Chapter 24
Warriors of the Imagination

Hans and Angela faced the monstrous heads that loomed above the thicket. All around, wolves licked their bloody fangs and howled.

“Did you not hear my dread command?” the Wolf King roared. “Begone or face my wrath.”

“Sorry for disturbing Your Majesty,” Hans gulped. “We’ll be on our way.”

“We most certainly will not,” Angela said.

“Then your deaths shall be savage and strange,” the Wolf King boomed.

“Far less savage and strange than what awaits us out there with the Necromancer and his Weevils,” Angela said. “Next to them, to be torn apart by monsters and wolves would be a relief.”

“Come behind this thicket and say that,” the Wolf King sneered. Laughter rose from the monster horde.

“No,” Angela tossed back. “If you plan to eat us, have the courage to eat us in the clearing.”

“You question our courage? We who fear neither mortal nor beast?”

Hans blanched. “Angela, apologize or they’ll kill us.”

“Heed the wisdom of your protector,” the Wolf King warned.

“Him?” Angela rolled her eyes. “He’s only a grave robber’s apprentice. I, on the other hand, am Countess Angela Gabriela von Schwanenberg. I’ve outwitted the great Archduke Arnulf and escaped the grave, so I have no idea why I should tremble and quake before a ragtag gaggle of cowardly fiends who hide behind bushes.”

Three of the monsters belched fire. Hans prepared for the worst.

“Have you not seen our flaming arrows?” boomed the Wolf King.

“A quick and merciful death they’d provide. But that’s hardly the horrible end you’ve advertised. So come: Brandish your claws. Do your worst. I dare you.”

A roll of thunder. The wolves covered their ears with their paws.

Angela yawned. “I’m sorry, but I don’t believe you’re a Wolf King or that you have any monsters. Still, you put on a wonderful show with your pet wolves and fire breathers. You ought to perform in village squares on May Day.”

A third peal of thunder shook the night. “What of my power over the heavens?” the Wolf King demanded.

“Oh, that,” Angela said. “I own a thunder sheet myself. It came with my puppet theater. I’ve found it very useful in producing sound effects for storms. Mine is a thin sheet of bronze with a cushioned velvet trim to protect my fingers when I shake it. Yours, I imagine, is cheap scrap metal.”

The heads of the monster horde reared high. Hans gasped.

“I know about stick puppets, too,” Angela continued. “Those monstrous heads are surely crafted from beasts you’ve hunted for food. Theirs are the bones that litter your campsite. You put red lanterns in the skulls to create the fiery eyes, and add painted wooden horns and tusks by means of glue and leather bindings. Then you attach the heads to poles so you can make them soar and tower. I also expect you’re all on horseback so that your roars seem to come from the puppets’ jaws.”

“You think my creatures are puppets?” the Wolf King exclaimed in outrage.

Hans smacked his forehead with delight. “But of course! It’s what the Necromancer couldn’t sense, and what his Weevils and I could never imagine.”

“Why should a lord of the underworld play with the toys of mortal children?” the Wolf King thundered.

Hans threw up a hand like a student who’d solved his teacher’s prize riddle. “When Papa robbed the graves of Wottenberg, I pretended we were ghosts to frighten locals out of the cemetery. He dug undisturbed an entire summer, while I shook a sack of chains and moaned from mausoleums. You’re the same: highwaymen who scare people away from the forest so you can rob at will!”

Angela grinned. “Congratulations, Sir So-called Wolf King. Even I, well-versed in the art of puppetry, was fooled at first.”

The monster heads looked at each other, then came from behind the bushes, carried by eight sheepish men on horseback. The riders wore grubby velvet doublets and torn linen leggings under patched woolen knee breeches; their faces and hands were smeared with soot. They circled Hans and Angela, and dismounted. The wolves wagged their tails and frisked around them.

The “Wolf King” stepped forward. He was a little man as delicate as a lark, except for an Adam’s apple the size of a walnut. “Intelligence is a dangerous gift. Now that you know our secret, what are we to do with you?”

“Show us the quickest path to the mountain home of Peter the Hermit,” Angela said brightly.

“Why should we let you free to reveal our secret?” the little man asked.

An excellent question. Hans summoned the finest court talk he could imagine. “Because you’re good and decent thieves who’d never harm sworn enemies of the archduke,” he said heroically. “The proof? You rob the ill-gotten gains of the idle rich, not the hard-earned coin of the honest poor.”

Angela shot him a look. As a countess, she wasn’t sure she liked this line of reasoning. “You’re also men of kind and tender hearts,” she said. “You could have slain the Necromancer and his Weevils with your arrows. Instead you merely killed his crows, and only when attacked.”

The little man puffed out his chest in indignation. “How dare you call us good and decent, kind and tender? We’re ruffians. Savage ruffians. We let the archduke’s wizard and his gang escape to spread our legend.”

“So will we, if you set us free beyond the forest,” Hans replied. “We’re hunted too. We’d never betray you.”

“Besides, we share another bond,” Angela said “We’re Artists: Keepers of the Divine Flame! Warriors of the Imagination.” Angela couldn’t remember where she’d read the line, but it had the desired effect.

“You think I’m an artist?” The little man’s Adam’s apple bobbed up and down like a bird at a rain barrel.

“Upon my word,” Angela declared. “Who else could inspire tavern songs that terrify an archduchy?”

The little man stomped on his hat. “I’m more than an inspiration! I’m the poet who penned those ballads! But who gets the credit? Anonymous!”

“How tragic for you to labor in obscurity,” Angela declared. “You, whose verses are the finest in the archduchy!”

“The finest in the archduchy?” His lower lip wobbled. “You’re the first to ever say so.”

“The world is a hard place for artists,” Angela said solemnly. “A young countess, now deceased, once called my puppet plays childish and silly.”

“The very words that sent me packing from three châteaus and a barony. Oh, such critics deserve to die,” he wept. “Know, then, my true name, kindred spirit. I am Tomas Bundt, Esquire, Artist and Poet Extraordinaire. The Tomas is spelled without an h.” He bowed low, brushing the ground with the brim of his battered buckram hat. “My men are musicians cast from court for playing my wedding serenades. Mocked by nobles of little soul and less taste, we repaired to the great forest, where we have pursued our Muse, taking vengeance on those who abused us.”

A large gray wolf nuzzled his breeches. “Let me introduce Siegfried, the truest friend that ever lived.” He let the beast lick his face. “At first, we feared the wolf pack and tossed it meat to spare ourselves. Such feeding made us their boon companions. Thanks to them and our monster heads, we never need to draw a pistol. One look, and nobles run screaming from their carriages.”

Hans placed his hand over his heart. “Tomas Bundt, Esquire, Artist and Poet Extraordinaire: Take us to the mountain of Peter the Hermit, and when our tale is done, you shall be immortalized for helping to save the Little Countess from the forces of darkness.”

Before Tomas could say a word, Siegfried and his pack began to run in circles, sniffing the air. Now the rest could smell it, too. Smoke. It drifted across the campsite from little fires in the underbrush circling the clearing.

“The Necromancer!” Hans exclaimed. “He’s returned to burn us alive.”

“We’ve no time to lose,” Tomas said. He and his men jumped onto their horses.

“What about us?” Angela cried.

“The Wolf King will never forsake a fellow artist, nor a good-hearted outlaw,” Tomas promised. “Hop aboard.”

Hans cupped his hands. Angela sprang from the foothold to a seat behind Tomas. One leap, and Hans was safely at her back. Tomas and his men spurred their horses and burst through the billowing smoke into the clear night air.

“The Necromancer will follow our scent,” Angela said.

“Fear not,” Tomas replied. “A scent can be tracked over ground, not through water. We’ll gallop to one of a dozen nearby streams and get you to the base of your hermit’s mountain by daybreak.”