by Adam Sidwell
“This quake was bad. The worst yet,” said Mariah, her voice quivering.
The damage had finally reached critical mass. The collapsing tunnels were setting off a chain reaction underground.
A sudden, horrific thought struck Guster. “Where’s Zeke?”
Mariah looked at him, the panic streaking across her face. “I thought you knew,” she said.
Guster shook his head. The last he’d seen Zeke was in Yummy’s lair.
“There’s an even more pressing concern, sir,” said the Lieutenant, peering through binoculars. “Look at your twelve o’clock. The Mayor’s guards are setting up a perimeter. My tactical instincts tell me they’re preparing for battle.”
In the city square below, on the rise where Guster was to have been eaten alive, a mass of soldiers had gathered carrying red banners. There were hundreds of them, row after row, their rounded steel chest plates and spears glinting in the sun.
They were a pride of lions, all sharp points and ferocity, thirsting for blood. And they were marching toward Princess Sunday’s Castle.
“Mom and Dad are down there,” said Guster. He couldn’t see them, but he knew there had been nowhere else for them to run.
Mariah nodded. She stood and craned her neck for a better look. “When you and Zeke ran off, everything fell apart. The city broke into chaos. There was nearly a riot. A lot of people really wanted to see you sacrificed, right then and there.
“The Mayor’s guards pursued you, and Princess Sunday’s Cherry Brigade took the chance to make their escape. Mom and Dad fled to back to the castle with Felicity. Mom would’ve come for you herself. She wanted to, but they got cut off. We got separated then found a way to came after you.”
“They’re no longer prisoners?” asked Guster.
“They never really were,” she said. “The Princess would have let us go at any time. We chose to stay. We wanted to get you out. Now she’s dropped the façade. Everything’s changing.”
So Princess Sunday was protecting them.
“Guster, the Mayor’s rallied the people against Princess Sunday. There is a lot of support for his Guards. They’re going to attack the castle, and the Culinary will be powerless to stand in their way.”
Anger built inside Guster, like water welling up behind a dam. “We have to stop them,” he said.
The Lieutenant shook his head. “I’m not taking you into that battle, sir. You’re not a fighter, and it’s my job to keep you safe. You have to stay here.”
A steep, winding path led down the mountain from Guster’s feet to the city square. The Lieutenant traced it with his eyes and then scanned the forces below. The steel line of Mayor’s Extravío Vigilar encircled the castle wall. The noose was tightening.
“You know that we won’t stay out of this, Lieutenant,” said Guster. “Mom and Dad need us.”
The Lieutenant’s mouth went grim, but behind his aviator glasses, Guster wondered if his eyes were twinkling.
The Lieutenant could never back down from a battle. He was honor bound to fight for his friends when they needed him. Guster knew this because that’s how he felt about Mom and Dad.
“Fine,” he said. “But we’re going to get you into the castle behind those thick stone walls.” He unbuttoned his shirt pocket and pulled out a small metal key attached to a leather lanyard. “Princess Sunday gave me this. It’s a key to a secret entrance into her castle. They built it to escape sieges. Now you’re going to use it to sneak in.” He handed the key to Guster. “No matter what happens I want you to get back into that castle.”
Guster nodded. This was no time to argue. He took the key.
The Lieutenant took one last glance backward. “Stay close,” he said.
He charged down the mountain path. Guster and Mariah raced after him, bouncing from stone to stone or sliding down the glacier on their backs when the ice was clear.
“Get down,” the Lieutenant said when they reached a low chocolate wall that ringed the city. He peered around the corner.
Cannon fire exploded in their ears, shaking the wall so that it crumbled and cracked beside their heads.
The Lieutenant ducked. “They’ve got the castle surrounded on the north and west sides,” he said, drawing in the dirt with a stick. He didn’t even seem to notice the blast. “If we make our way through the streets, we should be able to enter the castle from the south side. We’ll have to make a wide berth and hope that the confusion in the streets will serve as a distraction.” He drew a semicircle on the ground.
He slung his rifle from off his shoulder and stood up. “Stick close,” he said. “And stay low.”
The Lieutenant ran, half-crouching, from their cover behind the wall to the corner of a mint chocolate chip house across the street. There was rubble everywhere, chunks of strawberry strewn across the road.
Explosions rang out across the city. Villagers ran through the streets, most of them heading away from the castle. The crowd was a wide river of panic and fear tumbling through the streets. Guster, Mariah, and the Lieutenant charged upstream, Guster hiding his face as best he could so as not to attract attention.
Four of the Mayor’s guard charged up the street through the crowd, spears in hand.
“In here,” said the Lieutenant, pulling Guster and Mariah into a chocolate alleyway. The Lieutenant hoisted Mariah over a wall and then locked his fingers together, forming a step so Guster could climb over too. Guster slid on his belly over the top of the wall and into a yard with a chocolate pond behind a light brown marble fudge house.
The Lieutenant jumped over the wall easily, landing in a crouch on the other side. He crossed the yard and peered out over the opposite wall.
Guster stood on his tiptoes so he could see.
“They’ve got the castle surrounded here. We’re still not far enough south,” the Lieutenant whispered.
Just a few yards in front of them five of the Mayor’s guards were loading a cannonball into the back of an iron cannon on wooden-spoked wheels. The soldiers hadn’t noticed them yet. Guster ducked down behind the wall.
The Lieutenant motioned with two fingers toward the back door of the house. Guster and Mariah crept toward it, crouching low. The Lieutenant followed them, and, heaving his shoulder quietly against the wooden door, forced his way inside.
It was dark in the house except for a few dim rays of sunlight filtering through the front windows. They found their way to the front door, winding past tables and overturned chairs.
Something whimpered in the corner. Guster turned to see a little boy cowering in his mother’s arms in the shadows. His hair was messy and his face smudged with chocolate, his eyes wide with fear. He reminded Guster of Henry Junior. That’s probably exactly how his little brother would look in a few years.
The Lieutenant paused with his hand on the front door.
“Shhh,” said Guster to the boy. “We’re not going to hurt you.” He felt a sudden pain and emptiness, like chords were drawing him toward his baby brother somewhere up in the castle. He had to get back to his family. He had to make sure they were okay. “We’re going to try to fix all this,” he said. He didn’t know if they really could.
“Best if they stay indoors and stay low,” said the Lieutenant. He opened the front door a crack, peered out, then, after a moment, he motioned to them that it was all clear.
Guster nodded. They slipped out the front door quietly and back into the street.
They crossed the street, dodging in and out of alleyways. They took several more wrong turns and had to backtrack twice before they finally came to the marshmallow moat. On the other side of a pair of shops Guster could hear the Mayor’s guards loading one of their cannons.
There was a crack, no wider than Guster’s head, where the wall had been hit with a stray cannonball and had begun to cave inward. Enough rubble had fallen into the caramel moat that Gu
ster was able to pick his way carefully across without getting his boots stuck in the gluey-sweet ooze. The Lieutenant and Mariah were right behind him.
Guster sucked in his chest as tight as he could and squeezed himself through the crack in the wall. Mariah slid through more easily. The Lieutenant paused and peered upward, looking for a place to climb over. He was much too broad to fit.
“Go on ahead,” he whispered. He handed Guster the key. “I’ll find another way through. The entrance is hidden between a pair of sugar cones in the side of the hill behind the castle.”
Guster was afraid. He didn’t want him and Mariah to be left alone. Having the Lieutenant there was like having a great big rock at their back. The Lieutenant provided protection. He knew how to keep them safe.
The Lieutenant must have seen Guster’s worry. “Sir, go straight to your mother. She needs you,” he said, his stare almost piercing behind the lenses of his aviator glasses.
Guster was about to argue when another cannonball exploded across the street, shooting icy chunks of shrapnel into the outer castle wall only inches from their heads.
The Lieutenant ducked, throwing up his arms to protect his face. “Go,” he said.
Guster and Mariah ran. They raced around the circumference of the hill as fast as they could go, leaping over rubble and scrambling up broken walls as they went. Huge boulders of dark-red strawberry ice cream flew overhead, drawing wide arcs from the inner castle walls through the air until they dropped like meteors onto the street outside, shaking the ground.
The Princess’s Cherry Brigade was fighting back. This was a real battle. It was hard for Guster to believe that this was really happening. In the middle of all the destruction, people were going to get hurt. Maybe even killed if they hadn’t already. Mom. Dad. Henry Junior. The Yummy in the cave. And where was Zeke? El Elado was falling apart, and it was tearing people down with it. Guster doubled his pace.
A shot rang out, and a rock not two feet from Guster shattered. He pushed off his left foot, darting to the right and glanced back quickly over his shoulder, his heart racing.
Three of the Mayor’s guards were charging up the hill behind them, their pointed steel helmets aimed right at Guster like gleaming talons. Two of them held their spears level, like knight’s lances, ready to strike at his heart. The third was armed with a musket, still smoking from the bullet it had just fired at Guster. It was a very old musket, and it would take the soldier at least a minute to reload. Guster didn’t want to be there when he did.
Guster grabbed Mariah’s hand. He pumped his legs, pulling Mariah along behind him. Oh, how he wished Zeke were there. He veered a sharp left, following the curve of the hill and ducking behind a rocky outcropping of frozen blueberry ice cream.
“I don’t know if I can outrun them,” Mariah puffed, resting her hands on her knees. “We have to find the two cones.”
Guster scanned the landscape. There was no time. The base of the hill above them sloped upward, then turned steep and jagged. They couldn’t climb any higher without the Mayor’s guards catching them right away. Their only option was to keep running. He took Mariah by the hand again and ran, doing his best to keep the rocky outcropping of blueberry between them and the Guards.
There was another explosion of cannon fire. The mountain shook, and the castle wall above them broke, a huge chunk bigger than a house breaking free. Like an iceberg splitting, it teetered and fell, hitting the ground with such an impact that the ground lurched as it struck. It slid downward, smashing to a halt at the bottom of the slope where two golden-brown sugar cones barely peeked out from the base of the hill.
Their one hope–their secret passage–had been cut off.
Chapter 25—Yummy’s Last Stand
“The sugar cones . . .” said Mariah. Panic and worry cracked her words as she spoke.
Guster dragged her down the hill and around the broken wall. At least it would provide some cover. It wouldn’t be long before the guard reloaded. It would be sooner still before the other two caught up, spears in hand.
Guster ran, leading Mariah up the slope. The cones were crushed. They’d have to find another way in. Better to put the wreckage between him and the guards.
The castle wall had fallen over a lee at the very bottom of the slope, forming a small hollow just big enough to peer inside. Guster ducked his head into the hollow, hoping for some kind of hiding place.
Through the narrow opening he could make out the bottoms of the broken cones where the light filtered into the shadows under the wall. Between them was a small iron gate. They’d found it, just out of reach.
Guster clawed at the ice cream bricks. They were frozen solid. “It’s too small to fit,” he said. If only they could get through, there was space enough inside the hollow that they could probably crawl inside the gate once it was open.
“If the light is getting in, maybe we can too,” said Mariah, peering into the hole. She glanced back over her shoulder. “We have to get to the top,” she said.
“What?” said Guster. Mariah was out of her mind.
“Just trust me,” she said. Without waiting for a response, she scrambled toward the far side of the wall. It was at least two dozen feet away.
When she reached the top, a shot rang out, shattering the frozen bricks just inches from Mariah’s head. Guster jumped, fear and surprise jolting up his spine. Mariah ducked, disappearing for a moment behind the top edge of the thick wall.
Guster scrambled up the slope and found her, crouched and panting. From where they stood, they couldn’t see the guards on the opposite side of the wall. But Guster knew they were coming.
“Ready? Let’s go,” she said, hoisting herself up onto the wall at its highest point. Then she dove headfirst, sliding down the broken wall on the frozen ice cream bricks.
There was a scuffing and scraping on the rocks below. Two of the guards came out from behind the wall at the bottom end. “There they are!” said one of the guards, pointing toward Guster.
What is she doing? Guster pulled himself onto the wall with both hands and dove after her, sliding downward, the bricks cold and slippery on his back
Mariah twisted onto her back and dropped through an open window frame still intact in the frozen wall. She disappeared, and then a moment later, her head popped out again, just like a gopher’s.
“This way,” she hissed.
Guster didn’t need her to tell him. He was moving too fast to change direction.
Mariah ducked. He stuck out his heels, jamming them against the rim of bricks right where her head had been, stopping his fall. Then he twisted without looking—there was no time—and tumbled down into the hole.
It was dark and cramped in the space where the lee of the hill and the broken wall formed a tiny pocket of air. The iron gate’s bars crisscrossed in a loose grid, with a heavy chunk of metal in the center where a keyhole was set. It was just big enough to crawl inside, if they managed to get it open.
Guster took the metal key from his pocket and shoved it into the hole. He twisted it, and the key stuck for a moment, grinding past centuries of rust and grime in the lock. Then it gave, and the lock clicked. He tugged on the gate. It held fast.
“Hurry,” said Mariah. Guster set both heels into the hill and yanked as hard as he could, throwing all his weight backward. The gate did not budge.
“Something’s wrong with it! It think it’s rusted shut,” said Guster. Footsteps pounded across the fallen wall above them.
Mariah shook her head. “Try this,” she said, brushing his arms off the gate and pushing it inward. It swung open easily.
Relief and embarrassment churned in Guster’s chest. There was little time to feel stupid, though, as Mariah dove into the opening and the dark passageway behind it. Guster followed, kicking the gate closed and locking it again from the inside. He yanked the key free and scrambled across the rough fro
zen ground of the tunnel.
They had only crawled a few feet when the guards dropped through the window frame. Guster pushed Mariah up the tunnel from behind. She stopped, shoving herself against a low wooden door until it opened. Both she and Guster dove through just as the guards’ spears thrust through the gate. The spears’ metal points whiffed through the air in the space where Guster’s neck had been only moments before.
“Up here,” said Mariah, pointing to a narrow spiral staircase.
The guards shouted something Guster couldn’t hear, their metal armor clanging against the iron gate. Guster was not going to wait for them to aim their rifle through the bars.
“I do not want to do that again,” said Guster. He dashed up the stairs behind Mariah, his lungs burning. They’d made it inside the castle, but the battle had raged far closer to Mom and Dad than he would have liked. They had to find them.
But once they did, Guster had no idea what to do next. “Now what?” he asked Mariah.
“What do you mean?” she said.
“We’ve snuck into the castle, nearly getting ourselves killed in the process, and now what? We can’t really help Mom and Dad. We’re in as much trouble as they are. This is bad.”
Mariah shook her head. “I was kind of hoping they’d help us.”
Guster pushed open another wooden door at the top of the stairs. They were in a room that looked much like the dungeon Mom, Dad, and Felicity had been locked in, but no one was there.
“This way,” said Mariah. She pointed to another set of stone steps. “We are still in the hillside. We’ve got to find our way up to ground level where the main court is.”
She and Guster wound their way up and out of the dungeon, through two more hallways—all deserted—and up another set of stairs, always picking the route that led up.