Joshua and the Arrow Realm (3 page)

“Leandro requested it.”

“Why?”

“I don't question him. I'm his trusted hound. I do know Queen Artemis has kidnapped King Apollo and is holding him in her dungeon for ransom. She wishes to conquer his kingdom, the Lost Realm.”

I got Charlie and Ash up to speed on what was happening.

“Why should we trust you?” I asked the beast.

“Because Leandro is my master and your friend. He
wants to stop the queen but fears she suspects his loyalty. He sent his Wild Child friend here to bring you to this land.”

“Wild Child?”

The dog raised a paw at Ash. “Their leader. They live in the Wild Lands. She led you to me and now I'll get you into the castle and out again. Once we free the king.”

“Enough talk,” Ash said with a toss of her ponytail. “Whatever Lore's told you, you should know enough by now to go with him, malumpus-tongue. I have to get back to my people.” She pulled a rag out of her satchel and thrust it at us. “Food. Dried squirrel mash and ache cakes.”

I unwrapped it for a peek. A bitter, smoky smell rose up from what appeared to be beef jerky and pancakes. Charlie scrunched up his nose. I split them with him and we stashed them in our pockets.

“Good protein and the acorn in the cakes stops leg cramps,” Ash said. I wondered why she told us this when she explained, “If you do lots of running.” Charlie blew out a big breath.

“Be quiet and on alert—always. Trust only those you know in your heart.” Ash handed me a leather canteen full of water from her bag and turned to leave.

“Wait, Ash, will we see Leandro?” Since I'd said goodbye to him, I didn't think it'd ever happen again. He'd saved my life in the Lost Realm more than once. I wanted the chance to pay him back and prove myself to him—to me.

“If you do, you won't live long,” Lore answered for her with a grim tone. “He's the head guard for the queen.”

“He guards the queen?” I asked Ash.

She nodded but said nothing.

I slung the canteen across my chest, and it banged against my bow. The great dog pounded a paw to the ground and headed off into the woods, expecting us to follow. Ash motioned for us to go with him, but it was all too quick for me. “Come with us,” I said to her.

She shook her head and put a fist to her heart, then spread her palm out to the forest. “My home.”

“Can you promise we'll get back home?” Charlie said. “My brother is waiting for me … Well, sort of.”

His words cramped my gut with the memory of home—and Bo Chez's face as we flashed away.

Ash lowered her head. “We don't make promises here. It's too hard when they get broken.”

“
Fantastique
,” Charlie said. He straightened up. “How do we know this mutt doesn't breathe fire like those nasty foxes in the Lost Realm?”

Lore whirled about and headed back for Charlie, who pressed himself deep into a tree trunk. The giant dog opened his mouth. Spiked teeth chomped in our faces, and he blew out a big stinky breath.

Charlie squished his nose together with his fingers. “Eww, okay.”

Lore threw his head back with a snort. “Come on, Reekers.”

“What did it say?” Charlie said to me.

“He called us Reekers.”

“
Zut
! That's the worst dog breath I ever smelled. Look who reeks.”

Ash laughed for the first time. “Trust him.” She pointed to Lore. “He'll lead you to Apollo.”

“Tree Girl, I don't trust anyone I've known for five minutes,” Charlie said.

“You did with me,” I reminded him.

“You weren't an ugly dog with stinky breath.”

I snorted at that as Ash pointed at me. “Trust.”

“Who?”

She moved closer and tapped my chest. “Yourself.”

“I'll try.”

She stared into my eyes for a long moment. “Try hard.”

“I'll help him,” Charlie said.

“Let's trust we can get back home alive,” I said.

Ash nodded and raised her hand. I lifted mine in return, wondering if we'd ever see her again. She hoisted herself up into a tree and disappeared in the leafy shadows. Charlie and I were left to trot after our guide in this new land. Could we trust him? Ash thought so, and while we'd just met, I trusted her.

And so, Charlie and I followed Lore through the Arrow Realm woods.

As we moved through the forest, it shivered with a heart beating from all that dwelled here. Even its tall pine and oaks leaned in, an army of silent sentries protecting a wild land. Squirrels leaped into branch clutches that caught them in a game, then unfurled to let them go. Shiny eyes followed us from tree holes, as did trilling coos.

The orange moon watched over it all with its fiery eye.

I ran faster toward Apollo—or toward my own death? I'd learned all is not as it seems on Nostos. Death's door could mercifully slam shut just when you were doomed to enter.

L
ore stopped fast and Charlie and I skidded to a stop behind him. Towers jutted up in the distance, stabbing the night sky with jagged rock. Queen Artemis's castle glowered down, daring us to enter.

“What's the plan?” I wiped the sweat off my forehead as Charlie and I chugged some water and tried Ash's food. The salty squirrel jerky had a smoky flavor, and the pancakes were dry but nutty and filling.

A cool breeze chilled my skin, reminding me of the blizzard blowing back home and all we'd left behind.

Lore sniffed, the hair on his back quivering. “Can you swim?”

I asked Charlie who nodded with a frown. Lore stared at us as if deciding we were worthy of his wet task. “We enter the moat, swim to the middle and where the moon aligns with the queen's flag, swim below to an old underground gate that leads to the dungeon. It was used
before the moat was dug and filled.”

I translated Lore's words to Charlie, who gunned me a look like we'd be crazy to do it.

“How will we get Apollo? Get back out, get him back to his land, and get back to ours?” I asked Lore.

“You must trust me,” Lore growled, ears twitching. “Leandro trusts me.”

So says the mutt. If Leandro were here, he'd do anything in his power to help us get home again. We had no choice but to trust Lore.

“And he trusts what
you
may be,” Lore said with a jerk of his head.

Those words zapped me like a live wire. This was why Leandro brought me back.

Charlie pulled me aside. “
C'est impossible
, Joshua.” Lore watched us, his eyes shining like spotlights then he moved away to study the castle towers.

“Nothing's impossible here,” I said.

“People lie.” Charlie thrust a chin at Lore, who sniffed the ground. “Animals lie. We can find our own way. We did before. You and me.”

“And Apollo.”

“But he's the reason we came. He helped us alone. Let's do the same.” He looked sideways at Lore and edged back toward the path we'd traveled.

I tugged him back. “We rescued Finn and got home last time because we trusted people—and animals. Right?” The more I convinced him, the more I wanted to convince myself.

He didn't answer but stopped moving back and crumpled his skinny shoulders. He'd grown taller in the few months we'd been apart. Even with his slouching, I had to crick my neck up at him, waiting for his answer.

“You can't trust family,” Charlie finally whispered. “So why these … these people?” He picked at a pocket thread on his jeans. He cleared his throat and said, “I don't think my mom wants to follow us to America.”

“Oh.” My brain switched gears with his words. Guilt coursed through me over getting him caught up in this mess.

“My dad's new job was supposed to make us happy. Their last chance, I heard my dad say. I think he tries too hard at the wrong stuff, you know?” He gave up on the thread and shoved it in his pocket, looking at me with wet eyes. “What if I never see my mom or brother again? Now I'm farther away from them … and might not get home.”

“Friends don't let each other down, right?”

He tightened his lips and nodded.

“Then come on. Apollo would do the same for us. We got home last time. We will again.”

He sighed and nodded. “Let's follow the fur ball.” The fur ball had finished sniffing about and waved a paw at us to follow. The closer to the castle we got, the more it looked like a crooked rock pile that'd been smashed together by the hands of some giant. Torches lit the massive wooden door at the end of the bridge arching over the moat. Figures strode back and forth in front of it: guards with snake spears that could blast you to ash.

“How do we unlock Apollo's cell?” I whispered to Lore, as we hunkered down behind a pricker bush. They scraped my skin and I winced, shrinking back. The water on the moat rippled in a black sheen.

“With words,” Lore said in a low rumble. “The cells are locked with enchanted spells by guards.”

“The queen's slaves?”

“We are all her slaves.”

“No way,” I said. “Not a slave. Not ever again.”

“
Oui
!” Charlie chimed in.

Lore chuffed. “There is always a way.”

“Leandro and Apollo were supposed to stop kid slavery after we left last time,” I said.

“We need a revolution—or the Oracle—for that to happen.” The big dog sniffed me, his ears twitched. “Are you he?”

“Am I who?”

“The Oracle.”

I shook my head, sharing our conversation with Charlie.

“If he is the Oracle, you better be on our side,” Charlie said to Lore.

Lore snapped his jaws, and Charlie and I both jumped back. “I don't need a hero, you Reekers. I've got my own.”

Before I could wonder what Lore meant, Charlie cleared his throat. “We can't swim in that muck. There's got to be another way.”

“No other way,” Lore growled.

A cloud of bugs flew low across the moat as if they agreed, their wings chopping through gas bubbles sprouting from the silent sludge. Moonlight shone across the water, revealing chunks of algae floating in the scum. A whiff of decaying vegetation attacked my nose. I tried not to gag with the thought of diving into the slime. A frog
barrumphed
a lone croak and the trees bent over the moat, their branches ensnared in the watery grave.

Neither Charlie nor I moved.

“Suit yourself.” Lore's hair bristled across his broad body, and his tail thrashed us as he turned toward the
water. “The guards change in a moment. Must go while they're distracted.”

“If we get in and out and back to the Lightning Gate, we could send Apollo back to the Lost Realm and be home before lunch,” I said to Charlie, wishing so bad those words were true.

He looked at me doubtfully. “Or we may never get home.”

His words echoed what he'd told me in the auction pit of the Lost Realm when I'd first met him.
I'm not saying you won't find your friend. You might. But we'll never get home again
.

Was that our fate now?

The guards called out the changing of their posts. Lore plunged into the rank water. He swam away fast, his brutish head cruising across the moat's slime. I stared at the sky one last time, our purple portal to freedom, and slid into the briny black, shivering from its cold embrace. A foul stench filled my nose as I pushed slimy algae away. Charlie sighed, and his splash told me he followed close behind.

Something skated across the water toward me, its beady eyes glittering as it grew closer. I swam faster toward Lore to escape the snake, my heart thudding harder with each stroke. It passed behind me and continued on its quest. I tried not to think about what lay below the water and kicked my legs furiously, promising any creature that dared drag me under a good smack in the head. The moat wasn't wide, but crossing it seemed to take an eternity.

Lore threw his snout up in the air. We'd reached the middle of the moat. The queen's flag snapped in the breeze from a tower above, a white pendant ablaze with a fiery black arrow. Our guide disappeared.

The trench swallowed him up. One ripple rose as evidence he'd been there. I took a deep breath of the rotting ooze and sank into the creepy waters. Doom and dark engulfed me as I swam the dank depths lurking with danger—and death.

I
forced myself to open my eyes in the murky realm we pushed through. Lore's body swum ahead, and I focused on his tail and not the gunk flowing around me. The moon tainted everything under the water a sickly color. I pretended we were swimming in sticky soda fizz rather than stinky ick.

Tails flipped past as fish wriggled around me. My lungs burned. I dared a peek behind me. Charlie pushed through the water, his eyes bulging.

The need for air threatened to launch me into full panic. We should be there by now! A yellow light swelled before us. Out of the corner of my eye, something else grew bigger. White chompers gnashed together. A mutant rat! Claws ripped through the water driving the rat toward dinner. Me!

I swam faster. Could the orb work as a weapon under water? No time to find out! The water crushed me. My
boots clung to me like mud. My chest screamed for air. Lore's body disappeared into the light. The dog dragged me and Charlie out of the water with his teeth. I cracked my ankle on stone. Pain ripped through me as I scrambled up the steps when a snout exploded through the water. Teeth sliced the air. I screamed, jerking my leg away. Charlie lugged me up the steps, scraping me with every inch. Lore stood and yanked down an iron grate anchored in the ceiling. It bashed into the rat's head before locking into fitted holes in the ground. The beast squealed and swam away.

Shuddering, I sprawled across the steps. The light I'd been swimming toward hadn't come from any torches but from the rock of this watery dungeon entrance. It glowed yellow with sparkly gold flecks.