The Dragon Lantern (15 page)

“You have to call in
Colossus!”
Archie told him.

Pajackok nodded. He staggered a few feet away and blew on his bugle. In the distance, Archie could hear the giant legs of the steam man begin to piston their way toward them, and he sighed with relief.

An explosion lit up the air, and Archie flinched. Pajackok had called in the aeronauts in too. They dropped bombs on the Manglespawn, sending it stampeding around the clearing. Another explosion flared, and the buffalo creature turned and charged the effigy in the center.

The effigy with the fox girl still tied to it.

Archie had forgotten all about her.

“Master Archie! The girl!” Mr. Rivets called.

“I see it! I see it!” Archie called back. Together they converged on the effigy, the Manglespawn still bearing down on them. Archie ripped apart the ropes that bound her and handed her down to Mr. Rivets, but they were too late. The Manglespawn was right on top of them, and moving too fast for Archie to divert it. He grabbed the girl and turned his back to the monster to protect her, and then—
WHAM!

The Manglespawn hadn't hit them. But what—?

Colossus!
The giant steam man stepped over them and took another swing at the Manglespawn, connecting with a left hook.
WHAM!
The monster bellowed and rolled backwards, its dozens of little buffalo legs wiggling in the half-light like a centipede on its back.

Archie cheered and turned back to the fox girl.

“Are you all right?” Archie asked her.

The girl was in shock, but she was still able to nod. Up close, Archie saw her red fur ears and tail twitch in fear, and he knew then that this girl really was part fox.

“They—they weren't fooled,” she stammered. “The crazy people. They—they could see right through my glamours. They caught me. Tied me up. They were going to sacrifice me to that thing!” she said.

Colossus
was still hammering on the monster with one hand while the other disappeared into its arm. Dull Knife was transforming the other arm into a raycannon.

Archie took the girl by the shoulders. “The lantern,” he said. “Where is it?”

That brought the girl back to her senses. “Safe,” she told him, and then suddenly she was one of the cultists, a big hulking man in a grotesque mask. Archie broke away, scared in spite of himself.

“Don't let her go!” Mr. Rivets said. “She's still right there!”

The big madman jumped on Mr. Rivets's back with the speed and grace of someone much smaller, and suddenly she was the fox girl again.

In her hands was a pair of daggers.

“No fair peeking,” she said, and she buried the daggers in Mr. Rivets's eyes.

11

Mr. Rivets was a machine man and could feel no pain. He didn't cry out as his glass eyes shattered, but Archie did.

“Nooooooooooooo!”
Archie screamed.

The fox girl leaped off of Mr. Rivets, disappearing into the chaos, and the machine man lurched into Archie's arms.

“Mr. Rivets! Mr. Rivets, are you all right?”

“My ocular units are disabled,” Mr. Rivets said. “But I am otherwise undamaged.”

“Mr. Rivets, she put out your eyes!”

“Yes, sir. That is what I said.”

Archie scanned the area around the bonfire. A few cultists and soldiers still fought, but there was no way of telling if any of them was the fox girl. Not without Mr. Rivets' eyes. Archie cursed. The fox girl was going to get away. But they had bigger problems.
Colossus
finished converting his left arm into a massive raycannon and pointed it at the wiggling, writhing buffalo herd creature, but another bomb from an aeronaut sent the monster lurching toward the steam man.
Colossus
's blast shot over the Manglespawn, just grazing it. With a bellow that shook the air, the monster slammed into the steam man and knocked him back. Dull Knife windmilled
Colossus
's arms and tried to turn away, but he couldn't stop the steam man's momentum. With a groan and squeal of metal,
Colossus
toppled over and slammed into the ground with a teeth-chattering
THOOM
.

“Colossus
is down!” Archie told Mr. Rivets, running for the fallen steam man.

“Archie? Archie? Where are you?” Mr. Rivets said. He finally stopped moving around. “I'll just wait here for you then, shall I?”

Archie ran into Custer in the darkness. “Captain! Captain, we have to get
Colossus
back on his feet!”

“That skull,” Custer said, his eyes still glazed over and staring at the effigy. “There's something … not quite right about it.”

“Yeah, no kidding!” Archie said. “Captain, leave it. We have to get
Colossus
back up, or we're never going to defeat that monster.”

“That skull,” Custer said, walking toward the effigy. “There's something … not quite right about it.”

Custer was repeating himself. Between the horror of what he was seeing and whatever it was about the skull that was mesmerizing him, he was too far gone to be any help. Archie looked around for Lieutenant Pajackok, but didn't see him. He'd have to do this himself.

Archie climbed up to peer in the broken window on
Colossus
's face as the buffalo monster rampaged around the clearing.

“Clyde? Dull Knife?” Archie called. All he heard in response was Buster whimpering.

“Hang on! I'm coming,” Archie said. He slid down through the eye hole and dropped like a rock inside, smashing into levers and instruments on the way down. Buster lay at the back where Archie landed, hurt but alive. Dull Knife and Clyde were still strapped into their chairs, but neither was moving. Archie tried to wake them. He hated to do it, but they were the only ones who could drive the steam man. Clyde roused, still dazed, but Dull Knife wouldn't wake up.

Archie considered for a moment taking Dull Knife's place at the controls, but one look at the complicated array of levers and switches and pedals and Archie realized how stupid that was. He would never be able to operate the steam man.

Which meant
Colossus
wasn't getting up again.

WHAM!
The cabin lurched, and Archie was thrown against the wall. The Manglespawn! It would trample
Colossus
and them with it if he didn't get them out. Archie threw open the hatch in the head and called to Mr. Rivets. It took the machine man a few tries to orient himself, but soon he wandered close enough for Archie to hand Dull Knife, Clyde, and Buster out to him. Archie climbed out after them and threw Dull Knife and Clyde over his shoulder, carrying them to the wall of the canyon, as far away from the buffalo creature as he could get. He would have to come back for Buster.

“What's … what's the captain doing?” Clyde muttered.

Archie set Dull Knife and Clyde against the wall of the canyon and turned. Custer was at the foot of the effigy, firing an oscillating rifle at the skull on top of it at almost point-blank range. The skull glowed red-hot as though it were metal, not bone, and a piercing squeal-like scream echoed throughout the canyon. It rose in pitch as the skull glowed hotter and hotter, and though he couldn't explain why, Archie knew it was going to explode.

“Duck!” Archie said. He just had time to cover Clyde when there was a loud
FWOOM
, and a bright orange wave of energy hit them like a blast of hot summer wind. Archie closed his eyes and wrapped Clyde up tighter, the energy searing his back. The Manglespawn buffalo creature roared in agony and rage, and then the light went out, the heat turned off, and everything was suddenly quiet again.

Archie let Clyde go slowly, and they stood.

“Where's Dull Knife?” Clyde asked.

Archie stared at the place where he'd set Tahmelapachme. The man was gone. In his place on the canyon wall was a dark shadow of a body and arms and a head. Archie put his fingers to the rock wall. The silhouette was part of the rock. Dull Knife had been vaporized by the blast, his atoms burned into the canyon wall.

They found more shadows farther along the wall—twisted, agonized shapes of men and women, soldier and cultist alike, who had been blown to smithereens by the skull's explosion. Not a thing was left in the canyon except Archie, Clyde, Mr. Rivets, and
Colossus
. The effigy, the mystical flame, the buffalo monster, even the aeronauts who'd been overhead were all gone. Only Archie, who was almost invulnerable, and Clyde, whom he'd protected, had survived.

“Buster!” Clyde yelled with a start. He ran back to where they'd left the dog, and Archie ran with him. “Buster!”

But Buster was gone. All that was left of him was the shadow of a dog burned into
Colossus
's chest.

“No! Buster!” Clyde cried. He went to his knees, sobbing, and put his head and hands to the black silhouette of the dog. “I'm sorry,” he bawled. “I'm so sorry. I shouldn't have left you. I didn't mean to. I didn't mean to leave you, boy. I was supposed to be there to protect you, and I wasn't.”

Archie put a hand on Clyde's shoulder while the other boy sobbed. “I'm sorry,” he told Clyde.

Something clattered down the wall of the canyon behind
Colossus
, like rocks tumbling, and then there was a
crack!
like a stone splitting. Archie's first thought was an avalanche—that somehow the blast had loosened the rock walls of the canyon and a boulder had broken loose. But then he heard more rocks tumbling, and more cracks—two, three, four, five. Archie lost count of the cracks as they echoed around the canyon. It was still dark, but in the dim light of the red moon he watched the black silhouette of Dull Knife pull its head, arms, and torso out of the rock wall. Then it stood, lifting itself on legs and feet torn from the dirt of the canyon floor. Beside it, one of the other shadows came to life, ripping itself from the rock wall and lurching forward.

Toward Archie and Clyde.

“Clyde, get up,” Archie said, backing away. “Clyde, get up. Get up, get up, get up.”

Clyde must have heard the fear in Archie's voice. He wiped his eyes on the sleeves of his UN Steam Cavalry uniform and stood.

“What … what in the name of Hiawatha is that?” he asked.

Archie didn't know, but whatever it was, he knew it wasn't good. He grabbed Clyde and pulled him away. The rock creatures lurched awkwardly, stone grinding on stone as they walked, but they were clearly coming for Archie and Clyde.

“Mr. Rivets?” Archie called, never taking his eyes off the rock creatures.
“Mr. Rivets?”

“Here, Master Archie,” Mr. Rivets said, and Archie steered them toward his voice.

“What are they, Mr. Rivets?”

“I'm afraid with my ocular units disabled, I do not know what ‘they' refers to, sir.”

“They're … they're rock people,” Archie said. “They pulled themselves out of the wall where the shadows of all the other people used to be. The shadows burned into the wall when Custer destroyed that skull and everything got vaporized.”

“Ah,” Mr. Rivets said. “As you no doubt observed, those misguided souls were using the energy from the skull to amalgamate a herd of buffalo into one giant monster. I suspect that when Captain Custer destroyed the skull, that energy was released, ‘fusing' all the living matter within range into the substrate behind it and creating the barely sentient creatures you describe.”

“What'd he say?” Clyde asked.

“He said everybody else got blasted into the rock and brought it to life, and now they're all rock monsters coming to kill us.”

“I did not say the creatures mean you any harm, Master Archie.”

“No, but trust me, Mr. Rivets, they do!” One of the shadows that had pulled itself from the wall took a swing at Archie. He ducked, but not fast enough, and the blow sent him crashing to the ground.

“Ow,” Archie said.

“That was … that was Dull Knife!” Clyde said. The rock creature swung at him, but he ducked out of the way.

“I'm afraid these creatures will bear little resemblance to the people you knew who gave them life,” Mr. Rivets said. “The human brain is too complex an organ to merge well with solid rock.”

Archie sidestepped another of the creatures and punched it. Its head exploded in a shower of rock and dirt, but the body kept coming.

“Yeah, brainless,” Archie confirmed. “Stay behind me!”

Archie would have been all right if there had been just a few of them, or if they'd all come at him one at a time. But there were lots of them, and they came at him from all sides.

“The steam man!” Clyde cried. “We have to get inside
Colossus
.”

As a plan, Archie liked it. He turned and started punching his way through the rock men, ignoring the ones at his back and sides. Clyde clung closely to him, protected from behind by Mr. Rivets, who held tight to Clyde's belt. When they finally got to the fallen steam man, Archie swapped places with Clyde and Mr. Rivets to hold the rock creatures at bay while they climbed in.