Elliot might have stopped the tornado of Shadow Men, but it didn't take them long to figure out where everyone was hiding. Elliot and Grissel had barely made it back into the cave before the Shadow Men returned.
"Quick!" Elliot said to the Goblins. "Blow up the entrance."
"But that will leave us trapped inside," an Elf said.
The Dwarves were the only ones who cheered at that idea. They often made their homes underground and, in fact, preferred living there. Everyone else started arguing.
"Better that we're trapped in here than to let the Shadow Men come and get us," Elliot said.
Grissel nodded his agreement with Elliot's order, and the Goblins raised their hands to blow up the cave entrance.
But it was too late.
Hundreds of Shadow Men flew inside the cave with so much speed, all that could be seen was their trail of black smoke, which quickly filled the air. Everyone began coughing and sputtering.
"Change into a stick," Elliot said to Harold between coughs. "Or a rock. Something that doesn't need to breathe."
"If it doesn't breathe, it doesn't think," Harold said. "I won't be able to think myself back."
"Do it!" Elliot said. There wasn't time for arguing.
He heard a small pop and saw a bright orange rock on the ground. "The idea was to be less obvious," Elliot muttered to Harold the Rock. Harold the Rock didn't answer. No big surprise. Rocks are not known for their skills at conversation. Even shapeshifted ones.
Elliot watched the remaining creatures try fighting back with their sticks of light, but without enough air they had no strength to hold on to them. The sticks lost their light and clattered to the ground. Even Elliot found he couldn't hold on to his broom. It was hard enough just to breathe.
One by one the dark claws of the Shadow Men reached out and touched several creatures on their heads. As they did, the creatures froze in place.
Elliot looked up from the ground where he sat, still coughing and choking on smoke. "What's happening to them?"
Beside him, Mr. Willimaker said, "They've turned to stone. It's a curse. As long as the Shadow Men move, our friends will not."
Using the last bit of energy he had, Elliot wrote a message in the dirt. It said, "Orange rock."
Then as loudly as he could, he said, "The only one you want is me. If you leave these creatures alone, I'll let you take me to Kovol."
The Shadow Men stopped in midair. Only a few hundred creatures remained uncursed.
"No, Your Highness." Fudd stood and yelled to the Shadow Men, "Take me!"
"Or me!" Mr. Willimaker said.
They were joined in chorus by dozens of other creatures, each volunteering himself in place of Elliot.
Smoke instantly filled the room, making it even darker than pitch black. (Who knew that was even possible?) Elliot heard the thuds of bodies falling to the ground around him, and everything went silent. As the air gradually cleared, Elliot looked around the cave. Every other creature who had escaped being turned to stone had fallen on the ground. It looked like they were asleep, but they were moaning and shivering.
"What did you do?" Elliot yelled at the Shadow Men.
"A cold coma," the Shadow Men said in unison. "We pulled all the heat from their bodies."
"Well, give it back! I said I would go to Kovol if you left everyone alone."
Every Shadow Man in the cave, hundreds of them, laughed with one single laugh. Then together, all of them said, "Oh, but you will go to Kovol. He's ready for you now."
They began swirling around Elliot, choking off his air again. But this time there was no one to save him. His second-to-last thought was how tired he was of Kovol's army doing this, as if they didn't know any other tricks. It was like being a great pianist but knowing only one song. Elliot's last thought was that he was about to pass out, and that when he awoke again, he'd be facing Kovol as his prisoner.
Oddly, when Elliot woke up, he was not facing Kovol, or even the Shadow Men. He was facing a tree, which as everyone knows is much less dangerous than an evil Demon and his army. He was also tied up and hanging upside down, which was a bigger problem. It was the sort of thing Tubs had done to him plenty of times. Elliot felt all the blood in his body rushing from his feet to his head, which he hoped would be a good thing. He figured since blood was important for living, it was probably just as important for thinking. And thinking was exactly what Elliot wanted to do right now. Besides, as long as he was tied up this way, he really had nothing better to do other than think.
As nice as the tree was to look at, Elliot twisted his body around to get a different view. He couldn't be certain, because things always look different when you're upside down, but he was pretty sure he was somewhere in the woods behind his house. Which meant Kovol was also here, or he would be soon.