Strangewood (39 page)

In that moment, the creature died. Its eyes closed forever,
its heart stopped pumping. Seconds later, it began to fade away. To diminish,
the way the sunlight slipped over the edge of the world at the end of the day. Moments
after that process had begun, it was as though he had never been there.

"Laughing Boy," Emily Randall said quietly.

Walt Sarbacker was still standing on that spot, staring at
the empty pavement, when other officers arrived to back him up. Her attacker,
Emily explained, had escaped. Detective Sarbacker had fired a single shot,
which frightened him off. He'd saved her life, she said.

No, she couldn't explain why he refused to speak.

* * * * *

As if it were a call to arms, the music of Fiddlestick's
wings filled the air. The dragon swept up into the sky high above the field of
battle, and then he was gone. Upon their arrival, it had been agreed that
Fiddlestick would infiltrate the fortress and try to gauge what kind of
opposition they faced. If he could find Nathan quickly, all the better.

For some reason, when the dragon had flown in through a high
window in the fortress, out of sight and now earshot, Thomas shuddered. The
chill wind blowing across the rocky plateau at the top of the mountain cut
through to the bone, but that wasn’t it.

Somewhere in that fortress, his son was still alive. He knew
it. And somehow, they would get him out.

"TJ, pay attention!" a sticky voice roared.

Thomas turned his gaze back from the high walls of the
fortress to the battle at hand.

The Simian Sisters had emerged from the fortress and were
attacking. The huge mountain gorillas could tear a man apart in one motion. But
to do that, they'd have to reach him. The Forest Rangers had moved in to
prevent that from happening. Their branches dipped down to batter the Simians,
keeping them back. Brownie had burst through their line and was even now
grappling with one of the gorilla triplets. Thomas could hear the fury in his
roar and saw the jagged gashes Brownie had already torn into the ape's face.

But now one of the Simians had broken through the Rangers. They
were enormous, but it worked against them at times. Their swinging limbs tended
to get in the way of one another.

"Which one is it?" the Peanut Butter General cried
as he held his sword at the ready, moving to intercept the gorilla.

Thomas stared at her, the huge, slavering beast the Jackal
Lantern had sent to destroy him. And he knew her. He had, after all, created
her. When Thomas had first come to Strangewood, the Simian Sisters had not
existed.

"Rebecca," he told his father.

The General stood in Rebecca Simian's path, and Thomas
stared into her eyes. A great sadness descended upon him. She wanted him dead. The
Jackal Lantern's orders, yes, but still, it was a horrible knowledge.

The Peanut Butter General raised his sword, hacking at
Rebecca's hands and arms to keep her from striking him. She fell back and he
stepped in and used all his strength to thrust the blade forward, impaling Rebecca
as she roared her pain and fury.

She died then.

Thomas wept.

And the trees began to scream.

Two of the Forest Rangers — Black Bark and Redleaf,
Thomas thought from a quick glance — were on fire. He stared in horror at
them, and then at the rest of the battlefield. The General was running toward
the burning trees even as Brownie still grappled with Abigail Simian, and
Captain Broadbough attempted to trap her sister, Coretta, in his branches. Still
defending Thomas, though his men were burning.

That was enough.

Thomas ran toward them, screaming for them to stop. For the
dying to end. He didn't even recognize his own words, only the horror in his
voice. The tears had dried and all he felt now was a numbness and a void
within, a void where Nathan ought to be.

He was twenty feet from the battle, from the burning trees
and from his father, who was, even now, climbing the screaming trees, hacking
the flaming branches away, trying to save them by amputation. Thomas saw the
way the sun shone off the brown, oily peanut butter that caked his father's
entire body, and he was filled with revulsion.

This was not a fantasy world.

Suddenly, and instantly, he recalled a lunch with Francesca
that seemed so long ago and far away. She had said that Strangewood frightened her,
in a way. Thomas had not understood. But now he looked at his father, at this
mad monster with flashing sword, and he knew it.

He knew that fear.

From above him came a mad cackling comprised of the cawing
of a bird and the laughter of a vicious creature. They were one and the same. Barry
Crow sailed above him on wings black as night, taking the rays of the sun and
turning them away with disdain. Another creature Thomas had thought of as a
friend, as good, who had turned to the Jackal Lantern's savagery when the
moment of truth had arrived.

As to the fate of Dave Crow, Barry's brother, who had warned
him, Thomas had no knowledge. Nor had he hope.

Barry held a long rope in his talons and water dripped from
it. It had been soaked. But at the end of the rope was tied a blazing torch,
wrapped in woolen rags. It was a massive thing, an improbably large ball of
fire. And now, as Thomas stared, he knew how Black Bark and Redleaf had been
caught on fire.

The crow swooped lower, about to drag that blazing torch through
the upper branches of Captain Broadbough.

Ice in his heart, his lungs momentarily frozen, Thomas
reached quickly behind him, withdrew an arrow from his quiver, nocked it on the
bow, pulled, and released. He watched the arrow sail through the air, knowing
that he had been a bystander thus far. They were here for him, for him and for
Nathan, but he had purposely held back from the actual conflict.

The arrow found its mark. It spiked through Barry's body,
stopping him in midair. The crow made no final sound as it plummeted to the
ground, where it landed soundlessly.

Thomas had killed Barry Crow. And, in that, he had begun to
murder Strangewood.

Redleaf and Black Bark had been forced to withdraw so that
they would not catch their fellow Rangers on fire. Despite the best efforts of
the Peanut Butter General, who had been forced to leap to the ground at the
last possible moment, both trees went up in a horrible blaze.

Captain Broadbough and the other two surviving Forest
Rangers, Whippor Will and Autumn, now surrounded the open entry gate to the
fortress of the Jackal Lantern. They were far too large to enter, but they had
cleared the way. Or nearly so. Abigail and Coretta Simian remained to bar their
passage, while the General and Our Boy were flanking Coretta even now.

Abigail was pounding her chest and preparing to launch
herself at Brownie. She was bleeding badly where he'd slashed her face. His own
throat hurt where her fingers had wrapped about his neck, presumably trying to
break it.

In his entire life, Brownie had never been forced to behave
like what he was, a huge grizzly bear.

Abigail Simian dropped on him, her fat, leathery hands
searching for a grip that would do the most damage. Brownie roared, drawing the
attention of Thomas and the General. But they had their own fight. He spun,
trying to throw the gorilla off, but she'd gotten both hands in his mouth now
and was trying to break his jaw.

"No!" Brownie screamed.

He bucked beneath her horrible weight, attempting to shake
her free. Her legs were wrapped around his girth, her hands pulling, stretching
his jaw muscles to their fullest extent. The pain was great, but another few
seconds, and . . . Brownie swung his paws wildly, desperate to be free.

Abigail Simian screamed as an arrow pierced her shoulder,
its tip scratching Brownie's back. Her grip relaxed and Brownie's thrashing
tossed her off. With a roar of pain and rage unlike anything he had ever felt,
Brownie was on her. He had begun to slobber like a common dog and now it was
like a dog that he kept her down, forepaws on her chest.

He reared up, reached for the tip of the arrow that Thomas
had fired at him, and tore it from her chest. The blood spurted into his face,
the copper tang of it on his lips maddening him even further. Seized by an
atavistic frenzy, he lifted his right paw, and slashed open the gorilla's
belly. More blood sprayed out, matting his fur, and his claws came down again
and again.

Then his jaws dropped to her gut and he began to tear.

Thomas could only stare. He had no more tears. But as he
watched Brownie ripping into Abigail, he knew that the bear would never dance
again.

A moment later, Brownie was up, his roar splitting the sky
like thunder, and he began to run toward the entrance to the fortress in a kind
of primitive canter. Thomas felt a hand on his shoulder and turned to see his
father, staring at him in sympathy. Behind him, Coretta Simian lay dead. Her
head had nearly been severed from her neck.

"Dear God, what have I done?" Thomas asked.

"You chose," the General replied. "You chose
your life, and your son, and your own blood."

And now the peanut butter man looked profoundly sorrowful. "Whatever
horrors it has wrought, TJ, you chose correctly. I made the wrong choice, but
I'm here now, to make it up to you."

Then the General sprinted after Brownie, his sword at the
ready.

Thomas followed, his bow in hand, though not with as much
confidence. He had resigned himself to the thought that nothing good could be
salvaged from what had been done to Strangewood. If he could only save Nathan,
that would be enough.

Cragskull stood just inside the entrance to the fortress,
where torchlight flickered off walls already brightened by the light of day
outside. The walls were damp and gray, and the space a bit too confined for a
true battle, but Cragskull didn't care.

He would fight where his master ordered. The Jackal Lantern
had given him specific instructions. Whoever came through the door first was to
die, and messily, as a warning to the others. His split skull was blazing with
malodorous green flame. In each hand, he held a crudely crafted fighting pick: long,
wooden sticks with razor sharp daggers fastened to the killing end. He had
practiced with these weapons for many years.

Hurting people was the only thing he had ever been good at. But
in Strangewood, he had never been allowed to kill. Not until the Jackal Lantern
took him in.

He swung the fighting picks in front of him, like murderous
clockwork, ready to follow his master's orders, no matter what his previous
misgivings had been. He was ready to kill.

The slavering grizzly barreled through the entrance with the
power and destructive capacity of an avalanche. The growl shook the walls as
Brownie reared back slightly and lifted his right paw, claws glinting in the
torchlight.

The claws came down, ripping open Cragskull's chest. His
scream was high and piercing. He stumbled back, then, with the strength of his
fear, brought one of the fighting picks around to bury it with a thunk into the
bear's chest.

It didn't even slow Brownie down.

With both paws, he reached out and grabbed Cragskull, lifted
the filthy man above his head, and roared so loud that Cragskull could hear
nothing thereafter.

Weakly, he brought the other fighting pick down and buried
it in the grizzly's back. Brownie staggered, wilted, and nearly fell. He began
to drop Cragskull. But he held on. The grizzly hugged Cragskull to him tightly
and reached his right paw up, only to plunge it into the green fire burning in
the opening in Cragskull's head. Brownie's claws caught the edge of exposed
skull, and, even as Cragskull began to smell the scent of the bear's burning
fur, there came a horrid tearing sound and a massive crack.

Brownie tore off the left side of Cragskull's face.

Nothing but green fire came out, save for a flash of putrid
smoke.

The bear stumbled. Fell. His blood spread like oil across
the damp stone floor.

Tittering like a mischievous child, Cragskull began to cry
and wheeze. He looked up with his one remaining eye to see the Peanut Butter
General coming through the door with The Boy, then, pushing past them, ran off
into the wood. The half of his head that was missing burned higher than ever.

When Fiddlestick flew down the stairwell and banked into the
entry corridor, the music from his wings reflected his mood. It was like a mad,
desperate calliope tune, played in three-fourths time.

The light from outside silhouetted the Peanut Butter General
where he stood in the doorway. Past him, Fiddlestick could see the lower
branches of one of the Forest Rangers — probably Captain Broadbough
— who was now guarding the entrance to the fortress.

Then he saw Thomas, kneeling just in front of the General. Kneeling
by the huge, still, bleeding form of Fiddlestick's greatest friend in the
world. Thomas had the grizzly's blood on his hands, and he was silent and cold.
Numb.

Fiddlestick was not numb, though he prayed for that curse.

"Brownie!" he cried, and the music from his wings,
despite its rapidity, became a dirge.

A moment later, he fluttered his wings and settled down next
to the grizzly. His eyes were closed tight, but he was breathing. Shallow, yes,
but breathing was breathing.

"We've got to get him out of here," Fiddlestick
said.

"As soon as we have Nathan," Thomas said.

The dragon fluttered his wings, the sound more like breaking
glass than music now. Tiny jets of flame spurted from his nostrils. For a
moment, he wanted to scream at Thomas, to blame him for all that had happened. That
would have been the simplest thing to do. But then he looked down at the badly
bleeding grizzly, at the glazed, half-open eyes of his friend, and he thought
of what Brownie might say.