“Silence, Trolley!” a guard bird snapped, interrupting Patch in the middle of a knock-knock joke. The bird hopped around and peered into the darkness. “Who goes?” he cawed.
Cough tossed another handful of stones around the corner.
The raven heard the sounds again and turned back to his brethren. “There’s definitely someone out there. It could be the strangers.”
“Could be!” the “warden” said in agreement. “You lot better have yourselves a look. I’ll watch things here.”
“Not likely,” the first bird snapped. “Aaron, stay behind and keep an eye on this one.”
“Yes, sir!” the young raven named Aaron responded. The other guards flew around the corner to inspect the noise.
Peter listened to the action from his hiding place. The way was almost clear. Right now, Bogie was waiting just around the corner with an empty sack, ready to clip the approaching guard birds. “Clipping” is a thieving term for kidnapping, usually performed on young heirs in hopes of winning a ransom. Though Bogie was strong, Peter knew that what they needed was an expert—someone fast and steady who wouldn’t become confused by struggling victims. He found himself wondering why Clipper had abandoned the group.
The guards touched down right beside Bogie, who had completely melted into the shadows. He may not have been an expert clip, but he had his own knack that assured him the element of surprise. Within a few short seconds all three birds were trapped in his bag, flapping and crowing like mad. To muffle the sound, Bogie buried his victims in the sand, stomping down on the mound. “That ought to keep you flappers quiet,” he said, grinning.
The noise of the clipping had not gone unnoticed. Aaron, the remaining guard, looked toward the sounds. “G-g-good Justice!” he said to the man he thought was Officer Trolley. “Did you hear that?! Maybe we should call someone?”
Patch raised his wooden axe. “You ask me, that sounds like a bloody awful idea.” Before Aaron could make a noise, the thief swung his weapon down.
Thwump!
Peter winced as he heard the blade strike the bird’s body. The boy took a deep breath, reminding himself that the ravens were evil. He heard Patch give a low whistle, signaling that the way was secure. Peter and Twiddlesticks lifted themselves out from the sand and crept toward the Nest.
Since ravens could fly, they had no need for a front door; instead, they came and went through holes in the plank walls. The birds had taken care to ensure that these gaps were too narrow for a full-grown adult to pass through. But not a boy of ten. “All right, chum,” Twiddlesticks said, giving Peter a boost. “Easy on the landing.” Peter wriggled between the broken mastheads and shattered oars (earning himself and Sir Tode more than a few splinters in the process). He reached the other side and dropped to the ground without a sound. “I’m in,” he whispered back through the wall.
“Stairs is to your left,” he heard Twiddlesticks say. “I’ll be waiting at the drop.”
Peter kept a hand against the wall as he crept through the fortress. Bogie’s description had not done the place justice. While he did mention a barracks full of sleeping ravens, he failed to explain that the barracks took up the entire Nest. Peter stilled his nerves as he listened to the thousands of tiny heartbeats—each one a different deadly bird, asleep on its perch. He felt Sir Tode trembling through his bag. The boy reached inside and gently massaged the knight’s ears. “Calm down,” he whispered to his friend. “I’ve got everything under control.”
Peter’s foot came to a rickety staircase. He knelt down and put his ear to the first step, testing for creaky spots with his fingers. Only then did he dare place his weight upon the plank. He did this with each and every step, climbing higher and higher above the sleeping birds.
Halfway up the tower he came to an opening in the wall. He could hear Twiddlesticks pacing back and forth in the sand below. Behind him were Patch, Cough, and Bogie, stuffing the last of the guards into sacks. Peter took a length of rope, which had been painstakingly woven from assorted body hair, and tossed an end down. Twiddlesticks grabbed hold of the cord and was soon standing with Peter inside the Nest. Without a word, the two thieves continued up the stairs.
They arrived at the topmost deck to find a long balcony running along the back walls. Scattered everywhere were piles of nautical equipment—fishing nets, compasses, sextants, and sails. Just as Bogie had said, a locked door stood in the back corner. Peter couldn’t smell any treasure, but the scent of the Fantastic Eyes was strong enough. “This is the spot,” he said.
Twiddlesticks cracked his knuckles. “All right, my lovelies. Time to shine.” It had already been decided that he would take the outer padlocks while Peter would manage the dead bolt in the center. To be assigned the more difficult lock was a great honor, and Peter couldn’t help but feel proud as he slipped his finger into the narrow keyhole and set to work on the tumbler.
They finished the job in less than ten minutes. “That dead bolt was a chore and a half,” Twiddlesticks said, pushing the door open. “Couldn’t a done it without you, chum.”
“Let’s just find my box and get out of here.” At this point, Peter thought it might be safe to let the knight out of the bag. He pulled the flap back so Sir Tode could look about. “Not a word,” he whispered. “I can’t let you walk about—your hooves make too much noise.”
Sir Tode peered around the moonlit chamber, letting his eyes adjust. The treasure room had very little treasure to speak of, and he couldn’t help but think that it looked more like an armory than anything else. There were no jewels, no paintings, no fine cutlery—only stacks and stacks of knives, harpoons, and sharpened oars. He looked up at Peter, but the boy was too focused on finding his box to note the irregularity. Nor did he seem to notice when Bogie, Patch, and Cough snuck into the room after Twiddlesticks. Now they were all four of them silently hurling armloads of weapons out the window and onto the sand below.
“Um, Peter . . .” Sir Tode whispered.
“Shhh!” the boy hissed. “You don’t know how to burgle-whisper. If you wake the ravens, we’re all dead.” Peter set back to feeling his way across the room. His nimble hands were still groping about for the box when he came across a sharp blade. “Ow!” he cried, sucking the blood from his cut palm. “What’s a spear doing in a treasure room?”
The other thieves were too busy with their own work to pay any heed to his question.
Sir Tode tried again. “Peter, I really think you should—”
“Found it!” Peter exclaimed. And indeed he had: on a small table in the middle of the room sat the Haberdasher’s box; beside it lay the fishhook. Peter took back his weapon and then opened the box, checking to make sure all six eyes were still inside. “Now let’s get out of here,” he said quietly.
“Not so fast, chum,” a voice spoke behind him. Before the boy could move, a set of long, well-oiled fingers snatched him by the throat. “It was real swell of you to come up with a plan for sneaking into the roost like this, but I think I’ll take the helm from here out.”
Peter struggled against the grip. “Twiddlesticks?”
“Feels good to have a blade in my hand again.” The thief pressed a rusted dagger against Peter’s throat. “This job just got a lot bigger than your little nick. Now, why don’t you give us whatever’s in that pretty little box of yours? You do that and I might even let you fight on our side.”
“Your side?” Peter was about to say something naive, like “I’m confused, what side?” when he was interrupted by a shout from outside.
“Ambushhh!!!”
The four thieves darted to the window and looked below. “It’s Clipper!” Bogie said. “That backstabbin’ rat!”
The old thief was tearing over the dunes, waving his arms and screaming with all his might. “Ambush!” Clipper wailed. “They’re coming to kill you, birdies! Wake up! Wake—!” Peter heard someone grab hold of the shouting man. There were sounds of a struggle, and then nothing.
“Looks like ol’
Cross-Stitch got him!” Bogie said, delighted. But it was too late—Clipper’s cries had already awoken the ravens.
The thieves listened to confused squawks in the barracks below. “Titus? Aaron?!” Captain Amos shouted, sounding the alarm. “Come alive, brothers! We’re under attack!” The fortress shook as every bird inside leapt from its perch and flapped into formation.
“You heard the cap’n,” Twiddlesticks said to Patch, who was clutching a rusted foghorn. “Rally the rogues!” Patch put the horn to his lips and let out a loud, long blast.
Far below, hundreds of wild, roaring, hairy men leapt from hiding spots in the sand. They scrambled across the dunes, grabbing whatever weapon they could find. Waving their knives, spears, and harpoons in the air, the prisoners of the Just Deserts stormed the Nest.
The moonlit sands, which had been quiet only the moment before, were instantly transformed into a bloody battlefield. Cries echoed across the dunes as blade struck beak. With the help of their newly returned weapons, the prisoners were easily able to hack a hole into the base of the Nest. Now the thieves were stomping their way through the darkness, murdering anything that moved. The ravens were great warriors, but confined by the walls, they had neither the range for attack nor the height for retreat.
“Long live the True King!” Captain Amos shouted above the tumult.
“And long live his Line!” his troops echoed as they flapped and pecked at their attackers.
Peter and Sir Tode had by now fled to the open balcony and were trying to find the stairway. “Good heavens,” the knight said, watching the carnage through gaps in the floor. “It’s a massacre.”
Peter didn’t need to be told this—he could hear the squawks of dying ravens everywhere. He gripped the deck and tried to calm himself. This is what he wanted, wasn’t it? The ravens were evil, and he was supposed to stop them. No matter how much the boy repeated this to himself, he couldn’t shake the feeling that he had just let something terrible happen.
“Peter!” Sir Tode snapped him back to attention. “We’ve got to get out of here! The birds are coming our way!”
Sure enough, a troop of ravens burst through the deck, showering them in splinters. “By the lookout!” one of them squawked. “They’ve got the strangers surrounded!”
“Kill the traitors!” another cawed.
Twiddlesticks and the other thieves formed a tight circle to protect themselves from attack. Peter, who was caught in the middle of this formation, crawled through the men’s legs and headed for the stairs. He was so overwhelmed by the frenzy of the fighting that he didn’t realize he was moving in the wrong direction—straight for the edge of the balcony.
Sir Tode, who was still riding on Peter’s back, looked up just in time. “Peter, stop!” he cried.
The boy froze, heart pounding. “What is it? What do you see?”
“There’s a sheer drop right in front of you. And it’s overlooking a great chasm!”
Peter inched back from the ledge—he had nearly just crawled them straight to their deaths. “Can we jump across it?” he asked.
“Goodness, no!” Words could not capture the enormousness of the thing yawning before them. It was miles long and miles deep. This was the large black stripe that Sir Tode had seen on the eastern horizon. “I can’t even see the other side,” he said. Peter understood for the first time since landing in the Just Deserts how truly inescapable this prison was.
The combat was raging all around them. It sounded as though the ravens were starting to keep up their end of the fight. The battle had smashed several holes into the Nest wall, which afforded them the maneuverability necessary for battle. They dove toward the thieves, unleashing wave after wave of attack. Captain Amos, who had flapped his way to the balcony, was striking fiercely at Twiddlesticks, shouting, “Die, traitor!!!” with every snap of his beak.
Birds were flying all around Peter and Sir Tode, nearly pushing them over the edge of the balcony. “Back, villains!” the knight shouted, swatting his forehooves to keep the attackers at bay.
Peter was overwhelmed by the chaos. His keen senses faltered in the midst of the gruesome noises, foul smells, and jarring movements all around him. He drew his fishhook from his bag and weakly swiped at empty air. He began to fear they would be pecked to pieces or knocked into the precipice. He covered his ears, trying to drown out the noise, but it was useless. “I don’t know what to do!” he said, choking back a sob. “I can’t sort out anything I’m hearing.”
“We’ll have none of that!” Sir Tode said, pulling Peter’s hands away from his ears. “We broke into this place to get those Fantastic Eyes—I say we put them to use!”
The thought of using the eyes frightened Peter. The last time he had tried a pair at Sir Tode’s behest, it had nearly killed him. But what other option did they have? He pulled the box from his bag, opened the lid, and reached inside. When he touched the eyes, however, he found his hands were shaking too hard to tell different pairs apart. “Help me!” he called. “I don’t know which pair to use!”
The knight dropped to his hooves and galloped to Peter’s side. “Just stay calm and let me think.” He looked at each of the three pairs. The black eyes were out of the question, and for all he knew the green ones were just as bad. “We had better stick to the pair we know,” he said. Sir Tode was using the word “we” when he really meant “you.” He had already decided that his only concern was getting Peter away safely—even if that meant being left behind himself. He took the golden eyes in his teeth and tried to think of a way the boy might use them to get clear of the ravens and prisoners. But from where he stood, all he could see was endless desert and bottomless pit. Then he caught a glint of something metal behind him. It was an old spyglass, salvaged from one of the wrecked boats.
Sir Tode dropped the two eyes into Peter’s shaking palm. “I want you to concentrate on my voice,” he instructed. “I’m going to get you out of here, but first I need you to follow me very closely.” Peter nodded dumbly and placed his hand on Sir Tode’s back. He followed the knight into the fray.
The spyglass was mounted to the end of a long plank that jutted out over the chasm like a diving board. Sir Tode hoped the rotting wood was strong enough to support their weight. Steeling his nerves, he placed a hoof on its surface and inched out over the chasm. “You’re lucky you can’t see this,” he said, eyeing the darkness below. At last they reached the spyglass, which was pointed toward the horizon. The knight couldn’t tell what was out there, but just maybe this device could. He rose to his hind legs and squinted through the eyepiece: in the distance, he could make out the faint silhouette of a tower against the predawn light.
Sir Tode dropped down. “Listen carefully, Peter. I need you to place the gold eyes so they’re peering into this spyglass—steady hands now, we can’t afford to misfire.”
Before Peter could say a word of disagreement, Sir Tode clambered atop his shoulders, allowing him access to the spyglass. The boy reached out and pressed the first golden eye against the eyepiece. He could feel the plank sagging under their combined weight. “Get the stranger!” he heard a voice crow. “He’s on the lookout!” Birds swooped above and below them. Talons rained down like black hail, clawing at his arms, his clothes.
Twiddlesticks rolled across the deck and staked his blade through a fallen bird’s chest. “It’s the boy they’re after—clip ’im!” A surge of prisoners followed his command, charging toward Peter. A thief in front crept onto the plank—knife in his teeth, open bag in his hands. The wood groaned under the added weight, and Peter thought he heard a rusted nail snap.
“Once and never again!” Captain Amos squawked, swooping down and knocking the man right over the edge. The thief’s scream continued down and down until it faded into nothing. Peter felt the ravens form a tight circle around him and Sir Tode. The maneuver confused Peter; it seemed like the ravens were trying to protect him—but that made no sense. “Sir Tode, what’s happening?!” he shouted.
“I
think they’re trying to knock us into the chasm!” The knight grunted as he batted his hooves in the air. “Hurry up with those bloody eyes already!”
Peter held the second eye up to the spyglass, letting it see into the distant horizon. “All done,” he said.
Captain Amos flapped down toward Peter’s arm. “Wait, stranger!” he squawked over the noise. “There is something you must know! Justice has brought you to—”
“Now!” Sir Tode leapt from Peter’s shoulders, knocking the bird away. “Put the eyes in now!”
On this command, Peter slipped the two golden eyes into his sockets. He blinked, and the sounds of battle instantly vanished. Peter felt himself falling through the open air until he landed headfirst against a flat rock, and the world went silent.
PART TWO
ONYX
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
THE PERFECT PALACE
Peter woke to find himself lying in a soft bed. The bed was so soft, in fact, that for a brief moment he thought himself floating in the Troublesome Lake again. The box of Fantastic Eyes was clenched safely in his arms. His muscles were sore and he could feel a dent in his chest where the hinges had dug into his breastbone. He slowly pried his fingers away from the wood and massaged his stiff arms back to life. How long had he been holding the box like that? Just to be safe, he opened the lid and checked to make sure the eyes were still there. The black and green pairs sat in their individual eggshells, just like always. For a moment he panicked—where were the golden eyes?—but then he touched his swollen eyelids and realized they were safely within his sockets. He slipped them out and placed them with the others inside the box.