Forts: Endings and Beginnings Read online

  The brown-furred, dog-snouted, pointy-eared Telengrot at the front of the pack immediately halted his forward progress and looked up at Lenore with a slightly angry expression. “Just move aside, Mrs. Guzarea. This has nothing to do with you.”

  “I’m afraid it does, young man,” Lenore snapped back, while crossing her pencil-thin coal colored arms defiantly.

  His aggravation growing, the Telengrot youth rolled his eyes, and scratched at the space between his massive upright ears. “Please, Mrs. Guzarea, we don’t want any trouble. We just want to have a talk with her. We just want to know what’s going on. I think we have a right to know, all of us.”

  Those who were previously asleep slowly began to wake, and those who were already awake started to scuttle in closer to the stand-off taking place outside the dwelling of the elder. While many found themselves siding with Lenore, still others leaned more toward the position of the frustrated Telengrot youths. All, however, were thoroughly engaged.

  “You’re far too presumptuous. It is not always our place to ask why, young man,” Lenore stated firmly. “Where are your parents, anyway? Do they know what you’re doing? I can’t believe they would be too happy with you and those angry eyes you’re tossing in the direction of an adult.”

  The young Telengrot’s expression changed quickly from mere bother to full-on anger. “Don’t bring my parents into this. They don’t have anything to do with it!”

  Despite the look in the Telengrot’s eyes and the ever so slight lifting of his lip to expose the sharp fangs underneath, Lenore remained firm. “The girl behind that doorway hasn’t steered us wrong yet, has she? Many of us wouldn’t even be here if it wasn’t for her. All I ask is that you try and trust in the fact that she knows what she’s doing, that there’s a reason for the way she’s acting, even if you aren’t capable of seeing it just yet.”

  Lenore next threw an accusatory glance to the rapidly swelling crowd of interested onlookers. Many among the creatures lowered their heads in subtle shame. Others nodded in agreement. Still, the expression of the Telengrot and his burly cohorts remained firmly entrenched in something more closely resembling anger.

  Through tight lips, he growled in the direction of the hovering Huerzo female, “Move. Now. I won’t ask you again.”

  “Momma? Momma, are you okay?” The tiny, frightened voice rose up from behind Lenore. It belonged to her youngest son. Her children were awake, and they were scared.

  Twisting in mid-air, Lenore’s attentions shifted immediately to the group of three, huddled together in the dirt with the filthy brown blanket pulled just below their eyes. “Go back to sleep Nigel. Momma’s fine, everything’s fine, lay down and clos—”

  Having reached the limits of his patience, with a single swift movement the young Telengrot swatted Lenore aside with his furry paw. The blow connected with her flapping wings and sent Lenore spiraling like a top into the dirt. Her three children and more than a few among the group rushed immediately to her side. Pushing his way through the commotion, the Telengrot youth stomped angrily to Zanell’s door and kicked it open with his foot. The irate creature’s rage instantly turned to confusion. The room was empty. Dug into the dirt wall beside Zanell’s neatly made cot was a hastily constructed hole big enough for just one. She had dug her way out. She had left them.

  She had left them, and she was gone.

  In the center of the room a single blue flame flickered briefly atop a puddle of wax before evaporating into nothingness.

  *

  *

  CHAPTER 12

  FALLEN ANGEL

  *

  “You can’t do it! Don’t you dare do it! There has to be another way! We’ll find another way! There has to be another way!”

  Though Roustaf could hear Tahnja’s pleas from her cell just a bit further down the chilly, darkened hallway, he tried his best not to listen. They had to escape. They had to escape, and there was only one way it was going to happen. He just needed a few inches, a few measly inches. The bars of his tiny, dangling cell were just a bit too close together for him to slip through.

  Three, four, maybe five at the most—just a few measly, pathetic inches to freedom.

  “Roustaf, listen to me, ” Thanja pleaded sternly, breathing deeply and trying her best to calm herself. “There has to be another way. We can find another way out. I know we can. There’s always another way. We just have to look for it.”

  Roustaf stroked his mustache a few times and grunted. “I’m sorry, cutie, but this is it. If I don’t do this we’re gonna die in this hole. If the starvation doesn’t get us, the cold will, and if the cold can’t do us in those green-skinned bastards will split us open just like they did Walcott. I’m not going to let that happen. Not again.”

  Tahnja wrapped her fingers tightly around the bars of her cell. “No! You don’t have to do this!”

  “You’re sweet, toots, but this is exactly what I’ve gotta do, and honestly the time for discussion is just about over.”

  Stepping away from the bars, Roustaf moved to the center of his tiny cage, steadied himself and inhaled deeply. The surrounding air was thick and stuffy; it stank of death, and age, and ugliness. He didn’t want to smell it anymore. He couldn’t stand to smell it anymore. He wanted out.

  In order to get out, he needed a few inches; just a few inches and he could slide right through. Just a few damn inches.

  Taking note of the commotion, the teary-eyed Staci Alexander, Brutus, and the wobbly, still injured Teek moved to the bars of their respective cells to get a closer look and hopefully talk Roustaf out of doing what he was planning to do. Their words, like those of Tahnja, would ultimately fall on deaf ears.

  Closing his eyes, Roustaf locked his jaw into place then reached behind him and grabbed hold of one the nearly transparent wings attached to his back. Again Tahnja pleaded for him to rethink his plan. Again he ignored her.

  Just needed a few inches. He needed to create a few inches. This was the only way.

  Frozen knuckles popping, Roustaf dug his fingers into the tender, barely noticeable veins running across the whole of his delicate wings, as his heart began to thump stiffly against the interior of his chest. This was going to hurt. This was going to hurt a lot. This had to be done.

  The pain would go away—eventually.

  For a moment the image drifted into his mind again of Walcott, of the king of Tycaria, of his friend sprawled across the bloody stone slab in the courtyard of Kragamel. Though it hurt him to do so, Roustaf held onto it. He needed to remember the look on Walcott’s face, and the terrible smile stretched across Kragamel’s lips. He needed the strength it would provide. He needed the anger that would give birth to that strength. Tahnja’s voice had all but evaporated into the background at this point, as well as that of Teek, who was also now pleading with the little man to rethink the course he’d set upon. Nothing either of them could say would ultimately change their situation. If they were to escape, Roustaf needed to be able to slip through the bars of his cell. In order to slip through the bars of his cell, he needed just a few inches. To get his few inches, he needed to remove the only removable obstacle standing in his way.

  The little man’s jaw clamped shut so tightly that his teeth began to grind and crack. After readjusting his grip, he started to tug downward, downward and away, pulling with every ounce of strength in his weary arms. There was no looking back now. The point of no return had been met and crossed. He was going to pull the wings from his body. There was no other choice.

  Just a few inches. He just needed a few inches.

  The initial flash of pain was almost unbearable. It shot across the whole of his back and into his legs. Roustaf stumbled forward and smacked his forehead against the frozen steel of his cage. The blow caused everything around him to go blurry and white for an instant. Despite the dizziness and the pain and the lump on his head, the grip on his wings did not falter; in fact, it tightened. Roustaf understood that if he stopped, he might never start again.
If he paused even for a moment, he might come to realize how insane a plan this really was. He couldn’t afford to think. Thinking would only muck things up like it always did. He needed to act before it was too late. Now on one knee, the little man tugged again. The flesh of his back held tight, unwilling to let go. It would relent eventually though; it had to. He would make it. Again Roustaf grunted, and again he pulled. Slowly his wing began to peel painfully away from his suddenly blood-soaked back. A pain so intense it caused his heart to skip a beat before shooting across the ridges of his spine and into his neck. He shoved it aside and tugged at the delicate filaments of his wing once again. The pain would go away. He had to ignore it. He had to roll with it. It was just pain. It wouldn’t kill him. A little suffering meant the possibility of saving Tahnja, and Staci, and Donald. Suffering meant fighting again, and fighting again meant another crack at the tyrant king. Suffering was a small price to pay.

  Muscles stiff, he tugged again.

  The resulting sound of his wing ripping slowly from his flesh was the kind of awful that can scarcely be described, the sort of sound nightmares are made of. Roustaf’s wings were comparatively fragile, and the connection to his back far more sturdy. A chunk of transparent wing ripped away from the whole and the little man’s momentum sent him spiraling forward, collapsing him to his chest with a thud. The floor of his cage was soaked with the sticky-slick blood pouring from the open wound. Everything was shiny, and slippery, and metallic-smelling, and he was lying in it. The disgusting lukewarm substance smeared across the side of his face, leaked into his ear, and across the crest of his lips. Breathing heavily, Roustaf opened his eyes and gazed at the piece of torn wing still clutched between his partially frozen fingers. It looked so flimsy – so slight, and weak, and insubstantial, and achingly beautiful. Through the shredded transparent fibers he could just barely make out the distorted image of Tahnja across from him, tears rolling down her eyes as she gripped tightly at the bars keeping her from the little man of whom she had grown so very fond. Though he wanted badly to cry, Roustaf instead swallowed his emotions. Emotions were a luxury. He no longer had a right to luxuries. This was war. This was survival, and luxuries were without purpose in a world of survival. He had to free Tahnja. He was doing this for her. He had to free them all. He couldn’t stop.

  Growling from beneath the stiff hairs of his mustache, the little devil man forced himself to his feet. Teetering perilously atop shaky legs, he eventually steadied his muscles then reached behind and grabbed what remained of his torn, ravaged and floppy wing. It was nearly free from his back, useless now. He, however, was not. He would never be. His wings did not define him. They never had and they never would. Dripping from the sides of his dangling cage, a small puddle of blood had slowly begun to form on the cold stone below. Roustaf had four separately functioning wings to remove and had yet to finish one. This was going to take a while.

  By the time he finished the agonizing endeavor, the puddle beneath his cage had become a pool.

  Thirty minutes later the foot-thick steel door near the end of the hallway opened with a heavy, frozen whine. An Ochan guard with a neck nearly twice the thickness of his head stepped through and into the dungeon. The king had reached his limits with the pudgy pink-skinned boy. He’d gotten what he desired and now it was the female’s turn. Reaching the cell of Staci Alexander, the guard stopped and smiled widely at the shivering girl, flashing a set of sharp brown and yellow teeth in her general direction.

  “Well, aren’t you the lucky one?” The soldier snarled, mockingly rapping his knuckles against the steel bars. “The king is done with your little friend over there for the time being. He wants to see you now.”

  Reaching to his side, the massive Ochan retrieved a set of rusty keys dangling from his belt and used one among the many to unlock Staci’s cell. Before stepping into the shadows, however, he stopped. There was something odd on the floor just to the right of his foot. As a matter of fact, some of it was sticking to his boot. Stepping back into the hallway, he lifted his leg, peeled it from between the grooves of his sole, and brought it quizzically to his face. It looked like parchment of some sort, slightly transparent, ripped and sticky, and strangely textured. Something was splattered across it, something that smelled familiar. Like a bolt of lightning from up on high, it hit him. He should have recognized the odor sooner. He was smelling blood. It was a wing, a tiny wing. It was a tiny wing belonging to a tiny man. Spinning in place, the Ochan turned toward the dangling cage behind him. Like the featherweight wing still stuck between two of his fingers, the cage was covered in half-frozen blood. Standing angrily atop it, and holding firmly onto the hook from which it hung with a scowl etched across his wrinkled red face was the little devil, Roustaf. With a war cry so feral it surprised even the gargantuan Ochan, Roustaf leapt from the top of the cage and landed on the soldier’s head. His nails dug beneath the enormous creature’s thick green scales and into tender meat beneath. Throwing his head forward, Roustaf opened his mouth and latched onto the soldier’s skull. Thick Ochan blood immediately gushed from between his lips, then back out and down his chin. Caught off guard by the sudden attack, the soldier stumbled backward while reaching to pry the little man from his scalp. Slipping on the pool of blood spread across the floor, his back slammed into the cell housing Brutus. Immediately Brutus reached through the bars, wrapped his massive arms around what little neck the Ochan had and pulled tight. Still gnawing on the struggling guard’s skull, Roustaf jerked upright and spit a wad of bloody flesh from between his teeth. A second later he bit down again. Brutus’ grip tightened, and the wild flailing of the soldier succeeded only in tightening the choke applied to his windpipe. Growling through a watery mouth of spittle, his furry snout blurred by a puff of his own smoky-frozen breath, Brutus wedged his feet against the bars and pulled back with every ounce of energy at his disposal. His incredible strength shattered the spine of the Ochan soldier in two places just below the neck, killing him instantly. The soldier’s legs turned to jelly. His body slumped to the floor in a tangled heap.

  Breathing heavily, Roustaf crawled out from underneath the Ochan, over his shoulder, and onto the rear of his skull. Though his back had stopped bleeding, the wounds left behind continued to throb, as they would for the remainder of his life. Briefly glancing over at Tahnja, he was reminded that there were worse things than pain—much worse. Most importantly he was reminded that there existed times in which pain was a necessity. To save her, he could deal with pain. The pain would be a breeze.

  With his forearm he wiped the thick Ochan blood from his chin and winked slyly in the direction of his pink-skinned, six-foot tall reason for going on. “Now, howzabout we all get the hell out of here?”

  *

  *

  CHAPTER 13

  SILENT PASSAGE

  *

  For the group of would-be rescuers led by Chris Jarvis and Fellow Undergotten, night settled in more quickly than anticipated. In the distance, the colossal, seemingly never-ending Ochan invasion force continued its trek through the fallen Fillagrou trees on its way to the final doorway and what they believed to be their destiny. Though the sheer size of the amassed force was impossibly impressive, Fellow had been watching it closely for some time, studying it carefully. It was during this period of observation that he realized there existed holes in their line. The massive, long-necked digging creatures required so much room to maneuver that the soldiers grouped in front and behind were required to keep their distance or risk being trampled. In these spaces, Fellow saw opportunity. Though his group was large, if they were careful, used the darkness to their advantage, and moved quickly, the Chintaran builder-turned-revolutionary believed it might be possible for them to pass through unnoticed.

  Unlikely? Yes. Impossible? No.

  Convinced it was worth the risk, Fellow turned to the remainder if the group crouched in the foliage behind him and whispered, “There, right there. That’s how we get past. We’ll use the openings in their
line to slip right through.”

  The response from his fellow travelers was less than enthusiastic.

  Watching as one of the massive feet of the gargantuan digging dinosaurs slammed into the forest floor and feeling the resulting tremors beneath his knees, Owen Little turned in Fellow’s direction and expressed aloud what most of the silent rescuers were feeling. “Are you nuts?”

  Beside him, Chris Jarvis studied the situation carefully before nodding subtly and adding with an oddly confident whisper, “No, I see it. I think he’s right. We can do this.”

  Pulling the glasses from his face, Owen rubbed stiffly at the pain bulging in his temples. “You’re both nuts.”

  Scooting across the dirt on his knees, Fellow approached the boy and placed his hands on his shoulders. The movement caught Owen off guard. His heart began to race as he stared into Fellow’s enormous blue-gray eyes.

  “Under normal circumstances I’d say you were right,” Fellow whispered. “We have a secret weapon though, don’t we, kiddo?”

  “Wh¬-what-what’re you talking about?” Owen answered nervously.

  “You’re gong to make sure no one sees us.”

  Owen swallowed so deep he almost choked on his tongue.

  “Me? I don-what’re you talking about?”

  Despite the darkness, Fellow could clearly make out the mounting terror in the flushed face of the child, and it instantly tugged at his heartstrings. Owen didn’t need to be there. It was far too dangerous for the boy, and he really had no place among the group. He had chosen to come along though; this much was unarguable. In fact, the boy insisted that he be allowed to come along, even going so far as to showcase his incredible powers and explain how he might be helpful. Despite his better judgment, Fellow agreed. Though the Chintaran had no idea if his plan would even work, the small part of him that still believed in the prophecy and the children—the part of him that was literally brought back to life by Staci Alexander in the dungeon of Prince Valkea—felt the opportunity was simply too great to let pass. Owen had come along, and Owen wasn’t going back. It would be foolish to not take advantage of whatever powers the boy had to offer.