Divide and Conquer Read Free Page A

up settling down in Normandy, the region of France right across the channel from England. It turns out that bit of land is pretty strategically important — it’s the perfect launching spot for an invasion of Great Britain in the eleventh century. Siegfried’s great-great-great-grandson, Bill Helm the Vanquisher, does just that!”
    Sera and Riq stared at him, and it took him a second to realize that they didn’t understand the importance of that. He sighed deeply.
    “Every modern-day European monarch is descended from Bill Helm the Vanquisher, AKA the dude who conquered England. And, of course, that means . . .” He felt like a teacher trying to pull an obvious conclusion from his students.
    “It means every king, every queen — they’re all descendants of Siegfried the Viking,” Sera answered, her eyes wide.
    Riq was the one to say out loud what Dak had already been thinking. “This siege is about more than just Paris. The fate of the whole world is at stake.”
    Dak nodded. “And with that much power up for grabs, you can bet the SQ is already here.”

D AK AND R IQ stood just outside their shelter to give Sera privacy while she changed. Dak had to grudgingly admit that Riq had done a pretty good job putting together proper outfits from the scraps he’d found in the trunk. Of course, it had taken a bit of doing to figure out what went where. They’d shoved their old shoes into the bottom of their satchel, since nothing screamed
anachronism
more than sneakers.
    That still left Dak in a shin-length tunic, and he wasn’t sure how he felt about it. It was way too easy to imagine accidentally flashing ninth-century Paris. And he definitely didn’t want to think too much about who’d worn these clothes before (and how long it had been since they’d been washed).
    At least Riq looked even more ridiculous in his own getup. “You remind me of my grandfather with your socks tied up around your knees like that,” Dak quipped.
    The older boy smirked at him. “You look like my grandma in your little dress.”
    Dak couldn’t think of a comeback fast enough and resigned himself to scowling. He watched impatiently as more and more Parisians made their way towarda large stone cathedral. His toes curled in his new (old) boots, wanting to join in the throng.
    “So, you think this Viking leader Siegfried might be SQ?” Riq asked.
    “It seems likely to me,” Dak said. “Around the late eighth century the Vikings became pretty aggressive and started taking over a bunch of places, pillaging along the way. Before then they’d more or less stayed up in Norway and Denmark, and no one really knows why they decided to expand their territory. Some historians think it’s because, with the Medieval WarmPeriod, it got easier to head out on the ocean, and others think that available land just became too scarce on the Scandinavian peninsula. Now that I think about it, though, it would make sense that they’d actually be led by SQ going for a big land grab.”
    Riq nodded. “So what do you think that means for us? Where do you think the Break is?”
    Dak had been thinking about this already, his mind whirring over all the possibilities. “Okay, pretend you’re Siegfried and you’re SQ.” He paused and squinted at Riq. “Well, if you were a Viking you’d have a beard and smell less, but moving on.”
    “You couldn’t get a beard if you shaved your head and glued it to your face,” Riqmuttered.
    Dak ignored that. “So you’re an evil, stinky,
ugly
SQ guy with a big army and you’re traveling all over the world pushing people around. What are you really after?”
    “Power,” Sera said as she stepped out to join them. Dak choked on a laugh. Like the rest of them, she was wearing hose fastened at her knees with a scrap of lace, and a tunic draped over a long undershirt and tied around her waist with a belt. From the belt hung a sack with a familiar bulge that could only be the Infinity Ring. A formless brown cape hung