CHAPTER

30

Calib’s relief made him almost sag against the wall, but he held himself together as the oldest bat began to speak.

“We apologize about the scare,” he said. He bowed deeply, though from Calib’s view, it looked like he was doing a sit-up. “We thought you were the witch’s spies. I am King Mir Vortigern the Eighth of the Iron Mountains Bats.”

“And my name is Horatio Eavesdrip, twelfth of my name. I am the chief listener,” said the other, younger black bat in a distinguished, though somewhat snooty, voice.

“Er, nice to meet you,” Thomas said, throwing out a paw to shake. “Never seen a winged rodent before.”

“We like to keep to ourselves when we can,” Horatio said.

“Why are you impersonating dragons?” Calib asked.

“Bats are the guardians of the Iron Mountains. We protect its treasures from being exploited by men,” King Mir said. “We use the dragon legend to keep people away. No one had come in many years until the witch.”

“You mean Morgan,” Calib said.

“If that’s what you want to call her,” Horatio sniffed. “She is a vile thing.”

“How did she find out about this place?” Cecily asked.

King Mir shrugged sadly. “The only Two-Legger who knew about the power buried in this place was Merlin. But I do not think he would betray this information to anyone like her.”

“Unlikely,” Calib agreed. Though he too wondered how the information had reached Morgan. Had Red found something in his stolen scroll?

“In fact, it was Merlin who first gave us the idea of creating a dragon illusion,” Horatio added, seeming to not want to be outdone by King Mir.

“How do you do it?” Thomas asked. “Is it magic?”

King Mir cocked his head. “In a way. Once, long ago, the Iron Mountains used to be volcanoes. The smoke coming from the mountains led people to believe there were dragons in these parts. It doesn’t take much convincing when people are ready to believe something.”

“Those stories are mostly what keep people away,” Horatio added. “But with the help of some illusion spells Merlin provided us, we’ve made sure to keep the legend alive for generations after us.”

Calib’s nose grew hot. His mind had also gone to dragons immediately at the first possible hint of them. If someone was ready to believe something, they could make the facts fit their expectations.

“Merlin’s final request to us was to protect the last of the magic left in this land,” King Mir said.

“So there is no real dragon?” Thomas clarified, sounding much relieved.

“No, but the Saxons don’t know that,” Horatio harrumphed. “For the past several weeks, we’ve been practicing, preparing for when we at last will come face-to-face with those parasites.”

“I have a question,” Cecily said. “What do you eat?”

“We still have pastries in the bag if you want some,” Thomas began.

“No, silly,” Cecily said, shaking her head. “That’s for the others. I’ve already had a pastry. But what I mean to say is . . . how do you get out of here to get food without the Saxons noticing?”

King Mir and Horatio looked at each other. Horatio smirked while the king chuckled. “Why, it’s easy, mouse-maid. We go up!”

The king launched himself off the perch and began to fly upward, spiraling to the top, where, for the first time, Calib spotted a gray pinprick of light.

He gasped. Was that sky? How had he not noticed before? The night must have only just turned to dawn.

Calib’s heart swelled with hope. After days of endless darkness in the tunnels, living in fear, they finally had a way out. A wide grin spread across his face, and he turned back to the bats. “How much are you able to lift?”

“Excuse me?” King Mir asked, clearly disgruntled. “We’re bats, not a carrier service!”

“We share the same enemies. We should fight as one.” Calib spread out his paws. “Help us free the Darkling and Saxon prisoners, and we could all move against Morgan’s army with three times the might that we could muster on our own.”

King Mir shook his head.

“Our only command from Merlin was to protect the mountains’ crystals, nothing more,” King Mir said. “Be you Saxon, Darkling, or from Camelot, all of you stand to be corrupted by greed. All of you are potential enemies. We have nothing to gain by helping you.”

Calib felt an old anger throb like a burning coal in his chest. For generations, everyone had lived in suspicion and fear of one another. That was how they got into this mess in the first place. By not working together, they had let a powerful enemy rise and now threaten them all.

Together in paw and tail, lest divided we fall and fail.

That was Camelot’s motto, carved on the very doors that once contained the Grail. It was about time they actually lived by those words.

“If Morgan isn’t stopped, she will drain these mountains, Camelot—maybe the entire world,” Calib said. “You can hide in your caves as much as you want, but as long as she has command over her prisoners, it’s only a matter of time before she discovers the crystals. You need us—and we need you.”

The bat king was silent for a long while, his face unreadable as he contemplated Calib’s words. Everyone looked to King Mir for guidance, but Horatio was the first to speak.

“I agree with the groundbeast,” the adviser said softly. “It’s true—much of Morgan’s plotting has been to divide and weaken Britain’s creatures, pit them against one another, so that they never put up a strong enough resistance.”

“You know that for certain?” King Mir asked.

Horatio preened back his ears with a flip of his wing. “I’m not the chief listener for nothing.”

King Mir scratched his chin with a claw. “What are you thinking?” he asked Calib, sounding resigned.

Calib smiled, the first one he’d cracked in weeks it seemed. It felt strange on his face, as if he’d accepted a dangerous dare.