by Julie Leung
Then the commander of Camelot put on her helmet and walked to the front of the walls. “On your guard!” she bellowed.
Crows, owls, and larks took to the air in an explosion of feathers. Badgers and otters hefted axes and spears as they headed toward the gates. Hares wielding staves and slings bounded away toward the corner towers. And all along the walls, mice and squirrels poured out of Camelot’s secret passages to take up positions along the battlements as they waited for the enemy to attack.
Calib’s heartbeat was as loud as a beating drum. A thousand things could go wrong in battle, and so much was on the line. He began to nibble on his whiskers.
“Good luck, Calib,” Cecily said, sidling up next to him. She squeezed his paw. “And thank you. Without you, we wouldn’t even have a fighting chance.”
Calib’s ears burned. He looked at Cecily. He wanted to tell her something brave, to ask her to be careful in the fight ahead, but there was nothing he could think of that didn’t sound foolish in his head.
Instead, he simply drew his sword and gave a nod to his friends—the pages of Camelot. Cecily raised her own sword, as did Devrin, and even Barnaby, who for once, held his sword steady.
“Watch out!” Macie yelled from somewhere along the wall. A massive wooden shaft sliced through the air above Calib’s head, embedding itself into the side of the wall. It was easily as long as ten mice laid nose to tail.
The Saxons had begun their attack.
“Right,” Lylas barked as he appeared beside the pages. “You little mice, follow me!”
The badger took off at a run. Calib followed, trying to keep pace with Devrin as she darted ahead. Barnaby and Cecily followed close behind.
They passed a pair of Two-Legger soldiers running in the opposite direction. The soldiers spared a confused glance for the sight of five mice chasing after a badger wearing a tortoise shell, but only a glance. They had more urgent concerns.
“For Camelot! Knights of the Round Table, to me!”
Even through the chaotic din of the battle, Calib’s ears pricked up at the sound of Galahad’s voice. He saw the boy in the courtyard below, sitting astride his pony, waving the sword above his head. Knights and soldiers and townsfolk all gathered around him, pressing toward the castle gates. Mostly unnoticed, a small army of hares and otters and mice followed closely at their heels.
As Calib and the pages reached the western wall, more arrows followed, both enormous Two-Legger ones and smaller animal ones. Calib slung acorns down at the enemy, even as he narrowly missed the arrows that were sailing over the high castle walls. Each arrow that made it over the battlements hit the ground with a deafening thud so loud that Calib almost didn’t hear Devrin’s cry of alarm.
“Enemy scaling the western wall! They have ladders!”
Calib looked just as a tall weasel with greasy fur vaulted over and hissed savagely at the pages.
He had a vicious-looking knife between his teeth, and an ax strapped to his back, the hilt protruding above one shoulder. He grinned around the knife, flashing yellow fangs. He spread his arms wide in a dramatic bow.
“Greetings, mousling,” the weasel said, spitting the knife into his paw. “I shall try to make your death as quick as possible.”
CHAPTER
44
There was no time even to feel fear.
Calib turned to face the weasel head-on. Drawing on all the strength he had, he held aloft his sword and pointed it at the weasel’s chest. He shouted the bravest thing that came to his head:
“Turn back in the name of Calib, son of Sir Trenton Christopher, and the memory of my grandfather, Yvers the Great!”
The weasel hesitated for only half a second, and Calib thought, to his surprise, that the weasel was afraid. But then the Saxon began to chuckle, a cruel little snicker that grew loud and full of hate.
“I adore a tasty Christopher mouse! I will tear your chest open just like I did your grandpappy’s!”
Calib felt his body go rigid. Now, clearer than ever, he saw the long, lean shadow that leaped onto the stage, and the giant bladed paws.
A weasel. A weasel assassin.
Calib was standing in front of Yvers’s true killer. The need for vengeance erupted inside his heart. Before Calib could help himself, he was screaming in rage.
“FOR CAMELOT!”
Calib threw himself at the weasel with all his strength. He brandished the sword over his head and brought it slamming down—but the weasel swerved to the side and nimbly parried the blow. As Calib passed him, the weasel delivered a swift kick to Calib’s back.
Calib fell on his stomach, winded. Coughing and gasping, he flipped around to get up. But before he could stand, the weasel stepped on his chest. He positioned his blade-laced paw at Calib’s throat.
“Say hello to your grandfather for me,” he sneered.
“Now, hold on just a moment.”
Never had Calib been more relieved to hear Warren’s mocking voice. “You never introduced yourself,” Warren said, leaning against his sword casually, as if he had not a care in the world. “You didn’t give us a chance to welcome you to Camelot.”
The weasel rounded on him. “The name is Ragnar,” he spat out. “And I don’t want your welcome. I do not go where I am welcome. I go where it pleases me to go, and do as it pleases me to do.”
Warren sighed dramatically and shook his head. “That might be good enough in . . . wherever you lot are from. But here in Camelot we believe in honor and chivalry. And I have to say, the way you’re going about this attack isn’t very chivalrous.”
The weasel laughed scornfully. “Chivalry? Honor? There is no honor in war, foolish mouse. There is only fighting and killing, winning and losing. A lesson you will not live long enough to learn.”
“Fighting and winning,” said Barnaby. Calib squeaked with surprise—Barnaby had manage to sneak up behind the weasel. He slashed at the beast’s hindquarters, scoring a deep cut across his flank. “I think we get that part.”
Ragnar yowled in pain and turned to face Barnaby. Barnaby drew back. Calib saw that he was trembling, but he managed to parry the weasel’s fresh attack—eyes open for once. Calib took the opportunity to dart in and land a blow on the beast’s exposed shoulder, ducking under a furious swipe as the weasel tried to keep all three of his opponents in his line of sight. As he made another lunge at Warren, Cecily and Barnaby leaped onto his neck, biting and pummeling him about the shoulders just below his battered helmet.
With a violent twist, Ragnar managed to stop Cecily from clinging to his back. And a sweep of his tail caught Barnaby in the midsection, tossing him against the parapet. Breathing heavily now, Ragnar seemed to have lost most of his swagger. Now, there was only cold rage in the sneer he turned on Calib and Warren.
“Lesson is over. Now, you die.”
Ragnar slid the knife into his belt, and in one smooth motion drew the ax from behind his back. The shaft was bright metal, but the blade itself was covered in some dark liquid. Poison.
With a vicious hiss, Ragnar charged, swinging the ax. Calib and Warren stumbled back, trying to keep out of range of the blade. There was no chance of landing counterblows now. Ragnar had twice the reach of their swords.
Calib took another step backward and felt cold stone on his tail. Ragnar had them cornered.
Calib held his sword in front of him, ready for one last desperate stand. Beside him, Warren did the same. The poisoned ax gleamed dully in the red afternoon sun.
Then a sudden movement behind Ragnar’s left ear caught Calib’s eye. Devrin was waving frantically to Calib from across the parapet.
No, not waving. She had her sling out, spinning above her head. But good as Devrin was with her sling, Ragnar was wearing thick armor, and a helmet. From where she was standing, there was no part of him that she could hit. Unless . . . Calib’s eyes widened as he understood what she intended for him to do.
He would have only one chance. He knew that. He took a deep breath and remembered
what Devrin had always repeated: he just needed to relax. He needed to believe. He needed to lean into it.
“Say good-bye to this world, mousies,” Ragnar hissed as he raised the ax and prepared to sweep it down on them.
With a snap of her wrist, Devrin’s sling went slack. Calib had only a brief glimpse of something hurtling toward the weasel, shooting past his head, close enough to graze his ear. Calib swung his sword with all of his might.
The impact of the stone against the flat of the sword sent shock waves through Calib’s paws. As fast as Devrin had launched it at Calib, the ricochet was just as fast. The batted stone smashed into Ragnar’s face, catching him right between the eyes. The force of the blow knocked him backward. The weasel dropped his ax and took several unsteady steps, his eyes unfocused. He stumbled to the edge of the wall and teetered there for a moment. Then Ragnar fell, toppling off the rampart into a prickly bush far below.
Calib exhaled a long shuddering breath. Warren stared at the unconscious weasel in amazement. “Wow. I can’t believe I ever made fun of your Hurler technique. That was incredible.”
“Thanks,” Calib said. He felt suddenly uncomfortable. They hated each other . . . didn’t they? “And, um, thank you. You know, for having my back.”
“It was the least I could do,” Warren said with a shrug. But just as quickly, his casualness disintegrated and his shoulders slumped. “Listen, Calib. This is all my fault. If I had been brave earlier and told Kensington the truth . . . I honestly didn’t know Sir Percival was lying. I just want to be a knight so badly.”
“Believe me,” Calib said with a heavy sigh. “I understand more than you know.”
There was a tremendous splintering sound from the main gate.
Calib watched as the knights of Camelot, led by Galahad, rushed to defend it, but already Saxon Two-Leggers were crossing the moat and streaming through the broken drawbridge doors and into the courtyard.
Looking at the rampart above the gate, Calib could make out a tall figure in a flowing gown that could only be Queen Guinevere, attended by the other ladies of the court. At the queen’s signal, the ladies lifted several large kettles and emptied their contents of boiling oil onto the heads of the invaders. Screams and shouts erupted as the scalded Saxons writhed in pain, but still more and more kept coming in.
The queen then plucked a crossbow off a fallen Saxon. The man had just made it over the wall before two owls dropped an icy rock on his head. Setting one of his arrows to the crossbow, Guinevere began to pick off targets from above the gate. Meanwhile, the larks provided cover for the ladies-in-waiting as they retreated farther into the castle.
All around him, Calib could see animals and humans working together against the enemy. The otters were skating across the frozen moat in pairs, tripping Saxon foot soldiers crossing the drawbridge with a piece of rope drawn taut between them. Beyond the moat, he could see Saxon horses stumbling on the holes dug by the garden moles.
Despite all these triumphs, more and more Saxons still gained ground. Calib knew that they would not be able to hold off so many assailants for very much longer.
Then came a strange tremor that shook the walls all the way to the ramparts. It was a rhythmic thumping that rose up from the ground, as if something very heavy and large was bounding closer at a fast gait.
“Do you feel that?” Calib asked Cecily.
Cecily’s tail twitched, and she pressed her ear to the ground. Suddenly, she began to laugh.
“It looks like someone did decide to come after all!” And she pointed toward an enormous dark blur rushing for the castle.
With a gigantic roar, Berwin the Bear charged through the broken gate and into battle.
CHAPTER
45
Berwin the Beastly swept through the unsuspecting Two-Legger Saxons like a scythe. His rusty armor protected his back from the onslaught of arrows. They bounced off Berwin like raindrops.
Growling ferociously, he trampled and slashed at the frightened Saxons around him with wild abandon. His eyes were wide with rage, his jaws snapping.
“Go, Berwin!” Calib and Cecily shouted as the bear, using only a single paw, began pushing an entire squadron of invaders back through the broken doors and into the moat.
Valentina landed on the wall, blocking Calib’s view of Berwin. On her feet she wore a pair of spurs with lethally sharpened prongs. “We need more warriors at the eastern ramparts!” she cawed. “The Saxons are climbing in from every direction!”
Cecily and Calib found Commander Kensington, fighting off five Saxon creatures at once. Every motion she made was fluid and balanced, each attack gliding smoothly into a defensive stance, which in turn flowed back into a counterattack. In a matter of moments, she had dispatched two stoats, two weasels, and a pine marten.
Spying Calib and Cecily, Kensington beckoned them to her side. “You two, cover me.” She pointed toward the western wall. “I’m making my way to him.”
Perched atop the stone battlements, surrounded by Saxon archers, a familiar round face was watching the action unfold below him. He smiled when he saw the mice, revealing a mouth full of rotten teeth.
“Is that . . . ?” Cecily started to ask.
“Sir Percival Vole!” Calib almost choked. It was one thing to suspect a knight of treason, but it was quite another to see him standing in league with the enemies who were trying to kill them. Anger vibrated through every bone in Calib’s body, right down to his tail. His grandfather had trusted Percival, and the vole repaid that trust with deceit and lies.
Calib needed no more motivation. He and Cecily and Kensington hacked and blocked their way across the wall, always with one eye on Sir Percival. They had almost reached him when the vole turned to the archers beside him and pointed in their direction.
“Cover!” yelled Commander Kensington, and the three of them dove behind a broken breastplate that might have once fit an otter.
But before the archers could fire, a scraggly yellow lynx leaped up into view. Leftie barreled into the archers, knocking them aside like rag dolls. Then with a single swipe of his clawed paw, he sent Sir Percival flying off the wall to land at Kensington’s feet.
Calib, Cecily, and Kensington stood over the fat vole, swords pointed at his chest. Percival looked dazed. He was bleeding from a long gash across his left cheek, and he appeared to have lost several of his rotted teeth. But as he regained his senses, his look of confusion was replaced by one of fear.
“Ah, K-Kensington!” he stammered. “Thank goodness you’ve rescued me from these vile Saxons! They were about to—”
“Spare us, Percival.” Kensington’s voice was flat and humorless. “We know what you’ve done. There’s no time to give you the slow punishment your crimes deserve, so a quick death will have to do.”
She raised her sword as Percival cowered in terror. But before she could strike, a booming voice sounded across the wall, a voice so sharp and powerful that creatures on both sides paused in mid-combat to listen.
“Stay your paw, Commander. That one is under my protection.” A red-hooded figure sat astride a hawk. A gold Grecian mask hid the face of the creature beneath. Snakeskin gloves covered its lean paws.
“And who, might I ask, do I have the displeasure of speaking to?” Commander Kensington asked.
“I am known as the Manderlean,” the masked creature said.
Calib’s focus sharpened. So this was the Manderlean. The air seemed to shimmer around the creature. “I am here to offer terms for your surrender. You cannot hope to defeat us with your paltry numbers.”
Leftie spat at the ground.
“Then you should know we would rather die than surrender to the likes of you.”
“Wish granted,” the Manderlean hissed, spurring the winged steed forward. The hawk reared up and tried to take out Leftie’s remaining eye with its cruelly hooked beak. Commander Kensington parried with her sword, sustaining a gash to her own face instead.
It was as if the world in front of
Calib slowed down, and he saw Sir Percival seize his opportunity to escape. Scooting from underneath everyone’s drawn swords, the vole ran to the hawk and leaped behind the Manderlean.
Calib bolted after Percival, latching onto the hawk’s tail. The bird dipped down from the weight.
The Manderlean spun around and looked straight into Calib’s eyes with two black holes. The masked creature gave a short bark of cruel laughter and kicked Calib in the snout. Losing his grip, Calib fell back onto the rampart with a bone-jarring thud.
Another wave of vermin surged over the wall in their wake.
Everything was a mess of fur and blood and metal. Calib stood up, trying to quell his panic. Even with a hundred swords pulled from a hundred stones, even with a bear who had found his courage, they could not hope to turn back the tide of invaders. Camelot was doomed.
Calib felt a final resolve harden his spine. He drew in his breath for a battle cry. If this was to be their fate, let it be one for the legends.
CHAPTER
46
A chorus of horns suddenly sang out from the east, and a cry of dismay caught in Calib’s throat. Could there be even more Saxons joining the fray?
But he saw at once that this was not the case. The Saxons hesitated. They looked at one another, obviously confused.
So who had sounded the horns?
A great winged shadow passed over Calib’s head and circled back to alight in front of him.
“Hop on, Calib Christopher,” General Gaius said. “You deserve to see this.”
Calib scrambled onto the general’s back, holding tight to the feathers at his neck, and the two took off. As they passed over the gates and above the fields beyond, Calib saw a long row of Two-Legger knights on horseback riding over the crest of the hill. The setting sun illuminated their banners and armored steeds. They formed the shape of a V and raised their weapons—their spears, axes, and swords aimed directly at the Saxon forces.
