I did an about-face and tried to retrace the directions Uldemar had given me: so many steps straight ahead, turn (remembering to turn the opposite direction as I had coming here yesterday), some more steps, another turn. I knew I wasn't directly on course since I hadn't started from the place I had ended yesterday, and it was hard to tell if any of it looked familiar, though from a different angle, or if that was just wishful thinking.
Another step and I found myself treading water. Could this be the lake I'd seen after my first step? What would have been nice was if I could swim to the shore and walk a bit so that I could take one more step and find myself at Xenos's father's house. Of course, that all hinged
on if I could swim.
Which I can't. "Seven leagues," I managed to get out, in between taking in great mouth-fiils of water. I moved my feet and found myself perched on top of a tree.
Luckily, it wasn't much of a tree, so I realized I wouldn't have a hard climb to get down. But I didn't even have to do that. While I was still busy coughing up water, there was a loud crack, and the branch I was on fell to the ground, taking me with it.
I lay dazed and bruised, looking up at the tree, vaguely wondering why it was in such sad shape that it broke under my weight. More exactly, I was wondering if it was in bad enough shape that it might fall on me as I lay there, helpless, with the wind knocked out of me.
The branches had no leaves, and the trunk was black, as though it had been through a fire.
Lightning struck,
I thought.
And then I remembered there had been a lightning-struck tree that had been the last landmark before Xenos's father's house.
I hiked and hiked and hiked, and just as I was telling myself that surely there were plenty of lightning-struck trees in the kingdom, there was the hill with Xenos's father's house perched atop it.
"Uldemar!" I called, seeing him, in horse form, grazing.
He had turned back to human by the time I reached his side. "I was beginning to worry," he said.
"Me, too," I admitted. "But I have it."
"Good for you!" he told me. "We should probably head back immediately."
Before I even had a chance to agree, the front door of the house opened. Xenos's father threw an old shoe at us and hollered, "And this time take your stinking ghosts with you!"
I
T
W
A
S
P
R
O
B
A
B
L
Y
after three in the afternoon, and we were almost back to the castle. I felt the press of ghosts around us, but for the moment they weren't poking, or pulling my hair, or otherwise being a nuisance.
We rounded a bend in the woods that bordered the castle lands, and there blocking our way were several woodsmen.
Now where have I seen these guys before?
I wondered. Then I noticed their bows, and I remembered.
These are the poacher boy's friends or relatives.
The guys who had killed me in these woods once before.
For the moment their bows were at their sides, not up and pointed. Still, I dug my feet into Uldemar's sides. I wanted to yell, "Run them down," but they were sure to take offense at that.
No, no, no, no!
I was so close to the end; it was almost the close of the last day. All I had to do was hand over the crown to Grimbold, wish him and his people luck, and invite him to my coronation. This was no time to be running into surly woodsmen.
But Uldemar only made a hey-what's-with-those-feet? expression, and he stopped.
The thought flickered through my mind that I could jump to the ground, say, "Seven leagues," and be out of there. But I was sure Rasmussem would penalize me heavily if I abandoned Uldemar.
"Princess Janine," said the man whom I believed to be the poacher's father.
I figured it wouldn't do any good to claim he was mistaken—
See these clothes, I'm just a poor page out for a ride on a simple blind horse
—ana besides, the man had, surprisingly, given a slight bow as lie said my name.
"Yes," I admitted.
"You have my son in your custody at the castle."
"He was caught poaching," I said. "Under my new laws, he must work off the price of a deer, which is set at one month's labor. That means he has twenty-eight more days to his sentence." Under the circumstances, I was willing to consider this a thirty-day month rather than thirty-one.
The man did not rant or rave or demand an early re-lease for his son. "I am indebted to you for changing the laws in time to spare my son's life."
"Oh." I had been expecting an argument. "You're welcome."
"The boy is wild," the man said. "His mother spoils him. I was sure he was going to be the death of all of us. I believe a month of hard labor—not backbreaking labor, understand, but hard, honest work—will benefit him."
"Hard, honest work it is," I assured him. "I hope it will benefit all." I gave Uldemar just the tiniest nudge to let him know I believed the conversation to be closed.
Uldemar took the hint, but the man shifted to remain in our way. "Princess Janine..." He licked his lips. "Don't go to the castle. Some of the peasants—
not us,
" he hastened to clarify, "but some troublemakers from the east—are planning to seize the castle."
"
What?
"
"They set out when they had news that old King Cynric was ailing. They believe it's time to live without a king."
Not during my reign,
I thought indignantly.
The woodsman continued, "They don't know you, Princess. We tried to tell them about the new laws, but they've been on the road for three days. They don't dare return home empty-handed."
"I appreciate the warning," I said. "I truly do. But I
must
return. I can't let my people suffer a siege without me."
For one thing, they don't seem capable of tying their bootlaces without me there to tell them.
But I didn't say that, and the men finally moved out of my way.
"Good luck, Princess Janine," the man called after me.
In any case Uldemar had taken off at a gallop, aimed straight for a tree, and all my concentration was on holding on and directing him so that he wouldn't kill us both.
"Left!" I yelled. "Right! Left again! Duck!" Actually, if
he
had to duck, I would have been in serious trouble, but we both ducked, and we made it beneath a low-hanging branch.
As we got closer, I became aware of other people in the woods, also traveling swiftly toward the castle. A moment later we broke through the trees along with the first of them and could see the castle walls. We were in the front line of the invasion. All around us men were charging the clearing, waving bows and swords and knives as well as homemade pikes and staffs and clubs.
The guards manning the walls started raising the drawbridge. But then someone must have recognized me, and the bridge went down again.
The peasants were on foot, and Uldemar quickly outdistanced them. I rode low, for minimal wind resistance and to make myself a small target. An arrow flew close by my ear, and we weren't yet near enough to get covering fire from the castle.
And then suddenly Uldemar stumbled. I looked and saw a gash across his rump. But the arrow had only grazed him, and in a moment he took up his stride again, and after that we were beyond the range of the peasants.
"Drawbridge!" I warned Uldemar, and moments› later, we clattered full speed across it.
"Raise the bridge!" I heard Captain Penrod yell from the battlements.
I reined Uldemar in, but I wasn't saying, "Whoa." I was saying another of those words that would get me in trouble with my grandmother.
"Raise the bridge!" Penrod repeated more urgently.
"You!" I yelled to one of the guards in the courtyard. "Tend Uldemar." I threw the reins in his direction and ran up one of the sets of stairs to the battlements.
Other men had taken up Penrod's cry of "Raise the bridge!" but we all knew it wasn't going to budge until those catacomb ghosts had finished crossing.
From the battlements, I could see the peasants were almost in range of my archers. There was no way the ghosts would be out of the way before the peasants reached the bridge.
"Men, ready your weapons," Penrod commanded.
All along the walls, guards raised their bows.
"No!" I shouted. "I can't begin my kingship with a slaughter of my people."
Even if they ARE ungrateful rebels.
King Grimbold was in the courtyard and he shouted up to me, "My men are being just beyond the stream over there." Now that he pointed, I could make out their banners. "If you be having the crown, pull it out and hold it up for my men to be seeing. Then they be killing these peasants for you, and there be no need of yourself to be getting their bloodses on your hands."
"It's just the same," I protested. "I can't let your men kill them for me."
"Princess!" Penrod shouted, directing my attention to the peasants. In another, few seconds they would reach the drawbridge, which was still held down by the weight of the ghosts. "Do we let them come in and kill us all?" Penrod asked.
"Ghosts!" I screamed. "Ghosts, listen to me! You're going to get us all killed."
Well, obviously, these guys wouldn't find that a particularly compelling argument.
I tried again. "Ghosts, you're from Fairfield. That's where your families still live—your children and your children's children. These peasants from the east will destroy not only this castle but Fairfield, taking over the fields you tilled, tearing down what you built. You heard my plans for an annual fair. That fair would make Fairfield a prosperous town. These men will prevent that from happening. All memory of you will die out with the slaughter and enslavement of your descendants—your children and your children's children. At best they will suffer and remain poor because of you." I was running out of things to say. "Rise up. Rise up and protect what's yours!" I wished I'd paid more attention to some of those patriotic speeches we'd read in school.
The fastest of the peasant army had reached the drawbridge. Their boots clattered on the wood. Momentarily. Then the men fell off on either side into the ditch.
But more men were coming up fast. Then they went into the ditch also. Their weapons rose up into the air and began beating them about the heads and shoulders.
Seeing this, the men behind began to slow down. Fruit seemed to suddenly fall off the trees in the castle garden—or to be plucked off by invisible hands—then those fruits sailed through the air to pelt the men still in the ditch. A banshee wailed, dogs began to bark, the peasants who were still on their feet backed away. Those in the ditch had a hard time getting out, with the ghosts harassing them.
But eventually, one by one, they managed to crawl out, to make their way across the clearing back into the woods.
We could hear them crashing through the trees, the ghosts still pursuing. If we were very lucky, the ghosts would be permanently distracted from us. And for once in this game, I truly did feel lucky.
Our men set up a cheer.
Grimbold's men began to approach.
I stepped out from behind the protection of the upright merlons and held up Brecc the Slayer's crown, and they, too, began to cheer.
Then somebody from within the castle courtyard screamed.
I could see one of the servants backed up against the wall of the castle, cringing and pointing up into the sky behind me.
I turned and saw the dragon.
There wasn't time to run.
Not that running would have helped.
But
run
?—I couldn't even
duck.
I was frozen with fear. It was as though the strength potion had run out again, only this time leaving me standing, like a statue of a basketball player about to make a free throw.
The dragon had looked enormous in its lair. Now, with its wings outstretched and its taloned claws coming straight at me, I knew what
enormous
really meant.
I figured I also knew what
about to get her heart ripped out of her chest
really meant.
But at the last moment, the dragon pulled up short, landing on the parapet, its feet on two of the merlons right above where I stood. Standing upright, it breathed flame out over the courtyard—a warning shot over our heads, we would say in my regular era. But that warning shot had fire licking at the walls of the castle, a good hundred yards away, and the heat was enough to singe my eyebrows. Then the creature sniffed the air.
A moment later its face was a foot away from my face.
I realized the stench of its lair couldn't
all
be blamed on that ox carcass.
The dragon didn't breathe flame on me. It said, in a harsh, sibilant voice, "Seven-league boots are
not
impossible to track."
Oops.
"You have broken the covenant I made with King Cynric. Now I will take back that which is mine. Then I will kill you all." Its amber eyes blinked, slowly, like a lizard's. Then it said, "But I will eat
you
first."
For once I was hoping for the fizziness that signified Rasmussem's version of dying. I didn't want to feel a moment of that awful heat or those teeth ripping into me.
Idiot,
I called myself as the dragon caught me up in one taloned claw and I suddenly realized what I should have done back at the creature's lair. "Dragon, take this ring," I said.
Would the compelling spell work with the ring hidden from sight beneath my tunic for safekeeping?
Apparently not.
The dragon continued to bring me toward its mouth—its mouth with its many, many sharp teeth—and I closed my eyes, not wanting to see my own end coming.
Three days. I had made it three days.
How many more chances could I possibly get?
And then I thought,
I don't NEED any more chances.
With my eyes still closed, I plunked the crown of Brecc the Slayer onto my head and pressed my free hand against the claw that held me.