Note to reader: It's getting close to deadline -- I have less than ten hours left, and if I'm going to finish this book by the end of November (while still finishing at least 50,000 words), then I'm going to have to cut the story a bit short. So here we are, with the main characters emerging from the Badlands. Presumably there are a lot of fun things that happened in there that I'm not showing here. Don't worry, they'll make it into the second draft. Whenever that is.
"Well, there's Castle Paladin," said Johnson, as they took a hurried break to rest and water their horses at a mountain stream. "But I don't see any good way to get in there. It's right up on the top of the mountain, and there are no roads going in that I can see."
Roderick was looking through the tattered remains of the brochure. "It looks like there's some kind of cave around here that we need to get through," he said. "It's supposed to lead inside the castle. Whoa!" he cried, swatting at the imp that came bounding out of nowhere. True to form, it disappeared in a burst of blue powder just before his gauntleted hand would have connected.
"Haven't we had enough of those things?" Stan grumped.
"I wish I knew who was sending them," Gisella said, shaking her head.
"Sending them?" Barbara said in surprise. "What makes you think somebody is sending them?"
"Huh? Well, they're not natural," Gisella said. "And I've seen an Evil Overlord call them before, at parties and stuff. I don't remember who it was, though -- I was watching from my room." She made a face. "My father never lets me go to parties."
"Hmm," Barbara said. "If we could catch one of these things, do you think we might be able to find some traces of its sender?"
Gisella frowned and shook her head. "Not without some kind of magician with us."
"Well, actually," Johnson said, "I have that copy of 'Magic for Dummies' that I picked up from that group that ambushed us last night. Maybe I could look through it and figure something out."
"There isn't much time for that," Roderick said with a frown. "Those guards aren't far behind us. Can you read while you ride, without getting motion-sick?"
"Sure," said Johnson. "I've been doing that with my copy of 'Clawing Toward Phonics'."
Roderick shrugged. "Anyway, the horses are rested a bit. Let's move out, and try to find this cave."
Darwin paced back and forth in a clearing -- less than half a mile away, as it happened, if he had known it. "Curses!" he cried. "The sidequest, the dragons, the ogre, the manticore, the zombies, the river serpent, the avalanche... and still those blasted would-be heroes keep coming!"
He flopped down on a rock in front of his cooking fire, intending to feel sorry for himself. But as it happened, he disturbed his pack when he sat down, and it tipped over and sent a sheaf of paper and a quill pen tumbling out onto the rock. He stared at the blank paper for a long moment, and finally the executive in him took charge. He pulled out a sheet of parchment, opened a jar of ink, dipped his pen, and started making a To-Do list. Making lists always helped him to clear his head. Lists of enemies, lists of people to exploit, lists of things that had gone wrong, it didn't matter: getting them out of his head made it easier for him to think about them, and about everything else, too.
"I'd be in better shape if I could've gotten hold of that dissertation before that fool barbarian burned it," he muttered to himself as he wrote. "I'd be one step ahead of them the whole way. It's got a copy of the map, if nothing else. I'll never be able to find that cave entrance without the map. I don't even remember how it was sealed."
"So this says the cave is sealed with a huge door made out of silver, with an illusion on it to make it look like the debris from a rockslide," Roderick said as he rode, absently swatting another imp aside.
"Well, I don't know about the rockslide, but there's a big silver door," Johnson said, pointing.
Roderick looked. Sure enough, there it was. "Who broke the illusion?" he said, frowning. "And somebody's opened the door. Look, it's still open just a crack. Boy, it looks dark in there."
"Who else would've been coming into Mount Paladin?" Barbara wondered. "Roderick, I thought you said you were the only one who had a copy of that brochure."
"The only one I know of," Roderick amended with a shrug. "Doesn't mean much."
"Well, what are we supposed to expect once we open the door?" Barbara asked.
"Uh... looks like three giant robots will be lying in wait for us just inside. Although if somebody's been in there already, then the robots are probably already weakened or destroyed, wouldn't you think?"
Johnson strode forward. "One way to find out," he said. He grabbed the huge silver pull-ring on the door -- which was nearly out of his reach; the door was thirty feet tall -- and hauled the door open about a foot.
And about a hundred imps suddenly spilled out of the crack and headed straight for Roderick.
"Aah!" Johnson cried, letting go of the ring and grabbing for his mace. He swung it wildly through the mob of skittering imps, and several of them screeched and went poof as his iron mace flew through their midst. Gisella and Stan, who had already readied their swords when Johnson had started opening the doors, also lashed out at the beasts. But a knot of twenty broke through and leapt for Roderick.
He dropped the brochure and prepared to smack at the creatures with his bare hands if he had to.
But then an odd thing happened. Every last imp stopped in midair, and dropped straight down to the ground. Then they all converged abruptly upon the fallen brochure. The first imp grabbed the brochure and ran off with it, howling madly. The rest of the imps followed.
"Stop them!" called Barbara as they ran past her and back into the cave. "Somebody catch one of them! Then we might be able to find out who sent them!"
Gisella looked contemptuously at Barbara. "Don't you ever do anything for yourself?" she asked, whipping a large burlap bag out of somewhere and leaping onto one of the imps. Roderick and Johnson hurried forward to help, Johnson to help her get the imp into the bag, Roderick to help subdue the wriggling bundle.
"Excellent," said Barbara. "Now," she said, glaring at Gisella, "Johnson, I'll take a look through your Magic for Dummies book and see if I can find something about identifying imps. Research is one of my specialties." She cast a see, I do do something look at Gisella, then added, "Could you bring the book over here when you're done with the imp, please?"
"We're on the trail, sir," reported the huntsmaster. "It's less than two hours old."
"Excellent," said Sir Hugo. "Gather two dozen soldiers on our fastest steeds. We ride ahead at once."
Within moments, the force was gathered, and was moving ahead quickly, the huntsmaster in the lead. Jean, his lead apprentice, stayed behind to keep the main caravan on the trail.
A tousled white head poked out of the back of a wagon just in time to see Calvin the Bold riding away. Noel the Not-So-Bold as Calvin the Bold twitched her whiskers in annoyance.
Calvin the Bold rode directly behind Sir Hugo, and was scanning the mountainside with Sir Hugo's binoculars, a notoriously difficult thing to do while riding a horse.
"What news, Calvin the Bold?" asked Sir Hugo as they rode.
"I can't see much while we're moving, lord," Calvin the Bold answered. "I need to stop for a while so I can look clearly."
"Well, I don't want to stop the entire group," Sir Hugo said. "If you stop, you'll have to catch up."
"Oh, that's no problem," Calvin the Bold said. "I've got an expensive horse. He'll be able to catch up."
"All right," said Sir Hugo. "Just make sure you don't get lost. I need those binoculars back. They're my daughter's."
"Have no fear, my lord," said Calvin the Bold. "I just need to stop for a few minutes so I can get a good look around." He split off to one side and slowed his horse as the other riders thundered by, and when he had reached a stop, he raised the binoculars to his eyes and began looking around again.
He spotted Gisella almost at once through a break in the trees, less than a mile away. He opened his mouth to call after Sir Hugo, then stopped himself.
A slow smile crept onto his face. Here was his chance! If he rescued Gisella from her kidnappers, then he could win her heart, and use her to see to Sir Hugo's downfall!
His smile slowly faded as he watched, though. Gisella wasn't actually tied up, or anything. In fact, she had her own horse. There didn't seem to be anything stopping her from leaving.
Could she be there of her own free will?
He shook his head. It didn't matter: he would go and save her and win her heart, because he was a Hero. He glanced at Sir Hugo and his men. The trail they were following would take almost twice as long as a direct approach. With a quick grin, he spun his horse into the trees and took off at a brisk gallop.
Von Himmel broke into a small clearing, and was startled to see, about a mile away, another group of horses crossing another clearing well in front of him.
He frowned. There were far too many of them to be just the would-be heroes, unless they had gathered a good many more followers than any of his patrols had reported.
Suddenly, a rustling sound caught his ears. He backed his horse back into the trees and stood quietly, listening.
The rustling came again, and suddenly a handsome young man riding an expensive horse burst through the clearing and continued through the woods.
Von Himmel looked after the rider in perplexity. This person didn't fit the descriptions of any of the Mount Paladin expedition he was after. Could there be another group of people also trying to become Paladins?
He spurred his horse into a gallop, following the rider's trail.
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