Lair of the Beast Page 17

  “You wanted an extra army,” Roveeka said as she slipped down from Moshul’s back. “You got one.”

  “A mere distraction,” Stalag said from his scorpion mount. “Golems!”

  Before they could even move, Moshul went racing toward the alabaster-bearded golem. And despite being only made of mud and moss, Moshul seemed to possess a strength twice that of the stone golem. He knocked the bearded golem back against one of the support columns of an aqueduct. It caused a small crack above, raining a shower of water down on the golem’s head. The waters spilled down his body like a waterfall.

  Wily, along with the army of squatling, humans, elves—and now hobgoblets switching sides—went running past the fallen golem to face Stalag’s minions in hand-to-hand combat. As Wily passed he could see that the bearded golem was struggling to get back on his feet, but it was caught in the mud forming below the leaking aqueduct. Wily’s lighter weight allowed him to avoid the mire.

  “Watch your steps,” Wily called out to his army. “You don’t want to sink into this mud.”

  And then he came to a dead stop. Wily looked at his feet, ankle-deep in mud. He reached down and grabbed a thick clump of it in his fingers.

  “Change of plans!” Wily shouted at the top of his lungs.

  Odette looked at Wily. “We’re going to have a mud fight?” she asked.

  “The oracle wasn’t telling us to sink into the mud,” Wily said. “She was giving us a clue on how to defeat the Infernal Golem. We need to make him sink into the mud.”

  “Whoa!” Roveeka exclaimed. “Those acorns sure do know a lot.”

  “This time around,” Wily said, “I don’t need to make a new invention. I just need to break one I already made.” He turned to Palojax and shouted, “I want you to break the aqueducts.”

  Stalag had seen the bearded golem struggling to free himself from the mud, and when he heard Wily’s order to Palojax, he immediately understood what his former trapsmith was trying to do.

  “Stop him!” Stalag called out to Agorop and Sceely. “Don’t let him get on the back of that lair beast!”

  Agorop and Sceely urged their scorpions forward, racing to beat Wily to Palojax. Sceely came charging up on her mount as Wily ran up the lair beast’s wing. The lair beast took flight once more with Wily on its back, but Sceely jumped onto Palojax’s side.

  “Really?” Wily called back to her. “Are we doing this again?”

  “Guess so,” Sceely said as she came charging for Wily with her trident in hand.

  She had made it halfway across the back of the lair beast when the fiery cobra head turned and snapped at the oglodyte. Sceely jumped back just in time to save herself from being eaten, but in the process she slipped and ended up dangling from one of the beast’s squirming tentacles. She wasn’t able to hold on, slipped again, and went tumbling down—right into the flowing water of an aqueduct.

  Wily pointed to a spot in the long tube of rushing water. “Over there!” he shouted.

  Palojax dove down and swung its tail at the elevated stream. The aqueduct exploded, sending water gushing to the ground. Palojax continued onward to the next stretch of aqueduct that descended from the hills. Wily gripped on tightly as the lair beast blasted through the side of the stone supports, sending another river gushing down onto the parched earth.

  Wily looked back over his shoulder and saw the broken aqueducts were dumping huge amounts of water onto the ground. A pair of stone golems stood in the middle of the rapidly forming lake of mud and attempted to escape, but with each step they sank deeper into the wet earth.

  Palojax struck three more aqueducts in rapid succession. It was as if multiple rivers were now suddenly converging into one area of the plains. The pools of water formed by the flowing lakes began to overlap.

  The Infernal Golem was standing in the center of all the broken aqueducts and trying to grab the lair beast from the sky, but Wily and Palojax were too high to be caught. The Infernal Golem took three mighty steps before the ground gave out beneath it. A giant sinkhole formed, swallowing the Infernal Golem up to its waist. The mighty golem tried to pull itself out, but its efforts only made it sink deeper into the mire.

  As Wily and the lair beast flew by, he could hear Stalag screaming at the Infernal Golem. “Get out of there!”

  The Infernal Golem tried to grab a nearby aqueduct column to pull itself free. Instead, it ripped the column straight out of the ground. Just then, the sinkhole collapsed in on itself, pulling the Infernal Golem into the abyss.

  Wily commanded Palojax to fly over the place where the earth had opened up. He could see that the sinkhole dropped away into nothingness, but he thought he could discern the faintest of glows at the bottom and wondered if the Infernal Golem had dropped all the way to the Below.

  Wily signaled Palojax to touch down on the hillside overlooking the battlefield. As the hundreds of stone golems struggled to move in the mud, the cavern mages found themselves in rapidly rising water and tried to escape by swimming. Unfortunately, the strong current made it difficult for them to stay afloat. Elves and squatlings paddled out on wooden shields to rescue them from drowning. The hobgoblets tied the captured up under the command of Roveeka.

  The bone soldiers fared even less well. The rushing water had by now formed a whirlpool and quickly sucked the skeletons into the abyss as well. Only the oglodytes, who were excellent swimmers, managed to make it to shore by themselves—where they were quickly captured.

  Wily saw Stalag standing on the back of his giant scorpion, which was floating like a log in the current.

  “You’re trapped,” Wily called out. “Surrender and no harm will come to you.”

  “It would have been easier if you had just let me take the throne,” Stalag said as he started to mumble a series of chants.

  Wily had heard this spell twice before, once in Stalag’s study when the cavern mage cast it on a snap-lizard and another time on Agorop in the Floating City. Something began to grow in Stalag’s hands. As it expanded in size, Wily realized it was a cave cricket.

  “Catch him before he gets away,” Wily called out to Palojax.

  The cricket was now so huge that Stalag had to wrap his arms around it. As the lair beast flew at Stalag, the cricket leaped into the sky. Palojax dove for them, but the cricket was too quick for the three-headed beast.

  Wily watched as Stalag bounded away on the cricket. As the cavern mage disappeared into the hills, he hoped dearly that he would never see his pale frame and quivering eyes ever again. But somehow he knew that he hadn’t seen the last of the mage of Carrion Tomb. He couldn’t believe that he’d let Stalag get away again.

  Yet his disappointment was short-lived. When he turned back to his army, he saw a sea of smiling faces. “To the King of the Above,” the knights cheered as they lifted Wily into the air.

  “And the Queen of the Below,” the elves yelled as the lifted Roveeka into the air beside Wily.

  “Grand Slouch. Grand Slouch,” the hobgoblets chanted as they thrust their fists into the air.

  “This is going to go straight to the heads of those two,” Odette said to Valor as she gestured to Wily and Roveeka.

  “Probably,” Valor answered. “But I think they deserve it.”

  21

  FLIP OF THE COIN

  “You can do better than that, slowpoke!” Valor called out as she ran through the apple orchard, her injured leg already healed.

  Wily was sprinting as fast as he could to catch up—but over the last week, he had lost every race. Yet he didn’t mind at all.

  “I’m coming for you,” Wily shouted.

  The finish line was just a hundred paces ahead. As he ran, he thought about all that had happened since Stalag’s defeat.

  The ferocious Palojax had returned to its peaceful and quiet home in the Below, but not before a huge celebration was held in its honor.

  Locksage engineers were busy repairing and rebuilding the aqueducts. The remaining stone golems were given new master
s and had now been tasked with repairing the destruction they had caused. The prisonaut that had until recently only housed Wily’s father, Kestrel Gromanov, was now filled with cavern mages, oglodytes, and boarcus.

  Wily’s feet seemed to fly above the ground. Yet Valor easily crossed the finish line before him. She wiped a single droplet of sweat from her forehead as she took a swig of water from a mug.

  “I’ll beat you next time,” Wily said, huffing, his face running with sweat.

  “Not unless you invent something to make you run faster,” Valor said with a good-natured grin.

  “That’s an interesting idea,” Wily said.

  “Of course, that would also be cheating.”

  “Says who?” Wily asked.

  “Basic Roamabout regulations state you have to be barefoot for a footrace. When my tribe comes to visit the palace next week, you’re going to have to take off your shoes for the round-the-garden sprint.”

  “Valor,” a voice called from behind them.

  Wily and Valor both turned to see Lumina standing there.

  “Do you think we could talk?” she asked gently. “I know it’s been a while, but I’d really like to get to know you.”

  Valor was silent for a moment, and then answered quietly, “Okay, Auntie.”

  The two moved into the trees and found a spot to sit.

  Wily headed back for the drawbridge of the palace. Before he stepped onto the bridge, he glanced back over his shoulder. There, in the orchard, Valor and Lumina were hugging. It was a very good start.

  Wily crossed the drawbridge and moved into the palace’s rose garden, where he found Moshul constructing a stone bench. The seat was made of gray marble, but that wasn’t the interesting part of the bench. The two legs were made with the heads of the alabaster-bearded and the quartz-fingered stone golems. Moshul had insisted that these two golems didn’t get the honor of serving new masters.

  “This is humiliating,” the bearded golem complained. “We are mighty stone golems.”

  “You’re right,” Wily said as he approached. “And you deserve far worse.”

  Moshul happily took a seat on the bench. He kicked up his legs as the heads continued to complain.

  “You need to put us back on our bodies,” the head of the quartz-fingered golem said.

  “At once,” the other head said.

  Moshul shook his head “no.” Then the moss golem closed his eyes. As he did, flower blossoms opened up all down his body.

  Wily moved on into the palace atrium. The room that had previously been filled with gifts from all over Panthasos was now stuffed to the brim with even more thank-you presents from towns that had been attacked by the stone golems. Pryvyd and Odette were helping to arrange the gifts on shelves and tables.

  “If we keep on saving the land,” Pryvyd said, “we might have to build a museum for all these.”

  “Wily,” Odette said, “we were just about to play a game of honey beetle with some of the guards. You want to play?”

  “I didn’t say I was playing,” Pryvyd retorted. “I don’t want honey all over my armor.”

  “It’s gold,” Odette said. “No one will notice if it gets a little messy.”

  Righteous was giving her words a big thumbs-up.

  “Maybe later,” Wily said. “I think I’m going to hit the library.”

  He walked up the steps into the quiet upper floors of the palace. They felt different from when he had left a fortnight earlier. The halls didn’t feel stifling or tight any longer. Now they seemed comfortable and understanding. The whole palace felt like a place in which he could spend many happy years.

  Wily walked into the library and was surprised to find Roveeka. She didn’t know how to read and had yet to take an interest in learning. She stood before a glass display cabinet tucked in between two bookshelves.

  “What are you looking at?” Wily asked.

  “That coin,” Roveeka said.

  She pointed to a golden coin resting in a velvet case. The image of a sun was embossed on its surface.

  “I think that might be the coin that was used for the Flip of Decision,” she said. “It should never have been flipped at all.”

  “I agree,” Wily said. “We should just tell the hobgoblets to move back to the surface. Who cares what happened hundreds of years ago?”

  “You know that hobgoblets don’t break their promises,” Roveeka said. “They agreed to honor a fair wager and they got the cave instead of the sun. I just need to find a way to turn back time. Maybe if I bring the coin to the Oracle of Oak, she would know how to reverse time.” Roveeka eyed the lock on the display cabinet. “You wouldn’t happen to have the key, would you?”

  “I don’t,” Wily said. “And I have no idea where to look for it. But I do have something just as good as a key.”

  Wily reached into his trapsmith belt and pulled out his replacement screwdriver. It took him only a minute to unscrew all the latches and hinges and completely remove the top of the display case.

  Roveeka reached inside and pulled out the coin. Then she gave it a flip.

  The coin landed in her palm sun up.

  “And to think, humans could have just as easily flipped the other side up,” Roveeka said.

  She turned the coin around—only to see that the back of the coin also held an image of the sun. Confused, she looked at Wily. They examined both sides.

  There was no side with a cave on it.

  “Maybe it’s the wrong coin,” Wily said.

  “I don’t think so,” Roveeka said sadly. “I think the humans cheated. They knew they couldn’t lose. That’s why they chose to flip the coin.”

  Suddenly, Roveeka’s frown turned into a big smile. “I did it!” she uttered in amazement. “I turned back time.”

  Wily looked at her as if she had lost her mind.

  “The hobgoblets agreed to a fair wager,” Roveeka explained. “But this wasn’t a fair wager at all, so there’s no promise for the hobgoblets to break if they come to the surface now.”

  “You are the Grandest Slouch of them all,” Wily said.

  “Looks like we’re going to be having some new cooks in the kitchen soon,” Roveeka said.

  Wily felt mildly nauseated thinking of the black slime soup in Undertown. “As long as we keep some of the old ones too,” he said.

  “Naturally,” Roveeka said. “But they’re going to have some real competition now.”

  With a spring in her step, the hobgoblet hurried out of the library.

  Wily turned to a big book sitting on the long oak table. He had helped save Panthasos again, but there was still a challenge that he hadn’t succeeded in overcoming: learning to read. Odette kept telling him that if he continued studying, one day he would wake up and everything would just snap into place. But so far, it hadn’t.

  Wily sat down before the book and opened it. He took a deep breath, put his finger on the first word of the first line, and tried again.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  WRITING ACKNOWLEDGMENTS IN a sequel is like attending a reunion. It’s the opportunity to catch up with dear friends that you haven’t seen in a while and tell them how much they mean to you.

  So first I need to thank those who I have thanked before but whose contributions were no less (and perhaps even more) important this time around. Markus Hoffmann, my secret weapon in the world of words. The team at Imprint has done it again! Nicole Otto and John Morgan are editors that every writer would wish for; Wily and his companions’ second adventure would be far less exciting without you. Iacopo Bruno created another stunning cover that brought Valor, Stalkeer, and Stalag to life in vivid color. Steve “Squiddoodle” Turner for the stunning endpapers that perfectly capture the wild inventions of Wily Snare. Natalie C. Sousa, your eye for design is second to none. Madison Furr and Mary Van Akin, who set up events in locations both near and far. And a huge thank-you to editor-in-chief Erin Stein for your continued passion and enthusiasm for a kid from the tomb.

  I
have had new friends accompany me on the journey to the Below who are in need of thanks. Where once I walked alone hand-in-hand with Trader Joe’s Spiced Mangoes, they must now share my attention with the Trader Joe’s Just Mango Slices. Spotify for hosting my Snared Playlist of fantasy inspiration, which is now public and available for your listening pleasure. And Publishers Weekly for the starred review that literally made me leap from my seat at a restaurant and start doing fist pumps.

  I’d like to thank everyone who attended the book launch party at my house. It was a moment of true celebration and I was so happy to have old and new friends eat tacos and make slug slime in my company. A monster shout-out to Mrs. Craven’s fifth grade class of ’18 who was the very first group of students to read Snared: Escape to the Above aloud. To BookStar in Studio City for hosting my local bookstore signing and always placing my book facing outward. And to all the independent bookstore owners and employees across the globe I have spoken with and who have shared Wily with their young customers.

  And after every good reunion … you return to your family. I would like to thank my mom and dad for being the East Coast marketing team, visiting bookstores and libraries with bookmarks and flyers. My daughter Olive for her careful inspection of Snared: Lair of the Beast’s cover and her massages when shoulders got tense. My daughter Penny who has learned to edit books while sitting on the couch in my office. (It is only a matter of time before you are writing a book of your own … or you start writing mine. There is most certainly a collaboration in the future.) And to my wife, Jane, with whom I have shared the last twenty years. Our marriage continues to be my greatest pleasure … even more than starred reviews.

  “A fast-paced, refreshingly creative adventure that will thrill readers from the very first page.”

  —Shannon Messenger, New York Times–bestselling author of the Keeper of the Lost Cities series and the Sky Fall series

  “Fabulous characters and a unique mythology combine to create something really wonderful. Snared will ensnare you.”