Climbing out of the tub, Zara couldn't help hearing the sound of
Sir Eryk's armor as the girl had beat against him. It rang over and over
again in her head. She couldn't believe she had lost her head like she had.
Now she regretted it horribly. It was all that Sir Eryk's fault.
She got dressed in some simple clothes and started to dry her hair with a towel, then decided to go outside and let it dry. She quietly slipped out of the castle and wandered into the woods. She came out into a clearing she had named Sun Dappled Orchard. She went out into the middle of the clearing and tilted her head up to the sky. She closed her eyes and flung her arms out, soaking up the sun.
"Hello."
Zara jumped and spun around. "Anthony!" she cried as she recognized the boy.
He stepped out toward her. "Call me Andy. Enjoying yourself, Princess?" he asked.
Zara smiled. "Yes. What are you doing out here?"
"Hiding from Sir Eryk," he replied with a smile.
"I don't blame you," Zara said, laughing. "He got me so mad today."
"What'd he do?" Andy asked.
"He said that the peasants were nothing."
"And then one accidentally knocked you into a pile of mud and you had Sir Eryk beat her up," Andy said, narrowing his eyes.
Zara looked at him in surprise. "You know about that?"
He nodded. "Yeah. I live in the village. Besides, Sir Eryk was bragging about it."
"That horrid man! It was he who offered the idea of punishment. And just before that he had made the comment about peasants and it was still fresh in my mind."
"Andy!" came the voice of Sir Eryk. "Andy!"
Andy looked toward the woods, then back at Zara. "I'd better go. Good day, Princess." With that, he left, leaving Zara to stare after him. Gwen was still sore from that stupid knight's beating. She had limped back to the bar and Harry and Linda had dressed her wounds, then spent the good part of an hour cursing about the royals. Bowen and Josh showed up, and Harry and Gwen talked with them in a corner booth.
The informant had not yet gotten back to Bowen and Josh, but he had told them that he'd meet them later. The doors of the bars opened, and a boy with black hair and green eyes walked in.
"Andy." Josh waved the boy over. He sat down at the table and nodded at Gwen.
"Sorry 'bout that," he said.
"How'd you hear about it?" Gwen asked him.
He shrugged. "I live here. You hear things from the staff that comes in and out. The Princess feels bad about it," he added.
"She should! What'd she do that for, anyway?" Gwen asked, feeling herself get angry.
"That knight Sir Eryk, the one who beat you up, had just talked bad about peasants before it happened. Princess Zara guesses that that's why she reacted the way she did," the boy said.
"I'm still mad at her," Gwen said, crossing her arms and setting her mind to it. "Who are you, anyway?" she asked.
"He's Andy," Bowen said. "The informant from the castle."
"He's a squire under Sir Eryk," Josh added.
"Oh, great!" Gwen exclaimed, then lowered her voice. "Sir Eryk's such a wonderful guy."
Andy shrugged. "I don't like him all that much."
"Andy, have you heard any more news from the castle?" Bowen asked, bringing the table back to the subject.
He shook his head. "I haven't been able to get inside the palace walls, and Sir Eryk and the other knights have been real good when it comes to information like that. They haven't slipped a thing, but I think I could work on Princess Zara. She seems to not like the ideals of her parents."
"Whatever. I still don't like her," Gwen said.
"We need to find out when the King and Queen are going to move," Bowen said, almost to himself, leaning in closer to the table.
"Within the week," came a voice that Gwen all too well recognized. Everyone looked slowly up to see, in peasant's clothing with a hood over her face, Princess Zara.
Quickly, Bowen stood up. "Princess, what a pleasure—"
Princess Zara held up a hand. "Please, don't try to cover. I know you're planning an uprising." Everyone looked at the other with looks of dread.
"What's the punishment going to be?" Josh asked in a small voice.
"Nothing," Princess Zara replied. She pulled up a chair and sat next to Andy. "I want to help."
Bowen, Josh, and Gwen stared at her with their mouths open. Only Andy could actually move. "I knew you would, Princess."
She smiled at him. "Just call me Zara." She looked across the table and her eyes grew wide. "I can't believe it!"
Gwen finally got mad enough to be able to move. "That's right. It's me."
Zara raised a hand to her mouth in shock. "I can't believe it!" Gwen just nodded. Suddenly, the Princess was up and hugging Gwen. "I'm so sorry! Can you ever forgive me?"
Gwen shoved the Princess away. "Get off me! No, I can never forgive you! You had that Sir Stupid beat me up!"
Zara picked herself up from off the floor. "I know," she said miserably. "And I feel horrible about it."
"How do you think I felt?" Gwen snapped back.
Quickly, Josh stood up between the two. "Let's get back to what we were talking about," he said.
Zara sat back down in her chair and crossed her arms. Gwen shot daggers at Zara with her eyes.
"What were you saying about helping us, Princess?" Bowen asked.
"I would like to help you overthrow my family, and please, call me Zara."
"Why do you want to help us ruin your family?" Josh asked.
"Because I don't like the way they run things, and Prince Pelswick is just the same way; they all are. I want to rule over this land justly and fairly." Gwen glared at her. She wasn't buying a thing. Zara caught her stare. "It's because of them that I behaved the way I did. If I'm around their influence much longer, I'm going to turn out just like them."
Gwen nodded. "Oh, sure," she said sarcastically. "How do we know that once we're done with the uprising and you take the throne, that you won't turn out just like your parents?"
"I give you my most solemn vow that I will not turn out like my parents," Zara said seriously. Gwen snorted.
"Oh, yeah, I trust you on that," she said sarcastically again.
Zara furrowed her brow. "You don't trust my honor?"
"Not really, no," Gwen said.
"Well then, I give you the absolute power to overthrow me if I should ever become unjust in the eyes of people. Give me a piece of paper and we shall make it a legal action." Andy went and got a napkin while Gwen went to get a pen from the back room. They returned and Zara wrote out what she had promised, then had everyone at the table sign it before she gave it to Gwen. "Happy now?" she asked. Gwen made a face at her as she folded up the napkin and put it in her pocket.
Bowen stood up, followed by Josh. "I believe we should be leaving now."
Andy stood up as well. "I'd better be getting back to Sir Eryk."
"And I'd better get back to the castle before my absence is noticed," Zara said, standing up. They all filed out of the bar, leaving Gwen to stare after them.
"Zara really gets me mad," Gwen grumbled to herself. "I can't wait to get her back." Zara, back into her regular clothes, searched for her parents inside the castle. She found them in the Great Hall, talking about the peasant war. She approached them and they looked up at her and smiled.
"Yes, Zara, dear?" the Queen asked.
"Mother, Father," Zara started. She took a deep breath and tried to steady her nerves. She had never done anything like this before, and she was nervous. "I don't think that using the peasants in that war is a good idea."
They stared at her blankly for a while before they burst out laughing. "A bad idea?" the King said, laughing.
"Darling, what has gotten into you?" Queen Penelope asked with a smile on her face.
"I don't think you should use the peasants," Zara said, getting angry at her parents' response.
"Why of course we should! You think we should thin out our wonderful army on a war like this?" King Oswald replied, as if it were common sense.
"Do you think we should thin out our wonderful people on a war like this?" Zara replied, her nervousness sinking away and her anger bubbling forth.
"Sweetheart, the peasants don't matter," Queen Penelope said, beginning to frown.
"Of course they matter!" Zara exclaimed. "Without them, there would be no kingdom."
"But, Princess, they are expendable. They don't matter. They are beneath us," King Oswald replied.
"They're not—" Zara started, then stopped herself. She knew it would do no good. "I just don't think that you should use the peasants."
"Would you rather us lose our knights and our army?" King Oswald replied.
"Why else do we have them?" Zara replied.
Queen Penelope started to rub her temples. "Zara, sweetheart, I don't think we should discuss this right now. I'm getting a headache from all of this. We're using the peasants, and that's that. Now, run off to bed," her mother said, waving her hand in a dismissive manner at Zara. Zara turned and stormed off back to her room. She shut the door behind her and started to change into her nightclothes.
"I can't believe my own mother dismissed me!" she exclaimed as she yanked her clothes off. "I can't believe what they said about our people!" She threw her clothes on the floor and pulled on her nightgown. "I can't believe. . .my parents!" she cried finally.
She sat down before her mirror and started to pull a brush through her hair. She sighed and her mind ran through Gwen and her anger towards Zara.
"Oh, I wish I could make things up to her, if only I knew how," she sighed to her reflection. She yawned, though the sun had just set only minutes ago. She climbed into her bed and blew out her candle. Slowly, her mad mind eased off into a dreamless sleep. The next day at the bar, Gwen was cleaning a table when she heard someone approach her. She looked up to see a small-framed someone wearing a cloak with the hood covering their face.
"May I help you?" Gwen asked politely, standing up.
The person looked up so that Gwen could see into their hood. Zara. "Oh, it's you," Gwen said bitterly.
"Yes," Zara replied. She seemed to have not really noticed a thing that Gwen had just said to her. Gwen resumed cleaning the table. "I've come to tell you that my parents aren't giving in on this war, and we should act very soon."
"And what am I supposed to do with this information?" Gwen asked as she wiped down the table.
"I don't know. I thought you might know where to find Bowen, or someone else in charge of this operation."
"Why didn't you just tell Andy?" Gwen asked, continuing to clean.
"Maybe I wanted to come out and talk to you!" Zara replied, becoming angry.
"Talk to me? Why would you want to talk to me?" Gwen replied. She stood up and threw the rag back into the bucket and leveled her eyes with Zara's.
"Well, I don't know. Maybe because I thought we could be friends," she replied.
Gwen stared at her for a few more minutes before she burst out laughing. "Us? Friends? I don't think so."
Zara appeared taken aback. "Why not?"
Gwen grew wide-eyed. "Why not? Why not! I can't believe this!" Gwen stormed off behind the bar and put the bucket back underneath the counter. Zara followed her.
"Why not?" she asked again.
Gwen stood up and stared at the brat before her. "Because, you little brat, you had me beaten up just because I got a little mud on you. Then you intrude on the one thing that might turn my life around. All I want to do now is just get away from you!"
Gwen turned back around and continued arranging things under the bar. When she stood back up, Zara was still there, and now her eyes were full of hurt, and they were brimming with tears. Her lip was trembling, whether from anger or from holding back tears, Gwen couldn't tell.
"You—you—" Zara sputtered. "Heathen! You heathen! I could never be friends with you, ever! Look at you! You're filthy and you smell of rot!" She started walking toward Gwen, forcing her to back up. "I hope I never see you again!" With that, Zara spun and stormed out of the bar.
Gwen stared after her. She did not get that brat. She seemed upset that Gwen wouldn't be friends with her. Gwen shook her head. Why was she caring anyway? Zara was just a spoiled brat. So why couldn't Gwen stop thinking about how upset she looked?
Zara walked down the road, her eyes stinging with unshed tears. How dare that heathen say those horrid things to her! Her anger started to ebb away, and now she could only feel the pain. The pain of the things Gwen had said to her, and what she had said to Gwen. She hadn't really meant it. Now she was tempted to turn back and apologize.
Screams brought Zara out of her thoughts. She looked up to see a huge army, much bigger than that of her small kingdom, charging into the small village. They carried swords and weapons high above their heads, and they were screaming war cries.
Zara stared at the oncoming death march, and screamed her head off.
The next thing she knew, her feet had started running in the other direction, and suddenly, Zara was back in the bar. Gwen saw her and grimaced. Zara saw that standing with Gwen were Bowen, Josh, Andy, a girl and what appeared to be a monk. Zara looked around at all the people in the bar. She could just now hear the screams of the frightened villagers and the war cries of the soldiers.
"There's a huge army coming this way!" she cried. No one moved. She stared at them in horror before she turned and threw open the doors to the bar. Now the screams came readily through the open doors. Now they listened.
Everyone jumped up and started to break the tables to use as weapons. Zara hurried back to her friends. A sense of urgency hung in the air amongst her fellow conspirators.
"They acted sooner then we'd expected," Bowen was saying as Zara approached.
"I haven't heard anything about it from Sir Eryk," Andy said.
"I spoke to my parents last night," Zara said. "I asked them not to use the villagers in the war. They laughed at me."
Bowen nodded. "That wouldn't surprise me." He turned to Gwen. The cries outside were growing slowly closer as the soldiers tore through the shops and homes out there. "Do you have a weapons place?"
Gwen shrugged. "I don't know."
"Yes, we do," Harry said suddenly behind them. He had thrown open a trapdoor at the very back wall, and looking down into it, Zara could see shelves upon shelves of weapons. Harry stood up on a table. "Weapons back here!" he called. Then he handed a sword to Bowen, Andy, Gwen, and Josh. Linda came forward with a bow and arrow in her hands.
Harry tried to hand Zara a sword, but she shook her head. "I've never fought before, so I'm afraid I wouldn't know what to do with that."
Harry gave her a look, then ushered her into the back room. "You stay there," he told her. Zara nodded as Harry closed and locked the door.
She got dressed in some simple clothes and started to dry her hair with a towel, then decided to go outside and let it dry. She quietly slipped out of the castle and wandered into the woods. She came out into a clearing she had named Sun Dappled Orchard. She went out into the middle of the clearing and tilted her head up to the sky. She closed her eyes and flung her arms out, soaking up the sun.
"Hello."
Zara jumped and spun around. "Anthony!" she cried as she recognized the boy.
He stepped out toward her. "Call me Andy. Enjoying yourself, Princess?" he asked.
Zara smiled. "Yes. What are you doing out here?"
"Hiding from Sir Eryk," he replied with a smile.
"I don't blame you," Zara said, laughing. "He got me so mad today."
"What'd he do?" Andy asked.
"He said that the peasants were nothing."
"And then one accidentally knocked you into a pile of mud and you had Sir Eryk beat her up," Andy said, narrowing his eyes.
Zara looked at him in surprise. "You know about that?"
He nodded. "Yeah. I live in the village. Besides, Sir Eryk was bragging about it."
"That horrid man! It was he who offered the idea of punishment. And just before that he had made the comment about peasants and it was still fresh in my mind."
"Andy!" came the voice of Sir Eryk. "Andy!"
Andy looked toward the woods, then back at Zara. "I'd better go. Good day, Princess." With that, he left, leaving Zara to stare after him. Gwen was still sore from that stupid knight's beating. She had limped back to the bar and Harry and Linda had dressed her wounds, then spent the good part of an hour cursing about the royals. Bowen and Josh showed up, and Harry and Gwen talked with them in a corner booth.
The informant had not yet gotten back to Bowen and Josh, but he had told them that he'd meet them later. The doors of the bars opened, and a boy with black hair and green eyes walked in.
"Andy." Josh waved the boy over. He sat down at the table and nodded at Gwen.
"Sorry 'bout that," he said.
"How'd you hear about it?" Gwen asked him.
He shrugged. "I live here. You hear things from the staff that comes in and out. The Princess feels bad about it," he added.
"She should! What'd she do that for, anyway?" Gwen asked, feeling herself get angry.
"That knight Sir Eryk, the one who beat you up, had just talked bad about peasants before it happened. Princess Zara guesses that that's why she reacted the way she did," the boy said.
"I'm still mad at her," Gwen said, crossing her arms and setting her mind to it. "Who are you, anyway?" she asked.
"He's Andy," Bowen said. "The informant from the castle."
"He's a squire under Sir Eryk," Josh added.
"Oh, great!" Gwen exclaimed, then lowered her voice. "Sir Eryk's such a wonderful guy."
Andy shrugged. "I don't like him all that much."
"Andy, have you heard any more news from the castle?" Bowen asked, bringing the table back to the subject.
He shook his head. "I haven't been able to get inside the palace walls, and Sir Eryk and the other knights have been real good when it comes to information like that. They haven't slipped a thing, but I think I could work on Princess Zara. She seems to not like the ideals of her parents."
"Whatever. I still don't like her," Gwen said.
"We need to find out when the King and Queen are going to move," Bowen said, almost to himself, leaning in closer to the table.
"Within the week," came a voice that Gwen all too well recognized. Everyone looked slowly up to see, in peasant's clothing with a hood over her face, Princess Zara.
Quickly, Bowen stood up. "Princess, what a pleasure—"
Princess Zara held up a hand. "Please, don't try to cover. I know you're planning an uprising." Everyone looked at the other with looks of dread.
"What's the punishment going to be?" Josh asked in a small voice.
"Nothing," Princess Zara replied. She pulled up a chair and sat next to Andy. "I want to help."
Bowen, Josh, and Gwen stared at her with their mouths open. Only Andy could actually move. "I knew you would, Princess."
She smiled at him. "Just call me Zara." She looked across the table and her eyes grew wide. "I can't believe it!"
Gwen finally got mad enough to be able to move. "That's right. It's me."
Zara raised a hand to her mouth in shock. "I can't believe it!" Gwen just nodded. Suddenly, the Princess was up and hugging Gwen. "I'm so sorry! Can you ever forgive me?"
Gwen shoved the Princess away. "Get off me! No, I can never forgive you! You had that Sir Stupid beat me up!"
Zara picked herself up from off the floor. "I know," she said miserably. "And I feel horrible about it."
"How do you think I felt?" Gwen snapped back.
Quickly, Josh stood up between the two. "Let's get back to what we were talking about," he said.
Zara sat back down in her chair and crossed her arms. Gwen shot daggers at Zara with her eyes.
"What were you saying about helping us, Princess?" Bowen asked.
"I would like to help you overthrow my family, and please, call me Zara."
"Why do you want to help us ruin your family?" Josh asked.
"Because I don't like the way they run things, and Prince Pelswick is just the same way; they all are. I want to rule over this land justly and fairly." Gwen glared at her. She wasn't buying a thing. Zara caught her stare. "It's because of them that I behaved the way I did. If I'm around their influence much longer, I'm going to turn out just like them."
Gwen nodded. "Oh, sure," she said sarcastically. "How do we know that once we're done with the uprising and you take the throne, that you won't turn out just like your parents?"
"I give you my most solemn vow that I will not turn out like my parents," Zara said seriously. Gwen snorted.
"Oh, yeah, I trust you on that," she said sarcastically again.
Zara furrowed her brow. "You don't trust my honor?"
"Not really, no," Gwen said.
"Well then, I give you the absolute power to overthrow me if I should ever become unjust in the eyes of people. Give me a piece of paper and we shall make it a legal action." Andy went and got a napkin while Gwen went to get a pen from the back room. They returned and Zara wrote out what she had promised, then had everyone at the table sign it before she gave it to Gwen. "Happy now?" she asked. Gwen made a face at her as she folded up the napkin and put it in her pocket.
Bowen stood up, followed by Josh. "I believe we should be leaving now."
Andy stood up as well. "I'd better be getting back to Sir Eryk."
"And I'd better get back to the castle before my absence is noticed," Zara said, standing up. They all filed out of the bar, leaving Gwen to stare after them.
"Zara really gets me mad," Gwen grumbled to herself. "I can't wait to get her back." Zara, back into her regular clothes, searched for her parents inside the castle. She found them in the Great Hall, talking about the peasant war. She approached them and they looked up at her and smiled.
"Yes, Zara, dear?" the Queen asked.
"Mother, Father," Zara started. She took a deep breath and tried to steady her nerves. She had never done anything like this before, and she was nervous. "I don't think that using the peasants in that war is a good idea."
They stared at her blankly for a while before they burst out laughing. "A bad idea?" the King said, laughing.
"Darling, what has gotten into you?" Queen Penelope asked with a smile on her face.
"I don't think you should use the peasants," Zara said, getting angry at her parents' response.
"Why of course we should! You think we should thin out our wonderful army on a war like this?" King Oswald replied, as if it were common sense.
"Do you think we should thin out our wonderful people on a war like this?" Zara replied, her nervousness sinking away and her anger bubbling forth.
"Sweetheart, the peasants don't matter," Queen Penelope said, beginning to frown.
"Of course they matter!" Zara exclaimed. "Without them, there would be no kingdom."
"But, Princess, they are expendable. They don't matter. They are beneath us," King Oswald replied.
"They're not—" Zara started, then stopped herself. She knew it would do no good. "I just don't think that you should use the peasants."
"Would you rather us lose our knights and our army?" King Oswald replied.
"Why else do we have them?" Zara replied.
Queen Penelope started to rub her temples. "Zara, sweetheart, I don't think we should discuss this right now. I'm getting a headache from all of this. We're using the peasants, and that's that. Now, run off to bed," her mother said, waving her hand in a dismissive manner at Zara. Zara turned and stormed off back to her room. She shut the door behind her and started to change into her nightclothes.
"I can't believe my own mother dismissed me!" she exclaimed as she yanked her clothes off. "I can't believe what they said about our people!" She threw her clothes on the floor and pulled on her nightgown. "I can't believe. . .my parents!" she cried finally.
She sat down before her mirror and started to pull a brush through her hair. She sighed and her mind ran through Gwen and her anger towards Zara.
"Oh, I wish I could make things up to her, if only I knew how," she sighed to her reflection. She yawned, though the sun had just set only minutes ago. She climbed into her bed and blew out her candle. Slowly, her mad mind eased off into a dreamless sleep. The next day at the bar, Gwen was cleaning a table when she heard someone approach her. She looked up to see a small-framed someone wearing a cloak with the hood covering their face.
"May I help you?" Gwen asked politely, standing up.
The person looked up so that Gwen could see into their hood. Zara. "Oh, it's you," Gwen said bitterly.
"Yes," Zara replied. She seemed to have not really noticed a thing that Gwen had just said to her. Gwen resumed cleaning the table. "I've come to tell you that my parents aren't giving in on this war, and we should act very soon."
"And what am I supposed to do with this information?" Gwen asked as she wiped down the table.
"I don't know. I thought you might know where to find Bowen, or someone else in charge of this operation."
"Why didn't you just tell Andy?" Gwen asked, continuing to clean.
"Maybe I wanted to come out and talk to you!" Zara replied, becoming angry.
"Talk to me? Why would you want to talk to me?" Gwen replied. She stood up and threw the rag back into the bucket and leveled her eyes with Zara's.
"Well, I don't know. Maybe because I thought we could be friends," she replied.
Gwen stared at her for a few more minutes before she burst out laughing. "Us? Friends? I don't think so."
Zara appeared taken aback. "Why not?"
Gwen grew wide-eyed. "Why not? Why not! I can't believe this!" Gwen stormed off behind the bar and put the bucket back underneath the counter. Zara followed her.
"Why not?" she asked again.
Gwen stood up and stared at the brat before her. "Because, you little brat, you had me beaten up just because I got a little mud on you. Then you intrude on the one thing that might turn my life around. All I want to do now is just get away from you!"
Gwen turned back around and continued arranging things under the bar. When she stood back up, Zara was still there, and now her eyes were full of hurt, and they were brimming with tears. Her lip was trembling, whether from anger or from holding back tears, Gwen couldn't tell.
"You—you—" Zara sputtered. "Heathen! You heathen! I could never be friends with you, ever! Look at you! You're filthy and you smell of rot!" She started walking toward Gwen, forcing her to back up. "I hope I never see you again!" With that, Zara spun and stormed out of the bar.
Gwen stared after her. She did not get that brat. She seemed upset that Gwen wouldn't be friends with her. Gwen shook her head. Why was she caring anyway? Zara was just a spoiled brat. So why couldn't Gwen stop thinking about how upset she looked?
Zara walked down the road, her eyes stinging with unshed tears. How dare that heathen say those horrid things to her! Her anger started to ebb away, and now she could only feel the pain. The pain of the things Gwen had said to her, and what she had said to Gwen. She hadn't really meant it. Now she was tempted to turn back and apologize.
Screams brought Zara out of her thoughts. She looked up to see a huge army, much bigger than that of her small kingdom, charging into the small village. They carried swords and weapons high above their heads, and they were screaming war cries.
Zara stared at the oncoming death march, and screamed her head off.
The next thing she knew, her feet had started running in the other direction, and suddenly, Zara was back in the bar. Gwen saw her and grimaced. Zara saw that standing with Gwen were Bowen, Josh, Andy, a girl and what appeared to be a monk. Zara looked around at all the people in the bar. She could just now hear the screams of the frightened villagers and the war cries of the soldiers.
"There's a huge army coming this way!" she cried. No one moved. She stared at them in horror before she turned and threw open the doors to the bar. Now the screams came readily through the open doors. Now they listened.
Everyone jumped up and started to break the tables to use as weapons. Zara hurried back to her friends. A sense of urgency hung in the air amongst her fellow conspirators.
"They acted sooner then we'd expected," Bowen was saying as Zara approached.
"I haven't heard anything about it from Sir Eryk," Andy said.
"I spoke to my parents last night," Zara said. "I asked them not to use the villagers in the war. They laughed at me."
Bowen nodded. "That wouldn't surprise me." He turned to Gwen. The cries outside were growing slowly closer as the soldiers tore through the shops and homes out there. "Do you have a weapons place?"
Gwen shrugged. "I don't know."
"Yes, we do," Harry said suddenly behind them. He had thrown open a trapdoor at the very back wall, and looking down into it, Zara could see shelves upon shelves of weapons. Harry stood up on a table. "Weapons back here!" he called. Then he handed a sword to Bowen, Andy, Gwen, and Josh. Linda came forward with a bow and arrow in her hands.
Harry tried to hand Zara a sword, but she shook her head. "I've never fought before, so I'm afraid I wouldn't know what to do with that."
Harry gave her a look, then ushered her into the back room. "You stay there," he told her. Zara nodded as Harry closed and locked the door.