by Jeff Gunhus
But the castle wasn’t what had our attention.
Between us and the castle were hundreds of vehicles, many with mounted machine guns. There were tanks, giant steel beasts like I’d seen in old World War II movies. There were command and control vehicles with tall antenna sticking up in the air.
And they were all on fire.
The devastation was complete. Many of them lay on their sides or even upside down. Black smoke billowed off the field of battle where thousands of Creach crawled, looking for survivors.
The sound hadn’t disappeared because the Colonel had won, but because he had been utterly defeated. With a sick feeling in my stomach, I understood that each of the hundreds of armored vehicles used in the attack had been driven by a hunter and had probably been filled with troops. I pictured the young hunters from the Academy, that I’d seen dressed in the black uniform of the Black Death back at the fortress, and hoped they hadn’t been down there.
“Look,” Eva said, pointing to the castle in the distance.
Her vampire eyes were far better than my own, but squinting a little I could make out what she was looking at.
“Thank God,” I said.
“What is it?” T-Rex said. “I can’t see anything.”
“Prisoners,” I said, pointing at the black smudge in the distance, snaking its way to the fortress. “Looks like hundreds of them.”
“And that’s good news?” Ariel asked.
“I thought we’d find them all down there in those burning trucks and tanks,” I said. “Looks like they might have been spared.”
“Why?” Eva said. “Don’t get me wrong, I’m happy about it, but don’t think for a second it was out of mercy.”
“It’s obvious, isn’t it?” Xavier said. “He’s creating an army. He’ll transform all of them into Creach. The same as he’ll do when his war starts. Humans will be transformed and then become their own downfall.”
“What else is new?” Will chimed in.
“We have to save them,” I said. “Bocho could be in with them. Master Aquinas herself.”
“I hope Ritgo isn’t in there,” Ariel said. “He was evil enough as a man; I can only imagine what he’d try to do as a Creach.”
I turned to Hester. “It’s time. I need that fourth Jerusalem Stone to see what kind of power it can give me against this enemy.”
Hester put her free hand to her chest. “There’s a small problem with that.”
I suddenly felt nauseous. It occurred to me that I’d never actually seen the Jerusalem Stone she had. “You have it, right? Please tell me that wasn’t a lie.”
She looked angry. “Of course I have it.”
I blew out a long breath. “I’m sorry, I just thought…” I noticed she looked worried. “So what’s the problem?”
“Ren Lucre put it here for safekeeping,” she said placing her hand on her chest.
It took me a second to understand what she meant, but once I got it, my nausea came back with a vengeance.
Hester wasn’t wearing the Jerusalem Stone around her neck on a chain, or walking around with it stashed in a pocket in her jacket. She was a zombie that didn’t feel any pain.
The Stone was stored inside her body.
“Can you take it out?” I asked. “Safely, I mean?”
Hester shook her head. “I don’t know. Even if I could, I think that’s how I’m able to communicate with my zombies. If I give you the Jerusalem Stone, you lose your army.”
Eva, who’d remained on her knees up to this point, suddenly stood up, looking at the sky about the fjord. Once again, her sharp vampire eyes spotted danger before anyone else did.
“That explains how Ren Lucre won so quickly,” she said. She turned to me. “You better hope these guys aren’t related to the two you killed at the Academy.”
Just then I caught movement in the sky. They were just three small dots at first, like hawks spotted in the distance. With furious energy, they came into focus as they raced toward us, massive wings beating, tails thrashing, and fires bellowing from their mouths.
“Dragons,” Ariel said.
“Not these guys again,” T-Rex groaned.
Just as he said that, the zombies swarmed up behind us, spears lowered and teeth snapping the air. They made a tight circle around us, not to protect us, but to take us prisoners, their spear points dancing inches from our faces.
The dragons reached us, screaming overhead with high-pitched shrieks that were so loud that I thought they’d blow out my eardrums. I could smell the sulfur from the furnaces in their chests, and feel the heat from their bodies, as they streaked past us. The zombies got excited at the sight, jamming their spears closer to us.
“Tell these zombies to back up,” I said to Hester. “Someone’s going to get hurt.”
Hester shrugged. “Yes, and you’ll be the first to get hurt if you don’t do exactly as I say.” She waved at the dragons overhead as they banked around for another pass. Hester twisted the bindings that joined our arms together so that they pinched my skin painfully.
“You’re now the prisoner of the Lord of the Zombies, Jack,” she sneered. “Get used to it.”
28
The zombies separated us and I couldn’t see any of the others as we were marched down the steep slope to the banks of the fjord. I heard Will and T-Rex yelling for me because they were the closest, but soon even their voices became muffled and then disappeared altogether.
“What are you doing, Hester?” I asked silently, using the connection the Jerusalem Stones had given us.
“My duty,” she replied, her voice in my head sounding defiant. “Come what may. Now shut up and march.”
I felt a wall come down between us and I knew she was blocking my thoughts. I still tried, peppering her with more questions, but my voice just echoed in my head. Finally, I gave up. I was certain I’d have no more luck if I tried to use my real voice to speak to her.
We passed the first burned-out shell of a vehicle. I tried not to look at the charred area where the driver would have been, but I couldn’t help myself. I was happy to see that the spot was empty. Over and over the scene was repeated. A mangled wreck of twisted metal, often with bullet casings covering the ground, but with none of the burned bodies I’d feared would be inside. Somehow, it looked like they’d all gotten out safely. Or at least been captured instead of killed.
I noticed Hester didn’t even glance at the wreckage. She stared straight ahead as we walked, her eyes never leaving the castle as it loomed over us.
I wondered whether I’d miscalculated. As we got nearer to the castle, I could feel Ren Lucre’s presence. I imagined Hester felt it even more than I did. Perhaps even to a point where the two of them could be talking in her mind without me knowing. Or maybe he could take over her communication with the zombie horde. The truth was, I had no idea about the extent of his powers.
By the time we crossed the length of the ice field, the Black Death prisoners had already been taken inside the castle walls. As we got closer to Ren Lucre’s fortress, I saw that the wear and tear on the structure had little to do with the attack it had just been through.
The castle was the same dark grey stone as the exposed rock of the fjord, nearly blending into the rock face behind it. It was built on an outcropping that extended into the ice field so that in the summer months it would have been surrounded on three sides by water. A narrow road was cut into the fjord wall, but it terminated at a small side gate. The main approach to the castle was from the water, or from the ice in the colder months, like now. A stairway wide enough to march an army up was cut into the solid rock leading to the gates embedded in the outside wall.
The structure had seemed grand from the distance, but on closer inspection it was in bad shape. Beyond the wall, spires rose into the sky, all seeming to lean in one direction or another as if blown about by a twisting wind. I’d assumed the large collapsed tower I’d noticed when we first saw the castle, had been damaged by the opening salvos from the Bl
ack Death tanks. But now I saw that scraggly brush stuck up from the pile, showing it’d been there for some time.
The windows in the other towers were mostly boarded up or sealed with rough bricks. This was a decayed, dying place. The castle may have been magnificent once, but that day had long past.
Still, a chill went through my body. Somewhere in the castle, likely in its darkest depths, my dad waited for me. It’d taken so much effort and so much risk to get to this point. I just hoped I didn’t fall short so close to the finish line.
We stopped at the base of the stairs leading up to the gate.
All around us, the zombie horde stopped its march, responding to its Lord’s command. Hester must have told them to be silent as well because there wasn’t even the barest murmur of a snarl drifting on the cold wind that blew up from behind us.
Hester pulled me forward and together we moved three steps in front of the horde.
I looked left and right to see my friends pushed forward too. We stood roughly in a line, spread apart at twenty foot intervals, facing the castle.
Silence.
It was so still that I could hear the crack of the bonfires still burning along the top of the castle wall. I shifted my feet and heard the crunch of the snow under my boots. Far above, I heard the faint beating of the dragons’ leathery wings as they flew in wide circles over the fjord.
Nothing moved inside the castle walls. We stood there for an entire minute. And then another.
Still the castle gate remained closed.
“What is going on here?” I muttered.
As if in response, a door high in the tower, that loomed just behind the main gate, opened. The door led to a long balcony cantilevered out from the tower wall, looking like the bow of a ship suspended in air.
Out walked a tall figure in a black cloak, head held high. A king looking down on his subjects.
Ren Lucre, the Lord of the Creach. My grandfather.
Hester stepped forward, turning to the side so our connected arms were hidden from him.
“I’ve brought the boy,” she shouted, the words barely recognizable in her snarling zombie voice. “Open the gate so I can bring him to you.”
I stared up at Ren Lucre. I’d wondered whether fear would stop me once I was face-to-face with him, but now I knew that wasn’t the case. I felt only anger boiling inside me.
Even from this distance, I felt the old vampire’s eyes bore into me. Then I felt his thoughts probing against my mind, trying to get in. But I imagined a thick wall built around my mind and blocked him easily.
“Jaaaaccckkk…” his voice whispered from behind that mental wall. “I’ve been waiting for you, my boy.”
“And now here I am,” I said, careful not to let my communication with him somehow give him a foothold into my mind.
“You’ve been busy from what I hear.”
“I’ve come to destroy you. To stop your war and to free my father.”
“And yet you appear to be my prisoner,” he said. “How unfortunate. I had expected so much more from you.”
“This isn’t over yet.”
“No,” Ren Lucre’s voice hissed in my mind. “But it’s about to be.”
Suddenly, the air filled with a grating sound as the main gate rumbled open.
Once it did, a procession of Creach monsters paraded out. Minotaurs with muscular human bodies and bull’s heads came first.
Next came a procession of trolls with their pale, lumpy skin, followed by grotesque goblins with hooked noses and yellow, reptilian eyes. After these, there was a mix of oddities, some of which I’d only seen in books before. There were banshees and devil-dogs. Winged blinderworms and dementors. Fanged rats and screechers. These were the Lesser Creach, all the monsters without the pure bloodlines of vampire, werewolf, demon or zombie. All pouring out of the gates and spreading to the left and right along the base of the castle wall.
As they came out, I motioned for my friends to come closer. They walked cautiously, aware of the zombies behind us and the growing mass of Creach in front of us. I wasn’t sure how this was all going to go down, but I knew one thing above all. We were strongest when we were together.
“This isn’t exactly how I imagined things,” Eva said as she walked up.
“Oh, I don’t know,” Daniel said. “Thousands of Creach versus us. Hardly seems fair for the Creach.” His tone sounded brave but I could tell by his darting eyes that he was as worried as the rest of us.
Ariel wasn’t even trying to pretend. She simply looked back and forth between the zombie horde, the Creach piling out of the gate, and the dragons circling above us.
I was happy to see that all three of them had their weapons still. Will, T-Rex and Xavier came up on my left side.
“Is this part of the plan?” Will asked. “If so, I just want to go on record as saying that I’m against it.”
A bellowing roar rose from inside the castle walls. In response, the assembled Creach shrieked and snarled in a chorus of monster sounds before falling silent. A heavy thud thud thud filled the air. Footsteps.
“This can’t be good,” T-Rex said.
An enormous monster appeared, so big that it had to duck down to pass through the castle gate. It was hairless with skin so pale that its veins and internal organs could be seen inside its body. Its only clothing was a metal chest plate, a helmet and, thankfully, a pair of short pants that were tied around its waist with a thick rope. It had four arms that ended in nasty-looking claws that sliced through the air. It opened its mouth and roared again, showing several rows of sharp teeth and a forked tongue like a snake’s.
“I’ve never seen a Jotnar before,” Xavier said next to me. “I didn’t think they really existed.”
“What’s a Jotnar?” I asked.
“Norse legend,” Xavier said. “A giant.”
“Why can’t it be something small?” Will said. “They always send the big monsters to kill us.”
All the other Creach backed away as the Jotnar walked forward. One goblin was slow to move, pumping the air with its hands to cheer the big monster on. The Jotnar raised its giant foot and stepped on the goblin, smashing it into the ground.
The Creach cheered, caught up in a wild frenzy.
Eva said. “It’s big, but it’s just a flesh and blood monster like all the others.”
“The problem is all the others,” Daniel said. “Even if we somehow manage to take out the big guy, we can’t beat them all.”
I pulled my sword from my side and my friends did the same.
“Maybe we can’t beat them all,” I said. “But we can certainly fight them all.”
“You just have to fight the Jotnar,” Hester said next to me. She grabbed my arm and stared right into my eyes. “He’s the Lord of the Lesser Creach. He has the last Jerusalem Stone. Defeat him and I’ll take care of the others.”
I’d seen that look in her eyes before. It was the same one that had haunted me the night she’d sacrificed herself so I could escape back in Sunnyvale. On that night, she’d let go of my hand and fallen into the zombie horde. This time, she took a knife and sliced the rope holding us together.
“What are you doing?” I cried.
“I’ll send a command to the zombie army that’s so strong that it can’t be changed,” she said, pulling away from me. As she did, she reached a hand inside her own body, right through her ribs.
I knew she didn’t feel any pain, but is still made me queasy to watch her.
Seconds later, she pulled her hand out and tossed me the Jerusalem Stone. It was slick with zombie guts, but I grabbed it out of the air and felt a new surge in power as I held four Stones for the first time.
The second it happened, I saw Hester’s eyes go blank, and she returned to being a pure, mindless zombie. True to her word, the zombie horde behind us reacted to the final command she’d given it. With a terrifying roar, the zombies charged up the stairs, swarming past us like we were rocks in the middle of a river. The Lesser Creach di
dn’t know what to do at first, but quickly found their footing and countercharged into the zombies.
I held up my sword, pointed it at the Jotnar, and charged.
The true final battle had begun.
29
The Jotnar charged toward us, stepping on trolls, zombies and goblins that got in its way. On instinct, we separated into two groups: Eva and T-Rex with me, Will and Xavier with Daniel. We ran to opposite sides of the beast, guessing it couldn’t fight all of us at once. Unfortunately, we were wrong about that.
The Lord of the Lesser Creach turned to face Daniel and the others, but as it did, I saw that the back of its head was actually another face. This one was more grotesque than the one in the front. Its nose and lips were smushed together and one of its eyes was swollen shut. But the eye that was open worked overtime, darting back and forth, searching for its target.
“Watch out!” I yelled, pushing T-Rex aside.
The Jotnar’s foot smashed down right where we’d been standing a second earlier, crushing through solid rock to leave a crater.
“To the right,” Eva screamed.
I raised my sword even before I saw the attack. Steel clanged against steel as a rock troll struck at me with a battle ax. Four more trolls ran up behind him, all wielding axes that were as big as I was.
Eva stepped up next to me and together we fended off their blows.
They were so strong that with each strike I thought my sword might fly out of my hand.
I wanted to reach down to grab the Jerusalem Stones and use their power, but it was impossible. Even a second’s hesitation and Eva and I were going to be chopped up like firewood.
“Any ideas?” I said, grunting.
“Not really,” she said.
Four goblins, two of them carrying zombie heads as trophies, ran toward us to join the fight. Things were going from bad to worse.