Heir Apparent

by Vivian Vande Velde

  Abas and Kenric had taken up bows and were firing into the advancing crowd of barbarians. I hovered uselessly, worrying that the ghosts that had followed me from the catacombs might find it amusing to give me a little shove while I was standing in this precarious place. The smells of blood and pitch were making me woozy, and the smoke stung my eyes.

  "Princess Janine!" one of the guards called above the screams of men, some attacking, some dying. "Lady, this is a dangerous place for one not trained in war craft. Best for you to find a more secure position within."

  He was right. Even if my personality had provided me with the inclination to participate, Rasmussem had not provided me with the skill for fighting. But I couldn't believe my role in this battle was merely to seek a suitable hiding place—even though that was my inclination.

  I had to fight every instinct I had. "What can I do to help?" I shouted back.

  For one who had been so concerned about getting me to safety, he was quick enough to point to one of the pages who was dumping a basketful of arrows to replenish the stock the archers were using. "Show the princess where the supplies are kept," the guard ordered the page.

  And so I started running up and down the stairs, bringing load after load of arrows to the archers, delivering them to different stations on the wall to make sure nobody ran out. Apparently the ghosts were diverted enough by all the activity that they didn't feel called on to trip me or knock me down.

  Despite my ongoing terror, things went well until I dropped a basket of arrows between Abas and Kenric. The area was slick from water used to douse some burning debris, and as I turned, one of my feet slipped. No amount of frantic arm-waving was enough to regain my balance. I could tell I was sliding toward the edge, like an out-of-control skater. I had time to ask myself) Can I possibly survive a fall from this height? and to answer myself, Not likely, before my right foot cleared the edge, then my left—and then someone had hold of me around my waist and hauled me back up onto the wall.

  That someone was Kenric. I saw the surprise on his face as he took in my damp, sooty appearance and recognized me, and then he gave that grin that—even under the best of circumstances—made my knees weak. "Thank you," I managed to whisper.

  "You're welcome."

  Too bad he was my half brother. Too bad he wasn't real.

  Behind him a barbarian who had shimmied up a rope anchored by a grappling hook cleared the top of the wall, and Abas took his head off with a swipe of his sword, then he sliced through the rope to prevent anyone else from climbing up.

  I looked down the dizzying height and saw a cluster of barbarians holding their shields above the heads of other men to protect them from the arrows our archers were raining down on them. "What are they doing?" I asked.

  "Sapping," Kenric told me.

  My Rasmussem-provided subconscious told me that meant they were digging a tunnel so that section of wall would collapse.

  "Are we in danger?" I asked.

  "Not imminent danger. It will be worse at night, when we can't see them so well. Meanwhile..." He nodded beyond me, and I saw that Captain Penrod and some of his men had emerged from a nearby doorway, carrying a huge cauldron that I could only assume held something hot and nasty.

  The barbarians must have had a lookout for just such a thing, for as our men tipped the cauldron, a trumpet or horn sounded, and the barbarian sappers ran from their place by the wall so that the burning oil spilled only on the slowest of them.

  Then suddenly their horn sounded again, and all the barbarians fell back.

  "What's that all about?" Kenric asked suspiciously.

  "Dunno," Abas answered. "No reason for a retreat."

  Back and back the barbarians pulled, until they were out of range of our archers. Then one man, bearing a white flag, approached on horseback.

  "Surely they're not surrendering?" I said, though I very much hoped they were.

  "Parley," Captain Penrod told me. "They want to talk—though I don't know why. They weren't winning, but neither were they losing."

  Watching with barely suppressed strain as the barbarian messenger approached, the castle guards waited, their arrows notched and trained on him.

  Finally within shouting range, the barbarian reined in his horse and called up to us, "Return that which is being ours or we will be killing you all."

  Kenric, Abas, Penrod—everyone—was looking at me.

  Oh, my turn again to do something?

  I stepped closer to the edge of the battlements. Clutching the upright merlon to steady myself, I scanned the ground below, deserted now except for the bodies of the dead and wounded. If a ghost tickled or shoved now, I was a goner. If one of the supposedly dead barbarians below was faking, I was an open target. Still, I raised my arm so the messenger could see me, and I shouted down to him, "That offer was made to you already. You returned our envoys without their heads. If you killed them before they spoke, this is what they were sent to say: We don't have the crown of Brecc, but we are willing to help you find and reclaim it."

  The messenger said, "That is being well and good. But firstest you must be turning over to us that one of you which is being responsible for the death of our good king Grimbold. Otherwise we will never-ever be giving up until everly one of you is being dead."

  Everyone was looking in our direction.

  I reassured Abas, "Don't worry. I would never turn you over to them."

  Kenric made a sound, which, after a moment, I realized was a stifled laugh. Abas scratched his head, obviously confused by what I'd just said.

  What? I thought.

  Captain Penrod shuffled his feet and told me, "The ranking officer is responsible for the actions of all in his or her command."

  For a second I thought he was taking responsibility. But he didn't outrank Abas. I did.

  "Oh," I said. I was responsible for Abas? And Andreanna? And Kenric and Wulfgar? That hardly seemed fair when they were so intent on killing me off.

  There was a whizz and a thunk, which I figured was that hypothetical decoy left on the field to pretend he was dead until he got a clear shot at me.

  But it wasn't. It was one of our men, shooting down toward the barbarian. The arrow had struck about a handspan in front of the horse and stood quivering in the ground while the rider tried to control his mount, which was rearing in fright.

  Lucky he didn't hit him, I thought, for surely breaking a truce by murdering an unarmed messenger was not right. But before I could take responsibility for my men and yell, "Don't kill him!" another arrow flew from the battlements and struck the ground inches from the horse's leg. And then another. And another. And another. And not a one hit horse or man. Their feathered shafts formed a line in the dirt between him and us

  Despite the threat of death, my men were saying they would not turn me over.

  Which was a big relief to me.

  The horse was turning in tight circles, but at least he was no longer rearing. The envoy spat on the ground and yelled, "Then be preparing to being dead!" and he spurred his horse back in the direction of his own lines.

  "Janine! Janine!" my men began chanting, sounding for all the world like fens cheering their favorite baseball player. For a delicious moment, I forgot this was all make-believe and that my life was in danger—not from barbarian invaders but from computer overload. For a moment I knew what it was like to be popular. Then I remembered that this was merely one step toward surviving this game.

  Captain Penrod was saying, "The men are with you because of your courage."

  Courage? I'd been scared stiff every moment I'd been up here.

  Penrod must have known what I was thinking. He said, "You stayed. You helped. You did what you could."

  "Well," I said, "so did all of you."

  "The queen didn't," Penrod pointed out.

  Abas and Kenric shared a sour look over that rebuff to the royal family name.

  By then the barbarian messenger had made it back to his own lines. The rest of the barbarians
gave a great yell and shook their swords and spears and bows in our direction.

  I expected them to storm the castle, but they didn't. In fact, they seemed to be settling down where they were.

  "They'll wait till nightfall," Penrod said. "They'll be able to accomplish more under cover of dark. Still, we'll need to keep alert in case of raiding parties."

  Could I be crowned as king tomorrow if we were still under siege? It didn't seem likely. I couldn't believe I was just supposed to wait until we wore the barbarians down or the barbarians wore us down. I would have asked Kenric and Abas their thoughts, but they had melted into the crowd, and there was no sign of them.

  Penrod was ordering his men: "We must tend to our injured during this respite. Sergeants, count up the casualties so that we can set up a schedule for resting and watching."

  "I'll be back," I promised Penrod.

  I felt the presence of the catacomb ghosts crowding me as I went down the narrow stairway back to the Great Hall. Apparently the other times they had stayed on the battlements, watching thé attack. But now that there was a lull, they wanted to hang around me some more. Oh boy.

  We climbed over the broken doors of the Great Hall and had another meeting. Uldemar had Men asleep and had to be nudged awake.

  "I," Queen Andreanna announced as she walked into the room, "was seeing about provisions for our men. There was no need to be making unfounded speculations about my courage."

  Well, someone had run to Mama fast with news of all that was said.

  And I didn't believe her excuse, either. How long does it take to run down to the kitchen and tell the cooks, "We're under attack, so prepare portable food"? But I didn't point that out. I just said, "Good. Thank you. That's one thing less for me to have to worry about." One VERY SMALL thing...

  We didn't wait for Sister Mary Ursula, whose size and age pretty generally made her the last to arrive. Eventually she would catch up.

  "Any thoughts?" I asked.

  "You could sacrifice yourself for the good of the many," Andreanna suggested.

  Of all people, it was Sir Deming who came to my defense. "The way the barbarians would see it is that if we're weak enough to offer up our king, we're weak enough to be conquered. They would not be satisfied with just her death."

  "It was only a suggestion," Andreanna pouted.

  "How vulnerable are we?" I asked.

  Kenric said, "We have enough food to last for two weeks, longer on half rations. The well is supplied by groundwater springs—no way they can befoul that—so, an unlimited supply."

  Which would have been good news if I didn't have only until tomorrow to settle this.

  "The sappers?"

  Abas answered, "If the guards are alert, the sappers can be kept at bay." He cracked his knuckles, which—if it was meant to show how tough he was—didn't impress me.

  "Any back way I should know about?" I asked. "Secret passages into the castle?"

  Deming rolled his eyes. "What's the purpose of fortified walls and a drawbridge if you're going to have a little door marked SECRET ENTRANCE—ATTACKERS PLEASE STAY OUT?"

  "Is that a yes or a no?" I pressed.

  "No," he said. "No secret ways in."

  "OK," I said. "So, for the moment we're in no immediate danger. Is there anything we can do besides having our archers pick them off one by one?"

  "You mean by magic?" Uldemar asked, his eyes as blank and disconcerting as ever.

  "That would be a possibility," I said. "What can you do?"

  "I can smell the ghosts you brought with you," Uldemar said. "I can use my scrying glass to find people or other living creatures. I can transform my shape, and I can reanimate the dead."

  "Reanimate the dead?" Finally this was sounding like good news. "You mean you can bring back our men that were killed during the attack?"

  Uldemar was nodding, but Orielle said, "But they'll still be dead, and they'll keep on decomposing, which, personally, I find disagreeable in someone I'm trying to carry on a conversation with."

  It did sound like a serious drawback. "What do you do, Orielle?" I asked.

  She smiled, showing off perfect teeth that I would bet never had an overbite or suffered from tartar buildup. "My specialty is potions," she said. "I have one that will give a man, or a woman, great strength and stamina. If you'd like, I could mix up a batch for all the guards, so each man could fight as though he were two."

  "Sort of like an Abas clone," I said, wondering if she'd given some of her potion to my middle halt-brother, or if he'd come by his strength solely through diligent self-absorption.

  Orielle blinked and processed my anachronistic statement and said, "Like a miniature Abas, yes."

  "Except," Xenos said, obviously delighted to be the bearer of bad news, "for that slight little complication."

  Orielle made a bad-smell face.

  Of course Xenos would find the flaw in anything. "What complication?" I asked.

  "It only lasts one hour," Orielle admitted, "so you'd have to calculate exactly when would be the best time to administer it to the men."

  "And ..." Xenos prompted.

  Peeved, Orielle pointed out to him, "Your ear's on upside down." Sullenly, she admitted to me, "After it wears off) the person will be so weak, he won't even be able to stand up. That stage lasts two hours."

  Not a good thing if the battle isn't quite over on schedule.

  Xenos was tugging his ear and frowning, so Uldemar had a chance to say, "Hardly better than one of my dead people, eh?"

  I asked, "Xenos, what do you do?"

  Now he was ticked off, too. "Apparently I sit here all afternoon with my ear on upside down, and nobody tells me."

  "Can you fix it magically?" I asked, trying to be helpful, as well as trying to get a feel for what he was capable of.

  "You ignorant little nobody, you," he snapped. "I make artifacts. Like crowns that get stolen away from perfectly nice barbarian kings by unscrupulous civilized kings and then stupidly given to nasty dragons." He jumped to his feet. "So I, for one, have no need to worry about the barbarians tearing down your walls or starving you out, for they hold me in high esteem and will let me pass without harm."

  "Perhaps," I told him. "But unfortunately we won't be able to lower the drawbridge to let you out—"

  "I don't need you"—he glanced around the room to include all of us—"or your drawbridge." He muttered something I couldn't make out, then walked through the wall with as much ease as someone walking from sunlight through shadow.

  "Now you've done it," Uldemar said. "Now you've really irked him."

  I guessed so. Annoying as the beastly little guy could be, I asked, "Can you stop him?" because I might need him later on in the game.

  "I can only try." Uldemar reached into his robes and pulled out a vial from which he poured a powder into his palm. This he tossed into the air in front of himself. As soon as the powder touched him, he transformed into a bat. Either that, or he disappeared and the powder itself transformed into a bat—it happened too fast to be sure of anything, except that it was one of the scenes from Rasmussem's promo. Only then it had been an eagle. With a cry disconcertingly like a squeal, the bat flew out the window.

  Queen Andreanna said to me, "Well, you've gotten rid of two out of three of the people most likely to help us out of this disaster you've caused. What are you going to do next?"

  I caused this? What about Abas's input into the situation?

  Luckily, I didn't have to answer, because at that moment Sister Mary Ursula entered the room.

  Unluckily, what she said was, "Bad, bad, bad news. Bad news. Prince Wulfgar and the squadron accompanying him and the treasury are now One with the barbarians."

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  Back to the Battlements

  Queen Andreanna screamed and threw herself backward like a Victorian lady having the vapors. But I figured it was calculated drama, for she didn't lose herself to the moment enough to fall off the back of the bench.

&nb
sp; Orielle rushed to her side to fan her and to say, "There, there," which might have meant that Orielle was easily fooled, or—more likely—that she was smart enough to pretend she was easily fooled.

  "What happened?" I asked Sister Mary Ursula.

  "Wulfgar was returning from Fairfield, leading the wagons bearing the recovered gold," Sister Mary Ursula said. She paused and considered. "Gold..." She shook her head disapprovingly. "True, it is of the earth and comes from the earth, but if ever there was a thing which caused more division rather than Oneness—"

  "Sister Mary Ursula!" Andreanna bellowed, having recovered, at least, the strength of her voice. "Get on with what's happened to my son!"

  "He must have been feeling a certain sense of Oneness," Sister Mary Ursula said, refusing to be put entirely off, "for he didn't send scouts ahead, and so he stumbled into the barbarian camp and was captured."

  "I would have sent scouts," Abas grumbled, "no matter how One I felt."

  "Yes, dear," Andreanna said, "but that's you."

  I was thinking that Wulfgar, being what he was, should have had a certain advantage in a surprise attack. Not sure how many people knew of his ability to transform into a wolf, and not wanting to give away anything that I shouldn't, I said, "Perhaps Wulfgar, being the clever person he is, might have managed to escape..."

  Sister Mary Ursula asked, "You mean by turning into a wolf?"—which goes to show that not every situation calls for subtlety. "No, the barbarian messenger specifically said that didn't work."

  "'Messenger'?" I echoed. "The barbarians sent a messenger?"

  "Well, of course there's a messenger. How else would I know what had happened? Captain Penrod sent me to ask you to come up to the north battlement."