The Hero's Guide to Being an Outlaw (27 page)

“Ruffian,” she breathed.

“Lila, is it really you?” the old bounty hunter asked weakly. He pulled back his hood to get a better look at her.

“You’re alive,” she said, trying not to cry.

“Yes, somehow,” Ruffian said. “My resistance to snake venoms must be even stronger than I realized. Normally, it’s enough to keep me going for several days after a bite. A few weeks at most. But months have passed, haven’t they? I kept expecting to die, but I didn’t. I thought I’d never see you again, but here you are.”

“Thank you, genie,” Lila whispered.

From out in the hall they heard the loud, satisfied belch of a mongoose.

THE BATTLE OF SYLVARIA

While Frank and the dwarfs were busy carving their way through the Darian opposition outside the salmon-pink walls of Castlevaria, Duncan was busy doing something he’d never done before: leading his people. He might only have been leading them in a series of rousing chants—“We are Sylvaria! We will take care o’ ya!” “Duncan, Duncan, he’ll do somethin’!” “Let’s go dwarfs! You’ll win, of courfs!”—but everybody was cheering along with him. In fact, most of his subjects seemed to be enjoying themselves. Most had not quite absorbed the idea that they were in a war zone—unarmed (since Duncan had forgotten to bring any weapons).

Eventually, Snow tapped Duncan’s shoulder. “Frank and the boys have almost beaten all the bad guys,” she said. “Shouldn’t we go check on your family?”

He gave a vigorous nod, the feathers on his cap waggling like an excited sea anemone, and turned to the crowd. “You people have done a great job with the chanting. But it is now time to storm the castle. And seeing as none of us is armed—well, except Snow; she has hazelnuts—I couldn’t possibly ask you to go in with me. Don’t be offended! I’m not saying you’d all definitely be defeated in there, but . . . I wouldn’t want to leave it to chants.”

And with that, he and Snow ran past the battling dwarfs and into the castle, where they discovered Duncan’s entire family tied together and dangling by a rope over a large, bubbling cauldron.

“Oh, Duncan!” King King called down when he saw his son. “You’re just in time. Our captors are making soup!”

“I think you’re the soup, Dad,” Duncan said.

“Is that how you kids are complimenting one another these days?” Queen Apricotta asked. “Well, we think you’re ‘the soup,’ too, honey!”

“Thanks,” Duncan replied. “We should try to get you down.”

Just then a door opened, and Falco rushed in, looking panicked. (He’d been in the bathroom when the battle started—every villain’s worst nightmare.) He dashed in front of the boiling cauldron, unsheathed a wavy-bladed dagger, and gnashed his sharpened teeth at Duncan and Snow.

“I remember you!” Snow said. “You chased me and Lila in my wagon that one time. You were quite rude.”

Duncan eyed the pasty-skinned, baldheaded Darian strangely. “Are you like a werewolf?” Duncan asked. “Only instead of a wolf, you turn into a naked mole rat?”

Falco growled.

“Ooh, yes, ask him more questions,” King King said from up above. “He likes to play charades, this one.”

Sneering, Falco pointed up at the suspended family. Then, slowly and with malice, he drew his finger across his throat.

“You met a bird who gave you a necktie?” Duncan asked.

Falco snarled and repeated the same gestures.

“Moon-men can see down your throat?” Snow guessed.

“There’s a cough drop stuck on the ceiling?” Duncan tried.

The fanged Darian threw back his head and howled in fury.

“I must be right,” Duncan whispered to Snow. “See how mad he is?”

“Maybe now’s a good time to strike,” Snow suggested.

“Oh, yes,” said Duncan. “Please do.”

As Falco reached for a dagger, Snow whipped a handful of hazelnuts at his head. The tiny missiles stung his face. He staggered backward, dropping his knife, spilling over the huge cauldron, and setting his pants on fire.

“He must be a liar,” Mavis said.

“I never believed a word that came out of his mouth,” added Marvella.

While Falco writhed on the floor trying to pat out his flaming legs, Duncan threw a heavy tapestry over the fire to smother it, and Snow threw the dropped dagger up at the dangling rope, slicing loose the royal family.

“Hooray for Duncan and Snow!” The queen beamed. “Our heroes again!”

“The important thing is that it’s all over,” said the king. “Our kingdom is safe once again. Which reminds me, Duncan, I’ve made a decision—”

With a hiss and a snarl—and very blackened pants—Falco reappeared. He snatched Duncan from behind, crawled out the window, and, beastlike, began scaling the wall of the castle.

“Where are they going?” Queen Apricotta asked.

They scrambled out to the front walk, where the dwarfs had finished off the last of the Darians.

“Frank! Frank!” Snow called. “The toothy man stole Duncan! He’s climbing the big tower! You’ve got to go up there and rescue him!”

The dwarfs glanced upward to see the hunched figure of Falco scuttling to the tip-top of Castlevaria’s tallest tower with Duncan flopping over his shoulder. “Aw, jeez, Snow,” Frank said. “I, um . . . We can’t . . .” He sighed.

“What do you mean,
you can’t?
” Snow barked. “Go get him!”

Frank hung his head, and in a voice barely above a whisper, he muttered, “Dwarves are
not
expert climbers.”

Snow looked to the crowd of Sylvarian bystanders. “Well, somebody’s got to help Duncan! Somebody do something!”

The crowd began chanting: “That’s Prince Charming! Please don’t harm ’im!”

It did not help. Duncan was completely at the mercy of the rabid Falco. “I think I can see my old house from here,” he said to his captor.

Standing balanced on the conical roof of the tower, Falco lifted Duncan over his head. But when he did, a long, dangling feather from Duncan’s cap jutted down into the Darian’s eyes. Falco blinked and shifted his head, but that only made more of the feathers get in his way. They poked his eyes and tickled his nose. Falco squinched up his face, trying to hold back the sneeze he felt coming. But it was a sneeze that would not be denied. And as Falco let loose with that massive, head-whipping nose-blast, his feet slipped. He dropped Duncan and tried to catch himself. But the Darian’s clawed hands couldn’t find a grip. He plummeted two hundred feet to the rocky ground below.

High above the cheering crowd, Duncan clung to the tower’s spire, his arms and legs wrapped around it. He took off his hat, kissed it gently, and said, “Your job here is done. Return now to your own kind.”

He released the hat into a gust of chill March wind and watched it soar high up into the clouds, where it was eventually adopted by a flock of passing geese.

THE BATTLE OF STURMHAGEN

Lord Rundark had underestimated the people of Harmonia, Erinthia, Yondale, and Sylvaria, assuming them too timid, too self-interested, or too dumb to revolt. But he never had any such illusions about Sturmhageners, who he knew to be stubborn, prideful, and easy to anger. Which is why Sturmhagen was teeming with hundreds upon hundreds of Darian warriors. (That and it was also really close to Dar, so they didn’t have to walk very far.)

When the rabid, vengeance-hungry farmers clashed with their Darian oppressors in the cobblestone alleys and courtyards outside Castle Sturmhagen, it was all-out war. The Darians might have had better weapons—massive swords, spiked maces, and double-bladed pikes as opposed to pitchforks, shovels, and big sticks—but the farmers had heart. They also had trolls, which helped even more.

As roaring trolls hurled soldiers through brick walls and rebels used picnic tables as battering rams, Gustav was glowing.
I’m doing it,
he thought as he ripped a lamppost from the ground and used it to bat down a trio of Darians.
I rallied these people together. I’m their leader. And I’m going to win this. Nothing can stop me!

And then a voice. “There you are.”

She stood on the castle steps in her tall, brown boots and long, flashy coat. Her captain’s hat was tipped back, and her long black hair tumbled over her shoulders. A gleaming cutlass shone in her hand.

Gustav stomped his foot when he saw her. His nostrils flared. “Fine!” he shouted. “Come on, then! You and me! Right now! Final battle!”

“I didn’t come here to fight you, Goldilocks,” Jerica said. “I came to help.”

“I don’t believe you,” Gustav said quickly. The rebellion raged on all around them, swords and shovels clashing mere feet away. But the two stood staring each other down.

“I swear I didn’t know what Rundark had planned,” Jerica said.

“Likely story,” Gustav snipped. But he made no move—either to fight Jerica or to walk away.

“It was a job,” she said with a shrug that was either apologetic or impatient—Gustav couldn’t tell. “Rundark paid good money for me to drop you guys on the island, so I did it. I didn’t ask questions. I never do. That’s the way it always is. But this time . . .”

“This time
what?
” Gustav asked. He felt his sword hand trembling and wasn’t sure why. “This time you found such a big sap that you decided it would be fun to hit him with a double whammy? This time you thought it would be hilarious to break some big goon’s heart
before
you marooned him on an island? This time—”

“I didn’t expect to fall for you, okay?” she barked back at him. “That
doesn’t
usually happen. And you know what else doesn’t usually happen? I don’t usually go back for the people I strand at sea.”

“Except that didn’t happen,” Gustav scoffed, lifting his elbow to smash the face of a Darian who charged him from behind.

“It did,” Jerica insisted, ducking a raving warrior who leapt at her. “When I returned to port and heard what Rundark had been doing on the mainland, I headed straight back out to sea to find you again.”

“It’s true!” It was Roderick Key, exchanging blows with a Darian guard a few yards away. “It’s because of you that the captain made us all skip shore leave! I missed sing-along night at the Salty Parrot! Not that I’m complaining.”

Gustav looked around. A few feet away, Tauro was clotheslining Darians with his tree-like arms. Just past him, Mr. Flint was slamming an anchor over the head of an unlucky thug—and Sadie Squawkins was pecking at the bandanna of another. Even Scotty the cabin boy was there, whipping around two flopping mackerels like a pair of nunchackus.

“Wow, is the whole crew here?” Gustav asked.

“Well, I left Gabberman and his buddies on the
Dreadwind
,” Jerica said (while forcing a struggling Darian into a headlock). “My ship is probably sinking as we speak.”

Gustav hunched his shoulders and furrowed his brow. “I still don’t know what to think,” he grumbled.

“Look, Gustav, I’m
here
,” Jerica said, sidekicking a Darian who tried to sneak up on her. “I came straight to Sturmhagen looking for you. I didn’t know I would walk in on a revolution. But now that I’m here, just accept my help.”

“Let me ask you one thing,” Gustav said soberly. “Did you keep the money?”

“Of course I kept the money,” Jerica half laughed. “It was a
lot
of money.”

Gustav shrugged. “Yeah, I woulda kept it, too,” he said. “Welcome to the team—nice to have you on board. Or
off
board, I guess. Look out!”

The castle’s heavy oaken doors burst open, and a seemingly endless stream of Darians poured out—howling thugs who were armed to the teeth (that is, they held daggers not just in their hands but also between their teeth). The pirates rallied to defend themselves, but were quickly overwhelmed.

“There are too many of them!” Jerica cried, parrying two sword thrusts at once.

“I know where we can get reinforcements,” Gustav said. “Follow me!” He grabbed Jerica’s arm and tried to pull her away from the fray.

She yanked her arm back. “I can’t leave my crew!”

Gustav glared at her. She glared right back.

“Starf it all,” he grumbled, and ran off without her.

He dashed around the corner of the castle, where he wrapped his fingers around a rusty iron grate and ripped it from the stone wall. He raced down a dark, muck-filled tunnel, through another dented grate, and along a series of chilly, gray-walled passages, until he reached a long, very crowded cellblock. Behind nearly every barred door in the prison was one of Gustav’s greatest enemies—his brothers. All sixteen were there: Henrik, Björn, Alvar, Ulrik, Osvald, Torvald, Sigfrid, Harald, Hans, Frans, Jorgen, Lars, Knute, Gunnar, Sven, and Viktor. They leapt to their feet.

“Little brother,” said Henrik, the eldest. “Thank goodness!”

“Quick! Let us out!” said Jorgen. “We can hear the battle out there.”

“Hurry!” shouted Torvald.

“We’ve been in here for months,” pled Viktor. “Please, open the cells!”

“Free us, Gustav!” cried Sigfrid. He pointed to a hook on a nearby wall, where a ring of keys hung mockingly just out of reach.

Gustav grabbed the key ring and stared it at. He wanted so badly to milk this moment, to use it as the perfect way to get his brothers back for every name they’d ever called him, every prank they’d ever played on him, every bit of credit they’d ever stolen from him. He wanted to force an apology out of them. Or make them promise to do his laundry for a year. Or tell them he wouldn’t release them unless they admitted to the world that it was really
he
who had saved the bards from Zaubera.

But Jerica was in trouble. So, with his jaw set and his eyes narrowed, he simply unlocked each cell door.

His brothers emptied out into the cellblock, stretching their stiff muscles and cracking their knuckles. Then they shoved him out of the way and ran off to join the battle, hooting, “Out of the way, loser!”

Gustav lay on his face in cobwebs and grime as his siblings’ footsteps vanished down the corridor. He closed his eyes. “I really am an idiot.” But then he heard more footsteps, a solitary pair or boots, heading his way.

“Let me assist you.” A hand wrapped around his and pulled him to his feet. And then
off
his feet. Gustav looked up and flinched. Wrathgar—shoulders heaving and mustache swaying—was holding him up by the wrist, dangling him in the air.