Forts: Endings and Beginnings Read online

  The moment the Ochan stepped inside, he became a machine. When his limbs moved, his blades moved with them. They were extensions of his body, deadly extensions over which he had complete and utter control. It took barely two minutes for five to die by his hand. A small regiment of soldiers attacked from the East. They were well-trained and highly skilled warriors, chiseled and war-hardened, and expertly sharpened for the realities of battle. Despite their accolades and experience, they proved no match for Krystoph. A steady grimace etched into the deeply set wrinkles of his face, the former Ochan general was simply too quick and too precise. Every movement was expertly timed. Every strike almost artfully placed. Because there was no room for error, Krystoph made none. When he was done, fifteen more had tasted his steel and choked on its metallic zest.

  Standing among a pile of freshly killed corpses, he heard a familiar hum. Through the smoke of the fallen wall, the huffing Ochan warrior watched as a glowing sphere of light hovered into the courtyard and came to a stop above the surprised crowd. Though he could hardly bring himself to accept it, almost instantly he recognized the glowing ball of light. He’d seen it before, or at least something similar. It was the boy—the strange, powerful, frightening boy with the disgusting yellow hair. It had to be the boy. It could be no one else.

  Krystoph’s attention was drawn away from the hovering ball of energy by a second regiment of soldiers attacking from behind. One among this new batch of foes caught him off guard and sliced into his shoulder so deeply the blade brushed against bone. Krystoph howled in pain, yet managed to immediately regain his composure. It was a stupid mistake. It was childish, and one he couldn’t afford to make again. Though the regiment of soldiers had taken their foe by surprise and outnumbered him fourteen to one, in the end even these advantages proved insufficient. Krystoph would not be slowed. With every lunge, roll and swing of his blades, he thought of the king. Behind the darkened helmets of his attackers, he pictured the grinning mug of Kragamel smiling back. With every gust of wind, he could smell the scent of his wife and hear the voices of his children. With every movement, his anger grew. In no time at all his blades were coated in blood, dripping and leaking before merging with the insides of their next victim.

  Something stabbed him in the leg. He ignored it and returned the favor.

  From somewhere behind him came an inhuman growl, unlike anything he was familiar with. The monstrous howl was followed immediately by the sound of a building collapsing. A smaller regiment of soldiers swarmed in from the west, leaping over the corpses of their fallen comrades in order to get their hands on the traitor at the center of the crowd. Krystoph did not relent. Not for a second, and not even for a breath. Soon his face, like his weapons, was coated with the sticky-warm insides of the attacking foes. Their lifeless bodies began to pile grotesquely at his feet. Even when the last soldier was struck down and an opportunity for pause presented itself, the snarling Ochan ignored the urge to indulge. His entire body was on fire, and he intended to keep it that way. He needed it. There was nothing better. When he opened his mouth and inhaled deeply, the blood clung to his lips, stretching like sticky molasses before eventually giving way and dripping back into this throat. There was nothing like it, this sensation.

  He’d missed the taste as well.

  Over his shoulder, the battle-frenzied Ochan caught an ever so brief glimpse of what seemed to be a massive glowing man of light standing beside the shattered remains of a series of buildings. The colossal thing shrunk very quickly and disappeared behind the rubble off in the distance. At this point, much of the remaining wall had been blasted away and the full might of the Aquari forces were pouring into the castle courtyard. Leaping over the corpses at his feet, Krystoph began running full speed toward the spot into which he’d seen the glowing man of light fade away. If it was indeed created by the boy, Krystoph knew he needed to locate him. The child was the key. The boy had always been the key. Though a small part of him previously believed that Tommy Jarvis might have died in the ocean of Aquari, a significantly larger part assumed the opposite was just as likely. The pink-skinned creature with the blond hair and the pale face was as powerful a being as he’d ever encountered, and powerful things are nothing if not unpredictable.

  Past pockets of fighting and through the fallen remains of shredded and crumpled buildings, Krystoph sprinted across the castle grounds. He moved quickly. Though it had been some years since he called this place home, much of the basic layout remained unchanged. Past a weapons hut and the one of the many interrogation chambers scattered across the grounds he huffed, charging full speed in the direction of the giant light man. After smashing through a door to a cobbler’s shop, he hopped over a counter, slid into a room in the rear, and then crashed through another door into an alleyway in the back. From some distance ahead of him, a flash of light emerged from between a pair of half-erect buildings. A second later the still flaming corpses of Ochan soldiers sprung from the violent, glowing pool. A second blast of light followed, with yet more fiery airborne bodies emerging a moment later. Though he was already moving as fast as he could, Krystoph managed somehow to quicken his pace.

  Arriving at his intended destination, he came to a sliding stop and marveled as another burst of light tossed the devastated remains of an entire building skyward, depositing sections of stone larger than some Megalots into the fuming clouds above. At the center of a cloud of dust created in the wake of the soaring debris, Krystoph spotted young Tommy Jarvis. He was right; the child was indeed alive and well, and more dangerous than ever. Unexpectedly, and quite possibly for the first time in his life, the former general’s steady heart skipped a beat. It wasn’t fear that caused this briefest of deviations. It was anxiety. The child’s sudden and unexpected appearance was a sign. It couldn’t be anything else. The end was near. He could feel it in his bones and taste it, dripping like venom from the tips of his yellow-stained teeth. Though it was only the faintest hint of what was to come, almost instantly his mouth began to water. Suddenly he was thirsty. His stomach growled. He was hungry.

  He was ready to eat, and he wanted more.

  *

  *

  CHAPTER 52

  CONSOLIDATION OF POWER

  *

  Ten minutes into her journey, Staci Alexander stop struggling. Other than leaving her hands and feet remarkably sore, in the end, it accomplished very little. Impossibly, the king had proven more solid than he looked. Every inch of his body, even those not covered with black-tinted armor, was like steel. At one point Staci punched him square in the jaw. She felt like she’d broken her hand.

  With the squirming girl tucked tightly underneath his arm, the tyrant King Kragamel made his way through the interior of his castle and into a section of dungeon that hadn’t been used in quite some time. From there he strode through a massive, rust coated doorway at the rear and shut it behind him with a heavy clank. Once inside, he flipped the fidgeting child over his shoulder and began descending a darkened staircase. They were already far below the castle and the fighting above. They were moving deeper still with every step, progressing into the very heart of Ocha.

  Dangling over the King’s muscular shoulder, Staci realized that the further they descended the warmer it became. The frosty temperatures above became a distant memory and a half-forgotten dream. It was getting uncomfortably hot. Before she knew it, she was sweating profusely. The stone of the surrounding stairwell provided few answers to their intended destination. It was dark and cracked, dimly lit from an unknown light source somewhere deep below. Everything was covered in a thick layer of dusty grime, so much that Kragamel’s massive boots left behind an impression with every step. The passageway hadn’t been traversed in quite some time; this much, at least, was painfully obvious. With every minute the surrounding darkness was fading away. Frightening shadows popped into existence on the nearby walls, bending and twisting, flashing in and out then back again. With the light came even more heat, so hot she could feel it on her face, so h
ot she was suddenly finding it difficult to breathe. In the distance she could hear the faint crackle of fire. Her throat tightened. Her heart began to pound. She wanted to wiggle free of the Ochan’s grip. She wanted to go home.

  Sensing her discomfort, Kragamel mumbled with just a hint of pleasure, “It will all be over soon enough, child.”

  By the time the pair reached the bottom of the stairway, the previously faint crackle of fire had transformed into something else entirely. It was almost as if they’d strolled into an inferno, into the screaming, popping, scorching heart of hell itself. Staci wiped the sweaty clumps of hair from her face, then pressed her hand over her mouth in a vain attempt to keep herself from screaming. She didn’t want to be there, and she wanted badly to yell for help. She wanted to kick and scream and keep on screaming until her throat went dry. She wanted to cry. Kragamel would have liked it though: hearing her scream and seeing her cry. She had no intentions of giving him the pleasure. Despite the pain in her hands and the fear in her head, she began to punch angrily at the muscled back of the king once again.

  Kragamel chuckled softly and stepped from the ancient stairwell into a brightly lit, superheated cavern of sandy red rock millions upon millions of years old. With Staci dangling over his shoulder and beating pointlessly at his back, the king made his way through a smallish opening at the far end of the cavern and entered into a significantly larger space. At the center of this new, massive cavern, the ground opened up and fell away, creating a canyon nearly a mile wide and almost a thousand times that size in length. Hundreds of feet below, boiling up from the center of this great chasm, was a fire unlike the whole of the universe had ever known. This was an aged inferno, the first of its kind, so thick and foreboding one might imagine the concept of time itself had been set ablaze. Spitting upward from the center of Ocha, the flames occasionally exploded upward, cresting over the edge of the canyon, belching molten bits of nastiness like splashing water in every direction.

  The Fire caves of Ocha. The king hated this place. Ever since he was a child, he’d hated this place. The temperature, the sounds, the smell, the sand and the disgusting creatures that chose inexplicably to call it home—he despised every bit of it. He didn’t want to be there any more than the angry child still beating at the muscles of his back with the undersides of her fists. Unfortunately, he had no other choice. The current situation had forced his hand. As reprehensible a concept as it was, he needed this terrible pit. His visit was a necessity. Already beginning to sweat uncomfortably, Kragamel grunted and spotted seven cloaked conjurers kneeling in a circle near the edge of the fiery crevasse. They were barely a hundred yards away, exactly where they said they would be, and exactly where he instructed them to await his arrival. When he stepped alongside the seven mystics, the tyrant king hoisted Staci from his shoulder and tossed her, no different than he would a rock, into the center of the circle created by the ancient creatures.

  Staci landed stiffly on her side in the ultra-fine sand. She grimaced as a twinge of pain shot along her outer thigh and into her torso. Like a pack of hungry wolves, the previously motionless conjurers leapt to life. Seven pairs of wrinkled, yellow hands stretched forward, grabbed hold of the girl, and held tight.

  “Get your hands off me!” Staci yelped, her arms and legs kicking at everything within striking distance.

  Despite the frailness of their bodies, the elderly creatures proved remarkably strong. No matter how much she struggled and squirmed, they refused to let go. A cloud of dusty sand began to rise around her. Through the smoke, past her violently kicking legs, and beneath the folds of their deeply hanging cloaks, she could make out only the eyes of her stern-gripped captors. The faintest glimmer of flames danced sporadically off their jagged teeth and caused the hairs on her arms to stand at attention.

  “Can you take her power as you did the other?” Kragamel asked impatiently from behind.

  He was well aware of the situation above ground. He needed the powers of the female child. With her abilities at his disposal, everything that had been done could be undone. With a flip of his wrist, those dead could be brought back to life. His army could be eternal. His army would be invincible.

  Annoyed with their non-response, Kragamel barked angrily, “Answer me!”

  One of the conjurers placed his bony hand over Staci’s mouth, successfully muffling her grunts. In perfect synch, seven cloaked heads turned in the direction of the king, their mouths open wide and their eyes half shut. When they spoke, they spoke as one, a single chilly voice emerging from behind the stationary lips of seven.

  “It will take some time, my lord.”

  “You claimed the fires would hasten the process,” The king growled in response, the uncomfortable heat of the caves only adding to his frustration.

  “And indeed they shall,” the seven responded. “Time is still required. It is doubtful, however, that the female will survive.”

  Kragamel huffed. His eyes moved to the center of the group and the squirming, sweat-covered child held in place by his loyal mystics. The pupils of Staci’s wide eyes rolled in their sockets and pointed in his direction. Though he was too far below the surface to hear what was happening above, his mind easily provided the brush strokes necessary to paint a mental picture. His castle was under attack, his people dying. Though not directly the cause, the useless female with the terror in her eyes and the tears beginning to stream down her cheeks had undoubtedly played an important role in the creation of the situation he now faced. From behind him, a mountain of watery magma and crackling flame exploded from thousands of feet below. Bits of fire, like droplets of water, splashed onto the sand beside his boot. Reaching up, Kragamel rubbed his rough hand over his slippery, soaked skull. When the faint image of his son popped into the rear of his mind, his stone-faced visage cracked, transforming once again into the most menacing of smiles.

  His response was simple.

  “Begin.”

  *

  *

  CHAPTER 53

  GARGOYLE

  *

  Roustaf’s fingers were frozen to the stone to which he clung so dearly. They’d been that way for some time. A lot had happened since he scaled the castle wall in a last-ditch effort to locate Tahnja among the dusty rubble of the collapsed slave hut. Unfortunately, he only witnessed half of it. His vision started to blur long ago. Everything was suddenly distant and hazy and devoid of shape. At some point the little man heard something growl behind him. It sounded enormous. The monstrous howl was followed immediately by the rumble of collapsing buildings, rolling thunder, and the unorganized orders of worried Ochan soldiers. To see any of it, all he had to do was turn his head. It would have been that simple. He just didn’t have the energy. The cold had taken its toll, had its fill and left him useless. The point of no return had passed. In his current state, the climb down would have been impossible and the fall would have killed him. Quite literally, he was stuck. Frozen like a gargoyle to the castle of the tyrant king, frozen and dying. He was useless. From somewhere behind, Roustaf could vaguely make out what sounded like another collapsing building. It seemed so far away, so very far away and only getting farther. Like his vision, the little devil-man’s hearing was rapidly fading into the background, replaced instead by a steady hum of emptiness that offered merely a hint of what lay ahead. After a long exhale, the little man closed his eyes and let his tightened muscles go limp. He couldn’t hold on anymore, and he didn’t want to. Even as the life continued to seep from his body and the will to keep himself from tumbling downward ebbed, all he could think about was Tahnja. Was she alive? Was she standing below him at that very moment? Watching him fade away? Seeing him call it quits as tears streamed down the soft pink skin of her cheeks?

  Her skin. He loved her skin so much. It was so smooth, in a way only a woman’s can truly be.

  Her lips. He would miss her lips too.

  He hoped she couldn’t see him, and prayed she wasn’t standing at the foot of the frozen wall to w
hich he so perilously clung. It would only disappoint her. No, better that she remember him as he was rather than what he’d become. He had tried his damndest to help them all escape the castle, and for a moment even believed it was possible. He even went so far as to literally rip the wings from his back.

  It was all for nothing.

  Tahnja was gone and possibly dead. He was frozen to a wall, beaten down by nature itself as a war raged behind him. He tried and he failed. He was foolish to think there could have been any other outcome.

  Though Roustaf’s appendages had gone limp and his body fell slack, he remained attached to the wall because his was flesh frozen to the stone. The muscles in his neck fell loose, and his head flopped backward on his shoulders. Through blurry, half opened eyes, the little man gazed wearily at the black clouds above. They were clouds, all right. They were also alive. They were growling, they were on fire, and they were laughing at his situation. Flashes of light occasionally snaked their way through their billowy underbellies, accenting the ugly exteriors even further from the inside out. The already shredded skin on the bottom of Roustaf’s feet peeled away from the wall and suddenly his legs were dangling in midair.