The Black Fortress

by E. G. Foley

  Meanwhile, the pair on the field were whispering anxiously to each other. Stasia planted herself in front of Princess Pansy and the Lightrider, her quarterstaff at the ready.

  Luckily for Chloe, the sight of the blindfolded monster hunting them must’ve jolted her memory. She lifted her left forearm and finished dialing in the coordinates.

  To everyone’s relief, the tabby girl remembered correctly, for a kid-sized portal opened right above the waypoint.

  It was not as big as the real one that Derek’s team had gone through to rescue Red, but it had the same silver shimmer, like an upright, watery mirror.

  Now, per Finnderool’s instructions, the girls had thirty seconds max to grab Princess Pansy and run through the portal. But it was then that an unexpected feature of the doll kicked in.

  “Hurry, they’re coming,” Princess Pansy said in a lifeless monotone.

  The ogre heard it.

  The creature whipped around at the sound. With a bellow, it leaped and then leaped again, slamming down just a few feet away from them.

  Chloe shrieked and darted to the right with feline speed. Stasia stumbled to the left, nearly tripping over her own hooves in her fright.

  The ogre swung its long, gorilla-like arms trying to tag them, and pandemonium broke out down at the far end of the field.

  The teachers looked on, nonchalant.

  The doll, abandoned now, swung back and forth. “Hurry, they’re coming. Hurry, they’re coming.”

  Dani watched wide-eyed, her heart thumping as the blindfolded ogre tried to catch her two panicked classmates.

  The girls were dodging this way and that.

  Even though it was just a training simulation and the ogre wasn’t technically real, the doll’s deadpan words added pressure to an already stressful situation.

  “Hurry, they’re coming.”

  Grazed by the ogre’s swinging knuckles, Princess Pansy got knocked down and rolled several feet away.

  Chloe crouched down, catlike, and bounded after their VIP. Bravely, Stasia took it upon herself to distract the big, clumsy monster. She galloped swiftly to the right, stopped several yards away, and let out a piercing whistle through her fingers. It drew the ogre’s attention.

  The brute sprang after her. Though she zigzagged enough to elude it, unfortunately, the ogre was now blocking the centaur’s return path to the portal—and she had only seconds to get there.

  “Hurry up!” Chloe yelled. She had recovered the doll and stood waiting for her partner at the edge of the shining portal.

  Dani winced, for it was the ogre who harkened to her call. Perking up, the blindfolded brute chased after her voice.

  Chloe screamed as it charged her, and in her panic, turned into her cat form and leaped through the portal with a reer!, leaving behind both her uniform and Princess Pansy.

  “Chloe, get back here!” Stasia bellowed.

  But her partner was gone.

  “Hurry, they’re coming,” said Princess Pansy.

  With a determined look, Stasia galloped around the ogre, her ponytail flying. She grabbed the doll with one hand as she passed it, but when the ogre leaped again right in front of her, she, too, lost her cool. Someone chortled as Stasia threw Princess Pansy at the monster, as if that was going to help.

  It did distract the ogre momentarily. He grabbed the doll and started bashing it about back and forth gleefully on the ground.

  Stasia galloped into the portal just as the ogre popped the inflatable doll between its massive hands.

  The portal blinked closed, and, at once, the ogre faded away.

  The field was left empty, but for the waypoint’s beam of light and the tattered remnants of poor Princess Pansy, which, every few seconds, still continued to warn, “Hurry, they’re coming.”

  A ripple of excitement ran through the class, as the kids had now gained a better understanding of how this would work.

  “Where did they land?” Dani wondered aloud.

  Brian shrugged. “Not at the ice cream party, I wager.”

  “No, indeed. Now then.” Hands on hips, Finnderool looked around at the class while Master Ebrahim scowled at one of his best students’ failure. “What were their mistakes?”

  Max shot up his hand. A dwarf lad barely up to Dani’s shoulder, he was another Lightrider-in-training. “Chloe forgot her coordinates. And their timing was off, sir.”

  “Correct. Again, children, you will have only thirty seconds until the portal closes.”

  “They froze up when they saw the ogre,” Huang chimed in, his arms folded across his chest. “Wasted valuable time.”

  The supremely confident lad was one of the best in the Guardian class, having already mastered some unique martial arts training he had learned in the Orient, where he had been born.

  He’d brought with him moves from the Far East that some of the adult Guardians did not even know. Huang had been happy to teach them, since this only gave him more of a chance to show off.

  Ebrahim nodded in approval. “Huang is right. Guardians must stand their ground. However, Stasia did well with her distraction technique. The only other hint I will give you is to open your eyes, look around, and use what you find on hand.”

  “No one warned us there’d be ogres,” someone mumbled.

  Dani didn’t see who had said it, but Finnderool merely smiled.

  “My dear people, the rules of the game will rarely be spelled out for you in real-life situations. You’re going to have to learn to think on your feet.” The wood elf smiled slyly. “Hmm, I wonder if anyone will be eating that ice cream today.”

  “I will if they don’t!” Ebrahim said, and Sir Peter laughed.

  “But what was their greatest mistake?” Finnderool persisted, searching the kids’ faces. “They broke one of the primary rules. Can anyone tell me what it is?”

  Dani raised her hand tentatively.

  “Yes, Miss O’Dell?”

  “Um, don’t use Princess Pansy as a weapon?”

  Some laughed at the way she had phrased it, but that was what Stasia had done, lobbing Her Highness at the ogre.

  “Exactly.” Finnderool nodded. “They both abandoned their conductee when the ogre charged. You can’t just hurl your VIP at oncoming threats. Understand me well, children. You Lightriders are very pleased with yourselves for being chosen, I know. And you Guardians are proud of your strength and speed, as you should be. But, on a real mission, neither of you are what really matters to the Order. The important one is this lady here.”

  He popped another Pansy pellet and dropped it to the ground, where it began inflating.

  “The real missions you’ll face can come with the highest of stakes. After all, maybe your VIP is a diplomat sent to negotiate a peace treaty between two warring factions, or to smooth ruffled feathers at some royal court that otherwise could have dangerous consequences. Our diplomats deal with high-level matters, often life or death. It is not our place to ask why the Elders send our ambassadors and agents to their various destinations. Our job is simply to support them in that however we can and, above all, get them there and back in one piece.”

  Dani blew out a breath and thought about Isabelle and Archie’s parents. The glamorous Viscount and Viscountess Bradford were diplomats.

  Until this moment, she had never much thought about why the sophisticated couple were always whisking away halfway around the world. Hmm. Maybe they had a good reason for largely ignoring their children, Dani mused.

  Finnderool lifted his chin. “Now then, it is time for our second team of volunteers. However, I can now reveal another aspect of the game.”

  “Pay attention,” Sir Peter advised in a low singsong.

  “The simulation is going to look different for all of you. The first team got the easiest set of challenges.” Finnderool smiled. “It just gets harder from here.”

  Dani’s jaw dropped, and every kid gasped.

  “It’s not going to be the same?” Brian blurted out.

  Finnd
erool shook his head. “The easy setting was team one’s reward for volunteering to go first. Each team after them will find your challenges increasingly difficult.”

  The last kids groaned at the prospect of what they might face. With a crafty smile, Finnderool handed team two their Princess Pansy.

  “Aw, don’t look at me like that, children.” Sir Peter sauntered forward again to change the playing field with his wand for the next team. “One day, you’ll look back at all this and laugh at how easy it actually was.”

  Ebrahim nodded sagely. “It’s always got to be hard before it gets easy.”

  “Quiet now, everyone,” Finnderool said so the wizard could work.

  Sir Peter invoked his magic again, and the playing field began to change.

  Trees appeared, sprouting full-sized in seconds right out of the smooth green turf. The waypoint shifted to the far corner, and a meandering stream suddenly gushed out of the woods on the right-hand side of the field, cutting a path through the turf and wending its way across the green, to disappear into the woods on the left.

  He pivoted. “Voila.”

  “Nicely done,” Finnderool murmured.

  The wizard bowed as he passed him. “Proceed, Master Elf.” Sir Peter walked clear of the chalk line marking the playing field, his black robes flowing out behind him.

  “You’re up, team two. Good luck—but, mind you, Princess Pansy doesn’t like to get her feet wet!” Finnderool called after them as they headed off.

  Team two consisted of Max, the dwarf Lightrider kid, and Guardian-in-training Tyra, who was actually Ebrahim’s niece. She had cocoa-brown skin and pretty green eyes, and she was one of the strongest girls Dani had ever met.

  Tyra could do nearly as many push-ups as Maddox. Maybe that was why she walked with bit of a swagger—but then again, many Guardians did.

  In any case, Dani and Brian exchanged a private glance of amusement at the funny pairing of the tall, imposing girl and the short, bespectacled boy.

  Max stared at his slip of paper for another long moment, then handed it back to Finnderool with a grim look.

  “Max shouldn’t be nervous,” Dani whispered to Brian. “He’s one of the brightest kids in my class. He always knows the answers.”

  “Neither should Tyra. She could probably beat up that ogre, from what I’ve seen,” he whispered back.

  With that, team two set out. Little Max jogged to keep up with Tyra’s long, sure strides as they headed for the waypoint glowing in the corner.

  The bats whooshed by, just as before. Then they came to the stream.

  Tyra bent down and let Max climb on her shoulders, carrying Princess Pansy in her free hand. As the dwarf boy balanced astride the Guardian girl’s strong shoulders, he started dialing in coordinates already.

  “Max, don’t do it too soon!” Tyra warned, wading across the stream.

  Dani was relieved to see that the water was only knee-high on the girl.

  “Don’t worry, I’m not going to activate the portal yet,” Max said. “I’m just putting the numbers in while they’re still fresh in my mind.”

  “Clever lad,” Sir Peter murmured, looking on with the rest of them.

  “Oh,” Tyra said. “Good idea.” Striding up onto the other side of the stream, she tossed Princess Pansy to the ground, then bent forward and let Max hop off her shoulders.

  He whispered something to her, pointing toward the stream. Tyra nodded, then went back to the water’s edge and picked up a good-sized rock.

  “What’s that for?” Dani whispered to her partner.

  Brian shook his head. “Maybe she’s gonna use it to bash the ogre. Master Ebrahim did say to use what we find.”

  “Right…” Dani looked on with renewed interest. It was clear that team two had some sort of plan as they began jogging toward the waypoint.

  They hadn’t gone far when the woods to the left rustled and the trees began to shake. Anticipating the reappearance of the blindfolded ogre, team two signaled to each other to keep silent and ran faster.

  When the ogre burst out of the woods, Tyra seemed ready. Thankfully, the creature was still blindfolded. But, again, with her usual bad timing, Princess Pansy chose that moment to say: “Hurry, they’re coming.”

  The ogre turned toward the sound.

  Tyra took the stone from the stream bed and threw it far into the woods to the right of the field. It clattered into the underbrush and fell somewhere in the loud, crispy leaves.

  The ogre bounded after the sound and disappeared into the woods.

  Finnderool nodded and Sir Peter clapped for them. Ebrahim looked quite proud of his niece. Out on the field, team two did not pause to celebrate outwitting the ogre, but continued jogging toward the waypoint.

  Things were looking good for the pair—until they passed through the glade Sir Peter had conjured.

  It turned out the trees were unfriendly.

  As the kids hurried through the grove, the trees came to life and started taunting them, throwing little crabapples at them and yelling crabby things.

  There was nothing they could do but run.

  “Open the portal, Max!”

  “It’s too soon! We only get thirty seconds before it closes!”

  “I don’t care! I’ve got a bad feeling.”

  Uh-oh, thought Dani. It was always bad news hearing that from a Guardian.

  “Hurry, they’re coming,” Princess Pansy said over and over.

  It was nerve-racking, that toneless refrain echoing down the field.

  “Open it!” Tyra insisted as they ran, still getting pelted with miniature apples.

  “Fine!” Max muttered, then he must’ve pressed the activate button, for right on cue, the portal winked to life ahead of them.

  They had almost escaped the grove when, suddenly, two little gray squirrels jumped down from the tree onto the ground right in front of them.

  Though they were small and fluffy and cute, they were surprisingly aggressive. The squirrels began stalking toward the pair, chattering angrily and baring their little buckteeth at them. They seemed determined to block their path to the waypoint.

  Team two was nonplussed at this unexpected obstacle.

  “Do they bite?” Max exclaimed.

  “How should I know? Maybe?”

  “They have really big teeth!” Max said. “You’re the Guardian. Do something!”

  “Fine, I’ll distract them. You take Princess Pansy to her destination.” Tyra handed off the doll to Max.

  This was a bit of a problem, since he and the doll were about the same height, but he hurried away nonetheless, dragging the doll’s feet on the ground.

  The portal was waiting, after all, and they had less than twenty seconds now.

  Tyra used her quarterstaff like a shepherd’s hook to stop the squirrels from following him, brushing them back.

  They could hear her trying to make friendly noises to the animals, as if the little attack squirrels were dogs. Bending down cautiously, she picked up some of the crabapples the trees had been throwing at them and tried to tempt the squirrels with them, as if they were treats.

  The squirrels were not interested. They scampered after Max and managed to get between him and the portal.

  Tyra ran to his aid. Each time the kids tried to sneak around them, the squirrels blocked their path, chattering away as if they knew they only had to hold them off for another few seconds.

  They were strangely intimidating, especially to Max, since they stood as high as his knee.

  Tyra started getting angry. “Get out of the way, you little vermin!”

  She threw the crabapples at them, trying to drive them away, but that only seemed to make them angry.

  “All right, here’s the plan,” she said to Max through gritted teeth. “I’m going to whack them and you run. Take the doll with you.”

  “You can’t club them to death! They’re just a couple of cute little squirrels.”

  “They’re ruining our test! Do you want to
fail? I don’t!”

  “Fine! Just don’t hurt them.”

  Tyra huffed. “You do your part—I’ll do mine.” She held her quarterstaff out in front of her like it was a bat and slowly bent down. “Ready? Go!”

  She whooshed her staff to the side, whacking the squirrels none too gently out of the way. They tumbled aside, rolling heads over tails, screeching with anger and perhaps a little pain.

  At once, Max ran at top speed for the portal, dragging Princess Pansy with him. He raced into it and disappeared with his VIP.

  “He did it!” Dani murmured. She turned to Brian.

  He was staring down the field, watching Tyra.

  The girl sprang to her feet and, with all the speed in her Guardian blood, raced after her partner. But the vengeful rodents recovered, and, this time, they attacked, leaping up onto Tyra’s back.

  She shrieked and squirmed to get them off, but the portal closed and the squirrels disappeared. The simulation ended, and Tyra was furious. She threw down her quarterstaff with a muffled curse.

  “Temper!” Ebrahim boomed at his niece across the field.

  Tyra picked up her weapon, still looking furious. “Sorry, sir,” she muttered.

  She returned to the rest of the group with her head down. She was clearly incensed at herself, so they all gave her plenty of space.

  “Consider yourself lucky, young lady,” Finnderool said. “At least you didn’t land where your partner did.”

  “Didn’t Max get ice cream?” someone asked in surprise.

  “Absolutely not. He left a teammate behind.”

  Dani and Brian exchanged a worried look. This game just kept getting harder and harder.

  “Have you memorized our coordinates yet?” he asked with a gulp.

  “I’ll keep working on it.”

  Dani turned away and concentrated on her slip of paper while Sir Peter rearranged the landscape a bit. Determined to memorize her coordinates—after all, this was the main part of her future job—she only half paid attention to team three.

  The Lightrider was a slim, quiet wood elf girl called Peregrine with lavender eyes and hair the color of moonbeams. Her partner was Huang, and even now, he seemed very sure of himself. Rather like Jake, Dani couldn’t help thinking.