The Way of the Ram

by Kevin Hensley

  Render picked up the bloodstained desk and launched it across the office. The iron block hit Chugg squarely in the chest with enough force to drive the forged spikes through his body and smash the glass behind him. Chugg and his sacrificial altar toppled out the window and plummeted toward the grounds of the compound hundreds of feet below. The pig never screamed.

  But something behind them did. Healer and Render whirled around. Toxid thrashed back and forth, slamming his jaws together in apparent agony. Then the head reverted to an inert chunk of metal. The shadows of Karkus and Optera lingered for another moment, then vanished.

  Dreamer broke her mental connection to Render and came to Healer’s side. He held her. Neither of them knew what to say to each other. She looked over his shoulder at the ruin of the blood-spattered office. The orchids lay crushed on the floor. Render stood quietly, watching the sky.

  Healer ended the hug and turned to Render. “I want to talk to the gods,” the ram said. “They have what they wanted. We want to take you home now.”

  “Karkus has what he wants,” Render said. “Optera does not, yet.” The cloaked beast spread its wings, caught the rushing wind coming from outside, and let the air current yank it out of the building and into the void. Healer and Dreamer ran to the broken pane it had exited through.

  “Great,” Healer said. Render was flying north, away from the Megatropolis.

  “I guess we’re following it.” Dreamer sighed.

  “You bet we are. Looks like this isn’t over yet.”

  ✽✽✽

  ATTENTION ALL CITIZENS OF UPTOWN MEGATROPOLIS.

  THIS IS A BROADCAST FROM THE DISTRICT POLICE DEPARTMENT.

  THE STATE OF DISASTER HAS BEEN LIFTED. THE INVADER HAS BEEN SEEN LEAVING THE CITY.

  PLEASE RETURN TO YOUR HOMES IN A PROMPT AND ORGANIZED MANNER.

  OUT OF PROPER RESPECT, WE REQUEST THAT CITIZENS NOT APPROACH THE BODY OF MR. CHUGG. THE AREA WILL BE CORDONED OFF UNTIL NECESSARY EQUIPMENT HAS BEEN OBTAINED TO REMOVE HIM FROM THE SCENE.

  REPEAT, PLEASE DO NOT APPROACH THE BODY OF MR. CHUGG.

  THANK YOU FOR YOUR COOPERATION.

  UPTOWN DISTRICT POLICE DEPARTMENT PROVIDED AND FUNDED BY THE CHUGG CORPORATION.

  ✽✽✽

  Chapter 64

  “No one bothered us the whole way. That’s interesting.”

  “That probably has something to do with the fact that you’re covered in blood and carrying a skull, Healer. I wouldn’t bother you either.”

  The two sheep pushed through the ruined laboratory door. Swill pivoted his chair to face them.

  “Hello, sheep,” he said, eyeing the skull haphazardly strapped to Healer’s back. “Congratulations on your victory.”

  “We came to thank you for your part in it,” Dreamer said. “That wouldn’t have been possible without you.”

  “And we came to check in,” Healer said. “What are you going to do with that thing?”

  Swill turned to look at the body floating in the tank. “Well, I have some damage control to do, obviously. But once I’m certain I have covered my tracks, I will destroy it.”

  “Covered your tracks from who? Chugg’s dead.”

  “But Toxid isn’t. The Chugg Corporation is his presence in this world, and it will survive in some form. Its leader and both of the apparent successors are gone, but there are plenty of potential candidates who could step up and try to run things from here. Guz, the warden. Chugg’s secretary, Gorga. Dr. Gobb. Slog, the bank manager. Several influential pigs will be sniffing around here, wanting to move the project forward in Chugg’s place.”

  “The answer is obvious,” Dreamer said. “You should be the one who takes over.”

  “That would certainly make things easier in the short term, but there is no way Toxid would let me keep control for long.”

  Healer nodded to the scientist. “Well, I wish we could hang around and help you out with this, but we are still chasing Render. I don’t know when I’ll be back. All the same, please call my clinic when you’ve flushed that monster.”

  “I will do that, Healer. Thank you for everything.”

  Returning to the Chugg company grounds, Healer took a minute to survey the scene.

  “What Swill said is true,” Dreamer commented. “This whole city’s been dealt a massive blow by what happened here. But it will survive.”

  Pigs ran around the compound, too busy to stop them or even really notice them. Construction workers were guiding a crane through the damaged gate. Scaffolding was already going up to begin repairs on the portions of the main tower damaged by the cannons. A crowd of pigs stood near the entrance. Healer couldn’t see what they were looking at, but he didn’t want to anyway.

  He shifted his gaze to the top floor and looked for a long minute at the broken windows there.

  “In Render’s memory…” he began, “the guns knocked it out of the sky and it went over the wall, that way. That’s the same direction it flew off just now. Must have gone back to that swamp.”

  Dreamer nodded. “That’s what I was thinking. Let’s go.”

  Chapter 65

  Caper tried not to look as frantic as he felt as he stood near the open Megatropolis gate. Beside him, Boxer watched the distressed pigs running in and out of the city.

  The old owl’s heartbeat finally slowed when he saw the two sheep, filthy and exhausted but alive, stumbling down the main road. Caper embraced Healer and Dreamer as they passed through the gate.

  “I read your letter as soon as I arrived at University,” he said breathlessly, “and as you can see, I alerted Boxer immediately. I’m hoping you can clarify what you wrote.”

  “I was in a bit of a hurry,” Dreamer confessed.

  “You said that you were visited by Ponder and Mauler, but they had… merged into a new creature called Render.”

  “Yes. That was Karkus and Optera’s plan to begin with. All their champions were to them was a weapon. But they couldn’t decide what to do with it, so it went off on its own.”

  “Your dad called me this morning too,” Boxer said to Dreamer, “saying that Scurvert had been killed and that the quarry was in an uproar. On top of that, the Megatropolis was all lit up with those cannons going off like fireworks almost constantly until early this morning. What happened there?”

  “Well, Render did what Karkus meant for it to do,” Healer said. “Chugg’s dead.”

  Caper did a double take. “Say again?”

  “Chugg is dead,” Healer repeated. “The juggernaut pig. We went to the top of the tower. We met him. We disabled the cannons so Render could get in. Dreamer used her power to shut out Karkus and Optera and help Render focus. I blinded the pig and then Render threw him out the window. He’s as dead as it gets. We got him, just like I said we would.”

  The owl stared up into the distance at the deactivated guns and the shattered windows at the peak of the Chugg Corporation headquarters. “That’s… that’s impossible. We dismissed the possibility of assaulting that tower a long time ago.”

  “You didn’t have a Render then,” Healer said. “Here. Give this a real burial. Please.” He held out his father’s skull.

  Caper took it, holding it up to get a close look at it. His eyes grew watery. “My friend,” he said, unable to hide the cracking of his voice. “So he has really been avenged. I doubted you, Healer. Very wrongly at that.”

  Boxer stepped up, also looking at Old-Timer’s remains. “Why are you giving this to us? Where are you going?”

  Healer pointed. “Render flew off that way. We think there’s some kind of swamp.” He indicated the north end of the Megatropolis where the border wall brushed up against the forest at the base of the mountain range.

  “That place is nothing but misery,” Caper said darkly. “That’s where the pig city dumps out their waste. There’s a canal that runs out of the wall and to the shore, carrying all of their refuse to the ocean. The forest in that area has been ruined by their poison.”

  “Then that is
exactly where the gods would command Render to go,” Dreamer suggested. “It’s isolated. A good place for them to work on regaining control over it without outside influences like us.”

  “That makes sense,” Healer said. “But those gods don’t know me very well. I’m going to chase them down until we have Ponder and Mauler back.”

  “Same here,” Dreamer agreed. “I know you don’t want to wait and tell them, but Caper and Boxer should know the other thing we learned.”

  Healer sighed. “Quickly.”

  “Does this have to do with the ‘endgame’ to which Durdge referred?” Caper interjected.

  “It sure does,” Dreamer answered. “Render let me look into its mind. Last night, it invaded Scurvert’s home. That horrible pig was no match for it. But he gave enough information to send Render back to Chugg Cybernetics. It stopped at the clinic on the way, and that’s where we met it.”

  “That’s when you followed it and left me that note on the way,” Caper guessed.

  “Right. We got into the Megatropolis because of the damage from the night Render escaped. We tailed it all the way into the Cybernetics building. It turns out you were right, Caper. Not all the pigs there hate us. We happened to run into a few who were willing to sell out the Chugg Corporation and help us.”

  Healer paced back and forth, making a sigh loud enough for the others to hear. The three closed up ranks and ignored him.

  “The lead pig at Cybernetics filled in the blanks Durdge and Scurvert left,” Dreamer continued. “They were working on cloning a body. They used Mauler’s genetic material for it. The body was supposed to house Durdge’s brain. And then Durdge was going to destroy Fleece City.”

  “Why?” Boxer cut in. “They have nothing to gain from hurting that many sheep, especially all at once.”

  “They do if they want to use the attack as a pretext to move the rest of the sheep into the Megatropolis. We saw a building in the back of the Chugg compound. The pig in the lab said they were going to imprison all sheep there.”

  “With their cloning facilities, they’d feed Toxid all the sheep blood he could want,” Caper finished, “without all these control mechanisms they have to use now.”

  “Yes.” Dreamer’s face grew dark. “Including birds and dogs. That’s the key. Chugg was trying to eliminate the need for them so he could drive them extinct.”

  “Securing Toxid’s rule forever,” Boxer mused. “I’ll be damned.”

  “Now Render is gone,” Dreamer continued. “Optera and Karkus are still determined to control it. We’re going to save Ponder and Mauler. But there’s more. When I started my theology courses, my dad gave me an orchid as a present.”

  “I saw it in your window,” Caper said with a nod. “I wondered if you were trying to speak with it, but I had always dismissed that as a silly superstition. No one I know ever got it to work.”

  “Well, it worked for me. I’d been talking to Arghast. At first I thought he was so supportive. But he was leading me and Healer into this. He got Healer to grow horns and made sure we followed Render up Chugg’s tower. There, I found out he was talking to Chugg too. Chugg said Arghast tricked him into delaying the sheep farm project and made him go along with Ponder’s demands, weakening Toxid by making him go all this time without sheep blood. And…” Dreamer trailed off. “There’s something else I need to think about.”

  Boxer shook his head. “I’ve never heard of the Father Orchid speaking to anyone, ever. Why would he do this?”

  “From what I learned in my theology courses, I think Arghast was only out to cause chaos,” Dreamer concluded. “We sort of played into his hands by killing Chugg. There will definitely be disorder, at least for a little while. But we’ve stopped the pigs’ project, which is all that matters.”

  Healer barged into the group. “Yeah. That’s all for now. Any more Q&A is going to have to wait. I’m going after Render.”

  “Yes, get going.” Caper looked again at the skull. “I’ll bury this anywhere you like, Healer. Perhaps somewhere on the grounds of your clinic?”

  “I’d appreciate that, Caper.” The sincerity of Healer’s hug surprised the owl. “We’ll see you when we get back. And we’ll have our friends with us. Come on, Dreamer.”

  The other sheep frowned. “You could spare a few minutes to step into the river and wash off, you know.”

  Chapter 66

  “Caper wasn’t kidding,” Healer said as they walked along the edge of the concrete canal. “This place sucks.”

  The canal originated at a huge culvert coming through the Megatropolis wall and then turned sharply to follow the wall to the coast. They kept the canal between them and the pig city as they traveled. To their left, the ground began to slope up leading to the mountain range to the north.

  They tried not to look at the material flowing through the channel. It was slimy, frothy, and green-brown with streaks of yellow. The heat rising from the canal was barely tolerable, as was the smell of engine oil and compost.

  The foliage was overgrown but unhealthy, tinged yellow and hanging over the sides of the canal, so low and thick that they had trouble passing through in a few places. The tangled tree branches blocked out most of the sunlight.

  “Do you think things have changed?” Dreamer asked out of nowhere.

  Healer looked over his shoulder, startled. “What are you talking about?”

  “Well, I trusted Arghast and followed his advice. But now that I’ve seen how he was playing us… I think us getting back together was part of his game. Does that change our relationship?”

  Healer slowed to a stop. “You want to talk about that… now?”

  She shrugged. “It was just a thought that occurred to me. Never mind.”

  “We can talk about that later, if you want. If it helps… nothing has changed on my end. I like you just the same.” Healer winked and motioned with his head. “We’ll discuss it. Promise. Let’s deal with this first.”

  “Yeah. Alright. Hey, Caper didn’t say how far to the coast, did he?”

  “No, I didn’t think to ask,” Healer said, glancing back. When he returned his gaze forward, he jumped at the sight of a set of fangs right in his face. He retreated several steps, backing into Dreamer.

  The fanged figure pushed through the undergrowth as it came toward them, revealing a cloak made of skins draped around ridiculously muscled arms.

  “Karkus,” Healer spat.

  “Turn back,” the god growled. “We know what you’re doing. We are fortunate that you were there to ensure the Render’s victory against the juggernaut pig. But your motives are at odds with ours. You’re out to take our champion from us.”

  “You owe us for the fact that they were even able to get free and come to your shrines,” Healer said, thrusting his face into Karkus’s. “The reign of Chugg is at an end. What else can Toxid do? Get out of our way and let us have Render.”

  Karkus responded by lowering his head and his voice. “This is the only warning you’re going to get,” he whispered. “You’re right, I am satisfied. I got what I wanted. Toxid was severely injured by the death of Chugg. But Optera has not seen her purpose for the Render fulfilled yet. She will not rest until birds are the rulers of this world. And, whereas I’m here strongly advising you to leave, she will just kill you outright.”

  “Yes, we saw plenty when Render was sharing its memories with us,” Healer answered. “Seems like Optera’s the ringleader between the two of you. Why let her lead you around on a leash? She’s so smart, but she let you get your end of the deal fulfilled before hers. You could call it off right now and be rid of her conniving ways.”

  “Nice try,” Karkus rumbled. “You won’t divide us. That’s how we ended up with Toxid in charge to begin with. Remember what I said. Heed my words now. I’m giving you a chance. She won’t give you another.” With that, he faded out of sight.

  Healer turned back with a grin. “You scared of Optera?”

  “Nope,” Dreamer answered.

&
nbsp; “Well, then. Onward.”

  Chapter 67

  The deep claw mark in the tree trunk ahead of them told Dreamer they were headed in the right direction. She kept her ears moving, alert but unafraid.

  “Do you hear something moving?” she whispered.

  “I sure do.”

  The two sheep drew closer together as the motion in the underbrush grew louder. The foliage ahead of them shifted and bowed as if some large creature was trying to press through. However, the force coming at them was only air.

  The vicious gust of wind hit the two sheep so hard that Dreamer nearly lost her footing and fell into the ditch. Healer was less affected, and it was by grabbing onto him that Dreamer was able to regain her balance. The two sheep hunched lower to the ground and pressed forward.

  “Hold onto my coat,” Healer said, using his body to shield her from the assault of wind. The bark, sticks, pine needles, and other debris flying in his face made that difficult.

  “Let’s get away from the canal and go through the trees,” Dreamer shouted over the noise of the rushing air. “We’ll be more shielded that way.”

  “Good idea.” Healer pulled her into the underbrush. Though the wind didn’t stop, they were at least out of its direct line of fire and able to hide behind tree trunks. Dreamer let Healer lead through the tangled brambles, using his horns to hack at low branches in their path.

  A cracking sound made them stop.

  “Where’s that coming from?” Healer called over the noise.

  “Up ahead!” Dreamer cried out She dove sideways, away from the canal. Healer followed after her. About two seconds later, the trunk of a pine tree as wide around as a telephone pole landed in the spot where they had been standing.

  But the sound of wood splitting had not gone away. In fact, it had increased. All around them, the howl of the wind faded and was replaced by that breaking, grinding noise.

  Healer gulped, looking all around him. “Dreamer… run.”

  The two of them parted around the second falling tree and took off in different directions. Dreamer ran straight forward, while Healer ran to the left and up the slope. They wove back and forth, crossing each other’s paths, juking and dodging as the pine trees fell over or heavy branches dropped to the ground all around them.