The Last Ever After. Soman Chainani

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СКАЧАТЬ Agatha and Tedros choked back screams as the ninja flattened them against the dirt wall, the hooked talons swiping at air, missing the inseam of Tedros’ breeches by a whisker. It slashed in vain a few more times and then curled into a fist.

      “Nothin’ here,” the gruff voice growled. “Come on, let’s eat. Maybe we’ll find a juicy little boy in the Oakwood.”

      The claw withdrew empty-handed and vanished, followed by loud, thudding stomps.

      A terrorized silence passed … then Tedros and Agatha shoved mouths to a hole in the ceiling and sucked down air. Agatha glanced at Tedros to make sure he was okay, expecting he’d be doing the same for her. Instead, her prince was pulling at his breeches, looking down his own pants. Tedros smiled, relieved … then saw Agatha frowning.

      “What?” Tedros said.

      Agatha was about to question his priorities, then noticed the footsteps had stopped. The voices too. Agatha’s eyes shot wide open and she dove for her prince—“Tedros, watch out!”

      The black claw crashed through the ceiling and grabbed Agatha off her prince, dragging her out of the grave. Tedros leapt to clasp her leg too late. He craned up in horror to see the claw pull his princess into the night sky, dangling her like a caught mouse.

      Agatha stared into the bloodshot yellow eyes of a tall, bony brown wolf on two legs, fur and flesh flaking off his face, leaving gaping holes over pieces of his skull.

      “Lookie here. A princess returns,” the wolf snarled gruffly, cheekbones poking through one of these holes.

      Agatha paled. Was he the one talking about the School Master before? How could an Evil wolf have crossed into Gavaldon? And where was the Elderguard? Her eyes darted around, but all she could see in the darkness was a smattering of crooked headstones. She tried to make her finger glow, but the wolf was gripping her hand too tightly.

      “Storian ain’t writing, world dying, armies rising—all ’cause of you?” he purred, tracing her pallid skin and charcoal hair. “Less princess, I’d say, and more … skunk. How Good’s fallen in my time away. Even runty Red Riding Hood was a more tempting treat.”

      Agatha had no idea what he was talking about, but after all she’d been through tonight, the last thing she needed was to be insulted for her looks by a puny wolf with a skin condition.

      “And yet, Red Riding Hood’s wolf learned his lesson, didn’t he?” she warned, knowing her prince must be nearby. “Messed with Good and a hunter tore out his stomach.”

      “Tore out his stomach?” said the wolf, appalled.

      “With his bare hands,” Agatha lied loudly, signaling Tedros.

      “And is this wolf … dead?”

      “Very dead, so beat it before MY hunter comes,” Agatha yelled, cuing Tedros again.

      “Dead as in doornail dead?” the wolf fretted.

      “Dead, dead, dead,” Agatha snapped, squinting angrily for her prince.

      “Dead, dead, dead, dead, dead,” mumbled the wolf, mulling this gruesome fate. “Well, if that’s true …” He lifted big, shiny eyes. “How am I still here?”

      Agatha’s eyes lowered to his other claw, tapping at a hideous scar crisscrossing his belly. Her face lost all of its blood. “I-i-impossible—”

      “Can I eat this one?” an oafish voice said behind her. Agatha spun to see a 10-foot, bald, humpbacked giant, swinging Tedros upside down by his bootstrap. The giant’s flesh peeled off his skull, covered in zigzagged stitches, as he probed and pinched Tedros’ muscles. “Ain’t seen such firm meat since young Jack came up my beanstalk.”

      Agatha’s heart rose into her throat. Red Riding Hood’s dead wolf … Jack’s dead giant … alive? Tedros met her eyes, ashen and upside down, clearly petrified by the same question.

      “I told you. School Master wants ’em conscious,” the wolf groused.

      The giant sighed miserably … then saw the wolf smirking.

      “But that don’t mean we can’t break off a piece or two,” the wolf said, gripping Agatha harder.

      She and Tedros let out twin cries as the giant and wolf raised them high in the air and slowly lowered their legs into their mouths like pork ribs—

      “That would be a very poor decision,” said an airy voice.

      The wolf and giant both froze jaws over their prey, eyes flicking to the ninja on the ground. The wolf pulled Agatha out of his mouth and smiled at the masked stranger, prepared to delay a snack if it might result in a larger meal. “And why’s that, oh Faceless One?”

      “Because if you release them, I’ll let you go on your way,” said the ninja.

      “And if we don’t?” snorted the giant, mouth full of Tedros, shivering between the giant’s teeth.

      “Then you’ll be woefully outnumbered,” said the ninja.

      “Strange …,” the wolf replied, prowling towards the stranger, Agatha in hand. “Given your prince and princess are a bit held up, I see one of you and two of us.” He loomed over the ninja in the moonlight. “Which means it’s you that’s outnumbered.”

      Slowly the ninja looked up. The black mask came off, revealing almond-shaped eyes, olive skin, and black hair flowing in the wind.

      Princess Uma smiled. “Then you’re not looking very closely.”

      She let out a piercing squeak through her teeth and a roar echoed from every side of the darkness, a thunder beneath their feet. For a moment, the wolf and giant spun dumbly, the roar crashing towards them north and south, east and west … until they dropped their two prisoners like hot potatoes. From the ground, Agatha raised her glowing finger just in time to see a stampede of bulls leap over her body and ram into the wolf and giant like balls to bowling pins. Horses and bears sprang over Tedros, tearing into the monsters with their hooves and claws. By the time Agatha and Tedros wobbled to their feet, their gold glows illuminating the scene, the wolf and giant were howling for mercy atop the beastly tide bucking them into the darkness. Princess Uma whistled a cheery thank-you and her animal army echoed with singsong growls. Soon their shadows faded and the wolf and giant were gone.

      Agatha whirled to Princess Uma, a teacher at the School for Good who she’d once mocked as helpless and passive and weak, but who had just saved her and Tedros’ lives. “I thought the princes killed you!” Agatha cried. “Hester said Dean Sader left you to die in the Woods. We all thought you were dead—”

      “A professor of Animal Communication unable to survive in the Woods?” Princess Uma swished her finger and turned her black robes to pink, a silver swan crest stitched over the heart. “Even your mother had more faith in me and we’ve never met.”

      “You … you know my mother?” Agatha asked. Knew, a voice corrected. Agatha battled a fresh wave of nausea. She couldn’t bring herself to say it.

      “Only through her messages to the League,” Uma replied.

      “League? What League?” Tedros СКАЧАТЬ