After Finn let them go, Quinn sat in front of his four bowls of stew, a dense, dark broth with chunks of pink meat congealed by means of gluey fat to overcooked beets. Colm and Serene both took one look at lunch and declared themselves not hungry. Even Lena said she had to pass. Maybe it was the slime. Or maybe it was the sketches of all those doomed dungeoneers. Or maybe it was Finn’s description of exactly what an acid trap would do to you if you triggered it. Something had squelched their appetites, leaving a feast for Quinn. That boy’s stomach will be the subject of bards’ songs someday, Colm thought.
“That was depressing,” Serene concluded as they discussed everything they’d done that morning. “It’s like they’re trying to spook us. Like they want us to quit before we even get started.”
Lena wasn’t convinced.
“Believe me. If they wanted us to quit, the goblin would have unleashed something more menacing than a pile of green goo,” she said. Colm agreed. Though it certainly had done a number on Dagnor’s face, a little fire and a mop had been all that was required to vanquish it. Hardly the stuff of legends.
“I’ll just be happy to spend the afternoon with Master Merribell,” Serene said. “She’s promised to teach me how to conjure butterflies from flower petals.”
“Terrific,” Lena countered. “Can’t imagine how that won’t be useful.”
“You don’t have to be snotty about it,” Serene said. “I suppose you’ll just spend the afternoon hacking away at something.”
“If I’m lucky,” Lena replied.
Colm put a hand on Scratch’s paw, then caught sight of Tyren and his two friends taking seats four tables away, laughing and making faces. They weren’t alone. There was another girl with them this time, one Colm hadn’t seen before. She had hair so black it looked almost blue, pulled back into a single braid that fell across one shoulder like a sash. Unlike the other three, who were busy throwing food or pounding on the table, her narrow face was shoved into a book big enough to be ammunition for catapults. She had bronze skin and long, thin fingers—the usual number—and looked like she might have come from somewhere far away. Far from Felhaven, at least. Maybe across the seas. She wasn’t particularly beautiful, but there was something about her absolute stillness, her total disregard for what was happening around her, that captured Colm’s attention.
“Who’s she?”
Lena twisted around to get a look, then shook her head.
“Don’t know,” she said. “She’s no warrior, though. A warrior would never be caught dead in leather armor that thin.”
“Her name’s Ravena Heartfall,” Quinn said, moving on to his third bowl, though he seemed to be slowing a little. “She’s a talent.”
Colm gave Quinn his don’t-forget-I’m-just-the-poor-son-of-a-shoe-cobbler look. He had perfected it over the course of the morning, whenever one of them took something for granted as common knowledge.
“You know, a talent? A person with a wide variety of natural abilities. Like Imon Invale. Spellcasting, fencing, disarmament . . . she was working by herself when I was practicing with Master Velmoth yesterday. She can summon a sword out of thin air, and swing it pretty well too.”
Colm nodded, impressed.
“Big deal,” Lena snipped.
Quinn gave her a surprised look. “Rumor has it that she conquered Bloodclaw’s little maze by herself. She’s like a whole dungeoneering party wrapped into one.”
“Why is she hanging out with those three, then?” Serene asked. Like Colm, she was studying the strange figure of Ravena Heartfall intensely.
“Yeah,” Lena seconded, reaching out and snatching her bowl of stew back from Quinn, stabbing forcefully at a carrot. “If she’s so amazing, how come she needs that ogre Tyren?” She stuffed a hunk of meat into her mouth, determined to chew it to oblivion.
Quinn shrugged. “You heard what Master Argos said. None of us can do everything all the time.”
Colm tried not to keep staring. Quinn was right. Finn had made that perfectly clear. In fact, they all had. Fimbly with his sketches. Herren with his slime. If Colm had to take any other lesson from this morning—outside of his being so ignorant of things—it was that anyone, even a talented anyone, would be a fool to try to make it through a dungeon by himself.
Still, he thought, taking one last glance at Ravena Heartfall, it wouldn’t hurt to have someone like that on your side.
“Whatever,” Lena said dismissively. “There’s nothing she can do that we can’t do better.”
“But there’s lots of things she can do that I can’t do at all,” Quinn said. Then he tried to steal Lena’s stew back from her, but she wrapped both hands about it and growled at him. He wasn’t a very good thief.
Odds were, Ravena Heartfall was a better one.
After lunch, Serene and Lena marched off eagerly to meet their mentors and do pretty much the opposite of each other, the druid learning to heal the wounds that the warrior was learning to make. Quinn moped glumly toward the spellcasters’ hall to face one of two masters he’d already set fire to. “And I’ve only been here a day,” he complained. Finn came to collect Colm, seeming to melt right out of the walls.
“Ready to get your hands dirty?” he asked. Colm thought about the ogre’s jelly that had nearly sucked poor Dagnor’s face off. Finn flashed his confident smile. “Don’t worry,” he said. “This is more in your direct line of work.”
They walked along the western corridor, passing by rooms where other dungeoneers were in the middle of their training. Colm peeked, hoping to catch another glimpse of Ravena the Talent, but the only one he recognized was Tyren, hacking away at a practice dummy with a battle-ax. Tyren turned to see Colm spying on him, then gave the dummy one more solid thwack, splitting it down the middle. Colm quickly caught back up to Finn.
“I mailed your letter this morning,” the rogue said. “Though I should tell you, it might take a while. The hawks seldom fly to Felhaven. It’s not exactly the hub of commerce and adventure.”
Colm didn’t need Finn to tell him that. “Can they write back?”
Finn nodded. “You will hear from them soon, I’m sure. I wouldn’t worry. I doubt your sister Celia would let anything happen in your absence.”
Colm nodded appreciatively, though the thought of his sister made his insides ache. “Can I ask you something?”
“If this is about the scar, I told you, I got it in a knife fight with a pirate lord off the coast of Mardoon.”
“You said it was a goblin executioner,” Colm corrected.
“Who just happened to be a pirate lord,” Finn replied wryly. “What was your question?”
“I was thinking about the test. To get into the guild. Not the dungeon. That I understand. But the coin. I mean, what was the point, if you were just going to give it to me regardless? Why even make me try to get it? Was it just a trick? Or did you just want to see me make a fool out of myself?”
Finn stopped in front of a door, the last one at the end of the hall.
“No trick, Colm Candorly. I just wanted to make it clear which of us was the master.”
“As if that was ever in doubt,” Colm muttered. Finn shook his head.
“Rule number twenty-three. Be the best there is at what you do, and always be aware that someone does it better.” Finn opened the door and ushered Colm inside. “Welcome,” he said, “to my workshop.”
Colm looked around the room. It didn’t look anything like his father’s workshop back home. Of course, Rove Candorly’s shop wasn’t much more than a table and a barrel of tools in one corner of their warped wooden barn. Finn’s workshop was much more elaborate, overflowing with cabinets and chests, shelves nearly collapsing under the weight of books, the floor littered with all manner of gadgets that Colm couldn’t identify. One wall was covered in maps, most of them ancient-looking and torn. Another was covered in keys of varying lengths and designs, each hanging from its own ring. A skull sat on the corner of a large walnut desk, its top sawed off to make a morbid candleholder.
“Wow,” Colm said.
“It’s nothing like Tye Thwodin’s, I can tell you that, but it serves its purpose.”
Colm walked over to the wall of keys and started touching them. They made a kind of forlorn music when they fell against one another. “Do you know what they all go to?”
Finn shrugged. “I did at one time, I suppose, but there are a lot of doors that, once opened, are never shut again, making half of those keys superfluous. Besides,” he added, “rule number thirty-nine. Most of the doors worth opening don’t have a key—at least not one you can easily get your hands on. That’s why there are people like us.”
Colm turned from the keys to the maps, running his fingers along the borders of mountains, tracing the snaking trails of rivers. He didn’t recognize most of the names of the places he read. He found Felhaven on one of them and was surprised at just how small it was. Barely a dot, with its name scrawled in scrunched letters.
Then he turned to the far wall, and the most unusual door he had ever seen.
“What’s that?”
“That,” Finn said, beaming proudly, “is my own personal invention. My pride and joy.” He pursed his lips. “Well, it’s not exactly my invention. I had some help from Renny . . . and Velmoth . . . and some of the other masters. But it was still my idea. I needed an easy way to teach the craft that we rogues are so well known for, so I created . . .” Finn paused for dramatic effect, then thrust both hands toward it. “The Door of a Hundred Locks.”
Colm stood at the door, which had been set into the wall. Sure enough, it was practically covered in intricate plates of copper, iron, and silver, each with a keyhole, some big enough to shove in a dagger, others barely large enough for a horse’s hair. “Where does it lead?”
“Where do you think? To a mystical land teeming with nymphs and sirens and sprites that tumble playfully through the eaves of dancing trees and feed you sweet nectar from a crystal bowl,” Finn said, his eyes wide.
Colm raised an eyebrow, put a hand on the door. “Sure. But where does it really lead?” he asked.
“It’s actually just the closet where I keep my spare shoes. But it’s not what’s behind the door that matters. Not in this case, anyways. It’s the getting it open. After all, we are rogues. We are counted on to get into places and things we otherwise shouldn’t. That requires tremendous skill.”
Colm nodded. “And there are really a hundred different locks?” Colm had only counted the top row.
“Not exactly.” Finn coughed. “But the Door of Sixty-Seven Locks didn’t have quite the same ring to it.”
Still, sixty-seven locks was impressive. Colm wondered what you would have to be hiding to need so many different locks. Certainly something more valuable than Finn’s spare boots. “And you know how to pick every single one of them?”
Finn nodded. “Though I admit some of them still pose a challenge for me. This one, for example”—he pointed to a lock along the top with a golden face no larger than Colm’s thumbnail and a hole no bigger than a freckle—“is called the Twitch. The tumbler inside requires only the most infinitesimal movement, barely a nudge. Less than a nudge. A breath. Force it too much one way or the other, and it triggers its fail-safe mechanism, usually a trap of some kind leading to your—”
“Untimely demise,” Colm finished. The lessons of the morning weren’t lost on him.
“Right. And this row,” Finn continued, pointing to a column of locks marching down the door’s right side, “is made up entirely of enchanted locks, which means that they are protected by magic of some sort or another. Even the most skilled rogue in history couldn’t get past them without some means of countering that magic.”
“Like a counterspell?” Colm wondered.
“A counterspell, certainly. Though you know how I feel about letting mages handle anything as sensitive as picking locks. There are other things that rogues can use. Scrolls. Talismans. Magic Dan’s Antimagic Paste.”
“Magic Dan?” He was sure Finn was teasing him again.
“Of course you haven’t heard of Magic Dan’s. They probably don’t carry it in any of the stores in Felhaven. Fantastic stuff, though. Comes in a little jar. Rub a little on the outside, and it eats away at the enchantment. Not good for really high-level magic, mind, but it can nullify a goblin shaman’s ward in minutes.”
“How come you didn’t put any of it in my bag, then?”
“Oh. It’s terribly expensive,” Finn explained. “We don’t go handing it out to just anybody. Now look here.” He pointed to a series of ten locks on the left. They were not particularly ornate, though they seemed to grow more complex as they descended. “These are the starters. This first one”—pointing to the top—“is just like the one you picked to get out of Renny’s dungeon. We begin with these, doing them over and over again until you can unlock them in your sleep; then we move on to the next ten and the next ten and so on, until finally you tackle that one.” Finn turned and pointed to the corner of the room, to a small chest made of iron, sealed with a silver plate. “Pick that, and you’ll be my hero.”
“You’ll have to show me how,” Colm said, staring at the lock, thinking it looked like many of the others already set into the door and wondering what was so special about it.
“I wish I could.” Finn shrugged.
“You mean you’ve never even opened it?”
Finn shook his head.
“You don’t even know what’s inside?”
The corners of Finn’s mouth twitched. “Nobody knows,” he said. “Maybe all the treasure in the world. Maybe a pile of dust. Maybe my missing fingers.” The glint in the rogue’s eye soon faded as he turned back to the door of a hundred locks—rounded up. “But as in all things, the best place to start is the beginning.”
Colm fished in his sack for his lockpick set, the one Finn had given him, but found only the dagger and the jewel. He dug through the sack again, then looked up.
Finn dangled the picks over his head.
“Even I have to stay in practice,” he said.
Colm snatched them back, then turned toward what had to be the best-protected pair of old boots in history.
He picked until he had blisters. Then he picked until they burst. It was excruciating. The picks were finicky, and he found he had to hold them in a variety of awkward positions depending on what lock he was working on.
In addition, he had several different picks to choose from, some with diamond tips or circles, some shaped like a saw blade or a pair of fangs or a rake. At first Finn wouldn’t tell him which pick to use for which lock, just let him fumble around for a bit, experimenting. Only when Colm’s sighs grew sufficiently exasperated did the rogue stop to explain, pointing to the proper pick and describing the mechanism inside the lock, how the tumblers worked and how many pins each one contained. He taught Colm the difference between a wafer lock and a disk lock, when to rake and when to push, how much tension to apply to get everything lined up just right. He taught Colm how to listen, putting his ear to the door, waiting for the characteristic click that Finn said was “the sound of gold in your pocket.” He held Colm’s hands and moved them around, like a puppeteer, but with such minute gestures it hardly seemed like either of them was moving at all. After each lock, Colm would open the door to reveal one pair of dusty boots. Then Finn would set the next one and close the door again.
Colm conquered the first two locks with little trouble. The third took most of an hour.
“Patience,” Finn would say, and Colm would relax for a moment, take a deep breath, and flex his fingers to get the blood back in them. Then, two minutes later, Finn would scream “Troll!” or “Spider!” or “Flaming skull!” and beg Colm to hurry lest they both perish by the claw of whatever imaginary creature was stalking them, causing Colm to get nervous and fumble with the lock, dropping his picks and losing any progress he had made.
“Stop doing that!” Colm protested.
“Working under pressure is the rogue’s hallmark. One slip, and your whole party is doomed. Your craft requires the utmost concentration and mental agility. Now hurry up before this imaginary ogre eats me.”
By the time the afternoon was over, Colm had managed to undo the third lock and the fourth. He was just starting on the fifth when Finn told him his time was up, reminding Colm that he wasn’t the only member of the guild who needed training.
Colm nodded. He had hoped to make it further. He had had a notion, when he first saw the door, that he would make it through the first ten locks in a day. After the first lock, Finn had called Colm “a natural.” But Colm couldn’t help but feel disappointed.
“You know,” Finn said, stopping him on the way out, “lock number three is the same one the magistrate of Felhaven uses for the town’s treasury. I know. I’ve seen it.”
Colm wasn’t sure why Finn was telling him this. He didn’t respond.
“Which means you already know enough to be as rich as him.” The rogue offered Colm a wink and then shooed him out the door.
Colm left the workshop, picturing himself breaking into the Felhaven treasury in the middle of the night. Imagine the look on the magistrate’s face when he woke up to find his coffers empty. But as soon as the thought sneaked in, Colm felt guilty for having it. He had no intentions of robbing the magistrate. Rule number one. He gently rubbed his three sore fingers with his other hand and made his way to the dining hall.
The evening stew was whitish, with beans and bacon, a smell that reminded Colm of home—on the rare occasions when his family could afford bacon. An afternoon of listening for dropping tumblers and fidgeting with picks had given him an appetite, at least.
Serene noticed him in the archway and waved him over. She looked to be her normally cheery self, and Quinn also seemed pleased, which was nice; Colm had hoped the mageling would have a better afternoon. This time it was Lena who was scowling. One look at her finger told Colm most of what he needed to know. He sat across from her, pulling the basket of bread away from Quinn, who appeared to be hoarding it like a dragon, and pointed to the bandage on Lena’s finger.
“I don’t want to talk about it,” she snapped, slowly bending her iron spoon in half. Colm looked to Quinn, who raised his eyebrows sympathetically.
“She lost,” he said.
Colm nodded solemnly. She lost. It didn’t even matter what she had lost at. Lena was the kind of girl who could take a bad coin flip personally. But this was much more serious.
“She was bested in single combat,” Quinn explained. “By him.” The mageling pointed across the room with his spoon at the table in the corner where Tyren was attempting to eat an entire loaf of bread in one mouthful. Lena twisted the spoon some more, apparently trying to tie it into a knot.
“Oh,” Colm said. That was serious.
Quinn and Serene both nodded. “Only wooden swords, but apparently he caught her knuckle just right. There was a little . . . you know.” Across the table, Lena shuddered and closed her eyes. “She didn’t faint—but she did get a little woozy and lost her balance. Tyren disarmed her in two moves.”
“It was a cheap shot,” Lena said. “He tried to draw blood.”
Colm considered telling her that that was generally what sword fighting was all about, but thought better of it. The spoon was a mangled loop of twisted metal already, and he thought she might just throw it at him.
“On the plus side,” Quinn remarked, “I learned how to boil water today. Watch.”
The mageling pointed at his bowl of stew and began chanting under his breath. A moment later, you could see the first bubble start to surface, and soon the bowl of bacon and beans was bubbling and popping like it was still over the coals. “You want yours warmed up?”
Colm shook his head. Better not to risk it.
“I learned how to speak dog,” Serene said, beaming. “I mean, I knew already, but I was a little rusty. We don’t have wild dogs in the glade. Most of the elders prefer owls for pets. Or wolves.” She shivered in her seat.
“Wolves are just big dogs,” Colm suggested.
“And panthers are just big cats too, but you wouldn’t just go up and pet one.”
Colm was about to tell them about the door of not nearly a hundred locks and how he had managed to get through the first four already when the normally boisterous dining hall fell silent. A familiar figure stood in the archway, practically filling it. He peered out from behind his lion’s mane of hair, his bulk barely contained in his golden armor.
“Don’t be quiet on my account,” Tye Thwodin said. “Roar! Boast! Shout! We are adventurers! We are meant to be loud!” There was a pause, and then slowly conversation returned as Master Thwodin stomped through the room.
“What’s he doing here?” Colm wondered.
“He does this, I hear,” Lena offered, snapped out of her funk by the presence of the guild’s founder mingling with his charges. “To get to know his new dungeoneers better.”
Colm watched the legendary warrior work his way down the tables, clapping his recruits so hard on the back that it made them choke, sometimes reaching over and stealing some of their food or swigs from their cups. Nobody dared tell him no. It was his castle, after all. Finally he made his way to Colm’s table and peered down at the lot of them.
“Aha. Here’s some fresh faces,” he bellowed. “How was your first full day as official dungeoneers in training?”
Quinn nodded eagerly, probably too nervous to try and speak. Serene said it was excellent, thank you. Colm smiled.
“And you, Miss . . . Proudmore, is it? Got your first war wound, I see.” He pointed to her knuckle.
“Just a scrape, sir,” she said, not looking up. So there was at least somebody she didn’t have the nerve to stare down.
“Just a scrape? Judging by the size of that bandage, I’d say you nearly lost the finger! You might know something about that, though, wouldn’t you?” Tye added, staring at Colm. Colm was about to explain how he had actually been born that way when a young man Colm didn’t recognize walked briskly through the dining hall, snapping to attention in front of the head of the legion.
“Master Thwodin, there’s a matter requiring your attention, sir,” the young man whispered.
“Can’t you see I’m mingling?” Tye Thwodin barked.
“Yes, sir. But it’s kind of urgent,” the messenger insisted. “It’s Master Wolfe, sir. He has returned.”
Colm noticed that everyone within earshot suddenly froze, mouths shut, ears perked, eyes wide.
Tye Thwodin simply shrugged. “And what? He wants me to fetch his slippers for him? I assure you, Grahm Wolfe can find the front door by himself. He’s a bloody ranger who killed his first orc when you were still sucking on your own toes. Let’s just leave the poor man alone.”
“That’s the thing, sir,” the messenger said. “He’s not alone. He has . . . company.”
There was a heavy pause as Master Thwodin considered the implications. Then he gave the young man a penetrating stare. “Well, in that case, call the other masters. And then run down to the armory and grab my hammer. You know which one.”
The messenger spun around and ran back through the archway at twice the speed he had come in. Master Thwodin turned back to Colm’s table. “Sorry to cut the conversation short,” he said. “But it appears we have guests.”
It didn’t take long for the dining hall to clear out. Once Tye Thwodin gave the command for the other masters to arm themselves and meet him at the front gates, the younger dungeoneers collectively determined that dinner was over. Even Colm got a little chill when the gilded giant of a man stomped out of the dining hall, bellowing commands. There was a huge commotion as the surge of trainees funneled through the archway into the great hall to the front doors, but they were quickly stopped by Master Merribell, who had both hands raised, commanding them to halt.
“Where do you think you’re going?” she demanded.
“To watch,” Lena said eagerly.
“I’m afraid not. The castle is on lockdown. You should return to the dining hall until the lookout rings the all clear.”
Master Thwodin, Smashy Two now slung across one shoulder, heard the collective groan and turned around. “It’s all right, Bell. It’s just a little raiding party. Let them watch from up top. It will be educational.” Then he turned and strode toward the giant double doors beneath the hourglasses, Masters Velmoth and Stormbow in tow, along with the goblin. Colm noticed that Finn was not among them. Apparently rogues weren’t called upon to defend the castle from invaders.
“Come on!” Quinn said, tugging on Colm shoulder. “I don’t want to miss this!”
Colm turned and followed Quinn up the stairs, catching Lena and Serene and the rest of the crowd as they made their way through the halls to the doors leading out to the battlements. Colm had been on the roof to visit the rookery on his first day, but this time they moved toward the front of the castle, looking down over the courtyard and the field beyond, edged by the emerald forest all around.
Colm froze. There, racing across the wet grass, leaning hard into his horse’s mane, was a figure dressed in black. Both hands clutched the reins as the steed’s hooves kicked up clods of mud behind him, the pair making straight for the castle gate.
This, apparently, was Master Wolfe. And the messenger was right: he wasn’t alone.
Along the edge of the forest, pouring out from between the trees, was a wave of orcs—Colm recognized them from the book Herren Bloodclaw had insisted they read. In person, they looked much more vicious than their black-and-white engravings: clubs and axes brandished, ugly green-and-brown faces contorted in snarls. The monsters were mounted on what looked to be giant boars with tusks the size of tree branches, two to a back, careening down the sloping plain that led to the castle’s outer wall. You could hear the thunder of their hoofbeats.
“Didn’t he say little raiding party?” Serene asked. There had to be at least fifty of them.
The boars were fast—faster than Colm had ever imagined they could be—but the black-clad figure’s horse was faster. There was no way they would catch him. All around him, he heard the other young dungeoneers cheering Master Wolfe on. Colm had to admit, it was more exciting than sitting in Finn’s office blistering his fingers.
“He’s going to make it,” Quinn said.
Colm agreed. The ranger would have, certainly. That is, if he hadn’t stopped, his mottled gray mare reeling back and wheeling around to face the horde bearing down on him.
“What’s he doing?”
A girl standing behind them, tall enough to look over the top of Colm’s sandy mop of hair, laughed. “It’s Master Wolfe. What do you think he’s doing?”
The figure on the horse crossed both arms, reaching down to either side of his belt and drawing the two swords he found there. Colm thought he could almost hear, from all the way up the castle walls, the zing of the metal pulled from the scabbards.
“Anywhere and Anytime,” Lena cooed, her voice steeped in pure awe. “The twin blades of one of the most feared swordsmen ever.” Colm looked down at Scratch by his side.
“Wait a minute. He’s not actually going to attack them, is he?” Quinn croaked.
Colm wondered what Finn would say, outnumbered fifty to one. Run. Run and hide and live to fight again. But the man with a sword in each hand charged instead—the clop of the horse’s hooves mixed with the rolling drums of two dozen barreling boars, destined for a collision in the middle of the field. Colm figured the ranger might take down four of them. Ten, if he was as legendary as everyone around here seemed to think he was. But that still left forty clubs, axes, and scimitars to deal with, not to mention all those gouging tusks. It looked like suicide.
The ground swelled. The loose stones on the battlements quivered. Beside Colm, Serene covered her eyes. Lena let go of the edge of the stone wall she’d been gripping and took a step backward. They were only twenty yards apart now. Ten. Five.
Suddenly there was a booming crack, loud enough to make Colm cover his ears. The steed and her rider skidded to a halt just as the ground trembled and split right in front of him, a huge wall of stone erupting from the earth in the middle of the field, towering up toward the clouds in an instant. The first row of boars crashed into the spontaneously erected rock wall, careening into one another, spilling their riders. The stone wall was so tall, Colm could barely see over it, even from four stories up, and it caught nearly half of the orcs in the pileup. But the half behind split like a stream and circled around the wall toward the ranger, who had taken several steps back, swords in hands.
Then there was another shout. One young girl pointed down over the ramparts, and everyone surged to see the other masters galloping forth on horses of their own, Tye Thwodin in the lead, riding a warhorse as big as a barge, his giant hammer incomprehensibly held upright in just one hand. The crowd let out another cheer. Colm cheered right alongside them.
The two armies met in the middle of the field.
What followed was pure chaos—a little like watching all of his sisters try and get ready for the town festival. A flurry of motion and squealing and squabbling with limbs flying, clothes ripped and torn, spit and sweat and even a little blood. Colm tried to take it all in at once, realized that was impossible, then simply let his eyes dance from one spectacle to another.
He saw one orc take an arrow to the leg and fall from his mount. Saw another zapped by a jolt of lightning brought down from the clouds. He saw Smashy Two literally send a boar and its two riders airborne, somersaulting twice before hitting the ground. But for all there was to see—Master Stormbow crunching skulls with her mace; Master Velmoth, his rabbit ears somewhat shrunken but still bouncing, summoning balls of blue energy in his palms and tossing them at incoming riders; Master Thwodin smashing orcs from their mounts as if it were a carnival game—Colm’s eyes kept coming back to the ranger, Wolfe, who fought with the same ferocity as Master Thwodin but with twice as much grace, striking and thrusting, feinting and parrying as if it had all been rehearsed, a dance he’d performed a thousand times. Colm could hardly catch his breath.
It was over almost as soon as it began. Though well over half the orcs still stood, they knew they were beaten. Gathering their wounded and remounting as best they were able, they sounded a plaintive howl of retreat and thundered back toward the edge of the forest, the chorus of shouts from the roof of the castle and Tye Thwodin following after them.
“Did you see that?” Quinn asked, jumping up and down. Serene shook her head emphatically, only now peering through slits between her fingers. Colm looked around, casually at first, then with a stone dropping in his stomach.
“Lena?”
She was gone.
“Where did she go?”
“I don’t know. She was j-j-just here,” Quinn stammered, instantly panicked.
Colm searched the crowd. Quinn called her name. There was no response, though it was nearly impossible to hear anything through all the cheering. She should have been at the front, angling for a better view. She would have wanted to be as close to the action as possible. That was her way.
“Oh, no,” Colm groaned to himself. Just then they heard some shouts coming from the corner of the parapet. Several trainees were pointing over the ledge. “Oh no,” he repeated.
Colm, Quinn, and Serene shouldered their way to the front.
“So typical,” Serene said.
There, down below, far from the center of the battle that had already come to a close, stood a trio of orcs that had split off from their war band, looking for an easier way into the castle. Either they hadn’t heard the call to retreat or they were too brave or too stupid to follow it.
Lena stood in front of them, sword in hand, just as brave and stupid.
How she had sneaked past Master Merribell, Colm didn’t know, but it was definitely her. Grunting and snarling, the three orcs surrounded her, their black blades held high, ready to cleave her in two. Lena spun in place, trying to keep an eye on all of them at once. Colm glanced back toward the front of the castle. In the courtyard, Tye Thwodin was busy cursing the fleeing orcs, imploring them to come back and meet the end of his hammer. The masters didn’t know that one of their young dungeoneers was about to be skewered.
“Quinn, do something! Shoot a fireball or something,” Serene pleaded, but the mageling just shook his head.
“I have j-j-just as g-g-good a chance of hitting her!” he said. “Or you!”
Colm looked around frantically and found a loose stone that had come free from the wall. It was pear sized, hardly big enough to do any damage, but with the right throw . . . Colm closed one eye and launched the rock over the side of the rampart, catching one of the three orcs in the shoulder, causing it to look up.
It was just the distraction Lena needed. The moment the orc took its eyes off her, she spun and lunged, striking a blow that caused it to stumble backward. The other two swung for her, but she somehow managed to turn in time to deflect them. With cries of rage, the creatures advanced, lashing out, forcing her to the defensive. There was nothing subtle about their movements, and Lena managed to meet each stroke easily, but the force of their blows knocked her sword back every time, giving her no chance to recover. The orcs’ furious assault had her backed against the castle’s outer wall.
Colm knew he had to act. It would take too long to get down there using the stairs; she wouldn’t last ten more seconds. The castle roof was four stories from the ground. A fall from this height would break several bones, but maybe he could use the stones to climb down somehow. He had one foot over the ledge when Serene’s hand stopped him. She pointed toward the courtyard, to a blur of black and gray bearing down on Lena and her two assailants, a blade in each of the rider’s hands.
Anywhere and Anytime struck once apiece, and it was over. Two orcs hit the ground, and the third scurried away with a shriek. Grahm Wolfe circled around, leaned over, and with one hand pulled Lena up to his horse. The crowd around Colm loosed another cheer. Serene leaned over the castle wall, head in her hands.
“She’s safe,” Quinn said.
“She’s something,” Colm said.
Down below, Lena wrapped her arms around the ranger newly returned, burying her head in his cloak.
As quickly as they had galloped up the stairs to the roof to watch the battle, the wave of young dungeoneers washed back down to the great hall to see the victorious masters parade through the doors. The entry was instantly filled with the hulking frame of the guild’s shining founder, Smashy Two sitting atop his shoulder, a look of satisfaction emblazoned on his face. There was a round of huzzahs as the rest of the masters filed in, chins in full jut, eyes burning with blood lust and pride.
Bringing up the rear was Master Wolfe.
For the first time, Colm got a good look at his face. It was depressingly handsome. Thin scruff of black beard and cold gray eyes like thunderclouds. Not a scar to be seen. Finn had a certain charm, a disarming smile, but his face was too sharp. Master Wolfe looked positively princely.
Beside him, armor covered in mud, Lena walked with her chin dug into her chest. Neither of them seemed to pay any heed to the cheering, even though Master Wolfe had been responsible for taking out seven orcs himself—and that was only what Colm had seen.
“Well, that was a romp,” Tye Thwodin bellowed. “Who did they think they were, taking on Thwodin’s Legion, hm? And on our own home turf, no less. Now, who wants dessert?”
The crowd of dungeoneers cheered in affirmation, then followed the boisterous master back toward the dining hall, the founder calling for Fungus to serve up something rich for a change. Colm, Quinn, and Serene held back. Master Wolfe had drawn Lena aside and was talking to her in whispers. He wasn’t pointing fingers, and his expression never changed. If it was a lecture, it was a mild one. Finally she nodded and he touched her lightly on the shoulder, then turned away. Colm watched the ranger quickly catch up to Master Thwodin and pull him over to the spiral staircase, their heads pressed close together, quickly immersed in quiet conversation.
Lena shuffled over to them. She had a strange look on her face. Colm quickly considered what to say. He should tell her just how foolish she had been, to sneak off like that and run blindly into a battle all by herself. A speech on the nature of teamwork and patience and knowing one’s limitations seemed called for. He also wanted to mention that it was he who had thrown the stone that distracted the orcs, just in case she didn’t know. He cleared his throat. “That was . . . ,” he began.
“I know,” she said. She looked at him briefly, but then her eyes gravitated toward the stairs and the ranger who had rescued her. “Amazing,” she finished. “Did you see him? Did you see what he can do?”
“Not quite what I was going to say,” Colm mumbled, but he had lost his chance to say what he really thought. Over by the stairs, Tye Thwodin nodded gravely at something Master Wolfe was saying. Colm watched Lena stare a moment more. Then he turned away and looked around the now-empty hall.
He spotted Finn, standing on the far side, underneath the clocks, hands tucked into his pockets.
Staring intently at the returned ranger as well.