The Chaos Curse (Kiranmala and the Kingdom Beyond #3) - Sayantani DasGupta Page 0,67
believe what I was seeing. At the front of the tottho line, checking each and every gift that went through the gates of the palace, was Stheno—back from the dead!
“I can’t believe it!” I breathed. “It’s my principal! I knew that fink Ned didn’t really kill her!”
“What?” Neel’s eyes darted this way and that. “Your undead middle school principal is here? Are you sure about that?”
“She’s not really my principal!” I hissed. “She’s a Gorgon! And yes, I’m sure!”
“Your middle school principal is a Gorgon?” chirped Tuni, his voice high and taught with fright. “That has got to be against the teachers’ union rules!”
Neel’s hand reached for his sword, but of course we’d both put our weapons inside the horse with our friends, where we could get to them later. Which meant we had no way of getting to them now.
“Let’s go, Princess. Let’s get outa here!” The bird on my shoulder was squawking and losing tail feathers in his agitation.
I couldn’t help but agree with Tuni this time. I was already wheeling the horse in the opposite direction, trying to look inconspicuous. Word to the wise: It’s really hard to look inconspicuous while wheeling around a ten-foot-tall horse filled with rakkhosh in the middle of a crowded palace courtyard.
“Stop that horse!” I heard Stheno shriek.
“Don’t stop!” muttered Neel, now pushing the horse on the other side. I noticed his fake beard was kind of falling off, but there was no time to fix it now. We were both doing that fast-walking thing like when neighborhood moms want to exercise but are afraid they’ll look silly running. Only we weren’t afraid to look silly. We were just trying to pretend that we weren’t getting the heck out of there as fast as we could.
The act only lasted so long. By the time Stheno yelled, “It’s a trick! I know this story! Stop that Trojan horse!” we were flat-out bolting.
“Get them out of there! No point in trying to hide now!” I yelled to Neel as I ripped off my face scarf.
I grabbed a shehnai from a musician to the side of me. Ignoring the man’s protests, I flung the long metal horn at the clay horse. A little hole formed. Neel didn’t bother with stealing an instrument but just shoved his fist through the hole I’d made in the clay, ripping it wider. I saw Priya’s taloned hands and a few others helping him from the inside too. And then the hole was big enough, and our rakkhosh friends came pouring out of the horse.
“Get them! Get those monsters!” shrieked my monster of an ex-principal.
The same musician whose instrument I’d stolen made a grab for me, but Priya whirled on him, fire lashing from her mouth. In her full rakkhoshi form, she shrieked, “Wedding yellows ain’t so mellow! Get lost, you creep, or I’ll eat your feet!”
All around us the other rakkhosh who had been inside the horse began to emerge in their full demonic forms.
“Back off or your throats we’ll tear! And make you soil your underwear!” screeched one rakkhoshi.
“From horse’s belly we are born! We’ll kick your butts, then toot a horn!” yelled another.
“Get them! Stop them!” shrieked Stheno. Her hair tentacles and teeth tentacles had come unhinged and each was chasing our demon friends.
“Any more fire clan with you?” I yelled to Priya. “She hates fire!”
Priya and another fire rakkhosh started blasting flames out of their mouths at the Gorgon. Unfortunately, unlike the time we were behind my middle school, Stheno had a lot of help here at the palace. At her cries, supervillains from a bunch of mythological traditions and stories came rushing out into the courtyard. There were horse-men and selkie women, card soldiers, wicked witches, orcs and goblins, Rodents of Very Big Size, and bankers in business suits. None of them belonged in the Kingdom Beyond, but here they all were.
“What are all these storybook baddies doing in my house?” yelled Neel. “This is seriously not cool!”
“My fellow members of the Anti-Chaos Committee—get them!” shrieked Stheno.
When the evil flying monkeys started dive-bombing us, I knew we were in trouble.
“Outnumbered we are, Princess, ma’am!” shouted one of the water rakkhosh who’d been in the horse. “We need a new plan—we’d better scram!”
I was firing off arrows as fast as I could, trying to hit Stheno’s tentacle hair and teeth. The only problem was, as quick as I hit one of the tentacle things, two more seemed to grow back in its place.