by Lisa McMann
“That’s one of the twins,” whispered Alex, eyes wide.
Within seconds, the scream ended and all of the thousands of ravens turned to smoke.
A Familiar Face
The blackness billowed and lifted into the sky, forming streams of smoke like giant black snakes slithering back to the ships, weaving through their sails and entering through their portholes and pouring down their staircases.
“Who—what—?” cried Alex. “Was that Fifer?”
“It sounded like her,” said Sky, breathless and incredulous.
The pirates and Warblerans watched wide-eyed, then looked at each other, concerned. And that’s when the Artiméans realized what had transpired during the raven attack. They looked around the lawn as the morning light returned, and realized with dread that they were entirely surrounded by rows and rows of pirates, and now Warblerans, too. There were twice the number of enemies than they’d seen the day before. Unfortunately, most of the Artiméans had fled the mansion without their weapons.
Captain Baldhead, looking pristine and unblemished, and only slightly fazed by the unplanned disappearance of their secret weapon, stepped forward to address the ragged, rapidly shrinking crowd of Artiméans. “We’ve got you surrounded,” he said in an ominous voice. “Hand over the Warblerans, or we will end every last one of you.” He drew his sword, and everyone around the circle, including the Warblerans, drew swords as well.
The Warblerans of Artimé looked surprised to see their people holding weapons, and doing so quite expertly.
That’s why they waited so many months to attack, thought Alex. They were training the Warblerans to fight. Alex tried not to show his panic. He didn’t know what to do.
The Artiméans, looking small on the torn-up lawn, gazed with false bravado into the eyes of their enemies, knowing it was only a matter of time before they’d meet their tragic ends. Even Florence and Simber knew they were vastly outnumbered—a wrong move now could cost the rest of the Artiméans’ lives.
The orange-eyed among them who weren’t hidden inside the rock—Copper, Sky, Lani, Samheed, and Scarlet and Thatcher—stood together, surrounded and protected by their friends. Copper glanced at Sky, knowing Artimé would never give them up. She and Sky had talked privately about this day, and what they would do if and when it came. Sky looked at Alex with love and sorrow and apologies in her eyes, and Alex looked back at her, alarmed, worried that she was going to give herself up for the sake of Artimé.
“Don’t,” Alex mouthed. He shook his head, eyes pleading. “Please don’t.”
Sky’s chin quivered, and after a moment she turned her face away.
Copper looked at the pirates, her gaze moving slowly over the ranks. She recognized some of them, having slaved for them before her rescue from the Island of Fire. They stared back at her with contempt. She held her head higher. And then her gaze landed on another familiar face.
Her eyes flickered.
His eyes narrowed. And then he tilted his head the slightest bit, revealing the thorn necklace below his pirate-shirt collar. He looked away, and in doing so reminded Copper not to let her gaze rest too long on him.
Alongside the fear grew a tiny sprout of hope, for the man she recognized was her old friend and fellow slave, Daxel.
When All Is Lost (Reprise)
Copper’s fingers brushed the back of Sky’s hand, and when Sky glanced her way, Copper shook her head.
Sky breathed a quiet sigh of relief. She didn’t know what had changed her mother’s mind, but clearly something had happened. And then she, too, noticed Daxel, the pirate slave who had helped them escape with Copper from the Island of Fire. Soon she realized there were a number of pirates she hadn’t seen yesterday, all wearing white, high-collared shirts that bulged suspiciously at the neck, and all with the telltale orange eyes. More slaves like her mother.
Captain Baldhead lifted his sword. “Pirates, prepare to destroy the rock and remove the hidden children!”
A small band of pirates stepped over to the rock, while others filled in their spots in the circle to keep it strong. The pirates raised their swords and began hacking at the rock’s mouth. The rock’s yellow eyes flinched.
“Stop!” shouted Aaron, horrified. He ran forward, lifted his sword, and sliced it across the back of the nearest pirate who was attacking the rock. The pirate screamed, dropped his sword, and fell to the ground. Aaron took a second swing at the next pirate.
And then the lawn exploded into battle once more. Simber ran at the small band of pirates, knocking them away from the rock with his mighty wings, trying not to hit any Artiméans by accident. Florence grabbed the dead pirate’s sword and began swinging, striking down pirates in the circle, two and three at a time. Simber turned and charged toward the circle as well, running a length of it and plowing down pirates and Warblerans in a long row.
Alex pulled his sword and ran toward Captain Baldhead, but a dozen pirates jumped in the way. Determined, Alex vowed to fight his way to the captain or die trying. He swung blindly with all his might, felling one after another, but there was always one more to take his place.
Meanwhile Daxel lifted his finger to his lips, and at first Copper thought he was asking her to be quiet, but then she realized it was a signal. Forty or fifty pirate slaves threw off their jackets and ripped open their shirt collars, revealing their thornaments. And then several dozen Warblerans removed golden Warbler bird emblems from their shirts and tossed them to the ground, and pulled colorful ribbons from their pockets and put them around their necks, distinguishing themselves from the rest of the Warblerans. Copper watched as one of them signed to her.
“The Warblerans with ribbons are fighting with Artimé!” she cried out. “They’re fighting for their children!”
Sky’s heart surged as she joined ranks with nearly a hundred orange-eyed people from both islands. She pulled out her sword, hoping the extra help was enough to give Artimé a chance.
And now, with all the pirate ships seemingly emptied, Simber flew out to Artimé’s ship to transport Sean, Ms. Octavia, and the others to shore to help in the fight, leaving the ship unprotected, but having no other choice—they needed all the help they could get on land.
Artimé surged, their numbers nearly doubled by the turn of events. But they were still vastly outnumbered, and the pirates and Warblerans fighting against them were bigger, stronger, and had more training for this kind of battle than the Artiméans. The magical land began to falter again.
In the intensity of the battle, no one noticed the eel lifting its head up out of the water and assessing the potential damage it could do on land.
And nobody noticed the other enormous sea creature coming toward Artimé at a fast clip.
It was only when Lani heard a familiar shout that she glanced up. Others around her turned as well, and their mouths dropped open. Many of them gasped. The pirates fighting them stopped and stared, leading still others to look out to the water. And soon the entire lawn of pirates, Warblerans, and Artiméans focused all of their attention on the strange sight in the lagoon.
First came Spike the whale. Sitting on her back was Henry Haluki, shouting, his hands raised in a triumphant pose. On one side of Spike was a giant squid, and on the other was a sea monster. And together the three of them were leading a very large, very alive giant crab island named Karkinos, which gave home to a strange assortment of armed inhabitants standing all along the edge of his shell, waiting to come charging ashore.
Florence nearly dropped her sword at the sight of them. But then she saw a familiar, sinister ripple under the water and cried, “Wait! Look out!”
Some Very Special Guests
Captain Baldhead ordered his pirates to return to fighting, and as the Artiméans continued their battle on land, the eel slithered around Issie the sea monster and yanked her under the water.
Karkinos whirled around, his claws clacking furiously as the giant squid dove for cover underneath him. A second later the crab’s pincer co
nnected with the eel. He lifted it up out of the water and shook it until it let go of Issie, and then Karkinos clipped the eel in half. Both ends slithered all the way into Karkinos’s gaping mouth and disappeared.
The inhabitants of the Island of Legends cheered and rushed down the crab’s reeflike claws all the way to the shore of Artimé. They didn’t wait for orders. Henry, Talon, Lhasa the snow lion, Bock the golden-horned deer, and the blurry, smelly hibagon all began fighting in very special and unique ways.
Henry noted that all the Artiméans were strangely fighting with nonmagical weapons, and he soon figured out that they must have run out of components. He had gobs of deadly spell components left in the crate on Spike’s back, having used none of them on his journey. He ran ashore with them and handed them out to the spell casters as quickly as he could, and then at Carina’s urging, he went inside the mansion to see how he could help in the hospital ward.
Talon the bronze giant made fists and began punching pirates in the face and throwing their shields into the sea. Their weapons had little effect on him, though the clanging was a bit hard on everyone’s ears.
Lhasa showed a vicious side of her no one had ever seen before, and she bared her teeth and began biting pirates in the bum very hard at every turn, and dodging their swipes at her. Bock used his golden horns to ram into the enemy fighters, sending them flying through the air quite precisely in front of Karkinos, who crushed them soundly with his claws.
The hibagon, who was extremely nervous but wanting to help, went over to blend in near the rock, and the mere odor of his presence made pirates run away from the hidden Warbler children just to get some distance from the rotten stench . . . except for one unfortunate pirate who made the mistake of looking at the hibagon for a little too long, and fell in love.
Issie the sea monster lumbered onto land, swinging her tail and knocking pirates down, and yowling her familiar noise, demanding the pirates give back her missing baby. Ms. Octavia jumped on the opportunity to follow in her wake, casting lethal spells on the fallen pirates to keep them down permanently.
Even Vido the golden rooster left his perch and fluttered around the pirates’ heads just out of reach. He uttered disconcerting prophecies and made-up proverbs, like “Those who follow Captain Baldhead lose much more than just their hair.” At the end of the phrase he drew the tip of his wing across his neck, cutthroat style. Another favorite he recited was “A stitch in time saves NOBODY—YOU WILL ALL DIE! TRUST ME I KNOW!” which made no sense at all but still managed to unnerve several pirates and completely throw the most superstitious of them off their game.
Spike spent her time along the shore as close in as she could get without beaching herself. She scanned the sea for eels, then she circled in and out among the twenty-four ships, keeping close watch and even speaking with Ol’ Tater for a moment in whatever language he spoke.
And then on the Island of Legends, in one grand, furry migration, hundreds of dropbears descended from the trees. Like a small sea of gray paint, they poured out of the wooded area of Karkinos, across the beach, down the claw reefs, and onto the shore of Artimé. They surged around the fighters and spread out to the trees, scores of them climbing up each tree and spreading to the ends of the sagging branches, waiting for just the right moment to do what they did best.
Slowly but surely over the course of the day, the pirate and Warbleran ranks thinned until their numbers were merely two to one against Artimé. And at one particular moment when the enemy was concentrated on the lawn under overhanging branches, the dropbears went to work. Without a sound, they dropped from the trees onto the pirates, covering them in layers upon layers of gray fur. The pirates screamed and slid to the ground in shock. Some tried to fight them off, but no manner of flailing or clawing could get the pirates free from the dropbears.
Talon noticed the act, and though he was tempted to tell the dropbears to go ahead and eat the pirates, he refrained for the sake of a safe land to return home to. “Good work, dropbears!” he called out. “Keep them covered.”
Now Artimé was closing in, and for the first time the sides were almost equal. But the people of Artimé had been fighting an uphill battle since dawn. They were tired. Most hadn’t had breakfast, much less lunch—Alex’s breakfast was still on the floor in the mansion where Lani had dropped it after being attacked by the birds. He was sorely aware of his own hunger and weakness, and couldn’t imagine how the young children were holding up, stuck inside the rock’s mouth. With the hibagon’s great stink keeping the pirates away from it, Alex knew he had to get them out of there and back to the mansion so Crow could get them some food and water. When Alex had a moment of reprieve, he wiped the sweat from his forehead and pulled Kitten from his pocket.
Kitten stretched and yawned, having slept through most of the war. “Mewmewmew,” she said sweetly.
“Hi, Kitten,” said Alex, crouching behind a tree for safety. “I need you to do a very important thing for me. Can you go over to that giant rock right there, sneak between the cracks into his mouth, and get Crow to understand that it’s time to take the Warbler kids back to the mansion? I’ll get some others, and we’ll run with them to make sure they’re safe.”
“Mewmewmew,” said Kitten. She hopped off Alex’s hand and landed in the dirt, then scampered around the giant feet of the fighters, dodging and twisting to avoid getting stepped on.
Alex stood up, peered around the tree, and pulled out some more components that he’d gotten from Henry. He eyed his next opponent, choosing only ones in the path the children would need to take to the mansion. Many of them had had their shields knocked away by Talon, so Alex’s chances of successful throws were high. He took aim and waited for his moment to strike.
“Behind you, Al!” Samheed shouted.
Alex whirled around a second too late as a sword lashed into his side. He stumbled and cried out while Samheed rushed to his aid and took the pirate down. Samheed’s shirt was covered in blood.
“You okay?” Samheed huffed, going over to Alex.
Alex steadied himself on one knee. “I think so,” he said, gripping his sword like a cane and leaning on it. The ground swirled before his eyes, and he tried to breathe through it and focus. “Crow . . . ,” he said, breathing shallowly between phrases, “is coming . . . out of the rock . . . with the children . . . and taking them . . . to the mansion.” He dropped the sword and put one hand on the ground, checking the wound in his side with the other. It came away wet with blood. Was this how it would end? “Aaron,” he whispered.
“I’ll help you cover the children,” said Samheed, taking a moment to rest. “Are you sure you’re okay?” He waved Lani and Sean over.
Alex closed his eyes, feeling nauseous.
Samheed frowned. “You’d better go inside with the children, Alex. Have Henry patch you up and get yourself something to eat and drink.”
Alex nodded, pressing hard on his wound to stop the bleeding. He rallied, then told Lani and Sean to go to the cave’s mouth to help the children out and lead them to the mansion.
Moments later the rock’s mouth slowly opened. Crow peered out, looked around, and then jumped to the ground. He turned around and reached inside the rock’s mouth, pulling children out and handing them to Sean and Lani, who began running with them toward the mansion, the rest of the children following. Samheed stood halfway between, holding off the attackers. Crow pulled Thisbe and Fifer out last and hitched their legs around his waist while Kitten ran down the rock’s side to the ground and led the three around the fighting. Samheed had his hands full when another group of pirates rushed toward them.
“Keep going!” shouted Sean to the children. “Straight to the lounge!” He and Lani stopped to help fight off the attackers. The Warbler children ran for the mansion. Crow lagged behind with Thisbe and Fifer, trying to go as fast as he could, but he was weak with hunger like everyone else.
“Here comes Crow,” Samheed shouted over his shoulder to Alex, who was still on his knees t
rying to get his breath back. “Do you need help walking?”
“No, I’m okay,” said Alex. He opened his eyes and stumbled to his feet, then tripped and fell to his hands and knees.
“I’ll cover you,” said Samheed. “But get moving, will you?”
Alex got up once more, ran a few steps, and fell again.
“That’s their leader!” shouted Captain Baldhead, fighting his way over. “He’s down. Kill him!”
Five pirates nearby stopped what they were doing and surrounded Alex. Sean and Lani came running and blasted two of them out of the way, and Samheed slammed his sword over the top of one’s head.
“There go the Warbler children!” shouted a pirate. “They’re escaping inside the mansion!”
More and more pirates rushed toward the running children. Alex pushed through the chaos and got to his feet, his fear for the children giving him the renewed strength he desperately needed. He ran toward Crow, who was falling behind carrying the twins, and tried stopping Captain Baldhead by shoving his shoulder into the man’s chest.
Captain Baldhead swung his sword, hitting Alex in the arm, but then tripped over a body on the ground.
Alex absorbed the pain and continued on.
Captain Baldhead regained his footing and pushed forward, cutting off Crow and the girls and grabbing Crow by the neck with his hook hand. He whirled the children around to check their eyes, and laughed viciously. “Three for the price of one. I’ll take these two little black-eyed ones in exchange for the orange-eyed ones we don’t get,” he said. “Black-eyed children sell for a premium in the market.” His laughter rumbled.
White-hot with fury, Alex swung his sword, but the captain blocked it. He held Crow in front of him as a human shield and began moving toward the boats with his prisoners.
“Stop!” yelled Alex, pushing through dizziness and pain. He doggedly ran after them, trying to get a clean shot at the captain without endangering his sisters or Crow.
