The Hero's Guide to Storming the Castle

by Christopher Healy

  Lord Rundark had discovered Wrathgar years earlier. The Warlord had been leading a platoon of barbarian soldiers to raid and ransack the Darian village of Hocksnath, but when he arrived, he saw that the town had already been reduced to a blackened field of burning timbers and smoking rubble. Standing in the center of all that debris was Wrathgar. As the Warlord approached the masked behemoth, Wrathgar simply said, “The people of Hocksnath didn’t like my facial hair.” To which Rundark responded by offering the man a job. Wrathgar had been Rundark’s secret weapon ever since.

  “Tell us what you need, Lord Rundark,” Wrathgar said. When he spoke, it sounded like his mouth was full of broken glass (which it often was—he liked to chew on bottles in between meals).

  “As we have discussed,” the Warlord said, “Rauberia will soon be ours. And once we have transformed this most perfect of all geographical bases into New Dar, the rest of the nations of the world will be waiting for us to skewer them like so many kingdom kabobs. But the boy remains an issue.”

  Fig. 27

  Rundark’s HENCHMEN

  “So we take him out now?” Wrathgar asked.

  “No, I cannot eliminate the Bandit King until I understand the core mystery that surrounds him,” Rundark said. “I cannot comprehend his popularity among his men. Nor his notoriety among the people of these nearby kingdoms. Rauber is a floundering mess of a criminal. He is sloppy, stubborn, and, from what I can tell, he doesn’t have the stomach for true evil. In short, he is a child.”

  “Have you all been on the roof?” Madu, the snake handler asked. “He’s got a little golf course up there. Where you have to hit the ball between the legs of an elephant that squirts water at you. I don’t get it.”

  “His dungeon disgusts me,” Wrathgar bellowed. “To see the things he calls ‘torture devices’—a funnel to drip saliva into one’s ear, a machine to stretch a prisoner’s undergarments—it is pitiful.” He picked up an armchair, bit it in half, and spat the pieces onto the floor.

  “I understand you are all frustrated, but you will need to tolerate the boy’s insufficiently villainous behavior a while longer,” Lord Rundark said. “As powerful as the five of us are, I doubt we can hold back a rebellion of three hundred bandits. We need to win Rauber’s men over to our side first.”

  “We need bards,” Redshirt suggested. “Rauber’s got so many of those songs about him. That’s why he’s so infamous. People hear those bard songs, and they either want to join Rauber or flee from him. I’ve been saying for years that Dar should have a bard.”

  Rundark grabbed Redshirt by his red shirt and hurled him out through the fourth-story window. More eel food.

  “Bards are good for nothing more than brainless entertainment,” Rundark said to his remaining henchmen. “It is not men wielding tiny guitars who tell the world what they should fear; it is men of true power like myself. We have been schooling Rauber’s men in the ways of Dar; eventually they will realize what true villainy looks like.

  “It is to this end that I have gathered you four . . . er, three here today. We must begin working on Rauber’s bandits, sowing the seeds of discord among them. Pay extra attention to the swordsman, Vero. If we can turn him, others will follow.”

  There was a quick knock, and Falco—the bald, sharp-toothed sentry—opened the door and slipped in, looking agitated.

  “What is it, Falco?” Rundark asked.

  Falco got down and walked on his knees and made a goofy face.

  “Rauber is coming?” Rundark said.

  Falco nodded.

  Seconds later there was another knock at the door—a loud banging this time. Falco opened it to reveal Deeb Rauber, picking his nose.

  “Yes?” Rundark intoned.

  “I’m hosting a circus tomorrow—four o’clock,” Rauber announced. “It’s gonna be sweet. Clowns, dancing bears, cat jugglers—I think they’ve even got a monkey that throws darts at a pig.”

  Jezek stepped up to the doorway. “I’m supposed to be teaching your men spear technique tomorrow afternoon,” he said.

  “It can wait, Spike,” Rauber returned. “Did you hear what I said? Cat jugglers!”

  “What does that even mean?” Jezek asked with disdain. “Is it men who juggle cats or cats that juggle other stuff?”

  “Like it matters?” Rauber retorted.

  “Fall back, Jezek,” Rundark said. He stepped up to Rauber. “My men and I will not be attending this circus,” he added with barely disguised disdain.

  “No way, man” Rauber said. “You can’t skip it. I mean, you’d totally regret it if you did.”

  The Warlord let out a long, slow breath. “If it means so much to you, I will try to stop by at some point.”

  “And chance missing the best part?” Rauber said. “No, you’re gonna be sitting right next to me in my private viewing box. Best seats in the house. Especially for the finale. It’s gonna be awesome.”

  Rundark eyed the boy in silence for several seconds. Then his mouth curled into something resembling a grin. “You win,” he said in his friendliest voice (which was still pretty scary). “I will be there at four on the dot.”

  “Excellent,” said Rauber. “You’re not gonna regret this. Circuses rule.” And he left, whistling loudly and very much off-key.

  As soon as the Bandit King was out the door, Rundark’s men began grumbling. “A circus?” Jezek asked skeptically.

  “Rauber was unnaturally insistent that I not only attend, but that I sit in a specific seat,” Rundark said. “The boy thinks himself my equal, my rival even. It was only a matter of time before he tried to eliminate me. And he’s making his move now. He plans to assassinate me at the end of this . . . circus.” He spat the word. “I will let him try,” Rundark continued. “And after he has failed in front of everyone, I won’t have to worry about winning over his men. I will do so right then and there—by killing the boy.”

  18

  A HERO HAS FRIENDS IN HIGH PLACES

  There is no “I” in League of Princes.

  —THE HERO’S GUIDE TO BEING A HERO

  “So, what do you say, Reese?” Frederic asked. “Will you help us?”

  The giant squinched up his massive face. “Ehhhhhhh . . . I think not,” he said. After nearly a full day’s travel, Frederic and Rapunzel had finally found Reese along the shores of Lake Dräng, just across the border in the kingdom of Jangleheim. The hundred-foot-tall man was sitting in the sand, wearing a shirt and pants sewn together from thousands of discarded flour sacks. He held an entire tree in one hand and whittled at it with a knife he’d created for himself by welding thirty iron shields together. All around him, sloppily carved wooden figures were displayed against the rocks. They had hair of swamp reeds, moss, or straw; faces that were painted on with berry ink or constructed out of seashells. Some had long, scrawny, tree branch arms; others had stiff, splintery limbs that were once the oars of abandoned rowboats. None looked even remotely lifelike, yet several had SOLD signs around their “necks.”

  “Don’t get me wrong, sir,” Reese continued. “I’m honored that you’ve come to me with this request. But I’ve been enjoying the peaceful life up here. I’ve got beautiful scenery everywhere I look, I’m doing what I love, and business is booming.”

  By almost any assessment, the giant was a terrible artist. But he was lucky enough to settle in Jangleheim, a nation whose people had notoriously poor taste. Which just goes to show: There’s a place for everybody.

  Frederic respected that Reese had given up his dangerous and violent henchman work and was now living an eminently honorable life. He took a deep breath, feeling a little guilty about what he was about to say.

  “I understand your reluctance, Reese,” he said. “Really, I do. I guess I was just hoping that, after saving your life . . .”

  “And healing your blister,” Rapunzel threw in, flashing Frederic a quick smile.

  “Yes, after the help we’ve given you,” Frederic continued, “we hoped you’d be gentleman enough
to return the favor.”

  “It’s true,” Reese said. “If you hadn’t convinced me to run when I did, I would be a big pile of bacon right now. I do owe you for that. And that blister—ooh—that was quite nasty; but still, I can’t do any dangerous stuff. I promised my mum.”

  “And how do you think your mum would feel if she knew you were so callously denying a friend in need?” Frederic asked.

  “Hey, you’re just trying to guilt me,” Reese said.

  “That’s right, Son, they are,” a thunderous voice boomed from the woods behind them. “Good for you, not falling for it.”

  Frederic and Rapunzel spun around to see a titanic woman even taller than Reese standing on the beach. She was clad in a tunic made from the hides of what seemed to be at least a thousand animals. Her teeth were like tombstones, her eyebrows untrimmed hedges. Entire families could get lost in her forest of spiky gray hair. “Let me get rid of these pests for you.”

  The giantess lifted her humongous bare foot.

  “No, Mum, wait!” Reese shouted, jumping up and causing a rockslide that buried several of his art pieces. “Please, don’t crush these people. They’re not so bad. I swear it.”

  She gently lowered her foot back to the sand. Then she squatted and peered suspiciously at the pair of puny humans.

  “You must be Reese’s mum—I mean, mother,” Frederic said.

  “The name’s Maude,” she replied in a gruff yet feminine voice. “Because my son asked me nicely, I’m not going to squash you. But stop harassing the boy. He’s a good kid. I don’t want him getting involved with the wrong crowd. So leave before I decide to exfoliate my toes with your faces.”

  “Ma’am,” Frederic said. “Reese has always spoken highly of you. I know you are a wise and compassionate woman. If you could just hear us out . . .” He went on to explain their mission and the plan he had come up with to have Reese lift Gustav, Ella, and Lila over Rauber’s Wall of Secrecy. “So, as you can see, we need Reese.”

  “No, you don’t,” Maude replied. “You need a giant. And this sounds like my kind of job.”

  “Mum, you can’t be serious,” Reese blurted. “You said you were retired from this sort of thing. You wanted a quiet, peaceful life now.”

  “I want that for you, Reese,” the mother giant said. “But me? I miss the old days.” She stared wistfully up at the emerging stars.

  “Excuse me, ma’am,” Frederic said. “‘Old days’?”

  “I was quite a wild one in my youth,” Maude said. “Stomping down villages, wrestling dragons, biting the roofs off palaces. I had more knights and adventurers trying to slay me than I could shake a tree at. I hit the peak of my notoriety after that beanstalk incident.”

  “I didn’t know the giant from that story was a woman,” Rapunzel said in awe.

  “Well, the bards don’t always nail the details, do they?” Maude replied. “But that’s all in the past, anyway. Once I became a parent, I wanted to settle down and set the right example for my boy.”

  Reese flashed a sweet smile.

  “But, hey, my job here is done, right?” Maude continued. “Reese has turned out okay. Mission accomplished. Let’s go crush some stuff.”

  The enormous woman began doing warm-up stretches.

  “Um, you know, we don’t really need you to crush anything,” Frederic said.

  “Yeah, yeah—don’t worry,” Maude said dismissively. “I’ll do what you need me to: carrying people places, dropping them over walls, crushing whatever.”

  “No, really,” Frederic said. “No crushing.”

  Maude waved him off. “Seriously, don’t worry. I won’t crush anything too big.” She bent down and scooped the pair of humans into one hand—Rapunzel clasping onto Frederic’s shoulder to steady herself—and their horses into the other.

  “Um, before we go,” Frederic said, nodding toward the lake. “Maude, could you please also grab one of those old rowboats?”

  As the sun rose over Avondell Palace on the morning of the summer solstice, Ella looked out her bedroom window and was infuriated by what she saw. Liam and Little Taylor were heading out through the front gates—by themselves. Still in her bedclothes, Ella burst from her room and ran down after them.

  “Where do you think you’re going?” she snapped when she caught up to them on the road away from the palace. “Running off on your own? Doing the exact same thing you were so mad at Frederic for?”

  Liam stopped. “This is different,” he said. “I’m doing this to prevent the rest of the team from dying.”

  “Gee, thanks for your faith in me,” Ella said bitterly.

  “Did you see those catapults lined up outside the palace?” he asked. “I’m not letting you or my sister—or even Gustav—get shot out of those things.”

  “You know, I did make the glider wings you asked for,” Taylor said. But he was ignored.

  “No catapults—got it. So . . . then what? You’re planning to pull the heist off by yourself?” Ella asked, trying to decide whether she was more incredulous or offended.

  “Well, not just him,” Taylor said, tossing his arm around Liam. “Little Taylor will be there, too.”

  “Look,” said Liam. “You know as well as I do that Briar was lying to us last night.”

  “Lying about what?” Taylor asked. Ella shushed him.

  “But she was right about one thing,” Liam continued. “We’ve still got to snatch that treasure from Rauber.”

  “When we say ‘treasure,’ are we talking about one particular treasure?” Taylor asked, tapping Liam on the shoulder. “Or are we speaking in general terms?”

  Ella shushed him.

  “You know, I’m starting to feel left out,” Taylor said.

  “Why don’t you run on ahead,” Liam said, nudging Little Taylor down the road. “I’ll catch up to you in about an hour at our appointed spot, and you can ‘capture’ me then.”

  The tailor reluctantly went off by himself.

  “Ella,” Liam said, looking her in the eye. “The Sword of Erinthia needs to be in our hands—not Briar’s, not Rauber’s, not anybody else’s. Until it is, nobody is safe. So I’m going to get it. And I’m not endangering the rest of you in the process.”

  Ella grabbed his hand and started leading him back toward the palace. “Come,” she said. “If you really feel you don’t need the rest of us, you can tell it to everybody face-to-face.”

  A short time later, Liam was standing in the garden trying to explain himself to Duncan, Gustav, Lila, Snow, and Mr. Troll. But they weren’t buying any of it.

  “We’re a team,” Gustav said. “If you go, we all go.”

  “People,” Liam said, “this mission is no joke. For it to succeed, it will have to go off like clockwork.”

  Snow raised her hand. “I don’t know how a clock works.”

  “Neither do I,” Duncan added.

  “It’s just an expression,” Liam sighed. “There’s no real clock.”

  “Clocks are only make-believe?” Duncan gasped.

  “But there’s a big one right there,” Snow said, pointing to the palace clock tower.

  “People!” Liam said again, more forcefully this time. “You’re missing my point. How are you planning to get past the Wall of Secrecy?” Liam asked in frustration.

  “Hmm, what an odd question,” Briar said as she strolled up, spinning a parasol over her shoulder. “I thought that’s what all those catapults were for.”

  “It is,” Gustav said. Liam shook his head vigorously, but Gustav continued. “Captain Cape-Head is just nervous ’cause we’ve never tested the catapults out. Let’s give one a test run right now, and if it works, we’re good to go.”

  “A reasonable request,” Briar said. “But you’d better hurry up. I came out here to wish you all good luck, assuming you’d be on your way already. Half of you are still in your pajamas. You’ll never make it to Rauberia by four if you don’t start speeding things up.” She turned and shouted to a silver-haired man in a
teal military suit and dazzling mother-of-pearl helmet. “General Kuffin, ready a catapult for Prince Gustav.”

  “Aye, Your Highness,” the general called in reply. He marched to one of the catapults sitting just outside the garden wall and had eight of his men tug and yank on various ropes to pull the arm of the machine into throwing position.

  “Gustav, do you really want to do this?” Liam asked.

  Gustav shrugged and grabbed a pair of flimsy-looking cloth wings. Just then the ground shook. Everyone looked up to see the early-morning sun blotted out by the frizzy-haired head of a scowling giantess.

  “Monster attack!” General Kuffin yelled. Soldiers everywhere scrambled for their pikes and axes, ready to defend the palace. “Load the catapult, quickly,” Kuffin barked. “The fiend is almost upon us.”

  A trio of soldiers heaved a heavy boulder up into the basket of the cocked catapult. “Fire!” one shouted as he cut the rope and let the spring-loaded arm of the machine fly upward.

  Everyone watched, expecting the massive rock to arc toward the attacking giant—but it didn’t. The boulder flew straight up. Far up. Very, very far up. And then it plummeted back down to smash the catapult into splinters and embed itself deep in the earth. Everyone turned and looked at Gustav.

  “Well, I would’ve been wearing the glider wings,” he said. He slipped his arms into the straps, and the wings tore in half. “Meh. I still would’ve been fine.”

  General Kuffin rallied his soldiers toward the next catapult, but everyone froze when they heard a soft, definitely nongiant voice calling down.

  “Don’t shoot!” Frederic cried. Maude crouched and lowered her hand to the ground to release her passengers. Frederic stepped off first, then took Rapunzel’s hand to help her down from the enormous pinkie. “Time for me to introduce you to everyone,” Frederic said as he saw all his friends running out to them.