The Hero's Guide to Storming the Castle Read online

  Ella considered trying to overtake the men. But she knew it would only cause more trouble. She reluctantly sheathed her sword as the guards nudged her and Frederic down the hall.

  “He wore a cape,” Ella said as they walked.

  “Who?” Frederic asked.

  “The kidnapper. He was a villain with a cape. See? I was right.”

  “Actually, it had a hood,” Frederic said. “So technically, it was a cowl.”

  Ella sighed.

  King Wilberforce watched them disappear around a corner. Then he closed and locked the balcony doors. That was convenient, he thought. With that Erinthian gone, it’s one nuisance down, one to go.

  Frederic was sitting slumped on his bed. His father had won again. Why do I turn into a helpless infant every time that man raises his voice, he thought. How does he do it to me? He was startled by the sound of his window creaking open.

  “Are you coming?” Ella asked, poking her head inside.

  Frederic jumped to his feet and ran over to her.

  “What are you standing on?” he asked.

  “The ledge.”

  “It’s so narrow!”

  “Don’t act like you’ve never heard of tiptoeing, Frederic—I’ve seen you sneak behind the drapes every time Liam suggests going for a run. So, are you coming?”

  “Where?”

  “To find Liam. I figured out who took him.”

  “I suspect my father is behind it,” Frederic said sorrowfully.

  “No, it’s Briar Rose!” Ella blurted. She blinked her wide eyes repeatedly as words spilled from her mouth at a rapid pace. She couldn’t have looked more wired if she’d just guzzled an entire pot of double-strength Carpagian Wide-Awake Brew. “I know who the kidnapper is; I put all the clues together. The hood, the little gray beard, the mumbly voice like somebody just killed his puppy: That’s exactly how Lila described Ruffian the Blue, the bounty hunter. And who does Ruffian the Blue work for?”

  “Bri—” Frederic began to answer.

  “Briar Rose! Exactly!” Ella shouted (and then shushed herself). “Briar is still bent on marrying Liam; and now she’s going to force the wedding to happen, and you and I have to go to Avondell and stop it. So, are you coming?”

  “Right now?” Frederic asked. “Can’t we just wait until morning and leave through the front doorway?”

  “Do you really think your father’s going to let us?”

  “No, you’re right.” He took a deep breath. “Okay, let’s do it. I think I’m pretty much ready to go.”

  Ella frowned when she noticed how Frederic was dressed: a pale yellow suit with a royal-blue sash across the chest and tasseled shoulder pads. “You changed into formal wear?” she asked. “When you thought you would be locked in your room all night?”

  “It helps me relax.”

  “Suit yourself,” Ella said.

  “I just did.” Frederic laughed.

  “Did what?”

  “Suit mys—Never mind.”

  “Okay, let’s head out,” said Ella. “Take your sword, though.”

  “You know,” Frederic hedged. “Like I said before, I’m not really a sword person.”

  “Take your sword,” Ella repeated.

  He attached the sword to his belt along with a pouch of coins and a small satchel of writing implements, then he climbed through the window to join Ella on the ledge. He wobbled a bit when he got a view of the lantern-lit walkways three stories below. “I’m not really a heights man either.”

  Ella put her hand under his chin and raised his head to look him in the eyes. “You’re my hero, Frederic. You can do this.”

  “Of course I can,” Frederic said. “I’ve got narrow feet.”

  As the two shimmied along the ledge, it occurred to Frederic that he was finally doing what Ella had always wanted him to: going on an adventure with her.

  And she asked me to, he thought. She didn’t run off to rescue Liam on her own. She wants me by her side. Perhaps there’s hope for us yet. The pair sidled around a corner and onto the balcony where the kidnapping had taken place. As Ella had hoped, the bounty hunter’s rope and grappling hook were still lying there in a pile. She tossed the barbed hook up to the roof, where it caught onto the side of a chimney.

  “Shall we?”

  Climbing up onto the roof, running along the ramparts, descending into the gardens behind the palace, and hopping over the exterior gates all took much longer than Ella had hoped—Frederic moved with the speed of a wobbly toddler wearing shoes for the first time. By the time they were off the palace grounds, the sun was coming up.

  “I am so tired,” Frederic said, collapsing on the grass.

  “Well,” Ella said, sitting down next to him, “we need to pause and figure out a plan anyway.”

  “Oh, I have a plan,” Frederic said. He pulled two pieces of parchment and a quill from his satchel. He quickly dashed off two notes, rolled them up, and stood. “Let’s head into town and hire a messenger to deliver these. It’s time to get the League of Princes back together.”

  2

  A HERO IS A CARNIVORE

  Mere words cannot defeat a true hero. Unless they happen to be the words to some sort of Instant Death spell. Magic is scary.

  —THE HERO’S GUIDE TO BEING A HERO

  Six months before Liam’s kidnapping, Prince Gustav exploded. Not literally. Although there was quite a mess. You see, Gustav did not share the same taste in music as his sixteen older brothers. The elder princes, for example, adored “The Sixteen Hero Princes of Sturmhagen.” That song had everything: an evil witch, five kidnapped bards, sixteen strong, young heroes. The only thing it didn’t have was Gustav, the seventeenth and youngest of the Sturmhagen princes—which was unfortunate, as Gustav was the only one of them actually involved in saving the bards. Suffice it to say Gustav didn’t care for the song. Nor was he a fan of “The Embarrassment of the League of Princes,” a tune his brothers couldn’t get enough of. After a full year of mocking Gustav for his failure to rescue Rapunzel, they were pleased to have a new reason to taunt him.

  And taunt him they did. They never let Gustav forget that the Bandit King—whom the world now knew to be a ten-year-old boy—managed to rob him in full view of about a thousand people. Prince Sigfrid (#7) spattered Gustav with baby food. Osvald (#5) startled him with shouts of “Don’t look down! There’s a toddler crawling after you!” Alvar (#3) even pinned a sign to his back that read PROPERTY OF BANDIT KING. IF FOUND, PLEASE RETURN TO TOY BOX. Every time something like this happened, Gustav gritted his teeth, grumbled unseemly things under his breath, and stomped away—which, for him, showed incredible self-restraint. Despite being six-foot-five and having biceps the size of watermelons, he was the smallest member of his family. His older brothers teased him through most of his life; and in the past Gustav responded to their jibes with flying fists, thrown furniture, and sometimes even a good, old-fashioned head butt. The past year had changed him, though. Gustav was more mature now. He vowed that he would not let his brothers get the better of him.

  But he was fooling himself. Gustav couldn’t swear off tantrums any more than a volcano could promise not to erupt. It was on the day of his brothers’ birthday party (all sixteen, having been born in two sets of octuplets exactly one year apart, had the same birthday) that Gustav finally lost it.

  The entire kingdom came out for the big celebration, which was held in the big cobblestone courtyard outside Castle Sturmhagen. HAPPY BIRTHDAY banners were hung everywhere, bands played, food vendors handed out turkey legs and ostrich eggs, and crowds of Sturmhageners danced merrily in their leathery, fur-lined suits and dresses. All the birthday boys, from Henrik (#1) to Viktor (#16), were seated at the lengthy table of honor on a central stage. Only Gustav sat by himself, at a tiny round table-for-one that had been set for him on the outer edge of the courtyard. Behind the crowd. Under a drippy rain gutter. Next to a stinking barrel with a sign that read PLEASE DEPOSIT BONES AND OTHER UNCHEWABLES HERE.

 
Gustav watched glumly as his parents, King Olaf and Queen Berthilda, led a procession of bakers up onto the stage. The bakers carried an eight-foot-by-four-foot, seventy-pound sheet cake, topped with marzipan sculptures of all sixteen princes. The colossal dessert was set on a viewing platform near the edge of the stage so the crowd could marvel at it.

  Fig. 4

  GUSTAV, celebrating

  Then Lyrical Leif, Sturmhagen’s royal bard, was introduced. The round-bodied musician pranced onstage wearing his usual green tights, puffy gold blouse-shirt, and floppy feathered hat. He took a proudly over-the-top bow and announced—to great applause—that he would serenade the birthday boys with his hit, “The Sixteen Hero Princes of Sturmhagen.”

  As Leif began strumming his lute and singing (“Dear hearts, listen well to a tale most sublime / of sixteen strong princes—that’s seven plus nine”), Gustav decided he was done being ignored. He stood up, kicked the barrel of unchewables at an oblivious trio of swaying Leif fans, and shoved his way through the crowd to the stage. He climbed up and stood face-to-face with the bard (or bellybutton-to-face, really—Lyrical Leif wasn’t very tall). A tense quiet fell over the square.

  “No one wants to hear that song anymore, Featherhead,” Gustav declared. “Sing the one about me.” In his heavy, fur-lined armor, with his shoulders heaving and his long blond hair hanging over his face, Gustav was an undeniably imposing figure. But the roly-poly Leif was undaunted.

  “Oh, ‘The Song of Rapunzel’? In which you got beaten by the old lady and Rapunzel had to rescue you?” Leif asked sarcastically. He turned to the audience: “Who out there wants to hear ‘Rapunzel’?”

  Scores of people raised their hands and hooted.

  “You know which song I mean,” Gustav growled. “The one where I’m a hero.”

  “Oh. You’re talking about that song in which you play the part of Cinderella’s little helper.” Leif made an over-the-top frowny face. “I’m afraid we don’t get many requests for that tune. It’s a tad too unbelievable, I think.”

  His brothers crowed with laughter. As did most of the crowd.

  “Starf it all,” Gustav cursed under his breath. If he couldn’t get people to like him, maybe he could at least get them to hate him. Anything was better than being laughed at.

  Gustav abruptly reached out, grabbed Lyrical Leif’s floppy hat by the brim, and yanked it down to the bard’s shoulders. The cap split down the middle as Leif’s head burst through the shimmery fabric. Gustav then grabbed the bard by the seat of his tights and hoisted him up in the air with one hand. With the other hand, he reached down and scooped up a handful of richly frosted birthday cake—which he proceeded to smoosh all over Leif’s shocked face before dropping the singer on his ample belly.

  As horrified gasps and shouts of derision sounded from all around the square, Gustav grinned and wiped his hands clean. “Maybe now,” he declared, “you’ll show some respect to the mighty Prince Gustav.”

  He turned to walk away, slipped on a dollop of icing, and flopped face-first into the giant birthday cake. As Gustav slowly staggered back to his feet, covered from his tangled hair to his big steel boots in buttercream frosting, uproarious laughter echoed throughout the courtyard.

  King Olaf gave Gustav a new job after that, one that would conveniently keep him away from Castle Sturmhagen for a while. “Go check on the trolls,” he ordered. “We need an ambassador out there, and since you’re the reason we had to turn over a hunk of our land to them, you should be the one to fill that position.”

  “With pleasure,” Gustav said. Minutes later, he was riding his big gray warhorse, Seventeen, out to troll country.

  As he approached a wide swath of farmland on the outskirts of Sturmhagen’s thick and wild pine forests, Gustav was suddenly encircled by what appeared to be hulking mounds of overcooked collard greens. But these were no shambling piles of vegetation; these were living creatures—nine feet tall with scraggly green fur, enormous clawed hands, frighteningly large teeth, and, in some cases, a horn or two. Or three. Trolls. And they were closing in on the prince.

  Gustav hopped from his horse and waited with his massive battle-ax at the ready. Clad as he was in heavy plated armor rimmed by thick tufts of boar and bear fur, Gustav’s mere silhouette would have been an intimidating sight to most humans. Most monsters, too, really. But the trolls showed no fear.

  It had been a long time since Gustav had been among the trolls and he’d been bald the last time they saw him, so most of the creatures didn’t recognize the long-haired human standing before them. One did, though: the single-horned troll who went by the name of Mr. Troll (all other trolls simply went by Troll—a practice that made taking attendance in troll schools either very difficult or very easy, depending on whom you ask).

  “Prince Angry Man!” Mr. Troll shouted, gleefully calling Gustav by his “troll name.” “Troll so glad Angry Man come back!” The monster threw its furry green arms around Gustav and, much to the prince’s displeasure, lifted him off the ground in a bear hug.

  “Enough, enough,” Gustav grunted, and Mr. Troll put him down. The other trolls, realizing this was their beloved Prince Angry Man, joined in with celebratory hoots and howls. Gustav couldn’t help smiling. Sure, the trolls were monsters, but they were happy to see him. And that felt pretty good.

  “Trolls never thank Angry Man for giving trolls farmland,” Mr. Troll said in his low, gravelly voice.

  “Yeah, that’s okay,” Gustav said. “You guys give the place a name yet?”

  “Yes,” said Mr. Troll. “Trolls call place Troll Place.”

  “I should’ve guessed that,” Gustav said. “So, um, I’m here as an ambassador.”

  “That fantastic,” Mr. Troll said. “Troll not know what that mean. But it sound fancy. So Troll happy for you.”

  “To be honest,” Gustav said, “I don’t really know what it means either. But I am a big hero, so I suppose I can teach you trolls a thing or two while I’m here.”

  Mr. Troll looked ecstatic. “Prince Angry Man come to help trolls,” he explained to his fellow monsters. “Him teach trolls all sort of amazing things!” The trolls cheered.

  “Yeah, sure,” Gustav said, crossing his arms and nodding. He was getting his old confidence back. “I’m great at all kinds of stuff. Hunting, fishing . . .”

  Several of the monsters stopped smiling and glowered menacingly at Gustav.

  “Ha-ha,” Mr. Troll said. “Angry Man joking. Angry Man remember trolls is vegetarian.”

  “Oh, yes,” Gustav mumbled. “How could I forget?”

  “Angry Man will teach trolls how grow veggies,” Mr. Troll announced as if it were an established fact.

  “You’ve had this farm for months,” Gustav said. “You haven’t grown anything yet?” He surveyed the scene around him. The field was completely bare except for a few rickety troll stick-houses and a large rock with a log tied to it (which one helpful troll pointed to and identified as “plow”).

  “No, nothing,” Mr. Troll said. The monster looked down, embarrassed (at least Gustav thought he was embarrassed; it’s hard to tell when you’re dealing with a creature that has a face like a demonic mulch pile). “Trolls not know how grow stuff. That why trolls still steal food from humans.”

  “You’re still stealing food?” Gustav asked, flabbergasted. “The whole reason we gave you this farmland was to stop the food raids. Do you want to start a war?”

  “No. Trolls just want eat. That why Angry Man must teach trolls grow veggies.”

  Gustav paused. He knew nothing about farming. Although, to be honest, he didn’t really know anything about hunting or fishing either. But being a farming instructor was better than going home. “All right, trolls,” he said. “Let’s do some farming.”

  Gustav taught the trolls everything he knew about growing fresh produce. He spent day after day out in the fields, imparting every bit of knowledge he had about preparing soil, sowing seeds, and keeping plants well watered. And after months
of working under Gustav’s tutelage, the creatures were able to head out for a harvest and gather up a fresh crop—of exactly two potatoes. Each of which was approximately the size of a peanut.

  Let me reiterate: Gustav knew nothing about farming.

  “How ’bout I teach you trolls to fight instead?” he suggested.

  The trolls greeted this new idea with enthusiasm. And that was when Gustav really started enjoying himself. He put together a lesson plan (Ramming Your Enemy, Throwing Heavy Objects, Pummeling for Beginners, and so on), and the trolls proved to be excellent students. In reality, trolls were natural fighters and didn’t need the instruction—but they had a blast taking Gustav’s classes.

  One afternoon, Gustav and Mr. Troll sat together in the house that the trolls had built for their teacher (five precariously balanced logs with some loose straw thrown on top). “Troll think Angry Man better fighter than farmer,” Mr. Troll said.

  “I guess you and I have something in common then, Leafy,” Gustav said.

  The troll let out a harsh, retching laugh. “Maybe Angry Man be better as troll than human.”

  “You know, there’s a lot I can appreciate about you trolls,” Gustav said. “You pack a solid punch, you’re not scared of anything, and you’ve got no love for fancy doohickeys and dingle-dangles. That’s why I’ve been able to tolerate you beasts for months now. But I still think I make a pretty good human. And anyway, I miss meat.”

  “Troll understand. Troll not be happy living with humans either. Human houses have too many parts; make Troll claustrophobic.” Through the “walls” of Gustav’s dwelling, they could see the other trolls gathering for their next lesson. “But Angry Man inspire Troll,” Mr. Troll went on. “Troll going to be first troll hero. Trolls always bad guy in songs by Itty-Bitty-Guitar Men. Troll want Itty-Bitty-Guitar Men to write song ’bout Troll save the day.”