War of the Cards

by Colleen Oakes

  She watched as Derwin rounded the south side of the castle and got into position. He raced across the stables and above the towering iron gates, which were now swarming with Yurkei. Without stopping, Derwin sent arrows into the skulls of two invaders who tried to stop him. Dinah closed her eyes. I’m sorry, I’m sorry, but he has a part to play. Her men screamed as they fell to their deaths, her men. The line of betrayal was so fine in war, it was practically made of sand.

  Dinah watched carefully now as Derwin took a wide stance, two fellow archers slumped over the wall beside him. She took a deep breath and looked away as Derwin took aim. There were shouts from all around her as the Spades sprinted toward their fake queen, sitting on her horse far from anyone’s reach on the hill outside the palace. The remaining Yurkei were running too, their wild screams attracting the attention of the cluster of Heart Cards on the south side of the palace. From underneath her crusted brown hood, Dinah watched as Derwin Fergal loaded his longbow with a specially designed arrow, one created for speed and distance—and looked over the tower to the Rebel Queen’s army. The Heart Cards were moving slowly toward the Yurkei girl now, their eyes on Derwin, praying and hoping that this boy would do what no one else could. The archer stopped moving. Dinah looked back at Napayshi, sitting there atop her black steed, the crown of red upon her head, regal, beautiful, and a symbol of her people. Ready to die. The fake queen was yelling orders at the men in a good impression of Dinah’s proud and haughty voice as she started galloping closer to the palace, drawing the Cards near her. Dinah exhaled and let all the air rush out of her lungs. One shot.

  Sir Gorrann and Wardley stepped in front of Dinah, just in case, always protective of their queen. Dinah raised herself up on the tips of her toes to see over their shoulders, letting everything fall away from her—the battle, the palace, the king—and let her vision tunnel onto only the Yurkei woman. There was only Derwin and the girl everyone thought was the queen. He aimed the arrow right at her beating heart. Dinah stopped for a moment to look at the palace, black hair falling across her cheeks. He could not fail.

  Derwin released his arrow. It darted past his cheek, flying straight and true. It sailed steadily past the palace walls, unyielding as a hawk as it barreled down upon the Yurkei girl. The arrow struck with such force that it propelled her backward off the horse and onto the ground. She let out a loud scream as her body was punched into the ground, the terrible sound echoing in Dinah’s ears, a memory she knew was marring her heart like a scar. She grimaced as the world went silent. The red glass heart shimmered in the light from where it pierced her chest. The girl sat propped up like a rag doll, the arrow stuck far out of her back, a blossom of dark blood seeping from her chest. Napayshi was dead before she hit the ground.

  Dinah felt like she was going to be sick. Wardley swallowed beside her, his face pale. “Well, that was about as horrible as I thought it was going to be.”

  Dinah pushed back her bile. “No. It was worse.”

  Joyful screams rang out below. The Heart Cards guarding the south side of the palace sprinted toward Napayshi’s body. Cards everywhere were shouting in glee, dropping their weapons, hugging each other.

  “The Rebel Queen is dead!”

  Dinah was shoved forward as a crowd surged and gathered around the body.

  “It’s the queen! The Rebel Queen!” shouted Wardley, his voice disguised. “She’s dead! The war is won!”

  Dinah, Cheshire, Wardley, Ki-ershan, Sir Gorrann, and Bah-kan picked up the girl’s body and began carrying it on their shoulders toward the palace. Dinah felt the girl’s weight roll across her back, and red blood dripped from the girl’s chest onto Dinah’s cheek, making its way slowly down her face. Napayshi’s blood was still warm. The Heart Cards clustered around her.

  “Is it the queen? Is she dead?”

  Sir Gorrann’s voice was clipped. “Yes, sirs, I did see this queen felled by an arrow only a moment ago.”

  “Yes, we all saw it,” snapped one, a higher-ranking Heart Card whose name escaped Dinah.

  “Why are you touching her, you filthy maggots? This body needs to be brought to the king, immediately.”

  Dinah and her men put the body down carefully, her heart thudding so loud that she swore the Cards could hear it. One wrong move, and these men would kill her whole party.

  “Bring her inside the gates, quickly!”

  The Heart Cards grabbed Napayshi’s corpse and hauled it away from the false peasants, heading toward the palace.

  Dinah and her men stepped back before weaving away from the Heart Cards, making their way to the south side of the palace. On the hill, the pounding of drums rang out over the battlefield, and the wailing of both Yurkei and Spade filled the air. Dinah ducked as a flurry of arrows began showering around the Heart Cards as they ran with the body past the gate and into the courtyard, on their way to the king.

  Dinah could see inside the palace walls as Napayshi’s body began to jerk and spasm, reacting to the massive amounts of blue smoke that were about to be released. As her blood cooled, the liquid form of the Caterpillar’s drug of choice would hit the air and vaporize.

  “What the hells? What is that?”

  It was starting.

  She heard alarmed shouts from behind her as both Heart Cards and villagers grew confused. Blue smoke began vaporizing out of the dead queen’s nose and mouth. The Heart Cards were bent over and coughing as the blue smoke entered their lungs. She knew from experience that soon they would pass into a pleasant haze, unaware of what was happening.

  As she watched, the courtyard below quickly filled with the hazy blue smoke that now poured from Napayshi’s body in great waves. Chaos ensued as people scrambled to get away from the sneaking tendrils; but they were too late. Dinah watched with growing happiness as the stampeding peasants and Cards slowed. They stopped yelling, stopped moving. Contented smiles crept across their faces, and they started murmuring happily to themselves. In minutes, an angry horde of citizens and Cards ready to defend their palace was turned into a courtyard full of simpletons, happy hallucinations playing out in front of their eyes.

  With the drug, Dinah’s army had neutralized the violence on her side of the palace and distracted the Heart Cards. Now their job was to get to the king, who would be in the keep.

  “Quit dallying,” muttered Sir Gorrann. “She’s dead. Let’s go.”

  Dinah’s party ran for the small clump of wildflowers about half a mile outside the main wall, with another group of Spades following far behind. Dinah looked up onto the turrets and saw a fleeting flash of silver as Derwin climbed down from the turrets. She saluted briefly, and an arrow hit the ground beside her with a thump, an acknowledgment that Derwin Fergal had done his duty. His name would grace the lips of his children’s children, and he would forever be etched into the history books as either the man who killed the Rebel Queen or the man who helped a queen stage a coup. Either way, Derwin Fergal would come out on top.

  Dinah and her men reached the mossy grass and the clump of flowers that circled it. “I know it’s here, I know it’s here.” Dinah was frantically searching the ground, shoving dirt aside, ripping up weeds that hadn’t been trimmed for years.

  Bah-kan stepped forward. “Are you sure this is the spot? I remember seeing a map of the palace that had the secret entrances—”

  “Shut up!” barked Dinah. “Shut up. Everyone.”

  No one said a word. Dinah stood up, turned around, and looked at the sun, remembering the thin slat of moonlight that had led her out that night, the night that she had met Vittiore for the first time, when Cheshire had shown her the tunnels. The moonlight that had come from . . . there. She stepped over about ten feet and squatted. Within seconds her fingers had found the grooves in the earth and traced the line of the trapdoor in the dirt.

  She flung it open and grinned at her men as a cloud of rotted dust settled over her. She winked at Cheshire in a rare moment of good humor, and he handed her a torch.

  Dinah cleare
d her throat. “I believe our revenge awaits. Now, on your knees, men.”

  Below her, the secret passageways into the palace were as empty and still as they had been that night so many years ago.

  Eight

  Darkness consumed Dinah. She was far underneath the earth, the smell of wet dirt overcoming her senses. For a moment she was desperately alone, clawing at the mud around her. Finally, she waved the flame of her pink torch past her face, where the flaring light illuminated her harsh features.

  “Are you sure it’s this way?” hissed Wardley, two steps behind her. “I think we’re lost.”

  “Trust me.” Dinah waved the torch again. The tunnel should be here—she knew it. But . . . aha! She crouched down and crawled through a small hole in the earth, pushing her way through a thin layer of dirt that had filled the tunnel since she had last been here. Worms and spiders and gods knew what else fell around her as she pushed through the dirt. The black roots twisted above her head, and Dinah could hear the roots reaching for her, seeking to envelop her familiar mind and body.

  With a cry, she pushed through the opening. Wardley’s hand wrapped around her ankle. A thin wall of dirt collapsed under her outstretched hand, and Dinah pushed herself through the showering muck. Her head emerged in a wide tunnel, long forgotten and freezing. Yes, yes, this was right. Through the darkness, Dinah could see the thin tunnel stretched out in front of her.

  “We’re in,” she whispered. She pushed herself up to her feet and waited for the others to emerge from the small space. Wardley, Ki-ershan, Sir Gorrann, Bah-kan, Cheshire, and a dozen of their strongest Spades picked their way through the tunnels behind her. Dinah held her torch high, her eyes taking in her surroundings. It was all familiar now, the biting cold of the tunnels, the damp earth, the black roots. Dinah ran forward, her hands touching the walls.

  “Yes, yes, I think we go through here!”

  “Dinah, stop!” ordered Wardley. “Wait for us!”

  Dinah paused and took a few deep breaths, waiting for Wardley to catch up. The quiet moment wrenched open her memory of the battle: Morte crashing into the waves of Heart Cards. Her sword sinking into a neck, a stomach. Yur-Jee’s throat slit wide. Such terrible things, and yet the feeling inside her wasn’t one of despair. Dinah gave herself a shake. Focus. Focus. After a few seconds, Wardley emerged next to her. They were both bloodied and worn from the toll of battle.

  “Are you all right?”

  Dinah tried to ignore how near he was to her. His scent, his comfort, the heat of his skin—it was enough to drive her mad, and the last thing she needed to feel right now was distraction and despair. She brushed him off.

  “I’m so close,” she murmured to him softly, “so close now to the man who killed Charles and stole my crown. I can’t lose my head down here, but—Wardley. The battle. So much blood.”

  What she didn’t share with the boy she loved was that the black fury was churning inside her now, alive and starving, and Dinah was prepared to feed it to her heart’s content. Everything she touched seemed to tingle with life. She was awake, and her sword longed for vengeance.

  Sir Gorrann appeared through the small hole in the ground, the pink flames of his torch dancing over his weathered face. “Yer telling me that this really is the easiest way into the palace? Yeh made it sound like a stroll across the croquet court.” He gave Dinah a smile that she was unable to return.

  Cheshire edged up beside them, his normally pristine face and hair smudged with dirt. She barely recognized him without his usual adornments and purple cloak. “Yes, she’s right, it’s through here.” He nodded. “I’m almost certain this tunnel leads out to the tapestry near the king’s privy, which will take us out into the Great Hall.”

  “And where exactly will the king be?” thundered Bah-kan, who could not keep quiet no matter how much they shushed him. He clutched his Heartsword close to his chest, his forearms stained with the blood of dead Cards.

  “The king will be in the keep, which is above the Great Hall,” answered Cheshire. “He will be there with his council, and Queen Vittiore.”

  “She is not a queen,” answered Dinah icily. “She is a stranger upon the throne.”

  “And an innocent,” Wardley reminded her firmly. “Someone who the king used, just like you. We need her to get the people on your side.”

  Dinah took a deep breath. “I know.”

  A painful groan escaped Sir Gorrann’s lips as he braced himself against a wall. He had a wound in his thigh leaking blood and a gash across his shoulder, but wouldn’t let anyone come close enough to tend either. The Spade was obviously exhausted. After a moment’s respite, he continued down the tunnels. “Come. Let’s finish this. When this palace finds out you’re alive, the armies will continue to tear each other apart. Yeh need the majority of the people within these walls to live. Iu-Hora’s smoke lasts less than two hours. The Yurkei won’t wait forever to raid the city, and the King of Hearts won’t hold back his worst. They will both unleash their rage, until there is no one left to fight their war except the children.”

  “Then let’s stop talking about it and make haste,” agreed Dinah. “Follow me.” She began running through the tunnels, weaving through doorways and up muddy stone steps without thinking. Something inside her was sure these were the steps she had taken three times before. She knew these tunnels, and it seemed the more she thought about it, the more lost she became.

  “Yes,” whispered Cheshire, who had slithered up beside her. “I remember now, this is the way. Follow us!” he bellowed backward.

  “Will the king be waiting for us?” she whispered to him, her breaths coming quick and heavy.

  “Without a doubt,” he answered grimly. “But he has no idea that we are coming up through the castle. Right now he thinks we are still outside the gates. He also thinks that you are dead, which means the element of surprise will work highly in our favor. His plan was to wait us out—the fool thinks we mean to lay siege to the palace. Trust me, my dear, the king, at this very moment, has let his guard down. Trust in your decoy. She was very convincing.” He gave a sinister smile.

  Dinah still didn’t feel right about Napayshi, who was now nothing more than a pile of flesh pouring blue smoke. She shivered.

  “We’re almost there,” she announced to her men. “Draw your weapons.”

  Sir Gorrann walked through their ranks. “Keep them close to your body, inside your cloaks.”

  Dinah could hear the unsheathing of metal and iron. She clasped her sword close to her heart. They had reached a thick wooden door. Covering the door was a woven tapestry that she knew featured her father, mounted on Morte, his Heartsword drawn, looking like the most fearsome warrior the kingdom had ever known. And she was going to kill him.

  Beyond the tapestry lay the Great Hall, no doubt filled with Wonderland citizens, women and children who were gathered in a safe refuge from the fighting.

  “Remember who we are, and who we are not,” Wardley intoned to the men. He wrapped his hand roughly around Dinah’s arm. “Especially you. Don’t lose your head. You might not be his blood heir, but you share his impulsiveness.”

  Annoyed, Dinah shook off his grip and pushed the door open, flinging the tapestry aside. They were in a narrow hallway that led out behind the throne. The group emerged from the tunnels disguised in their ragged cloaks, rope belts cinched around their waists. Hopefully, the hordes of people in the Great Hall would think that they were simply peasants taking refuge in a place they didn’t belong. Who could care about such things while the enemy broke down their walls?

  “Are we ready?” asked Dinah.

  Sir Gorrann pushed past her. “I’ll go first.” Ki-ershan stood in front of Dinah, every sculpted muscle in his body poised and ready to attack. Sir Gorrann stepped around the tapestry, stepping out into the Great Hall. Dinah followed behind him, her head down.

  She paused, her mouth open in shock. Wardley pushed past her, a look of disgust upon his face. “How could . . . ?” He st
opped. “Where are they?”

  The Great Hall was empty. The room, so vast and grand, was a thousand times larger than Dinah remembered. Here was the gold throne, with its etched hearts. Here was the heart window, bathing the room in red light, and there was the box above the hall, where she and Wardley met to share secrets. Dinah was home again, but there was no one here, not a single person.

  “Where are the townspeople?” Even Cheshire looked bewildered.

  “They’re in the streets,” answered Sir Gorrann. “They were sent outside.”

  Wardley gritted his teeth and clutched his sword. “What the hell kind of king does not offer the protection of his palace to his people in a time of war?”

  I’ve had enough. Dinah pulled her brown cloak off. Her hair shimmered in the red light, making it appear as if her head was made of flame.

  She drew her sword. “The kind of king who’s going to die today.”

  Sir Gorrann let out a gasp. “Why are you taking off your cloak? Stop!”

  Dinah turned on him, her eyes filled with a righteous rage. “I left this palace, my home, covered in a cloak, running for my life, a scared child. I will not return as a peasant in disguise, as a fearful girl. I return as a queen, as a woman, here to claim her rightful throne. Come on, let’s find him, now!”

  The inspired men around her let out a cheer and they all ran toward the door, weapons drawn, cloaks left behind. Bah-kan flung open the doors to the Great Hall. Two Heart Cards were stationed outside the empty hall, and Dinah actually pitied them as they watched the enemy emerge from the doors behind them. Bah-kan dispatched them quickly and brutally. The group ran through the empty marble hallways. Ladies and lords, servants and children opened their doors at the sound of footsteps. When they saw the group, they pulled back into their living quarters, terrified.

  “Get back!” Dinah screamed at the idiots as they passed. “Shut and lock your doors!” Her directions were followed without question.

  Together, her band of fighters raced up the stone staircases that led to the keep, one after another, until it felt like they could climb no more. Finally, they emerged into a wide room, where a collection of weapons was assembled under Wonderland’s most priceless art. In the corner of the dark hall was a single spiral staircase that led up to the keep.