We split left and right as a heavy machine gun opened up from a second-floor window, the bullet strikes chasing us along the ground as we ran for cover. But Ralph and the Leviathan’s work was not yet done, and seemingly from nowhere a large hole was punched into the tower, the bulk of the Leviathan suddenly visible as its chameleonic skin rippled with the shock. The front of the tower fell out, the machine gun was silenced, and I scrambled over the rubble to enter the building. I sliced left and right as I entered the ground-floor room, removing the arm and a hand of two potential assailants. There was the crack of a weapon from upstairs and I rushed up the narrow staircase while Colin flew in a tight orbit around the outside, acting as top cover for the operation.
I reached the second storey, saw nothing remiss so moved to the top floor, where I found the last guard holding the Princess tightly from behind, a dagger at her throat. Tiger had got there ahead of me, and was pointing the old flintlock in their direction.
‘Drop the dagger and you live,’ said Tiger.
‘You will kill me anyway,’ said the guard, ‘I have nothing to lose.’
‘You have in your hands the true and just ruler of the Kingdoms,’ said Tiger in an impressively calm voice. ‘We need to vanquish the Trolls and the Mighty Shandar, but Sir Matt Grifflon has only his ambitions to think of. Before today, you were merely an unthinking drone of an arrogant despot. After today you will be the one that saw sense, the one who made all the difference. You need to do the right thing.’
The guard stared at Tiger, then at me, then dropped the dagger. The Princess wriggled out of his grasp, but did not run to join us – she jumped upon the fallen blade and held it to the guard’s throat.
‘You little fool,’ said the Princess, who I could see had not been having the best of days, ‘this is what happens to—’
‘Wait!’ yelled Tiger, who still had his weapon held high. ‘We don’t kill unarmed prisoners, ma’am, that’s not who we are.’
‘A liar and a brigand and guilty of the highest treason,’ the Princess shouted back. ‘Who is to stop me?’
‘I will,’ said Tiger in a calm voice. ‘Harm the prisoner and I will shoot you stone dead, Your Majesty.’
‘Jennifer?’ asked the Princess, who seemed to have reverted to her previous obnoxious self after all the stress. ‘Will you let him do that?’
‘I most assuredly will,’ I replied. ‘A queen who defies the law and murders one who has surrendered and offers no resistance is a queen who does not have the moral authority to rule. Do as Tiger says, Your Majesty.’
She looked at us both, and her face crumpled. The dagger fell to the ground for a second time, and we rushed forward to retrieve it.
‘I’m sorry,’ said the Princess, and collapsed in a heap.
‘Thank you,’ said the guard, moving to a corner of the room, breathing heavily, a slight nick on his throat where the dagger had drawn a little blood.
‘It’s okay,’ I said to the Princess, ‘it’s not been a good day for any of us.’
‘I thought you wouldn’t come,’ said the Princess. ‘I thought all was lost.’
‘Then you don’t know me as well as you thought you did. Come on, we have a throne to reclaim.’
I whistled to Ralph, who brought the Leviathan into a hover outside the window. We moved the Princess out of the window and across to the Skywhale, and in another minute we were all heading in formation back across the sea towards the mainland.
None of us said a word. Tiger had his face covered and my heart wouldn’t stop racing. No matter what anyone says, rescuing princesses from towers is never plain sailing.
We made landfall at St Ives, and flew low across the Button Trench, where thousands more Trolls seemed to have gathered ahead of the order to invade. Shandar had said he’d remove the Trolls if we gave up the Quarkbeast, but he’d likely renege on the deal. Either way, we’d be fighting the Trolls – unless Shandar was serious about extracting the power of the sun to kickstart his galactic dominating aspirations – in which case battling the Trolls became somewhat pointless. Like rearranging the chairs on the deck of the
The Leviathan dropped us off outside the Queens Hotel, and after I had hugged Ralph, thanked him for his help and he’d given me a gallon of blue warpaint that he bought cheap off a ‘fella he knew’, Tiger, myself and the Princess marched towards the main entrance, where, predictably enough, there was the same crowd that I had almost battled when they came for the Quarkbeast. The wiry one with the wide-set eyes was at the front but to the Princess’s credit, she didn’t break step as she walked towards them, and when they made no sign of moving, she stopped and spoke in a measured yet menacing tone:
‘I am your Queen. Step aside and you will be pardoned; block my way and you shall be beheaded. Choose well, choose fast, choose wisely.’
