The Pitchfork of Destiny (18 page)

Soon, the woman had enough. Will found that he and Charming were passing the jug back and forth and having a wonderful time. They told the old woman stories about their adventures, Gnarsh the troll, the Scoundrel, the Seven Players, the Bremen-­four, and even going north. In no time, they were roaring with laughter.

“And then . . . and then, Will, here,” slurred Charming, “he's sitting in the mud under the bridge remember, and . . .” he laughed and slapped his leg, “and the Scoundrel says, ‘It's nothing personal, Your Majesty. It's . . . it's just business.”

They both laughed, and the woman cackled, then Charming started snoring. Will looked down at the jug in his hands. He raised it to his lips, but only a drop came out. They'd drunk the whole thing. He tried to apologize to the old woman, but his tongue wasn't working properly, and he ended up just mumbling at her.

He looked about, smacking his lips. Sometime in the night, the fire had died low. Across the glowing embers, he saw the old woman sitting on her stone perch, staring at him with a greedy look. His eyes blurred, and he began to nod. He had a feeling he shouldn't fall asleep, but try as he might, the drink was pulling him under.

“Sleep well, Your Majesty,” she said, and smiled her crooked smile.

Will wondered briefly how she knew he was the King, as they had been using fake names, but then sleep overtook him, and he began to snore.

W
ill woke with a blazing headache and the instant knowledge that they were in trouble. He was lying on hard planks, and the world seemed to be moving underneath him, rocking and pitching and jolting. He blinked his eyes open, and bright sunlight stabbed at him, causing intense pain to race about in his skull. He groaned.

There was a cackle of delight from somewhere ahead of him, and he heard the old woman say, “Boys, I think the King is awake. Keep an eye on him.”

“Yes, Mother,” two deep, drawling voices to his left and his right, said.

Will sat up and, squinting through the pain, looked around. Their campsite was gone. He and Charming, who was still snoring softly beside him, were lying in the back of a wagon. They'd been stripped to their underclothes and chains ran from around their ankles to large iron rings set into the wagon's planks. Perched high on the driver's seat sat the old woman, reins in her hands. Beside her were stacked bags of apples and a dozen or so jugs of cider, and all of Will and Charming's clothes and possessions.

Will groaned again at the memory of how much he'd drunk last night, and his stomach rolled queasily.

“Not feeling too good, Mr. Van Winkle? Or is it King William?” the old woman asked, and, turning about, fixed him with her crooked smile.

Two deep laughs from either side of him drew his attention to two enormous-­looking men, probably a few years younger than he and Charming, who were riding alongside the wagon on Will's and Charming's horses.

He responded with a groan and closed his eyes again as though slipping back into sleep. Once his three jailers had lost interest in him, Will quietly tested his bonds and decided there was no hope of breaking free. The chain itself was well made, and whoever had attached them to the wagon had known what they were about. He looked around, trying to get his bearings, but all he could see was that they were traveling along a road under a partial canopy of trees. The sun kept flickering through the leaves. He got a sense that they were in the hills, but beyond that, they might have been anywhere.

“I demand to know where you are taking us,” he said, trying to put as much kingliness into his voice as he could given that he was in his underwear.

“Oh?” the old woman said, turning again to look at him. “Did you hear that boys? His Majesty demands to know.” They all laughed. “Demand all you want, but we're no longer your subjects. We answer to a higher power now.”

She turned back to look at the road.

Will rubbed his temples. “Would you please, good lady, tell me where you are taking us?”

She shrugged and, not bothering to look at him this time, said, “No reason not to tell you, I suppose. We're taking you to Two Trees. Soon, you will be the guest of the Dracomancer. I'm sure he'll give you a proper Royal Reception.” They laughed again.

“The Dracomancer?” Will asked confused. “Are you one of these . . . Dracolytes I've been hearing about?”

They began to laugh again. “No, my dear,” the old woman said between cackles. “We aren't in the Dracomancer's army.”

“If you don't believe in the Dracomancer, then why have you captured us?” Will asked angrily.

“Who said anything about believing or not believing,” the old woman said, and fixed him with a knowing eye. “Castle White is a long way from here. In these parts, the Dracomancer is the power. If you want to get along, and we always want to get along, then you work for the Dracomancer, one way or the other. We may not want to go fight dragons for the man, but we do our bit.”

“Yeah,” said the man on his right. “We don't go in for the idea of throwing ourselves into a dragon's belly for the Dracomancer. Right, Ma?”

“That's right, my lovely boy,” the woman said sweetly. “Dracolytes are true believers, and I say let them have their fun. It's no business of mine.”

“So, if you aren't Dracolytes, what are you?” Will asked. “And what is your business with us?”

“So many questions,” the old woman sighed. “I think I liked you better when you were sleeping.” She cackled. “What was that funny saying your friend, Prince Charming, used last night?” She thought for a second. “Oh, yes, it's nothing personal, it's just business. We are recruiters. We go out and bring in ‘willing' subjects and give them a chance to swear their allegiance to the Dracomancer.”

“But I am the King,” Will said angrily. “You know I won't bow down to this man.”

She shrugged. “I still get my fee, but more's the pity for you if you refuse. More's the pity. But cheer up, dearie, we are almost there.”

The canopy of trees fell away, and they entered an area of fields from which, perhaps a league or so away, they could see the town wall.

Will had never been to Two Trees though he'd heard enough about the place over the years. It had a notorious reputation as being Magdela's favorite target. The scars from those attacks could still be seen around him. The homes surrounding the town and the walls of the town itself had clearly suffered heavily. Every building, it seemed, had some damaged, burnt, and scorched sections of wood, partially collapsed walls, caved-­in roofs. He found it odd that ­people were still living in these wrecks, but smoke curled from chimneys, children played in front yards, women hung laundry from lines. He studied the town more carefully.

Unlike most kings and nobles, Will had a practical eye, and though at first glance the houses and walls of the town appeared to be ruins, the appearance didn't bear up under closer inspection. It was true that blackened ruins of charred buildings stood all around, but these appeared to be facades. Behind them, or in some cases within them, stood newer structures that were perfectly intact. He began to believe that Two Trees' reputation for disaster was perhaps the result of civic planning.

This was only reinforced when signs began appearing at regular intervals, which read, “Suffered another Dragon attack. Have pity. Please donate. Gold preferred—­Copper not accepted.” Since becoming King, he'd been puzzling over the records coming from Two Trees. At one point, he calculated that the number of ­people reportedly killed by dragon attack in Two Trees was only slightly less than the number of all the ­people living in the entire rest of the kingdom combined, but he'd thought at the time that it must be an error in recordkeeping, a misplaced decimal point. Now he wasn't so sure.

Much as Prosper has made an industry of Magdela, they have made an industry of disaster.
He sighed. “I never did understand how the ­people of Two Trees survived, or why, given the number of dragon attacks they've experienced over the years, they didn't abandon the place.”

He decided if he ever got out of this and made it back to Castle White, he would have to revisit how much of the Royal Treasury was going to help with repairs to Two Trees every year.

As he was contemplating the problem, Charming groaned next to him, then in a sudden burst of movement, rose to his knees, which was as far as the slack in his chains would allow, and shouted, “Have at you, villain! I'll tear you apart!”

The wagon jolted to a stop, knocking Charming back to the floor. The men laughed deeply, and the woman cackled wickedly.

“Now both my pretties are awake, and just in time,” she said.

The wagon had come to a stop at the wall to the town. A great wooden gate stood closed in front of them. Emblazoned upon it was a picture of a dragon crossed out with a red “x,” along with a picture of a crown, also crossed out in the same way. Up on the wooden gatehouse, a sentry held a bow with an arrow notched.

“Who goes there?” shouted the archer. “Who seeks permission to enter Two Trees?”

“New recruits for the Dracomancer,” shouted the women in her crooked voice.

Charming smacked his lips, blinked his eyes, and looked blearily about. “What's going on, Will? Where are we? Where are my clothes? Why are we chained to a wagon? Why is that woman telling that man that we are volunteering to be Dracolytes?”

“We are being handed over to the Dracolytes as recruits, Two Trees, in the front of the wagon, and because she's a BLOODY MERCENARY WITH NO MORALS.”

“Oh,” Charming said with dawning comprehension. “One last question. Why have my silk underclothes been exchanged for these lady's things?”

The woman cackled in delight, and, cracking the reins across the back of the horses, they rolled through the gate into Two Trees.

I
n short order, Charming and Will found themselves locked in a muddy stockade formed of long poles set deep into the earth with about a dozen other men also in their underclothes, and at least one who had no underclothes at all. A handful of men in black robes were standing atop a wooden platform that rose above the stockade fence. They were picking through piles of clothing and boots and weapons that must have belonged to the men in the stockade. Will recognized his doublet and Charming's sword among the things.

Will had quickly decided that their best option for surviving this was to blend in, get recruited, then escape quickly. Unfortunately for Will, as Charming's faculties returned, his indignation at their situation grew more and more voluble.

“This is intolerable, Will,” Charming said loudly. “I have made it a point to never put anything other than silk next to my skin, and now look at me. I suppose this is cotton, but it is so ill made and coarse that it might as well be burlap.”

“Charming, be quiet,” Will said. “We have bigger problems.”

“Bigger problems? Bigger problems?” he shouted, then his voice lowered to a vicious hiss. “What about the chafing, Will? The Chafing!”

“Quiet down there!” one of the men in black robes said. He was wearing a tall cap with what looked like beady eyes and a long, forked tongue of red fabric sewn onto it. “Right you lot, line up and prepare to take your oath of loyalty and obedience to the Dracomancer.”

They started to shuffle about aimlessly and formed a sort of ragged line through the middle of the stockade; only Charming stood off to one side. He kept arranging and rearranging the underclothes he was wearing and muttering darkly about numbness and pinching.

“You!” the dragon-­capped Dracolyte shouted from atop the platform, pointing at Charming. “Get into line.”

Charming looked up defiantly and shouted back, “I refuse to take any such oath, and he is the Ruler of Royaume, King William.” Much to Will's dismay, he stuck out a hand and pointed at Will.

“Hah! Good try, but the recruiter put your names down as Rip and Van Winkle,” the man shouted back, and wagged his head about so that the red-­fabric tongue swung back and forth. “Furthermore, we do not recognize the King.”

“Well, I don't recognize you either,” Charming said, giving him a rude gesture. “In fact, I've never seen any of you in my life.” Under his breath, he whispered to Will, “It's no wonder they don't recognize you, Will. Look at what you're wearing. I warned you over and over about the importance of being properly dressed, but you wouldn't listen. Now look where poor fashion judgment has landed us.”

Will slapped a hand to his forehead. The man with the dragon cap said, “No, no, that's not what I meant. I don't mean we don't recognize that he is the King . . .”

Another black-­cloaked man stepped forward, and said, “I saw the King once, and he doesn't look anything like him. The King is a giant, almost seven feet tall . . .”

“And he weighs twenty stone,” added yet another.

“I saw him bench-­press an ox once,” a naked, cross-­eyed man next to Will said.

“Wow!” Charming said in a low voice. “I have to say, I'm impressed, Will. Your public-­relations staff is doing a great job. You've built quite a reputation.”

“But, I didn't—­” Will started to say.

“Quiet!” screamed the lead Dracolyte so violently that his dragon cap flopped off. He bent to retrieve it and, with great dignity, placed it back atop his head. “This is all entirely beside the point! We don't care if you are or aren't the King, we don't recognize the King's
authority
.”

“Why don't you recognize the authority of the King?” demanded Will.

“Haven't you heard? The King abandoned us, so we've abandoned him,” the Dracolyte said, and he visibly relaxed as though he was entering familiar conversational territory. “The Dracomancer has established a new kind of authority. We're a dracomocracy, and all of you”—­he spread his arms wide—­“are now part of it.”