Forts: Endings and Beginnings

by Steven Novak

  She’d cried enough.

  With both hands wrapped around the wrist of the dying creature, Staci closed her eyes and attempted to steady her uneven breathing.

  I’ve done it before, she thought to herself. I’ve done it before, and I can do it again. Just do it. Stop crying and do it, you baby!

  A moment later the familiar sensation began to build in her chest. The previously wild beating of her heart slowed to a whisper. The whisper dulled to a whimper, which then coaxed itself into a proud remembrance. From there it morphed into something made of far sterner material, into a steady beacon in the midst of a storm. Staci closed her eyes.

  Exactly as it had been before, the sensation was, in a word, wonderful.

  The welcome warmness moved up her chest, down her arms, through the tips of her fingers and into the body of the furry creature beside her. Moments later it had engulfed his body, not only healing his wounds, but returning him to a state of health he hadn’t experienced in years, bringing life to the lifeless. When Staci opened her eyes, so did the furry creature lying beside her. When she looked in his direction, he smiled brightly.

  Though confused as to exactly what had happened, the rejuvenated creature understood all too well that there was precious little time to dwell on his change in circumstance. He’d been given a second chance. He intended to use it. Rising to his feet on heavily muscled legs as thick and powerful as freshly cooled steel, the brown-haired creature patted his burly chest and ran his fingers through the luxurious mane of fur covering his face. He felt powerful. He felt young. He felt ready to fight. After a nod of appreciation, he turned away from Staci and growled so loudly that the young girl could feel it in the dirt beneath her knees. A second later he was charging headfirst into the mass of swinging swords and battering limbs.

  Her fingers still tingling, Staci lifted her hands to her face and stared into the lines on her palm. They looked almost otherworldly. As if covered in fairy dust, they were glittering, – twinkling like moonlight off the ripples of the ocean. They were beautiful.

  She had healed him, and she could heal the rest of them. She had the strength.

  An explosion somewhere in the distance violently shook the young girl from the trance of her sparkly palms. The blast was monstrous. It sounded like a bomb had gone off. As the ground beneath began to shake, Staci lost her balance and tumbled to her side, landing hard on her elbow and further opening an already infected cut. The sound of bursting rock and muffled screams wafted over the general area. Somewhere high above, a bell began to ring. A few of the Ochans battling the slaves in front of her turned their heads in the direction of the blast, pointing and screaming at something in the distance that Staci couldn’t quite make out. To her left, a mass of soldiers emerged from a nearby building and charged in the direction of the commotion as a second explosion shook the ground, further collapsing the unsteady rubble of the slave hut beside her. It was at this moment that Staci remembered Donald. With everything that had happened, she’d forgotten about Donald. He was trapped beneath the rubble. She needed to help Donald.

  The moment she rose to her feet, something snagged her by her collar and lifted her violently into the air. Spinning wildly, the fabric of her shirt slicing into her neck and cutting off her air passage, Staci instinctively kicked her legs. What her feet came into contact with stubbed three of her toes and broke another. What her feet came into contact with felt like iron.

  Dangling five feet in the air, her face rapidly transforming into a ghastly shade of purplish blue, Staci found herself staring into the eyes of the king of Ocha himself.

  “You have something I desire, little one.” Kragamel growled from beneath his graying beard. “If I have to reach into your chest and remove it myself, it shall be mine.”

  Staci tried to swallow the lump in her throat.

  Instead, she choked on it.

  *

  *

  CHAPTER 33

  BREAKING THE UNBREAKABLE

  *

  All at once, the darkness unfolded. Like gum, the sticky blackness clung momentarily to the skin of Nicky Jarvis as the giant fish creature that he, his father and Nestor Rockshell were riding on emerged from the doorway to Fillagrou and landed heavily on Ochan soil. The bitter cold smacked Nicky in the chest. He pulled his arms close and dug his face under them in a vain attempt to keep it from sinking further into his skin. To his left, one after another, bizarre monsters shot up from the darkness as if they were spring-loaded. The Aquari born beasts hung in the air momentarily before falling to the ground with heavy thuds that resonated far beyond the point of impact. To his right, for miles down the shoreline of the black abyss that was the doorway to Fillagrou, there was more of the same. This was indeed an army, and an impressive one at that. A hundred yards behind Nicky, three Sea Dragons emerged from the murky nothing and shot like arrows upwards until the heavy cloud cover swallowed them whole. When he exhaled, Nicky watched as a frosty puff of air escaped from between his lips, moved through the spaces between his arms and caught the wind at the exact moment a massive snarling Sea Dragon whizzed past just fifty feet above his head. The creature’s astonishing girth created a sizable breeze that tossed his hair wildly and mashed his face into Nestor’s shell. When the last of the dragon’s tail had whipped by, Nicky peeled himself off of Nestor and gazed with wide, worried eyes at the ugly sky above. The clouds were thicker than any he’d ever seen: expansive and foreboding, and almost impossibly gray. They looked full, ready to explode with whatever nastiness might reside within their deepest recesses. A soft substance not too dissimilar in size and texture to snow, yet the color of coal, had begun to float down in sporadic patches. A single flake landed on Nicky’s nose and instantly melted, leaving behind a watery black liquid that stained his flesh. Sliding in from behind him, the arms of his father wrapped themselves around his waist, locked in the front and pulled him backward against the older man’s body. When Nestor tugged on the reins of the muscled fish they were riding, the creature’s steady gallop came to a sudden and immediate halt. Though he couldn’t see around Nestor’s oversized shell, somewhere off in the distance Nicky thought he could hear a bell ringing. The sound of the advancing Aquari army quickly drowned it out. Twisting his roundish body, Nestor glanced over his shoulder as yet another Sea Dragon soared overhead and more of the growling four-legged fish creatures galloped by on either side.

  His gaze instantly settled on Nicky. “Your assistance is required, lad.”

  With his youngest son pulled tightly against his chest, Chris Jarvis interjected himself into the situation. “What the hell are you talking about?”

  Attempting to give both father and son an unobstructed view of what lay ahead, Nestor leaned as far to the right as possible. Chris Jarvis’s jaw instantly dropped. Through the wispy brown hair of Nicky’s head he saw a castle so large it defied reason, so beyond words massive it defied logic. The walls were enormous, dark and utterly terrifying things constructed of a stone unlike anything he’d ever before borne witness to. The outer walls extended for miles in either direction, so far that they eventually disappeared from view, swallowed by the grayish fog that seemed to cover every inch of this awful new world. Behind the gargantuan walls impossibly thick towers pointed skyward, their jagged, dangerous looking tops puncturing the heavy clouds overhead like knives slicing through flesh. Instinctively Chris tightened his grip on Nicky and pulled his son closer to his chest. Not far behind him, the doorway to Fillagrou loomed. Despite the odd, somewhat painful sensation he had experienced traversing the nothingness between the two worlds, he suddenly wished he could leap back in.

  “You’ve got to be kidding me. What the hell do you expect my son to do?” Chris asked, shooting an accusatory glance in the direction of the burly turtle man seated just a foot away.

  Nestor’s deep green eyes drifted from Nicky to Chris. “To gain access to the castle, we will need an opening…an opening which your son is capable of providing.”

 
; “What the hell is that supposed to mean?” Chris responded with some confusion as he slowly slid backward along the slick back of the huffing creature underneath him, dragging his son along with him.

  Three more Sea Dragons soared overhead, cawing and whipping their tails impatiently, tired of simply flying and anxious for battle. Realizing there was little time to explain the ins and outs of the situation to the elder Jarvis, Nestor chose instead to focus his attention on Nicky. The boy was smart for someone of his age. Of this there was no doubt. Nicky knew exactly what he was asking of him. Though it pained Nestor to put the child in a situation such as the one they now faced, the fact remained that the situation existed. It was real and it wasn’t going anywhere. It was staring them in the face. The time to turn and run had long since passed. Nicky Jarvis had made the decision to come along—fought for it, in fact—and he’d made it for a reason. More than most, Nestor understood all too well the hidden strength residing within the boy and exactly what he was capable of. It was not the obvious strength born of magic or things indescribable and unexplainable that impressed him most about young Nicky Jarvis. No, it was the most natural and therefore most impressive strength of all: the strength of courage.

  Extending his massive paw forward, he offered it to the child. “You are aware of what I am asking you, yes?”

  Swallowing deeply, Nicky breathed in and held it. His head was swirling, the rumble of the advancing Aquari army all around him was so loud and varied that he was having trouble focusing and finding it impossible to formulate a cohesive thought. Looking past Nestor’s outstretched arm and the huge, flat, three-fingered paw at the end, he glared in the direction of the outer wall of the castle ahead. His body shivered. It was bigger then he imagined it would be, a hundred times the size of the prince’s castle in Fillagrou. This was more like a city. He watched as soldiers in groups of twenty or thirty appeared suddenly at the very top of an enormous outer wall with what he imagined were bows and arrows in their hands. From this distance they looked like ants: dangerous ants, but ants nonetheless. The clouds overhead cracked and roared angrily. The storm to end all storms was approaching. This was the one the universe would remember. This was the one that would change everything. A second afterward, the disgusting charcoal colored snowfall transformed from a simple flurry to a full on blizzard, bellowing from the clouds overhead like the ash of a raging fire somewhere high above and out of sight.

  “It is alright lad,” Nestor’s gravelly voice stated plainly. “I will not leave your side. Not for a moment. You have my word.”

  Drifting away from the castle, Nicky instead looked into the deep-set and remarkably soulful eyes of Nestor Rockshell. The scar-faced turtle man had made a similar promise to him on the deck of Captain Fluuffytail’s ship in Aquari. Despite everything that happened— the attacking armada of Ochan vessels and the sinking of the Briar Patch—he’d kept his promise. Though it seemed an odd concept at its most basic, the fact remained that Nestor was as close to a friend as Nicky had allowed into his life in years. Despite the wrinkles and the scars, and the obvious strain of a lifetime spent barreling full-force through the chaos of war, there was a warming truth in the expression on Nestor’s face. Hidden beneath the gravelly growl of his every word, there was honesty.

  In the over-defined lines of his filthy, dirt-covered paw, there was comfort.

  With little hesitation Nicky rested his tiny hand against Nestor’s massive olive-green palm. With his other hand he reached down to his waist and began to peel away the hands of his father.

  Turning in Chris’s direction with pleading eyes, he whispered: “It’s alright.”

  As a hail of arrows began to rain down from the walls overhead and the clouds crackled yet again, Chris Jarvis allowed his son to slide from his grasp and into the leathery, outstretched arms of Nestor Rockshell. He wasn’t sure why he did it, but he did. Once he had, there was no turning back. Maybe it was the look on Nicky’s face. Maybe it was the trusting tone in the voice of his youngest child, or the ever so subtle hint in Nicky’s eyes hinting at something incredible, and unexplainable, and entirely unexpected lurking behind and waiting for release. Maybe it was simply the way the huge turtle man looked at his son and the fact that it was so achingly similar to the way he remembered looking at the boy years ago.

  Maybe it was all of that.

  With a volley of arrows whizzing by the trio, Nestor grasped Nicky by the waist, hoisted the boy over his shoulder, and pointed him in the direction of the gargantuan castle walls in the distance. His grip was firm, his arms steady, assured and confident. Dangling from between Nestor’s arms, Nicky closed his eyes. For the first time in a very long time he wasn’t shaking. He was terrified, but he wasn’t shaking. For the first time in a very long time he knew exactly what he needed to do.

  “Now, lad!” Nestor growled through tight, cracked lips. “Do it now!”

  From Nicky’s throat the familiar sensation boiled, pressurizing and overheating his chest. When it became too much to bear, he opened his mouth and spoke the very same word that had shattered the tower of Prince Valkea’s castle. What erupted from between his lips, though, was less a word than a force of nature. What spewed from between the cracks in his teeth, spread outward in the blink of an eye and rushed headlong toward the castle ahead, and was, quite literally, alive.

  The Ochans never saw it coming.

  *

  *

  CHAPTER 34

  UP CLOSE AND PERSONAL

  *

  Not long after the wall of charging Ochan soldiers descended upon the slaves crowded outside the hut hiding Donald and Staci, Tahnja lost sight of Roustaf in the madness. The Ochan soldiers were well trained, well rested and frenzied with a lust for battle. The wall of muscled green flesh collided with the weary slaves and almost instantly began to devour them. Something cracked Tahnja sharply in the back of the head, splitting open her flesh and dropping her to her knees in a heap. For a moment everything went blurry. A blinding pain flashed out from the point of impact on the rear of her skull, cascaded across her eyes and lathered the world in a fuzzy white haze. Thankfully, the sensation lasted only a moment. The exact instant her newly distorted vision of the universe cleared, Tahnja noticed the textured underside of a soldier’s boot coming at her face. Her body responded before her brain and she rolled to her chest just in time to avoid it. With the tips of her fingers digging into the freshly fallen snow and the frozen soil underneath, she scurried on her hands and knees across the ground, between the soldier’s legs, and leapt again to her feet behind him. On her way up, she snagged a dagger from a sheath around his lower leg, slid it across his thigh and jabbed it into his side with a scream. A shower of warm blood sprayed from the wound, covering her hand entirely, lightly coating her forearm, and leaving billions of tiny droplets sprayed against her chest and face. With a pained howl, the soldier spun in her direction. The back of his fist collided with her face, knocking loose two teeth, slicing open her lip, and depositing her again atop the dirty snow. Though the blade jutting from his side proved slippery at first, the soldier managed to pry it free from his clutching flesh with a pained howl. While the massive Ochan winced in discomfort, Tahnja scurried to her knees. There was no time to waste. She had to ignore the blood seeping from the back of her head, and forget about the throbbing in her lip and the pain spreading out across her jaw. She had to react. She had to react before he did, or she was dead. Lowering her shoulder and driving forward with every bit of energy she could muster, she slammed the full weight of her body into the creature’s knees. His legs were like steel, like frozen metal coated in bone and a layer of muscle so thick it might as well have been iron. Though the Ochan was nearly four times her weight, the maneuver was enough to knock him off balance. Unfortunately it succeeded in breaking her collarbone as well. The pain was incredible. Almost instantly it shot from her shoulder and into her chest. It poked at her lungs and transformed the very act of breathing into something that required her
utmost attention. Unfortunately it was attention she could not afford to give.

  Across from her she took note of the fact that the Ochan soldier had rolled to his side. He’d soon be on his feet again. She couldn’t let him get up. If he managed to get to his feet she’d be done for.

  Frantic and wild-eyed, Tahnja retrieved the slippery, blood-soaked dagger from a pile of coal-black snow and lunged onto the Ochan’s legs. Her face covered in a shimmery sheen of partially frozen sweat, she gritted her teeth and began to claw her way up his body. When she reached his chest, she laid the full weight of her body on his stomach and tried her best to hold him steady.

  Instinctively the soldier tried to buck her off. Her leg was draped against the wound in his side, however, pressing inward and causing him considerable discomfort. His entire torso was on fire. Sudden bursts of movement in any direction were suddenly impossible.

  To her left Tahnja caught a glimpse of Ochan steel slicing open a slave and very nearly cutting him in half. The creature’s body crumbled to the ground in a disjointed lump of blood soaked flesh and awkward protruding angles. To her right, yet another blood soaked creature collapsed. She cursed her peripheral vision. Somewhere behind her came the sound of shattering wood, of splintering timber and snapping rusted nails. As the injured Ochan struggled to wiggle free beneath her, a cloud of dirt and filth roared in and enveloped them both. With one hand the growling soldier reached up and wrapped his fingers around his pink-skinned attacker’s neck.

  Through jittery, uneven lips he spat in Tahnja’s direction: “Get! Off! Of! Me! You! Bitch!”

  Lifting her leg just a few inches from the dirt, Tahnja slammed it into the gushing wound in the creature’s side. As expected, he responded by screaming in pain. The Ochan’s body contorted and he released his grip. Though it had been only seconds since the cloud of dust rolled in, it had somehow grown thicker. Vision beyond just a few feet was impossible. Both Tahnja and her ugly, writhing foe struggling to break free beneath her and shouting obscenities in her direction were suddenly hidden away from the world. Encased in a swirling mass of grainy gray, black and brown, they were alone. What happened now was for them and only them. What happened now could not be seen, and therefore could not be judged. What happened now was quite simply, theirs.