Warriors in Winter Read online

  Dear Reader,

  Did you know there’s a Magic Tree House®book for every kid? From those just starting to read chapter books to more experienced readers, Magic Tree House® has something for everyone, including science, sports, geography, wildlife, history…and always a bit of mystery and magic!

  Happy reading!

  Here’s what kids and grown-ups have to say about the Magic Tree House® books:

  “Oh, man…the Magic Tree House series is really exciting!” —Christina

  “I like the Magic Tree House series. I stay up all night reading them. Even on school nights!” —Peter

  “Jack and Annie have opened a door to a world of literacy that I know will continue throughout the lives of my students.” —Deborah H.

  “As a librarian, I have seen many happy young readers coming into the library to check out the next Magic Tree House book in the series.” —Lynne H.

  #1: DINOSAURS BEFORE DARK

  #2: THE KNIGHT AT DAWN

  #3: MUMMIES IN THE MORNING

  #4: PIRATES PAST NOON

  #5: NIGHT OF THE NINJAS

  #6: AFTERNOON ON THE AMAZON

  #7: SUNSET OF THE SABERTOOTH

  #8: MIDNIGHT ON THE MOON

  #9: DOLPHINS AT DAYBREAK

  #10: GHOST TOWN AT SUNDOWN

  #11: LIONS AT LUNCHTIME

  #12: POLAR BEARS PAST BEDTIME

  #13: VACATION UNDER THE VOLCANO

  #14: DAY OF THE DRAGON KING

  #15: VIKING SHIPS AT SUNRISE

  #16: HOUR OF THE OLYMPICS

  #17: TONIGHT ON THE TITANIC

  #18: BUFFALO BEFORE BREAKFAST

  #19: TIGERS AT TWILIGHT

  #20: DINGOES AT DINNERTIME

  #21: CIVIL WAR ON SUNDAY

  #22: REVOLUTIONARY WAR ON WEDNESDAY

  #23: TWISTER ON TUESDAY

  #24: EARTHQUAKE IN THE EARLY MORNING

  #25: STAGE FRIGHT ON A SUMMER NIGHT

  #26: GOOD MORNING, GORILLAS

  #27: THANKSGIVING ON THURSDAY

  #28: HIGH TIDE IN HAWAII

  #29: A BIG DAY FOR BASEBALL

  #30: HURRICANE HEROES IN TEXAS

  For a list of Magic Tree House® Merlin Missions and other Magic Tree House® titles, visit MagicTreeHouse.com.

  This is a work of fiction. All incidents and dialogue, and all characters with the exception of some well-known historical and public figures, are products of the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Where real-life historical or public figures appear, the situations, incidents, and dialogues concerning those persons are fictional and are not intended to depict actual events or to change the fictional nature of the work. In all other respects, any resemblance to persons living or dead is entirely coincidental.

  Text copyright © 2019 by Mary Pope Osborne

  Cover art and interior illustrations copyright © 2019 by AG Ford

  Excerpt from Warriors copyright © 2019 by Mary Pope Osborne and Natalie Pope Boyce

  All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Random House Children’s Books, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, New York.

  Random House and the colophon are registered trademarks and A Stepping Stone Book and the colophon are trademarks of Penguin Random House LLC.

  Magic Tree House is a registered trademark of Mary Pope Osborne; used under license.

  Visit us on the Web!

  rhcbooks.com

  MagicTreeHouse.com

  Educators and librarians, for a variety of teaching tools, visit us at RHTeachersLibrarians.com

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Names: Osborne, Mary Pope, author. | Ford, AG, illustrator.

  Title: Warriors in winter / by Mary Pope Osborne; illustrated by AG Ford.

  Description: New York: Random House, [2019] | Series: Magic Tree House; #31 | “A Stepping Stone Book.” | Summary: “The magic tree house whisks Jack and Annie back in time to meet famed Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius!” —Provided by publisher.

  Identifiers: LCCN 2018025053 | ISBN 978-0-525-64764-5 (hardback) | ISBN 978-0-525-64765-2 (lib. bdg.) | ISBN 978-0-525-64766-9 (ebook)

  Subjects: LCSH: Marcus Aurelius, Emperor of Rome, 121–180—Juvenile fiction. | CYAC: Marcus Aurelius, Emperor of Rome, 121–180—Fiction. | Kings, queens, rulers, etc.—Fiction. | Soldiers—Fiction. | Space and time—Fiction. | Magic—Fiction. | Tree houses—Fiction. | Rome—History—Empire, 30 B.C–284 A.D.—Fiction. | BISAC: JUVENILE FICTION / Action & Adventure / General. | JUVENILE FICTION / Fantasy & Magic. | JUVENILE FICTION / Historical / General.

  Classification: LCC PZ7.O81167 War 2019 | DDC [Fic]—dc23

  Ebook ISBN 9780525647669

  This book has been officially leveled by using the F&P Text Level Gradient™ Leveling System.

  Random House Children’s Books supports the First Amendment and celebrates the right to read.

  v5.4

  a

  For Glenn “Chip” Hughes, poet and philosopher

  Cover

  Magic Tree House® Levels

  Other Titles

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Prologue

  1. Way of the Eagle

  2. Rider on a Black Horse

  3. Warriors Awake!

  4. No Skills

  5. Get in Line!

  6. Deserters!

  7. Lord Emperor Aurelius

  8. The Silver Coin

  9. March!

  10. Hail, Home!

  Excerpt from Warriors

  About the Author

  One summer day in Frog Creek, Pennsylvania, a mysterious tree house appeared in the woods. It was filled with books. A boy named Jack and his sister, Annie, found the tree house and soon discovered that it was magic. They could go to any time and place in history just by pointing to a picture in one of the books. While they were gone, no time at all passed back in Frog Creek.

  Jack and Annie eventually found out that the tree house belonged to Morgan le Fay, a magical librarian from the legendary realm of Camelot. Since then, they have traveled on many adventures in the magic tree house and completed many missions for Morgan.

  On their journeys to New York and Texas, Jack and Annie learned great wisdom from two heroes of the recent past. Now they’re about to journey far back in time to learn from a third hero!

  “Wake up, Jack.”

  Jack opened his eyes. The light was dim outside his window. His sister, Annie, was standing by his bed.

  “What’s going on?” he asked.

  “I heard a weird sound outside,” said Annie. “And guess what I saw!”

  “What?” said Jack.

  “An eagle!” said Annie. “A huge eagle. It was sitting on top of the lamppost in our yard.”

  “No way,” said Jack.

  “Yes, way,” said Annie. “I’ll bet Morgan sent him.”

  Jack sat up in bed. He threw off his covers. “I’m coming!” he said.

  “Hurry. We have to get back home before Mom and Dad get up. Meet you on the porch.” Annie slipped out of the room.

  Jack climbed out of bed. He changed into his jeans, sweatshirt, and sneakers. He grabbed his backpack. Then he crept downstairs and went out to the front porch.

  Annie was waiting in the chilly, damp air. Dawn was breaking.

  “There!”
she whispered. She pointed toward the lamppost in front of their house.

  An eagle was perched on top. He was dark brown, except for a ring of golden-brown feathers around his neck. He stared at them with piercing eyes.

  “Oh, man, that’s a golden eagle,” whispered Jack.

  The eagle spread his wings. He rose into the early-morning sky and flew toward the woods.

  “Follow him!” said Jack.

  Jack and Annie ran down the porch steps. They crossed their yard and dashed down the sidewalk after the eagle.

  “There!” said Annie, looking up. She pointed to the bird gliding above the Frog Creek woods.

  Jack and Annie crossed the street. They hurried between the shadowy trees, until they came to the tallest oak.

  “Whoa!” said Jack.

  The eagle was perched on the roof of the magic tree house.

  “Yay!” said Annie.

  “You were right!” said Jack.

  They climbed up the rope ladder and into the tree house.

  Sunlight streamed onto the floor. It shined on two small wooden tablets. Next to the tablets was a scroll.

  “A message from Morgan!” said Annie. She unrolled the scroll and read:

  Land by the Danube

  Many years ago.

  Find a Roman legion camp

  Dusted with snow.

  “A Roman legion camp?” said Jack. “Really?”

  “What’s a legion?” said Annie.

  “A legion is a unit in the ancient Roman army,” said Jack. “A legion had almost six thousand warriors. The whole army had around 150,000 warriors. And—”

  “Okay, got it,” said Annie. “And what’s the Danube?”

  “It’s a river that ran along the border of the Roman empire,” said Jack. “That was almost two thousand years ago.”

  “How do you know all this?” said Annie.

  “My school project on the Roman army,” said Jack. “Remember that model of a camp I made? And I had to explain it to my class.”

  “Oh, yeah, I remember,” said Annie.

  “Rome had the best warriors in the world,” said Jack. “They defended the Roman empire for over five hundred years! They—”

  “Great, got it,” said Annie. “There’s more here from Morgan.” She read from the scroll again:

  You must each keep a journal.

  Use tablets of wax.

  With a pen called a stylus,

  Write down the facts.

  “So that’s what this is!” said Jack. He grabbed one of the wooden tablets. “In ancient times, people wrote on these. See, the wood’s covered with wax.” He picked up a pointed reed. “And here’s the stylus! It’s like a pen with no ink!”

  “Hold on,” said Annie. “Listen to this.”

  Write what you see.

  Write what you feel.

  Do what warriors do

  To make your words real.

  “How do we ‘do what warriors do’?” Jack said. “Roman warriors were the toughest guys on the planet. They had years of training.”

  “Maybe Morgan sent us something to give us magic skills,” said Annie, “like the baseball caps we wore to be major league batboys.”

  They looked in the shadowy corners of the tree house. Jack saw only the Pennsylvania book that would bring them home.

  “Nothing here,” he said. “Morgan didn’t even send a research book to help us.”

  “Don’t worry, you know a lot from your project,” said Annie.

  “Not enough,” said Jack.

  “Well, maybe Morgan wants us to learn more on our own,” said Annie. “Last verse.”

  Give the silver coin

  To a hero in disguise.

  He will share with you his wisdom.

  Be home by moonrise.

  “What silver coin?” said Annie.

  They looked around the tree house again. Jack spotted a black coin on the floor. It was about the size of a quarter.

  “Maybe this?” he said, picking it up.

  “That doesn’t look like silver,” said Annie.

  “Silver turns dark over time,” said Jack. “You have to polish it.”

  “Okay, we can do that later. Let’s go now!” said Annie.

  “How?” said Jack. “There’s no research book to take us to the right place.”

  “Hmm…,” said Annie. “I have an idea. I’ll just point at Morgan’s words.” She touched the rhyme. “I wish we could go to a Roman legion camp on the Danube!”

  A cry from the eagle pierced the air.

  The wind started to blow.

  The tree house started to spin.

  It spun faster and faster.

  Then everything was still.

  Absolutely still.

  The air was cold and bright.

  “Brrr, it feels like winter,” said Annie.

  “Yeah,” said Jack, shivering. He could see his breath in the frosty air. “We’re wearing Roman clothes. Too bad they’re not warmer.”

  Jack and Annie both wore wool capes with tunics and boots. Instead of a backpack, Jack had a leather pouch attached to a belt. Annie had a belt and pouch, too.

  “Hey, I’m dressed like a boy,” she said. “This should be fun.”

  They looked out the window. Snow covered the ground.

  Sunlight sparkled on a frozen river.

  “That must be the Danube,” said Jack.

  An eagle cried out. Annie leaned out the window and looked to the right. “Our eagle!” she said. “And that must be our Roman camp!”

  Jack leaned out the window, too. He saw the eagle gliding toward a cluster of buildings surrounded by a high wooden fence.

  “Oh, man, it looks like my model,” said Jack.

  “Yep, and it’s dusted with snow, just like in Morgan’s rhyme,” said Annie. “Let’s go!”

  Jack and Annie put their tablets and pens in their leather pouches. Jack dropped the coin into his pouch, too. Then they climbed down the rope ladder.

  The sunlight on the snow was blindingly bright. But the air was bitter cold. Jack pulled his cape closer. The thick wool was warm and scratchy.

  “Before we go any farther, maybe we should write something in our journals,” he said.

  “Good idea,” said Annie.

  They pulled out their writing tools.

  “Watch,” said Jack. He pressed the pointed reed into the wax and wrote a W.

  “Got it,” said Annie. “But we should write small so we can fit everything in.”

  Jack wrote WINTER. Then he looked at Annie, writing her own notes.

  “What are you writing?” he asked.

  “Rider on a black horse,” she said.

  “Where?” Jack said, looking around.

  “Against the sun,” said Annie.

  Jack shielded his eyes and looked at the bright horizon.

  A rider on a black horse was trotting over the frozen ground between the river and the camp. He wore a helmet and a red cape.

  Oh, no! thought Jack. Should we climb back into the tree house?

  “Hi!” Annie called, waving.

  The rider raised his hand in greeting. He trotted over to them. His face was mostly hidden by his helmet.

  “Hail, children! Are you lost?” he asked.

  Jack was relieved. The man’s voice was friendly.

  “Not lost,” said Annie. “Actually, we want to visit that army camp.”

  “Have you family there?” asked the warrior.

  “No, we just want to learn more about the Roman legion,” said Jack.

  “We’re keeping journals,” said Annie. She held up her tablet and stylus.

  “Indeed?” said the man. “You are the first children I have
met who keep journals.”

  “We plan to write what we see and what we feel,” said Annie.

  “Ah, young visiting scholars,” said the rider. “Have you questions for me?”

  “Um…yes,” said Jack. “Why is the army camped here?”

  “Legion Gemina Fourteen is camped on the Danube to protect Rome’s northern border,” said the rider. “To keep invaders from crossing the river.”

  “Who are the invaders?” asked Annie.

  “Anyone who wants to take away our freedom,” said the rider, “and destroy the Roman way of life.”

  “Do you know how we can get inside the camp?” said Jack.

  “Give the guard the password of the day,” the rider said. “Mars the Victor.”

  “Like Mars the planet?” asked Annie.

  “No, like Mars, the Roman god of war,” Jack said.

  “Oh. Who’s the Roman god of peace?” asked Annie.

  “Pax is the goddess of peace,” said the rider. His horse pawed the ground.

  “Pax. I like that,” said Annie.

  “Tell the guard you plan to report on the legion’s hard work,” said the rider. “Say you are visiting scholars under the command of the Imperial Guard.”

  “ ‘Visiting scholars under the command of the Imperial Guard,’ ” Jack repeated slowly. “Got it.” That sounds really official, he thought.

  The rider squinted at the rising sun. “I must return to my station now,” he said. “Farewell, friends!”

  The rider turned his horse and galloped toward the camp. Jack and Annie watched him pass through the gateway.

  “Let’s go!” said Jack, and they started walking toward the gate.

  “He was nice,” said Annie. “Do you think he was an important officer in the legion?”

  “No way,” said Jack. “He was just an ordinary army guy. He didn’t have a plume on his helmet. And he didn’t wear armor covered with medals, like a centurion. Be glad he wasn’t a centurion.”