Banshee Worm King: Book Five of the Oz Chronicles

by R. W. Ridley

  I looked at the Délon drawing and muttered to myself, “It is sometimes best to cause chaos than it is to encounter chaos in an effort to avoid it.” I shook my head and stuck both drawings in my backpack. “Thanks for being so clear, you ugly fur ball.”

  ***

  When I returned, Gordy greeted me wrapped in a wool blanket on the front deck of the treehouse. He almost looked like his old self again. He let out a “Cool!” when I landed on the platform.

  “It’s a blast,” I said.

  “I can’t wait to try it,” he said.

  “You already have.”

  His eyes widened. “You guys put me on the zip line?”

  “How else do you think we got you over here?”

  “Man, I missed it.”

  “How’s your leg?” I asked removing the harness.

  He waved his hand in front of his face. “It stinks because of that crap the jolly green giant puts on it, but other than that, it’s fine. Not sure why you guys got all bent out of shape about it.”

  “Trust me, if you saw it before Bostic treated it, you would have been bent out of shape, too.”

  He nodded and his face turned serious. “Oz, Lou told me what happened.” His cheeks turned red. “To Kimball, I mean.”

  “Yeah,” I said not knowing if that was the appropriate response. Was saying “Yeah” disrespectful? It was a pointless thing to wonder, but I didn’t want to do anything to dishonor my friend.

  “I remember when you guys first got him.” He laughed. “Fat little puppy. His ears were floppy back then. I hated you when you got that dog.”

  “Hated me?”

  “Well, yeah. I wanted a dog. I wanted a fat little puppy just like Kimball. But my parents were evil turds that wouldn’t let me even have so much as a picture of a dog. They let my sister get a cat, but they wouldn’t even consider letting me have a dog. I mean what kind of crap is that?”

  I shrugged. “Maybe they didn’t think you could handle the responsibility.”

  He rolled his eyes. “That’s exactly what they said. What are you, a psychic?”

  “Nope. My parents said the same thing to me the first thousand times I asked for a puppy. I had to water my Mom’s house plants and move them in and out of the sunlight for a whole month just to prove that I could take care of something before they let me get Kimball.”

  He snorted out a laughed. “Forget that. Who wants to take care of plants for a month?”

  “Somebody who’s willing to do anything to get his parents to let him have a dog.”

  He shook his head. “Turns out I didn’t need my own dog.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “Because my best friend had one, and his super cool Mom told me that when I was over at their house, I should consider Kimball my dog, too.”

  I choked back a tear and looked away.

  “I’m going to help you get those worms, Oz. You can count on that.” He held out his hand and I shook it. “For Kimball.”

  “For Kimball,” I said.

  Bostic appeared in the doorway. “You ready, Oz?”

  “For what?” I asked.

  “The hunt. We need to get on our way if we want to get to the Myrmidon camp before dark.”

  “Myrmidon camp?” Gordy asked.

  “Don’t ask,” I said walking into the house.

  I dropped my pack on the floor and retrieved a crossbow from the corner of the room. Lou was getting her stuff together for the hunt.

  “What are you doing?” I asked.

  “Same thing you are,” she said.

  “You’re not going,” I said.

  “Says who?” she asked with a grimace.

  “Me. You need to stay back here with Gordy.”

  She scoffed and continued getting supplies together. “April can do it.”

  April chimed in from the opposite corner. “Yeah, I can do it.”

  I gathered my arrows and headed for the door. “I’m not sure why we’re talking about this. Lou stays. April goes.”

  Wes approached from the kitchen. “That don’t make a lick of sense. April ain’t exactly combat ready, and Lou’s the best shooter we got.”

  “And I might get hurt,” April said.

  “Lou might get hurt, too,” I said.

  “But it doesn’t matter as much,” April said before realizing what she was actually saying. “I mean she’s tougher.”

  I glared at April.

  Lou shook her head and walked out on the deck. “I’m going, Oz. Get over it.”

  I watched her walk to the harnesses. “You know, you people keep on telling me I’m the leader of this group, but none of you listen to me.”

  Lou turned with a smile on her face. “Yeah we do. When you make good decisions.” She put on a harness.

  ***

  We traveled the treeway until it ended on a ridge about three miles away. Bostic was confident that we were outside of the Banshees’ territory, so it was safe to travel on the ground to the next ridge.

  The weather seemed to be getting colder by the second. Our breath came out of our mouths in hazy pillows of mist, and the cold damp air burned our lungs when we breathed in.

  “One thing I ain’t clear on,” Wes said. “How are we going to carry two Myrmidons back to the treehouse. Those things are enormous.”

  “Well,” Bostic said, “that is a bit of a puzzle.” He held up some canvas sacks with straps attached to them. “Made these bags for carrying meat. I figure we can strap them to the gorillas to carry the heaviest chunks. We’ll divide the rest up between us. That should do it.”

  “Divide the rest up?” Tyrone asked.

  “What’s your confusion, young fella?”

  “Are you saying we’re going to cut them up into pieces?” Tyrone’s voice got higher and higher as he spoke. He couldn’t believe what Bostic was suggesting. None of us could.

  He reached into his pack and pulled out an axe. “Normally, I just field dress the kill in the woods, but as Wes pointed out, lugging two Myrmidons back to my place would be a near impossible task if they were kept in one piece. It will be necessary to divide them up into more manageable pieces.”

  Lou stopped. “This is insane.”

  “This is how I eat, young lady,” Bostic said.

  “But we just left a place where we were trying to eat each other,” Lou said conveniently leaving out that she didn’t try to eat anybody nor did anyone try to eat her. “Now you got us traipsing through the mountains to kill and butcher two people for meat.”

  “Darling,” Bostic said sounding condescending, “these are not people.”

  “They were,” Lou said.

  “‘Were’ ain’t ‘is.’” He pulled himself up an incline using a small tree. The tree nearly snapped supporting his weight. “Now, we really need to keep moving otherwise we’ll be tangling with those two Myrmidons in the dark.”

  Lou threw up her hands. “Are you going to say something, Oz?”

  I turned to her and said, “A, I told you not to come, and B, this is the deal we made with Bostic. He gave us shelter and treated Gordy. We help him hunt.”

  Disgusted she grabbed onto the same tree Bostic had used and pulled herself up the hill. “Fine, but I’m telling you right now I am not cutting anything up. And I’m sure as hell not eating any of the... meat.”

  “Don’t know what you’re missing,” Bostic said. “The Myrmidon is by far the tastiest freak-beasts out there today. Ratty-Bobs love Myrmidon meat. They’d trade their grandmothers for it.”

  “You trade with the Ratty-Bobs?” I asked.

  “I do.”

  “Isn’t that dangerous? They don’t seem like the most sane people to deal with.”

  “They’re not, but they’re pretty much harmless.”

  “Pretty much?” Wes asked.

  “I’ve only had one run in with them that got a little out of hand. Me and the one from last night got into an altercation that didn’t end well for him.”

  “How
so?” Tyrone asked.

  “He lost an ear. I kind of felt bad about that.”

  “Kind of?” Wes asked. “You’re a regular humanitarian, aren’t you?”

  Bostic placed his meaty hand on a tree trunk and tilted his head back. His massive chest expanded and contracted with each deliberate breath he took. “Lord have mercy! I am spent like a quarter in a video arcade!” He stretched his legs. “And to your point, Mr. Wes, my humanitarian efforts ended when humanity ended. Surviving ain’t about peace, love, and happiness. Surviving is about getting there first or fierce. That’s just the way it is.”

  Wes passed Bostic on the way up the hill. He fought hard to hide just how exhausted he was from the trek. “You got it wrong, Bostic. Humanity didn’t end.” He reached the top of the ridge and looked down at us. “Just the belief in it ended.”

  Bostic was about to respond when the sound of branches snapping diverted his attention. He held his finger up to his mouth. We all stood like statues. Another snap. He motioned for us to duck for cover, and we did so without hesitation.

  He slowly scanned the terrain until he spotted some movement. “There,” he said in a whisper.

  I followed the direction of his outstretched finger and saw a half dozen Myrmidons passing through a thicket of underbrush below us. They had no idea we were there. They were big just like everything else in this world. Their armor-like skin was thick and heavy. They looked impossible to kill. I knew they weren’t. We had fought them before. I had seen Ariabod and Ajax pummel one of them to a bloody pulp, but it seemed to me that beating them without casualties required a large amount of luck, and you couldn’t count on luck.

  They moved swiftly through the woods. Their tremendous weight basically obliterated everything in their path. It was almost as if they were living, breathing tanks. We watched them until they scaled the small ridge below us and disappeared.

  “We got about an hour before they head back to camp,” Bostic said. “They scout out every perimeter on their patrols. They’re headed West and that’s usually their final perimeter check before heading back to camp.”

  “Usually?” I asked.

  “They haven’t veered from that pattern yet. Let’s just put it that way.”

  “What’s the plan?” Wes asked.

  Bostic scrambled up the hill. Standing next to Wes, he wielded his axe. “We go in fierce.”

  “Go in where?” Wes asked.

  Bostic pointed down to the other side of the ridge. “There.”

  The rest of us jogged up the hill and saw that “there” was an encampment made up of six mud huts. It was lifeless with the exception of a dying fire in the center of the camp. A crudely made rack holding four Medieval-type weapons was located near the farthest hut from us. Given that the rack could hold more weapons, I assumed the patrol we’d seen had taken the others. Four weapons meant there were four Myrmidons in camp, not two.

  “Load up and bow up, boys and girls, because the fun is just about to get started,” Bostic said with an evil grin. A change had come over him. He wasn’t the giant country-bumpkin anymore. He was an animal on the hunt, and you could see the joy in his eyes. He was about to kill something, and he couldn’t have been happier.

  “I’m not so sure that would be a good idea,” I said.

  “Why?” he asked. He held his axe in his hand and started to hop up and down on his toes, as if he was warming up to go for a run around a track.

  “There are four Myrmidons down there.”

  “So,” Bostic said huffing out huge billowing mists of air.

  “So, you said there would only be two.”

  “Did I?”

  I looked at the others to see if I was crazy, they all nodded confirmed that I was right. “Yes, you did.”

  He shrugged. “No worries.” He raised the axe above his head. “It’s time.” With that he raced down the hill letting out a warrior’s cry.

  “What is he doing?” Lou said dumbfounded.

  “He’s getting himself killed,” Wes said.

  I growled as I loaded my crossbow. “Stupid idiot!”

  “What are you doing?” Wes asked.

  “We told him we’d help him on his hunt. I’m going to help him.” I stood and started to make my way down to the Myrmidon camp with my crossbow at the ready.

  Lou appeared at my side shortly after and I heard the telltale sign of Tyrone pulling his knife from his sheath. With a grumble and muttered curse word or two, Wes eventually joined us.

  Bostic disappeared near a mud hut. We could hear the sound of his axe blade striking something hard, and then we watched as he came flying back, feet in the air, his axe tumbling out of his hand.

  The Myrmidon he’d struck stepped out from behind the hut, and Lou fired an arrow into the side of its head. The ant-man warrior turned and let out a deafening cry.

  I fired my arrow and struck it in the chest. Before I could load a second arrow, Ajax barreled past us and launched into the Myrmidon. They tumbled to the ground.

  Bostic sat up laughing hysterically. “Good God this is fun!” he picked up his axe and spun to his left, narrowly missing a kick to the side of his head by a second Myrmidon. The giant destroyer yanked Bostic up by his neck. Wes took aim at the Myrmidon with his cross bow, but pulled up when he heard Tyrone scream bloody murder as he ran toward the armored destroyer.

  “What in the hell?” Wes said. “He ain’t got nothing but a knife.”

  Tyrone leapt on the Myrmidon’s back and brought the knife down in between its shoulder blades. The attack didn’t put the giant down, but it dropped Bostic.

  Bostic didn’t waste any time with his newfound freedom. He swung his axe around and drove it into the Myrmidon’s stomach, causing it to double over.

  Tyrone removed the knife and started stabbing the creature in the neck repeatedly.

  “Looks like he’s doing just fine with that knife,” I said.

  A third Myrmidon stepped out of one of the back huts. Ariabod came out of nowhere and swept the creature’s legs out from under it. It hit the ground with a thud.

  The fourth Myrmidon approached from the weapon rack and ran at Ariabod with an enormous sword.

  I fired my reloaded crossbow and struck the mud hut. The Myrmidon raised its sword and towered over Ariabod. I yelled out to the gorilla, but he couldn’t hear me in all the chaos.

  As I fumbled to reload my crossbow, I heard the snap and swish of Lou firing hers. I looked up and saw the arrow strike the Myrmidon in the neck. It froze for a split second and then fell to its knees. It tilted its head up and grasped at the shaft of the arrow. Before it could pull it out, it fell onto its back and let out a gurgled wail.

  Bostic freed his axe from the Myrmidon he and Tyrone were fighting. He turned in the direction of the wailing creature and then to us. “Don’t take all the fun out of it! Kill ’em slow!”

  Wes stomped toward the camp. But instead of going for a Myrmidon he grabbed Bostic by the shoulder and spun him around. “You damn fool,” he said as he threw a fist into Bostic’s jaw.

  Bostic stumbled back giggling madly.

  Wes turned to the Myrmidon and readied his crossbow. “Get clear, Ty!”

  Tyrone hopped off the Myrmidon’s back breathing heavily from his frantic stabbing.

  Wes aimed the crossbow and prepared to fire, but the Myrmidon collapsed in a heap before he could.

  Ajax let out a fierce roar and backed away from the now dead Myrmidon.

  The only Myrmidon left was having its chest beat in by Ariabod.

  Bostic raised his axe above his head and let out a joyous whistle. “That was too easy!”

  Wes turned his crossbow on him. “You crazy ignorant redneck. You just about got my kids killed! I ought to shoot your fat heart out of your chest!”

  Bostic continued to laugh and celebrate. “You can’t tell me you didn’t get a rush out of that! Killing these big uglies is better than going to the movies for entertainment.”

  “These thing
s,” Wes said, “used to be people.”

  “Put the crossbow down, Wes,” I said.

  Wes didn’t comply immediately, but after a few moments passed he lowered the crossbow.

  “Let’s cut ‘em up and get the hell out of here!” Bostic said approaching the nearest Myrmidon with his axe.

  “Cut ‘em up yourself,” Wes said turning away.

  “Fine,” Bostic said lodging his axe into the neck of the Myrmidon closest to him. “But that’ll take a good while, and the patrol we saw will be back before I’m done. Personally, I wouldn’t mind another go around with these freaks, but I’m pretty sure you’re against that sort of thing.”

  Wes started up the hill, “We’re headed back. You do what you want.”

  “That ain’t the deal, fat man,” Bostic said.

  “I don’t care what the deal was,” Wes said.

  I pulled my knife out of my backpack and headed for the camp.

  “Where you going?” Wes asked.

  “We did make a deal,” I said, “and he kept up his end.”

  “He’s crazy,” Wes said.

  I kept walking. “Doesn’t mean we can break our deal.”

  Tyrone bent down and started to help Bostic dismember the Myrmidon.

  I stood over the Myrmidon Ajax had killed. I had no idea where to begin.

  “Gut it first,” Lou said. “Bostic’s got the axe. He can do the rest.”

  “I’m not even sure my knife will cut through their skin.” I thumped its stomach with my finger. “It literally is armor.”

  “Arrows went through. Tyrone’s knife went through. Your knife will go through,” Lou said with a weird detachment.

  “You okay?” I asked.

  “I’m getting ready to gut a giant ant man, what do you think?”

  Wes stepped up behind her. “You two handle this one. I’ll take care of the one Lou killed.” He shot Bostic an evil look before disemboweling the Myrmidon.

  ***

  The trip back was nearly impossible. The Myrmidon meat was divided among all of us, although the gorillas carried the bulk of it. Beyond being unbelievably heavy, it smelled like rotten eggs. Bostic insisted that if we could get past the smell we were in for one of the best steaks we’d ever tasted.