Tom killed one of Karl’s troops and donned his livery, pulling the helmet low over his face. He and Vik proceeded to mock fight their way across the field, always warning each other of incoming dangers, hoping enemy soldiers would see them battling and leave them to it. When Vik spotted Karl, he gave Tom the signal, then Tom whipped his horse around and charged toward Karl.

Several of Karl’s trainees seemed to recognize him—Tom was sure of it—but they didn’t shout out any warning to Karl as Tom galloped up behind him.

Karl was too busy bellowing at his trainees to notice, his crown crooked on his head. “Are you worms paying attention? I said hunt down Snowden’s trainees. Get moving! Oh, but don’t kill Raines! Get him alive and bring him here. He’s mine, got it? Raines lives until I kill him.”

Tom laughed from behind him. “You got one part of that right.”

Karl whipped his head around—and got a face full of pikestaff.

“The part about ‘Raines lives,’” Tom explained to Karl’s corpse, tugging his pikestaff back out. He wiped it on Karl’s tunic before Karl’s body slumped off the side of the horse. “That’s the part I meant.”

Vik rode up to him, and together they discovered Karl’s crown where it had tumbled into a hedge. “Grab that and put it on Snowden, Tom. This can be like how Richard III died at Bosworth Field.”

But Tom wasn’t interested in that. “Yoink.” He plopped the crown on his own head. “I declare myself King Thomas the First of England.”

“Fine. Forget history,” Vik said. Then the pommel of his sword crashed across the top of Tom’s skull. Tom’s legs buckled, and he found himself kneeling on the field, his brain whirling.

Vik placed the crown on his own head. “I declare myself King Vikram the . . .”

A loud roaring noise drowned out Vik’s words, shadows blotting out the sky. Tom threw back his head and saw a fleet of Nazi planes soaring overhead.

Tom rubbed his head. “Did that happen at the Battle of Bosworth Field?”

“No,” Vik said, “there were no Nazi blitzkriegs in medieval times.”

But even as the Nazi blitzkrieg attack began, Julius Caesar arrived with an army of Roman centurions, ready for battle. On the other side of the field, Napoleon Bonaparte’s army closed in to meet him. A loud splintering sound filled Tom’s ears. He and Vik dove for cover just before Captain Hook’s ship ran aground on Bosworth Field.

In the meantime, schools of sharks fell from the sky and began flailing about on the field, teeth gnashing at passing soldiers. A giant squid tumbled down next and latched on to the pirate ship, while Captain Hook swiped madly at it with his hooked hand.