Joshua and the Arrow Realm (10 page)

Then Charlie cried out. His feet disappeared in the canopy gloom.

I
found myself snatched up through a wooden hole onto a platform after Charlie, Apollo following behind. Light spilled from a gourd lantern swinging from a beamed ceiling. We were in a giant log tree house and a serious group of kids encircled us. The room stretched as long as my house back home. Vines crawled through one window and out another. Trees exploded from the floor in several spots and thrust their deformed trunks through the ceiling, waving sawed-off limbs. Over the one door leading out, etched words read:

Wild Child Rules

1. Stick 'em before you get stuck
   
2. Keep on the runabout
   
3. Scram and cram
   
4. Don't get grounded
   
5. One for the many
   

Ash stepped forward, the oldest and tallest of the kids. “Is he awake?”

A girl my age shook her head with solemn eyes, but I didn't know or care who “he” was right now as my knee gave out from exhaustion. Ash steadied me but Charlie pulled me close. She raised her eyebrows and let go. A dozen rough knives of all shapes jabbed our way and my bow was ripped from me.

“He's a royal one!” a skinny kid with bad acne said, poking a fist in Apollo's face. “Let's stick him!” Others started jabbering too, some in a language I didn't understand.

Ash held up her hand. “No stick,” she said, clearly in charge, and motioned the thief to hand my bow back. “He's a friend. They all are. Artemis threw this royal in the dungeon and fed him to the beasts. And we help the hunted, don't we?”

The knives fell but not the nasty stares aimed our way, making me want to jump back down the hole I'd been pulled from.

Ash pointed at me and spread her hands out to the kid army. “Leandro's Joshua.”

They stepped back, as if my name carried meaning for them. Good or bad?

Ash ordered a group of kids to butcher the cretan below for mash.

Without speaking, they took sacks from hooks and disappeared through the hole we'd come from. Branches screeched across the side of the tree house and the floorboards creaked beneath us. My breath squeezed tight in my chest as I tried not to peer through the open hatch in the floor that dropped hundreds of feet below.

“I expected someone taller,” a short kid said, looking at me.

“Us too,” Charlie spouted back.

Knives shot up again, but Ash tipped her head back and laughed. “Is that so?” Her smile faded. “We have a gift for you.”

The kids parted their circle, and at the end of the tree house, a dark figure tied to a trunk shooting up from the floor slumped in a chair, a cloth sack over his head. That cloak, that shape …

“Leandro!” I ran toward him then stopped in my tracks.

Ash thrust a hand to my chest, her eyes scrunched up. “We did as he asked and faked his kidnapping to bring him here so he could lead you out safely and raise an army against Artemis. But he's not the Leandro we know. He was our friend until today. It seems now he's joined forces with Artemis. We're all in trouble now. He fought us taking him and we knocked him out. This was
not
part of the original plan, or killing a soldier to do it.” She paused, then said in a subdued tone, “We'll have to toss him back or we'll all be in trouble, even with the queen's soft spot for us.”

Leandro twitched awake in his seat, garbled words bursting from under the sack. Charlie tightened his fingers on my arm.

Ash pulled off the head cover, and Leandro glared at us as he strained against the ropes tying him to the chair. “Let me go, you filthy Reekers! You ignorant Barbaros!”

He twisted about to get at her and she sucked in her breath.

“Go on and cry.” Leandro laughed at her. “The queen plans to clean out these Wild Lands and all of you once she gets the Oracle and rules Nostos with lost Olympian powers.”

A wave of scared chatter rose from the kids.

“Why'd you turn on us?” I asked Leandro, stepping closer to him. The noise died down.

“I came to my senses. You Reekers are doomed. I'm a fighter. I grew tired of fighting on the losing side.”

“We're the winning side.”

“You're nothing but ash in the air. We can be immortal. The queen has promised me.” He shook in his chair, trying to bust free, and glowered at me.

“Don't you remember me and the Lost Realm—how we freed all the kid slaves? You. Me. Charlie. Apollo. Finn. Bo Chez. We took down Hekate and her brother, Cronag, the Child Collector! And—”

He shook his head. “It's history.”

“It's
all
history and you wanted to change it. Don't you now?” I pulled out his journal. “This could help you remember.”

He lurched to get at it but I stepped back.

“Hand it over! That Wild Child gave it to you. She stole it from me!”

I looked at Ash, who stood with her arms folded. “She said you gave it to her.”

“You speak untruths, Reeker,” Leandro said to her.

“So do you,” Ash said.

“You'll all be dead. Very soon! The queen will see to it.” I searched his face for any sign of my old friend inside this new enemy. There was none.

“Artemis may hunt us kids, but she lets the survivors live,” Ash said. “She won't stick us even if we help these three escape. She'll get them either way, in the Wild Lands by hunt or in the WC by slave.”

Leandro smirked at Ash. “Now you speak more untruths. You'll see soon enough.”

Hoarse shouts traveled up through the trees. Artemis and her men were after us. Their calls grew faint as they moved off in another direction.

Any remaining good feelings for Leandro crawled from my heart and died in the pit of my stomach. He
had
turned on us. There was no need for him to pretend here. “Why'd you have Ash bring us here?”

“Because my queen asked me to. She wanted to hunt you down before she used you. And so did I.”

“So you acted all nice and got Ash to bring us here to rescue Apollo?”

“A ruse, yes, Reeker. I even had the queen toss me in the dungeon with you to see if you could be hypnotized so she could gain your powers.” Leandro tossed his long ropes of hair behind him. “I'll help the new Queen Artemis rule Nostos as her head soldier. We will have Olympian powers once more and lead our world into greatness again, ruling Earth as well!”

“You'll never rule Nostos
or
Earth,” Apollo said fiercely, standing tall like the royal he was born to be. “Artemis may seem like a new queen, but something else is at force here. We will find out.”

“Who are you to talk, King?” Leandro spat out. “You couldn't rule your own land, and even your family doesn't believe you're the rightful king. You probably killed your own father like they say. Ha!”

“You know it's a lie!” Apollo stepped toward Leandro with his hands fisted. “You were there when he died on the battlefield fighting Hekate.” He spread a hand out toward Charlie and me. “We all were.”

“Doesn't matter. No one has faith in you,” Leandro said with a sneer.

Apollo inhaled deeply, turning his father's ring
around in Leandro's face. “My father did.”

“You can't stop us.” Leandro cocked his head. “My queen will get the Oracle's powers, one way or another—in life or death. You shall see.”

Charlie punched at Leandro but I held him back. “What about finding your family?” I asked Leandro. “You're giving up on them too?”

He looked away. “They're dead. I'm loyal to Artemis now.”

“Cram it,” Ash stepped forward and drew her knife. “We must do something with you now.”

“Don't hurt him,” I pleaded.

Leandro nodded at me with a raised eyebrow, as if we were on the same team. “Listen to the boy if you want to live.”

“You don't tell us what to do,” Ash said in a calm voice. “Your people lost that right long ago. We live by our own rules now.” She waved at the words over the doorway. “We thought you were our friend. Now you're nothing.”

Leandro stomped his chair legs and the tree house floor shook.

I slid Leandro's journal back in my coat pocket. “Let him go, Ash. He can't help us anymore. We've got Apollo. We'll get him home and convince his people to fight Artemis and all of Nostos. We can find a way to free the kid slaves and shut down the Lightning Road.”

“Like Leandro and I were to do … but failed,” Apollo said with a pitiful look at Leandro then he leaned in to me and whispered, “maybe there's still a way to succeed. Poseidon was secretly in my court. If I bring him the Oracle, he'll listen. Maybe my people too.”

“Meaning me,” I could barely whisper back. He
nodded and I looked at the Wild Childs, who watched and waited. I'd come to save one but now must save them all. “One for the many,” I finally said.

“One for the many,” the Wild Childs thundered back.

Ash spoke up. “I'll release him, but he'll face the great beasts like all kids released in the Wild Lands. If he can survive and get over the border wall, he'll live. If not … he'll be grounded, for flippin' good.”

I didn't know how to prove I was the Oracle, but my destiny was knocking. It was time to open the door.

“It'll also buy us time to figure out a new plan for the three of you boys,” Ash said. “You can't stay here.”

We all agreed with that. Ash cut Leandro's ropes and pushed a knife against his throat. “Now climb down and head back to the evil you work for.”

Leandro jerked his chin up. “You've all set your death sentence. And you'll be the first to die, Oracle
.
” In a flash, he pulled the knife from his boot. Charlie pushed me out of the way as silver spun through the air toward my head before crashing into the wall.

“It's your turn to die today, traitor, and I'll stick you myself if I have to,” Ash said in a steady voice, yanking Leandro from his chair and shoving him toward the trap door. “Now get down there!”

Leandro did as she said. He had no choice with every knife in the place pointed at him. Ash picked up Leandro's knife and handed it to me. “Yours now. Don't live by anyone else's rules.”

The tree house closed in on me as I held the knife in my hand. The lines were drawn and Leandro had crossed them. Would he come back? Or were we sending him to his death?

I handed the tiny knife to Charlie. “Thanks for watching out for me.”

He folded it shut and slid it into his pocket as Ash blindfolded Leandro again. “Good luck on a blind runabout,” she said, tying his hands in front. “This is for trying that little knife stunt.”

“He'll die out there if he can't see or use his hands,” I said.

“Maybe. Maybe not. Fate will tell,” Ash said. “He's a soldier and fit to survive on his wits and instincts. We gave him a second chance to live. Let's see how he uses it.”

She was the toughest girl I'd ever met. Good thing she picked our side.

“I'll survive all right and hunt you down,” Leandro said with a smile.

We all watched him feel his way as he climbed through the hatch door. He peered up one last time. His blindfold mocked us. “See you soon.”

“Only in death,” Ash said quietly.

Leandro's grin fell and then he disappeared through the hole. The kids rushed forward to watch him descend. Beasts bawled from somewhere in the forest—on the hunt.

I hoped it wouldn't be Leandro they caught.

A
fter Leandro dropped away, the Wild Childs gathered up the bows and arrows hanging on the walls and sneaked through the tree house door and windows.

“One for the many,” they each said with a nod to Ash as they left.

Ash directed us to leave with her when they were all gone, and we stepped outside onto the tree house platform. Purple night deepened and long shadows softened the craggy world. We stood on a plank road with a roped netting rail that zigzagged from house to house and floated under the forest's canopy in a sea of darkness. Green lights glowed softly through lopsided windows, and branch shadows wrapped the tiny shacks in prickly fingers. Leaves battered the houses in the sharp wind as the Wild Childs skulked amongst the trees.

Ash waited impatiently on the platform's edge as we got our bearings. “Follow me!”

And we did, the three of us hanging on to the railing the entire way, bouncing down the plank path. She set us up in a vacated tree house (I didn't ask why it was empty), and a Wild Child brought us a dinner of squirrel stew and ache cakes. “You all need sleep first,” Ash said, throwing animal hides on wooden slatted cots. “Tomorrow, we'll get you to the Perimeter Lands.”

“Thanks,” I said. She nodded and left as the moonlight struck her in its crosshairs.

Too tired to talk, sleep claimed us quickly our second full night here. It seemed my head barely hit the floor when Ash lugged me up, a lantern shedding a dim green glow swinging from her hand.

“You've slept for hours. It's still dark out but sunrise comes soon,” Ash whispered. “A good time to go runabout.” She pulled an animal skin coat and pants from a chest and shoved it at Apollo. “Wear these. They may save your life.”

Once his royal clothes were covered up, Apollo was a Wild Child. He'd lost his slumped dungeon pose and, along with the kingly jut of his chin, revealed he was much more than a fugitive of the woods. I hoped others wouldn't see the king inside that I did.

“I wish you could stay, but I have to protect the kids and the dark will provide cover.”

A Wild Child walked past our house and peered in to make sure all was okay. Ash nodded and the kid moved along.

“Where are they all from?” I asked her.

“Sweden. Italy. Canada. Those places are where the Arrow Realm steals them. Some get traded to other realms. Doesn't matter where we've lived before. We're all the same now and we're all we have—that and our freedom.”