by Julie Leung
General Gaius landed next to Calib and Kensington. His ear tufts were impeccably groomed. “We’ll cover you,” the general said to the commander. “You must get every creature back within the castle walls.”
She did not need to be told twice.
“Retreat to the castle!” Commander Kensington called to the last of the warriors around her.
The owls, crows, and larks scooped up those who were injured. General Gaius picked up Calib by the shoulders and began to fly for the castle. The general dodged a number of arrows as he launched into the morning sky.
“General!” Calib cried. “What convinced you to come?”
“When my scouts told me of the attack, I had half a mind to leave you groundlings to sort it out,” General Gaius said shortly. “But then Seer Thaddeus kindly reminded me that I had failed to properly help you avoid this war. To make up for it, the owls will see this battle through with you.”
Calib looked below at the fleeing creatures. They had now reached the town. But the Saxon horde was in hot pursuit. Only so many creatures would make it behind the castle wall before they were overtaken.
As the animals ran through the cobblestone streets of Camelot, the Two-Leggers beginning their morning chores jumped back in alarm. Calib watched as some of the farmers and milkmaids shooed at the barrage of snarling weasels with brooms and shovels. This gave the Camelot and Darkling creatures precious seconds to outrace the Saxons.
Gaius and Calib landed in the castle courtyard. Around them, other birds swooped down, carrying the wounded. Foot soldiers from the Darklings and Camelot sides streamed through the doorways. Mice sentries ran about in a panic, shouting confused orders, no longer sure who the enemy was.
Finally, the last of the owls flew in, followed closely by Kensington and Leftie, who had been protecting the stragglers. The lynx, so fearless on the battlefield, needed three owls to lift him to his feet. His fur was dark and sticky with blood.
Devrin ran immediately to meet Commander Kensington. “Commander! The Darklings . . . Do we turn them away?” she asked anxiously.
Though blood streamed down his face, Leftie gripped his scimitars tighter, ready to respond to whatever answer Commander Kensington gave. Calib held his breath and prayed for the right one.
Camelot’s leader looked at a black squirrel who was sprinting toward the closing gate with an injured mouse on her back. And Macie, still in the distance, riding a Darkling crow and shooting arrows at the Saxons.
“No,” Kensington said. “Let them all in.”
CHAPTER
38
The Goldenwood Hall echoed with the cries and whimpers of injured fighters.
They lay head to tail in the stands. Nurses and medics rushed about with stretchers, doing their best to tend to the wounded. Two shrews were treating Sir Alric for an arrow gash to the knee. A crow had a broken wing that was being set in a sling by his fellow crows. Those who were uninjured stood restlessly in their own groups on the arena floor. The Darkling and Camelot fighters eyed one another with suspicion.
The bell-tower larks had taken most of the arrow fire during the retreat. Very gently, Calib finished daubing the graze wound on a shuddering lark with a cooling cream made from crushed juniper berries.
“I’ll need more gauze,” he called out, eyeing the rows of injured still waiting for care.
“We’re all running low,” Devrin said. She was carefully setting a dislocated tail with the aid of Madame von Mandrake. “The Two-Legger infirmary will have more supplies.”
“I can help Calib bring more supplies back,” said a familiar voice.
Calib whirled around.
Cecily stood there, smiling sheepishly, a lopsided bandage over her right ear. Her eyes were as clear and bright as ever.
“Cecily!” he exclaimed. Relief washed over him like a wave. Calib wrapped her in a tight hug. “Thank Merlin, you’re alive!”
“Ow, too hard!” Cecily gasped.
“Sorry.” Calib let go, suddenly self-conscious.
Cecily shrugged but was grinning nonetheless. “It was nothing some healing herbs couldn’t fix.”
“But Ginny said . . .”
“And when have you known Ginny not to exaggerate?” Cecily said. “Now, come on, we need to hurry with the gauze.” She turned quickly, and Calib ran to keep up. Breathlessly, Calib briefed Cecily on all that had occurred since they separated, including the revelation that Sir Percival had planted the tooth all along.
“But what about you? What happened?” Calib asked.
“All I know is, I woke up in bed, and Maman was above me, screaming her head off,” Cecily said. “It seems that everyone thought General Gaius had attacked me, so they chased him away before he had a chance to explain anything.”
They entered the Two-Legger infirmary by running along the curtain frames that divided patients’ beds from one another. As Calib and Cecily passed one of the occupied beds, a small commotion was happening below. The word “Saxon” drifted out to them, and Calib paused. He motioned for Cecily to stop as they peered over the bed.
Queen Guinevere, Sir Kay, and a number of older knights had gathered at the bedside of an unfamiliar man. The man was heavily bandaged, but he looked alert. He sat upright in an infirmary bed.
“Start from the beginning,” Queen Guinevere said.
“We first noticed it in the animals,” the man said, his voice stony. “For weeks, the woods had become overrun with weasels. Swarms of them. We couldn’t make any sense of it. They attacked our crops and herds. The messenger birds were murdered in their cages.”
The man looked up, tears brimming in his eyes.
“And then one morning, the men came. They emerged from the swamp fog, silent like the wraiths from the days of old. They were armored and without mercy.”
The messenger trembled. “By the time I got away, the village was burning. I rode as fast as I could, but I fear it is too late. I told myself that I was running for help, but . . . in truth, I ran like a coward.”
“Lives may be saved yet because of your actions,” Guinevere said. “Camelot has not seen war for many years. When these men attacked, did you get a good look at any of them? Did any of them say anything?”
The man squinted, trying to remember.
“They charged us with a banner—a white dragon against a red backing.”
Guinevere drew a sharp breath. The rest of the members of the Round Table exploded.
“Saxons attacking from inland! That can’t be!” said Sir Kay. “We defeated the Saxons years ago!”
“We should negotiate terms of surrender now,” said one anxious adviser, nervously chewing his nails, “while there’s still a chance they will let us live.”
Queen Guinevere stood up, her eyes blazing. “Every able man with a mount must warn the other castles and ask for support.”
“Now, see here,” Sir Kay began, growing red in the face. “Just because you married the king doesn’t make you our ruler.”
“King Arthur united all of Britain so that we could stand together in a time of need.” Galahad, the page Calib remembered so well, spoke up, and the other knights gawked at him. Calib couldn’t help being impressed. The Two-Legger was at least two heads shorter than everyone else in the room. “The king is not here, but we must honor that belief.”
“We’re sworn to follow whoever wields the Sword in the Stone. Where’s your sword, little boy?” asked another knight.
Calib held his breath to hear what Galahad would say. But he only flushed red and mumbled something.
“And to think, Camelot once represented the bravest and finest knights in the land,” the queen said, her anger unmasked. “How far we’ve all fallen.”
She looked around at the many knights who could not return her gaze.
On the curtain frame, Cecily shook her head.
“The Two-Leggers would rather stuff their ears full of cotton than listen to common sense,” she whispered to Calib.
“We have t
o tell Commander Kensington,” Calib whispered back. “The Two-Legger Saxons will arrive soon! And half our number are injured, and the other half won’t even look at one another, much less fight alongside one another!”
Cecily looked at Calib, and he couldn’t quite tell what she was thinking.
“Not just Commander Kensington, but Leftie too,” she said. “You’re the only one who can convince both sides to listen, Calib. You have to convince them to face the Saxons as one army, or we’ll be lost.”
CHAPTER
39
The tension inside Goldenwood Hall was as thick as honey from the comb but nowhere near as pleasant. From the corner of the room, Calib watched nervously as Commander Kensington limped onto the stage, shooing away a medic who came up to attend to her bite marks. Camelot’s leader scanned the crowd.
“Where is General Flit?”
The larks in the hall looked at one another sadly.
“Felled by an arrow in the retreat.”
“And Sir Owen? Where is my second-in-command?” asked Commander Kensington.
Macie stepped forward, the fur under her eyes dark with dampness. “Sir Owen . . . He covered for us—but he didn’t make it.”
It felt as though someone had hooked Calib with a claw and gutted him. The first mouse ever to put a sword in Calib’s paw, the mouse who had taught him the difference between a gauntlet and a tasset, his first teacher—gone.
Commander Kensington clenched her fist and pounded the table. She shook her head, her eyes clouded over with grief.
“May I speak?” The voice came from behind them.
It was Leftie.
The room hushed as the lynx slowly approached the stage. The lynx’s eye patch was caked in blood, giving him a gruesome look. However, his weapons were sheathed. He held his paws up to show that they were empty.
The next seconds seemed to last an eternity, as if the very fate of Camelot were hanging on them. If the two animal groups could not agree, if they could not unite, then Calib knew that Thaddeus’s vision would come true: Camelot would fall. Calib nervously flicked the tip of his tail back and forth and prayed that Leftie would be polite—and that Commander Kensington would not lose her infamous temper.
“You are a fierce fighter, Kensington.” Leftie spoke first, his voice a rasp.
“As are you.” Commander Kensington nodded curtly. She paused before her next words. “We believed you had murdered our leader, the late commander Yvers Christopher. But I see now that it was a deceit orchestrated by someone who had only Saxon interests at heart.”
Leftie nodded grimly. “Your healer . . .”
“Sir Percival Vole did not show up to fight this morning,” Commander Kensington said, her voice growing angry. “When I sent a page to check on him, she saw that his quarters have been emptied. The vole has fled.”
“Then we owe another apology,” Leftie said. “Where is Calib Christopher, son of Sir Trenton Christopher, grandson of Commander Yvers Christopher?”
Calib’s heart began to thump as one by one, each pair of eyes in the Goldenwood Hall turned toward him.
“Thank you, Calib,” Leftie said, “for being brave enough to speak the truth when no one would listen.”
Calib saw Kensington’s whiskers twitch— Was the warrior mouse smiling? Just as quickly, the fleeting happiness was gone.
“I lost good beasts out there,” she said somberly. “But it’s clear to me now that the Darklings were never at fault and neither were you, Calib. On behalf of Camelot, I apologize, and we offer you our thanks.”
Both leaders bowed to Calib. The young mouse felt heat rise in his cheeks, and his ears felt tingly. It wasn’t the warmth of pride but of shame. If only he had been faster, stronger, and more sure of himself, maybe Sir Owen and the others would still be alive.
“But tell me, mousling,” Kensington said, eyeing him sharply. “How is it that you managed to escape from your imprisonment—especially when the door remains padlocked shut?”
Calib gulped. He sensed instinctively that his mysterious encounter with Howell—with Merlin—must remain a secret. But he had no other explanation for his escape. Luckily, while he was still fumbling for excuses, Kensington raised a paw.
“On second thought,” she said with a strange twitching of her snout. “Perhaps the less said, the better. Some mysteries are meant to remain just that.”
Calib exhaled, relieved. He then recounted what he had overheard on his way to the Two-Legger infirmary about the invading Saxon army. As he finished, General Gaius and two white snowy owls marched into the room. General Gaius gave a short salute with his wing and snapped his talons together. Merlin’s Crystal sparkled against his chest.
“My lieutenants have all returned from their scouting missions. I’m afraid Calib’s information is correct,” the owl began. “Saxon Two-Leggers have arrived at the river, and the Saxon beasts are setting up siege weapons at the gate. By the looks of it, they are preparing to launch an assault on the castle before nightfall.”
Distraught, many animals began talking at once.
“We lost half the lark fleet to that ambush,” cried Sir Alric. “We cannot hope to outlast a siege of both humans and beasts!”
“Our archers do not have enough arrows if the Saxon beasts begin to scale the walls,” Macie added grimly.
As the different bands of animals began to discuss and argue among themselves, Calib felt an idea try to take shape, but it was like a memory that slipped away from him whenever he tried to grasp it. He knew there was something to be done, something obvious he was missing. . . .
“I don’t see why we should risk our lives to defend a castle that we don’t even live in,” sniffed a Darkling crow, nursing a broken wing. “When all this is over, they’ll kick us out without a word of thanks.”
“And yet you were more than eager to take shelter here with the rest of us,” Commander Kensington replied with a dirty look.
Calib’s confidence began to unravel. Howell had said that all the creatures of Camelot must unite. Calib had brought them all here, but even with the castle creatures and Darklings united, how could they possibly stand up to the Saxon horde?
“Together in paw or tail, lest divided we fall and fail.” Calib read the words over the hall’s entrance, the motto teasing him. . . .
All the creatures of Camelot.
He recalled how the Two-Legger milkmaids had shooed away the Saxon weasels with their brooms and how some of the otters had provided cover for a few stranded Two-Legger farmers to get to higher ground. He thought of Merlin’s Promise, the vow that Commander Yvers had made to keep Camelot safe at all costs.
This was the path that Howell had guided him toward all along, from the moment they met in his cave. Surely, this protection also applied to the Two-Leggers who inhabited the castle as well.
And as for Merlin’s Crystal . . . An ember of an idea sparked in Calib’s mind.
“Master Thropper, could you boost me up?” Calib asked. The hare looked puzzled but obliged by lifting the mouse onto his shoulders.
Cupping his paws around his mouth, Calib called out over the hall, “Listen!” The hubbub died down as thousands of eyes—dark and light, mouse and badger, lynx and crow—turned to look at him. He took a deep breath. “Has anyone seen Lucinda the cat?”
CHAPTER
40
Sir Edmund’s quarters looked like they had been ransacked, with the drawers open and contents strewn across the floor. In fact, Galahad would have thought a thief had torn apart the room had Sir Edmund himself not been sitting in the middle of the mess, directing pages to pack his belongings.
“What’s going on?” Galahad asked.
“We’re getting out of here while we still have heads on our shoulders,” said the knight. He stood up, sniffing. “You can join too. I’ll need someone to prepare my meals.”
“You’re running away?” Galahad asked, setting the tray of dinner down with a clatter. “But shouldn’t you be defending
the castle?”
“It’s a lost cause, boy,” Sir Edmund said crankily, throwing a crumpled velvet duvet into a trunk. “I don’t fight for lost causes.”
“I don’t believe you.” Galahad felt a flood of anger and shock grip him. “And you call yourself a knight?”
“Watch your mouth, kitchen boy,” Sir Edmund said, color mottling his cheeks.
“I’d rather do what good I can as a kitchen boy than stand idly by as a lord!” Galahad said angrily. He stormed out of the chambers, leaving a surprised Sir Edmund.
Galahad knew he had to see the queen. Someone had to do something about the oncoming attack. He was filled with an urgent desire to help, to fight. But Sir Edmund was right. What could he, a lowly kitchen boy, possibly do?
He found the queen pacing in the throne room. Her face looked strained. She was surrounded by her ladies-in-waiting. Malcolm, Bors, and many of the pages were also there. Galahad knew this meant that the knights they served had also fled.
“Apologies for intruding, Your Majesty, but it seems that Sir Edmund . . . ,” Galahad began.
“Yes, I know,” the queen said bitterly. “Sir Edmund and many other knights like him.” She shook her head. She looked close to tears. “It seems our only recourse is to surrender before we even put up a fight.”
The word “surrender” hung in the room like a heavy blanket. Galahad searched for something to say, some comfort he could give, some plan he could propose. But his mind was blank.
Then Galahad felt something brush against his shins. Guinevere’s orange tabby had sauntered by—and, to Galahad’s surprise, deposited a rolled piece of parchment right at his feet.
“Oh, Lucinda.” Guinevere picked up the ugly tabby. The queen was too preoccupied to see the piece of paper the cat had dropped. “Always such a bother.”
The squashed face of the cat looked mildly offended.