Lair of the Beast Read online

It wasn’t working. The beast was beginning to thrash more.

  What am I doing wrong?

  He had the sudden feeling that he was going to disappoint all his friends. All the people of Panthasos who were counting on him to be perfect. The pressure he’d been feeling over the last few months pressed down on his shoulders heavier than ever before.

  The manticorn was only getting more riled. Wily realized he was channeling the wrong kind of energy. But the panic of doing the wrong thing only got him more agitated.

  I can’t quell the beast. I can’t do any of this. It’s too hard to be the perfect prince. The perfect future king. It’s all too much.

  The manticorn shook its back with such force that Wily went flying into a boulder on the edge of the Web’s jagged cliff. All the air went out of him, and when he was finally able to breathe again and looked up, the manticorn was practically on top of him.

  Then, from the corner of his eye, he saw Valor running. She let out a wild bird screech that sent a flock of herons fluttering out of the bushes. The manticorn was distracted by the birds. It snatched one with its beaked eagle mouth.

  This gave Valor enough time to jump onto the manticorn’s back. Wily watched as the manticorn tried to shake her. But as the beast struggled, it seemed to be slowly losing the will to fight.

  “Down!” Valor said as she pressed her hands firmly into the beast’s neck.

  The manticorn dropped its belly to the ground submissively. Then it opened its mouth and let the caught heron limp away with only an injured wing.

  After another moment, the manticorn’s two heads began to coo and baa quietly.

  Valor bounded off the back of the creature. “Who’s a good two-headed manticorn?” she said as she scratched behind the goat head’s ear.

  The eagle head gently nudged Valor’s shoulder with its horn.

  “I haven’t forgotten about you,” Valor said. She gently stroked the line of white feathers above the eagle head’s eyes.

  The manticorn rolled over, exposing its furry belly. Valor kneeled down to give it some soft belly rubs.

  Then Valor turned to Wily. “I knew what you were planning from the moment we left,” she said. “I saw right through your lie. Olgara would never have asked me to take you. You thought that you could turn me into the hero. Make me see myself in a new light. And that I would join you on your mission.”

  “Well…,” Wily said, “will you?”

  “Not a chance. I don’t need to be a hero for Panthasos. Let the kingdom fall for all I care.”

  “Then why did you bring me up here?” Wily asked.

  “Because it was fun watching you squirm.”

  “You came just to embarrass me?” Wily said, feeling his cheeks redden.

  “You’re going to need to find another way to deal with the stone golems,” Valor continued. “Because there’s no way you are quelling a lair beast. Maybe you could get a chisel and chip away at them very slowly.”

  Valor turned and started back through the reeds with the manticorn following behind, tail wagging happily.

  Wily wondered what he was going to do. If the pressure of princehood had seemed heavy before, now it felt as if he were a single stone pillar supporting an entire mountain range.

  * * *

  DURING THEIR WALK back down the mountain, Wily had tried several times to appeal to Valor’s sympathy. He hadn’t been doing a very good job.

  “The Roamabouts don’t need towns or villages or castles,” Valor said. “They only create more problems. The stone golems will be doing us all a favor.”

  “Stalag and his fellow mages,” Wily pleaded, “care only about themselves. They’ll use the throne to fill their own vaults while the less fortunate suffer.”

  “Doesn’t sound like my problem,” Valor said. “Or the problem of any of the wild beasts of the land.”

  Both heads of the manticorn snorted in agreement.

  As the path twisted under the stone legs of Spider Rock, Wily wondered how he was going to break the horrible news to the others. He had failed them and every Panthasan who Stalag would soon treat with the same cruelty he had shown Wily for all those years in Carrion Tomb.

  Just ahead, Valor raised a hand to signal Wily and the manticorn to stop. She bent down near a small mushroom patch.

  “Is it dangerous?” Wily called out cautiously.

  “Not in the least,” she replied. “I just don’t want you scaring it away.”

  Valor reached out and picked up something gently in her hands. Wily moved closer and saw she was holding a small furry animal with eyes that took up half its face.

  “What is it?” Wily asked.

  “A baby wildeboar,” Valor said. “He must have wandered off.” She spoke directly to the wildeboar. “Your mother must be terrified. You need to stay near her until you grow your first pair of tusks.”

  The small little animal gave a timid squeak. Then it nuzzled tightly into Valor’s hands, pressing its snout into the crook of her thumb and forefinger.

  “You are a cute one,” she said with a smile.

  The manticorn’s two heads bleated and squawked in unison.

  “You’re very cute too,” Valor reassured the manticorn.

  Both the eagle head and goat head seemed to grin, satisfied.

  “You stay here,” Valor gently commanded the manticorn.

  The beast lay down, pressing its body up against the warm, dusty road. Wily was impressed. Even the beasts of Carrion Tomb that he’d spent his entire life training had never responded with such understanding and obedience.

  Valor stepped off the path and into the underbrush. Wily followed behind her as she stepped over berry shrubs and chunks of rock that must have slid down the steep cliff during the last rainstorm.

  “Shhhh,” Valor admonished him. “We don’t want to scare away the rest of the family.”

  Wily could have sworn he was being just as silent as her, but clearly she would have disagreed.

  “Many small animals make their homes here because of the safety it provides. The arches of Spider Rock block the view of the terrorhawks that patrol the clouds. And the hunters from the neighboring villages stay away in fear of the bigger beasts that lurk in the forest.”

  As they approached the rocky mountainside, the wildeboar sniffed the air and gave a little squeal of happiness. The underside of Spider Rock was teeming with life. Families of swallows had built mud nests all along the cracks in the stone. Frogs and lizards bathed in the small pools made from the dripping rocks above. Mice and ferrets stuck their heads out from the burrows in the dirt. From the path just a few strides away, none of this could be seen. Wily was amazed by how much life was hidden just beyond his eyes. It reminded him of the maintenance tunnels of Carrion Tomb; while most invaders saw only the main path, there was so much secretly happening just out of sight.

  “Look,” Valor said with a grin, “there’s his family.”

  Wily spied a mama wildeboar with her squeal of pups gathered around her. The mama boar began to grunt as Valor approached with the baby in hand. She gently put it down on the ground. The baby wildeboar ran to its mother’s side, happily joining its siblings. The mother wildeboar gave a little squeal to Valor, thanking her.

  The sweet reunion gave Wily a comforting rush of good feelings. It almost made him forget all about what had just happened with the manticorn.

  “I care about the people of Panthasos the way you care about these animals,” Wily said. “Please help me. If you just met some of the wall-dwellers, I think—”

  “You think you have something to teach me?” Valor scoffed. “The boy who spent his whole life underground? You’re the one that’s sheltered. You’re the one who has a lot to learn.”

  “In the last few months, I’ve grown so much.”

  “Don’t make me laugh,” Valor said as she clenched her fist. “I saw what your father did. What a king is capable of. You will be no different from him. And this Stalag you talk about will be no different ei
ther. No person should rule anyone else. Especially if they’re only twelve.”

  Valor turned her back on Wily and stormed away, leaving him with the menagerie of animals. The birds, mammals, and reptiles all stared at him.

  Valor’s right, he thought bitterly. He might be the future king of Panthasos, but the last thing these animals needed was somebody to rule over them.

  11

  SPIDER CRACKING

  For the rest of the walk downhill, Wily was left thinking about how he’d break the bad news to his companions. There was no version that sounded quite right. Hey, everyone, I lied about being able to train the manticorn, and there’s no way I could even come close to quelling the ancient lair beast. And by the way, Valor, our only hope, hates me more than ever. He knew that his mother would be especially disappointed. She had put so much faith in him.

  By the time they reached the bottom of the Web, the waxing moon was high in the sky and the stars twinkled like drops of water dangling from the fine threads of a ghost spider’s web. Valor led the way, but Wily would have only needed to follow the scent of baked blackberry crumble to find his way back to the Roamabout camp. As Valor, Wily, and the quelled manticorn made their way out of the woods and into the clearing, every member of the Roamabouts looked up from their dessert.

  “A manticorn!” a burly Roamabout shouted. “It’s been quelled.”

  Roveeka dropped her piece of crumble and bounded up from the wooden log she’d been sitting on. She ran for Wily as fast as her uneven legs would carry her and embraced him in a big hug. “You did it!” Roveeka exclaimed, eyeing the manticorn. “Was it very difficult? I want to hear the whole story!”

  Everyone looked at Wily.

  “I didn’t do anything,” Wily said. “Except nearly get eaten. Valor tamed the manticorn.”

  The entire crowd turned their attention to Valor. A chorus of congratulations and cheers followed. As Valor and the manticorn made their way to the fires in the middle of camp, Wily was left alone. With a forlorn expression, he wandered over to an isolated rock and took a seat.

  “Can I join you for a moment?”

  He looked up to see his mother limping toward him.

  “I lied to you about what Olgara said,” Wily told his mom. “I can’t quell Palojax. I thought I could convince Valor to come with us. But I didn’t do a good job at that either. How will I ever be able to lead all of Panthasos?”

  “Don’t be so hard on yourself,” Lumina said.

  “Everyone is counting on me,” Wily said. “We have to defeat Stalag.”

  “You’ve got to remember that you are only a person,” Lumina said. “Sometimes you’ll succeed. And sometimes you’ll fail. And both are okay.”

  “I can’t fail,” Wily said. “If I fail, the kingdom will be overrun by an army of stone golems.”

  “Everyone fails,” Lumina said. “Not only sometimes. But most of the time. This is how we grow. This is how we learn.”

  Wily nodded his head, but his mother’s words didn’t offer much comfort.

  “Let me go talk with Valor,” she said.

  “I already asked her to help,” Wily said. “She wasn’t interested.”

  “I’ll try again. And if she refuses … we’ll figure it out.” Lumina gave Wily a kiss on his forehead and slowly walked toward the crowd of laughing and singing Roamabouts gathered around Valor.

  Wily watched as Lumina gently pulled Valor out of the crowd. From this distance, Wily couldn’t hear what she was saying, but he could see Valor’s face slowly turn to a grimace. Valor began to shake her head vehemently. Lumina tried to take her hand but Valor knocked it away. Lumina kept talking, but all Wily could hear was the boisterous chanting of the celebrating Roamabouts.

  Then suddenly, Valor raised her voice. “I don’t want to help you!” she yelled. “Just leave me alone. This is not my problem.”

  With that, Valor stormed away from Lumina and took a seat in the grass next to Stalkeer.

  Just then, the forest floor began to rumble. For a moment, Wily wondered if the monsoonodon had returned. Then he turned in the direction of the sound.

  The cliffs of the Web were crumbling. Rocks were breaking off the sheer surface and tumbling to the ground, smacking against the stone pillars that held up Spider Rock.

  “On the mountaintop,” Odette said, pointing to the peaks of the Web where Wily had just been.

  There, in silhouette against the darkened sky, a dozen stone golems marched to the west. Their massive weight was toppling the boulders that lay just beyond the High Wing Pools. Wily watched in horror as a splintering crack formed down a leg of Spider Rock. As the stone golems continued to move along the peaks of the Web, one of the spider legs snapped off completely and went tumbling to the ground.

  Everybody leaped to their feet, looking up at the mountain with horror. Wily heard Valor shout, “The animals!” followed by, “Stalkeer!”

  The black-and-gold mountain lion bounded over to her, and Valor pulled herself onto her mount’s back.

  “No,” Lumina said, limping into Valor’s path. “It’s too dangerous.”

  “You don’t have any business telling me what I can or can’t do,” Valor said, urging Stalkeer to move around Lumina.

  In the distance, a second spider leg was fracturing under the increasing pressure.

  “I may have been away,” Lumina said, “but I’m still someone who cares about you. Get off that mountain lion.”

  “You lost the privilege to tell me what to do when you abandoned me, Auntie,” Valor said.

  “Then listen to me,” Talleywin said, moving next to Lumina and further blocking Stalkeer’s path to the Web.

  “I’ve got to protect my pack,” Valor added.

  As another loud crack echoed over the hillside, Valor gave Stalkeer a firm pat on the side of her neck. Effortlessly, the mountain lion leaped over both Talleywin’s and Lumina’s heads and bounded toward the tree line.

  As Wily watched her go, he imagined the little wildeboar and its family huddling together in fear. He could picture in his head all the animals under Spider Rock that were in terrible danger. Will they get away in time, or will they all be crushed when Spider Rock falls from its high perch?

  Wily spied Odette’s horse grazing nearby and called out to his elf companion. “I need to borrow your horse.”

  “Not without me on the back of it,” Odette replied as she whistled loudly.

  Odette mounted her horse in her usual manner: with a single handspring leap from behind, vaulting herself over the tail and sliding across the mare’s back until her fingers were clutching the mane. She reached down a hand for Wily and pulled him onto the horse.

  “No, Wily!” Lumina said as she stepped in front of Odette’s horse.

  “Mom, I’ve got to help the animals,” Wily said.

  “I absolutely prohibit it.”

  “It’s the right thing to do.”

  She gave him a hard, long look, then sighed and stepped aside to allow them to pass. Odette gave a quick heel to her horse’s side and the mount took off in pursuit of Stalkeer and Valor.

  “I’ll keep an eye on him,” Odette called back to Lumina.

  As Odette’s horse galloped through the dark mesh of trees, Wily could see the great stone body of the spider was beginning to wobble on its six remaining legs. The shift in weight appeared to have destabilized the towering structure. A third leg, covered with vines and shade moss, was cracking like a wooden shield in the claw of a crab dragon.

  “These better be some very cute animals we’re saving,” Odette said. “Not just toads and lizards.”

  As the horse approached the vine-covered leg, the top of the spider’s stone pedestal began to give way. With a crack, a huge block of stone snapped off the leg. It came smashing down, snapping tree branches and sending birds into flight. The stone block hit the earth only a dozen feet in front of Odette’s horse. The animal reared up in terror.

  “Come on, girl.” Odette tried to urge h
er on.

  But the horse refused to go any farther. Ahead, Wily could see Valor running out from under Spider Rock with an armful of baby raccoons. Stalkeer bounded beside her with the mother raccoon held gently in her jaws. Within seconds they reached Wily and Odette, rushed past them, and put the woodland creatures down in the safety of the underbrush.

  “Are you just going to sit there or are you going to help?” Valor called out to Wily and Odette as she raced back toward the mountain.

  Odette and Wily slid off the horse and charged past the crumbling pedestal of rock. Wily hurried to the spot where Valor had reunited the baby wildeboar with its mother. He could see the animals weren’t fleeing but instead wedging themselves deeper into the cracks in the rocks.

  “If Spider Rock comes down,” Valor shouted to Wily, “they’ll all be buried under here.”

  “If Spider Rock comes down,” Odette added, “we will be too.”

  “Caroo,” Valor called up to a cluster of birds peeking their trembling heads from mud nests built into crevices of the vine-covered leg of Spider Rock. “Caroo.”

  Although hesitant, the birds heeded her warning and took flight, leaving their protective shelters. It wasn’t a moment too soon either: moments later, the pillar of stone came crashing down, hitting the mountainside.

  “All the legs are starting to fall!” Valor screamed. “Take as many animals as you can and run.”

  Odette beckoned to a group of tiny mice. Before she could even scoop them up, a whole pack of terrified toads bounced up to her and started hopping in her pockets and pouches. She grabbed as many mice as she could and ran away from the wall.

  Valor, meanwhile, was pulling frightened hedgehogs out of a rotted log, and Wily was squatting in front of a dozen tarantulas.

  “Get on my arm,” Wily pleaded in Arachnid.

  The bristly spiders scurried up his forearm, their sharp feet digging into his skin. The twelve formed a line along the long burn mark that stretched from Wily’s wrist to elbow.

  Just then, a giant rock came crashing down the slope. It would have struck Wily on the head if Valor hadn’t pushed him clear in the nick of time.