Forts: Endings and Beginnings Read online

  Reaching back with her free hand, Tahnja dug her fingers into the creature’s open wound and pressed inward until they were buried to the knuckle in the mushy warmth.

  The soldier grunted and screamed, spittle speckled with blood spraying from between his lips. “I will kill you!”

  Swinging wildly from below, the back of the creature’s fist collided with the rear of Tahnja’s head. While the blow rattled her brain, it did not knock her from her perch. Reaching forward, she wedged her palm against the underside of his chin and pressed upward to expose the dark green, vein-covered neck underneath.

  Her response was simple. “No you won’t.”

  Leaning so close to him that their blood caked lips nearly touched and the sweat from her face dripped onto his, she added with a snarled whisper, “You won’t kill anyone. Not ever again.”

  As the Ochan tried once more to buck her off, Tahnja pressed the tip of the slimy dagger in her hand against his neck and shoved it forward. At that very instant, the cloud of dust thickened so much that she could no longer see the expression on the soldier’s face, so much that she couldn’t see the blade or the blood, or watch as her opponent’s lungs filled with his liquidity insides. She was so close that she remained blissfully unaware of the exact moment he inhaled the coarse, dusty air for the final time.

  When he died, he died alone.

  High overhead the densely packed clouds shuddered and roared. Black, coal colored snowflakes the size of a toddler’s hand began to pour from somewhere deep within the foggy nothingness.

  The universe, too, appreciates the importance of secrets.

  *

  *

  CHAPTER 35

  THE LONG CLIMB

  *

  When Roustaf awoke, he was half buried in a pile of black snow. His ribs were on fire. Every breath sent a flash of white-hot pain across the whole of his chest, into his shoulders and down the ridges of his spine. Reaching up, he ran his hand over his horns and to the back of his head where he felt a massive lump on the rear of his skull. His memory was blurry, and for the briefest of moments he struggled to recall exactly where he was and how he’d gotten there. He could recall with some clarity the charging wall of Ochan soldiers and the wobbly slaves that emerged from the huts throughout the courtyard to join the battle.

  He could also remember Tahnja’s smile, the way she grinned at him while struggling to fight back the tears welling in the corner of her eyes, so beautiful and so achingly bittersweet.

  Everything else was jumbled and incoherent.

  Moving his hand from his head, the little man slid it to his chest and surmised rather quickly that one or more of his ribs were broken. They had to be broken. The pain was too intense to be anything else. This was just another thing to add to his ever-expanding list of injuries.

  One of those damn Ochans must have kicked him in the chest. That had to be it. He could sort of remember it happening: the boot rushing toward him as he threw his hands into the air. One of those green-skinned bastards booted him square in the chest, tossed him thirty or so feet and slammed him into a nearby wall. After that, everything went black.

  Tahnja. Where was Tahnja?

  Rolling onto his side with a pained grimace, Roustaf glanced toward the battle still raging in the courtyard. Unfortunately, he could see very little. The entire area was blanketed in a dusty haze. Those fighting within the billowy smoke were reduced to shadows, blurry shapes with no real details of which to speak, vaguely discolored silhouettes on an ever-changing horizon, and nothing more. Somewhere overhead, a bell was ringing. In fact, the damn thing wouldn’t stop ringing. Past the smoke and the noise of war, in the distance something exploded. The force of the unseen detonation was so immense it resulted in an aftershock that rattled the ground beneath his feet and caused him to lose his balance when he tried to stand. A moment later a second explosion rattled the stones of the aged castle wall behind, shaking free a few loose pieces or rock and dropping them to the frozen ground nearby. In spite of the stabbing pains in his chest and the nagging ache in his lower back, Roustaf eventually willed himself onto wobbly legs. Once upright, he realized rather quickly that the pain in his chest extended deeper into his lower half than he initially assumed. Remaining upright was going to be an issue. Every part of him hurt. Every inch had been bent further than it was capable of bending. Every muscle was screaming. The cloud of dust in front of him seemed to be getting thicker, and those inside, further away. He was never going to find Tahnja—not like this, not from this vantage point. He needed to get high. If he had any chance of finding her, he would need to get above the cloud of flailing bodies and debris. Without thinking, Roustaf attempted to flap his wings and lift into the air. Though the muscles in his back moved, there were no wings to flap. He wasn’t going anywhere. No matter how badly he wanted to, or how hard he tried, flight had become impossible.

  Six inches off the ground: this was his limit now. Six inches off the ground, where he was of no good to anyone.

  With a heavy sigh, Roustaf slumped his shoulders, lowered his head and dropped to his rear in the filthy black snow beneath his feet. He was useless. The cloud of swirling sand, billowing smoke and charcoal snow ahead was mocking him. It was exposing him for what he’d become and what he’d chosen to do to himself. Hidden somewhere inside it, slaves on the brink of starvation were fighting for their lives—fighting for his life. Any one of the wild, hazy shapes could have been Tahnja. She might have been injured. She could have been lying face down in the dirt, bleeding and clinging to what little life she had left. For all he knew, she could already be dead. Wearily he lifted his head and stared at the tips of his toes poking through the disgusting black snow beneath him. The cold was slowly eating away at them. His skin was transforming into an almost obscene bluish-red that bordered on purple. It was a color he’d never seen before. If they weren’t already frostbitten, they weren’t far away. Even if he somehow managed to survive the day, he doubted whether or not he’d walk again.

  From off in the distance came the sound of yet another explosion: crumbling stone, pained screams and a battle cry. Something major was going on further down the courtyard and out of view, something so major that the tightly packed silhouettes fighting within the cloud of dust were beginning to dissipate. The Ochan forces therein were peeling away from Tahnja and the slave uprising. They apparently had more pressing matters to attend to. Reaching up, Roustaf smacked away a tiny icicle forming on his brow that dangled just over his right eye. This six-inch thing was nonsense. He needed to get higher. Wings or not, he needed to get higher. Sitting on his rear in the snow pining for the things he’d lost and would never get back wasn’t going to accomplish anything. There was no time for whining. There was no time for crying or stewing in self-pity. There was no time for frostbitten feet or broken ribs.

  He was better than all of that—and even if he wasn’t, he needed to be.

  Using the stone behind him as a brace, the little red-skinned man with the cracked feet, the shattered ribs, and the broken heart, hoisted himself vertically once more and tried valiantly to steady his shaky legs. When they flat out refused his efforts, he tugged his fingers into a fist and punched his right thigh as hard as he could.

  Staring down at his bleeding feet, he mumbled. “I’ve had enough of this crap. You hear me? Let’s just knock off the damn shaking, or I promise you there’s more where that came from.”

  Fearing reproach, his legs steadied.

  Turning to face the wall behind him, Roustaf grabbed hold of the frozen stone and began to climb. The only way he was going to find Tahnja would be to move above the fighting and get the lay of the land. From six inches off the ground he was useless. Though the reality of the situation did little for his ego, there was simply no denying it. The deeply set grooves in the stone of the castle wall made finding a handhold relatively simple, and in a matter of minutes he’d risen nearly five feet into the air. Less than sixty seconds later, he was at six feet. While t
he jagged rocks were indeed making the journey upward easier in one respect, they presented their fair share of problems as well. The stone was too jagged and too pointy. With every step, the flesh on the underside of his frozen feet was peeling away. Bloody chunks of crinkly, frostbitten red skin snagged, pulled and ripped, and were left behind to hang like bloody laundry on a wire. Beneath him a trail of blood seven feet long had already begun to freeze in the harsh Ochan air. Above him the wall seemed almost to extend forever, a dark mountain of stone that stretched into the gray bed of clouds and was gobbled up. The higher he climbed, the stiffer the wind became. The storm was building in strength, flakes of black snow the size of his torso smashed into the side of his head, threatening to knock him loose and drop him to the icy courtyard below. Once he’d passed the twenty-foot mark, Roustaf glanced over his shoulder and toward the dust cloud behind.

  From behind a prickly, frost covered mustache, he mumbled angrily, “You’ve gotta be kidding me.”

  He wasn’t nearly high enough.

  The soles of his feet were slippery with blood, throbbing with the reminder of the long climb he’d undertaken. The uneven, serrated stone was beginning to have the same effect on his hands. Never in the little man’s life had twenty-five feet seemed so high. If he fell, he was done for. There were no wings to slow his descent or shoot him upward and take him to the sky. Only the ground would cushion his blow, and it was no cushion at all. Clinging to the side of the castle nearly thirty feet in the air, the little man came to a stop once again and sighed. His arms were weary, slippery with his own blood. He was having trouble finding his breath, and the pain in his chest wasn’t making the search any simpler. On top of it all, despite the threats he’d made to them earlier, his legs were beginning to jitter uncontrollably. Glancing again over his shoulder, Roustaf noticed that the cloud of debris below had begun to dissipate. The slave hut that the weird little one-armed creature led them to earlier looked to be barely more than pile of rubble, as was the one beside it and the one next to that as well. Was Donald still inside? Did Staci make it below before the collapse? Try as he might, he couldn’t remember. Bodies were scattered everywhere, their multicolored blood splattered and crisscrossed across the ground like the canvas of some madman abstract painter. At first glance, most of the corpses seemed to be slaves. Apparently the dead and the dying hadn’t fared well.

  There was still no sign of Tahnja.

  It was at this moment a particularly forceful gust of wind crept between Roustaf and the wall, pressed outward and shot his legs into the air. Soaked with blood, one of his hands lost its grip, slipped from the wall and left him dangling by a single arm and the strength of a few half-frozen fingers. The clouds above belched again, and a second breeze blasted downward, spinning his body wildly and smacking the side of his face against the stone. More blood began to seep from his nose. He was starting to wonder if he had any left. Twisting midair, he managed to grab hold of the stone and plant his ravaged feet against the icy surface. Though he was safe for the moment, he worried about another breeze. The wind was picking up. His arms were sore and only getting sorer. Climbing had accomplished less than nothing. There was no sign of Tahnja, his feet were ripped to shreds, and the climbing only exasperated the initial pain caused by his broken ribs. Getting to higher ground was beginning to look like a very bad idea.

  That’s when he heard it. Somewhere high above, something roared. From far below came the unmistakable sound of surprised and worried Ochan voices. Though it proved far more difficult than he anticipated, Roustaf managed to twist his body backward and gaze into the sky behind. All at once he watched as what appeared to be seven massive, cawing, angry Sea Dragons exploding from the densely packed clouds overhead. As a group, the seven beasts dove into the courtyard with the absolute worst of intentions. Behind them, there were fifty more.

  The reinforcements had arrived.

  *

  *

  CHAPTER 36

  CHARGE!

  *

  The gargantuan snarling half-fish, half-dinosaur thing beneath the legs of Captain Jacques Fluuffytail huffed through its puffy lips as the ten-foot long whiskers protruding from either side of its flat face flapped in the breeze. Three hundred yards ahead, Jaques watched as a rather sizable section of the enormous castle wall was transformed into a cloud of dust and flying debris. It happened in an instant, in the blink of an eye. This was destruction on a level he could scarcely comprehend. A few hundred yards behind him, the unassuming little boy he’d met on the deck of his dearly departed Briar Patch was screaming angrily between the outstretched paws of his longtime friend, Nestor Rockshell. The incredible energy pouring from the child’s lips spread out and shot forward with remarkable speed, rolling toward the already battered wall ahead like a tsunami-sized wall of water during the harshest of Aquari storms. As it passed him, it ruffled the fur covering the entirety of Jacques’ body and very nearly knocked him from the back of his charging beast. The same as before, the wall ahead stood no chance. Ochan stone ten body-lengths thick was reduced to dust in an instant. Loose bits of rock and gravel in all shapes and sizes exploded from the point at which energy met stone and shot into the clouds above. The charging Aquari army, nearly a mile across and swelling, instantly moved toward the newly created entrance. To his direct left—so close that the huffing stomachs of the charging creatures beneath them momentarily bumped mid stride—Jacques noticed an angry scowl on the face of one of the Narye. It was an expression he didn’t believe them capable of creating. These were no longer the same uncaring, disinterested, know-it-all sticks in the mud he first met in the deepest depths of Aquari. They were angry now. They were angry and focused and out for blood. They were almost as angry as he was. The expression on the alien’s previously expressionless face was one he’d seen a hundred times before on a hundred different faces from a hundred different worlds. It was an expression he could relate to. It was an expression he respected.

  Though wholly dedicated to the task at hand, the lanky, bigheaded thing noticed Jacques’ eyes upon him and glanced briefly in the little pirate’s direction.

  With a smile on his face a mile wide, the dusty bunny captain flashed a thumb’s-up gesture toward the slightly confused creature and yelled, “It’s a hellofa rush, ain’t it, Stretch?”

  Less than a hundred yards from the castle wall, Jacques watched as a third blast of Nicky Jarvis’s “word power” demolished another section of the wall and reduced it to airborne bits of flaming stone. Almost instantly, a mountain of dust rose up to take the place of the fallen structure. From somewhere beyond the smoky cloud and what remained of the previously impenetrable wall, a barrage of arrows emerged. Jacques’ body reacted before his mind even had time to process the situation. The rabbit captain lowered himself into a crouched position and pulled his flapping ears as close to his head as possible. In groups of five and six at a time, arrows whizzed past his head, the sound popping in his ears as they narrowly missed both him and the rampaging beast on which he was bouncing. From his right came a pained yelp. He turned his head just in time to watch as one of the Narye caught an arrow in the center of its skull. The alien’s lanky body tumbled from the back of the charging fish-thing and bounced off the ground in a broken heap. After narrowly missing Jacques’ fur-crusted leg, an arrow penetrated the thickly scaled hide of his snarling four-legged fish. Refusing to break its stride, the beast barked in pain, huffed and let out a second, noticeably louder roar. Reaching behind him, his body bouncing wildly, Fluuffytail wrapped his paw around the arrow and tore it from the creature’s muscled flesh.

  After snapping the arrow in two, he screamed in the direction of the castle ahead. “You’ll pay for that one, ya foul-breathed rapscallions! Just get this ol’ seadog inside them walls, girl!” He added, digging his heels into the hindquarters of the beast. “Get me inside, ‘n I’ll take it from there!”

  As the Aquari army neared the castle, the onslaught of arrows picked up pace. Jacques coul
d hear them popping around him ten and twenty at a time. There were so many. He’d never seen so many. Occasionally the weapons connected with the surrounding Narye or the angry, whiskered monster between lanky legs. A single arrow clipped his right ear, slicing through cleanly before wedging itself into the coral-armored chest of a Nayre soldier that was behind him. The fluffy pirate captain bit his teeth and ignored the pain. He and his trusty steed were less than a hundred feet away from the cloud of dust created in the wake of the newly decimated wall. There was no turning back, and even if there was, Captain Jacques Fluuffytail wouldn’t have wanted to. Images of those he’d lost flashed in his mind: Shelton, Wilbur, Fester and so many of his loyal crew, of his beautiful lady Briar as she sank below the waves and disappeared forever. He was doing this for them, and her, and everyone the Ochans had hurt. He was doing this for himself.

  Reaching to his side he snagged a dagger from his belt and a second from a sheath strapped to his chest. Placing one of them between his lips, he bit down hard while raising the other into the air. No matter what happened, he would make the Ochans pay for what they’d done.

  No matter what happened, on this day they would remember his name.

  The cloud of debris engulfed Jacques Fluuffytail and the army from the water world called Aquari all at once, swallowing them whole and blinding them momentarily as the largest barrage of arrows yet hit them head on. Inside the smoke and the debris there were screams, the pops, screams, grunts, and other sounds of war. Jacques’ hands did not shake. Instead, his muscles tightened and his back straightened. His teeth ground against the steel of the dagger in his mouth and his eyes narrowed. When an arrow tore a chunk of flesh from his shoulder, he refused to acknowledge the pain.