Forts: Liars and Thieves

by Steven Novak

  Tommy Jarvis was tired, every part of him drained, sleepy and sore. Even the simple act of breathing had become difficult and labored, as if there was a plastic bag over his head. From the corner of his eye, he watched as Nestor sprinted past with Nicky tucked tight to his chest. His little brother’s face was pale, tears seeping slowly down his drawn cheeks while one of his hands massaged an unbearable wad of pain wedged firmly in his throat. High above, the cannons and arrows continued to batter his rapidly shrinking protective bubble. Tommy could feel the collision of every single piece of sharpened wood and tempered steel rattling in his bones, each bringing with it a force comparable to a punch in the stomach. As the pain continued to pour over him, Tommy eventually found himself unable to keep both hands above his head and dropped one to the water-soaked deck with a splash. Everything hurt; everything was cold, stiff and foggy. He couldn’t keep this up much longer.

  Kneeling less than a foot away from the boy, Staci could see the strain on his face. His eyes had gone glassy; his body was covered in a layer of sweat so thick it had soaked through his clothes. The weaker Tommy got, the faster the protective bubble he’d created shrank. Having fallen well below the Briar Patch’s sails, the newly exposed sections of the ship were immediately hammered with Ochan cannon fire. Enormous balls of iron tore the massive wooden polls to pieces, jerking the entire ship back and forth atop the crashing waves. Dropping flat to her stomach and digging her fingers between awkwardly constructed panels of wood making up the deck, Staci managed just barely to keep from sliding across the ship. Above his head, Tommy’s remaining hand wobbled, his mouth hanging open and face dropping low. His head was throbbing, the space behind his eyeballs were on fire. Like a deflating balloon, the bubble above continued to shrivel.

  Lifting herself to her hands and knees, Staci whispered in his direction, “Tommy?”

  Half awake and half somewhere else, Tommy directed his weary, far away glance in the direction of her voice. She looked so blurry, fading in and out of the background as if he were seeing her through the lens of a camera that was unable to focus.

  More similar to an echo of the original rather than the source, again her soft voice slipped its way into his ears, “Tommy. Pleasetommyplease …Tommy, are you okay?”

  Tommy believed that he responded to her with a nod. In his current state, however, he wasn’t entirely sure. His arm weighed so much, as if the combined mass of the universe now rested on the tender flesh of his palm. Keeping it upright and allowing the energy to continually pour form his fingers suddenly seemed like an impossible task.

  “Tommy, please, please tell me you’re okay!”

  Staci was yelling now, her voice dragging like the concussion blast immediately after an explosion. Tommy tried to open his mouth, tried telling her that he was okay, that he’d keep the bubble going no matter what, that he wouldn’t let her down. Instead of words, only puffs of air escaped. His intentions betrayed his body, however. He was fighting a losing battle and stepping slowly into a world where intent ceased to have meaning and meanings were pointless. Everything was going black, fading into an untold future similar to the end of a movie. Despite his best efforts, unconsciousness swooped in, wrapped its ghastly arms around his neck, and began to choke. Tommy’s arm dropped to the deck with a thunk as his body went limp. Immediately the bubble protecting the Briar Patch from the onslaught of Ochan weapons dropped away, fizzling into nothing.

  Lunging forward, Staci caught her falling friend in her arms and screamed.

  What would come next would undoubtedly hurt a good deal.

  *

  *

  CHAPTER 64

  THE FIRST SNOWFALL

  *

  Ocha knew winter and only winter, only gray clouds and bitter cold. However, it was not until the first snow began to fall that those calling it home understood without an ounce of uncertainty that the true Ochan winter had begun. Sobbing into the frozen dirt, black snowflakes layering his body like rotted dandruff, Donald Rondage found that his limbs had gone stiff and uncooperative. He wanted to lift his head but he couldn’t; it was too heavy and too thick for the muscles in his neck to properly maneuver. The snarling crowd of Ochans that had come to see Walcott’s death began to peel away some time ago, their desire for blood temporarily satiated. As the last of them returned to the uneventful tasks of their daily lives inside the walls of Kragamel’s castle, the courtyard became transformed, eerily silent. Trapped behind the steel bars of his tiny cage, Roustaf stared in the direction of the stone altar on which his friend had been tortured and killed, an angry grimace forever etched into the deep red of his face. Sprawled atop the stone, one half of Walcott’s shell wobbled ever so subtly in the winter’s breeze. The limbs of the Tycarian king hung loosely over the edges, unmoving, limp and leathery. Walcott’s massive fingers, once seeming so powerful, had gone stiff and crumply. Suddenly they looked so very breakable, like bent icicles slowly melting away. A garish thick liquid seeped through the spaces between them and over the cavernous wrinkles of his knuckles, dripping from his cracked fingertips to the chilly stone below. Standing above his lifeless corpse, the tyrant king stared in the direction of Donald, Roustaf and the Ochan archers whose weapons remained pointed dangerously in the boy’s direction. Though his face was mostly expressionless, there was an undeniable smugness just below the surface, a feeling of pride and accomplishment the king was trying his best to disguise. Walcott Shellamennes, the king of Tycaria, a constant thorn in his side for more years than he cared to admit, was at last dead.

  Feeling absolutely no pride whatsoever in this moment would be impossible, even for an Ochan, and even for a king.

  Placing a single gloved finger along the rim of Walcott’s shell, the king pushed downward gently, causing it to wobble like a marble. The sight elicited a chuckle from Kragamel as a toothy grin burst to life across his dark green face. Turning away from what remained of his fallen enemy, the tyrant king then gazed in the direction of the enemy still breathing less than ten feet away.

  “It is difficult to explain fully, but I suddenly find myself overcome with a wholly uncommon sense of generosity,” He said in what was no doubt his closest approximation of cheerfulness while wiping trace amounts of Walcott’s blood from the tip of his finger. “So much in fact, child, that I am going to offer you a chance to say goodbye to your Tycarian friend.”

  Donald didn’t answer. He wanted to, but he couldn’t. Like the black snow continuing to pile onto his back, he was frozen. No longer in control of his emotions, the boy found himself at the whim of outside forces: a black snowflake caught in an updraft, utterly helpless.

  Kragamel smiled slyly, realizing the Tycarian’s death had accomplished exactly what he hoped it would. The child was broken and unwilling. Any fight that might have swelled within had been obliterated.

  “I shall not make this offer again, boy. What remains of this pathetic creature is mine to do with as I please, and soon his worthless mound of flesh will hardly be recognizable. If you wish to say goodbye to this foul creature, I suggest you take this opportunity to do so, lest you lose it forever.”

  “Leave him alone, you son of a bitch,” Roustaf mumbled angrily from behind his bars, throwing an icy stare in the king’s direction.

  Kragamel’s grin disappeared. “Stay your tongue, mongrel. I can assure you from years of experience that Tycarians are not the only creatures capable of being split in two.”

  Grabbing hold of the bars so roughly his knuckles turned white, Roustaf slammed the weight of his tiny body against them, thick wads of foam flinging from between his lips. “I’ll kill you! Do you hear me? You’re dead, you son of a bitch! I’ll kill every single one of you lousy bastards!”

  Lifting one foot into the air, Kragamel kicked the side of Walcott’s shell, tipping it over and spilling what remained of his floppy, blood-soaked body onto the altar. Bouncing off the stone, limbs flailing wildly, Walcott’s corpse spilled into the freshly fallen dirty-black snow less t
han a few feet from Donald and Walcott.

  With a clawed finger pointing in Roustaf’s direction, the tyrant king snarled, “You will do nothing! Are you so oblivious to the world around you that you cannot see you and your kind have lost, creature? Surely even you cannot be so dense!” Breathing deeply, the king attempted to corral his anger. Lifting his chin into the air, he cracked the vertebrae in his neck and gritted his pointed teeth. If his years as the king of Ocha had taught him anything, it was that anger accomplished nothing. His father was prone to anger, his son as well, and both paid dearly for this flaw.

  Slightly ashamed of himself for allowing the little red man to rile him up in such a manner, the king steadied his emotions before continuing. “There are no happy endings for you, mongrel, no last minute heroics and no victory celebration. You foolishly presume yourself on the side of the righteous, little one, yet in this belief you are sadly mistaken. The just cause belongs to us, to the Ochan race. For every prophecy made by a pathetic Fillagrou elder foretelling your eventual success, there are fifty made by my conjurers proclaiming the exact opposite. Prophecies are lies, nonsense and illusion. The victor and the victor alone are the true tellers of history, and it is history that shall carefully recall the story of murderers and thieves that attempted, quite unsuccessfully, to destroy the great Ochan nation. History is a matter of perspective, and history shall regale the circumstances leading to your vainglorious defeat. History shall be written by me.”

  Roustaf was barely listening to the king anymore. Instead he found himself unable to look away from the limp, shell-less body of Walcott spread across the dirt in front of him. The entire time Walcott’s wide, glassy-dead green eyes remained open, staring back.

  With a slightly frustrated huff, the tyrant king turned toward a group of soldiers standing patiently alongside the altar. “Return them the dungeon. Rotate guards. Keep at least six of you on the child at all times.”

  “What of the Tycarian, sire?” A single soldier chirped from behind his bulky black helmet.

  Already on his way to the doorway leading into the castle, Kragamel stopped, momentarily gazing at the sloppy mass of sloppy flesh sprawled in the soil at the foot of the blood-drenched altar.

  “Put what remains of him on display inside the doorway to Tycaria. Let his corpse remind the rebels that their cause is hopeless. However, remove his head first. I would rather enjoy keeping it for myself.”

  Grabbing hold of his arms, a pair of guards lifted the zombie-like Donald Rondage to his wobbly, useless feet. For the very first time the boy noticed Walcott’s lifeless body stretched out in front of him. Barely recognizable without his shell, at first Donald scarcely believed it was he. This was not the king of Tycaria. This was a replica, a fake, a wax statue melting in the sun. Only there was no sun over Ocha. In this place there was only cold and black. Devoid of justice, forgiveness and the dictates of reason, this world offered only loss and pain to those daring to walk its soil. Here, the good guys did not always win; here the good guys did not even exist. Donald’s eyes had ceased their crying some time ago, as he had no tears remaining. What the boy now found himself left with was nothing even remotely resembling an emotion. Like Walcott, he had been split open, hollowed out and left an empty shell. High above, the dark snow continued to fall and would continue doing so well into the evening before eventually covering even this horrible world in a blanket of slick, disgusting black. The Ochan winter had indeed officially begun. As had been said before and would undoubtedly be said again, the first snowfall of the season was always the most memorable.

  *

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  CHAPTER 65

  VANTAGE POINTS

  *

  From the perspective of Captain Jacques Fluuffytail, what happened next happened very quickly. The moment Tommy Jarvis dropped unconscious to the deck, the protective bubble sprouting from his glowing hand vanished. As the ship’s only line of defense faded into nothingness, Captain Fluuffytail found himself and his crew instantly engulfed in a maelstrom of destruction. A rather large cannonball slammed into the front of the Briar Patch, lifting the rear of the ship clear out of the water for a moment and tossing shards of dangerous debris in every conceivable direction. Another hammered through the deck not far from Jacques, into the lower levels, and through the bottom of the hull. With the blue ocean water pouring in by the gallon, the ship shuddered and began to sink. As flaming arrows pounded into the deck around him, Captain Fluuffytail dove for cover, narrowly avoiding another cannonball as it whizzed past and tore yet more of his ship away. Peering from under the brim of his oversized hat, he was horrified by what his dark eyes saw. His ship, his only ship, the ship that had kept him safe and alive over the course of this awful war, was being destroyed. The few parts of the Briar Patch not yet on fire had been ripped to shreds and scattered among the tepid Aquari waters. While some of his crew had also managed to find temporary cover, the vast majority of them were either dead or dying. Their lifeless, bent corpses were now bathing the deck in the slick, multi-colored blood of friends and family. It wasn’t supposed to happen this way, not like this—anything but this. He promised them, time and time again, that he would keep them safe, that the Briar Patch, much like its captain, was an omen of luck or an invincible force, something the Ochan army could never hope to destroy. For years it had proved to be exactly that.

  As a spattering of flaming arrows sank into the aged wood of the deck a few feet away, Fluuffytail leapt from his stomach and began crawling, frantically searching for cover among the patches of fire and debris. Hit with another cannonball, the Briar Patch lurched and moaned. The ship was in pain; she was crying. Reaching up, Jacques pulled his ears down against the sides of his furry face. He couldn’t listen to this. He couldn’t stand to hear her suffer, to listen to her die. Still shuffling awkwardly across the slick deck, he managed to only make it a few feet before another cannonball hit and launched thick slivers of shrapnel into the fuzzy gray flesh of his back. Jacques leapt to his feet in pain, his upper body on fire, plumes of black smoke rising up around him and seeping into his lungs. With half of its base shattered, one of the massive poles jutting upwards from the ship’s deck gave way, narrowly missing Jacques as it smashed to the flaming wood below. The deck collapsed instantly under its weight and tossed the ship’s Captain into the air thirty feet before depositing him into the ocean with a splash. For a moment, everything went silent. The awful moaning of his ship and the horrible cries of its crew faded into the smoky blue background. Submerged in the tides of the chilly drink, blood pouring from his back in cloudy trails, Captain Jacques Fluuffytail wondered if he should bother attempting to swim for the surface. The world above had nothing more to offer. Everything in his life, everything significant, or important, or holding any meaning, had been taken from him, taken by the Ochans. All he would have had to do was open his mouth, open his mouth and let the sea fill his lungs. It would be so painless. Many of his crew had shared the same fate over the years, and there would have been no honor lost in dying this way, in going down with his ship, beside her. In the distance, he spotted the forward portion of the Briar Patch tear away and dip below the surface. Surrounded by a cloud of smoky, broken timbers, it began slowly sinking downward. The bizarre, horrifying sight seemed strangely serene, quiet and peaceful. Under the water, everything was a whisper and a secret. As the dark ocean below at last swallowed the final chunk of his ship, Jacques said his final goodbyes. She was a fine lady and a sturdy, faithful companion. She had done her absolute best to keep him and his crew alive for many years. She was ugly and she was beautiful and he would miss her.

  The instant Tommy Jarvis’s world went black and his protective bubble evaporated, Nestor Shellamennes instinctively pulled the shivering form of Nicky closer to his chest. With nothing keeping the Briar Patch safe, the Tycarian knew all too well what would come next. Though Nicky’s amazing abilities had managed to sink an incredible number of Ochan vessels, the sheer size of their force was ast
ounding, and hundreds more remained. Captain Fluuffytail’s ship stood no chance. Surrounded by the dark-wooded warships, there was no point of retreat and no hope of escape. Now there existed only an ending, and most likely a nasty, painful one at that.

  Beyond-words tired, Nicky Jarvis was only half awake in his arms when the first cannon strike rocked Fluuffytail’s old vessel, tearing chunks of wood away and tossing them violently into the ocean. Three arrows slammed into the rear of his shell, a fourth slicing through the recently repaired muscles of his shoulder and popping out the other side. Ignoring the pain, Nestor hunched forward, doing his best to keep the little boy from harm’s way as arrows continued to pummel his rocky exterior. Less than five feet to his right, a stack of crates were suddenly engulfed in flames; to his left, another cannonball smashed into the deck. The collision shook the sopping wet floorboards, and Nestor struggled to maintain his balance. A monstrous wave, nearly twenty feet high, spilled over the railing as the ship lurched forward with a pained grunt. With incredible force, the chilly ocean water splashed into Nestor’s back, snatching his feet from underneath him and tossing them into the air. Gripping Nicky tightly, the pair slid across the tattered wood, slipping through walls of smoke and flame before crashing through tattered debris and bloody bodies. The entire time, Nestor was spinning like a top on the rear of his shell, grimacing in pain as the world around him was reduced to a cloudy, confusing chaos. The boy in his arms had become slippery, and maintaining his grip increasingly difficult. He wrapped the sopping wet shirt of Nicky twice around his wrist in order to get a better grip, praying the fabric could withstand the pressure.