Cyrus knew he needed the klops to fend off any opposition Rorroh and her minions might pose, but he also knew murder and treachery surrounded him at every turn. To alleviate some of the threat and resentment, he kept Knavish close by and returned the admiral control of his crew. Cyrus would never forget that it was Knavish who had shot Vinter on the battlefield, but his reckoning would have to wait. Instead, Cyrus treated the oily batalha as an ally. Cyrus indulged Knavish’s misguided counsel and let him command and discipline his crew as he saw fit. Cyrus also relayed all orders through Knavish so that it was always a familiar voice that the callous klops obeyed.
The villains were never fooled. They knew who their true master was, but the arrangement made their predicament more palatable, and tensions eased. Cyrus also allowed Knavish to retain his private quarters and gave him first choice of the most desired foods. Cyrus considered the two-faced admiral a prize hog being fattened for the kill.
Rotating teams of klops began to cull the head fortress’ forest of the thick, poisonous weeds. The tail fortress reported similar work being undertaken, but Gabriel communicated otherwise. Cyrus told Knavish that if Captain Oks did not follow his direct orders, he would send Fibian over to correct the oversight. This was a bluff of course. Cyrus would never let Fibian leave his side in a place so precarious, but the threat was successful, and Gabriel eventually relayed visions of the landscaping under way.
The weather warmed, snowfall melted to rainfall, and the hune’s forests of ice and snow became damp, dreary woods. Cyrus and his crew began to lessen their layers of fur.
It was on a brisk, windy afternoon, the sun low in the sky when Cyrus first saw evidence of a potential homecoming. He stood at the rail of the fore wall and stared out to sea.
“Land ho!” the spyglass klops shouted.
Cyrus searched the horizon. He spotted something to the southeast.
“Do you recognize that?” he asked Edward.
The spider crawled across his broad shoulders and squinted into the distance. Beyond the curve of the ocean, like some lone fang rising from the mouth of an unseen serpent pierced forth a mighty and desolate mountain. Wayward trapped clouds ringed the mountain’s tusk-like peak.
“The Himmel Horn…” Edward said bewildered.
Virkelot was near.
***
DAYS PASSED like heavy rain clouds. The hune pressed on, probing into the hostile territory of the perilous perimeter islands. Some of the islands boasted jagged peaks and densely forested valleys; others were little more than large reefs, barely able to pierce the ocean’s surface. The barnacled wrecks of ancient ships lay submerged beneath several of the shoals’ shallow waters.
Along one coast, Cyrus spied the coarse shape of a giant beast lurking beyond its wooded shoreline. The hungry hellhound seemed to reach out to the Battle Hune’s crew, daring them to invade its territory.
From another island, strange hoots and blood-curdling cries echoed throughout hidden canyons and storm-scoured cliffs.
Reports from the tail fortress spoke of three strange women, adrift at sea, beckoning the onlooking aft bridge crew into the waiting waters. Two crewmen had reportedly stepped off the wall and broken their legs. The sentries had retaliated with rifle fire, and the interfering sea hags had been seen no more.
“Just a few of the Warrior Witch’s sentinels,” Fibian had said, “put in place to ensnare escaping alvelings seeking refuge on nearby land.”
On the fifth week of their journey, Cyrus finally found what he had been searching for.
Home…
To the southwest, he spied the silhouette of two decaying islands on the horizon, one larger than the other. He thought of Sarah, and of their sudden goodbye. He could still smell the flowery bouquet of her fair hair. He thought of Llysa, and of Hoblkalf. He clenched his fists. He recalled his last days on Virkelot. He pictured the villager's twisted faces as they demanded his death. An anger born of fear and shame boiled up in his chest.
Chapter 20
JUDGEMENT
THE BATTLE HUNE continued on until finally Gabriel came face to face with the crumbling remains of Myrkur Island. The afternoon sky was grey and bleak. Dark showers rippled the slack, lifeless sea. Cyrus brooded in the captain’s chair as Fibian stood watch on the deck to his right. Rain drummed the steel roof overhead.
Gabriel’s sorrow cut through Cyrus like the bitter winds of the North Sea. The giant stared into Uriel’s long-dead eyes as he paid his last respects to his slain twin. How lonely it must have been for Gabriel to know that his sister was truly dead, that he was the last of his kind? Cyrus thought of Niels.
“We made it,” Edward said, from Cyrus’ shoulder.
Knavish leaned against the waist-high rampart, studying the two forsaken islands before him.
“We’ve waited long enough,” Cyrus said, rising from his chair, “Fibian, you take command of the Battle Hune. Edward and Knavish, to Virkelot with me. If Gabriel senses any foul play while we’re away, he’ll submerge and drown every last klops upon his shores, understand? Relay that warning to both fortresses.”
***
CYRUS AND KNAVISH made their way to the aft shore of the head fortress. There, a meager landing craft awaited. The big alveling and the bent batalha climbed aboard the skiff and began to row towards Virkelot Island. Edward and three of his blodbad guards stood watch on Cyrus’ jacket. Cyrus could feel the halfbreeds scurry up his shoulders and over the rifle slung across his back. He did his best to put the tiny assassins out of his mind. The spiders were there for his protection, nothing more. Knavish sat unmoving at the stern of the cramped craft, staring fixedly at the hairy demons.
Cyrus considered the potential risk of a klops rebellion in his absence. His threat had been a bluff. He did not think Gabriel capable of submerging beneath the ocean, but the klops did not know that, he hoped.
Cyrus navigated their boat along the eastern shore of Myrkur Island. The relic seemed to have aged a lifetime in the half year he had been gone. The trees looked dead from root to tip, the cracks in the fossilized earth appeared larger than before, and not a single creature scurried or squeaked along its cliffs.
They crossed the channel to Virkelot Island. Cyrus’ crumbling homeland had suffered further decay. Little inhabitable land appeared to remain within Hekswood Forest. Any alveling still alive would have to be huddled near the Dead Fence.
The rescuers drew near Virkelot’s shore. Cyrus searched for life amongst the dark woods and tangled brambles. He rowed towards the cavern where he and Edward had first hidden their secret vessel. Daylight still illuminated the murky waters of the exposed lake within. The tiled shoreline beyond the beach appeared cracked and corroded. What had happened to his home, Cyrus wondered?
The skiff struck land. Cyrus and Knavish leaped into the foaming surf and dragged the boat ashore. Cyrus inspected the cave’s interior, searching the exposed bone within. Then he knelt down and grasped a handful of sand.
“You did it,” Edward whispered, crouched on his shoulder, “You returned the living hune to your people.”
Would Niels be proud, Cyrus wondered?
Unseen voices cried out in the distance. Then at the edge of the woods, shrubs and bushes began to shiver. Cyrus slowly walked across the beach and towards the broken bank. A ragged, grey mob of villagers, wielding fence posts and sticks, stumbled from the trees and shambled down the hillside. Cyrus recognized two of the men immediately. They were the guards that had tried to hang him, months earlier. The throng came to a halt atop the cavern, where once the island’s lone waterfall had poured. Cyrus saw hungry children, huddled and afraid, peeking out from behind their parents’ legs. Was this all that was left of the village? Had so many perished?
The two guards leading the group glared down at the intruders, their weapons held at the ready.
“You’ll get back in that contraption and flee to your demon’s rock if you know what’s best for you!” the fat guard hollered.
�
�Stay here,” Cyrus said to Knavish.
He placed the three halfbreeds onto the klops’ trembling back. Then he leaped up the craggy bank and onto the tiled earth.
“He said stay back!” the burly guard demanded.
Cyrus recognized most of the angry and terrified villagers. He advanced on the mob.
“Put your weapons down, now,” he ordered.
“I warned you!” the fat guard shouted.
The brute hurled his pitchfork at Cyrus’ chest.
“Look out!” Edward cried, from his shoulder.
Cyrus sidestepped the projectile with ease. The burly guard's eyes widened. Surprise turned to rage. With all his might, he cast his club at Cyrus’ head. Cyrus grasped the bat mid-air and broke it over his knee. The two guards looked at each other, then to their comrades.
“Jensen, Hansen!” the fat guard shouted.
Two more of the mayor’s thugs pushed through the mob and joined the attack. Together the four thugs charged Cyrus. The fat guard grasped Cyrus around the waist. To Cyrus’ surprise, the bully was a good head shorter than himself. The burly guard punched Cyrus across the jaw. The big man had to reach to touch his chin. The strike felt little more than a slap. Inspired, Cyrus countered with his own open-hand slap. He knocked the goon out cold. Then he shoved the fat guard hugging his waist face first into the hard ground. The oaf struggled to regain his footing.
The remaining two men struck Cyrus across the back with thick branches. He cast aside the clubs and grasped both brutes by the ears. He knocked their skulls together like rocks. Their eyes rolled back in their heads and they crumpled into a heap on the earth.
Children shrieked and adults clung defensively to their shaking weapons, but none moved.
“Do you not recognize me?” Cyrus shouted, “Do you not see who I am?”
He stared incredulously at the hateful, frightened mob. He held his bare hands up in surrender. The group slowly began to retreat.
“Cyrus?” a young girl asked.
Edward scurried within his collar. Sarah Heiler pushed through the crowd.
“Is that you?” she continued.
Her body was starved and stick-like, her eyes were ringed with dark circles, and her skin and clothing were soiled and stained. Cyrus’ heart weakened.
She walked up to him and studied his face. Cyrus felt exposed. Her eyes went to his hair, wilder and darker than before, to his broken nose, to the crook of its once-straight bridge. She reached up and touched the stubble of his square jaw. Cyrus felt a twinge where the shattered jaw bone had mended.
“It is you,” she said, astonished. “You came back. Why?”
Cyrus opened his mouth to speak, but could not find the words.
“LongBones?” a withered voice asked, accusingly.
Sarah turned and moved to Cyrus’ side. Lars Hoblkalf stepped through the throng and stood terrified before the intruder. The starved man looked haggard in his loose-fitting, tattered rags. Little of his curly hair remained on his round head. Lars held in his arms his relic of a father, Mayor Hoblkalf. The small, bitter, bald man looked little more than a withered corpse.
“This young man -”
Hoblkalf broke out into a fit of coughing and wheezing.
“This young man,” he began again, “has bargained with the Sea Zombie and become her merchant of doom. He has returned to us in an attempt to corrupt our spirits and steal our souls...”
“ENOUGH!” Cyrus shouted.
Hoblkalf’s accusations ignited a long-buried rage that festered within his guts.
“Look where your lies have gotten you,” he cried, waving his hand across the ruined island. “Look at all of you, starved and stranded on this crumbling tombstone. Have you not yet had enough of ignorance and stupidity? Are you not yet tired of being afraid?
“I bring you life,” Cyrus said, “I bring you hope. Me, the one you tried to have killed. This old man brings only death. I told you this island was once a living giant, and now one stands before you,” he pointed out to sea, beyond Myrkur Island, to where Gabriel’s massive form loomed, “and still you doubt me? His name is Gabriel. He is family. He is home. He brings fertile land, a place to thrive. When will you stop listening to fear and cowardice and start listening to reason?”
Mayor Hoblkalf was visibly shaken, lost for words. The mob’s faces shifted from anger and fear to shame and remorse. Cyrus saw a wraith-like form with long black hair turn and retreat towards the woods.
“And you!” he roared, pointing a thick finger at the woman.
The figure froze. The villagers parted way, avoiding Cyrus’ accusatory gaze. Slowly, the woman turned to reveal herself. Llysa LongBones stood before Cyrus, gaunt, grey and terrified. Her hands trembled, and her eyes stared low.
“You, who harm the innocent,” Cyrus said, advancing on his stepmother. “You, who prey upon the weak. You, who pretend to stand against evil, when you are the very evil you speak of, what do you have to say for yourself?”
Sarah stood stunned, speechless. Cyrus rounded on the crowd.
“And you! You all who speak bravely against evil, yet stand idle while evil lurks amongst you, enjoying your sympathies and encouragements, what do you all have to say for yourselves? You dare judge me? You dare sentence me to death? Cowards! Hypocrites!”
Cyrus felt his body surge with rage. He glared at the mob, piercing their very souls with his fierce, pale grey eyes. Not a single person dared look back at him. Good. He felt vindicated, righteous, victorious. He had confronted his stepmother, confronted his accusers, and this time they had been the ones to recoil in terror.
Cyrus bathed in the triumph of his long-desired retribution. He turned to Sarah, his chest wide. She was now standing several paces away from him, staring at him as if he was a stranger.
Cyrus’ glory turned to shame. His eyes fell to the earth. What had he done? Why was Sarah looking at him like that? Could she not see that this was the justice that the villagers deserved?
He felt Knavish’s predatory gaze probing his back, measuring for weakness. Cyrus’ stomach tightened like a fist. This was no time for self-doubt. He recalled scaling the Himmel Horn, infiltrating the klappen fortress, and penetrating the wendigo mines. He had ridden dragon, slain batalha, and liberated yeti. He was the savior prophesied, the Dragon Eater, the Queen Slayer. Who were these peasants compared to him?
Cyrus’ jaw hardened. He cast aside Sarah’s rebuff. She did not know him. She had not suffered what he had suffered, but soon she would understand. Soon they would all understand.
“Knavish,” he shouted over his shoulder, “signal the tail fortress.”
Cyrus turned his back on the ungrateful alvelings.
“Their reinforcements have arrived.”
Chapter 21
REINFORCEMENTS
THE CROSSING WAS BLUSTERY and grey. The flotilla was small and somber. Cyrus navigated the shabby villagers towards the aft of the tail fortress. He prayed their introduction to Captain Oks would be an uneventful one.
He took the oarsman’s position in the lead craft, ferrying Sarah, her sick parents, and one withered old woman towards Gabriel’s shores. Edward crouched on Cyrus’ shoulder, flanked by his three kin. Knavish sat nervously, occupying the stern. All four alvelings stared horrified at their strange companions. Cyrus thought of Moro’s tale, of how she had told him that the water klops were fallen hune alves, twisted and soulless. The idea darkened his mind.
In the following skiff sat Hoblkalf and his son, Lars. Three of the old man’s goons surrounded the pathetic pair. All looked with terror at their klops oarsman.
Cyrus searched the trailing vessels for his bitter stepmother. He found mostly sickly adults and starved children. Where had all of the elderly gone? Llysa, he reckoned, had remained on Virkelot, waiting to cross with the second group of refuge-seekers.
Finally, the rescue ships made landfall on Gabriel’s back.
Crunch!
The waves struck the small vessels ha
rd against the hune’s barnacled shell. Cyrus leaped ashore and hauled his boat clear of the frothing surf.
Once on dry land, the villagers studied their new home. They searched the shoreline, the tiled beach. They stared at the cold steel wall beyond. Cyrus followed their gaze. He spied crooked, armored shapes atop the parapets. Then he inspected the sealed gun ports set into the armored facade. So far, so good. He looked to the alves and klops under his protection. The klops appeared sullen and resentful. The villagers looked frightened and confused.
Several alvelings knelt down and touched the hard, rock-like surface of the living island. Tears formed in their grey eyes. Cyrus felt Gabriel flush with joy. Others too seemed to sense the hune’s warmth. They turned to their new leader, trembling with hope.
“I can feel him, everywhere,” Sarah said, wiping tears from her cheeks, “You did it. You found us a new home.”
She looked as if she was about to give Cyrus a hug. Then she saw the spiders on his shoulders.
A small, fair-haired child with ice-grey eyes ran up to Cyrus, smiling.
“He likes me,” she said, “I can feel it.”
One of her front baby teeth was missing. She clutched dearly to an old, tattered doll. Her parents ran up, apologizing. They pulled their daughter away, looking sideways at Cyrus. Cyrus watched as the family fled towards the wall.
“Is this a trick?” the mayor asked, held in his son's arms.
Cyrus LongBones Box Set Page 45
