Mice of the Round Table #3

by Julie Leung

  Calib opened his mouth, but found that he did not have an easy answer. He would have said his grandfather, Commander Yvers. But wasn’t it Commander Kensington now? Or was it King Arthur? Was it perhaps Galahad? Now that Galahad had Excalibur, didn’t that mean he was the new ruler?

  “The rightful rulers are the people,” Thomas said, shrugging. “At least, that’s how it should be.”

  Calib held his breath, waiting to see if that answer would please the bats. They looked at one another, and then the one with a face framed with graying fur nodded. “Very well. We will hear you speak.”

  CHAPTER

  30

  Calib’s relief made him almost sag against the wall, but he held himself together as the oldest bat began to speak.

  “We apologize about the scare,” he said. He bowed deeply, though from Calib’s view, it looked like he was doing a sit-up. “We thought you were the witch’s spies. I am King Mir Vortigern the Eighth of the Iron Mountains Bats.”

  “And my name is Horatio Eavesdrip, twelfth of my name. I am the chief listener,” said the other, younger black bat in a distinguished, though somewhat snooty, voice.

  “Er, nice to meet you,” Thomas said, throwing out a paw to shake. “Never seen a winged rodent before.”

  “We like to keep to ourselves when we can,” Horatio said.

  “Why are you impersonating dragons?” Calib asked.

  “Bats are the guardians of the Iron Mountains. We protect its treasures from being exploited by men,” King Mir said. “We use the dragon legend to keep people away. No one had come in many years until the witch.”

  “You mean Morgan,” Calib said.

  “If that’s what you want to call her,” Horatio sniffed. “She is a vile thing.”

  “How did she find out about this place?” Cecily asked.

  King Mir shrugged sadly. “The only Two-Legger who knew about the power buried in this place was Merlin. But I do not think he would betray this information to anyone like her.”

  “Unlikely,” Calib agreed. Though he too wondered how the information had reached Morgan. Had Red found something in his stolen scroll?

  “In fact, it was Merlin who first gave us the idea of creating a dragon illusion,” Horatio added, seeming to not want to be outdone by King Mir.

  “How do you do it?” Thomas asked. “Is it magic?”

  King Mir cocked his head. “In a way. Once, long ago, the Iron Mountains used to be volcanoes. The smoke coming from the mountains led people to believe there were dragons in these parts. It doesn’t take much convincing when people are ready to believe something.”

  “Those stories are mostly what keep people away,” Horatio added. “But with the help of some illusion spells Merlin provided us, we’ve made sure to keep the legend alive for generations after us.”

  Calib’s nose grew hot. His mind had also gone to dragons immediately at the first possible hint of them. If someone was ready to believe something, they could make the facts fit their expectations.

  “Merlin’s final request to us was to protect the last of the magic left in this land,” King Mir said.

  “So there is no real dragon?” Thomas clarified, sounding much relieved.

  “No, but the Saxons don’t know that,” Horatio harrumphed. “For the past several weeks, we’ve been practicing, preparing for when we at last will come face-to-face with those parasites.”

  “I have a question,” Cecily said. “What do you eat?”

  “We still have pastries in the bag if you want some,” Thomas began.

  “No, silly,” Cecily said, shaking her head. “That’s for the others. I’ve already had a pastry. But what I mean to say is . . . how do you get out of here to get food without the Saxons noticing?”

  King Mir and Horatio looked at each other. Horatio smirked while the king chuckled. “Why, it’s easy, mouse-maid. We go up!”

  The king launched himself off the perch and began to fly upward, spiraling to the top, where, for the first time, Calib spotted a gray pinprick of light.

  He gasped. Was that sky? How had he not noticed before? The night must have only just turned to dawn.

  Calib’s heart swelled with hope. After days of endless darkness in the tunnels, living in fear, they finally had a way out. A wide grin spread across his face, and he turned back to the bats. “How much are you able to lift?”

  “Excuse me?” King Mir asked, clearly disgruntled. “We’re bats, not a carrier service!”

  “We share the same enemies. We should fight as one.” Calib spread out his paws. “Help us free the Darkling and Saxon prisoners, and we could all move against Morgan’s army with three times the might that we could muster on our own.”

  King Mir shook his head.

  “Our only command from Merlin was to protect the mountains’ crystals, nothing more,” King Mir said. “Be you Saxon, Darkling, or from Camelot, all of you stand to be corrupted by greed. All of you are potential enemies. We have nothing to gain by helping you.”

  Calib felt an old anger throb like a burning coal in his chest. For generations, everyone had lived in suspicion and fear of one another. That was how they got into this mess in the first place. By not working together, they had let a powerful enemy rise and now threaten them all.

  Together in paw and tail, lest divided we fall and fail.

  That was Camelot’s motto, carved on the very doors that once contained the Grail. It was about time they actually lived by those words.

  “If Morgan isn’t stopped, she will drain these mountains, Camelot—maybe the entire world,” Calib said. “You can hide in your caves as much as you want, but as long as she has command over her prisoners, it’s only a matter of time before she discovers the crystals. You need us—and we need you.”

  The bat king was silent for a long while, his face unreadable as he contemplated Calib’s words. Everyone looked to King Mir for guidance, but Horatio was the first to speak.

  “I agree with the groundbeast,” the adviser said softly. “It’s true—much of Morgan’s plotting has been to divide and weaken Britain’s creatures, pit them against one another, so that they never put up a strong enough resistance.”

  “You know that for certain?” King Mir asked.

  Horatio preened back his ears with a flip of his wing. “I’m not the chief listener for nothing.”

  King Mir scratched his chin with a claw. “What are you thinking?” he asked Calib, sounding resigned.

  Calib smiled, the first one he’d cracked in weeks it seemed. It felt strange on his face, as if he’d accepted a dangerous dare.

  CHAPTER

  31

  Galahad hadn’t seen Morgan in many a day—ever since the carp demonstration, in fact. Despite going to the throne room every morning, he found it was always empty . . . though more and more of the rosebushes planted around the throne seemed to have shriveled up.

  He had barely seen Red either. The boy had been avoiding him, refusing to look him in the eye whenever they did pass in the hallway. Something was happening, and Galahad had an uneasy feeling deep in the pit of his stomach. In order to not arouse the Saxon guards’ suspicions, Galahad continued to practice his sword routines, but he shied away from trying any magical workings.

  The memory of the sapling’s pleas echoed through his brain, resounding again and again, never fading. So too did the brief memory of holding the carp’s essence—its potential, its life, its magic—in his hands. He had felt so powerful for a moment, for once in charge of Excalibur instead of the other way around.

  And still, he could not find the Grail.

  The fortress felt like it was nannying him. No matter which twists and turns he took through the corridors, he only ever ended up in the Saxon training arena, where large warrior men honed their skills for an attack on Camelot; in Morgan’s spacious throne room; or in his own, cramped bedroom.

  After another frustrating day of trying to escape the confines of the three locations, Galahad finally stalked into
his room. He felt hot, itchy, and uncomfortable in his own skin. But as he unbuckled Excalibur from his waist, he caught his reflection in the sword’s hilt.

  A reflection . . .

  He hurried to the traveling pack he’d kept under the small bed and pulled out Merlin’s Mirror. He hadn’t looked at it since arriving to the fortress, not wanting to draw Morgan’s attention to it. He had a feeling that maybe she could sense magic even better than Calib’s whiskers could.

  His heart squeezed. He hoped Calib had found Cecily. Occasionally, he’d used Excalibur to try to find his friend. Most of the times, he’d felt nothing, but sometimes, he’d caught a sense of Calib-ness, deep in the mountains, and his mind had eased a little.

  But maybe with the mirror, he’d be able to find Calib—or better yet, the Grail. Holding up the mirror to Excalibur’s shining hilt, he tried to look in—and beyond. Nothing happened. Disappointment settled over him. It had, perhaps, been foolish to think such objects could work as intended in a sorceress’s lair.

  That gave Galahad a thought. Again, carefully, he held up the mirror, but this time, he took a look at his surroundings through its reflection.

  What he saw made him shiver. Everything in the room, from the walls to the desk, was covered in otherworldly runes. They glowed pale blue, pulsating slowly. They resembled the runes etched onto Excalibur. Only these were roughly drawn, as if someone had painted them by hand. And he had the strange feeling that they were watching him. . . .

  Galahad tore his attention away from the reflection and put the mirror facedown on the bed.

  “Magic,” he murmured. Whatever he was seeing, Morgan had manipulated it just so. Her magic permeated every stone in this part of the fortress.

  She was so powerful. Galahad wondered what Camelot would be like if King Arthur could draw protective runes around the castle. Maybe Britain would not have been attacked. Maybe the white fever would not have claimed so many lives. Maybe there would have been no need for war at all. . . .

  Thinking of the fever and the war, he wondered what Father Walter would have thought of Morgan’s training. Father Walter always said healers should try their best. But what if their best was at the cost of another creature?

  Galahad removed from under his bed the scroll Father Walter and Bors had given him, then unfurled it. Though he could not read the writing, he recognized a rune in the shape of a familiar cup, with rays shooting from it. It was a symbol he’d seen in Britta’s notes as well.

  His heartbeat quickening, Galahad stood up, tucking the parchment under his tunic. If he could get to the library, perhaps he could use Britta’s decoder to read the scroll. With both Morgan and Red seemingly ignoring him, and dinner long since passed, now would be the perfect time. He just needed to get out of this room first.

  But how to break out of the fortress’s enchantment?

  Unsheathing Excalibur, he tried to focus on the library. After several minutes of concentrating, Galahad thought he felt the slightest of tremors in his hand, guiding him forward. Galahad began to walk, and as he did, the pull grew stronger. The floor changed underneath his feet from stone to wood. His nose tickled as the scent of bound leather and moldy paper filled his nostrils.

  “Ha!” Galahad said triumphantly, but then instantly regretted it. Britta was slumped over, head down on a desk, deep in sleep. Tiptoeing as best he could, Galahad got closer.

  He glanced down at the documents she was using as a pillow, scanning Britta’s notes over her shoulder. To Galahad’s surprise, Merlin was recounting his first meeting with a mouse commander named Yvers Christopher. Galahad was stunned at Britta’s progress. Everyone at Camelot always had assumed that Merlin’s Scrolls were filled with nonsensical ramblings. We should just burn them all for firewood instead, Sir Edmund had groused. Better than letting them take up space in our library.

  And now, here was this Saxon who could barely speak a lick of Gaelic, managing to make sense of it all. Even Bors would be impressed, Galahad thought.

  Quickly, he slipped the decoder out from Britta’s arm. She startled slightly, and Galahad paused, not wanting to wake her. Slowly, he sank into a nearby chair to wait for her to settle. Referencing Britta’s notes, he began to translate the scroll he’d brought with him:

  I walk with the wolf and he walks with me. His teeth are mine own as is his hunger. . . .

  As Galahad read Merlin’s strange ramblings, he remembered how Father Walter had mentioned seeing a wolf stalk Merlin. Had the wolf eaten him? But that didn’t seem right.

  The Grail demands life, and I feed it. . . .

  Galahad’s head began to pound as the spidery writing crawled over the page. He let his head lean on his hand as he continued to translate. He could feel his eyes drooping. If he could just . . . keep . . . going . . .

  “Galahad! You did it!”

  Galahad woke with a start to see Britta holding a scroll, her curls seeming to spring out in every direction. Ink was smeared over her face from where she’d fallen asleep, but she didn’t look tired at all now. In fact, she looked radiant.

  And in her hands, was the scroll Father Walter had given him.

  “I don’t know where I misplaced this scroll,” she said triumphantly, “but with it, I can finally make sense of what he’s saying. It’s a sacrifice!” Britta drew him into a big hug. Her hair made his nose tickle. “The Grail needs a sacrifice!”

  Britta let go and ran to the door. “We’ve discovered the secret to the Grail’s powers! We have to tell the queen!”

  CHAPTER

  32

  For the first time in a long time, Calib was hopeful. Looking around the embers of the rebellion campfire, he saw Thomas, Rosy, and Silas snoring softly, while Leftie the lynx personally stood watch over them.

  When they had arrived back at camp with the bats and the weasels, there had been a moment when Calib thought everything was about to go wrong. But once Leftie had heard Thomas’s story—and met Rosy and Silas—he’d immediately placed all the Saxon weasels under his protection.

  “I ignored your words once before, young Christopher,” Leftie had said. “I swore I would not do so again.”

  In the early hours of the morning, King Mir of the Iron Mountains and Chieftain Leftie of the Darkling Woods, together with Cecily von Mandrake and Calib Christopher of Camelot, had agreed to a plan. In just a few hours, members of the rebellion would sneak back to the prisoners above and help them find their way to the old abandoned tunnels, where they would be delivered to their freedom by the Dragon of the Iron Mountains.

  “We may be few in number and short in stature,” Leftie said, “but we are large in courage.”

  Then, raising his voice, he yowled at the top of his lungs the way only a wildcat can. Creatures shot awake, rubbing the sleep from their eyes.

  “There’s been a change of plans,” Leftie said. “We leave—today.”

  The rebellion slowly woke, stumbling toward Leftie, stifling yawns. But by the time Leftie had explained everything, they were all wide-awake.

  As the rebellion went over the plan to sneak back to the prisoners, a lark named Flora agreed to fly with Horatio and deliver a warning to Camelot. No sooner had she left, however, than she and Horatio came hurtling back, arrowing down headlong through the tunnel.

  “Flora! Horatio!” Leftie exclaimed. “Why aren’t you on your way?”

  “Because,” Horatio panted, “we’ve run into a bit of trouble—of the magical sort.”

  “It would be better if you saw it yourself,” Flora said sadly.

  “You can show us all,” King Mir said. “Bring forth the dragon’s nose!”

  Two of the bigger bats of the group came forward, carrying between them a woven contraption that was shaped like a large lizard’s snout, with two rows of sharp rocks lining the edge of the mouth. The bats flipped the mouth open and motioned for Calib and Cecily to sit inside.

  “I hope you two are not afraid of heights,” Horatio squeaked, and with a rapid flapping of w
ings, they shot up vertically to the top of the cave and emerged into a cool, starry night.

  The bats’ wings moved at a frantic pace. Calib’s stomach lurched as the basket dipped and swayed. Bats were not built with the sturdy flight patterns of owls or even seagulls. As the ground disappeared underneath them, Calib braced himself against the dragon’s head and tried to keep the pastries down.

  Calib breathed deep. After days of stifling heat and sulfuric smells, the air was sweet as syrup, cool as a freshwater brook. The stars blinked in and out like thousands of fireflies in the summer sky, and the blue moon shone down like a distant lantern.

  The dragon came to a halt just outside, however, landing abruptly at the top of the Iron Mountains. Calib and the others disembarked uncertainly. Everyone seemed confused as to why the bats had stopped here instead of taking them into the Darkling Woods for safety.

  “Watch,” Horatio instructed. The bat took off with a pebble in his claw. When he got about three feet into the air, he threw the pebble upward. It ricocheted off an invisible surface just above him and nearly struck Calib’s head on the way down.

  “There’s a magical barrier blocking us from leaving,” King Mir observed. “We’ve never gone much beyond our caves. This whole time, we have been imprisoned too.”

  “Does it go all the way to the ground?” Cecily asked.

  Calib ran to the mountain’s edge and threw another pebble. It arched out and got stuck, as if it had landed on an invisible ledge in front of him. Like a punch of strong wind, he could feel the magic surge to push the pebble back, and his whiskers burned. He clapped his paw to his snout, trying to soothe the sharp ache. With a barrier that strong, there would be no way to send a warning to Camelot.

  “No!” Cecily shouted. “We didn’t just break out of our prison for nothing. We can’t release all those creatures from their shackles only to be defeated by some big, ridiculous wall!”

  Calib winced. It was a very strong wall—his whiskers still burned. They hadn’t hurt this badly since he and Galahad broke through the barrier to get into the mountains. But if they’d passed through that one before, they could do it again. All Calib needed was Galahad—assuming he was still in the fortress.