The Toymaker's Apprentice (32 page)

STEFAN STOOD ON THE STEPS
of the townhouse, an astonishing sight in his bright doll's uniform. He had judged correctly. The mice would take time to swarm the steps, and the soldiers, while clever and dangerous at close range, hadn't the proper joints to carry them up to meet him.

“Where is your King?” His voice quaked, but it was loud and it carried. He hoped the mice would not notice his fear.

Maybe they wouldn't understand him at all. He recalled the horrible, high-pitched noises Christian had made. He had no hope of imitating them.

Silence reigned across the square. He waited.

From the far side of the fountain there was a ripple of movement. A path split open in the ranks, and a litter was carried forward by four liveried mice. To a child in an attic window, this would look magical. But there were no little children to witness the event, only Marie's pale face above him. Stefan suspected Marie was right. The square, perhaps all of Nuremberg, had indeed fallen into an enchanted sleep.

It must be the City Clock,
he realized. Christian had found Gullet after all.

The litter came to a stop a few yards away and a great, lean rat stepped out. He was dressed like a gentleman, almost foppish in a long, pale blue overcoat with lace at his cuffs and collar.

Stefan blinked. He should have been surprised. But the lump of ice in his stomach prevented it.

“Good evening, sir,” the rat said in flawless German. “I am Ernst Listz, emissary to the King. Our terms are as follows. Your life, sir, as the murderer of our beloved Queen, is forfeit. Surrender yourself and the clockmaker, and the lives of your friends and family will be spared. However, should you refuse to lay down your arms, they will be given no quarter in the coming revolution. I'm afraid you will simply be the first of them to fall.”

Stefan stifled a nervous laugh. “I'm no master of diplomacy,” he told the rat. “And I'm afraid I haven't the authority to speak for anyone but myself. Your King may have his chance at me. But when I fight, it's for the city and its entire population. Your ‘revolution,' as you call it, must come to an end.”

The rat fixed him with glistening black eyes. “Our King knew your father, and showed him mercy.”

Stefan clenched his wooden jaw. “You mean he kidnapped my father and held him captive.”

“That was the Queen's doing. His majesties were rather taken with your parent, and he with them—or so I believe.”

Stefan swallowed. His father
had
survived his ordeal. Did the Mouse King have any part in that? “Tell your King to leave now, and we won't follow. The clock that turns this world is out of balance. Doesn't he see that?”

The rat shrugged eloquently, and Stefan wondered if the King simply didn't care.

“He has my condolences, for his mother,” Stefan said hesitantly. “Her death was not my intent.”

“But your death is his, I'm afraid. A life for a life. Those are the terms.” The rat bowed and returned down the stairs to his palanquin.

The litter flowed back through the crowd to the far side of the fountain.

After a moment's silence, a bugle call sounded, small and tinny in the cold night air. As one, the mouse army surged forward.

STEFAN HELD HIS GROUND.

The mice gained the first step, then the second. Still he did not move. The third step, and he could feel, rather than see, Marie in the window, hands pressed against the glass.

The heat and the dry, musky scent of a thousand mice rose into the air. He gripped the pommel of his wooden sword.

The mice reached the top step.

“Kinyata,” Stefan called softly.

The cat appeared like a shadow at his side. She blinked at him with her yellow eyes, and leapt into the ranks.

Rodent foot soldiers were tossed aside like toys.

And Marie's cat had brought friends.
Good,
Stefan thought. Let the cats deal with the mice. He would handle the soldiers.

The disarray on the battlefield had caused two of the soldiers to sway and topple on their own. They lay prone on the cobblestones, mice swarming over their useless forms, unable to lift them again. Stefan approached the nearest of the remaining eight, and drew his sword.

The toy soldier was taller than him by half a foot, but on the steps, Stefan held the higher ground.

“
En garde
,” he said, touching his own blade to his forehead. With a small skip of his heart, he realized that his opponent's sword was gleaming metal and all too real. He would have to
risk shattering his own wooden blade or disarm the manikin and take the weapon for himself.

The toy soldier moved with alarming speed.

Stefan jumped back to avoid the first swing of its blade. Reaching out with his left hand, he grabbed the soldier's mechanical wrist and slashed back down the arm with his sword.

For an instant he could see through the skeleton work of the soldier, to the shining eyes of the rodent controllers within. Their faces were alien—whether they were frightened or angry, Stefan could not tell. He closed his eyes and completed his stroke, at the weak part of the neck joints, where his father always took extra care. It required patience and an eye for balance. Not a skill that could be performed well alone, in the dark.

The blow rang true and the head of the toy soldier toppled from the body, the wooden sword lodged in its neck.

As the head dropped away, the mice inside panicked. The soldier's sword hand loosened its grip.

Stefan grabbed the hilt, wresting it from the manikin's grasp.

A squeal of dismay rose from inside the soldier carcass. The arms and legs were independent of the head, and the mice inside had eyes enough to continue the fight. But they hesitated, and Stefan took his opening.

Hacking with the sharp end of his new sword, he severed the arms of the wooden soldier at the shoulders. The machine lost its balance. Stefan slapped it in the chest and it toppled backward, mice leaping from its cavities as it fell to crush or scatter the army that followed in its wake.

Three more soldiers approached.

Stefan was sweating. He wondered if it would stain his wooden skin. The army seemed demoralized by the loss of their first three siege engines, but the other mechanical soldiers pressed forward through the fray, and Stefan stepped up to meet them.

CHRISTIAN PAUSED
on the rooftop across the square and caught his breath at the sight.

“So many soldiers
!
” Zacharias exclaimed. “I only ever made the one, I swear it
!
”

“Stefan's done well, though,” Samir noted. Three of the life-size mechanical soldiers lay broken in a half-circle in front of Stefan.

The mouse army milled about in confusion, worsened by a fury of cats, who were clawing their way through the ranks—playing more than fighting, Christian realized. Their cruelty appalled him, even though it worked in his favor. Kinyata was at their head.

Looking up at the Stahlbaums' house, Christian caught a glimpse of his niece. Whether or not the girl spoke true Catish, her pet seemed to have understood her quite well.

Samir laid a hand on Christian's shoulder. “My friends, the boy is strong, but he tires. Seven soldiers, even manikins, are too much for anyone.”

Zacharias lowered the sack from his shoulder and pulled out the first of his makeshift weapons. “Lend a hand,” he said.

“Zacharias, you're a genius,” Christian exclaimed. “Stefan, ahoy
!
” he bellowed from the roof to the plaza below.

Stefan pulled back from the fray long enough to look up. He
had no time to do more than nod before the next soldier was upon him.

“Into the house, Stefan
!
” Christian shouted. Stefan did not respond.

Christian waited, heart thumping.

The boy slammed his sword into the inner workings of an attacking soldier and wrenched it free, shattering the soldier's skeletal chest. In the chaos that followed the soldier's crashing demise, Stefan leapt backward up the stairs and into the house.

• • •

STEFAN MADE THE LAST STEP
and slammed the door shut behind him. His toy clothes were stained by sweat and shredded by sword slices. Shuddering, he stomped the floor in case any mice had found their way inside. A small part of his brain was amazed that the rest of the household—that all of the houses in the square—could sleep through this.

He ran upstairs as swiftly and quietly as he could.

Marie opened the door to her room and beckoned him inside. “To the window, quickly. It looks like Uncle has a plan after all.”

Stefan entered in time to see his father hoist a huge Roman candle firework onto his shoulder, take aim, and fire.

A colorful fireball shot from the tube, arced across the side of the square, and collided with the fifth toy soldier as it attempted to climb the stairs.

A sigh of wonder spread through the army of mice. Even the cats paused in their butchery to watch the small comet light up the square.

And then the soldier frizzled; sparks shot from where its heart would be. The entire frame went up like the Roman candle that had destroyed it.

Five more fireballs from the far rooftop, and five more columns of flame burst to life in the square.

Stefan stifled a cheer.

Marie hugged him tightly. She smelled of vanilla and lily of the valley. “You're very brave,” she said.

“So are you.”

Something thumped against the window.

“Kinyata?” Marie called. But the cat was still leading the assault below.

Instead, a rope ladder bumped against the sash. Marie opened it and a moment later, Christian, Samir, and Zacharias descended from the roof and climbed into the room.

Stefan hurled himself into his father's waiting arms.

“Well,” Christian said, surveying their handiwork through the window. “That worked like a charm.”

THE SEVEN-HEADED MOUSE KING
roared and cuffed his intelligence chief on the side of the head.

The piebald did not wince, just bowed and stepped out of arm's reach.

“Be reasonable,” Ernst said, stifling a snort of contempt. By the piebald's report, all ten soldiers, the full complement of the Mouse King's siege engines, had been waylaid by a mere boy and a few fireworks. It served the little upstarts right to think they could succeed against humans where rats had failed. He had half a mind to abandon ship now while the attention of his captors was elsewhere.

The Mouse King turned on him, five of the seven heads snarling in fury.

Ernst jumped, taken aback. Even Arthur was angry. No, not angry, Ernst realized. Terrified. All of the brothers—perhaps even dull-eyed Julius—were scared beyond reason.

“Advise us
!
” Hannibal demanded.

“Yes, tutor, give counsel.” Roland nodded readily.

Six sets of eyes peered at him keenly.

Ernst resisted the urge to preen his whiskers. They were asking for his help. He could be a prince of the new republic, if he led the Mouse King to victory. For a moment the idea rose, sweet and delicious in his mind's eye. But the fact of his imprisonment could not be forgotten. Or the foolhardiness of their
plans. The specter of Hameln loomed too large. Even if they won tonight, the victory could not last. The clockmaker's boy was right. A balance must be struck.

The rat sighed dramatically. They had given him the rope. All he had to do was let them hang themselves. Then, at least, he would be free.

“The quarry has merely gone to ground,” Ernst said robustly. “And when hunting a shrew in its den, what's the best way to roust it?”

“Burn the den down,” snarled Genghis.

“Smoke it out,” Arthur said dully.

Poor boy. He'd nearly come unhinged at last. But sympathy was too expensive a gift these days.
Good-bye, Arthur,
Ernst said silently. He could not save the lad from his brothers, but at least he would try his best to end this current madness. If the King did not survive the battle, then so be it.

“Think, boys, think
!
” Ernst urged them. “You are all but defeated, your armies demoralized. And this against one boy
!
A handful of humans, at best. And yet, you still believe you can lay claim to their entire city?” The rat shook his gray head. “Not today, not today.”

The Mouse King stared at him, eyes fixed, watching the rat's every move.

Ernst smiled to himself. He was a brilliant orator and he knew it. “You have to woo your army back, sire. Show them who you are—the chosen ones, destined to lead them to victory. You must give them glory.” Ernst pointed through the tent flap at the townhouse across the square. “We have an enemy here, made of
wood. Fire will simply keep him inside. And what glory is there if he merely burns to death? You are leaders
!
”

He grabbed the Mouse King by the paw, raising it in the air. “You are kings
!
Lure the others out, then go yourself into the lion's den. Remember—you turned the tide at Owl Run. Let your people know that you single-handedly laid your mother's killer low. Then they will follow you, against the humans, against the gates of Heaven itself.”

A sharp sigh sounded throughout the tent as the brothers sucked in their breath. “Yes,” they hissed.

Hannibal bowed his head slightly toward the rat, his eyes glinting bloodred. He snapped his fingers once.

The intelligence chief nodded and sent for the mouse that had been held captive by the clockmaker's boy.