Chapter 44
Two Prophecies Fulfilled

The carriage stopped at the center of Market Square. The Necromancer opened the door for Angela and her parents and bowed in mockery. A hush fell over the crowd as he escorted them through the cordon of soldiers to the wooden stacks, lumps of coal bulging from his eye sockets.

The base of each pile was swathed in oily rags. In front, a torch pole the length of a longstaff was mounted in a heavy brass holder next to a flaming cauldron. The executioner hunched beside it in a black hood, chain mail tunic, black leather trousers, and boots. His assistants, the dungeon twins, clapped their hands and giggled.

Angela steadied herself. She turned to her mother and father. “I love you,” she said simply.

“And we, you.” Her mother buried her head in the count’s shoulder. The twins pulled them apart and yanked them up the outer piles of wood.

Angela took a deep breath and extended her hand to the executioner as gallantly as a heroine of legend. He led her up the center stack. While he bound her to the stake, Angela held back her terror by imagining happy endings. None seemed possible until the executioner leaned in to her ear and whispered, “Take heart, girlie. Hans is near.”

In that instant, Angela noticed that the executioner’s right shoulder was the size of a small pumpkin. “It can’t be. Are you . . . ?” But he’d already turned and shambled back to his torch pole.

The Necromancer raised a voice trumpet. “Today we shall rejoice in the death of three notorious witches,” he announced, “creatures who have conspired with warlocks against our great ruler, Arnulf, Archduke of Waldland.”

There were a few cries of, “Death to the witches,” but for the most part, silence. The pitiable sight of Angela and her parents had turned all but the heartiest witch burners mute.

The Necromancer popped the coals from his sockets and tossed them in the air. With uncanny aim, they landed in the cauldron. On cue, buglers on a palace parapet played the royal fanfare. All eyes turned to the reviewing stand. The archbishop, generals, counselors, chief stewards, sundry magistrates and county overseers rose as one. Arnulf appeared under the black velvet canopy of his private box to the applause of his soldiers.

“Long live Arnulf, Archduke of Waldland,” cheered the Necromancer.

The crowd mumbled a refrain and fell to its knees. Except one man.

Tall and broad-shouldered, with a ruddy face, trim white beard, and eyes so blue they dazzled the sun, the stranger jutted his chin at the archduke. “Villain! Tyrant!” his voice rang out, as crisp and clear as a mountain spring. “Today, you and your wizard would burn three innocents at the stake. Their crime? To shield the life and virtue of a maiden you sought to defile.”

The air trembled. Not even the bravest soldiers dared blink.

Arnulf’s lips turned a violent purple. “Who are you, miscreant?”

“One who counted you my brother, but knows you as the devil himself,” the man replied. He doffed his hat. “Yes, Arnulf! It is I, Fredrick, rightful archduke of Waldland, whose death you sought, and that of my child, to steal the crown.”

Citizens struggled for a glimpse of the stranger—the elder remembering the glory times of the good archduke, the younger to see the man whom their parents praised behind locked doors.

Sweat trickled down Arnulf’s neck. But what is truth next to a lie believed? He pointed to the memorial pillar. “Madman,” he scoffed. “Behold the coffins of my brother and his boy.”

“Empty,” Fredrick said, “for I am alive, and so is my son and heir.”

“Guards,” Arnulf ordered. “Arrest the lunatic and tie him to the stake beside the girl.”

Before anyone could move, there was a frantic trumpeting. Sentries from the city’s edge galloped into the square, scattering citizens in all directions.

“The great forest!” they cried.

“What about the great forest?” Arnulf thundered.

“We looked to the mist that lingers at the forest’s edge,” the first declared. “We saw trees and bushes rise from the ground—rise from the ground and march!”

“What?”

“The prophecy’s come true,” the second exclaimed. “The great forest is marching on the capital! With it, wolves and a host of otherworldly beasts—creatures with necks so tall they graze the sky! Sure ’tis the Wolf King and his monster horde.”

Gasps rose from the crowd.

“Quickly, men, the mirrored shields!” Arnulf shrieked.

Some of the soldiers ran to the armory; others spun in circles.

The Necromancer held the rest in check: “Two prophecies remain that shield the archduke better than any mirror,” he hollered into his voice trumpet. “His Royal Highness shall reign till an eagle rises from stone, and his severed hands sail over a sea of bones.”

At those words, there was a grating sound at the top of the pillar. The lid of the smallest stone coffin toppled over and smashed into pieces. Eyes widened as Hans squeezed up through the hole that Knobbe had chiseled in its bottom. “Behold!” Hans cried, and bared the eagle birthmark on his right shoulder.

“Arnulf, your time has come,” Angela shouted from her pyre. “An eagle has risen from stone.”

Market Square rocked in shock.

Arnulf’s face bleached, stiff as starch. “The second prophecy may be fulfilled, yet I have a third to protect me.” He raised the golden reliquary slung around his neck. “Never shall these severed hands sail over a sea of bones!”

With that, he sprang from his box, wielding his sword. In a flurry of leaps, he was at the pillar, bounding up its steps. Soldiers blocked the stairs against any who’d come to Hans’ defense.

Hans squeezed back down the coffin hole. Arnulf smashed it wide with an iron fist. “Now, brother, I go to slice your brat in two,” the monster exulted. “Guards! Seize him!”

Soldiers circled Fredrick as Arnulf jumped down the hole after Hans. But citizens around Fredrick rose from their knees. Other soldiers, too, cast their lot with their rightful ruler. A riot broke out. The cordon of guards around the witch stakes weakened.

“There’s no time to wait,” the Necromancer screamed at the executioner. “Light the bonfires!”

“Only if you be on the pyre,” the executioner replied.

The Necromancer froze. “That voice!”

“Yes, ’tis I, Knobbe the Bent,” the grave robber laughed, and tore off his executioner’s hood. “Did the stink of the crowd and them catacomb bones dull the scent of our county swamps?”

In a rage, the Necromancer grabbed the flaming cauldron with both hands. His palms sizzled as he tossed it to its side. Fiery coals bounced across the cobblestones onto the oily rags below Angela. At once, fire engulfed the base of her wooden hill.

“Help!” Angela cried, but the crowd retreated in terror from the blaze—as creatures on horseback galloped into the square. With the sentries fled, the Wolf King’s men had stormed the capital—the Pandolini children clinging to their backs, the wolf pack racing at their heels. The wolves dashed everywhere. Panicked citizens fled to the parapets, toppling soldiers over balustrades.

The fire roared higher. Angela screamed to the Wolf King. He spurred his men to the bonfire. Their horses reared, unable to leap above the flames.

Amid the pandemonium, the Necromancer fled beneath the reviewing stand. Fearful of the mob, he hid under swaths of bunting and pulled a vial of sleeping potion from his shroud. One whiff of this, and I’ll appear dead, he cackled to himself. Come night, I’ll rise and escape into the dark.

The soldiers seizing Fredrick succumbed to the crowd. He broke free and turned to help Hans. But Angela’s screams tore his heart. He ran to the pyre, where the Pandolinis had formed a human pyramid. Maria’d tied one end of the silk rope to the torch pole and scampered up the pyramid with the other. Knowing exactly what to do, Fredrick grabbed the pole like a longstaff and vaulted onto Tomas’ saddle, where he braced it in a stirrup.

Maria bent her knees and somersaulted from the top of the human pyramid to the top of Angela’s woodpile. She loosed Angela’s bonds and tied the silk rope to the stake. Taut above the flames, it ran like a high wire to the longstaff.

Maria slid hand over hand to safety. Angela clutched the rope, swung her legs high, and found the line with her ankles. She wriggled along the rope. The blaze exploded behind her. The rope burned through and she swung to the ground at the foot of Fredrick’s pole, and into the loving embrace of her parents, already freed by Knobbe.

“Now to my son!” Fredrick exclaimed. But he couldn’t move. The cheering throng swept him onto their shoulders, his cries for Hans lost in their roars.

Siegfried scared a path through the crowd to Angela. She zipped down the opening. As it closed in the crush, Angela slipped between legs and under arms, clawing and biting her final steps to the cathedral. Inside, she barreled through the nave and nipped behind the organ.

The stairs to the cellar were guarded by an executioner. Angela held her breath. Nurse raised her hood.

“Nurse! You! How?” Angela exclaimed.

“Don’t ask.”

Roars echoed up from below.

“It’s Hans and the archduke,” Nurse said. “Who knows how long the lad can survive!”

Angela dived into the catacombs.