“Maybe I don’t need it.” I dared it to be true. “Maybe I am what they say.”
His eyes grew wider. “But we’re bait out there.”
“We’re meat in here. Bait has a chance.”
He blinked and nodded. Then we were running together through the dark tunnel with urgent gusts pushing us along. We ran in darkness, our racing breaths and footsteps striking the air in tune with the whistling wind. We soon burst out of the passage and stopped fast. Leaves flapped down and blew through an army of giant trunks spattered with moonlight.
“What is this place?” Charlie whispered. I didn’t answer back.
We’d entered the Wild Lands.
The damp castle dungeon was a comfort. Out here, the wind clawed at me as howls and shrieks stabbed the air. A giant thorny hedge thrust up from the ground as tall as the castle. It grew around the tunnel we’d escaped and raced along either side of us, obscuring the castle and all beyond it.
Whatever stalked us in here was trapped. Like us.
We huddled by the hedge as I readied my bow—Leandro’s bow—with shaky hands and set an arrow in place.
“Hypnos said if we get to the Wild Childs, we’re set,” I whispered.
“How?”
I tried to forget Hypnos’s other words. First, we must pass through terrifying ground. “We have to find this Grand Tree. Hypnos said the Wild Childs are near it.”
A growl clobbered the air, and Charlie jumped around with me. Thunder clapped and lightning flashed. Dark shapes moved in the shadows. The trees trembled, shaking off their leaves, and twigs were tossed up in mini tornadoes.
“Dang and blast! Run fast!” I echoed Hypnos’s words.
We ran low to the ground, dodging gnarly trees. Squirrel creatures scurried along branches, flying from tree to tree as if following us along—or leading a hungry hoard to dinner.
Snarls cut through the wind and we ran faster. On and on the woods stretched. Thorns ripped my clothes and skin. I held Leandro’s bow tight, ready to aim and shoot at anything that came at me—being or beast. Branches snapped beneath our feet as we flew over rocks and roots.
White jags of lightning shot the earth, and the sky cracked open like a great ax to a door. A flash dazzled me, branding the inside of my eyelids. Charlie yanked my shirt and we both fell down. Flames shot up where lightning struck, and the screams of a wild animal in pain filled the air. In the soaring flames, a hairy beast slammed to the ground with a great cry. Hulking shapes crept out of the shadows and pounced on the dead creature, ripping and chewing.
Charlie and I kept running. My legs ached as I pumped them.
“There they are!” Artemis’s voice rang through the woods. “El-el-eu! Victor I am!”
Hairy beasts loped after us and men tore up on horseback behind them. An arrow whizzed past my ear. I dared a look behind me. Lightning lit up the man who’d fired the arrow. He led the charge, riding his horse hell bent around the trees, moving in and out like a dark ghost. A hood covered the top half of his face. He nocked another arrow at me and threw back his hood.
It was Leandro! He’d found us all right. His scowl stung me with fury.
“Joshua, use your powers!” Charlie yelled in between breaths.
If I had powers, how to command them? How could I hurt Leandro with them? It didn’t seem like he was playing a trick to save me this time. The hate on his face was real.
Leandro wanted me dead. Why?
As if I wished it, lightning struck, torching the beasts behind us. The horses behind them screeched, throwing their riders in the air.
“Get up!” Artemis stomped her horse around the tangled mess of soldiers. “Round up more beasts and drive the Reekers to the Black Heart Tree!”
Rain streamed down and the wind whipped at me, driving the stinging pellets. Charlie and I ran on, leaving our enemy behind in this terrifying game. We held each other up as we staggered through the storm.
“Joshua, stop! Can’t. Go. On.” Charlie gasped out the words as he dragged me back.
I tugged his shirt, ripping it. “We’ve got to!”
Oh, where was this Grand Tree and could these Wild Childs even help us?
When my lungs threatened to explode, a howl behind us pushed my aching legs to full throttle. Claws swiped at us and a blast of rotten meat stench hit me. Anger at this world choked me into a fury. For sucking me up into its danger and death again. For turning my friend against me. For having to run for my life again. For wanting me to be their hero.
I skidded to a stop, riding wet leaves. Charlie’s eyes blinked with surprise as I shoved him aside and turned to face the unleashed creature. It flew over my head—an exploding mountain of fur and legs and tail—and slammed onto the ground. It turned to face me, panting. Pacing back and forth, its massive paws glinted with curved nails as it smashed the mud. Steam bellowed from its giant nostrils and horns protruded from a head covered in a shaggy brown mane. Tinted burnt orange, the beast raged part lion, part bull. I backed away from the monster, hauling Charlie with me.
“What now?” Charlie stuttered.
I carefully nocked an arrow to my bow, keeping my eyes on the beast as it snorted and pawed the ground, spewing up clomps of dirt. The rain spiked harder.
“Let us go,” I said.
The beast churned up the ground and shook its giant mane, groaning low in its throat. “Hungrrrry.” I must’ve imagined him speaking. Without my lightning orb, I didn’t have powers to understand animals on Nostos.
Charlie pulled me back. “What did it say?”
“I don’t know,” I said.
“Well, I think it said ‘time to eat.’ ”
He had no idea how right he was.
With each step the beast inched toward us, we took one back. I pulled back my arrow, the tension scorching my arm. The lion-bull shuddered; loose skin flapping against its gigantic, bony frame. Its swollen tongue hung from its mouth, and its ribs outlined sharp against its skin with each desperate pant. Red-rimmed eyes burned into mine.
“It’s starving, Charlie,” I whispered.
“And we’re dinner!”
“Artemis starves them, fattens them up with us, and hunts them for food! Don’t you get it?”
The beast snorted and rolled its head. “Fooood. Hungrrrry.”
Its words filled my ears clearly now, not imagined. Stunned, I recovered, lowering my bow. “Come with us,” I said to the creature. “We’ll find you food. We’ll find freedom.”
The beast moaned with a great shake of its head, ragged teeth dripping with saliva. It whomped its tail, panting faster. “Cretans never be freeee.”
“You’re making it madder,” Charlie whispered. “Let’s run.”
“We’ll never make it,” I whispered in return.
The beast matched our steps as we inched back. Rain dripped from every part of me. I wiped it from my eyes and Charlie tore away from me.
“Charlie, no!”
The beast roared and leaped high. “Fooood!”
I lurched around. Charlie ran fast but didn’t have a chance. He twisted his head back, his eyes headlights in the dark. The beast catapulted over me, and in that split second, I shot my arrow into its chest.
With a shriek, the monster thundered to the ground. I tumbled away before getting crushed.
The rain pounded down without mercy. Blood ran fast from the beast. It wailed in pain and chuffed softly, paws twitching. “Cretan … freeee.”
Its chest heaved in and out, then stopped. I bent down and pulled the arrow from its rough bloodied fur, my tears mixing with the rain. Its face sagged in its stillness. Charlie stood next me once again.
“You were a prisoner like us,” I said, stroking the fur. “I didn’t want to hurt you … cretan.”
Charlie touched my shoulder. “You understood it even without the orb.”
I didn’t answer but wiped the bloody arrow on the ground, and slid it back in my quiver.
Charlie cleared his throat. “Sorry
I ran off. I thought we were dead. But you saved us. I didn’t think we’d survive.” He wouldn’t look at me. He hadn’t trusted me.
Shouts in the distance alerted us to Artemis and her men heading our way again.
Charlie and I ran on through the woods. I glanced back once at the dead creature. What new terrible deed would I have to commit?
Chapter Thirteen
Cramps bit into my lungs and legs from running, but there was no time for ache cakes to help the pain. Fear wouldn’t keep us going much longer. We needed to rest.
The rain let up and shouts grew closer. I tugged Charlie’s arm. “Can you climb?”
He nodded at me with wild eyes and, with a final surge of adrenaline, we pulled ourselves up to hide amongst the leaves. Rough bark, slick with the slowing rain, cut into my palms. Blood welled but I didn’t stop climbing. Getting eaten would be way worse.
We moved higher, camouflaged by leaves. The rain finally stopped, and the purple night hung like a tent over the treetops. A stampede of hooves barreled below. Charlie and I froze. Leandro led Artemis’s soldiers. His long hair streamed like dark flames behind him.
I’d have followed him anywhere once—died for him. Not now. I raised my bow fashioned by his hands.
Leandro passed so close I saw the scar that cut down his face given to him by a Child Collector—when he was a hero, not a villain. Why did Leandro have Ash bring us here? Was his getting “thrown” in the pit with us a lie?
“The first man that gets the Reekers gets a month’s supply of agrius beast for dinner!” he called out with a fist in the air.
The army cheered as they raced behind him, mud flying up in big clops.
Artemis followed up the charge. Her purple hooded cloak sparkled like rich wine. She trotted under our tree as Charlie’s foot slipped on the trunk he sat on. A branch snapped and fell. And another. They landed in pieces on the ground, arranging themselves in letters. Not letters but words! GET … TO … TOP … . I blinked but the words remained. Another branch fell on Artemis’s saddle and she pulled her horse to a stop, grasping a falling twig shaped like the letter J. For Joshua? My brain squeezed in and out trying to understand this mystery.
Artemis turned the twig in her hand as her horse nickered, trampling the words formed on the forest floor. They were soon erased. Artemis looked up, her hood falling back. My heart fluttered with her stare, begging for the leaves to hide us. She tossed the twig away, kicked her heels into her horse, and sped off after her army. They were soon gone but Charlie and I sat for a long while to be sure they weren’t coming back. The J still called to me from below, a mystic symbol of hope.
Signs.
Like the signs I’d drawn in the Lost Realm with the hope someone would follow our trail. Now we had signs to follow. Someone—or something—was trying to help us.
Branches cracked below, and a head peeked out from between the trees. I let go of my branch in surprise and nearly fell.
“She’s gone,” the face said.
“Ash?” I whispered, looking closer.
“Why are you here?” Charlie said, shaking his branch.
She shook her head and whistled low, waving at us to come down. Charlie shook his head back.
“We need a friend,” I said to Charlie.
He grunted. “You need help picking friends, Joshua.”
“I picked you.”
He grunted again, and we climbed down to face the girl who’d forced us to the Arrow Realm.
With her animal skin clothes, she fit in here much better than my kitchen. Her earthy smell sprung up and blended with the woods. Her pale face stood out against the dim shadows. She now wore a bow clasped to her back and a quiver of arrows across her chest.
Ash pressed her thin fingers into mine, her bright green eyes darting around, and pointed up. “Got to scram to the tree house.”
“Your camp?”
She nodded fast, jerking me to come.
Charlie crinkled his eyes. “Lions can’t climb, right?”
I shrugged and followed her around a boulder, coming face to face with a giant black beast bearing a bear’s body and a wolf’s snout. Charlie and I scrambled backward. The beast hung its head and she pet it. “My Agri.” She climbed up the rock and vaulted onto its back, urging us to do the same.
“Mon Dieu! An agrius beast for a pet?” Charlie said with a groan. “Why not a nice pony?”
“Better than being eaten by that lion-bull beast,” I said, pulling myself up on the rock.
“You met a cretan?” Ash said, whipping her head around.
I nodded.
“Not many survive those. You’re either very lucky or very smart.”
“This whole place is unlucky,” Charlie said.
“Maybe you carry more than luck,” Ash said.
“Maybe,” Charlie said squinting at me.
Luck seemed to be all we carried for the moment. I jumped on the back of the creature behind Ash, sinking into its thick fur. She urged Charlie on who stood frozen, mesmerized by the beast’s boulder-sized, shaggy head. Its pointed ears and snout twitched as it trembled, eager to be on the run.
“Come on, Charlie! The army might come back.”
That did it. He scrambled up the rock and jumped. I grabbed him as he slid sideways and, with a leap, the agrius beast sprung away. Raindrops doused us from trees as their leaves shook in the wind.
“It’s like the forest in France behind my home,” Charlie said. “Well, what used to be home … where my mother and brother live.”
“I’d like to see it someday when we get back.”
“If we get back—”
“We will,” I said, wanting to believe. “We did before.”
“I miss walking my brother to school. I even miss reading him the same dumb stories over and over.” He looked at the forest floor leaping below us. “If I don’t get back, he’ll think I’ve left him again. I think it’s one of the reasons my mom sent me to America with my dad.”
“What do you mean?”
“As punishment. They didn’t trust me to watch my brother. Last time I watched him, I disappeared … with you.”
“You never told them what happened?”
Charlie laughed with a gulp. “How could I have explained that?”
I had no answer. He was right. Bo Chez was part of this world and we had both experienced our last adventure. Charlie had been alone with no family in it.
“Even if I do get home, it doesn’t matter,” he said. “I don’t have a home.”
“You do with your dad and it’ll feel like home soon.” I’d spent enough time in new homes to recognize the lie but it sounded good.
“Not like you and Bo Chez. You’re like … a forever kind of family. Nothing can split you up.”
Doubt spun through me with his words.
“It’s like you’re my brother now.” I didn’t know what to say so I remained quiet. So did Ash, who’d been silent as we rode along.
“Where’s the Grand Tree?” I said to her, hoping we were close.
“On the move,” Ash said. “Leandro says it travels from realm to realm and takes root where it’s needed most to help those in peril. It’s fought many battles and its scars tell those stories. Leandro calls it a lighthouse of hope in the darkness of this world. The Grand Tree claims its home here—a symbol of righteousness. We claim it as our great protector. It’s part of the reason Artemis leaves us alone. Long ago, another Queen Artemis fought and lost against it—with her life.”
It was the longest speech she’d given since we met her, but I didn’t have the energy to respond to her story or tell her the Leandro we knew was gone. Exhaustion engulfed me, but a screech of some strange bird kept snapping me to attention. Finally, the agrius beast slowed, its paws padding the forest floor with a soft thoomp thoomp rhythm. Just as I wondered where we were going, the beast lumbered through a bush. Branches whacked us on all sides.
“Zut!” Charlie muttered, swinging his long arms at the bush.
“Zut to you, boy,” the agrius beast muttered and I choked down a laugh.
We followed Ash up a tree with only the moonlight as a guide, leaving the ground and beast behind. A platform loomed above us. A tree house.
Was anywhere safe here? Hypnos said we’d be set with the Wild Childs.
Could we trust him—or Ash?
My trust was running on empty.
Chapter Fourteen
We climbed through a hatch door into the tree house that Ash had said was their base camp. I crashed on the floor, every limb aching—and my heart, now that Leandro was our enemy. Ash found a clear tube on a shelf and broke it in two. Little bugs ran around the inside, keeping it lit. Nature’s glow stick.
“How can you help us rescue Apollo and get home?” I said while Ash peered out the one window.
“Oui,” Charlie said with a tired sigh. “You drag us here to free Apollo and served us up to some guard dog and now bring us here.”
“And now Leandro’s turned against us,” I added.
“I know,” Ash said flatly. “We see much from up here.”
She pulled a book from a hidden cabinet. “But we also don’t believe all we see.”
“Thanks for saving us but we need a plan, not a book,” I said.
“A plan is right,” Charlie said, popping a finger to his cheek.
“This may help,” she said, urging me to take the small but heavy book covered in worn leather. “He gave it to me for you.”
Light shone across it from the glow stick. Leandro’s journal. I’d once sneaked it out of his bag in the Lost Realm. I didn’t get far reading it before he caught me.
Ash placed a hand on my arm. “Take knowledge to face adversity. Find courage to go where you dare not go. If not, the pain of where you stay will far outweigh the pain of the unknown.”
“What kind of words are those?” Charlie said, peering at the book.
“The lionheart once told me them,” Ash said. “I’ll never forget it.”
“Lionheart?” I fingered the smooth cover.
“Leandro.”
It did fit him. The old him.
I opened the journal to the first entry I’d read in the Lost Realm.
Joshua and the Arrow Realm Page 6