Beast & Crown #2

by Joel Ross

  Making the fox-demons biggergrow, Nin said, is not the best cunningscheme we ever—

  “The spell seeks Balance,” Roz repeated as the kumiho backed away from Chibo and blocked the mine entrance. “The magic from the defeated kumiho flows into the living ones.”

  “What happens if there are no living ones?” Ji asked, edging forward.

  “We’re about to find out,” Chibo said, his piping voice hard.

  Emerald wings whipped toward the two huge kumiho guarding the archway. Eighteen rattlesnake tails lashed in anger, eighteen rattlesnake heads hissed. Hateful demonic eyes glared at Chibo . . . but the beasts cringed away from his brilliant light.

  A spark of hope ignited in Ji’s heart. The kumiho were going to run. They were going to flee from Chibo!

  Then Brace’s voice echoed across the quarry: “Stand your ground!” A throb of magical command sounded in his words. “OBEY!”

  The kumiho stopped cringing and bared their jagged teeth, refusing to budge from the entrance—so Chibo launched himself at them in an emerald blur. Claws slashed and snakes snapped, but he corkscrewed untouched through the deadly gauntlet, slicing and chopping with his wings. And he pushed them away from the entrance, making an opening.

  “Come on!” Ji yelled, sprinting toward the mine.

  A kumiho slipped around Chibo and struck at him. Poison fangs flashed an inch from his neck—

  “Bad fox!” Chibo snarled, and a green wing-blade chopped the kumiho’s tail in half.

  The injured kumiho wailed earsplittingly, and the other demon exploded into white dust from a blow Ji didn’t see. The chalky cloud twisted into a tornado that fed the injured kumiho, which grew larger than a stagecoach, with bloated snake tails as thick around as Ji’s thigh.

  Chibo stayed the same size—scrawny—but he kept slashing at the enormous kumiho, driving it backward, backward, backward through the arch and into the abandoned ogre mine.

  “Stay!” Brace’s magically strengthened voice called from the quarry. “Fight!”

  “Finish it!” Ji shouted to Chibo. “They’re right behind us!”

  “I’m trying!” Chibo clamored, more sharply than usual.

  His emerald wings pushed the kumiho deeper into the mine. Ji, Roz, and Sally followed, wary of the sea-serpent-sized tails and raking claws. A massive cavern opened just past the entrance arch. In the green sprite-light, weird stone bowls and weirder stone tracks looped from the walls and ceiling. The kumiho swiped a boulder at Chibo, and when he dodged, the boulder smashed a wall and started a rock slide.

  Ji stumbled across loose stones, and two knights rode warhorses through the arch behind him. A beam of white light swept into the mine from outside—from Brace or Ioso—and Ji shouted a warning to Chibo.

  With a flash of his shimmering wings, Chibo swooped higher. The beam missed him by inches, smashing chunks from the rock wall. A crossbow bolt stabbed the empty fabric of Chibo’s overlarge trousers, and Roz roared and flung a handful of dirt at the knights.

  Except it wasn’t dirt. It was a handful of ant lions.

  Even with two fingers, Roz always hit what she aimed at. The knights screamed at the stings of ant lions. The warhorses slashed the air with panicked hooves. When Posey and Nichol galloped into the cavern, Roz threw more ant lions—but a shield of white light sprang up to protect the twins.

  Brace and Ioso, crackling with magic, stalked through the mine entrance.

  Ji clenched his fists and felt for gems in the mountain, for gold. For anything to kindle his dragonfire. But the Summer Queen had been right: hundreds of years of mining had removed every trace of treasure.

  So he grabbed a rock instead. If you can’t burn ’em, brain ’em.

  The enormous kumiho yowled, and Posey fired her crossbow at Chibo again. Sally dodged a blast of mage-light and tackled Posey off her saddle, sending her crossbow hurtling across the cavern. When the two of them hit the ground, Sally snarled, “If you touch my brother I’ll—”

  Nichol jabbed his spear at her. “Get away from her!”

  Sally ducked, and Mr. Ioso roared, “The ogre stung me!”

  We buttstung him! Nin shouted gleefully. In the butt!

  Ji ignored the chaos and slunk through the shadows, feeling the weight of the rock in his hand. Ioso furiously cast magic at Roz—his bald head gleaming, his eyes tight with effort—but Brace looked unruffled and calm. His diadem glittered golden, and sparks shot from his fingertips and blasted toward Chibo.

  One spark cracked the wall behind Chibo, who spun and drove a glowing emerald wing into the enormous kumiho’s chest.

  For a moment, even the mountain held its breath.

  Then the kumiho unleashed an otherworldly shriek and an explosion of energy roiled toward the mine entrance. Rubble blew past Ji, blasting through the archway and into the oncoming knights. Soldiers shouted and horses screamed. The shock wave scraped Ji across the floor and rammed him into a stone bowl.

  A boulder bounced past. A sword flung past. A Sally hurtled past—

  “SALLY!” Ji shouted, kicking desperately toward her.

  She grabbed one of his scaly toes, swung in a circle, and flung herself higher, out of the blast zone, vanishing in a flash of fur and ears.

  A moment later, the death throes of the kumiho ended.

  Silence fell. Ji couldn’t see much through the dust and couldn’t hear much over the ringing in his ears, but he caught a glimpse of Chibo hunched inside the shield of his wings, his green eyes brighter than the sun. He saw Roz protecting Nin’s backpack with her body—and, his mind doolally with fear, Ji thought, “I really need to mend that dress.”

  Then the mine caved in.

  Cracks echoed through the cavern. At each crack, a cloud of dust puffed from the walls—until the entrance arch collapsed. Rubble avalanched toward Ji and jolted him into action. He scrambled deeper into the cavern, aiming for Chibo’s dim green haze. The noise shook his bones; the dust coated his mouth. Sally bounded into sight, calling his name. A white glow cut through the gloom as Brace cast a protective globe around the twins and Mr. Ioso.

  Pebbles pelted Ji’s scaly back and whipped past his head. A furry paw grabbed his shirt. The lights vanished, and terror rose in Ji’s chest. A mountain was falling on him. He was being buried alive. He’d never see the sun again, he’d never breathe, he’d never—

  Sally yanked him into a protected nook between two boulders. He curled in a ball until the quaking stopped, then peered at the wreckage. Dust settled on mounds of stones in the front of the cavern. The arch was gone, and rubble completely blocked the mine entrance.

  Roz and Chibo huddled together in a half-fallen tunnel, while Brace’s globe of light shone from beneath the wreckage. Then the rocks rolled away, and Brace stepped into the cavern, his clothes impeccable. Posey, Nichol, and Mr. Ioso followed, covered in scrapes and dust.

  “And now,” Brace said, his voice echoing, “we wait for Her Majesty. It won’t take long for her to shift this rubble.”

  “It’ll take longer than you’ve got,” Sally growled, stalking toward him.

  Brace raised two glowing fingers. “You’re more beast than human—”

  “If you hurt her,” Ji told him, “Roz will toss a boulder at your skinny a—”

  “I won’t,” Roz rumbled firmly. “This has gone quite far enough! Violence is not the answer.”

  “Depends on the question,” Sally purred.

  “We won’t fight you, Prince Brace!” Roz said. “And if you cast magic, the cavern will collapse. See for yourself.” She pointed toward the cracks in the ceiling. “You may save Mr. Ioso and the twins, but you cannot save all of us. And you need us alive.”

  The glow faded from Brace’s fingers. “What I need is to protect the realm.”

  “Please, Brace. We used to be friends. Let’s just . . . talk. I vow to you that I shall not resort to violence. None of us will. Sally, give the prince your vow.”

  Sally’s ears flattened. “No way.” />
  “On your honor!” Roz rumbled.

  “Fine,” Sally growled. “I vow on my honor that I won’t use violence—unless they do first.”

  “Chibo?” Roz said.

  “Me, too.”

  “Ji?”

  He shrugged.

  “Jiyong!” she said. “Vow on your soul that you will not use violence.”

  “Fine.” He exhaled. “I vow on my soul that I won’t use violence.”

  We didn’t soulvow! Nin said. We can still buttsting!

  “And I vow on behalf of Nin,” Roz said.

  Oh. Now we soulvowed.

  “That’s all very nice,” Brace sneered, strolling across the rubble-covered cavern floor. “But surely you see the truth, Roz? You’re a walking horror. Look at yourself. You’re a monster.”

  Ji’s fists clenched and his eyes narrowed.

  “And you’re a threat to the realm,” Brace continued. “If we don’t complete the Diadem Rite—and sacrifice you on the water tree—I won’t be strong enough to control the beasts. They’ll murder mothers, fathers, children. Entire villages. It will be the end of everything.”

  Another crack sounded, and dust wafted from above. Brace paused, and Ji stopped slinking through the shadows to glance at the ceiling.

  “I understand that you’re afraid,” Brace continued when the mountain didn’t fall on them. “I’d be afraid too. But in the end, I’d choose to protect thousands of innocent people. I’d choose to save the realm.”

  “The realm?” Chibo fluted, sounding newly confident. “The Summer Realm is beautiful and rich and peaceful—and just like your magic, it sucks the life out of everything it touches.”

  “Safety has a price, creature,” Brace told him. “Would you rather live in a realm of ugliness and war?”

  “I’d rather live,” Chibo said.

  “This is what I propose,” Roz told Brace. “If we fight here, we’ll all perish. Let us flee into the tunnels, and when Her Majesty arrives . . .”

  “We’ll follow?”

  Roz nodded. “If you must.”

  “And if I refuse?”

  “Then we’ll bring this mountain down,” Sally growled. “We’ve got nothing to lose.”

  “That’s a good point for a rabid beast,” Brace said. “But here’s a better one: Mr. Ioso can keep me safe from falling rocks while I subdue you. Then we’ll wait for the queen to arrive.”

  “What about Posey and me?” Lord Nichol asked.

  “You will be remembered as heroes,” Brace assured him.

  “R-remembered? You mean you’ll let us die?”

  “To save humanity?” Brace nodded. “Of course. Yet nobody will ever forget the sacrifice that you made to protect the—”

  THUNK.

  Ji smashed Brace in the head with his rock, two inches from his stupid diadem. Brace collapsed, groaning, and Mr. Ioso’s fists flared with light. He aimed a blast at Ji—but at an ominous crack from the ceiling, he extinguished his mage-light and cursed.

  Posey aimed her crossbow at Ji. “You vowed on your soul!”

  “I lied,” he told her.

  “Ji does that,” Sally, crouching on a ledge above Posey, told her. “But I don’t. If you pull that trigger, I’ll make you eat your own braids.”

  Posey lowered her bow. “The queen will catch you.”

  “She’d kill you without blinking,” Sally growled. “You and your brother both.”

  “Her Majesty will impale you on her sacred tree,” Mr. Ioso snarled. “And I’ll laugh to watch it.”

  “If you try to stop us,” Ji told him, crossing the cavern, “we’ll bury you.”

  25

  A HUNDRED FEET from the cavern, the main tunnel branched into five passages.

  “Which way to the mountaintop?” Ji asked Roz.

  “There’s too much magic,” she said. “I can’t feel the earth.”

  “Follow me,” Sally said, her nostrils flaring. She cocked her head to the left, cocked her head to the right, then started toward a passage that headed downward.

  “Isn’t the mountaintop above us?” Chibo fluted.

  “I know what I’m doing!” she snapped.

  “Sheesh,” he muttered, “all I did was ask.”

  “That’s not all you did,” Ji told him. “You also beat three kumiho. You know what you are? A demon slayer.”

  Chibo’s eyes shone with glee, and he babbled about the battle until the tunnel split into three levels. After a moment, Sally bounded to the middle level. She prowled through a forest of dangling ropes and onto a stone track that curved higher into the heart of the mountain.

  And Roz kept looking at Ji. Not saying anything. Just . . . looking at him.

  “Stop worrying about my soul!” he finally said.

  “You broke a solemn vow.”

  “I don’t believe in vows,” he told her.

  We know a vow that Sneakyji would never break, Nin announced.

  “What’s that?” Sally asked.

  “You shut your ant hole,” Ji told Nin, “and tell us how to find the Ice Witch.”

  We don’t know! Ogres don’t travel to the topmountain.

  “Hobgoblins do,” Sally said, and led them to a mine shaft that rose straight upward. “This is the place.”

  “Up there?” Chibo asked, stretching his wings into the shaft.

  Hundreds of stepping stones jutted from the walls, like the inside of a rough-hewn chimney.

  Sniffsmells like the topmountain, Nin said a little nervously.

  “We’re so close to finding the Ice Witch,” Roz rumbled, gazing into the darkness. “So close to breaking the spell . . .”

  “Last one there’s a rotten eggplant!” Sally bounded onto the lowest stepping stone, then sprang from step to step until she vanished overhead.

  Chibo spread his wings and drifted upward, not even touching the sides of the mine shaft. Roz climbed steadily, her strength making the ascent easy. Only Ji struggled to pull himself higher, scrambling on every step in the warm air of the shaft.

  The evilqueen cleared the rockslide, Nin said. She’s in the first cavern.

  “How do you know?” Chibo asked.

  A few of us are still there, peekspying.

  “At least,” Ji panted, “they’ll have a hard time . . . following us through this maze.”

  She is melting a straightpath through the rocks.

  “Oh, great,” Ji muttered, and kept climbing.

  His lungs ached and his legs trembled. Then his lungs burned and his legs throbbed. Then he reached the top of the mine shaft and collapsed in a square room with marble walls and a marble floor and a marble ceiling. And no exits.

  A dead end.

  “What now?” Chibo fluted.

  Ji peered at the cool stone walls. The marble was veined with pink and green, and marked with thousands of black flecks. The walls looked smooth and hard but mostly solid.

  “Check the ceiling,” he told Chibo after he caught his breath.

  Chibo probed the rock with his wings. “I can’t feel anything.” His green eyes widened. “Um, Roz? What’re you doing?”

  Roz was staring at one of the walls. “Yes.”

  “Huh?”

  “Of course,” she said, scratching her chin.

  “Leave her alone,” Ji said. “She’s thinking.” He squinted at an ant lion on the floor. “How far behind are the knights?”

  We don’t know—the evilqueen killed all our spylions.

  “Are you okay?”

  We’re still here, there, and everywhere.

  “Good.” Ji turned to Sally. “Can you hear them?”

  She shook her head. “The queen’s casting her silence spell again.”

  “Oh.” He exhaled. “Hey, Roz? This would be a good time to tell us what you’re thinking.”

  “Me, too,” Roz muttered, which didn’t really help.

  “I guess we’ll wait,” Ji told Sally.

  He dangled his legs into the mine shaft, peered at th
e darkness, and tried not to panic. They’d come so far and survived so much. They just needed a little more time. Not much. He wasn’t asking for much. Just a few hours, and they’d finally break this spell. But somewhere in the mountain, the queen drew closer every minute.

  “What vow wouldn’t Ji break?” Chibo asked Nin.

  If he vowed on Missroz, Nin said. He’d keep that promise.

  “Yeah,” Sally said. “Roz is what Ji has instead of a soul.”

  “I have a soul!” Ji said.

  “Maybe a teensy one.”

  “A regular-sized one.”

  “But worn and muddy,” Sally said. “Like an old boot.”

  Ji snorted, still looking into the mine shaft. Then an ant lion crawled onto his chin and Nin said, We wonder something.

  “What’s that?”

  If we backturn into an ogre—

  “You mean when you turn back into an ogre.”

  When we backturn into an ogre, we won’t be a cub for much longer.

  “You’ll get bigger, right?” Ji rubbed his aching eyes. “And you’ll choose if you’re a girl or—”

  “Four lines, four lines, two lines!” Roz cried, brushing the wall with her troll fingers. “Interspersed with sonnets! The pink lines combine into couplets!”

  Sally said, “Mraw?”

  “It’s writing!” Ji realized. “Those are words.”

  “They don’t look like words,” Sally said.

  Ji shook his head in amazement. “She’s reading the rock.”

  “This is an epic poem,” Roz said, “composed in an ancient lyric verse, which—”

  “Rozario Songarza!” Ji interrupted. “Does it say how to find the Ice Witch?”

  “Oh! Yes, of course.” She knocked on the wall. “There we go.”

  “Is that what all this says?” Ji asked. “Just ‘knock’?”

  “Of course not!” Roz told him. “There’s also history and poetry and layers of meaning I cannot plumb.”

  We like plums, Nin said.

  “Nothing’s happening,” Sally said.

  “Knock again,” Ji said, and footsteps echoed into the marble room.

  A crack appeared in one marble wall, and a white-blue glow shone into the room. The crack widened, becoming an open door, and a beast shambled forward.