Beast & Crown #2

by Joel Ross

  “We’re so dead,” Ji said.

  “Maybe fifty knights,” Sally said. “Plus a hundred foot soldiers.”

  “Not to mention Brace and Mr. Ioso,” Roz said.

  Mysterioso, Nin said.

  “I think I hear digging, too,” Sally growled.

  “Oh! Is that what I feel?” Roz asked. “The goblins are digging beneath the Gravewoods. They’re going underneath the spell.”

  Chibo wrinkled his nose. “So we’re back to two armies chasing us.”

  “How close are they, Sal?” Ji asked. “How much time do we have?”

  “They’re still halfway across—no.” Her ruff raised. “That’s not possible!”

  “What?”

  “Brace is using magic to muffle the noise,” she said, following the river around a bend. “They’re only fifteen minutes behind us. Maybe twenty if—” She stopped suddenly. “Whoa!”

  When Ji followed her gaze, he stared in awe. Because, around the river bend, the petrified forest ended.

  The world turned blue and purple and green. No pale trees, no stony earth. Sharp peaks loomed high above, magnificent and lofty. A lake spread in front of them, deep blue under the clear sky, gentle waves lapping. Birds bobbed in the water, and a coyote watched from the far shore, then vanished into the underbrush. Fields of purple clover covered the nearest mountainside, swaying in the breeze like the coat of a dreaming dog. The closer mountains were light green, while more distant ones were darker. Except for Mount Atra, which loomed above the rest, its white snowcap almost blinding in the sunlight.

  Roz said, “Gracious me!”

  A flock of parrots took flight, filling the air with swirls of color. Ji followed Sally to the lakeshore, which felt soft underfoot after the stone woods. The smell of fresh water and sun-warmed weeds filled the air. Chibo spun in circles, trailing his wing tips in the lake, like he’d momentarily forgotten the danger of the pursuing army.

  “Look!” Sally pointed. “Jujubes!”

  “I adore jujubes,” Roz rumbled happily, like she’d also momentarily forgotten the danger of the pursuing army.

  Chibo piped, “Last one there is a rotten egg!”

  We adore rotten eggs! Nin said.

  “I adore not getting killed,” Ji said, like he hadn’t momentarily forgotten the danger of the pursuing army. “There are soldiers closing in, remember?”

  “The earth!” Roz fell to her knees on the lakeside. “It’s so alive.”

  “And we’re so dead,” Ji told her. “We only got fifteen minutes!”

  Roz pressed her palms into the sand. “Can you feel that?”

  “All I feel is scared, Roz! What are you talking about?” A crash sounded in the stone woods. “There’s an army—”

  Two armies!

  “—right behind us. I don’t care about the stupid earth.”

  Sally gazed at the lake. “That’s a lot of water.”

  “I don’t care about the stupid water, either!”

  “Maybe we should cast the spell again,” Chibo suggested to Ji. “That’s what Sally means.”

  “What can a mermaid do?” Ji demanded. “Other than turn us more beastly?”

  Chibo’s wings drooped. “She . . . could tell us where to find the Ice Witch?”

  “We don’t have time! Even if we knew where she was, we’re out of time! Unless Ti-Lin-Su can reach across the realm with her fishy fingers and poke Brace in the eye—”

  “Jiyong!” Roz gaped at him. “That’s it!”

  “If you tell me not to be rude,” he said, “I’ll scream.”

  Roz gazed across the lake, her eyes glimmering with wonder. “Everything’s connected. The rivers and oceans, the mountains and valleys, the sun and moons—”

  “The fishy fingers,” Ji said.

  She laughed. “Exactly! Mermaids. Seaweed. Fingers.”

  “Stop talking like Nin!”

  “I am not speaking like Nin!” Roz said primly. “And for your information, I find cub’s manner of speech charming. Furthermore, seaweed is the solution to our problem.”

  “Either that,” he said, “or your horn is crowding out your brain.”

  “This way, quickly!” She bustled into a stream that flowed down the mountainside. “There’s an underground spring nearby, and a slow seep of water in the earth.”

  Ji trotted splashily after her. “Where are you going? You can feel underground streams now?”

  “Trolls are attuned to the earth,” she told him as she waded higher uphill. “Like dragons are to gemstones, I suppose. There are a thousand rivulets and streams within fifty yards of us.” Roz sloshed against the current, her dress sticking to her calves. “This is far more complex than any water clock.”

  “Rozario Songarza!” Ji demanded. “What are you doing?”

  She looked over her shoulder. “Remember the seaweed that sprouted from the river outside Turtlewillow?”

  “Nobody forgets killer seaweed, Roz,” Sally said.

  “And do you recall what we were discussing at the time?”

  “I do!” Chibo said, drifting over the stream. “We were daydreaming about ringing a bell to call the Ice Witch.”

  “Indeed.” Roz stopped in a marshy patch where the stream widened. “I suspect that our longing—our desire—inadvertently called the mermaids.”

  “We daydreamed the spell?” Sally growled.

  “You mean Ti-Lin-Su heard us?” Ji asked.

  “Something like that,” Roz said.

  “And she sent seaweed to drown you?” Ji snorted. “She wouldn’t do that.”

  “Perhaps the mermaids haven’t mastered the spell.” Roz splashed toward the center of the marsh. “Yet they felt our desperation and attempted to help. Do you remember what Ti-Lin-Su told us at the water clock?”

  “Sure,” Sally said. “To search for the Ice Witch in the Ogrelands.”

  “What else?”

  “Nothing.” Sally’s ears pricked. “Oh! That they ‘reached out’ for us at a riverbank, right?”

  “To ‘help carry’ us . . . ,” Ji said slowly.

  A smile cracked Roz’s trollish face. “Everything is connected. Dragon and gems, trolls and the earth. Moons and kumiho. Mermaids and seaweed. Seaweed is mermaid magic.”

  “Are you sure?” Ji asked.

  “Remember the seaweed mosaic outside Ti-Lin-Su’s house in the city? Remember the seaweed in her ponds? No, I’m not sure—but it makes perfect sense.” Roz nodded firmly. “Ti-Lin-Su responded to our need once. She will again.”

  Ji scratched the scales on his cheek. “So if we contact her, the mermaids will send seaweed to help us?”

  To awaycarry us! Nin said. To escape the armies!

  Roz nodded. “I think they’ll try.”

  “Magic hasn’t worked that great so far,” Ji said.

  “No, but . . .” Roz trailed off when a crash sounded from the petrified forest.

  Horses neighed and armor jingled. Soldiers shouted. Plumes of dust rose through the stony canopy of the Gravewoods.

  Ji grunted. “We don’t have a choice.”

  “We do have a choice,” Roz said. “And we must choose carefully. We’ll pay for this spell with our humanity.”

  And our ogreanity, Nin said.

  “With our selves.” Roz raised her three-fingered hands. “And we haven’t much left. If we do this, we may lose our original selves completely.”

  For a long moment, nobody spoke. Sally pulled Chibo close, and he wrapped his emerald wings around her. Even Nin fell quiet. Then hoofbeats splashed and a group of knights, coated in gray powder, emerged from the Gravewoods. They hadn’t spotted Roz yet, but it wouldn’t be long.

  “The army,” Ji said, his breath catching. “They’re almost here.”

  “I’d rather go down fighting,” Sally said, a rasp in her voice, “than lose my soul.”

  Ji didn’t like either of those options. He almost snapped at Sally, but then he saw the gleam in her eyes. She wanted to fight, to fac
e the enemy like a soldier. She’d followed him and Roz across the realm and she’d never shied from danger. She’d never hesitated to fight for him, for Roz, for Chibo or Nin. For what was right. She’d followed, but it was time for her to lead.

  She deserved that. She deserved a whole lot more. Ji glanced at Roz, who nodded to him: as always, she knew exactly what he was thinking.

  “If you want to stay and fight,” Ji told Sally, “we’ll stay and fight.”

  “We’ll lose,” she said.

  “Yeah.” He hunched a shoulder. “But with honor.”

  She peered at him. “You’d do that for me?”

  “You’re my best friend.”

  “Maybe honor is stupid,” she growled. “Maybe it’s like Seven Pebbles, a stupid, meaningless game with stupid, meaningless rules.”

  “Brace’s honor is like that—” Ji paused as more knights galloped out of the Gravewoods. “But not yours, Sally. When you say ‘honor,’ you mean ‘justice.’”

  “We could use a little justice right about now,” Roz said, touching Sally’s shoulder.

  Ji waited quietly for Sally’s decision. Maybe he didn’t understand honor, but he understood Sally. He trusted her. If she wanted to make a stand, he’d stand beside her. If she wanted to fight, he’d fight.

  She watched the knights gathering at the lakeside. She’d always dreamed of riding with them, of thundering into battle on a warhorse, her armor glinting and her sword slashing. She’d dreamed of blood and victory, and vanquishing beasts in the service of the realm.

  “Everyone into a circle,” she growled, grabbing Roz and Ji’s hands. “And think of the mermaid.”

  “We—we’re not fighting?” Chibo asked.

  “One day we’ll crush them,” Sally snarled. “But right now we’re getting out of here.”

  Roz bowed her head while Ji stared at the broken reflection of the sun in the grassy marsh and silently begged for Ti-Lin-Su to appear. The knights are coming. The knights are here. We need help fast, Ti-Lin-Su! Fast, fast—

  Ji tightened his grip on Sally’s warm paw, feeling her rough pads and sharp claws. In his other hand, Roz’s fingers felt cool and hard as marble. Think of the mermaid? Forget that. If Ji needed to put himself into the spell, he’d think of Roz and Sally.

  Hoofbeats pounded closer. A knight shouted, “There they are!” and a crossbow twanged. The first hint of a rippling face appeared in the water of the marsh. Ji begged even harder. Help us, Ti-Lin-Su! Bring us to the Ice Witch! The knights are here, they’re here! Help us now, now, now!

  “Chibo,” Sally said. “Get your wings in the water!”

  21

  EMERALD LIGHT FLARED from Chibo’s back and touched the water.

  Magic flooded the air, and strands of seaweed rose from the marsh, almost like reflections of Chibo’s wings—except they wrapped around Roz’s legs and were as thick and shiny as pythons. Smaller vines sprouted from the dripping seaweed, clinging to Sally and Ji and Chibo.

  A half dozen strands unfurled higher, gripping Roz’s thick wrists. “Lady Ti-Lin-Su!” she yelped. “It’s us, it’s us!”

  “What is she—” A vine grabbed Ji’s ankle. “Hey!”

  “Roz!” Sally grabbed a tendril sprouting toward Chibo’s neck. “Is this mermaids?”

  Arrows flew overhead. One chunked into the thick strand of seaweed coiling around Ji’s wrists and tugging him to his knees.

  “It’s not Ti-Lin-Su!” he cried. “It’s not her!”

  Sally yowled and slashed at the seaweed as the water whipped around her. Roz roared and ripped vines from her shoulders until a dozen more strands dragged her upstream, tumbling against the current. The weeds towed Ji behind Roz. Water filled his nose, and he caught a glimpse of Sally and Chibo, both wrapped in vines, struggling and sputtering. Ji’s clawed feet scrambled in the streambed as icy water slapped his face.

  Then the seaweed grew into a thick circle surrounding him and the others—dozens of stalks as heavy as tree trunks, each sprouting hundreds of slender vines that joined overhead into a dome that blocked the sky.

  Darkness fell. Vines bound Ji’s wrists to the slimy inner wall of a globe of seaweed the size of a stagecoach. Sally struggled against her bonds beside him, while Chibo spread his wings for light. Despite being shackled to the wall by thick seaweed, Roz shifted, keeping Nin’s backpack above water and—

  A geyser spouted in front of them, and Ji’s stomach dropped. Was this it? Would the Summer Queen pierce them with watery branches and steal their souls?

  But instead of shaping into a tree, the water formed a liquid face. “Miss Roz? Can you hear me?”

  “I know that voice,” Chibo fluted.

  “Lady Ti-Lin-Su!” Roz said. “Oh, thank goodness!”

  Laughter sounded like wind chimes. “You called, didn’t you? We’ve been trying to reach you for days.” The geyser solidified into a replica of Ti-Lin-Su’s face, which peered curiously at the inside of the seaweed globe. “Where on earth are you?”

  “Inside a . . . a chamber made of seaweed,” Roz told her.

  Tell her we’re here too! Introduce us! Lady Mer-Lin-Su! Hello! O greetings to you, my lady!

  “You dragged us upstream,” Sally growled, twitching an ear at Nin’s backpack. “Your seaweed landed us like fish.”

  “Oh!” Ti-Lin-Su said. “That is not supposed to happen. We’re still learning this spell, I’m afraid.”

  “You’re supposed to know everything,” Sally grumbled.

  “I’m a scholar, not a mage.”

  “We thought you were the queen,” Chibo piped. “Trying to catch us.”

  “I’m quite sorry.” Ti-Lin-Su smiled at Chibo, then asked Roz, “Tell me, have you reached the Ogrelands? We’ve been searchi—” The watery head sloshed, losing its shape. “Been ser-benz-benz . . .”

  “My lady?” Roz asked, nervously.

  The head re-formed. “Sorry! Magic is tricky! Where are you? What’s happened?”

  “We’re in the Ogrelands,” Roz told her. “We escaped the White Worm—do you know of him?—and crossed the Gravewoods.”

  “That is excellent news—”

  “We still need the Ice Witch,” Ji interrupted, tugging at his viny manacles. “And the queen’s army is about ten seconds away. So maybe less chatting and more help?”

  Ti-Lin-Su’s watery head swung toward him. “Ah, there you are! Hello, Jiyong. I missed your draconic demands.”

  Oooh, Nin said. Draconic.

  “My sisters and I consulted the ancient corals about the Ice Wit—” Ti-Lin-Su’s watery face warped again, the geyser wobbling. “—to your former—”

  “You’re sloshing again!” Ji told her. “Get us out of here!”

  “If you would be so kind,” Roz added, shooting a governess-y look at Ji. “We are already in your debt, my lady.”

  “Nonsense,” Ti-Lin-Su said, her face re-forming. “I’m in yours. This is the most fascinating time since the first Summer Queen rose to power by gathering all human magic into herself—”

  “We know how she rose,” Sally said as an arrow chunked into the outside of the seaweed chamber. “But how will she fall?”

  “She’s too powerful to fall. The combined strength of all the nations couldn’t topple her. Only a full-blooded dragon might break the crown.”

  “Ji’s a dragon!” Chibo fluted.

  Ti-Lin-Su smiled gently. “He’s merely a shadow of a half dragon, Chibo. He’s remarkable, but he is to a true dragon what an acorn is to an oak tree.”

  Tinysmall and wearing a goofy cap? Nin asked.

  “So where do we find a full-blooded dragon?” Sally asked.

  “In the pages of history. They no longer exist. However—” An arrowhead poked through the seaweed globe three inches from Ji’s cheek. “Oh! We’re running out of time.”

  “GET US OUT OF HERE!” Ji bellowed.

  “The spell is weakening. . . .” Ti-Lin-Su’s geyser-face turned clear and watery. “You’ll find the I
ce Witch on the peak of Mount Atra.”

  “On top of the tallest mountain in the world?” Sally growled. “We can’t get there before the armies catch us.”

  “Perhaps if we focus on the spell and—” Ti-Lin-Su started, before her face collapsed with a splash.

  “What now?” Ji asked, tugging at his viny shackles as arrows thudded into the globe of seaweed. “We’re wrapped like sushi for Brace to gobble. Stupid mermaids.”

  “Jiyong!” Roz rumbled. “Mind your manners!”

  A damp ant lion on Ji’s forearm waggled its antennae sternly. Stop being so draconic!

  “What’s ‘draconic’?” Chibo asked.

  Dragon plus moronic.

  “It is not ‘dragon plus moronic’!” Ji told the ant lion. “At least I don’t think—”

  The knobby green globe jerked. Ji’s head slammed against the seaweed wall behind him, and only the vines around his arms kept him upright. Chibo squeaked in shock and Sally yelped. The globe spun upside down, then twirled like a top—or a tornado—splashing and coursing upstream.

  “Lady Ti-Lin-Su!” Roz rumbled. “Stop!”

  The seaweed chafed Ji’s wrists and tugged at his ankles. “I’m going to be sick.”

  “Wahoooooo!” Chibo fluted. “Faster, faster!”

  The globe bobbed and tilted and finally turned upright. Ji slumped in relief—until the globe started spinning again. Slowly at first, then stomach-churningly fast. He squeezed his eyes closed to keep from losing his lunch while the hollow seaweed chamber tilted and scraped, shaking and jumping and spraying water.

  Thunk! Thud! Rattle!

  The globe hopped and lurched higher over rocks and rapids. Ji’s eyes sprang open at a sudden heave. Roz rumbled a prayer, Sally bared her teeth, and Chibo whooped and hollered, his glowing green wings slicing wildly across the inside of the globe.

  After twenty-seven terrified lifetimes, the seaweed ball finally jerked to a halt.

  Water dripped and rasps of breath sounded.

  “Some aws!” Chibo exulted. “Can we do that again?”

  The seaweed globe collapsed into a mound of slimy vines. Sunlight blinded Ji. He staggered a few steps, still dizzy but no longer held upright by his bonds. Fresh air swirled around him. He blinked, then focused on a wide trail that crossed the rocky hillside in front of him.