The Scarecrow of OZ

by S. D. Stuart

  The Scarecrow of OZ

  A Steampunk Adventure

  by S.D. Stuart

  Summary

  In this action-packed sequel to The Wizard of OZ: A Steampunk Adventure, American author S.D. Stuart returns to the Australis Penal Colony, where an ancient, and devastating, weapon was hidden a millennium ago.

  Imprisoned by the Southern Marshal, a half-human, half-lion hybrid lives behind an electrified fence with others like him. His only chance at freedom is to locate and recover this ancient weapon before a mysterious shadow organization uses it to conquer the world.

  Joined by old allies, he races across the continent sized prison, making new friends and new enemies alike, to find the hybrid weapon before the humans do. His journey will not be easy as he encounters a new OZ more dangerous than the one he left behind.

  This book is a work of fiction. References to real people, events, establishments, organization, or locales are intended only to provide a sense of authenticity, and are used fictitiously. All other characters, and all incidents and dialogue, are drawn from the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real.

  Ramblin’ Prose Publishing

  Copyright © 2013 Steve DeWinter

  All rights reserved. Used under authorization.

  www.stevedw.com

  Cover design and illustration by Mike Penn

  MichaelJPenn.com

  eBook Edition

  ISBN-10: 1-61978-005-4

  ISBN-13: 978-1-61978-005-7

  Trade Paperback Edition

  ISBN-10: 1-49052-854-7

  ISBN-13: 978-1-49052-854-0

  Author’s Note

  Every book I sit down to write comes with its own set of challenges. I hadn’t realized while crafting The Wizard of OZ: A Steampunk Adventure that I was writing fan fiction. But after being called out by a book reviewer, I realized that is exactly what I had done.

  Hence, the challenge of writing a second book in this “new” universe I had created amongst the pages of the first Steampunk OZ novel. Would this second book still be considered fan fiction just as much as the first? I followed the original storyline for “Wizard” as closely as possible to L. Frank Baum’s original text. However, for “Scarecrow”, I didn’t bother to read the original story of the same name, and instead, struck out on my own to tell a brand new story that is as far removed from anything written for the land of Oz before it. I feel that “Wizard” was the origin story for the Steampunk OZ universe, and with that out of the way, I could now craft my own stories in this new world.

  This second trip into OZ is an original story that takes the characters, created in the first book, into vast new territory. It is a journey that I am confident you will enjoy.

  Thank You

  It takes a village. This phrase is most often used when talking about raising a child. A book is very much like a child born from the author’s imagination, so I would be making a mistake if I didn’t take the time to acknowledge and thank my “village” for all they did to bring this new story into the world.

  I would like to thank Robert Young for his insightful input (read: vehement demands) that no story in Oz is complete without Toto. And Toto was sorely missed during my first outing. As you read this story, and get to meet Toto for the first time, think of Robert and whisper a little thanks to him for insisting I bring such a beloved character back to the Oz gang.

  My deepest appreciation goes out to my first reader, and biggest critic, Amy Roberts. Without her, my story would not resonate with readers and be told as well.

  And last, but never least, I would like to thank Dee, my wife, who has afforded me the opportunity to bang away at the keyboard in obscurity and continue to write and publish my thrilling fiction for everyone to enjoy.

  Chapter 1

  The Australis Penal Colony, the world’s largest prison, seemed the most unlikely of places to hide something that could change the course of human events; but here Nero stood finally facing the end of his quest. The end of a long and bloody campaign that he almost lost to the brave defenders of this unmarked, and unremarkable, cavern along the northern coast of the Outcast Zone. Or as the locals called it, OZ.

  The last of the defending soldiers held a skull sized rock over his head in one hand as he crouched over a small object on the ground in front of him. “If you take one step closer, I will destroy the key.”

  Nero smiled, but the scarring of his face caused by an explosion several months before, made it look more like a menacing scowl. “Give me the key and I will let you live.”

  The soldier looked past him to the motley crew of Nero’s bloodied and battered soldiers. Less than three dozen remained of the 2,000 strong army that had set out from Central City under Nero’s command four months earlier. “How do I know I can…”

  His sentence was cut off by the blast from Nero’s flintlock pistol, hidden deep in the folds of his cloak. The rock fell from the soldier’s hand as he flopped to one side. He was dead before what was left of his head hit the ground.

  Nero carefully lifted the six-inch long key from the ground. For the first time, since he had arrived in OZ decades earlier, he had what he needed to open the box. It was by pure chance he had obtained the key in the very same room as the box. Fortune was finally smiling on him.

  He walked up to the large wooden box on the upraised stone pedestal at the center of the underground cavern.

  He twirled the clockwork key around in his fingertips and studied the four concentric rings in the bow, the large grasping end of the key. The outermost ring was big enough to fill the palm of his hand. In addition, each individual ring had the entire twenty-four letter Greek alphabet stamped into the shiny brass.

  As he spun each ring, the teeth on the other end moved back and forth, changing the shape of the key.

  The key itself was a puzzle that needed to be solved before it would properly fit the warded lock of the wooden box that held a secret. A secret that would make those who had sent him to OZ establish themselves as masters over the entire world. But he had gotten to the box first, not them.

  He spun the inner circle of the key around with his scarred thumb and noted the slight jump as it settled on each letter. He could not feel the resistance that preceded each letter because of the fried nerve endings caused when the fire had consumed his skin. Had he not landed in the fountain, when the explosion blew him from the top floor of his casino, he would have lost more than the sensation of touch.

  The teeth of the key shifted as he spun the dial, lost in thought.

  With only four rings, he was looking for a four letter Greek word to set the teeth in the correct positions. At least he was hoping it was a word that made sense. If it was just a four letter combination set randomly by the key’s creator, there would be more than 330,000 possible permutations. Even if he was able to set the key and turn it in the lock once a minute for twenty-four hours a day, he could still be here for seven months before stumbling on the right combination.

  He didn’t have that kind of time. He’d already received word that the Directors were displeased with his performance and sending someone to replace him.

  He had less than ten hours before his replacement arrived, which gave him less than ten hours to figure out the correct combination. Having a word that made sense would drastically reduce the time it took to find it. Knowing something about the creator of this key would also help narrow down the combination.

  Nero stared at the key and back at the box.

  The key only required four letters.

  The answer had been staring him in the face the entire time.

  He should’ve thought of this first. The ego of the lock’s creator was about to betray his greatest secret.

  Nero q
uickly spun the outer circle until the Greek letter “gamma” lined up with the cylindrical shaft of the key. He spun the next circle inward until the letter “alpha” lined up just to the right of gamma. He spun the next circle and lined up “lambda”. He spun the innermost circle until he lined up the letter “epsilon” with the other letters to form the name of the creator of this particular puzzle lock.

  GALE.

  A solid click inside the internal mechanics of the key rewarded Nero with success. He gripped the key and slid it through the keyway on the front of the wooden box. He turned the key and it easily rotated in the lock for a quarter turn before it stopped and wouldn’t turn any further. He twisted harder, but the key refused to budge.

  The General, Nero didn’t bother to learn their individual names, since he was the fifth soldier he had promoted to General since leaving Central City, pointed at the box and said in a cracking voice that betrayed his age of barely 16 years old. “Sir! The lock is bleeding.”

  Nero leaned in closer and saw the trickle of blood dripping from the lock. He removed his hand from the key and saw four drops of blood form quickly in the palm of his scarred hand. He inspected the key and saw the four needles protruding from the bow that fed the blood from the palm of his hand, through the shaft of the key, and into the lock. The fire that had taken his skin had also taken his ability to feel pain and he had not known the key had pierced him.

  The anger grew quickly inside him, and it took all of his focus to stamp it back down before he erupted in a blind rage.

  He closed his eyes and focused on his heartbeat until it slowed.

  He took a deep breath and let it out slowly, allowing him to think more clearly.

  Professor Benjamin Gale had done more than create a puzzle key to unlock this box. He had used his knowledge of genetics to program the lock to only open with his specific blood.

  Nero had placed too much trust in the Professor. He had given him too much leeway as proof that he was doing the right thing, and now that was coming back to bite him. The Professor, and more recently, his daughter Dorothy, had been a thorn in his side for too long.

  He regarded the large wooden box that refused to give up its secret. It looked like the Professor would be a thorn in his side for a little longer. The thing about thorns was, as long as it was stuck in your side you were fine. As soon as you removed it, you began to bleed.

  Blood was the operative word here. He needed the Professor’s blood to unlock this box. Since he had disappeared somewhere in OZ five years ago, Nero would have to use the next best thing. After all, she did share her father’s genetics.

  He contemplated taking an axe to the box. It was made of simple wood and would succumb easily to a sharpened blade. But destroying it might destroy the smaller object inside; and risk unleashing the greatest horror the world has ever known.

  Nero looked over what remained of his army. There was no way he would be able to fight his way back to this cave if he left. There was only one option. He had to take the box to Dorothy, Professor Gale’s daughter.

  He removed the key from the lock and pulled it off of his hand. He inspected the sharp needles that protruded from the handle of the key. He could still see the traces of his blood that coated the sharpened tips. He spun the circles to withdraw the needles back into the handle before he slipped the key into his pocket. There were still more pieces of the puzzle he needed to collect before this key would open that box.

  He addressed his nameless General. “Prepare the troops. We are heading home.”

  The General snapped to attention. “Yes sir!”

  Nero strode over to his Chief Engineer, one of the few adults left in his dwindling army. “I am pretty sure that removing the box from the pedestal will trigger a trap.”

  The Engineer nodded. “From what we had to deal with just to get here, I wouldn’t be surprised.”

  Nero was pleased he had found such a competent clockwork engineer in OZ. He didn’t know what the man had done to be sent to OZ, and he didn’t care. As long as he could safely remove the box from the pedestal, he was glad the man had done whatever he did on the outside.

  The floor of the cave shuddered under Nero’s feet and he struggled to remain standing. He heard a grating sound as if a massive rock was being scraped against another massive rock.

  He instinctively glanced at the center of the cave and saw the General holding the box unsteadily in his arms with a perplexed look on his face as the pedestal lowered into the floor.

  “What have you done!?” roared Nero.

  At just barely thirteen years old, Jasper was the youngest member of Nero’s army. He had been picking day-old dry chicken from his teeth when the whole cave began to tremble.

  He snatched his blunderbuss, a large-caliber muzzle-loading weapon that must’ve been at least a hundred years old, off the ground and slung it over his shoulder. While he had been unsuccessful in actually hitting anything he shot at with the short-barreled firearm, it still looked menacing enough and could prove useful against anyone he came across on his way out of the crumbling cave.

  With cracks forming in the roof of the cavern, he certainly was not going to stay in here any longer than he needed to.

  Large chunks of rock dislodged from the ceiling and came crashing down, scattering his fellow soldiers in every direction.

  A massive chunk of rock hit the ground right next to him so hard, it knocked him off his feet. He scrambled forward and began running for the exit.

  He wasn’t the only one. Everyone ran screaming through the collapsing cave toward the same small entrance that they had been forced to go through single file on their way in. If he wasn’t one of the first ones through that opening, he might get stuck behind the clog of panicked bodies as everyone tried to get through.

  Unfortunately, he had been one of the farthest from the exit, and it quickly jammed with soldiers trying to get out.

  A terrified scream was cut short by a chunk of ceiling flattening another soldier. Through the chaos he heard someone scream, “The box! Get the box!”

  He quickly scanned the trembling chamber and found the box lying on its side next to a hole in the floor where the pedestal used to be. Leaving behind the whole reason they had come here in the first place seemed like a stupid thing to do. At the very least, he could sell it if he got it outside.

  Screams of terror erupted from the entrance. He watched in horror as the walls of the thin tunnel that led out of the cavern slid closed, crushing the few who had already pushed their way into it.

  He raced across the floor, keeping an eye on the ceiling above him as he dodged falling chunks of rock and slid to a stop next to the wooden box at the same time as the burnt old man. He was one of the few who knew that this old man was Nero, even though everyone thought Nero was dead. His troops had been told his name was Alexander.

  His muscles tensed as he prepared to fight Nero for the box when Nero suddenly pushed it toward him.

  He started to reach for the handles on the side of the box when Nero grabbed his wrist and shouted over the chaos. “I need you to tell me if this is a way out?”

  He didn’t have time to say anything before Nero shoved him head first into the hole. His stomach lurched as he fell into blackness. He reached out with his arms and legs and pressed against the walls of the tunnel to slow his descent. The tunnel walls were as smooth as glass and he couldn’t slow himself down as he rocketed toward the unknown.

  Even if he had seen it coming, and had taken a deep breath to prepare, when he hit the water at the bottom of the tunnel, it was so cold, it forced what little breath he had out of his lungs.

  He somersaulted in the ice-cold water as the fast current pulled him along. He struggled to find which way was up until his head finally broke the surface. He gasped for air briefly before being pulled under again by the turbulent underground river.

  He tumbled along alternating between holding what little oxygen he had in his lungs until they burned and gasping f
or quick breaths anytime he felt his face break the surface in the inky blackness.

  If he had never taught himself how to swim in response to the village bully who, on a seemingly monthly basis, tied him into a burlap sack and threw him in the nearby lake, he would have drowned by now.

  The trap, triggered by the removal of the box from the pedestal, had closed off the only entrance to the cave, but had opened a second. It was too risky to send the box down first without knowing if it was safe. Nero shoved the wooden box down the hole after he heard the kid splash into the river below. He never went into any enclosed space without first determining if there was another way out.

  He ignored the terrified screams and cries for help all around him and instead focused on memorizing the face of the boy. Being able to recall that face perfectly would help him find the box again.

  He took three deep breaths to force as much oxygen into his body and plunged headfirst into the hole, right before a massive chunk of ceiling crashed down on top of it, sealing the hole and the fate of those still alive in the cave.

  They wouldn’t be alive for much longer.

  Chapter 2

  Jasper hauled himself out of the icy water and onto the rocky shore. He had burst from the pitch black darkness and into the bright sun when the turbulent underground river became a fifty-foot waterfall that tossed him like yesterday’s garbage into a small, but thankfully deep, lake.

  At least this time he was not tied up inside a burlap sack and he quickly made his way to shore.

  He removed the blunderbuss strapped to his back and stripped off the heavily soaked leather armor. He poured a gallon of water out of his blunderbuss when he tilted it upside down. His small bag of gunpowder was now a bag of black mud. It didn’t matter, his blunderbuss had been too heavily dented from the fall, and from banging into rocks in the underground river, that it wouldn’t be shooting anything ever again.