Forts: Endings and Beginnings Read online

  The hint of a tear formed in the corner of Nicky’s eye and Chris immediately wiped it away.

  “Things are going to be different. I swear. I just need to find your brother.” Chris wiped away another tear, this time from his own cheek.

  Standing up, Christopher Jarvis pressed his hand into the square of his son’s back and nudged the boy in the direction of Reginald. The moment he was within arm’s reach, the Tycarian wrapped his paws around Nicky, lifted him into the air, and placed the boy beside him on the back of his fish creature.

  Chris tightened his grip on the dagger in his hand, swallowed his emotions and stared with stern seriousness in Reginald’s direction. “Take care of my son.”

  The Tycarian’s nod was one of respect and admiration. It was a nod he did not often hand out, a nod generally reserved for those he respected above all others. He would indeed protect the boy to the best of his abilities. He would protect him with his life.

  A moment later Christopher Jarvis climbed onto the back of the Nestor’s fish-creature and settled in directly behind the massive body of the hard-nosed Tycarian soldier.

  Nestor’s mind wandered ever so briefly to a story he’d often heard as a child, and to a very specific verse that had stuck with him for years.

  “Into the belly of the beast he rode, concerns of safety and well being a thing of the past,” Nestor mumbled to no one in particular. “It was the beast, however, that smiled. Experience had taught it time and time again that the righteous taste best of all.”

  *

  *

  CHAPTER 50

  UNEXPECTED APPEARANCES

  *

  Pleebo closed the distance between himself and the glowing sphere encasing Tommy Jarvis with surprising rapidity. The full speed sprint from the tree line of the dead Ochan forest, across the battlefield, into the interior of destroyed castle walls, through another crowded battlefield, and to the spot where he watched the enormous light man shrink and disappear, hurt a good deal. The pain coursing through his shattered bones was beyond belief. He reminded himself to ignore it, to stuff it into a darkened area in the back of his head where it couldn’t get at him and leave it there. The pain could wait. He could acknowledge it later—if, in fact, there was a later.

  The word later was hardly an assurance anymore.

  At first Tommy barely recognized his Fillagrou friend. It had been so long since they’d seen each other, and Pleebo looked significantly different. His skin was blotchy and discolored, covered in grayish purple welts and spattered with ghastly blood-caked scars. The bags under his eyes were deep and wrinkled, his lips so cracked and dry they resembled handfuls of gravel. Though Tommy was unaware of it, the bubble encasing he and Arthur Crumbee evaporated slowly and returned to the tips of the fingers from which they originally sprouted.

  The instant it was gone, Pleebo dropped to one knee and wrapped his arms around the boy. Tommy felt thinner than he remembered, sort of wasted away. His body was noticeably warm though, almost hot to the touch, so hot the black snow beneath his feet was melting away.

  Pleebo reluctantly uncoiled himself from Tommy’s body. Using the boy’s shoulder as a brace, he stood with a grunt and wiped the sweaty strands of hair from Tommy’s eyes before adding with a pained, awkward grin, “You look like crap, kiddo.”

  Pleebo patted his shoulder gently. “I’ve seen a lot of weird stuff in my time, but, well…you do realize that you punched a digger in the face, right? Because you did.”

  Though Tommy had little interest in smiling, he did exactly that. He couldn’t help it.

  For the first time, Pleebo noticed the tiny purple-skinned man with the tattered clothes and necktie standing just over the boy’s shoulder and turned to face him.

  “The name is Crumbee, Arthur Crumbee the Third,” Arthur stuttered, taking a few steps toward the battered Fillagrou and extending his sweat-soaked hand.

  “Pleased to make your acquaintance, Mr. Crumbee,” Pleebo responded while shaking the pudgy appendage of the nervous little man with the floppy skin. “Name’s Pleebo.”

  Still grinning slightly, the Fillagrou turned his attention again to Tommy Jarvis. The boy looked drained, half asleep and half awake and only slightly aware of what was happening. His clothes were a filthy mess, ripped in more places then Pleebo could count and stained with perspiration and flecks of blood. For a moment he wondered how Tommy ended up in Ocha, and what on earth could have convinced the boy to come back through the doorway to Fillagrou. He wondered exactly where the boy had been since they last stood side by side, not to mention why he looked the way he did. What happened? What had he seen? As badly as Pleebo wanted answers to any or all of these questions, he also knew there simply wasn’t time. Zanell’s final words flashed in his brain, reminding him of what he needed to do and what he promised himself he would.

  Zanell. He couldn’t let her down.

  Pleebo dropped to his knee once again and returned his broken fingers to Tommy’s warm shoulder. “Listen, kiddo, I’d love to sit here and catch up on old times, but there’s something I need to tell you.”

  It was at this moment that Tommy Jarvis noticed movement over Pleebo’s shoulder and past his floppy, oversized ear. A group of fifteen or sixteen Ochan soldiers were carefully navigating the mountain of debris at the end of the alleyway with weapons at the ready. Tommy’s body acted on instincts he doubted existed a year prior. With every moment he was changing. With every awful experience he was becoming something else, transforming into something far larger than he could comprehend.

  Without so much as a word, the boy shoved Pleebo aside, opened his palm, and extended it forward. Like the laser from a futuristic weapon in a science fiction movie, a ray of light emerged from the tips of his fingers and shot in the direction of the approaching Ochans. The beam immediately spread outward, filling the alleyway as it rolled forward. It snaked over the smoking rubble and swallowed the advancing soldiers. There was no time to react. From the blinding wall of white-hot light, fifteen dead Ochans emerged, tossed into the air as if shot from a cannon. Their smoking bodies dropped to the ground no less than a hundred feet away with sickening, crunchy thuds.

  A flaming arrow whizzed past Tommy’s shoulder and sank into a pile of hay and crumpled leaves against a nearby wall. The fire instantly engulfed the dry foliage. Within moments it began to spread outward into the alley. Spinning in place, Tommy pointed his still glowing palm toward a group of soldiers approaching from the opposite direction. Again a blast of light erupted from the tips of his fingers, smashed into the Ochans, and scattered their smoking bodies across the surrounding buildings and the smoldering rubble.

  Wrapping his arms around Tommy, Pleebo lifted the boy into the air and carried him into the open doorway of a nearby building. Arthur Crumbee wobbled in behind them, his stubby little legs moving with a sense of urgency he didn’t quite believe them capable of. With all three inside, Pleebo slammed the door behind and wedged a chair beneath the handle. After he did it, he realized how silly it was. A chair? Really? Tommy Jarvis was transforming entire regiments of soldiers to charred husks with blasts of light from his fingers, and his weapon of choice was an old chair? He couldn’t help but shake his head and laugh at the idiocy of it.

  Tommy dropped from Pleebo’s hands and moved into the center of the room. There were weapons dangling loosely from hooks on every wall, and stacks of black-tinted armor piled behind a long desk at the far end. The roof above was creaking, sporadic splinters of grayish wood popping loose and dropping to the dusty floor below. Through a gaping hole in the corner, Tommy could see the thundering clouds above. He watched as two regiments of Scarbeaks flapped by. A section of the roof snapped and popped, causing a wooden beam nearly twenty feet long to fall away and crash against the dust-covered floor. The girders keeping the building erect were barely holding on. They weren’t going to last.

  Pleebo moved to Tommy’s side and dropped to his knee once again. Reaching out, he grabbed the boy by his shou
lder and spun him in his direction.

  “Tommy, listen to me,” The Fillagrou stammered as the ceiling overhead continued to moan and whine. “There’s something I need to tell you.”

  Before he could finish, Arthur Crumbee snagged hold of Pleebo’s arm and pulled it away with some urgency. “Excuse me, gentlemen, but I believe there are more pressing matters at hand!”

  The little man was pointing at the ceiling, his eyes wide and buckets of sweat dripping down the folds of his purple face. Pleebo followed Arthur’s pudgy finger upward just in time to see the mass of shattered wood above their heads give way. All at once the ceiling collapsed inward and the walls flattened out. No less than two tons of broken wood and bent steel tumbled downward. Instinctively Pleebo closed his eyes, grit his teeth, and lunged forward. He wrapped his arms around Tommy Jarvis, tackled him to the ground and used his body to cover the boy. After a few seconds had passed and he remained unburied, the confused Fillagrou cautiously opened his eyes. Why wasn’t he smashed? He really should have been smashed flat, squashed dead, and plucking fruit from the plentiful trees of the great forest of the afterlife—if in fact there were such a thing. He wasn’t dead, though. He was very much alive.

  Lying beneath him with a grimace on his tired face and his glowing arm pointed at the ceiling was Tommy Jarvis. The light extending from the boy’s fingers had spread across the whole of the room and bent upwards at the corners, similar to a curved plate or bowl. Lying on top of it, engulfed in a massive cloud of dust, was what remained of the utterly decimated roof.

  Tommy’s arms were shaking, his locked elbow wobbling unsteadily and threatening to crumple under the immense weight of the massive pile of debris overhead.

  “Are you—are you okay?” Pleebo stuttered, in awe of the fact that an entire building was floating atop a bed of crackling light just a few inches above his head, while at the same time terrified it might not remain there.

  Tommy closed his eyes and tried to steady his ragged breaths. It was about control. He was beginning to learn that. Calm and steady was the key. He needed to keep his wits about him. He needed to work through the pain, to make it work for him instead of against him.

  Beside them, Arthur Crumbee sat up, adjusted his tie, and swallowed.

  “Tommy?” Pleebo asked again, the destroyed remains of the building above him squeaking and moaning above the humming of Tommy Jarvis’ light.

  Instead of responding, Tommy grunted. His arm was sore, his fingers awash in a flood of quiet pain.

  “Hey, kiddo,” Pleebo pleaded, taking note of the strain on the boy’s face. “Come on, stay with me pal.”

  The rubble overhead shifted, somehow adding more weight to the overall pot and threatening to buckle the last of Tommy Jarvis’ resolve. After breathing deep, he held his breath in his lungs and left it there to rest. Again the debris overhead shifted, and again his muscles remained firm. He needed to remain calm, no matter what. The pain would go away eventually.

  Pain is temporary. Pain always goes away.

  When he at last opened his eyes, Tommy spotted Pleebo staring down at him with a worried expression on his face. Just past his blotching skin and wispy gray hair, the boy watched the light from his fingers shimmering like the surface of the water, molding and twisting itself to whatever shape he imagined. It was alive: beautiful, dangerous, and inviting. It was his friend. For a moment he thought he could see it smile.

  “Tommy, are you okay?” Pleebo asked nervously, trying his damndest to make sense of the expression on the child’s face.

  Turning his attention to the battered Fillagrou on top of him, Tommy Jarvis nodded. An instant after the nod, his glowing bowl of light exploded upward and tossed the debris of the building high into the flashing gray clouds overhead. When it was done, it folded again smoothly into the tips of Tommy’s fingers and disappeared.

  After standing and wiping the layer of dust from his tunic, Pleebo helped Tommy to his feet and stared down at the boy with wonder. The blond-haired child standing before him was in no way similar to the one that awkwardly waved goodbye before heading back to his own world six months ago. It looked like Tommy Jarvis and sounded like Tommy Jarvis, but it was not Tommy Jarvis. It was something else. It was packed tightly into the skin of Tommy Jarvis and aching to break free. It was the culmination of his grandfather’s stories and Zanell’s frustrating non-answers. It was a flesh and blood prophecy, and it had come to put things right.

  Pleebo’s next words were direct. “I’m supposed to go with you to the fire caves.”

  Tommy shook his head, shrugged his shoulders, and scratched his scalp. While he had no idea what Pleebo was talking about, he couldn’t deny the fact that the words “fire caves” resonated with him for some reason. Something inside was telling him that Pleebo was right; the fire caves were where he needed to be, where he was supposed to be.

  Pleebo sighed and began to rub his temples. “Crap. She said there would be someone here to help.”

  His unsure gaze eventually settled on the little scientist, Arthur Crumbee.

  The tiny man shrugged his shoulders.

  From behind the group and outside the cloud of dust encasing them, someone grunted.

  Tommy, Pleebo and Arthur turned instantly in the direction of the gravelly-gruff mumble, Tommy’s hands already beginning to glow defensively.

  From the cloud of sandy debris and sand, a single Ochan emerged, his skin covered in scars, blood soaked swords gripped tightly in both hands. Though Pleebo had no idea who he was, Tommy immediately recognized the new addition to the group. It was Krystoph.

  The grizzled Ochan with the broad chest stepped close, splattered blood dripping from his sharply angled face. “Hurm. Fire caves. I know them well.”

  *

  *

  CHAPTER 51

  THE BLOOD SOAKED JOURNEY OF AN OCHAN GENERAL

  *

  The former general of the Dark Army watched, hidden among the densely packed trees in the Red Forest, as the army from Aquari met with the group of rebels led by the Chintaran Fellow Undergotten and headed immediately toward the doorway to Ocha. The aliens from Aquari were both an unexpected addition to the situation and an opportunity for him to exploit. Keeping hidden, Krystoph tracked the Aquari invasion force through the forest, carefully studying its strengths and weaknesses, and marveling at its sheer size. They were impressive, this much was undeniable. A part of him wondered why the creatures had waited so long to make their presence known. Aquari had been discovered years ago, Krystoph being among the first to step onto its single sandy shore. Either these creatures from beneath the waves were surprisingly indifferent to the plight of those living above, or incredibly intelligent. There was, of course, always the possibly they were both. Another part of the grizzled former general simply didn’t care. The Aquari army existed, and they didn’t seem to be going anywhere. This was all that mattered. Ultimately their intervention and subsequent invasion of Ocha would make his job easier.

  When the army began funneling through the doorway to his icy home world, Krystoph watched from the trees as he had all along, breathing softly and quietly sharpening his weapons. Though it had been some time since he traveled through the doorway leading to Ocha, it looked exactly as he remembered: a massive black pit, and nothing more. How many years had it been since he walked on the icy tundra of the place he once called home? It seemed like forever—not since the king took his family. Not since his lackey, Gragor, dragged him below and left him for dead. When Krystoph finished sharpening the edges of his various blades, he sharpened them again. He would need them all. Once he entered the doorway and emerged outside Kragamel’s castle, there would be no coming back. This was the moment.

  It had to end.

  Reaching down to his thigh, the former Ochan general grabbed hold of the fabric of his pants leg and began to roll it upward until the whole of his muscular calf was exposed. From his side, he removed a freshly sharpened dagger and used it to slice a single, inch lo
ng slit in his dark green flesh. Directly beside it, he etched another. These were preemptive cuts. In order to reach the king and enact his vengeance, he would have to kill many of his fellow Ochans. It was unavoidable. There would be no other choice. Before he climbed from his hiding place among the trees, forty-eight more slits were carved into his leg, transforming it into a blood soaked mass of ripped flesh and exposed muscle. In the end there were fifty fresh notches.

  He doubted that would be enough.

  Less than fifteen minutes after the initial invasion, Krystoph moved silently toward the doorway to Ocha. Staying low to the ground, he managed to remain unnoticed. The trip proved far easier than he anticipated as the Aquari forces had more pressing matters to attend to. Once he reached the edge of the pit, he dropped into the darkness without hesitation. The scar-fleshed general emerged on the other side amidst an already raging battle and crawled onto the frozen, snow covered Ochan soil. The familiar smell instantly smashed into his senses. It was exactly as he remembered it: so pungent, so acidy and unwelcoming. The scent bordered on threatening.

  He couldn’t believe how much he’d missed it.

  Though Krystoph afforded himself a moment of nostalgia, it was only a moment. Seconds later he was charging full speed in the direction of the castle ahead. Sections of the outer wall had already been reduced to heaps of charred rubble. The former general recalled the incredible powers of the youngest pink-skinned child on the treacherous Aquari waters and instantly assumed it was his handiwork. The Aquari forces had already begun to charge into the castle through the shattered remains of the fallen exterior. The area was overly crowded, packed with creatures of every shape and size and filled with the audible clang of clashing weapons. Instead of taking the direct route, Krystoph sprinted to a section of the wall a bit further down the line. Though his destination was nearly two miles away, he made the journey in less than four minutes. When he finally came to a stop, he cursed himself for not moving faster. It seemed age had taken its toll after all. Hidden along the outer wall was an entrance few knew existed. With a gentle push against a single stone, a section of the wall rolled back and exposed an awkwardly shaped doorway leading into the courtyard. Before stepping through, Krystoph breathed deeply, reached over his shoulders and removed a pair of large, dangerous looking swords from the sheaths attached to his muscular back. Beyond the wall he could hear the all too familiar grind of battle, of war on a scale he hadn’t bore witness to in quite some time. While the noise would no doubt have tempered the resolve of most, it only strengthened that of the one time general. The weapons in his hands were exactly where they needed to be, prepared to do exactly what they had been created to. From the darkened clouds above, a noticeably chilly breeze swept in and cascaded across his already finely chilled flesh. His muscles tensed and pulled tight. His chest heaved against the thick leather straps holding his various tools of combat. This was where he belonged. This was the moment he’d waited for. Within the wall of the castle he would find vengeance. Beyond the blackened stone he would wrangle absolution.