Battle of the Beasts

by Chris Columbus

  The tank was perched high up on a cliff in the mountains.

  The front of it was hanging over the cliff.

  And it was tipping back and forth, as if it were on a seesaw.

  “How did this happen?” Jerry screamed. “Where are we?!”

  “We must have hit a seam in Kristoff’s books,” Cordelia said, “and crossed into another one of his worlds.”

  “What does that mean? How do we get off this mountain?” Jerry looked down to Cordelia, taking his eyes off Volnheim for a moment. The Nazi knocked Jerry’s water pistol out of his hand and scrambled through the hatch.

  “Hey, get back here!” Jerry climbed out after Volnheim. On top of the tank, he grabbed Volnheim’s ankle. The Nazi kicked at him. The two began fighting, grappling, rolling away from the hatch on top of the tank.

  “Uh-oh,” Will said. Snow blew down on him. “We have to go, people. And bundle up . . . it’s freezing up there!”

  Felix grabbed wool blankets for everyone, and they climbed out of the hatch and stared in shock at the swirling snow.

  The tank was completely surrounded by mountains. Jerry and Volnheim were rolling toward the front of it, punching and kicking—all while the tank was about to fall off the cliff!

  Cordelia was immediately cored out by the cold, as if the Wind Witch had returned to possess her body.

  “Come on!” Eleanor yelled. “Let’s get off this thing!”

  “We can’t leave Jerry!” said Felix.

  “That’s right!” said Will. “We’d be cowards—”

  Creeeaak—the tank yawned over the chasm where it was perched. Jerry and Volnheim now clung to the barrel of the 88-millimeter gun, holding on for dear life, only able to kick at each other. Jerry’s hands were becoming ineffective in the merciless cold. But Volnheim had no problem. Jerry called to the kids.

  “Get outta here! Forget about us—”

  Volnheim slammed his boot into Jerry’s stomach, nearly knocking him into thin air. The Nazi cyborg then swung his legs up, wrapping them around the gun barrel. Now he was hanging upside down.

  Volnheim cracked a smile as he shuffled rapidly forward with his legs along the barrel of the gun, toward the front, causing the tank to tip farther over the cliff’s edge.

  “What are you doing?” shouted Will to the Nazi.

  “What I should have done earlier. Kill all of you!”

  Volnheim hoisted himself onto the end of the barrel and started wrenching it up and down, like a monkey trying to shake coconuts off a tree, moving faster and faster, as if Cordelia had the remote and were fast-forwarding. The vibrations of his heavy metallic body tilted the tank forward, bringing it closer to the chasm.

  Will saw his chance.

  He ducked back into the tank and sat in the gunner’s position. He knew that the tank was armed; he knew that firing it was a one-man job. He reached his finger toward the button that read: Feuer.

  And Will shot the cannon.

  Up on the tank, Felix, Cordelia, and Eleanor were blown back and nearly deafened. But that didn’t compare to what happened to Volnheim. Since he was holding on to the end of the barrel, he got hit point-blank; he was blasted off the tank into black space and gyrating snow. Jerry, also hanging on the barrel, saw Volnheim get blown into countless pieces of metal, wiring, and gears, as well as a splash of motor oil—and then the shell detonated against a mountain nearby.

  It was like a spectacular NASCAR crash in the middle of the Swiss Alps: For a moment, the mountainside was bright as the sun, and Jerry could see all the tiny pieces of Volnheim fluttering down to the snowbanks far below.

  The mountains echoed: kabooom.

  Cordelia, Eleanor, and Felix landed in snow. But Jerry couldn’t get off the gun barrel. And the tank, which had been knocked back by the recoil of the cannon, was now being drawn into the abyss. Will climbed out and crawled toward the barrel, extending his hand to Jerry.

  “Get closer! I’ll pull you up!”

  Jerry reached up—but his fingers were frozen. Jerry looked at his hands, betrayed, as he slipped off the Tiger I.

  Will screamed.

  Now the tank was going over too, groaning as it slid off the cliff. Will stumbled, trying to leap off—

  But it was too late.

  “Will!” Cordelia and Eleanor yelled.

  There was no way he was going to survive. Except . . . Felix was diving toward the edge of the cliff, landing in snow and whipping his German wool blanket forward, holding it with one hand.

  The tank fell away, sending out a shower of sparks as it went down and screaked against the rocky cliff face, finally detonating in a muffled explosion below.

  But Cordelia saw: Felix’s blanket was tense, like a rope.

  She ran toward Felix. She started pulling his legs. Eleanor followed and pulled her waist. They all worked together, grunting and groaning, trying to keep from being drawn off the cliff, and hauled Will onto the white and desolate mountain.

  Then they huddled under German blankets next to a snowbank.

  “Where are we . . . ?” Eleanor said weakly over the wind.

  “The third Kristoff book,” said Cordelia. “Whatever that is.”

  “It looks like a ski resort,” said Eleanor. “Remember when everything was good at home and Dad would take us on ski trips to Lake Tahoe? Hey, maybe we’re back home. . . . Tahoe’s only a few hours from San Francisco. . . .”

  “This doesn’t look anything like Tahoe,” said Cordelia. “It looks like hell after it freezes over.”

  “Is it just me?” asked Felix. “Or is it getting even colder?”

  “It’s not just you,” said Cordelia. “Look at Will’s lips.”

  They all turned to Will. His lips were blue. His skin was turning white. His eyebrows were flecked with frozen snow.

  “We need to g-g-g-get out of here,” said Will. “We’ll d-d-d-die of hypothermia.”

  “What’s h-hypothermia?” asked Felix, starting to shiver as well.

  “Starts with a t-t-t-tingling sensation,” said Will. “Followed by b-b-b-blisters, b-blackened skin. You start to get confused, become very sleepy, d-d-d-drift off, and d-d-d-d-d . . .”

  “That sounds aw-awful,” said Felix.

  “I’ve heard it’s actually rather p-pleasant once the f-frostbite sets in. You p-p-perish rather quickly. And best of all, you leave a perfectly preserved c-c-c-corpse—”

  “Guys,” shouted Eleanor. “Will you stop talking about c-corpses?”

  They sat in silence for several minutes. Sadly, besides corpses, they didn’t have much to talk about.

  “We should huddle c-c-c-close,” said Will. “Use our h-h-heat . . .”

  “What’s the p-p-p-point?” asked a deflated Cordelia. “I mean . . . there’s no way off this mountain. There’s no one around to help us. Why p-prolong the inevitable? I hate to say it—”

  “Then don’t,” interrupted Eleanor. “We’ve come too far to g-give up now. We have to get B-B-Brendan. We have to get back home. And after t-t-t-today, I’ll have to start therapy!”

  Nobody laughed.

  “That was a j-j-j-joke,” said Eleanor. “Remember how Bren used to handle stuff like this?”

  They all got closer together. Soon, they all began to feel very, very tired. One by one, they lost consciousness in the cold. Felix was first, followed by Will and Cordelia. Eleanor held on longest.

  And that’s when she saw the shadowy figure, a silhouette really, approaching in the snow. It looked like a man, a very small man. As he got closer, Eleanor could see that he was wearing a giant fur coat with a thick hood. When the man arrived in front of Eleanor, he knelt down and moved his face close to hers. She couldn’t see his features, hidden by the shadows of his hood. She wanted to shout to the others, tell them to wake up . . . but she was too weak to speak.

  The man opened his mouth and exhaled.

  A thick, red puff of smoke flew out of his mouth. The smoke encircled Eleanor’s face. It smelled like cinnamon. A
nd suddenly, Eleanor was no longer cold. Every inch of her body was filled with a burst of wonderful heat, surging through her limbs, reviving her.

  And then she passed out.

  The first thing Cordelia noticed was the smell: vanilla, cloves, and butter. It woke her up from the deep slumber that she, Eleanor, Will, and Felix had been in. When she looked down, she saw that it was coming from a cup of tea. The cup had no handle, but it was covered in soft brown fur, so even though Cordelia’s hands were wrapped around it, she wasn’t burning her palms. That’s nice, she thought.

  The steam from the tea was so strong and delicious that it made her lightheaded. The beverage seemed too hot to drink. She let it warm her for a moment before she looked around to see where she was. A room with red stone walls. A huge fireplace with a roaring fire. Animal pelts and antlers on the wall, and on the floor, a rug that might have once belonged to a buffalo. She was sitting on it, wrapped in a thick wool blanket, surrounded by Eleanor and Will and Felix, who likewise held cups of tea in their hands.

  Cordelia suddenly had a flash of worry and checked her back pocket. Yes, there it was, damaged by the snow: Eliza May Kristoff’s diary. She had to get it open as soon as she could.

  “Ahem,” said a voice above her.

  Standing over Cordelia was a stooped man with craggy, tan features. He wore a woolly tunic, and underneath, pants adorned with red feathers. He was completely bald, and his cheeks were sprinkled with chunky moles. White, whisker-like hairs, over two inches long, stuck out of the moles.

  “Ahhhh . . . ,” he said. “The tea does the trick. Every time!”

  “Who are you?” Will asked.

  “My name is Wangchuk.”

  “Where are we?” asked Cordelia.

  “I will explain everything in time,” Wangchuk said, “but first, honored guests, I urge you to relax and drink. I know the journey has been weary.”

  They all looked at one another. Cordelia and Eleanor were nervous about eating and drinking. Back on the pirate ship in their last adventure, magical steak and fries they’d eaten had caused a bunch of skeletons to come to life. But Will was already drinking the tea.

  “Mmmmmm,” he said, and then noticed them looking at him. “What?”

  They all took sips. The drink warmed them to the tips of their toes. It was unlike any tea they had ever tasted: laced with cream and honey, rich and thick, as if some world-class chef had invented milkshake tea.

  “What’s in here?” Eleanor asked.

  Wangchuk stood over them proudly: “Yak belly.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “We scrape the fat from a yak’s stomach—”

  Pfffffft—Eleanor spat her tea back into the cup.

  “What’s the matter?” Wangchuk said.

  “Yak belly?” said Eleanor. “That’s totally gross! And what if the yak was eating something gross too?!”

  “Yak-belly tea is served to only our most distinguished and honored guests,” said Wangchuk. “I’ve even added two special ingredients to make it more delicious.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Monkey sweat—”

  Now Cordelia spat her tea back into its cup.

  “And donkey spit.”

  Will dropped his cup to the floor. Only Felix was left happily gulping the tea.

  “Oh, I see,” said Wangchuk. “None of you are accustomed to our . . . rather exotic food. But we only want to please you. We’ve been waiting so long for you. That’s why my brothers and I braved death to get you off the mountain.”

  “What brothers?” asked Felix.

  “Why, the monks of Batan Chekrat,” Wangchuk said. “Who else?”

  “You’ll have to pardon us,” Cordelia said. “We’re not that familiar with this book—I mean, this part of the world.”

  “And why have you been waiting for us?” asked Eleanor. “How did you even know about us?”

  “Because of the prophecy.”

  “What prophecy?” Will said.

  “Legend has it,” said Wangchuk, “that a band of warriors will one day arrive and help us defeat the frost beasts.”

  “Frost beasts?” Cordelia asked.

  Wangchuk clapped his hands, five times in a specific rhythm, and barked: “Brothers!”

  A door at the back of the room opened. A dozen monks—who were dressed like Wangchuk, their pants adorned with white feathers instead of red ones—quickly filed in and sat down by the fire. What was curious about them was that they didn’t look very similar to Wangchuk. Some looked European, some Asian, some African; they looked like they had come from all over the world, or had been handpicked by a reality television show to represent all possible nationalities. They were also different ages, young and old. But they had two noticeable things in common: shaved heads and a musty, lived-in smell, like a pair of jeans worn three days in a row.

  “Please direct your attention to the opposite wall,” Wangchuk said.

  Cordelia and the others turned. The leaping firelight cast shadows on the wall. The monks extended their arms in front of the flames, bringing their hands into very precise positions . . . and suddenly, shadows took shape, forming the perfect silhouette of a tall mountain, with a castle perched on top.

  “Wow,” Eleanor said.

  “This is the monastery of Batan Chekrat,” Wangchuk said. The monks fluttered their hands and the castle-shadow vibrated. It was really quite spectacular. “The highest monastery in the world. Built three thousand years ago by the Gautama Buddha.”

  The shadows of the monks’ arms shifted shape to become the familiar fat silhouette of the Buddha, then slipped back into the monastery image.

  “Gautama Buddha founded no other monasteries during his long life. This is a sacred and singular place. But soon after it was built, the frost beasts attacked.”

  The arms of several monks contorted. The shadow of the monastery transformed into three nasty shadows. Each one looked like the offspring of the abominable snowman and a werewolf, with oversize arms, stubby legs, and mounds of muscles, covered in hair. Cordelia looked at the monks casting the shadows. They were creating these hairy silhouettes using the hair on their own arms and hands. It was one of the few things Cordelia could think of that was a good use for hairy hands.

  “The frost beasts come at night,” Wangchuk explained. “They’re over ten feet tall and ferocious, with blood that runs cold as ice. If they so desired, they could scale the walls of the monastery and kill us. But by letting us live, they ensure a more steady food source.”

  Two of the monks twisted their hands into the shapes of yaks, which looked like big, shaggy cows. They moved the shadow yaks outside the shadow monastery, where the frost-beast silhouettes snatched them up. Then they made caterwauling yak noises to establish their point.

  “You feed them yaks?” Eleanor asked. “That’s terrible! Poor yaks!”

  “Unfortunately, it isn’t enough,” Wangchuk said. “Every month we are also forced to give them two members of our order. As a sacrifice.”

  “Oh no!” said Eleanor. The monks now created the shadows of monks themselves, who were tossed out of the monastery and caught in midair by the frost beasts.

  “Yes,” said Wangchuk in a quiet voice. “The frost beasts love human flesh most of all. But they are a primitive species, lacking in certain skills . . . for instance, they have no idea how to create fire. So they bring their human meals to their cave”—now the monastery became an overarching cave made of interlocking arms—“where they eat them slowly. And raw. One limb at a time.”

  The monks moved closer to the fire, which made the shadow beasts appear much larger. The wall became an abstract combination of silhouettes, hungry mouths, and razor-sharp teeth. The monks made chewing and crunching noises, followed by slurping sounds, like a person trying to get every last bit of meat out of a chicken bone.

  “These monks have a bit too much time on their hands,” whispered Will.

  “This is the most horrible thing I’ve ever hear
d,” Cordelia said to Wangchuk. “You just stand back and let these monsters eat you every month? How can you live with yourselves?”

  “We have no choice,” said Wangchuk.

  “You could fight back,” said Felix.

  “No. Fighting is against our code of conduct. We are peaceful men.”

  “You are cowardly men,” said Felix.

  “I would not expect you to understand,” said Wangchuk. “But you must accept that is the way of our order. To accept what we cannot control, and to persevere.”

  “But there have to be some people around here who can fight,” Eleanor said. “Like warriors or soldiers, living outside the monastery . . .”

  “We are all alone on this mountain,” said Wangchuk. “There is no way to get here, except through the Door of Ways.”

  “Door of Ways? What’s that?” Eleanor asked.

  “It’s deep inside the frost beasts’ cave,” said Wangchuk. “Deep in the mountain: a magical portal to the outside world.”

  “A way out?” asked an intrigued Cordelia.

  “A way in,” said Wangchuk. “Every year, monk initiates who want to join our order come through it from faraway lands. But very few make it through the frost beasts’ cave and to the front gates without getting eaten.”

  “Why would anybody ever want to be a monk here?” asked Cordelia.

  “Because we have enlightenment here,” Wangchuk said. “True peace, through meditation. And besides: Now you are here. Our traveling warriors. You shall rid us of the frost beasts.”

  Cordelia, Eleanor, Will, and Felix glanced at one another. They weren’t sure who was going to speak first. Then Felix said, “Very well. Where are these beasts? I’ll show you cowards how to fight!”

  “Wait a minute, hold on,” Cordelia said. “We hate to tell you this, Mr. Wangchuk . . . but we’re not the warriors you’re waiting for.”

  “Yeah,” Eleanor said, “we’re just kids trying to get home.”

  “That can’t be true,” said Wangchuk. “First of all, you came here without using the Door of Ways, which no one has ever done. Secondly, you came with a war machine. I saw it with my own eyes. It’s at the bottom of the chasm.”