CHAPTER SIXTEEN

THE BATTLE

Filomena tries to remember what she knows about ogres from the books: They like to roast their victims before eating them. Ugh!

“They must know you’re in Vineland,” Jack says to Filomena as Zera works frantically to unlock the floorboards. “Someone must have tipped them off. I don’t think anyone would have done so willingly, but after enough pain and torture…”

“Someone must have cracked,” Alistair says, then shakes his head. “I hate them. I wish they’d leave us alone. I just want this to stop.”

“Me too, Alistair. Me too.” At last, the floorboards open and Zera begins to hoist up weapons, handing Jack a bow and arrow and removing axes and knives from the stash. “They’re here for me. And I can’t leave the people of Vineland to suffer. Vineland was kind enough to give me refuge when the sultan was slain and my kingdom taken. I will not leave it to fear and ruin.”

“Neither will I,” says Jack, picking up knives and stuffing them into his boots.

Filomena feels as if she can’t breathe. Outside, everything is eerily quiet. Too quiet. Everyone is hidden. Doors are shut and bolted, windows locked and curtains drawn.

Vineland is holding its breath.

Then: the sound of marching.

The ogres are on their way. In the books, the ogres are described as the ogre queen’s servant-soldier hybrids, obeying her every command to destroy and cause destruction. Filomena swallows hard, telling herself to be brave. That no moment has ever mattered as much as this one is about to. Her very life may well depend on it.

Zera draws back the curtains a sliver, and through it they can see the ogre army. They’re aligned in sloppy rows, for ogres don’t like order, and they are snorting and stamping their feet, eager for mayhem. The ogres are even worse than their description in the book: hideous, deformed, piglike creatures, with massive boils on their leathery hides that their armor doesn’t cover. They’re carrying swords and shields; the archers among them carry crossbows aimed at the sky, ready to rain down fire on the thatched cottages of the village.

“Do we have a plan?” Alistair asks nervously, fidgeting with his hands.

“No,” Jack says. “But knowing we don’t have a plan is better than not knowing we need one.”

“That doesn’t make us feel better,” says Filomena.

“If we can bring down the general, the rest of the army will scatter,” says Zera.

“Which one’s the general?” asks Alistair.

They look out the window. “That one,” says Jack.

An ogre the size of four ogres comes into view. This one is even uglier and meaner-looking than the rest and wields an ugly club wrapped in barbed wire.

“I’ll use my vines to pull him off his gryphon,” says Jack.

“And I’ll kill him with this,” says Zera, pulling out a silver blade from her waistband. “Dragon’s Tooth sword. Cuts through anything. My sister Antonia made this one for me.”

“You guys stay here,” says Jack. “Stay safe. Don’t do anything stupid.”

“But—” Filomena begins to protest.

“No buts,” says Jack. “Stay here. That’s an order.”

“But I know all the spells!” says Filomena. “I can help! There are only two of you against all of them!”

She does have a point.

“She’s been useful so far,” says Zera.

“See?” says Filomena triumphantly.

“We’re going out there?” asks Alistair.

“No, not you,” says Jack. “You stay inside.”

“If Filomena gets to fight, I do, too,” Alistair argues. “I’ll take this,” he says, picking out a large hammer.

Seeing that Alistair won’t be dissuaded, Jack gives in. “Fine. But you guys stick close.”

He doesn’t have to tell Filomena twice. She inches as close as she can to Alistair and Jack without her nose touching either of their backs, and braces herself for battle.

“Let’s go,” says Jack.

For a moment, nothing happens. Everyone is tense, and no one moves.

Then Zera speaks one word: “Now.”

And they charge out of the cottage. They huddle close together, moving forward in a cluster, but once they burst into the clearing and the line of fire, they scatter, Jack and Zera running in a zigzag manner to get to the ogre general.

Thunderbolts crackle and crash from the sky, striking the ground with a vengeance. The ogres roar as they set cottages on fire, and when the inhabitants run out, they stomp on them. They’re terrifying in their size and strength, tossing creatures and fairies every which way as they crush and destroy everything in sight.

Smoke sifts into the air with a scorched scent that loiters in your nostrils, a heaviness overtaking your lungs.

She thinks she hears Zera and Jack shouting out a spell, chanting together. Alistair joins in, she can hear him behind her, but she can’t turn back to look at him. She’s too terrified. Why didn’t she agree to stay in the cottage? What was she thinking? She narrowly dodges a thunderbolt and a tree thrown in her general direction.

Filomena tries to remember a spell—any spell—but she’s too rattled as an ogre stomps his way toward them, his earth-shaking footsteps approaching from behind. She’s trembling as she swivels her head, unable to move the rest of her body as she stares up at the massive beast. She squeezes her eyes shut and prays he doesn’t step on her or pick her up and fling her across the way.

But just as the ogre is about to reach them, a cry of rage rises above the mayhem.

Filomena looks up to see that Jack has used his vines to lasso the ogre general and pull him off his monstrous steed. Zera, her dark hair aflame, has leapt quickly on top of the general, her Dragon’s Tooth sword held high.

“For the Forest and the Vine, the Wood and the Trees!” Zera screams. “And for Parsa!”

With a mighty force, she stabs the ogre general right in the heart.

There is a monstrous roar, and then the ogre general explodes into a million pieces, his dark dust a cloud over the landscape.

There is a communal shriek, and all of a sudden the ogres retreat. The thunderbolts stop. The stomping footsteps come to a halt, replaced by the sound of running.

As quickly as they arrived, the ogres disappear.

A chilling quiet stretches over what’s left of Vineland, covering it like a blanket, like velvet in a casket, laying the riot to rest.

Filomena closes her eyes again and tilts her head back, breathing a sigh of relief. But upon the exhale, she’s so busy trying to collect herself and fathom what just happened, she doesn’t notice the gargantuan ogre still standing there watching them, even though the others have started fleeing.

Because at the precise moment Filomena is thanking the stars that everyone left standing is safe, Alistair is captured without a sound.