Angela was overwhelmed by the reunion. Her heart swelled with happiness for Hans, but her insides choked with loneliness.
Peter saw her pain. “It’s all right, child. It’s hard to share joy when it awakens grief. Your parents. Yet give me a chance and I shall be your father and mother, too, till you’re together with your own.”
Hans and Peter opened their arms. Angela ran to them. The three embraced.
At that moment, there was a clanging of the great hall bell and the cries of hermits racing to the chapel. “Attack! We’re under attack!”
Peter threw open the door. Arrows were flying up from beyond the far ledge and raining down on the plateau. Six hermits scurried inside covering their heads with the tops of wine barrels. “There’re soldiers fifty yards below the ledge.”
“To the catapult,” Peter commanded.
The hermits dived through the hole in the floor.
“What use is the catapult?” Angela asked. “There’s nothing to aim at.”
“Watch and learn,” Peter said, as more hermits poured into the chapel and followed their friends down into the cave and up to the catapult beyond.
“I need a sword and shield for the fight,” Hans said.
“No,” Peter said. “Whatever happens, you must survive. The future of the archduchy depends on it.”
“What?”
“No time to talk now.” Peter grabbed the maps, bound them in two tight rolls, and slid each into a leather quiver. “These are maps of the capital, the countryside, the market square, and the palace. Keep them safe whatever you do.”
Hans and Angela secured the quivers under their coats. Peter tossed them two barrel lids discarded by the hermits. “Hold these over your heads and follow me.”
They raced behind Peter to the barn, arrows raining down around them. Inside, they sprinted to the stacks of wine barrels and caskets in the workshop.
Peter hoisted a large coffin above his shoulders. “This should fit the two of you.”
Angela leaped back. “You mean to bury us?”
“No, to speed you to safety. Get underneath. We’ll run to the right side of the ledge.”
Hans and Angela followed Peter’s lead. As they reached the cliff face, a boulder from the catapult sailed over their heads and disappeared into space.
Peter flipped the coffin over. “Hop in.”
“I don’t understand,” Hans said. An arrow plunged into the ground to his right.
“Just do it!” Angela yelled. He did, Angela right behind.
“Wherever you are, fear not, for I am with you,” Peter said. “I’ve lost you once and never shall again!” He shoved the coffin over the ledge. It sped down the slope.
“The coffin’s a sled!” Angela screamed. “How do we steer it?”
“We can’t,” Hans screamed back as they scissored between two berry bushes. To the left, soldiers on the goat paths stared agape as they whizzed past.
Hans and Angela looked back to see a second boulder catapult high in the air. It crashed on the lip of the ledge and took three wild bounces down the rock face. On each bounce, boulders and ice shattered loose, smashing and cracking the stones and snowpack beneath them.
The slope trembled. The heavy drifts broke free from the mountain. They tumbled earthward. It was an avalanche, carrying all before it.
Hans and Angela had been scared of the speed of their coffin-sled. Now they were scared it wasn’t fast enough. The avalanche was gaining. It drowned their cries in its roar. To their left, soldiers and archers were carried away in massive balls of ice and snow. One ball bounced off a rock behind them and sailed screaming over their heads.
As the barrage overtook them, Hans threw his weight against the coffin’s right side. Its back end shot left, carrying Angela’s weight with it. The coffin banked on its edge and careened right, sweeping around to the far side of the mountain, out of the path of the avalanche.
But not out of danger. Now, as they hurtled to level ground, the snow disappeared. They slid at breakneck speed over grass and stone. Ahead, a sheer drop. They sailed over the edge and plummeted into the white-water rapids of a mountain river. The coffin spun like a dervish.
“Hang on!” Hans shouted.
“I am!” Angela shouted back.
“I know! To me! I mean hang on to the sides of the coffin.”
The vessel barreled downstream, far from the archduke’s encampment. The main river coursed into the great forest, but Hans and Angela came aground in a side stream.
Hans took off his boots and hopped into the water, wading with the coffin to a clearing amid a stand of river reeds.
“We’re alive,” Angela gasped, as Hans lifted her to dry land.
“Yes, but what about Father and the others?”
“They’ll be all right, Hans. I know it. Your father’s a leader.”
“My father.” Hans lingered on the word, overwhelming and strange.
“I know you’re worried,” Angela said. “I would be, too. But we need to concentrate. Arnulf will be after us. We have to find food, make plans. It’s what your father would want.”
“My father. Peter. My father.” Hans pressed his palms to his temples. Panic shot across his face. “Did the maps survive?”
Hans and Angela threw off their soaked coats and slid the maps from their quivers. Relief: The leather casings had kept them dry. Angela smoothed the map of the palace.
Hans shook his head in puzzlement. “How could Father draw that?”
“Perhaps he was the architect? One of the builders?” Angela guessed. “I only care that he drew it.” She pointed at the diagram of the dungeon. “My parents are likely shackled here, in the passageway between the dungeon’s torture chamber and the catacombs.”
“But how do you plan to get into the palace?”
“I’ll figure that out when I get there.”
“When we get there,” Hans said. “I’m coming with you.”
“No. Your father wants you to live. So do I. The chances of that aren’t good in the palace.”
“They aren’t good anywhere,” Hans said. “Whatever we do, we’re safer together. Friends to the end.”
There was a menacing growl behind them. Hans and Angela whirled around. Staring them in the face was a large hungry bear.