“Seven, I think, but Nell, that doesn’t matter—”
“Let me see!” Eleanor pushed her sister aside. “Oh my gosh!”
Brendan crowded her out. “What is this, Lord of the Rings, the reality show?”
The siblings jostled for position, finding a way to all peer out. The warriors dismounted and tied their steeds to trees. They approached the house with caution. The one who was clearly the leader had a maroon feather sticking up from his helmet like a plume of blood. He took off the helmet to reveal pockmarked skin and a scar running from his ear to his chin. When he turned to speak to his men, the Walkers saw the glint of his black, suspicious eyes.
“A witches’ den. This was not here yesterday,” he declared.
One of his compatriots, a red-haired, red-bearded man, grabbed his arm. “Slayne, m’lord, could be a trap.”
Slayne (Good name, thought Brendan; he looks like he’s slain a lot of people) grinned, twisting his scar like a second smile, baring blackened stumps of teeth. “If there are witches . . . we need to get inside. And quickly kill them all.”
“Um, may I suggest we go to the attic?” whispered Cordelia.
The Walkers dashed away from the window.
At the front door, Slayne grabbed the knob, found it locked, and turned to his redheaded number two. “Krom?”
Krom handed him a battle-ax. Slayne swung. The first blow left a gaping hole in the door. The second sent it flying off its hinges.
Slayne and his men entered, on guard.
“A great battle was waged here,” said Slayne. He drew his sword, stabbed it through the remains of Bellamy Walker’s iPad, and lifted it off the ground. “And at least one of the parties was a witch. This appears to be some sort of occult toy for children.”
Slayne led the warriors though the living room and library as the Walkers huddled in the attic. They could hear the warriors’ clomping boots and gruff voices but not their words.
“We can’t just sit here,” Eleanor said. “We’ve got to find out what they want. Maybe they know where Mom and Dad are!”
“How do you propose to find that out?” Brendan asked.
“Watch.” Eleanor opened the attic door and started down to the second-floor hallway.
“No, Nell!”
“Stop!”
But it was too late. Eleanor was already opening the door to the dumbwaiter. The warriors were in the kitchen, below her, and sound traveled directly up the hollow shaft. It was like she was in the midst of the warriors as they investigated their alien surroundings.
“This appears to be a witches’ torture chamber,” Slayne said. Eleanor heard the microwave door pop open. “Possibly a box for shrunken victims.” Eleanor stifled a laugh.
In the kitchen, Slayne opened the fridge and paused. Here was a pleasant surprise. His men were all hungry, and the power hadn’t been out long. Slayne tossed an apple aside and went for a jar of Hellmann’s Mayonnaise. Behind him, Krom opened a cabinet, found a box of Cap’n Crunch, sniffed it, and started pouring it into his mouth. “It’th good!” Slayne unscrewed the mayo and scooped out a big clump.
Upstairs, Brendan and Cordelia poked their heads over the attic steps to get a report from Eleanor.
“They’re eating our food!” Eleanor said. Then she heard Slayne’s voice through the dumbwaiter.
“This white sauce is mine, men. Touch it under penalty of death. It’s so good, I do believe when we return to Castle Corroway I’ll eat my horse with it. He’s getting on in years; it’s time for a younger steed—”
The men all laughed. That set Eleanor off.
“He can’t kill a horse!” she said, climbing into the dumbwaiter, gauntlets on, brandishing her barbecue fork.
“Nell, stop! You can’t—” Brendan yelled, but she had already closed the door.
It was pitch-black in the dumbwaiter. Eleanor could hardly move. If she’d been a foot taller, she never would have fit inside. She twisted to grab one of the bicycle-chain-like cables that the container rode on and pulled one way. The dumbwaiter inched up. So she pulled the other way and started down, moving quickly. The rusty pulleys squeaked. With every foot she descended, the voices of the warriors grew louder.
“Hand me that sweetened meal, Krom!”
“Find your own!”
“We could set up camp here and run raids over the East!”
“It could do with a few slaves to tidy up—”
Halfway down Eleanor started to think she’d made a terrible mistake. Slaves? Raids? This wasn’t some TV show; these men would cut her to pieces. But she couldn’t reverse course and be a coward. Not with Bren and Deal upstairs depending on her.
The dumbwaiter stopped at the kitchen with a metallic chunk.
“What was that?” Slayne asked. Eleanor heard him approach. He was only a few feet away, on the other side of the wall—and then he opened the dumbwaiter door.
His black eyes met Eleanor’s. He had mayonnaise in his beard. His rancid-sweat smell hit her like a punch.
“Why, it’s a little witchling,” Slayne chortled to his companions, turning his head—
And Eleanor stuck him in the cheek with her barbecue fork.
“Raagh!” Slayne brought his hand to his face, shocked that the girl had cut him. Then he plunged his sword into the dumbwaiter. Eleanor shrank back and threw up an arm—
Clang! The blade glanced off her gauntlet. “Help!”
Slayne pulled back for another thrust. Eleanor felt a jolt—and the dumbwaiter began to rise rapidly. The next sword strike hit the wall of the shaft below Eleanor, just missing her. She heard Slayne’s bellow of frustration as she moved up in herky-jerky starts until she reached the second floor. Light entered the dumbwaiter . . . and with it the shadows of Cordelia and Brendan.
“Get out!” They yanked her into the hall. “They’re coming!”
A thunderous clamor of metal sounded from the spiral steps. “Kill her!” roared Slayne.
The Walkers ran up into the attic, pulled up the steps, and locked the trapdoor. “Nell! What were you thinking?” Cordelia demanded.
Eleanor started to explain—when they heard the deep crunch of an ax biting into wood behind them. They turned to see the tip of Krom’s ax poking through the attic door. It disappeared and struck again. Chunks of wood fell away, leaving a hole. A sword stuck up and slashed around.
“I’m so sorry! I’m so sorry!” Eleanor cried. “I was just trying to be brave, and now we’re all gonna die!”
Brendan ran to the rollaway bed. There wasn’t much time. Krom kept widening the hole—any minute it’d be big enough to let all the warriors in. Brendan tossed the mattress off the bed and wheeled the metal frame to the window.
“We’re too high up to jump. But if we can get to that tree . . . ”
Cordelia and Eleanor understood. They opened the window, and then helped Brendan lift the front of the frame and shove it out diagonally, so it would fit; then they grabbed the back and lifted that too, pushing it out to make a bridge, hoping it would catch against the gnarled bark of the nearest tree.
“Count of three!” Brendan said. “One . . . two . . . ”
With all their might they heaved.
“Yes!” Cordelia said. The far end of the bed caught. The near end was hooked over the inside of the windowsill. “We did it!”
“You two go first.” Brendan glanced back. There was now a huge hole where the attic door used to be. The stairs, which folded up when the door closed, were gone as well—reduced to splinters. Slayne’s red feather poked through the hole. “Krom, on your hands and knees! I need to get up there!”
Cordelia took the lead. She removed her bulky breastplate and stepped out on the bed, teetering back and forth. She willed herself not to look down. She moved by feel, eyes closed, trusting her balance. The humid air washed across her face as she reached the tree. The thick seams in the bark provided perfect handholds. She started descending.
“Nell!” she called back. “You c
an do it! Just don’t look down!”
But Eleanor, crouching at the foot of the bed frame, had already looked. The fall was far enough to cripple her, if not kill her.
“C’mon!” Brendan urged.
“I can’t, Bren!”
“You have to!”
“I can’t. I looked down.”
“Then look behind you!”
Eleanor glanced back to see Slayne hoisting himself into the attic. She didn’t give it another thought; she tore off her gauntlets because they made her arms feel clumsy and ran full tilt across the bridge, nearly slamming into the tree at the other end and starting down as Brendan came across last.
Cordelia stood on the ground, urging Eleanor to jump the rest of the way. Brendan reached the tree and kicked the bed frame aside so no one could follow. Eleanor screamed as it fell, diving off the tree to keep from getting hit. Cordelia darted into position and caught her. The frame crashed to earth, smashing ferns and logs. Brendan reached the ground as Slayne appeared in the window and yelled, “Run, sorcerer’s spawn! See how far you get before I gut you!”
Another warrior appeared at the window with a bow and fired off a shot.
The bronze-tipped arrow whizzed past Brendan’s ear and thudded into the earth. Brendan, Cordelia, and Eleanor ran through the woods, slipping on pine needles and wet rocks, no idea where they were headed. The journey across the bed bridge and down the tree had left them with bruises and scrapes that screamed at them. Their armor was gone; none of them had weapons. They were terrified and had no idea how to run without leaving a trail. They didn’t speak, hearing only their breath—and then another sound. Hoofbeats.
The warriors were mounted and gaining. Cordelia stumbled on a root. Brendan grabbed her before she hit the ground. With a thunk an arrow spiked into a tree next to him. Eleanor ran as fast as her small legs could carry her. The thoughts going through the Walkers’ heads were less the thoughts of human beings and more the thoughts—No! Keep going! They’re here!—of hunted animals.
Slayne, in the lead on his mighty horse, expertly twirled a chain-mail net and let it fly at Cordelia, Brendan, and Eleanor. It landed on top of them like a spider’s web, only a million times heavier. Slayne jerked it, bringing the chains together, and the kids crashed against one another as they were pulled over sharp rocks and sticks and brought to a stop, crying out in pain.
Slayne halted and swung himself to the ground with surprising grace for a man built like an army tank.
He walked in a calm circle around his captives. The Walkers heard his boots, the birds and insects, and their own heartbeats. The other warriors stayed mounted. Suddenly Slayne reached through the net and grabbed Brendan, lifting him by his shirt collar. The chain-mail links cut into his face.
“Why are you here?” Slayne demanded, bathing Brendan with a gust of noxious breath.
“I don’t . . . honestly I don’t know. The Wind Witch—”
“So you admit to being witches!”
“No, no! Of course not—”
“And the Wind Witch is your mistress?” He nodded to Krom and another of his men, the one who had fired the bow. They both dismounted and stood above Cordelia and Eleanor.
“No, no, she sent us here,” Brendan said. “We’re not—”
“You’re trespassing on my land.”
“We had no control over that—”
Krom and the other man planted their boots on Cordelia’s and Eleanor’s stomachs. Cordelia felt a bug crawl past her earlobe and thought she might scream.
“Don’t—don’t hurt my sisters. Please just let us go, and we promise we’ll get off your land.”
“Do you know the penalty for trespassing?”
“No . . . ”
“For a warlock: death.” Slayne squeezed Brendan’s throat playfully. “For a witch . . . ” His eyes narrowed. “We have our own ways of killing them.”
The warriors, on horseback and foot, had a good laugh at that. Krom knelt to grab Cordelia.
“Get your hands off her!” Brendan yelled, kicking. Slayne dropped him—and punched him in the gut on his way down.
Brendan wheezed on the ground, writhing like a fish out of water. Slayne strode to where Eleanor lay trapped.
“As for you,” he said, kneeling over her, “take a look at your handiwork.” He showed her the left side of his face.
“I’m sorry,” Eleanor said, seeing the two holes in his cheek, “but you shouldn’t talk about eating horses.” Cordelia and Brendan looked at each other. Even though Brendan was just getting his breath back, they managed to share a smile at their sister’s bravery.
“For marring me,” Slayne said, “there’s a special punishment for you. You’ll be coming along to deal with someone much less forgiving, much less understanding, than me and my men.”
“Who?” Eleanor asked.
“Queen Daphne.” Slayne grinned. “She loves little children, even witchy ones. Loves to eat them while they’re still alive. And awake. She usually starts with the fingers.”
“I’ve seen her start with the ears. Rips ’em right off their head,” added Krom with a thoughtful nod.
Eleanor shuddered on the ground, scared speechless for the first time in her life.
“Wait!” called Cordelia. “Queen Daphne of where? Where are we?”
“Silence!” Slayne ordered. Krom kicked Cordelia in the stomach. “Don’t you dare open your mouth to me.”
Cordelia squeezed her eyes shut and tried to block out the pain to figure out what she was hearing. These warriors were familiar in some way she couldn’t put her finger on. It buzzed in her brain, but there was too much fear and pain in there to let it surface.
Slayne drew his sword and returned to Brendan, who was trying to sit up. Slayne pointed the blade at his throat.
“I—”
“Shh,” Slayne cooed, pressing the tip against Brendan’s skin. It didn’t break, but Brendan knew it would; he could see it happening—the thin membrane that separated him from the world would split, and he would die in a place where no one even knew he was. He was surprised to find his thoughts very simple. He didn’t see his life flash before his eyes, or start thinking about all the things he wouldn’t get to do because he died at twelve; he just thought, No, no, make it stop, please, God, something!! And then—
ACK-ACK-ACK-ACK-ACK-ACK-ACK!
Brendan thought it sounded like a machine gun. Slayne looked up. Krom looked up. Everybody looked up.
“A Sopwith Camel!” Brendan yelled.
Brendan had seen the Sopwith in history books about World War I. It was the iconic early British fighter plane—single propeller, two sets of wings. And this one was coming right toward them.
It had torn through the tree canopy, raining down branches and leaves that were only now hitting the ground. It looked like it was held together with spit and glue. Black smoke streamed from its cockpit. Behind it, through the new hole in the foliage, came bursts of gunfire.
“German triplane!” Brendan called. He’d seen this plane too; it was what the Red Baron flew in old movies, with three sets of vertically stacked vermilion wings and black crosses. The triplane was in hot pursuit. When it became obvious that the Sopwith Camel was going down, the German triplane veered up, made a sharp right, and disappeared into the clouds.
The Sopwith Camel arced lower. Its engine whined in the dense air. The warriors stared, dumbstruck; they could smell the smoke now. Slayne pulled his sword away from Brendan’s neck and demanded, “What creature of darkness is that?”
The Walkers weren’t inclined to respond. Slayne’s warriors couldn’t respond, stunned as they were by the spewing, many-winged monster slaloming through the giant trees, smoke heralding flames from its mouth, veering skyward as if attempting to soar but inevitably listing down—straight toward them.
The warriors dove to the ground. The Walkers huddled inside their net. The aircraft buzzed them, the vibration of its stuttering propeller only inches above their heads—
And then it crashed.
First the two oversize wheels at the front snapped off. Then the fuselage bounced up like a skipped stone and crunched back down. Then the plane skidded forward over rocks and sticks and roots, carving out a trench before coming to rest at a tree fifty feet away. The engine was still running. The propeller turned fitfully.
The pilot crawled out and collapsed. He was covered in black soot, with goggles and a leather helmet on his head, wearing a bomber jacket zipped over a military uniform. He staggered to his feet, thin and miraculously uninjured, and booked it away from the plane.
“Who’s that?” Eleanor gasped.
“He looks like . . . a pilot,” Cordelia said, her voice hollowed by disbelief.
“A World War One fighter pilot,” said Brendan.
“Watch out!” the pilot shouted to the kids and warriors, throwing himself to the ground.
The Sopwith Camel exploded behind him.
Everyone ducked as shards of plane flew across the forest. Fabric strips rained down, along with a cascade of broken leafy branches. The plane was now a smoldering pit where the cockpit, engine, and propeller used to be.
“I always said too much of that plane was in the front,” remarked the pilot in a British accent. He turned to Slayne’s men and inclined his head. “What’s this? Are we performing a panto?”
The men drew their weapons. Krom said to Slayne, “I thought only gods fell from the sky.”
“He’s no god,” Slayne scoffed.
“How can you be sure?”
Slayne grabbed the bow from his man and notched an arrow. “Gods don’t bleed.”
“Now wait a minute!” objected the pilot, holding up his hands—
But Slayne shot an arrow into his right shoulder.
“Aaaagh!” The pilot fell to the ground and stared cross-eyed at the arrow, which stuck out of him like a sandwich toothpick. He seized it, snapped the shaft off, and tossed it aside, wincing as he jostled a nerve.
“Savages,” he spat, heaving himself up and glaring at Slayne, eyes fierce.
“A mortal,” sneered Slayne. “You know what to do.”
House of Secrets Page 6