WORMSDAY

I woke on Hal’s back. Actually, I was knocked out of my sleep by the hilt of Storey’s annoyingly long sword. Seriously, it slapped me on the head every time Halitosis flapped his wings.

We were on our way back to the Grimhold, but Storey insisted that we pick up the two ogres, Angry and About to Clobber You. She said they worked for Gorey, so she was “contractually bound” to give them a lift home. Apparently, the general had threatened to have her drawn and quartered if she didn’t return with all of us intact. Hal grumbled a bit about the extra weight, but Storey said he’d be paid in gold for his services. So Hal landed, and the ogres stumbled onto his back. Both were happy to catch a ride. And as for us, we were just glad to be headed home. We flew over the snow-covered mountains, soaring high above the bottomless ravines and tall cliffs the ogres had climbed to reach the castle. We glided over the dense forest, descending to the lower altitudes where the snow thinned and the air was warmer. Hal cleared the mountains and soared above the barren flatlands that surround the castle. Storey sat with her back turned to me, head buried in her journal, while Oggy and I enjoyed the view. Hal complained about having too many passengers. And the ogres spent most of the journey just trying not to fall off the dragon’s back.

As the sun faded from the sky, I caught sight of the Grimhold’s obsidian walls and the bubbling water that encircled them. Hal landed at the edge of the Gurgling Lake of Sulfur, and we dismounted. I put my noseplugs in place so I could talk face-to-face with the dragon.

“Thanks for the ride,” I said.

“You are welcome, young warlock. However, you are also on your own for the rest of your journey,” he said.

“I might need a bit more help. You see, we haven’t quite reached the castle,” I said, but Hal shook his big, scaly head.

“This is for the best. Think on it, Wick,” he said. Then he told me he planned to take a nap right there and then, and didn’t expect to wake for a few months. He asked me to rouse him if a year went by. Otherwise, he had done his part and was ready for some well-deserved sleep.

Hal is a pretty smart guy, so I had to trust that what he said was right. And when I thought about it, I realized that he had done me a favor. If he’d dropped off the crew in the Grimhold’s courtyard, EVERYONE would have seen us arrive. If they laid eyes on me, they’d want to know why I’d snuck out of the castle. I didn’t want to explain how I’d tried to snag the thief but had come back empty-handed. Bob and the other grimmies would just laugh at me. But Hal had set us down on the far side of the lake. No one had seen us arrive. So I gave him a tap of appreciation, wished him sweet dreams, and got started on a new plan.

I needed to sneak back into the castle, catch old Wormfinger with the scepter, and turn him over to Gorey. Once I caught the thief, no one would question why I’d left the castle. The mystery would be solved, and I’d be the hero, or so I hoped. That’s how things needed to go down, but there was no way I could slip into the Grimhold on my own. I needed a favor from the team, but Storey and the ogres were just a bunch of hired hands. They weren’t friends like Hal and Oggy, not yet. They were there to protect me, not to follow my orders. If I wanted their help, I’d have to convince them to join my mission.

So I confessed. I told them about Operation Dark Lord and my crazy plans. I said I’d gone on a quest and failed, but I was giving things a second chance. I explained my theory about Wormfinger and the scepter. I even recounted how I’d been visited by the Dark Lord and Dark Lady. I was a changed warlock. And I thought I’d found the thief, but I needed their help to sneak back into the castle unnoticed.

“The grim folk need a Dark Lord. And I’m the only guy you’ve got, so I just need you to move a bunch of really heavy things while I stand around and give orders. It’s basically what leaders do,” I said. It wasn’t the most convincing speech, but I knew the ogres loved to lift things. They looked at each other, nodded their heads, and cried, “We lift!”

Oggy said he’d give it a shot, but Storey totally ignored me. “Call me if a statue falls on your head. Otherwise, I’ve got work to do,” she said as she sat down and started scrawling away in her journal.

I assumed she was working on her plan of attack, so I went back to mine.

As darkness descended on the Gurgling Lake of Sulfur, the liquid turned a toxic shade of yellow, and I had to remind Oggy and the ogres that the water was mostly harmless and only knee-deep. The basilisks were the real danger. They had that nasty habit of turning folks into stone. But, like everyone else in the Grimhold, they needed sleep. Lucky for us, their bedtime had just arrived.

I watched the sun’s last rays disappear from the sky, waiting while the darkness gathered. I didn’t want to risk another basilisk incident, so we hung out until it was plenty dark and I was certain the last of the red-eyed monsters had dozed off.

Then we went to work.

And there was LOTS of it to do, but naturally the ogres did the heavy lifting. It’s not that I’m lazy (though I am), but those guys are just taller and stronger than Oggy or me. We needed to gather up the statues, and it was difficult for someone of my . . . um . . . stature to lift a life-size hunk of stone. They weighed more than I did, so my excuse was pretty solid. Even Oggy, who is half orc, failed to move even one.

Again, I asked Storey to lend a hand.

“I’m a warrior, not a mover,” she replied. “Let me know when you need me to cut something in half.”

I took that as a no and let Storey return to her journal. The ogres didn’t really want her help anyway, and we didn’t need all of the statues. A hundred was enough. That’s about how many they were able to gather up and arrange.

You see, the statues in the Lake of Sulfur were once knights or other invaders—the enemy. They wore armor and held swords and spears and all that stuff. The wood and steel doesn’t turn to stone; that’s not how the magic works. So, with their helmets on and the visors lowered before their stone faces, the statues looked like a real army, or so I hoped. After all, they were still stuck in those silly poses. I tried to use one of the spells from the pocket guide to make a few of the more awkward statues vanish, but I bumped into one of the stone knights while I was waving my fingers and the enchantment fizzled.

So I went back to giving orders. I told the ogres to place the stone soldiers in ranks, just like a real legion of invaders. Gorey had taught me a lot about war, so I knew to put the infantry up front and the archers in the back. I tried to make it all look convincing. But it was still an army of faire folk who were picking their noses, scratching their ears, or trying to relieve themselves in one way or another.

All in all, it was a pretty embarrassing sight, but I didn’t think that would matter. We placed the “army” at the eastern face of the Grimhold. When the sun crept above the horizon, its rays would shine on the backs of the stone soldiers. For the most part, those statues would just look like a bunch of black shapes. I guessed the orcs would mistake those hunks of stone and iron for a full-blown invasion. Let’s face it, those guys aren’t exactly geniuses to start with. And if the Roaming Rash was still at large, most of them would be scratching their armpits instead of looking at the lake.

Oggy napped while the ogres finished up the work. As they set the last statue in place, I got the feeling we were a kind of team or maybe just a bunch of friends helping one another out. We’d achieved something. I felt like a leader. I’d given orders, and at least half the folks had listened to me. It was a start. Storey hadn’t paid me an ounce of attention, but that wasn’t exactly a surprise. She was seated on a rock, her head stuffed in that journal, a tiny candle stuck between her knees. Maybe it was the dark or the fact that we hadn’t slept, but I was finally able to sneak up on the goblin and take a peek at her book. She’d claimed it was filled with military business. But I didn’t see anything like THAT. As she flicked through the book, brilliant landscapes illuminated every page, each one inked in beautiful, intricate detail. One was of a snowy forest, another the frost giants’ castle, the next a rendering of One Eye and his mountainous throne. I saw a drawing of our ice cell and a gorgeous sunset. Her secret was out. Storey was an artist!

“Now I’m going to have to kill you, Wick,” Storey said as she slammed shut her sketchbook and turned on me. “Not a word about this to anyone. Not one peep! You hear me?”

“Hey,” I said. “What’s the problem? I mean, they’re actually kind of nice . . . your drawings. I didn’t know you had so much talent. No one in the Grimhold draws. I painted my dad once, but it was pretty bad. We don’t even have an art professor in Nightshadows. They’ve looked. There’s just no one available. But you’ve got real—”

“Stop it!” she said.

“Stop what?” I asked.

“Stop talking about it. If anyone ever found out about this, it would be the end of my career in the Katsirluki,” she said. There was rage in her voice and her hands were shaking.

“Maybe you should be an artist or something,” I said. “You’ve always got your head buried in that sketchbook.”

“Are you serious? I’ve been training in the Katsirluki since I was two years old, Wick! It’s all Mother has ever wanted—for me to be first soldier of the order!”

“Thought you were third?”

Storey narrowed her eyes. “I’m working my way to the top—okay? I was hoping this little mission would bump me up a notch, but it’ll probably just send me to the bottom of the ranks. So yeah, I might as well say it. I want to draw the world instead of slicing it in half. Yes, I want to be an artist. And you want to be the great and terrible ruler of the grim folk—woo-hoo! Good for you. My life’s been planned out for me as well. You want your job, but I could care less about mine.”

“I’m sorry, I—”

“Shut it!” she said. Then she turned to my stone army and arched an eyebrow. She clearly wanted to change the subject, so she shook her head and furrowed her brow. “You know what?” she said. “This is your dumbest idea yet.”

“Wait until the sun rises,” I replied. I refused to let her spoil my mood. “I’m going to slip into the castle and find that scepter. And you know what? I’m going to fix your problem as well.”

“Good luck with that,” she said, shrugging her shoulders.

I understood her doubts. I’d been wrong about a lot of things lately, but I knew this plan would work. My luck was about to change.