Forts: Endings and Beginnings Read online

  As quickly as it arrived, the cloud cleared. When the advancing army emerged from the smoky blur, they emerged into madness. Despite being caught off guard by the breach of their outer wall, the Ochan army recovered quickly like the well-trained, battle-tested force of destruction they were. Not only had they recovered, they were waiting. A massive group of Ochan soldiers and heavily armored beasts of war charged in the direction of the oncoming forces. When the two armies collided, the whole of Ocha shook.

  As Ocha shook, the universe wept.

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  CHAPTER 37

  ENTER FROM ABOVE

  *

  Emerging from the densely-packed clouds above the castle of the tyrant king, Fellow Undergotten’s heart stuttered, coughed, and paused briefly before unwillingly starting anew. He hadn’t yet come to terms with how quickly everything was happening. There wasn’t any time. Only hours ago he was trudging through the forest with Chris Jarvis, Owen Little and a small group of would-be rescuers on what was, for all intents and purposes, a suicide mission. Now he was clinging to the back of an Aquari Sea Dragon with Owen holding him so tight he could barely breathe. Hundreds of feet below a full-scale war was erupting. The charge was being led primarily by a race of creatures Fellow recently believed were nothing more than the tall tales of pirate drunkards and the hopeful stupid. Leaning to his right, he glanced past the thickly muscled neck of the Sea Dragon and toward the castle below. Even from miles above, it looked impossibly massive. Within gargantuan walls that extended for miles in every direction there were buildings of every shape and size. Scattered among them were more Ochans than he could count. Though the Aquari army was as imposing a force as he’d ever seen, something in the pit of Fellow’s stomach told him they weren’t nearly imposing enough. The Ochans had discovered, attacked, and conquered ninety-nine worlds with relative ease. Even a battle-ready, warfare-hardened race like the Tycarians fell to the might of the Ochan nation with what was essentially a whimper.

  Why should this situation be any different?

  The children from the hundredth world and their fabulous powers, and the stories of the Fillagrou elders, were the only x-factor. They were new additions to an ageless equation that most believed was solved long ago. They were the monkey wrench. What little hope he had rested on their slim, unimposing shoulders.

  Seated directly behind the blue-skinned fish man, Owen Little wrapped his arms tightly around Fellow’s waist and pressed his cheek into his friend’s back. Growling above them, the wall of black and gray clouds flickered with the glow of lightning cracks hidden deep within. It was so cold Owen could barely feel his fingers, so cold his teeth refused to stop chattering and his eyebrows were frozen solid. Just behind him, the wings of the Sea Dragon flapped once to keep its massive body airborne, and then steadied straight, expertly riding the choppy breeze. From somewhere below came the sound of an explosion. Less than twenty seconds afterward there was another. Owen made no attempt to look. If he looked down, he thought he might puke.

  Scratch that and revise; if he looked down he was sure he would puke.

  It was insane to be as high as he was and it was even more insane to be as high as he was with the ridges of a Sea Dragon’s spine wedged in the crack of his butt. The strangeness of it all somehow made sense, though. It shouldn’t have, but it did.

  While the bizarre and unbelievable had become commonplace since he first stumbled into the stream beneath the tree house of the Jarvis brothers, it remained as frightening as ever. That much was never going to change.

  After the sound of yet another explosion wafted up from the ground below, Owen felt Fellow’s body stiffen.

  “The kid did it. I can’t believe he did it. They’ve got an opening,” the fish man mumbled to himself with a hint of surprise, a smidge of pride and a heaping healthy spoonful of worry.

  “While it is a start, it is only just,” Asop added stoically from the front of the line, his lanky transparent finger extended toward the shattered remains of the castle below.

  Fellow’s eyes followed the alien’s skinny digit. Beyond the cloud of dust created by the collapsing wall, the Ochan defense force was already beginning to swell. Hundreds of soldiers stood with weapons at the ready, and hundreds of thousands more were moving to join the impending battle from behind. In the distance, he spotted three enormous digging creatures plodding across the horizon and stomping into position as well. All over the castle grounds, cawing Scarbeaks were lifting into the air with steely-faced soldiers upon their backs. Though they’d been caught off guard, the Ochans were responding with frightening precision.

  His mouth suddenly dry, Fellow Undergotten swallowed deep.

  Enamored with the sheer size of the amassing forces below, Fellow barely noticed an arrow whiz past, mere inches from his face. Through the space between Asop’s torso, rail-thin arm, and over the bobbing head of the Sea Dragon leading the way, he noticed something darting in and out of the thick clouds ahead. It was moving in their direction. It was moving fast and shooting across the flickering sky with the precision of a hummingbird. Another arrow zipped by his shoulder while a third hummed past his dangling leg. While the clouds were too thick and the snowfall too heavy for him to tell who or what was moving in their direction, he had a pretty good idea of what it might be.

  Tapping Asop on the shoulder, the Chintaran screamed over the rumbling clouds above. “Move! We have to move!”

  So involved with the happenings below, Asop failed to notice the wall of arrow-spewing black moving in their direction.

  In no time at all, the shape had moved significantly closer, and the closer it moved, the more its details filled out. They were Scarbeaks, hundreds of them. On the back of each sat an Ochan soldier with his bow pointed in their direction.

  Slapping the side of the Sea Dragon’s neck with his bony palm, Asop screamed louder than Fellow Undergotten thought possible. “Up!”

  The beast responded with a flap of its wings and a quick twist of its torso. The Sea Dragon’s body shot upwards and into the dense clouds overhead. Hundreds of wailing Scarbeaks passed by like a swarm of bees. Arrows whizzed past from every direction. Asop, Fellow and Owen folded their bodies forward, laying their chests on the scaly back of the dragon beneath them and placing their hands over their heads. Unable to contain his emotions, Owen closed his eyes so tightly it hurt and screamed louder than he’d screamed in his life, none of which could be heard over the roar of the storm and the steady claps of thunder. When the Sea Dragon emerged from the clouds a few seconds later, its three passengers searched their bodies for injuries and sighed with relief. They were unharmed. The clouds had provided cover, and luck was on their side. The Ochans had missed.

  While the arrows had narrowly missed them, the same could not be said for the creature on which they soared.

  Arrows too numerous to count protruded from garish, bloody wounds across nearly every inch of the creature’s hide. At least twenty or thirty had passed through or remained wedged in the folds of the great beast’s right wing, and another fifty protruding from its underbelly. The injuries had taken their toll. Struggling just to remain airborne, the Sea Dragon was flying unevenly, dipping in the direction of its injured appendage, threatening to toss the trio from its back and send them sailing in the direction of the war torn land below.

  Briefly glancing over his shoulder, Fellow noticed that many of the attacking Scarbeaks were already looping back in their direction after the initial flurry. Uninjured and carrying noticeably less weight, the smaller, more maneuverable creatures were trailing close behind, the soldiers on their backs and ready for a second volley. Fellow’s eyes moved to the castle below. The battle had moved past the shattered opening in the outer wall. Already pockets of fire were sprouting up. Corpses lay scattered across the frozen soil. Shiny, half-frozen puddles of blood glimmered in the light of the flashing clouds overhead, twinkling like the reflection of stars across the surface of the lake near his boyhood home
. The entire area was engulfed in what could only be described as madness.

  Thick spittle mixed with a hint of blood flung from the mouth of the Sea Dragon as it struggled to breathe. No less than six arrows were protruding from its neck. Catching the breeze, the thick mucus whipped backward and splattered off the side of Fellow’s face. The creature was dying. If it died in the air, so would they.

  Another arrow whizzed by, parting Owen’s red hair before passing just underneath Fellow’s arm. The Scarbeaks were closing the gap.

  “We have to go down right now!” Fellow yelled, Slapping Asop on the back forcefully. “Get us down!”

  After two more arrows shot past from behind, Asop smacked the injured Sea Dragon again on its side and yelled sternly: “Down!”

  In spite of its numerous injuries and the fact that it was struggling to breathe, the Sea Dragon responded to the command immediately. The relationship between the Narye and the creatures living beneath the choppy waves of Aquari had been a beneficial one for generations, one of mutual respect and understanding—not so much friendship as family. The scaly beast believed in Asop. It would die to protect him.

  Dipping its head, the Sea Dragon willed its injured wing into action, twisted its torso and dove for the madness below. The Scarbeaks and their riders followed, firing arrows into the hide of the beast and its swinging tail the entire way. At this point the Sea Dragon was falling more than flying. It was diving in the direction of the scorched yet frozen soil at an astounding rate. Hundreds of feet passed in mere seconds. Lumps of snow the size of a Tycarian fist pounded against Owen’s face with enough force to leave a welt. Unable to maintain his position against Fellow’s back with the winds pushing him in the opposite direction, Owen felt his feet flip from underneath him. His legs followed, and a moment later his lower half was lifted into the air, flapping wildly in the breeze.

  Reaching down, Fellow snagged the boy’s wrists and held tight. “Don’t worry! I’ve got you, Kiddo!”

  The ground was rushing upward quickly—too quickly. So fast, in fact, that Fellow wondered if the injured Sea Dragon realized what was happening, or if it was even capable of doing something about it. Shooting past the crook of Fellow’s neck, an arrow wedged itself into the shoulder of Asop. It passed through his spongy flesh with ease, glanced off the bone underneath and ripped through the skin on the opposite side. With half a grunt and half a scream, Asop closed his eyes and moaned. His face contorted into an expression that seemed radically out of place when compared to his normally stoic visage. His body flopped forward and his head bounced off the stiff spine of the Sea Dragon, knocking him unconscious.

  Seconds before colliding with the ground, weary and injured, the Sea Dragon twisted its body upwards, spread its wings and shot its legs forward in a vain attempt to create something remotely resembling a landing. It wasn’t enough. The creature was too wobbly and uneven. The maneuver was doomed from the start. The moment the creature’s rear paws smashed into the frozen Ochan soil, its knees shattered and its legs bent backward. Its massive body flipped forward and its ten-foot long neck folded underneath its torso. With the great beast whining in pain and spinning like a top, its three passengers were launched into the air amidst a cloud of dirt and upturned soil.

  Asop’s limp form spun forward head over heels, collided with the ground, and bounced twice before coming to a sliding stop nearly twenty feet from the point of impact. The wildly thrashing body of the Sea Dragon skidded past him, leaving a massive trail of smoky dirt in its wake. Its bloody torso smashed into a group of unsuspecting Ochan soldiers, crushing their bodies underneath its weight before demolishing a pair of slave huts and slamming against a nearby wall.

  Suddenly airborne, Fellow Undergotten reacted quickly. Reaching behind him, he scooped up Owen and pulled the boy close to his chest. For a fraction of a second both he and the child were weightless. The world became a spinning blur of colors and incoherent noises that seemed to stretch like taffy, lasting far longer than reality might suggest. Shifting his weight midair, Fellow managed to position himself parallel to the ground with Owen on top. The snow freckled courtyard rushed toward them. When they hit, they were going to hit hard. Fellow understood that he needed to take the force of the blow. He was bigger. He was thicker and he was far sturdier. His body could take it.

  Even if his body couldn’t take it, he knew that he could force it to. For Owen’s sake, he had to.

  Fellow Undergotten’s back slammed against the dirt and the oxygen blew from his lungs. His head scraped against and then bounced off the ground, opening a two-inch gash along the rear of his skull and nearly knocking him unconscious. The bones in his shoulder snapped like dried twigs. The snapped edges wedged themselves within the tightly woven folds of his muscle tissue. Something in his spine popped.

  His grip on Owen did not waver. His fingers never slipped or relaxed, and his arms never gave into the flashes of pain shooting across them and into his fingers. Not even for a second.

  The momentum of the crash sent both him and Owen skidding across the icy snow-covered soil. Even as the loose rocks and uneven ground tore the flesh from his back, and as the dizziness in his head began to set in, Fellow Undegotten refused to let go of the shivering boy hugged against his chest. When at last the darkness floated in and the world washed away, his body responded independent of his brain and his arms locked themselves even tighter around Owen’s back. No matter what, he refused to relent. Nearly thirty feet further on, Fellow’s body eventually came to a stop. Though he was entirely unaware of it at the time, his arms remained exactly where he needed them to be, exactly where Owen needed them to be.

  Then, as if somehow aware of fact that they had completed their mission, sore and broken, Fellow Undergotten’s arms slid loosely from Owen’s body and flopped to his side. His head rolled to the left and the faintest trickle of blood seeped from between his cracked and battered lips. Unfortunately for both he and Owen, a large group of soldiers were already moving in their direction.

  In war, the victories are small. In war, the victories never seem to last.

  *

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  CHAPTER 38

  THE BEAUTY IN GOODBYE

  *

  “It won’t be long now,” Zanell whispered into the cold, her thin lips molded into the faintest of grins.

  Standing beside her on aching legs, her older brother Pleebo stared wide-eyed at the battle only just beginning to take place outside the castle of the tyrant king of Ocha. From his position near the tree line, he watched as a section of the enormous black wall was reduced to rubble with not one, but three blasts from an unseen force. Though he was too far away and the landscape too crowded to tell from where the incredible wall-shattering energy had emerged, he assumed it must have come from one of the children of the prophecy. There was no other explanation.

  To his immediate right, the wrinkled female conjurer gazed in the direction of the castle from underneath her dusty greenish-brown cloak with her head cocked slightly to the side. Though she was incapable of “seeing” the battle in the traditional sense of the word, she was experiencing it in her own unique way. She heard the rumble of Nicky Jarvis’s word power; she felt it in the toes of her bare feet. It tickled the tips of her fingers and slid across the contours of her bones in a way Pleebo or even his all-knowing sister could never hope to understand. It had been years since she dared emerge from the forest and into the light. It was even longer since she had a reason. Though it was common knowledge that the king was slightly more accepting of her type than his father before, the vast majority of Ocha did not necessarily share his feelings. The conjurers had never been welcome in the open. They never would be. They were too different. They presented too many unknowns.

  Extending a single shaky hand forward the ancient female conjurer opened her palm and caught the falling snow. The black flakes evaporated on contact, melting into equally dark liquid and seeping into the folds of her wrinkly skin. Though this world was all s
he’d ever known—and beautiful in its own sort of way—she was happy this day had finally arrived. She had waited a very long time. The sensation in her bones was undeniable; everything she’d ever known was about to change. There would be no coming back.

  With a single step, Zanell moved beside her brother and rested her head gently on his shoulder. His skin was colder than she’d ever felt it, and his breathing labored. Since inheriting the sight beyond sight from her grandfather and taking on the mantle of Fillagrou elder, Zanell had seen this very moment a thousand times. Sometimes she watched it from high above, looking down on the participants from the clouds. She’d even once observed it from the perspective of an Ochan Glanworm, barely a centimeter off the ground and staring upward with remarkable disinterest. Once she tried viewing it through Pleebo’s eyes, struggling to capture and make sense of the mix of emotions in a way he wouldn’t be able. No matter the perspective or how many times Zanell absorbed the situation, not a single one could ever have prepared her for the reality of the moment. Despite the knowledge of what was to come, the feelings she felt, while at last existing in the moment rather than watching, remained wholly unique. The chill of the wind across her skin, the awkward heaving of her brother’s breath and the starry-eyed expression of possibility dancing in the veins of his pupils; these were the sensations that mattered most. These were the unnoticed whispers she would take with her when she said goodbye.