“I know.” Albert said. His hair fell into his face again and he sighed, giving up on keeping it out of his eyes. “I hoped to catch him before he left, but I saw him storm out. He left before I could stop him.” The smaller boy sounded worried.
Claire took Albert by the elbow and pulled him to the side. She kept her voice low, but the fierceness of her tone made him flinch. “Are you sure? He left already?”
Albert blinked at her, his eyes huge behind his glasses. “I’m pretty sure it was him.” But he sounded anything but sure. “He went through the front doors and cut across the parking lot. I thought he was looking for you?”
Claire didn’t stay to question him further. She left the school at a run, shoving through the front doors and heading in the direction Albert indicated.
Albert watched her go, his face blank except for a bemused smile.
Chapter 22
Brandon took a seat, his eyes glancing at the window behind Marcus. He could see a slice of sky, just over the principal’s shoulder. The blue was marred with gray storm clouds, rolling in from the west. His heart began to do a tap dance and he felt sweat break out on his forehead. Principal Marcus cleared his throat and met Brandon’s gaze. “I wasn’t in the cafeteria when the fight happened, but I’ve heard all about it.”
“Sir, I..”
Marcus raised a hand. “Don’t say anything. Not yet.” He looked Brandon in the eye and shook his head. “I can’t say I’m sorry for what happened to the Krueger boys. They’ve been a growing problem here at Matheson. A problem that I was about to deal with, when you beat me to it. You realize there will probably be an attempt at retribution from the twins?”
Brandon nodded. “I expect they’ll try to jump me. Either here at school or on my way home.”
“Are you prepared for that?”
Brandon shrugged. “I guess I’d better be.”
Outside, thunder rolled across the town and the first fat drops of rain began to pelt the ground and dot the window behind Marcus.
Brandon suddenly felt like screaming. He wanted to stand up and point at the window. At the rain. Don’t you see, his mind screamed? It’s coming because of me. Because something bad is going to happen to me. He wanted to shout in the face of the man sitting in front of him.
But he didn’t.
Brandon sat in his seat and kept his eyes on Marcus. The principal leaned back in his chair and sighed. “I want you to be careful the next couple of weeks, Bran. Stay away from the Kruegers, if at all possible? Walk a different route to school and home. Or, better yet, have your uncle pick you up and drop you off. I‘m surprised you don‘t have your own car?”
Brandon looked away from the older man’s eyes and said. “My parents died in a car accident, Mr. Marcus. I’m not driving anywhere. Not yet.” His tone was level, hiding the turmoil he felt inside.
Marcus winced a little and said. “I’m sorry, Bran. That wasn’t very tactful of me to say. I’m not going to punish you for what happened. Though, I’m not going to condone fighting in school, for any reason, I am going to look the other way when it comes to those two boys getting their comeuppance. For the last couple of years I’ve been trying to catch them at their work, but they seem to have eyes in the back of their heads. They always seem to know when eyes are on them, or when they’re not.” He paused and sighed. “If they get hurt while they’re picking on someone who can take care of himself, I hope that it will be a lesson to them. A way for them to realize that their behavior has consequences. But I’m not saying that I want you to go out and pick a fight with them.”
Brandon nodded. “I wont start anything with them, sir. I promise. I’m not suicidal.”
“I didn’t think you were.” Marcus said, with a smile. “Now get out of here. And remember what I said. Be careful.”
“I will.” Brandon said, getting up to leave. He stopped at the brink of going out the door and turned to look at Marcus. “Thank you, sir.”
Marcus looked surprised. “For what?”
“For being a good principal.”
Marcus shook his head. “I’m not a good principal, Bran. If I were, I’d suspend you and the Kruegers for what happened today. I wouldn’t let who their father is stop me from doing my job. Or my sympathy for you and what you’ve gone through.” His tone softened and he said. “Now quit sucking up and get out of here, Merryweather.” Brandon did just that, his mind not on the Kruegers or the principal’s words, but on the rain coming down even harder as he went to his locker to grab his bag and the few books he’d need for his homework that night. This was the first time it had really rained since he moved to Matheson. A real rain, not the sprinkles from the other night. He couldn’t help but feel that it was directed at him. He knew the idea was silly, but it persisted, just the same. The rain was warning him.
Something bad was going to happen today.
Chapter 23
The rain was coming down in sheets as Brandon left the high school. He was in the principal’s office a long time and he didn’t see Claire when he got outside. He stood under the steel awning a long moment, watching the rainfall. The smell of wet pavement filled his nostrils. The clouds were thick and black overhead. It felt like late evening as he started for home.
Heeding an instinct that he didn’t understand, Brandon changed direction along the way, cutting across the football field, and headed for Claire’s house, instead of Highgarden. He was quickly soaked, his shirt and pants clinging to him as he walked down an ally that ran behind the gymnasium. A drainage canal ran behind the block of buildings, all the way across town. Brandon could pretty much follow it all the way to Claire’s house.
The rain was cold and invigorating. Brandon couldn’t explain it, but he felt somehow stronger the longer he stayed under the downpour. It was the same way he felt inside the dreams about the Storm King. He began to jog, his bag bouncing against his back. As he ran, a feeling of impending doom began to grow inside his chest. A seed of icy cold horror began to form in the pit of his stomach. Brandon began to run harder.
Brandon was almost to Claire’s house when he heard a short pained scream. Claire’s scream. From up ahead. He sprinted, letting his bag hit the ground behind him, and came upon a scene from his nightmares.
The three of them were in the canal, the swiftly running water already up to their knees. The canal was only about four feet deep, with straight rock walls. During most of the year it stayed dry, except for a trickle of runoff that ran right down the middle of it. Kids played in it, using it as a sort of highway from one part of town to the other. Luke watched, a sick smile on his face, as Perry held Claire against the wall of the canal. Perry had a handful of Claire’s hair and was laughing into her face. Her shirt was torn at the neck and her eye patch was gone. It was the first time Brandon had seen under her patch and he was surprised by what he saw. Instead of the gaping hole that he half expected, there was smooth unblemished skin where her eye should have been. All three of them were soaked to the bone. Claire’s hair hung limp and dripping in her face. She looked like a drowned cat.
“What’s the matter, Cyclops?” Perry taunted, his voice just as high and nasal as his brother‘s. His broken nose was covered by an almost identical bandage, both of his eyes ringed with purple bruises. He used his free hand to splash water at her, a pointless gesture in the rain. “You don’t like baths?”
Brandon didn’t hear what else he might have said. Without slowing his stride, he leapt into the canal, smashing into Luke from behind. The two of them crashed into the rapidly rising water. It was already up over the kid’s knees, and the current was getting stronger.
Brandon came up out of the water, throwing his head to clear his eyes, and met Perry’s charge. He’d left Claire against the wall. She watched Brandon, her single eye wide and terrified. Perry splashed towards Brandon, a snarl on his lips, and lashed out with his fist. Brandon ducked it and punched the skinny boy in the stomach, trying to drive his fist completely through the boy’s middle.
He aimed for a place a few feet beyond Perry’s spinal column.
Luke was struggling to his feet, fighting the current, when Brandon tossed Perry into him and sent them both tumbling underwater. The water was up to Brandon’s hips and the current tried to tear his feet out from underneath him.
“Bran!” Claire was holding tightly to the rock wall with one hand and reaching out to him with the other. “I knew you would come.” Brandon sloshed over to where she waited and she threw her arms around him. She was crying and laughing at the same time. He said, trying to move her upstream against the strengthening current. “We have to get out of here, now.”
Her scream was the only warning he had. He didn’t turn around. Even in the rain he could hear them coming for him. Getting a firm grip on Claire, he boosted her up and out of the culvert. She looked back at him, face torn with fear and anxiousness. He shouted as he turned to meet the Krueger’s charge. “Get help.”
He didn’t see her nod and sprint away. He turned just as Luke reached him. Perry was still trying to get to his feet, falling and cursing the water. Luke came on, his bulky weight surging through the water. His face red and bloated. His thick fingers clutched at Brandon’s shirt, dragging him toward the fat boy. Luke said, spittle flying. “It’s over, pretty boy. Now, you’re fucking dead!”
Brandon jerked away, but the big boy’s grip was firm. Things were quickly escalating beyond the point of no return. Brandon knew that he had to get out of there before somebody died. Perry gained his feet, though he was now almost twenty feet away. The water was a nightmare, a torrent that seemed more like an overgrown river than a drainage canal.
Unable to break Luke’s grip on his shirt, Brandon drove a knee into the boy’s groin. Luke squealed like a kicked pig and his grip loosened. Brandon shouldered into the bigger boy, sending him tumbling into the water. Perry pulled himself along the wall, teeth bared in a skeletal grin. He kept repeating. “Time to die! Time to die! Time to die!” As he moved forward. To Brandon, it felt like the entire world was going mad.
Brandon was moving forward to meet Perry when his legs were suddenly ripped out from underneath him. He plunged into the water, the world vanishing into blackness. His mouth filled and he couldn’t breath. He kicked, trying to get purchase, but it was no good. He tumbled, bouncing along the bottom of the canal. He broke through the surface, gasping for breath. He was lost. The Kruegers were gone. He went under again, bounced off of the wall, and tried to find some kind of purchase with his hands. The water felt icy cold, trying to claw its way down into his stomach and lungs. He knew that he couldn’t last long.
Brandon felt like a leaf in the current, unable to control anything. He smacked the bottom again, his head connecting with a rock protrusion that stabbed out of the wall, and the world went black. Brandon knew no more.
For a time.
Chapter 24
Am I dead? Brandon thought, opening his eyes to a strange silvery light. It was the sky. A cloudless sky. The sounds of battle, the crash of steel on steel, the screams of the dying, and their howls of rage and terror assaulted his ears. The smell of smoke invaded his every pore. He lay on his back.
It was unbearably hot. Brandon wished for rain, but the sky stayed clear. No rain. Not even a wisp of a cloud. Something’s wrong, Brandon thought. None of this is right.
He wasn’t himself. He was inside the mind of the Storm King. And the Storm King was dying. The body that Brandon occupied sat up, very slowly. Brandon would have screamed if he had a voice. But he didn’t. He couldn’t know how many wounds he had taken, but they had to number in the hundreds. He felt like he was riding the top floor of a wobbly tower as he stood up. Everywhere soldiers were dying. His soldiers.
The enemy dead lay scattered, as well. Brandon felt a shuddering sense of dread when he got a good look at them. They weren’t human. Brandon couldn’t be sure, but they looked like a twisted cross between men and assorted animals. They were small, for the most part, not much bigger than a chimpanzee, and armored with tight ring mail and assorted bits of steel. Some of them were bigger, though. The bears and the bulls that he saw were taller than most men.
The creatures, themselves, weren’t what was most dangerous, Brandon saw. It was their number that was so devastating. There were at least 20 of the beasties to every one of Brandon’s men.
A field of death surrounded Brandon on all sides.
“My lord?” A voice said, from behind him. He turned and staggered. Weirmon stared at him through a mask of blood and viscous gore. The man’s bear helm was gone and the side of his face was split down the right side from his temple down past his jaw. His right eye had burst and was hanging down his cheek like a length of gelatinous snot. When he spoke, Brandon could see the bloody white glint of bone and teeth through the wound. “Where is the rain, my lord?” The big man was on his hands and knees, the ground underneath him completely soaked in blood. He stared up at Brandon, but it was hard to tell if the man was really seeing anything; with one eye gone and the other clouded with pain and fatigue. Brandon didn’t know what to tell the man. Couldn’t tell him, even if he wanted to.
But a voice spoke, just the same. “She has gone, old friend. And we are left to our own devices, those that we have left.”
“My horse!” Weirmon suddenly shouted at the sky. He fell on his face and began to thrash in his own blood. “Bring me my horse! Hurry, men!” The thrashing went on for a full minute, while Brandon, and the body he occupied, stood there and watched.
Then the thrashing stopped and, with a long rattling gurgle, Weirmon died. Brandon floated inside the skull of a dying man and wondered what would happen if the Storm King died while he was present. Would he follow into some strange afterlife?
There was a chattering screech behind him. He turned, only just noticing the sword clutched in his numb fingers. It wasn’t his. The Phoenix was gone, taken with his sons and those sent to protect them.
“Nobody can protect them.” He said to the clutch of monsters that were circling around him. They were grohlm, the children of the mountain. Brandon knew this because the King knew it. There were five of them. Each was armed with short curved blades. And no two were alike. All had different animal characteristics. A pig. A wolf. A crow. A stag. A lizard. There was a grohlm shape for every animal. Wolves and reptiles were the most common. Stags were the rarest. Most men didn’t believe in grohlm, thinking them tales to frighten children. The few that knew better, if they didn’t want to be branded crazy, kept their mouths shut. Beyond the small patch of barren ground, where Brandon and his attackers faced each other, were hundreds of thousands of the little nightmares. They swarmed the entire countryside, killing and burning everything in their path. They had overrun the keep the night before and the fighting was still going strong.
With a snarl, the wolf faced grohlm lunged at Brandon, swinging its short sword. Even with his screaming wounds, Brandon slipped around the wolf’s attack, driving his blade through the gap where the things armor fitted together and into its side. Its squeal was more human than animal. Even as the thing fell, dying, Brandon danced with its companions. The fight was furious and short. Even without the Phoenix, the Storm King was death on two legs.
The stag came in fast, using its antlers as a secondary weapon to drive at Brandon’s stomach. Brandon lopped off its right arm and kicked it in the chest, blood jetting from the stump of its arm in a hot arterial spray. Spinning, he stabbed the pig in the throat, tearing its head half off. The crow fled, screeching.
The lizard moved in slowly, its blade held low and ready. The elliptical eyes didn’t blink as it began to move in a circle, its slick frog-like lips peeling back in a toothy smile.
Brandon wasn’t smiling. He was afraid. He may not have been able to control the body he inhabited, but he could certainly feel it. The hundreds of wounds were slowly dragging him down. He could feel the Storm King’s muscles quivering with exhaustion. The lizard darted forward, steel rang on steel, and Brandon swept the th
ing’s blade up and away. He stabbed his right hand out and plucked out its eye. The lizard fell back, dropping its sword and hissing in pain, and Brandon struck its head off.
A horn sounded in the distance. Brandon swung around inside the Storm King’s head and stared up at the forested ridge. Grohlm swarmed out of the trees, thousands of them. The few remaining soldiers panicked and broke in every direction, the battle becoming a rout. Brandon began to shout at the fleeing soldiers, but it was no good. A few came to his calls, standing beside their dying king, but most were slaughtered as they ran.
In the end, nine men stood beside the Storm King as a living nightmare came flowing out of the wilds like an avalanche of steel and gnashing teeth. The smell of smoke and death surrounded the ten companions as they were surrounded. The grohlm slowed their advance and stopped, forming a tight ring around their victims, holding back as if by some unheard signal.
A ripple began at the edge of the mob, the grohlm screaming and moving as something began moving through them, approaching the waiting men. The men around Brandon were bloodied and tired, some sporting wounds far more grievous than Brandon’s own. They shifted, uneasily, as whatever it was approached, cutting a swath through the grohlm army.
Brandon didn’t shift or show any outward sign of fear as his death approached. The Storm King knew what was coming. Who was coming.
He had been warned.
Sha’ha’zel was coming. The Curse had found him.
The Curse arrived, the circle opening around him as he walked. Dressed in a long black cloak, the hood pulled low, and armor that drank the light, the Curse came to a stop in front of the wounded and waiting men. It spoke from within the inky black confines of its hood, the voice so cold and emotionless that you expected frost to form in the air where the thing’s breath touched. “It’s time, Merryweather. Time for you to die. Time for you to rejoin your wife and children.”
Rain Of Stone (The Merryweather Chronicles Book 1) Page 11
