, Mr. Greenfang,” Frederic said as the cage door was locked. “I assume you’re doing this for the gold—am I correct?”

  “I see why they call you the smart one,” Greenfang replied.

  “Do they? I always thought of Liam as the smart one,” Frederic said. “Well, anyway, I wanted to remind you that I happen to be a wealthy prince. If you were to let us go, I’d be happy to pay you more than Avondell is offering.”

  Greenfang let out a dry, rasping laugh. “No kingdom’s got more money than Avondell,” he said. “Enjoy the ride.” The orange-bearded hunter took the reins of the wagon, while the others all mounted horses (or in one case, a giant mongoose) and galloped away.

  “What now?” Frederic asked, b
racing himself as the wagon began to roll. “The bounty hunters are all up ahead of us. If we’re going to escape, now is the time.”

  “First things first,” Rapunzel said. She quickly blinked a tear onto Gustav’s mangled ankle. Wiping her cheek, she cast a warm smile at him. “Can’t save the day if you’re not in top form, right?”

  Gustav wiggled his foot a few times, a wide grin on his face. “All right,” he said. “Let’s get outta here.” He stood up, swung his newly healed leg, and landed a colossal kick against the cage’s iron-bar door. The door didn’t budge. Gustav, however, fell onto his back, groaning and clutching his newly rebroken foot. Rapunzel stared at him, incredulous.

  “Blink!” Frederic said.

  “All right, all right. I’ll give him another tear,” Rapunzel said. “Just hold on a sec; I’m going to have a hard time working this one up.”

  “No, Blink and Deedle!” Frederic said. Two blue lights hovered just outside the cage door, keeping up with the rolling wagon. “Did you bring the crowbar?”

  “Too heavety,” Blink said, shaking her little head.

  “You need to go get help then,” Frederic whispered to them, glancing around to make sure none of their captors were watching.

  “Who?” Rapunzel asked. “None of our friends are within even a day’s ride of here.”

  “Right . . . Aha!” Frederic’s eyes lit up. “Go to Castle Sturmhagen and tell Gustav’s brothers we need their assistance.”

  “No,” Gustav said adamantly. “Nuh-uh. Not gonna happen.” Gustav’s older brothers were bullies, plain and simple. All sixteen of them. They’d tormented their youngest sibling for his entire life: mocking him, pulling pranks on him, and stealing his glory whenever possible. These were the very men who undeservedly took credit for the League’s rescue of the kidnapped bards.

  “Sixteen strong fighters who can probably catch up to us with just a couple hours of riding,” Frederic said. “Sorry, Gustav, they’re our best hope. Go, sprites—alert the princes of Sturmhagen! And be speedy about it.” Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed the intense way Rapunzel was looking at him. He thought it might be admiration. Either that or he had a piece of apple skin stuck between his front teeth. He shut his mouth, just in case.

  The sprites rocketed off.

  Still holding his foot in the air, Gustav grumbled, “Just what I was hoping for—a family reunion.”

  Twenty minutes later, Blink and Deedle arrived at the stark, white-stone walls of Castle Sturmhagen. An hour of searching its antler- and fur-festooned halls, however, proved fruitless. Not one prince was to be found. The sprites hovered under a stuffed caribou head, baffled.

  “No biggety princes,” Deedle said.

  “Impossible,” Blink replied impatiently. “Should be so many.”

  A maid wearing an elk-hide apron stepped out of a nearby bedroom and jumped in terror. “Get away from me, you wee blue demons!” she shouted.

  “Wrong thing!” Blink snapped. She crossed her arms and, though she was hovering in midair, she tapped her foot as if there were solid ground beneath her. “Tell us where biggety princes are.”

  “We havety message for them,” Deedle added.

  “Message, eh?” The maid squinted skeptically at the creatures floating before her. “Well, you’re in the wrong place. Down in the dungeon’s where they are.”

  “Princes guard prisoners?” Deedle asked.

  “The princes are the prisoners,” the maid said. “Quite a shock, I know. All sixteen of ’em turned traitor. King Olaf himself, the lads’ own father, had to lock ’em away. All of us around here are takin’ the news pretty hard. I don’t even know what those boys did to— Wait a minute. Why am I telling this to you? I don’t even know what you are. I should— Huh? Where’d you go?”

  The sprites had zoomed up to the throne room, where they hid behind a wall-mounted torch spying on King Olaf. The seven-foot-tall monarch sat hunched on his pinewood throne like an old, gray grizzly. The sprites would have flown right up to him and demanded to know why he’d imprisoned his sons, but the king was not alone. The left-hand throne, usually reserved for Queen Berthilda, was filled (or overfilled, actually) by a stranger—a man who was so tremendously muscular that he made Olaf look like a dwarf in comparison. The enormous mountain of a man sat there, breathing heavily, a red-and-black mask tied around the top of his head and an insanely long, ropelike mustache dangling all the way to his belly.

  The sprites had never seen Wrathgar before, so they didn’t know he was the sadistic dungeon master who’d nearly killed Gustav months earlier. Nor did they know that Wrathgar was one of Lord Rundark’s fiercest and most trusted generals. But they knew trouble when they saw it. They fled immediately.

  “What now?” Blink asked as they darted out into the cobblestone courtyard.

  “Need someone else to helpety Zel,” Deedle panted.

  “Ooh! Princety Charmings!” Blink yipped with inspiration.

  “Two Princety Charmings stuckety with Zel.”

  “Yes, but there two more. Zel say so. And one is the bestety hero of all.”

  “Which one?”

  Blink squeezed her eyes shut, thought for a moment, then popped them back open. “Duncan! Princety Duncan. He live in Sylvaria.”

  Deedle shrugged. “Let’s go to Sylvaria!”

  5

  AN OUTLAW LISTENS TO HIS DAD

  Castlevaria, the home of Sylvaria’s ruling family, was different from the royal palaces of other kingdoms. For one thing, it was bright salmon pink. Most castle makers stick with the raw stone look or, if they’re going for something fancier, perhaps polished marble. But Castlevaria was designed by its primary resident, King King—a man who had once instructed his royal scientists to “jazz up the rainbow.” “Try sticking a new color between orange and yellow,” he’d told them. The scientists all quit after that.

  In fact, over the course of their twenty-five years in power, King King and Queen Apricotta had seen virtually everyone who worked for them resign. By this point the castle staff consisted only of three untrained guards, a one-armed chambermaid, and a nine-year-old houseboy named Pip. The royal family had to take care of almost everything themselves. Which is why Snow White, wife to Sylvaria’s Prince Duncan, was beginning to regret their decision to leave their woodland estate and move into Castlevaria.

  “Dunky, you know I’m never one to shy away from chores—they provide an excellent opportunity for whistling,” Snow said while working her way through the washing of a four-foot-high stack of plates (the queen had served blueberries for breakfast and decided it would be fun to put each berry on its own plate). Even while toiling at the sink, the petite princess wore an elaborate dress of her own creation—this one was canary yellow with swirly ribbons dangling from the sleeves. She paused to pull one of the ribbons out of the soapy water. “But living here is exhausting.”

  Fig. 4

  CASTLEVARIA

  Duncan, who was sitting at his kitchen “author’s desk” (he had one in every room), did not look up from the pages of the book in which he was writing. “I’m sorry, Snowy. But aren’t you happy that I’ve gotten so much closer to my family?” he said. He wore an outfit that was, for Duncan, relatively subdued—a velvet vest, puffy blue pantaloons, and curly-toed shoes. Sitting atop his wavy black hair was a miniature derby that Snow had made for him as a congratulations-on-saving-the-kingdom gift. “And I’m getting a lot of work done on my book here,” he continued, tapping the pages of his almost-finished Hero’s Guide to Being a Hero. “I’m about to start the chapter on the dangers of ill-fitting leggings.”

  He glanced over at his wife. “But I don’t want you to be unhappy,” he said. “Do you think we should go back to live with the dwarfs again?”

  Snow sighed and adjusted her acorn-encrusted tiara. “No. But are you sure we can’t hire some more people to help out around here?”

  “No one else will work here,” Duncan said with an apologetic shrug. “It’s not like
we haven’t tried to get people. And you should have seen some of the incentives my family has offered to potential servants—unlimited use of the royal toenail clipper, all the asparagus you can eat, a new origami pigeon every Friday . . . although we probably shouldn’t have offered that one, since none of us knows how to do origami.”

  “Pip, what do you like about working here?” Snow asked, turning to the grubby-faced boy who was sweeping one of Castlevaria’s fifty-seven fireplaces.

  “Well, I like feeling safe,” he said. “My last boss was an ogre. Literally. I was always afraid I might end up his next meal.”

  “That’s it,” Duncan said cheerily. “I’ll make up some new Help Wanted signs: ‘Come work for the royal family. We will not eat you.’ Figgy Shortshanks!” That last bit was Duncan naming a mouse that skittered out of the cupboard.

  Just then, the kitchen door suddenly flew off its hinges. (Don’t worry; it had never been attached.) “That is exciting every time,” King King said, clapping. “I’m going to do it again.” The gangly monarch stood the door back up, pushed it down with a crash, and applauded once more. As he bounced, his hair, curling up from beneath his pillow-top crown, flapped like a pair of wings.

  “Come along, Son,” the king said. “I need to teach you all about ruling a kingdom.”

  “No, you don’t, Dad,” Duncan speedily replied. “Anyway, I’ve got a book to finish. My fans are waiting.” He returned to scribbling on a blank page.

  Perhaps you can relate. If you have ever been a child (and I’m reasonably sure you have), then you’ve no doubt experienced the frustration of having a parent pull you away from an enjoyable pastime in order to instruct you on how to reattach loose buttons, clean leaves out of rain gutters, or separate egg yolks—and you have paid little attention because you know in your heart that you will never in your life have cause to do such things. That is exactly how Duncan was feeling at that moment. Even though he was fully grown. Adults don’t really like it when their parents tell them how to do something either. And in this case, Duncan was justified, since his father’s skills as a ruler were questionable at best.