The Hero's Guide to Being an Outlaw (7 page)

“No, all of you, listen to me,” Ella said. “You need to leave. They have horses and weapons and . . . mongeese. Get away while you can. The only thing worse than some of us getting caught is
all
of us getting caught.”

Everyone looked to Liam. He took a deep breath and nodded.

“I’ll be back, Snowy,” Duncan said with far less than his usual amount of perk.

Frederic and Gustav both flashed reluctant looks at Rapunzel. “Guys, run away,” she said. “They’re almost here.”

The princes sloshed out of the mud and took off down the mountainside. Before they vanished out of sight, Liam turned back and called, “We
will
save you.”

“Save yourselves first!” Ella yelled back. And the princes were gone.

Greenfang’s gang arrived a few seconds later and dismounted.

“What a mess,” Greenfang said, scowling.

“Well, we still got three of ’em,” said Orangebeard. “Which is how many we had to start with.”

Greenfang leaned over and snarled in his henchman’s face. “We could have had
all
of them. I still
want
all of them.” He looked at the women in the cage, then walked over to the rugged slope down which the princes had fled. “Pete! Erik! Come with me. We’re going after them. On the mongooses.”

“Mongeese,” Erik said halfheartedly.

“The rest of you,” Greenfang said, “haul this wagon out of the muck and take it to the royal court in Avondell. The faster we get these ladies onto Death Row, the faster we get our gold.”

“I really hope Death Row isn’t what it sounds like,” Rapunzel said, growing pale.

“Yeah,” said Snow. “Maybe it’s not so much a
row
as it is one big room full of prisoners waiting to die.”

“That . . . was not my point,” Rapunzel said.

Ella put her hands on the shoulders of the other two women. “We will get out of this,” she said with reassurance. Then she looked off into the distance. “It’s the guys I’m worried about.”

T
he princes were exhausted. They’d been running for three solid days, hiking across miles of rugged terrain, ducking behind trees and sliding down hillsides in order to stay ahead of the bounty hunters who dogged them the entire way. They would have given anything for a bed or a hot meal, but towns and villages needed to be strictly avoided—a sad fact they discovered when they sought refuge at an inn in the tiny hamlet of Tartlesboro and almost lost Duncan to a grieving innkeeper with a hot skillet.

A satin-draped minstrel was in the process of serenading the inn’s dining room guests as the princes ducked inside. “He’s good and he’s kind and he never says curses! / He makes kingdoms better, when they started off worses!” The honey-voiced man sang as he plucked on a mandolin.

“I wonder who he’s singing about,” Duncan said.

“At least it’s not us for once,” Frederic said, shutting the door behind them and peeking out a nearby window to check for any signs of bounty hunters.

But that was when the innkeeper, who had been busy at the stove, heard the door slam and turned to see who his new customers were. His face turned instantly red, and his nostrils flared.

“Murderous fiends! You took away our Sleeping Beauty!” the angry man shouted as he leapt over the bar and swung his cast-iron pan straight at Duncan’s face. Luckily, Gustav saved the day by throwing his petite friend out of the way—and through a table.

“I’m no murderer,” Duncan protested as Liam and Frederic pulled him from the splinters. “The only thing killer about me is my dance moves.” But his defense went unheeded—and every customer in the place joined the innkeeper in chasing the princes out of town.

And so it was back into the wilderness, where, within minutes, they heard the slobbery panting of pursuing mongooses. When the princes finally stumbled upon the banks of Rambling River, they were more than just relieved.

“This is the perfect place to lose them,” Liam said. “We won’t leave a trail on water.”

A fisherman’s canoe sat by the riverside. They climbed in and pushed off (leaving a note and a few coins behind for the boat’s former owner). Floating downstream, they finally had a chance to catch their breaths—except for Frederic, whose head was planted firmly between his legs.

“Did you drop something?” Duncan asked.

“No,” Frederic replied, his voice quivery. “I’ve just never been in a boat before. And apparently I get seasick.”

“Riversick,” Duncan corrected, though not unsympathetically.

Gustav shifted uneasily in his seat. “What’s the plan now?” he asked. “Straight to Avondell Palace, right? We bust the girls out of jail?”

“Anything to get us back on dry land,” Frederic muttered.

Gustav grabbed the oars. “All right, then. Let’s hightail it to Avondell Palace.”

“No,” said Liam forcefully. “We’re not doing this again.”

The others looked at him askance. “What’s the problem?” Gustav asked. “Quitting the hero business just because we’re outlaws now?”

“No,” Liam said again. “I mean, yes, we have to help our friends, but we’re not doing
this
again.” He held out his hands to indicate the soiled, tattered state they were in. “Every time one of us gets captured, the others all run off half-cocked on some barely planned rescue mission. And we always manage to foul things up worse than they were when we started. Look at what happened at my wedding. Look at what happened with those bounty hunters!”

“To be fair,” Frederic said, “Duncan and Snow were doing pretty well until—”

“That’s not the point!” Liam said. “We’re going to get Ella, Rapunzel, and Snow free. But we’re going to do it
right
this time.”

“And how’s that exactly?” Gustav asked.

“We’re going to prove our innocence,” Liam said.

In an unnecessarily dark chamber at the heart of the fortress formerly known as Castle von Deeb, Lord Rundark crossed his arms against his burly chest and watched his army of bandits at work. Scores of grunting, sweaty henchmen tramped past him, lugging taffy machines, Ping-Pong tables, and tubs of raw cookie dough. Once outside, these offending items would be tossed into the moat along with every other reminder of the young Deeb Rauber’s reign as Bandit King.

Rauberia was no more. This was New Dar now—a land in which there was no time or place for trivial things like entertainment or recreation. Lord Rundark made sure of that.

As four bandits worked together to haul out a chocolate-smeared trampoline, one of them made the mistake of whistling. The other three stopped in their tracks, closed their eyes, and braced themselves for what they knew was to come. A second later, the Warlord was looming over the absentminded whistler, snorting like an angry bull. With his bare hands, Rundark folded the trampoline around the man, trapping him like beans in a burrito. “Carry on,” the Warlord said.

Fig. 7
NEW TENANT

He stepped back and watched the remaining three carry out the twisted trampoline with its pitiful passenger. Back during Rauber’s rule, one of them might have freed their friend once they were outside, but Rundark had no worries about such a thing happening now. His brutal, iron-fisted ways had earned him the utter loyalty of these men.

A black-clad messenger jogged into the room, an emissary from the League of Evil Couriers. The man’s hands trembled, and his breath was short. “Lord Rundark, I bring news from Avondell,” he announced in a quivery voice.

Rundark stared at him, waiting.

“Three of the ladies have arrived there as prisoners,” the courier said. He swallowed hard. “But I regret to inform you that the young princess from Erinthia and all four of the princes have thus far eluded capture. Bounty hunters are still in pursuit, though, so it’s just a matter of time. I’m sure.”

The Warlord stroked the long braids of his wild, black beard before he suddenly stepped off into a shadowy corner of the obsidian chamber and began mumbling softly.
He’s talking to himself,
the messenger thought.
He’s completely insane. And I’m dead
. But then he heard a second voice. Rundark wasn’t alone. He was talking to someone hidden in the darkness. No, not just talking—
arguing
. The courier strained to listen, praying that his own doom was not the topic of conversation. “. . . best not to take chances,” he thought he heard one of them say. He was just about to attempt a quiet exit when Rundark grabbed something shiny and turned back into the dim lamplight. The Warlord stood before the messenger, holding a large glass-like orb on his palm.

“Take this to our friends by the sea,” Rundark said. “They will know what to do with it.”

“At once,” the courier said, taking the big crystal ball and nearly collapsing with relief. He turned to leave.

“Oh,” said Rundark. “And after you’ve made your delivery, come back here and jump into the moat with the bladejaw eels.”

“Yes, sir.” The messenger sighed and took off on his trip to Yondale.

A
t night the Twisted Forest of Yondale is the kind of eerie, shadow-bathed, creak-and-groan-filled place that makes you believe its gnarled and drooping trees are going to snap to life and bite your head off. By the light of day it’s slightly less intimidating—you may feel like the trees are only going to eat one of your feet or maybe a few fingers. So as Lila rode through the Twisted Forest, she reminded herself that sweet, naive, little Snow White had managed to brave these woods on her own. It had been here in the Twisted Forest that Snow’s stepmother, who was queen of Yondale at the time, had abandoned the young princess and left her to die. But Snow had survived and made it into the much happier forest of Sylvaria (which was, coincidentally, called the Much Happier Forest).
And I will survive my trip too
, Lila told herself.
After all, I’ve got the world’s greatest bounty hunter by my side
.

“So why did we come here again?” she asked Ruffian, ducking as she rode under a particularly evil-looking oak.

“Wiley Whitehair is from Yondale,” Ruffian said, glancing down at her from his much taller horse. “So is Greenfang. And they were the first hunters to find out about the bounty on the League of Princes. They saw the Wanted posters by Yondale Harbor.”

“Of course!” Lila said excitedly. “You’d think posters would have gone up in Avondell first, since that’s supposedly where Briar was killed. But we didn’t hear about it until days later, when Reynaldo wrote his song. If news of the murder spread from Yondale first, maybe this is where the crime actually took place.”

“If you know everything, why do you bother asking questions?”

“Are you smiling under that hood?” Lila asked playfully.

“I assure you I am not,” Ruffian said.

“Sometimes I think you’re the only one who actually believes in me, Ruff.”

“I really do wish you would stop calling me that,” the bounty hunter droned.

“You know it’s true, Ruff. Even my brother still thinks I’m useless.”

“I do not believe that is the case. You need to give Prince Liam some leeway right now. He has suffered a loss, and as I can tell you from personal experience, loss has profound ways of affecting a man.”

“You’re talking about your daughter, right?”

Ruffian closed his eyes and pictured the girl, barely Lila’s age at the time, who had disappeared years earlier—the one person he had never been able to find. “As I said before,” he sniffed, “why do you bother asking questions?”

“Sorry,” Lila said quickly. They rode in silence until the trees opened up onto bright-green fields, and they could see the rooftops of Yondale City beyond.

“Well, that’s a relief,” Lila said. She patted her pony on its dappled neck. “I think Radish here was getting a little spooked by that forest.”

“I don’t understand children,” Ruffian grumbled. “Who names a horse Radish?”

Lila cracked up laughing. “
That’s
why I did it!” she hooted, practically doubled over in her saddle as they trotted across the sunny meadow. “For
that
! It’s a laugh every time someone asks me!” She wiped a tear from her eye. “Oh, that’s so worth it. Ask me again!”

“I will not.”

Lila and Ruffian made their way along the busy, seashell-paved streets of Yondale City to its bustling harbor, where burly men pushed wheelbarrows full of flopping flounders, and fat seagulls swooped from the sky to snag stray bits of fish guts. They saw wobbly sailors stumbling out of taverns with names like the Mermaid’s Spittoon and the Salty Trousers. They saw mangy sea cats chasing after runaway crabs. And they saw League of Princes Wanted posters on every corner. Lila put on a wide-brimmed hat and tucked her hair up under it, hoping it would help disguise her. When the pair hit the docks and began asking questions, the sailors and fishermen were quick to provide answers—they were all familiar with the reputation of Ruffian the Blue.

“Those posters?” one lobster trapper asked as he unloaded buckets of shellfish from his boat. “Yeah, everyone’round here has heard about the ‘Horrible Princess Murder.’”

“Wow,” said Lila. “Even in Yondale they thought Briar was horrible.”

“I was referrin’ to the
murder
as horrible,” said the lobsterman. “Not the princess. The lady was Sleepin’ Beauty! Lovely girl by all accounts.”

“Hah!” Lila scoffed.

“We have reason to believe the princess might have met her fate here in Yondale Harbor,” the bounty hunter said, eager to change the topic.

“Well, it’s not exactly
uncommon
for people to disappear from these wharfs,” said a wool-capped shrimp wrangler. “But it’s unlikely a princess woulda been wandering around here at night.”

“Could ya give us a description of her?” the lobster trapper asked.

“Bony,” Lila said. “Big, ridiculous pile of reddish hair. Skin like an albino clam. Face all scrunched up like this. . . .” She pursed her lips and wrinkled her nose as if she smelled rotting fish (which she did).

Fig. 8
INVESTIGATION, salty

“Sounds an awful lot like that passenger who went out on the
Dreadwind
’bout ten nights back,” said a squid rustler, wiping his ink-stained hands on his apron.

“
Dreadwind
?” asked Ruffian.

“It’s a ship,” the squid rustler said. “Pirates—nasty ones.”

“Wait,” said Lila, furrowing her brow. “So Briar was kidnapped by pirates? Is she even dead?”

“The lady you’re describin’ was certainly alive when she got on that ship,” said a nearby krill herder. “I saw ’er, too.”

“As did I,” added the shrimp wrangler. “Only I wouldn’t call it a kidnapping. She just walked aboard like nothing was wrong.”

“Yeah, there were two guys in black walking with her,” said the squid rustler. “But just walking. Not grabbing or pushing or carrying or anything. They walked her up to the
Dreadwind
, she got on, and they walked away.”

“I wonder if they were the same fellas in black who hung up the Wanted signs the next morning,” said the lobsterman. “I figured ’em for Avondellian soldiers.”

“They couldn’t have been,” said Lila. “Avondellian soldiers wear blue-and-silver pinstripe. Those thugs you saw were probably Briar’s secret henchmen.” She tugged at Ruffian’s cowl. “Ruff, do you see what this means? Briar faked her own death! And then she framed the League for it.”

“We have no proof of that,” Ruffian said. “We don’t even know for certain that the woman in question
was
Princess Briar.”

“You know who could tell you?” the shrimp wrangler said, kicking away a seagull that was nipping at his bait-filled pockets. “King Edwyn.”

“Why would the king of Yondale know anything about this?” Lila asked.

“Because before the strange lady got on the
Dreadwind
,” he explained, “she was in the royal palace. She came down to the harbor straight from there.” He pointed up to a ramshackle old castle sitting atop a nearby cliff, overlooking the harbor. Squawking seagulls circled its crumbling towers.

“Come,” Ruffian said to Lila. “We need to have an audience with the king.”

The inside of Yondale’s royal palace was just as shoddy as its exterior. Grimy footprints dotted once-elegant carpets in hallways where crooked portraits dangled from fraying wires. It had been Yondale’s queen who had kept on top of the staff and made sure the castle was spotless, but ever since she got chased off a cliff by some angry dwarfs, the place had fallen into a state of neglect. There was nothing stopping King Edwyn from having his home fixed up; he just didn’t care enough. His daughter had moved away, and his wife turned out to be a homicidal witch. He wanted some time by himself, so he sent all his servants on indefinite vacations.

When Lila and Ruffian found the ancient monarch, he was sitting on a small, dusty stool by a tiny square table where he’d been playing the same game of chess against himself for almost two years. A tarnished crown sat atop his bald head, and his long blue-gray beard was tucked into his pants. With shaky, bent fingers, he slid a pawn one space over on the chessboard. Then he looked up at his guests. There were so many wrinkles on his face, it was hard for Lila to tell where his eyes were.

“Princess Briar Rose of Avondell?” King Edwyn asked in a voice like a rusty hinge. “Yes. Yes, she paid me a visit not too long ago. Sweet girl.”

“Your Highness,” said Ruffian, “if I might ask the purpose of her visit?”

“She asked permission to use our pier that evening,” Edwyn said. “Which was very considerate.”

“Asked permission?” Lila said. “Never mind. It wasn’t Briar.”

“What else did the princess say?” Ruffian inquired.

“She . . .” The elderly king paused and scratched his liver-spotted head with a chess knight. “I can’t remember. I guess it couldn’t have been too important.”

“Please try, sir,” Lila said. “I mean, you know Briar’s supposed to be dead, right? And that
your daughter
is one of the people being blamed for it?”

The king looked stunned. “Snow White? Oh, that’s ridiculous. Snow would never harm anybody.”

“Of course not,” Lila said. “But half the world thinks she’s a murderer thanks to that awful Briar Rose. She faked her death and wants your daughter to rot for it!”

“We don’t know that,” Ruffian started to say, but Lila spoke right over him.

“Your sweet, gentle daughter is being treated like a criminal! That’s why you have to think back to that night.”

King Edwyn took a deep, rattly breath. “Well, when Princess Briar Rose was here, she asked me about the pier,” he said. “And then she . . .” The old man’s face suddenly froze, and his eyes glazed over.

“Your Highness?” Ruffian prodded.

“I have told you everything I know,” the king suddenly said, his speech stiff and stilted. He was staring straight ahead, at no one in particular. “I think it is best that you two people leave this castle at once.”

“King?” Lila asked.

“You heard my words,” the king said. “We are through here. You must go.”

Ruffian put his hand on Lila’s back and ushered her away from the old man.

“That was really weird, wasn’t it?” Lila whispered as they headed for the exit. “It was like we were suddenly talking to a different person, right?”

“Once again you ask questions you know the answers to,” Ruffian replied. His eyes darted around the room as they walked. Suddenly he drew his sword, dashed over to a large picture window, and threw aside its moth-eaten drapes to reveal a bald, tattoo-covered man in a vest and kilt. Lila recognized him instantly: Madu, the weresnake from Dar. And between the clenched fingers of his left hand she spotted a glimmer of orange gemstone.

“The Jeopardous Jade Djinn Gem,” Lila breathed. “But how?”

Madu drew his broadsword and swung it at Ruffian. With the Darian’s concentration broken, King Edwyn snapped back to normal.

“Huh?” the old man muttered, blinking at his chessboard. “Ooh, I see a good move!”

“Get the king out of here!” Ruffian called to Lila as he clashed blades with Madu. She ran back to King Edwyn.

“You’re in danger, sir,” she said, holding out her hand to him. “Come with me.”

But her view of the elderly figure was blocked as a big, stocky man covered from head to toe in spiked armor stepped in between them. “Sorry, but we need the old guy here,” said Jezek. He held up his arm and called to Madu, “Throw it here!”

Madu backed away from Ruffian, flicked his arm, and sent a flash of orange sailing through the air. Jezek caught it.

Lila turned and fled, but halfway to the door she felt a jolt as her muscles suddenly tensed up. She wanted desperately to keep running, but her limbs felt like they’d been encased in concrete. A voice echoed inside her skull:
Come back here
. And then she was turning and slowly walking back across the room, straight to the spike-covered brute. She knew Jezek was controlling her with the Djinn Gem, but she was powerless to stop it. She tried to stay focused but found her mind and her vision growing hazier by the second.

Ruffian noticed Lila’s zombie-like stare and snapped into a frenzy. He elbowed Madu in the face, wrapped the long curtain around him, and ran for Jezek. Chess pieces flew as the bounty hunter snatched up the king’s game board and swung it at the only part of Jezek not covered in spikes—his face. The board broke across the Darian’s nose and sent him stumbling backward.

Lila heard Ruffian yell “Run!”—and she was overjoyed to realize that she
could
. As she scrambled for the exit, Lila saw Madu writhing on the ground, his body twisting and contorting as he transformed into a thirty-foot-long sand snake.

Lila could hear the crinkling paper sound of the giant serpent slithering behind her as she and Ruffian raced down the hall to the palace entryway. Just before they reached the doors, Ruffian let out a pained groan. “Hnnh!”

The snake’s jaws were clamped over his shoulder, its fangs sunk deep into his flesh. Lila pulled her quarterstaff out of its holster and, with all her might, whacked the snake across the nose. The creature winced, released Ruffian, and swished back down the hall. Ruffian slumped against the wall and slid to the floor.