The Last Protector (52 page)

Finally, after seconds that felt like days, the thrashing cable settled down. Scrornuck shifted his grip, and the sword obediently hoisted him up to the buttress, which was now little more than a naked cable. He wrapped his right arm around the cable, put Ol’ Red away, and slowly worked his way down the bare cable until the fake-stone resumed. “All right, Jape..."

"I'm moving.” The Ranger clambered off Scrornuck's shoulders and knelt on the phony stone surface. “Okay, I'm up here. Nalia..."

"Uh-huh.” Nervously, she released her hold on Scrornuck's arm and let Jape help her up onto the remains of the buttress. Slowly, they both crawled the last thirty feet to the bottom tower. Scrornuck then swung himself up over the cable and made his way down to join them.

"I think I've figured something out,” Jape remarked. “You know how Nalia's a powerful mind reader, but she can't read your mind at all..."

"Told you, there's nothing there to read.” Scrornuck hurriedly swung Ol’ Red at the remains of the buttress, cutting through the fake-stone and severing the support cable. Atop the tower, the Captain watched as another half-dozen of her men fell, screaming, to their deaths. She fixed Scrornuck with an icy stare and slowly made a rude gesture. He ignored the gesture and muttered a brief—very brief—prayer for the dead.

"The Orb is an artificial mind-reading device,” Jape continued, fiddling with his rings. “And that's why you don't go into a trance when Nalia interacts with it—the thing doesn't know what you're thinking."

"You want to know what I'm thinking?” Scrornuck asked, increasingly irritated with Jape's musings. “I think we're at the top of a tower, surrounded by bad guys, and I don't have a clue what we're supposed to do next!” He looked down into the courtyard and saw the warriors shaking off their stupor. The Setron was silent. Bad, he thought, knowing the Army of Taupeaquaah wouldn't hold together long without it. “What's the plan, Ranger?"

"Get out of this castle and get some serious weaponry,” Jape replied. “Draggott's better-armed than I thought."

"I thought the world ends tomorrow—” Nalia protested.

"So there's one day left,” Jape said. “We've stashed some real weapons inside the Sunset Stone—stuff that could level this castle, if that's what's necessary."

"Think any of that stuff's strong enough to whack the Orb?” Scrornuck asked, jiggling the service door's handle. It was locked from the inside. He hacked through the door in a shower of sparks, exposing a dimly lit staircase.

"I don't know,” Jape said, “I just don't know. I've got to read the stuff that came in this morning."

"Seven hundred pages?” Nalia asked.

"The answer's in there somewhere. I'll read every page if I have to."

Scrornuck looked over the railing, and saw Draggott's warriors running along the castle wall, toward a bridge linking the wall to the tower. “Shit!” he muttered. “They're coming for us!"

Jape frowned. “We won't get all the way down before they reach the bridge—it's a good seven stories. Let's see how much charge I've got left.” He held his hands over the edge and said, “Fire!” five times. Three balls of white fire shot from his hands and exploded against the bridge, damaging but not destroying it.

"Out of gas?"

"Afraid so—I've still got a Dragonsneeze, but that won't help us here."

Scrornuck kicked the railing. “Reinforced concrete,” he muttered, drawing the fibersword. “Should be heavy enough.” In a shower of sparks and foul-smelling smoke, he sawed loose a ten-foot section.

Jape watched nervously as Draggott's forces approached the bridge. “Better hurry."

"Feel free to help.” Scrornuck shoved with all his strength. Jape and Nalia joined in, but the section of railing didn't budge.

"Are you sure you cut it all the way loose?” Jape asked.

"Yeah, I'm sure.” Scrornuck sat on the narrow walkway, back against the wall, knees bent, heels against the chunk of railing that he sincerely hoped he'd cut all the way loose. “Here goes nothing—” He wiggled his toes. The boots groaned, his shoulders crunched into the fake-stone, his knees felt like they were being torn apart—and the section of railing fell. The ten-foot chunk of concrete bounced off the tapering side of the tower, leaving an immense white gash in the fake-stone, and crashed into the center of the bridge, taking it down.

"Ever considered going into demolition?” Jape asked, inspecting the remains of the bridge.

"Every chance I get."

They descended quickly, Scrornuck trying to ignore the pain in his knees and back as they took the stairs two and three at a time. The staircase ended at the level of the destroyed bridge, and arrows clattered against the steel door the instant he started to push it open. “Shit, we still have a problem,” he muttered, braving the arrows for a second and getting a glimpse of Draggott's soldiers crowding the walkway on the far side.

Two quick strokes of Ol’ Red severed the hinges, and Scrornuck held the door as a shield as the three stepped out of the tower. They climbed over the remains of the railing and stepped onto a decorative ledge barely a foot wide. Slowly, as arrows clattered off their makeshift defense, they worked their way around to the far side of the tower.

The marble-colored concrete floor was a good thirty feet below—not a great landing spot when jumping with a passenger. Still, seeing no other choice, he picked up Jape and said, “Okay, here we go..."

"Hey, did you hurt yourself again?” Jape said, pointing at Scrornuck's right boot.

"Huh?” Scrornuck paused to inspect the red fluid dribbling down the leather. “Please, oh please, let it be blood,” he muttered. It wasn't: hydraulic fluid was leaking from a blown seal somewhere in the network of mechanisms that covered the boot. Sheeyit, he thought, these things are enough trouble when they're working right. With a silent prayer, he stepped over the edge.

The landing was awful—the damaged boot fired late and Scrornuck's leg took the full impact. He felt a ripping in his knee as he wrapped himself around Jape and rolled across the concrete. “Oh, crap,” he said between clenched teeth, “I think I tore something."

"You did.” Jape quickly shot something from the first-aid kit into the knee. “We'll have to get it fixed when we're done here."

"When we're done, yeah.” Slowly and carefully, Scrornuck got to his feet. The knee hurt and felt unsteady, but it supported his weight. “Where's Nalia?” he asked, looking up and not seeing her.

"Right here,” she said, and he almost jumped—she was standing behind him. “I just climbed down.” He looked at her, and at the tower, and shrugged; he didn't see any footholds, but obviously she'd found them.

They hurried toward the Army of Taupeaquaah and the gate. Without the Setron's song, the Army milled about, disorganized. Nalia rubbed her forehead as if suffering a headache. “These guys are terrified."

As the three joined the Army, Draggott's troops resumed their disciplined pincer maneuver: one group blocked the gate, two more came around the central tower, and soon the Army was surrounded.

"Nalia,” Jape called, “can you influence Draggott's soldiers?"

She shook her head. “The only thoughts I can hear are yours and the Army's. It's like Draggott's people aren't here."

"Well, they may be immune to mind games, but they're not immune to Ol’ Red!” Scrornuck yelled. “Follow me!” He rushed forward, staggering a bit as he cut his way through the enemy. Nalia drew her sword and followed, with Jape in between.

The Army, still mired in confusion and fear, didn't follow, and in a few seconds Scrornuck, Jape and Nalia were surrounded by Draggott's troops. “This doesn't look good,” Jape said.

"No shit, Sherlock!” Scrornuck jabbed his right elbow back, impaling a soldier who'd tried to attack from behind.

Jape touched something on his sleeve. “I've got one trick left.” Scrornuck heard a faint humming beneath the sound of battle—the Ranger was charging his last Dragonsneeze.

"Stay here!” Scrornuck shouted, shoving Nalia against Jape as yet another wave of soldiers attacked. Ignoring the pain in his knee, he staggered forward, going through Draggott's army like a timber-cutter clearing a forest.

Never looking up from the charge indicator, Jape shouted, “Now!” Scrornuck, a good fifteen feet from the Ranger, had just enough time to think, Oh, shit, this is gonna hurt! Then there was nothing but a roar, and scorching heat, and a brilliant white glare as the Dragonsneeze sent him flying.

As the light and heat dissipated, he crashed to the ground, in the middle of Draggott's soldiers. His hands were empty, and he realized he'd lost his sword in the blast. He struggled to his feet and saw that the Dragonsneeze had cleared a path, incinerating or blowing aside the soldiers who blocked the way to the exit tunnel. The Army of Taupeaquaah surged into the gap, sweeping Jape and Nalia through the tunnel and out of the castle.

Scrornuck felt strangely calm as Draggott's army fell upon him with a vengeance. Jape and Nalia had made it to relative safety, he'd done his duty as their Protector, and whatever happened to him now didn't matter. It's finally over, he thought, as blackness engulfed him. At last, at long last, he was done killing.

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Scrornuck jolted to a sitting position, awakened by a searing pain in his left leg. By the dim light shining through a tiny slit-window, he watched the internal splint work its way through his skin and fall to the floor with a soft
clink.
He stared at the splint—even with the first-aid kit's goo, a broken leg took at least two weeks to heal. Slowly and carefully, he stood up and tested the leg. It supported his weight without discomfort. He realized that the knee he'd injured in his last jump no longer hurt, either. What was going on?

Searching for words of comfort, he opened the little red book and found a short prayer that seemed to ask the very question hovering in his mind—
why am I still alive?
Given the Captain's hatred, he should have been skinned and sacrificed by now. Words came unbidden:
Your battle's not finished yet.
Pondering this, he put the book away.

Where am I?
In a prison cell—or a storeroom that had been hastily pressed into service. Three of the walls were bare cinder block, while the fourth was made of steel bars and included a locked gate. Heaps of the plastic armor worn by the Captain's soldiers filled the corners, and a rough wooden bench served as a bed.

How'd I get here?
He slowly recalled the battle with Lord Draggott's soldiers, and a sudden attack that drew him outside the eight-foot zone of protection just as Jape fired his last Dragonsneeze.
Man, don't that make your ears ring!
His clothes were scorched, torn and spattered with dried blood, and he hurt, in a number of places—though not as badly as he expected. The wounds he'd received had, like his broken leg, already healed.
Being a monster may not be all bad, after all.

He looked through the cell's tiny window, and saw the moon shining in the dark sky.
Where'd the time go?
He reclined on the bench, emptying his mind and letting his thoughts wander. In time, memories came.

The soldiers dragged Scrornuck through the dark halls of the castle and up a long, long spiral stair surrounded by pipes and wiring, coming at last to the bloated sack of violet-white electricity squatting atop its rickety pile of pallets—the Orb. The masked and hooded form of Lord Draggott stood nearby, with the Captain at his side. How nice, Scrornuck thought. All my special friends are here tonight.

The guards added him to a line of prisoners, many of them members of the Army of Taupeaquaah, then marched their captives in two and threes up to the Orb and roughly shoved their heads into the crackling ball. Tendrils of violet energy swirled over their shoulders and down their backs, and when the guards pulled them out, the prisoners moved slowly and mechanically, as if in a trance.

Then it was Scrornuck's turn. The soldiers dragged him to the Orb, which sizzled with electricity as if looking forward to the meeting. He fought desperately, and it took eight men to force his head through the Orb's surface. It hurt worse than anything he'd ever experienced—his body had flopped and squirmed uncontrollably as bolts of violet lightning coursed through his muscles, while bits of black, confetti-like material rode in the swirling storm of energy, raking his face with their sharp edges. In this insane snowstorm, illuminated by flashes of blue-white lightning from the Orb's center, he made out something big and black, an immense shark with a mouth full of sharp teeth and glowing orange eyes, heading straight for him. For an instant, the shark's eyes met his. And in that instant came a vision:

A man and a woman kneel, side-by-side, on a stone platform before the Orb. The woman is unfamiliar, but the middle-aged, balding man is unmistakable: McGinn. They raise their arms and rest their palms on the Orb's surface as violet energy surges around them.

Time passes. The two slowly fall forward, their heads entering the Orb. Scrornuck knows they are dying.

More time passes. Within the Orb, a tiny shark wriggles out of McGinn's eye socket and swims freely in the violet fluid. After a few circles, it turns toward the woman's head, and begins to feed.

Still more time passes. The bodies on the platform dry, shrivel and rot away, leaving only skeletons. The Orb shrinks, leaving the bones to bleach on the stone. And the shark circles slowly inside its shrinking world.

The vision came to an abrupt end as Scrornuck tumbled backward, out of the Orb and into a scene of pandemonium: smoke everywhere, people scattered as if thrown by an unseen hand, some apparently dead. Draggott stood on the tower roof, staring at the chaos as if bewildered by what had just happened. Scrornuck struggled to his feet, trying to take advantage of the confusion. His legs jolted and spasmed as if still receiving shocks from the Orb, and he tumbled head-over-heels down the scaffold's steps. Before he could get back to his feet, the guards were on him, dragging him down the stairs and locking him in this cell.