The Hero's Guide to Saving Your Kingdom (8 page)
Read The Hero's Guide to Saving Your Kingdom Online
Authors: Christopher Healy
“Ella!” Frederic squealed with delight. “Oh, my goodness. It’s you! I, uh, I came to find you.”
“You did?” Ella said. “Wow. You did. You’re really here.”
Okay, this is it
, Frederic thought.
Time to show her what you’ve got
. “It’s the all-new me, Ella. I’ve slept on dirt. I’m ready for adventure now.”
Frederic couldn’t see Gustav behind him, but he could
feel
his eyes rolling.
“How’d you get up there?” Frederic called.
“It’s a long story,” Ella said.
It’s not really a long story. Here it is:
Ella rode into Sturmhagen (it took her two days to cover the distance Frederic traveled in a week) and visited a village where she hoped to gather some information about Rapunzel.
“Do any of you happen to know Rapunzel?” she asked a group of townsfolk strolling down the street, and then tried (unnecessarily) to jog their memories by singing a few bars. “Listen, dear hearts, to the tale I must share; the tale of a girl with very long hair....”
Zaubera, out on the prowl, slunk by just at that moment, pondering a cleverly theatrical way to spread news of the bards’ kidnappings. It might be a poetic touch, she thought, to snatch a passing minstrel and use him or her to
sing
about the crime.
And when Zaubera saw some loudmouth in a dress singing to a crowd on a street corner, she figured she’d found her minstrel. Only it was really Ella. As soon as the crowd dispersed, the witch sidled up to her.
“Get your facts straight, you chuckleheaded throat-warbler!” Zaubera spat. She then trapped Ella—who was utterly baffled—in a binding spell and took her back to the tower.
See, it wasn’t that long.
“I’m so glad you’re here,” Ella said. “Please, go get help before the witch comes back.”
“No, we’re not leaving without you!” Frederic yelled.
“Who’s that with you?” Ella asked.
“Oh, this is Rapunzel’s prince. He helped me find you. And he can get you down. He’s got experience with this.” He turned to Gustav and asked him quietly, “How do we get her down?”
Gustav walked to the base of the tower, looked to the window above, and yelled, “Cinderella, let down your hair!”
Ella looked perplexed. “But it only comes to my shoulders!”
Gustav walked back to Frederic and shrugged. “That’s all I’ve got. I’m out of ideas.”
Frederic was befuddled. “Well, there must be
some
way up there. I mean,
she
got up there.” He called up to Ella, “How did you get up there?”
Ella glimpsed something out of the corner of her eye. “Run! She’s coming!”
Frederic and Gustav darted under the cover of the nearby trees. They saw a tall, thin woman draped in red and gray rags emerge into the clearing. Her pale skin was creased and lined, and tufts of white hair shot from her head in random directions.
“Zaubera?” Frederic asked.
Gustav nodded. “Let’s watch and see how she gets up there.”
With a voice like broken bagpipes, the witch yelled up to Ella in the tower. “I could have sworn I heard you talking to someone, dearie. When I get up there, I had better find you alone.” Then she turned toward the woods and called out, “Reese!”
Soon there was a loud rumble. Branches shook and leaves fell as a man taller than the tower itself muscled his way through the trees and stomped into the clearing. The giant reached Zaubera in one enormous step, then knelt and placed his hand on the ground, palm up, for the witch to climb onto. He easily lifted the old woman up to the tower window, and she stepped inside.
“Well,” said Frederic. “We can’t get in
that
way.”
That was when Gustav went berserk. He whipped out his big, double-bladed ax and ran into the clearing with a long, thundering shout of “Stuuuuuuuurm-haaaaaay-gennnnnnn!” The giant, dumbfounded, simply stood and stared. So did Frederic.
Gustav slammed his ax into Reese’s humongous shin. With a bellow of pain, the giant grabbed his injured right leg and began hopping up and down on his left foot. The ground trembled with every hop, causing Gustav to tumble over himself. He dropped his weapon as he fell, and the heavy ax blade plunked down into the loamy soil. From the trees, Frederic watched in horror as his companion crawled to retrieve the weapon, unaware that he was directly in the shadow of the giant’s enormous right foot. Gustav was about to be squashed like a bug.
Think!
Frederic told himself.
What would Sir Bertram the Dainty do?
The answer came to him. In
The Case of the Ill-Mannered Milkmaid
, Sir Bertram had to get the attention of a governess who was about to use the wrong kind of wineglass. Frederic could use the same tactic here. Eight years of yodeling lessons were about to pay off. Frederic cupped his hands to his mouth and let out a long: “Yodel-odel-odel-odel-ay-hee-hooooooo!”
It worked. Nothing annoyed Gustav more than yodeling. As soon as he heard the trilly alpine melody, he glanced angrily at Frederic—who was frantically gesturing upward. Gustav dove out of the way just as the giant’s big bare foot smashed down—and landed directly on the lost battle-ax.
“Yow!” Reese bellowed, hopping in pain once again. Only this time, he couldn’t keep his balance. The giant staggered backward and collapsed into the stone tower.
Fig. 9 Reese, the GIANT
“Uh-oh,” Reese moaned. The entire structure wobbled, and huge chunks of stone began to shower down.
“Oh, no,” said Gustav as the tower collapsed into a pile of stone and clouds of dust. Another failure. And this time there would be a song about how he not only didn’t rescue the girl, but actually
killed
her by accident.
“Ella!” Frederic screamed.
This is my fault
, he thought.
Ella is gone, all because I tried to be something I’m not. I should have listened to my father
.
But as the giant sat up and brushed away the loose bricks and stones that littered the clearing, he revealed an astonishing sight. Inside a shimmering green bubble of energy, the witch stood completely unharmed. And Ella was draped over her bony shoulder, alive and kicking hard.
“A magic shield,” Gustav said. Frederic nearly fainted with relief.
“Reese, you big oaf! Look what you did!” Zaubera hissed.
Reese pointed a huge finger at the princes. “It was their fault.”
The witch turned to see whom Reese was talking about, but Frederic had already hustled Gustav back into the trees. Hiding under a gorse bush, the two princes listened to Zaubera.
“Don’t tell me you’re blaming the bunnies, Reese,” the witch said.
“No, ma’am,” the giant said. “It was a couple of men. They were trying to get the girl.”
Fig. 10 Force BUBBLE
Gustav popped up out of the bush. “Put Cinderella down, old lady!”
Frederic leapt up onto Gustav’s back and yanked him back down into the shrubbery.
“See?” Reese said, feeling vindicated. “Should I smash them?”
“Never mind those buffoons, Reese,” Zaubera said as her thin, colorless lips curled into a smile. “Did you hear what they just called our prisoner here?” The witch grabbed a handful of Ella’s hair and looked her in the eyes. “Well, look at this,” Zaubera chuckled. “Forget the singing ransom-grams, Reese. I’ve got a genuine celebrity for a hostage. Cinderella. This is going to require a much more spectacular announcement. Ooh, this is going to be fun.”
Ella glared back at her, unwilling to show the witch any fear.
“But what if the heroes follow us, ma’am?” Reese asked.
“Hero, singular,” Zaubera replied. “One of them is a complete coward. And yes, the hero will follow us. That’s what heroes do. We’ll just be ready for him. When we catch him and his sidekick, you can grind their bones into bread. Now come.”
“Yes, ma’am,” the giant intoned in his booming voice. “But bread made from bones sounds awful, you know.”
“I didn’t hire you to be a meal planner, Reese,” grated the witch. “Start walking.”
“All right,” the giant rumbled. “Have you ever tried it? Bone bread, I mean. I can’t imagine it tastes good. And you’d still need flour, no?”
“Shut up, Reese.”
“My foot hurts.”
“Try wearing shoes, imbecile.”
After a couple of minutes, their voices and Reese’s thundering footsteps could no longer be heard. The princes crawled from under the gorse bush. Out of habit, Frederic tried to dust off his soiled and torn suit but quickly realized it was a lost cause.
“Okay, let’s go,” Gustav said.
“Go where?” Frederic asked.
“You want your woman back, right?” Gustav said. “We’re following them.”
“No,” said Frederic. “We’re not. I am not going anywhere with you. You nearly got Ella killed. You would have died yourself, if I hadn’t done something.”
“You yodeled,” Gustav snarled with contempt.
“At least I did
something
,” Frederic returned. “How could you not have noticed those horribly callused toes looming above you?”
Gustav brought his face very near Frederic’s, close enough for Frederic to feel his breath. “Are you telling me I’m not a good enough hero for you?”
Frederic tried very hard not to blink.
“Are you saying that I can’t do this?” Gustav hissed. “That I can’t rescue someone? That you—Mr. Silky White Pants and Fancy Golden Dingle-Dangles—are better than me?” His forehead touched Frederic’s.
“No,” Frederic muttered. He was only slightly less afraid of Gustav than he was of the giant. “I’m not saying that at all. Of course I need your help.”
Gustav inched back.
“You did find Ella, after all,” Frederic went on. “I’m sorry I underestimated you there. But this isn’t just about finding a missing person anymore; this is a rescue mission. And a dangerous one, considering there’s a witch
and
a giant involved. So maybe the two of us aren’t enough. Maybe we could use a little extra help. Another set of hands, maybe. That’s all.”
Gustav thought about this for a moment. “I suppose it wouldn’t hurt to have another swordsman at my side,” he said.
“Someone with a little more experience in rescuing people from witches and monsters, perhaps?” Frederic offered.
“Ha!” Gustav laughed. “Who are you going to get? That guy from ‘Sleeping Beauty’?”
L
iam never doubted that he was a hero. If anything, he was a little too sure of it. You can’t really blame him, though; people had been treating him like a demigod ever since he was a young child. The adulation began shortly after the birth of Princess Briar Rose, the daughter of the king and queen of Avondell. In a rare instance of international communication, they announced that they were looking for a suitable prince to whom she could be engaged. When the princess came of age, she would marry this prince, forever joining her kingdom with his.