by Perrin Briar
“He said he would provide the town with a need to change our leadership, and that was exactly what he’d provided. I needed to upgrade the monster of course, but that was easy enough. The hardest part was fitting it to the great beast. But after some work, I finally figured that out too.”
“But the monster,” Bryan said. “How did you control it?”
“Anything can be taught to do anything,” Lady Maltese said. “A lion to dance, a baboon to sing, a snake to fly, so long as you give them the tools and enough will. Anything is capable of anything.”
“I can’t believe this,” Lord Maltese said. “I won’t believe it.”
“Believe it,” Lady Maltese said. “It’s the truth. I’m not the victim anymore.”
“Lady Maltese, please,” Lord Maltese said with a haunted expression on his face. “You’ve achieved so much down here with us. I’m proud of you, of everything you’ve done. You can come back to us, you can come back to me and our family. Everything will be all right again. Please.”
Lady Maltese reached for the lord’s outstretched hand, and then she turned and saw the expressions on the faces of the townsfolk. There was no way they were going to let her get away with what she’d done. The murders. The lies. The mayhem. She would be strung up and decapitated.
Shouting in the corridor snapped her from her reverie. Clacking noises like weapons striking the walls. What it could be, Bryan had no idea, but he knew it couldn’t be good.
“You’re right about me, of course,” Lady Maltese said. “But you made a grievous mistake when you brought all the people here today. Doing so meant you left only a small skeleton force on the walls to defend us. Or should I say my skeleton force?”
“Mother…” Abigail said. “Please. Take me with you.”
Lady Maltese’s resolve seemed to break, only for an instant, but it was there. And then it was gone, like dust in a strong wind. It may not have existed at all.
“You are no longer required,” Lady Maltese said. “You have served your purpose. Goodbye. And farewell.”
“Mother!” Abigail said. “No! Please!”
The doors to the great hall burst open, and skinny figures stepped into the light. The townspeople screamed. These things, like many other things of late, were not from this world.
44.
THE FIGURES stepped into the warm fuzzy light of the candles burning on the walls. The townsfolk took a collective step back and a deep breath in. The figures wore grins, many missing teeth. They held an amalgamation of weapons in their tight fists, chipped and worn, bloodied and dangerous already.
They were skeletons, with blinking red lights acting as their beating hearts. Bryan recognized them as the skeletons the dragon had stripped of their flesh and left to hang on the line. There had been dozens of them, Bryan recalled. And here they all were, reanimated and brought back to life.
One of the skeletons took a step forward, his bones rattling and making crunching noises. His movements were not smooth, but jerky and uncontrolled. He turned his head to one side and peered menacingly at the locals.
The locals reacted the only way any sane person would have: they screamed and scattered, running for the doors to either side of the room. They worked together to shift the heavy lumps of wood. But opening them was a mistake, as even more of the rattling skeleton soldiers stepped forth.
How had these things been reanimated and told to come here? Bryan thought. During Lady Maltese’s whole monologue she had never mentioned she had an accomplice. And Bryan didn’t believe she had one now. Which meant it must have been some kind of device on her person that allowed her to contact and control her undead soldiers of fortune.
Bryan looked Lady Maltese over. She was decked out in jewelry. It could have been anything she wore, anything could be used to control these undead characters. Bryan eyed her, watching her, to see if she touched any of the jewelry on her person.
Bryan ran for her. Lady Maltese leapt off the dais and landed amongst the people. She pressed at the amulet hanging from her neck. Bryan could see that by pressing the jewels on its surface they acted like rudimentary buttons.
“Someone stop her!” Bryan said.
Lady Maltese grinned. She turned and ran among the commoners, who seemed more afraid of her than the undead soldiers, pulling back. The former lady ran through them to a side door and out into the corridors where her skeleton warriors were arranged in uniform lines. The skeletons parted, making room for her to pass through, before closing the gap behind her.
The braver individuals among the locals stepped forward to engage her but they were too slow, pulling back and skidding to a stop before the skeleton warriors, who didn’t budge an inch. The people needed a leader. Bryan turned to Lord Maltese.
The lord sat on the side of the dais with his head in his hands, his legs hanging over the side. He was broken and destroyed by his wife’s revelation. He would be of no use to any escape attempt they made. Worse, he might be a hindrance. Bryan felt a hand on his shoulder.
“Don’t worry,” Roland said. “Despite all my mother has done, she would never allow the common folk to be hurt by these skeleton warriors of hers.”
A reanimated corpse lurched forward and, armed with a wicked scimitar, sliced open the large belly of a thick-chested man. Roland removed his hand from Bryan’s shoulder, clearly shocked.
“It appears she has fewer scruples than you thought,” Bryan said.
Roland turned pale. Bryan gripped him by the shoulders.
“Your father is a broken wreck,” Bryan said. “You have to take charge.”
“Right,” Roland said distantly. “Uh, what would you suggest we do?”
“Tell the people to grab armor, chairs, anything, and use them as weapons,” Bryan said.
“Right,” Roland said. “Good suggestion.”
He straightened up and addressed the moaning locals, who were distraught at what faced them.
“As the eldest and only son of the great lord-” he said, his voice barely audible.
“Just hurry up and do it!” Cassie said. “Stop wasting time!”
She ran to a wall and pulled at a sword attached to a decorative display. It thunked to the floor, but was thankfully not just for display purposes. She tossed one sword to Roland and kept the other for herself. The rest of the family did likewise, grabbing at weapons held by suits of armor.
Roland looked at his sword and held it above his head.
“People!” he said. “Hear me! Today we face a demon more deadly and dangerous than anything we’ve ever faced before! You must fight if you wish to survive. The time for peace is over. We must vanquish these foes and send them back to hell where they belong!”
The locals pushed their chairs over and snapped the legs off. They turned to face the skeleton soldiers, homemade cudgels in hand. Others leapt onto the dining tables, kicking off the empty plates set for the evening meal.
The guards were slow in reacting, but now they were stepping up to the plate, facing the skeletons headon. They were afraid—their training certainly hadn’t prepared them for this—but they were ready to do what needed to be done. Their job was to protect, and that was precisely what they were going to do.
“Men!” Roland said. “Let’s send these bags of bones back to hell where they belong!”
He ran forward, his sword raised.
From that moment, all hell broke loose.
The skeleton soldiers moved in an awkward, disorienting manner. Their joints were loose and seemed to stretch farther than they were originally designed for. Their faces were terrifying, lit by the red pulsing glow in their chests.
But they lacked the training the guards had with their weapons. Whatever knowledge and skill the previous occupants of the bodies had before was no longer in their possession. They were no better with their weapons than the untrained locals were, but they had an advantage: they were not incapacitated with fear.
Bryan swung his cudgel at a skeleton, caving in its skull.
The skeleton continued to swing with its chipped sword. Bryan ducked to avoid the blow. He kicked the skeleton with the sole of his boot.
The skeleton fell back, but it was up again in an instant, performing an odd movement that resulted in its feet returning to the floor first, then its shins, its knees and thigh bones, until it was standing upright.
“I feel like I’m in Simon and the Argonauts,” Bryan said.
“Simon and the what?” Cassie said, slashing at her own skeleton.
“Remind me to educate you on American culture when we get home,” Bryan said.
“If it looks something like them, you can keep it,” Cassie said.
Bryan swung his cudgel like Babe Ruth, knocking the creature’s head from its shoulders. Its whole body rocked with the blow, its head flying through the air. It turned to face Bryan again, headless. But it didn’t seem to make much difference to the skeleton. If you were as good without your head as with it, what was the point?
The skeleton lurched forward again, this time finding its way past Bryan’s defenses, knocking Bryan to the floor. Bryan struggled to wriggle free. He pushed at the bones on top of him. It was not heavy, but difficult to maintain a grip.
The skeleton reached over to grab its chipped sword and raised it high above its head, its beeping red heart visible through its ribs. Bryan was too fearful to respond, and held his arms over his head. He was doomed.
But the blow never came. Instead, the skeleton’s lifeless—and this time, really lifeless—body fell on top of Bryan.
A hand reached down and helped Bryan to his feet. The hand was small, but strong. It was ice cold, and for a moment Bryan wondered if perhaps he’d grabbed a skeleton’s hand by mistake.
“You have to destroy their hearts,” his rescuer said. “Or what passes for their heart. Tell me Bryan, were you one of these creatures once?”
“Rosetta?” Bryan said. “What are you doing here?”
45.
“I’M FINE thanks,” Rosetta said. “How are you?”
Bryan tentatively reached out and put his hands on Rosetta’s shoulders. He couldn’t believe it. She was real.
“Rosetta?” Bryan said.
“The one and only,” Rosetta said.
Bryan wrapped his arms around her, drawing her close.
“I can’t believe it’s really you!” he said. “For a minute there I thought I’d lost my mind. Are there more of you? Is there a rescue team down here?”
“There is a rescue team,” Rosetta said with a nod. “It’s the same underpaid, overworked rescue team you’ve always had. Me.”
“I’m so pleased to see you,” Bryan said. “But how did you get here?”
“Don’t dock my wages for insubordination,” Rosetta said, “but don’t you think we should worry about these undead fellows before having this discussion?”
“Of course,” Bryan said.
The locals looked at Rosetta uncertainly at first, gawping at her metal arm. They seemed unsure whether she was one of the monsters they were meant to be fighting or not. But once they saw her in action, tearing the undead apart, it soon became obvious whose side she was on.
Rosetta’s robot arm turned out to be just what they needed. It was the skeleton warriors’ Achilles’ Heel. Rosetta ran at the undead, blocking their attack with her metal arm before thrusting her hand into their chest cavities, grasping the blinking red box, and ripping it free.
She repeated the procedure over and over, the metal of her arm breaking the flimsy metal of the middle ages. She needed the support from the locals, and they were happy to give it to her, just as long as they didn’t need to be on the front line.
“That’s funny,” Rosetta said.
“What is?” Bryan said.
“Usually it’s me that’s getting my heart ripped out,” Rosetta said.
“Remind me to set you up with some of my friends when we get back,” Bryan said.
“They’re the ones I’m talking about,” Rosetta said.
“Then consider them unfriended,” Bryan said.
Thanks to Rosetta they were making good headway through the skeleton horde.
“You seem to have this sorted out,” Bryan said.
“You’re about to leave now, right?” Rosetta said. “As usual. Just when it’s starting to get interesting.”
“Can you hold the fort?” Bryan said. “And keep pushing the advantage?”
“There are still a whole lot of these beasties out there,” Rosetta said. “I’ll see what I can do.”
Bryan smiled. Rosetta’s best was always more than enough.
“And Rosetta,” Bryan said.
“Huh?” Rosetta said.
“It’s great to see you,” Bryan said.
Rosetta grinned, before it evaporated into her customary scowl.
“Get out of here, you big softie,” she said, turning back to the skeleton horde. “These worlds have had a bad influence on you.”
You could accuse Rosetta of being many things, but being a softie was certainly not one of them.
46.
THE FAMILY came running out of the castle. There were two skeletons on their tail. They turned to deal with them, sending their bones sprawling across the steps.
“How are we going to stop all these monsters?” Zoe said. “The skeletons won’t stop. Not while they have power to move.”
“There must be an antennae,” Bryan said. “I saw Lady Maltese using some kind of device to control the skeletons. It must be what she uses to control the dinosaur too.”
“A what?” Cassie said.
“An antennae,” Bryan said. “For Lady Maltese’s device to send its signal. Without it she wouldn’t be able to tell them what to do.”
“Great,” Zoe said. “Except I’ve never seen an antennae here! And it would stand out in a town like this, don’t you think?”
“I’ve seen one,” Aaron said. “Or what might be one.”
“Where?” Bryan said.
“On the roof of the tallest tower in the castle—the inventor’s tower,” Aaron said.
Bryan turned to look at the statue of the dragon being vanquished by Saint George. It was an odd shape, and now that he looked at it, it did look a bit like an antennae with its protruding appendages.
“That’s it,” Bryan said.
“We’ll destroy it,” Cassie said, nodding to herself and Aaron.
“Will we?” Aaron said.
“We’ll destroy the antennae while you catch Lady Maltese,” Cassie said.
Aaron ran the two options through his mind. He knew which one was safest and the least likely to get him killed.
“Right,” he said. “Let’s go.”
“Wait,” Zoe said. “We don’t even know where Lady Maltese is. She could be anywhere.”
Cassie shook her head and gave Zoe a friendly roll of her eyes.
“There can only be one place she could be,” Cassie said. “The one place the locals would never go, where she had a T-Rex defending all this time.”
“The caves,” Zoe said.
Cassie and Aaron turned and ran toward the inventor’s tower. Bryan watched them with pride.
“You have to admit, we did a great job in raising them,” he said.
“I’ll certainly agree with that,” Zoe said. “Even if they are a handful at times.”
“Looks like a handful is what we need,” Bryan said
He was looking at the smoldering remains of the town’s west wall. Whatever was on the other side could breathe white-hot fire. The wall wouldn’t last much longer.
“It looks like we’re about to get a whole much of handfuls as we speak,” Zoe said.
The creature’s bright green crest was visible over the wall. A giant eye peered through an arrow slit. If Bryan hadn’t know better, he would have said the monster was smiling at him. It took a step back, threw its weight against the wall that was already leaning dangerously inward, before finally giving up the ghost and falling forward.
4
7.
CASSIE AND AARON ascended the spiral staircase in record time. It was a good thing it was them who had to run up the stairs, as Cassie was sure Bryan would have died before making it to the top.
She really needed to get him to join a gym when they got back to the surface. Aaron, on the other hand, must have developed a few muscles during their adventure beneath the surface. If he kept it up she was sure he could perform very well in sports at school.
They got to the top. Cassie’s eyes immediately went to the spot on the floor where they had found the inventor’s dead body. It was gone now, and every attempt had been made to scrub the blood stains from the stone, but the cleaners had failed. The stains were faint, but still there.
She tore her eyes away and surveyed the room, rising to the ceiling. They needed to get on the roof somehow, so they might destroy the antennae.
But how?
Cassie searched amongst the detritus and half-built inventions. She came out with a length of rope.
“What are you doing?” Aaron said.
“Fancy a trip up Memory Lane?” Cassie said.
“Not really,” Aaron said.
“Tough,” Cassie said. “We’re going to relive our time in the magma world and climbing from the nest. But instead of climbing down, we’ll be climbing up.”
“Goodie,” Aaron said, shoulders slumping.
48.
BRYAN HAD been in situations like this before: knowing what needed to be done, but having no idea how they were meant to carry it out. Admittedly those times never featured a giant reptile that was meant to be extinct, although Mr. Myers, a former business partner, did have traits similar to the great king of the dinosaurs. They needed to get it away from the town, but they had no plan.
“We’ll never outrun it,” Zoe said.