Strangewood (37 page)

"Longtooth," old Jack whispered. "Shit."

Then he roared, loud and long, the flame inside his pumpkin
skull fluttering weakly as he let all his energy fly from him. The gorilla
gently lay Longtooth on the stone floor and left the room as quickly as she was
able. Cragskull sat by Longtooth's still form, but the Jackal Lantern ignored
them both, raging and stalking across the room, back and forth, mind awhirl.

In a flash, he was next to Cragskull again, staring down at
Longtooth. He noticed the tiger man's chest rising and falling.

"He lives," said the Jackal Lantern.

"Yes," Cragskull said weakly, the relief obvious
in his voice, usually so vicious and cynical.

"Then he will fight," the Lantern said
confidently. "Clean him up and put him in a bed somewhere."

Green fire flickered from Cragskull's cracked head as he
hauled Longtooth up.

"This is his fault," Cragskull grunted. "The
Boy's."

The Lantern froze. "Our Boy did
this
?" he
asked, incredulously.

"The Queen of the Wood gave Bob these wounds,"
Cragskull said. "But it would never have happened if it weren't for that
stupid piece of meat."

The Lantern nodded, relieved. He didn't see Thomas as much
of a fighter, but Cragskull's words had given him pause. No, he would prevail. He
would rend the Boy's flesh if that was what it took.

But he wouldn't need to. Not at all. Not as long as he had
the child, Nathan, upstairs. With Nathan in his possession, Thomas would do
whatever old Jack desired.

A sudden fluttering of wings drew his attention, and the
Lantern turned to see Barry Crow settling onto the stone floor of the corridor
outside his door.

"Permission to enter, my Lord," said Barry.

Ah
, thought the Lantern,
some of my servants know
a bit about protocol.

"Enter."

Barry flew into the chamber and settled on the high back of
Jack's chair.

"What is it, bird?"

"It's the boy," replied Barry. "He's
dying."

Despite the fact that he was deeply troubled, the Jackal
Lantern did not rush up to the chamber where the boy was being held. It would
not do for his subjects to witness him in a panic, which was, indeed, what he
felt at that moment. No. Rather than lope up the winding stone stairs and run,
scrabbling, down the corridor, old Jack walked upright on his hind legs, chest
thrust out, fire flickering in his pumpkin eyes.

Even when Cragskull had gone off with Longtooth to tend to
the tiger man's wounds, the Lantern did not relax his self-control. Things were
not going as planned, but he wasn't about to share his concern. Not even with
the crow, who'd been the first of the denizens of Strangewood to pledge loyalty
to old Jack, and to his plan.

Barry Crow had killed his own brother at the Lantern's
order. As far as old Jack was concerned, that had been a beautiful gesture.

When he reached the corridor upon which Nathan had been
housed, he could see candlelight shining brightly from the chamber some way
down. Before he arrived at that door, however, he heard the clack of hooves
upon stone, and knew that Feathertop was with the sickly lad. And where he
found Feathertop, he suspected he would find Grumbler.

The Lantern paused and held up a hand to indicate that Barry
should do the same.

". . . not good. If he doesn't get some medicine, at
least some food in him or something, and soon, he's gonna die," Grumbler
was saying.

"We knew that was a possibility," Feathertop
replied, though his voice did not sound as confident as the Jackal Lantern
would have liked.

"Yeah, but . . .” Grumbler said grimly. "I don't
know. What I do know is that I never signed on for this."

At that moment, the Jackal Lantern chose to storm into the
room. The door was open only halfway, and he used all of his considerable
strength to slam it open, so that the entire room shook as with thunder to
recognize his presence. Fire licked from his eyes and his jagged mouth and his
orange skin seemed to glow with the flames therein.

"Idiot!" he roared. "You come to me for my
protection and enter into my service, knowing full well the obscenity I am
capable of! And here you are, whining like some malingering rodent."

He began to take a breath, and froze. Barry Crow had settled
on the footboard of the child's bed. Feathertop and Grumbler merely stared at
him openmouthed. Under the disgusting blankets, the child, painfully thin now,
began to cough and wheeze horribly. Yet his eyes did not open. His skin had a
tinge of green and yellow, colors not usual to the palette of human flesh.

Then Jackal Lantern’s gaze ticked back toward Grumbler, and
he leaped across the room as though he might fall upon the dwarf and shred him.
Instead, he stopped just in front of the diminutive curmudgeon and, with the
back of his right forepaw, cuffed him hard across the bridge of the nose,
shattering it.

Grumbler shouted; blood spurted from both nostrils.

The dwarf's right hand twitched, moved a quarter of an inch
toward the holstered weapons the Lantern knew he wore under his coat. They
moved no further. Instead, Grumbler stared at him in silence.

"All of Strangewood hangs in the balance, dwarf,"
the Jackal Lantern sneered. "The life of one child is nothing in
comparison. As long as he lives until Our Boy arrives, that's all that matters.
If you are such the coward that you cannot stand at my side in this coming
conflict, then leave now. Please. The sight of a coward sickens me."

Old Jack thought it best not to mention that he needed
Grumbler. Nor that, should the dwarf decide to leave, he would be dead before
he reached the door. But, though he was obviously furious at both the blow and
the insult, Grumbler made no reply, either verbal or physical.

"So," the Lantern said, as if the confrontation
had never taken place, "you think he needs food."

"When he's not delirious, he refuses to eat a damn
thing," Feathertop said, and neighed quietly, then stamped his hooves. "He
may well die if he doesn't eat."

In the corner was a small wooden platter upon which sat a
too-moist block of cheese and several slices of grainy, dark bread. The Lantern
retrieved the cheese and began to use his claws to cut the slightly moldy edges
off of it. When that task was completed, he broke off a small piece, walked to
Nathan's bed, and put the food to the boy's mouth.

Nathan did not even open his eyes.

The Jackal Lantern pressed the point of a claw against the
boy's cheek, puncturing his flesh and causing Nathan to awaken with a startled
cry of pain.

The boy whimpered. His eyes widened when he saw old Jack,
and he seemed to dig himself deeper into the mattress, moving as far away as he
could manage while staying on the bed.

"Please," the boy croaked. "Please don't . .
."

But that was all he could manage before his body was wracked
once more with coughs that made him visibly weaker with each passing moment.

"You will eat," the Jackal Lantern said.

That was all.

Then he brought the small piece of cheese to the boy's lips.
The boy flinched, but after a moment, staring at the Lantern and quivering with
fear, he opened his mouth and allowed himself to be fed. He chewed, slowly,
painfully. After several moments, he tried to swallow; an effort that brought
about the most severe bout of coughs yet. The cheese was spit up on the filthy
bedclothes.

Nathan clutched his throat, tears streaming down his cheeks,
even as his eyes began to lose their focus.

"I can't swallow," he said weakly. "It just
hurts so much. Like it . . . shrank."

Then he fainted, there on the mattress. The Jackal Lantern
felt the need to retaliate somehow for the insult of having the cheese
regurgitated in such appalling fashion. But the boy was clearly beyond
punishment. No, as difficult as it was for him to consider, it was up to old
Jack to keep the little meatbag alive. At least until his father arrived.

Which would be soon, no doubt.

"Take care of him," the Jackal Lantern growled,
glaring at Feathertop and Grumbler. "If he dies, so do you."

* * * * *

An hour before dawn, the Forest Rangers lifted the others up
into their branches and began to climb. It was a long and arduous task for the
Rangers, but at least the small band joined together to storm the fortress
would be fresh for battle by the time they arrived at the peak.

Mr. Tinklebum sat in the foothills and watched them go. It
had been decided by all — and the news broken to him by his good friend
Fiddlestick — that it would be next to impossible to keep him quiet
during the approach to the fortress. The way that the General and Our Boy had whispered
together beforehand, and the way that Brownie had objected, and Fiddlestick had
made mournful music with his wings, Mr. Tinklebum wondered if there were more
to it than that. He wondered if they didn't trust him.

But Fiddlestick promised him that wasn't the case. And
Fiddlestick never lied. Not ever.

Tinklebum had wanted to kill the Jackal Lantern, but he did
not want to endanger the lives of his friends with the tolling of his
bell-bottom. So he stayed behind. He sat and wept and watched them climb for
nearly half an hour before he lost sight of them. Then he stood and began the
long, dreadful, lonesome journey back to the burned out remains of his home in
the Land of Bells and Whistles, where he imagined he would sit and weep for
some time before he began to rebuild.

Every morning, he thought, he would rise and begin to toll
for the dead. One clang of the bell for every loved one he had lost to the
depravations of the Jackal Lantern.

An hour after dawn, he turned and looked back at the rising
peak of Bald Mountain behind him. He imagined he could see Our Boy up there on
the mountain, with the General and Brownie and the others.

"Kill him," Mr. Tinklebum whispered. "For me.
For us all."

Once upon a time, Strangewood had been a happy home for him.

Now, it was hell.

At the same time that Tinklebum made his whispered plea, the
Forest Rangers completed their climb, standing up to their full height on the
lifeless plateau where the Jackal Lantern's fortress had been built up out of
the mountaintop. The highest point in Strangewood. To one side, the Up-River
reached its apex, and then tumbled off into the void to begin its journey once
more. To the other, the flat and ugly face of old Jack's home.

Captain Broadbough of the Forest Rangers set Thomas down gently
on the windswept peak.

"What are your orders, Our Boy?" asked the
Captain.

Thomas glanced at the face in Broadbough's bark. "My
father is the military man," he said. "All I want to know is how we
get in."

Broadbough smiled. "No fear, Thomas," Broadbough
said kindly. "We shall get you in."

Thomas looked at his father and saw the way the General's
eyes were slitted and sticky with brown sugary webs.

"Once we're inside?" he asked.

The General was silent for a moment. He stared at the face
of the fortress, studying it. At length, he turned his attention back to his
son.

"There are only four of us. We stay together and we
search the place from bottom to top. All we want is Nathan. Anyone gets in the
way, we kill them," he said simply, then glanced at them one at a time. "Do
any of you have a problem with that?"

"For Strangewood," Brownie said grimly.

"For Our Boy," Fiddlestick said, still in
Redleaf's branches.

"For life," said the trees, all in a chorus.

Broadbough then bent, and several of his higher branches
brought a gift down to Thomas.

"What is this?" Thomas asked, as the Captain of
the Forest Rangers handed him a longbow and a quiver of arrows.

"All made from my own branches, long, long ago,"
Broadbough said. "They belonged to an archer of some renown. Now they are
for you. You cannot be without a weapon."

"It's very kind. Really. But I've never shot a bow in
my life," Thomas replied, staring at the thing quizzically.

Broadbough laughed, as did all the others.

"TJ, think," his father said. "Maybe you've
lost control of this place. Maybe you were never really in control. But you did
alter things sometimes, right?"

"It's your story, Our Boy," Brownie said, bowing
deeply. "You may not be able to say how it will end, but surely you can
write yourself a bowman."

Thomas stared at the feathers on the arrows in the quiver.

"I'll try," he said tentatively.

Which was when the massive lower doors of the fortress
opened, and an enormous black mountain gorilla came shambling out and started
toward them with a screeching charge.

Thomas removed an arrow from the quiver, nocked it on the
bow, pulled back the string and let the shaft fly. It felt good to him. So
natural. The others watched in awe as the red and green feathers whistled in
the air.

The arrow missed the gorilla by several yards. Screaming its
fury, the savage ape came on. The Peanut Butter General drew his sword. Thomas
reached for another arrow.

Two more gorillas emerged from the fortress.

The battle had been joined.

After the shock Emily had received from seeing her stalker
out the window of her office, she had simply shut down. Her entire body and her
mind had felt numb, as if ice had begun to form within her. Ice only slightly
warmed, slightly melted, by the shimmering aura of anger that surrounded it. She
was tired of being afraid. Exhausted by the tragedy that her life had become
and frustrated by this new addition to it.

The local police had come, of course. They'd done a sweep of
the grounds and come up empty, and then one of them, an Officer Whitney, had had
a conversation with Detective Sarbacker in Tarrytown, who'd asked that she meet
with him to discuss some kind of protection program. She'd arranged to meet at
the hospital, so that she could check on Nathan and Thomas, and Sarbacker had
readily agreed.