“No!” Cyrus cried.
“You have grown foolish and weak, traitor,” Rorroh spat.
Black bile dripped down her horn-like chin.
“Better than what I once was,” the stranger choked.
She struck him with a backhanded blow, casting his limp body to the ground. Cyrus looked past the panting witch, at his rescuer lying blood-spattered and battered on the damp floor. The knife had penetrated his heart. Dark blood pooled around his still corpse. Cyrus grew faint, watching as all hope drained from the room.
Chapter 19
HORROR
RORROH BEGAN TO CACKLE AS SHE looked up at Cyrus.
“If only you had not crossed my fence.”
A grill of thin teeth grinned cheek to cheek, tearing the right side of her face. Cyrus again chopped at the door, tears streaming down his face.
“Your death could have been quick and painless,” she said.
“You don’t have to do this,” Cyrus said, striking the metal lock, “I’ll go home. I promise!”
“Oh, it’s too late for that,” Rorroh said, stepping closer.
Cyrus swung at the steel bolt. With a spark, the lock broke. The door creaked open.
“And where do you think you’re going?” Rorroh asked, her face snarling behind her white, wooden nose.
“Cyrus, what’s going on? Where are we?” Edward asked, half asleep.
The spider was beginning to rouse, trapped within the glass tube.
“It’s okay,” Cyrus breathed, casting a quick glance down at his best friend.
Edward’s vial rolled back and forth along the deck with the motion of the sea.
What was Cyrus going to do? If the stranger could not stop Rorroh, how could he? He thought of making a run for it. She was too close.
Cyrus turned on the witch and raised his ax.
“Please, just let us go.”
“Let you go? But you’ve only just got here.”
Rorroh came within striking distance. Cyrus prayed to the Angel King and swung with all his might. The blade arched through the air, whistling towards her skull. Rorroh caught the ax by its neck, the blade inches from her face. She wrenched it free and broke it in two.
“Wha-? Cyrus, run!” Edward shrieked.
The spider was now fully awake, clinging to the wall of the glass.
Rorroh reached out to grab Cyrus. He pulled away and tripped, falling to his backside.
“Edward!”
He clutched at the glass vial and pulled it away from Rorroh’s reach. Then he kicked and scrambled himself against the wall. There was nowhere to turn. He was trapped between thick hull boards and a child-eating demon.
“No,” he cried, hugging his legs tight to his chest.
“Cyrus, run!” Edward screamed.
Rorroh, an arm’s reach away, grinned in delight. The torn half of her mouth was a wolfish snarl. She came nose to nose with the boy.
“I was going to save you for the stew, but you’ll be just as tasty raw.”
Cyrus squeezed his eyes shut.
“Please…”
With long, coarse fingers she gripped his throat and pinned him to the wall. Cyrus felt something drip on his face. He forced himself to look. Rorroh’s bloated tongue squirmed in her mouth. She dislocated her jaw and opened it wide. Dark drool dribbled onto Cyrus’ cheek, smelling of vomit and tar. She was going to bite his face off, tear out his throat. Cyrus attempted to scream. He could not find the breath. Then he heard what sounded like a hissing barn cat. It came from the vial in his hand. It was Edward, seething and clawing at the glass wall. He appeared crazed, like a rabid dog, his fur on end. The witch pulled away, frightened. Then she peered over her shoulder. Cyrus suddenly became aware of the scent of burning oil and fertilizer. He looked past Rorroh. The galley was on fire. More specifically, the stranger was up, knife through his chest. He had opened the stove and was casting flaming logs about the cabin, setting it ablaze.
“My ship, no!” Rorroh shrieked.
She leaped up at the stranger, striking him with a heavy palm that sent him skidding across the deck. Then she grabbed a large cloak and began to smother the flames. The stranger staggered to his feet and stumbled towards Cyrus. He gripped the wall for support.
“Come, while there’s time,” he croaked.
He held a slender, webbed hand out to Cyrus. Paralyzed with fear, Cyrus looked beyond. Rorroh was knocking over shelves and flapping her cloak out, trying to extinguish the blaze.
“Quick,” the phantom said, dark blood dripping from his mouth.
Cyrus looked to Edward. The spider trembled with anger and terror. Cyrus reached up and took the stranger’s hand. His grip felt like steel wrapped in silk. With the door’s lock broken, the stranger threw it open and pulled Cyrus up a narrow set of stairs. They burst through a hatchway and found themselves in the cabin where Cyrus had first been drugged.
“Help me trap the witch,” the stranger said.
Cyrus clutched the vial between his teeth. Together he and the stranger ripped and pulled the potbellied stove from its chimney. Footsteps crashed up the stairway. Cyrus and the phantom dragged the iron furnace over the top of the hatch. The hatchway jumped and cracked.
“Open this door, or I’ll eat out your liver,” Rorroh shrieked.
The phantom tipped a shelf onto the stove, adding to the blockade.
“Watch out!” Edward screamed.
Cyrus heard wood splinter. Then something snapped tight around his ankle. He instinctively jerked his leg away. It would not budge. He looked down. Rorroh’s branch-like arm reached through a crack in the trap door. It was pulling his leg below. He took Edward’s vial from his mouth.
“Help,” he cried.
If she got his leg down the hole, she would surely chew it off. The phantom grabbed Cyrus’ arms and tried to pull him free. Rorroh’s grip was too strong. Cyrus was being dragged under.
“No!” he shrieked.
His ribs throbbed. He searched for a weapon. It was no use.
“Quick, take mine,” the phantom said, gritting his teeth.
The veins in his corded neck swelled. Cyrus looked to the knife protruding from his heart. How was he still alive?
“There is no time,” the stranger shouted.
Cyrus’ foot was two inches from vanishing down the hatch. At best he would be crippled for life. He reached out and grasped the blade. The phantom winced in pain. Like a stiff cork, Cyrus twisted and pulled the knife free. The stranger let out a death choke and seemed to wilt, but still, he held on to Cyrus’ wrist. The weapon dripped arterial blood down Cyrus’ hand. He looked down at the boney, grey limb trying to pull him under. Gripping the knife dearly, he took a deep breath, then struck with all his might.
“Ssssaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahh!”
The blade found its mark, slicing Rorroh’s hand off at the joint. Black blood spewed from the wound. Cyrus and the stranger flew back from the hole, crashing into the door. Cyrus dropped the vial. It shattered against the deck.
Rorroh’s severed limb thrashed and sprayed, before recoiling below deck. Her screams ripped through the ship like a shock wave.
“Come on,” Cyrus said, scrambling to his feet.
He collected Edward off the floor, then found his clothes in a pile near the door.
Outside the sun fought to break through a heavy fog.
“Cyrus, your leg,” Edward said, running up his arm.
Cyrus looked down and found Rorroh’s severed hand still clutching his ankle.
“Holy Sea Zombie!”
He used the stranger’s knife to skewer the appendage and fling it into the sea.
“Over here,” the stranger gasped, slouched over the ship’s railing.
It was their boat, moored to the rope ladder below. The stranger must have secured it.
“Quick, before that thing breaks out,” Edward said.
Cyrus dropped his clothes overboard and began to escape into his craft. He kept one eye on his strange res
cuer. Why had Rorroh called him a traitor?
Chapter 20
FIBIAN
FOR A DAY AND A NIGHT Cyrus and Edward sailed south, while the stranger slept, reeling in a feverish dream.
They had long ago lost sight of Rorroh’s vessel. Cyrus still searched the horizon for the oily ship.
In the grey morning rain, he wrapped the stranger in the wool blanket and mopped sweat from his forehead. Cyrus was in awe of how fast the creature’s injuries healed.
Over the twenty-four-hour period, the stab wound to the stranger’s chest knit itself together as if closed by unseen stitches, and his fractured nose became narrow and straight. Deep lacerations to his sharp cheekbones and angular chin vanished, leaving his sunken face unscarred and smooth.
Cyrus also found six incisions cut into the ribcage of the phantom’s suit. The eight-inch-long vents exposed two sets of shark-like gills that gasped for air as the stranger took in breath. Cyrus wondered how old the creature was. He looked childlike from one angle, middle-aged from the next.
The stranger’s eyes opened. Cyrus flinched.
“Uh, are you thirsty?” he asked, offering the stranger the canteen, “I’d give you some food, but we have none.”
“Thank you,” the stranger whispered, accepting the drink with his webbed hand.
“You were out for quite a while,” Cyrus said.
“I feel much better,” the stranger said, slowly rubbing his chest.
“My name’s Cyrus, and my friend here is Edward.”
The spider gave the stranger a slight nod, his expression uncommonly cold.
“Ah yes,” the stranger said, attempting to roll to one side, “allow me to introduce myself,” he bowed his head, “My name is Corporal Fibian, of her Majesty’s Secret Army. Aide to the Warrior Witch, keeper of the island prison, and I am what is known as a froskman.”
“Warrior Witch?” Edward asked, “Why did that monster call you a traitor?”
Fibian paused a moment, cringing as he adjusted his weight.
“That monster and the Warrior Witch are one and the same,” he said, “Your people know her as the Sea Zombie.”
“She was telling the truth?” Cyrus gasped.
A gale wind blew across the sea, spraying the crew in a salty mist.
“I am afraid so,” Fibian said, “She called me a traitor because that is what I am.”
“You set her ship on fire and locked her below deck. Is she dead?” Cyrus asked.
“Dead? You cannot kill what does not live, Master Cyrus.”
“What are you talking about?”
With some effort, Fibian climbed over to the seat at the bow of the craft.
“The witch may have been wounded, but she is not called the Sea Zombie in vain. She has been cursed to wander the ocean, lifeless and wretched. No mortal hand will ever take her from these waters.”
“And you served her?” Edward asked, his voice rising.
“I had little choice. She is my maker.”
“Maker?”
Edward scurried over Cyrus’ shoulder.
“How is she your maker?”
The froskman paused as if reflecting inward.
“In the beginning, the Angel King created the sea and everything in it, but he also created Angels to join him in this task. Your people speak of this, correct?”
Cyrus nodded, guiding the tiller.
“What you may not know is that the first Angel ever created was named Rorroh,” Fibian’s eyes flashed brightly as he spoke the name, “Rorroh was the most beautiful and powerful of all the King’s creations, and she loved her King more than anything, even her own beauty,” his expression became grim, “You see, Rorroh grew vain, and when she was not at his side, it is said that she would spend long hours admiring her reflection in the ocean.”
Fibian took a large swallow from the skin.
“It is said that one day the Angel King created a vast kingdom, and ordered his Angels to leave the heavens and serve all the beings of this new realm. But Rorroh, unable to live without her King, begged to stay. How could he send an Angel as beautiful as she off to serve creatures so weak and unworthy? The Angel King scolded her for her vanity and pride and ordered her away with the others. Feeling abandoned, Rorroh’s love turned to hate, and she planned an alternative course of action. One of murder and revenge.”
Rain started to fall in sheets, wrapping like thousands of fingers on the wet crew.
“She took counsel with Mor Hav, Mother Ocean.”
“You mean the sea itself?” Edward asked.
“Herself, yes,” Fibian corrected, sipping again from the skin, “Together they made a pact. Rorroh began to create an army of monsters, which she hid in Mor Hav’s belly. When the time was right, Rorroh planned to unleash her hordes and destroy all the King’s creations, leaving only her armies to rule the sea. In return for Mor Hav’s help, Rorroh promised her a kingdom of her own, but Mor Hav is a fickle mistress, and she double-crossed Rorroh, telling the King all.”
The wind began to pick up, causing the mainsail to flap and whip at the rain.
“The King then came to his most beautiful and powerful of creations and banished her from the heavens forever, cursing her to wander the seas, the most wretched and diseased creature imaginable.”
“Why would the Angel King allow this?” Cyrus asked, pulling his coat tight, “Why would he let that thing haunt my people?”
Fibian took another drink from the water skin, then handed it back.
“It is said that before Rorroh was banished, she dared the King to put his kingdom to the test. She said that if he let her and her armies wander the seas for one hundred thousand years, she would turn his creation of goodness and beauty into a wasteland of wickedness and evil. The King, wanting to show Rorroh the error of her ways, agreed to the unlikely terms.”
Cyrus and Edward exchanged confused looks.
“I tell you this because I was one of Rorroh’s soldiers, hidden in the murk of Mor Hav’s belly. When I was awoken, I was raised from the deep, given the rank of corporal and charged with the duty of guarding the island prison. That is, of course, your island of Virkelot, Master Cyrus.”
“My island, a prison?” Cyrus asked.
“Yes,” Fibian replied, “It was my job to make sure no one ever escaped your shores.”
“Why did you become a traitor?” Edward said, his eyes narrow as he crouched on Cyrus’ shoulder.
“Over the centuries, I grew lonely and weary of my post, until one day a man named Jim came to my island. I was so grateful for the company that I did not try to stop him. He was a kind and gentle soul, and I felt a sort of kinship towards him. It was watching him and his love of the sea and its creatures that made me question my ways.”
Fibian slouched in his seat.
“When he died, I felt a great emptiness. Then, years later, you came along, Master Cyrus. You reminded me so much of Jim and my heart filled with joy. Then your brother drowned, and I felt a great loss for you. And when you escaped the island prison, I grew worried. Finally, when Rorroh captured you, I knew I had to help.”
“Why is no one allowed to leave my island?” Cyrus asked, securing the mainsheet.
“Long ago,” Fibian said, “The Warrior Witch told me of a prophecy. She told me that a savior would rise up from the most unlikely of places, destroy her armies and scatter her ashes to the sea. I think Rorroh believes that that savior will come from your people.”
“My people, why?” Cyrus asked.
“I was only the second line of defense,” Fibian explained, “Your home is surrounded by many other islands, full of monstrosities waiting to trap and kill anything that nears their shores.”
“Why would she go to such trouble,” Edward asked, “Why not just kill the entire village if they’re such a threat?”
“I believe she has a more devious plan in store for your people,” Fibian said.
Worse than murder? Cyrus thought. Well, maybe they deserved it. I
f it were up to them, he would be dead and buried. Then he thought of Sarah, of her soft smell and cautious smile. He pushed the thought from his mind. What could he do? He could barely save himself.
“So, we’re escaped prisoners?” Edward asked.
“I am afraid so,” Fibian replied, “and it is worse than that. I think the Warrior Witch may believe that young Master Cyrus here is that very savior.”
“Why would she think that?” Cyrus asked, almost laughing.
“Because that is what I believe,” Fibian said, matter-of-factly, “You are not like the rest. Your hair, your ears, your courage, and there is something else…”
Courage? Cyrus thought. Was Fibian making a joke? He did not appear to be joking. Was he insane?
“She will not stop her hunt until we are all destroyed,” Fibian concluded.
Cyrus swallowed hard, overwhelmed by the realization that they were fugitives, hunted by a demon witch.
“She called me a blodbad spider, poisonous and hostile,” Edward asked, “Why?”
“You know that yellow mark on your back?” the froskman said, “It is the mark of a blodbad spider. You come from a long line of the most powerful and evil creatures the Warrior Witch ever created.”
Edward’s mouth began to tremble, and his eyes grew wide.
“They were the guardians of the Dead Fence, the first line of defense. If any villager were to trespass over the wall, they would surely cross a blodbad’s path and perish. The spiders bickered and squabbled over many things, and at some point, they broke into two factions.”
Evil spiders in Hekswood Forest? Cyrus thought. Is that where the fear of the woods came from?
Fibian shifted in his seat.
“For many years the two armies battled until finally, they killed each other off, and the blodbad became no more. You must have only been a baby.”
He nodded to where Edward’s eighth limb had once grown.
“That is probably how you lost your leg, defenseless in the middle of a fight. You are the last known heir to King Fedor, the very first of your kind.”
Cyrus LongBones Box Set Page 10
