“And she was also the one who zapped those lightning birds to death,” Kathy added.
A panting Mengy gave a nod.
Then Stu Pot’s happy, thankful mood vanished when he saw the really angry Lukeson approaching him. He wanted to say how sorry he was for confronting the dragon and for leaving his squad trapped under the falling Great Sphinx. In his mind, he thought he was doing the right thing by trying to stop Mukantagara and prove his worth to his sergeant. He always felt that Lukeson trusted him the least out of the others and was fed up after three years being given special attention. He wanted to prove to his commanding officer that he could do anything as well as the others, but he knew that nothing he said would change Lukeson’s thinking nor stop him giving a lecture.
“What you did was selfish and stupid, Potter!” Lukeson shouted. “Leaving to take on that dragon to get out and leaving us behind to die! If it weren’t for Meng, we would’ve have become mummies under the Great Sphinx of Giza and you would’ve have been killed yourself! Do you have anything to say, Private?”
Stu Pot sighed. “I’m sorry, sir. And I’m grateful to you, Mengy, for saving me and Rustom from those birds.”
“Impundulus,” said Paula, as she held her Spy Pad over the dust.
“What?” said Stu Pot.
“Those lightning birds were called impundulus birds,” said Paula. “They were rumoured to be a myth by the Africans. No one has seen them for years.”
“Until now,” said Stu Pot. “Speaking of which, Rustom and I fired at those birds and they could dodge bullets like the cobra sphinxes. So I think they are in some way linked to each other.”
“So these impundulus birds are Akins’s creations as well?” Kathy asked. “Is that what you’re guessing?”
Stu Pot nodded. “And if we all say that they are, then we haven’t seen the last of them as long as Akins is alive.”
“Who is this Rustom that you keep mentioning, Potter?” asked Lukeson.
“He’s right here, sir,” said Stu Pot. But when he turned around to see, he saw that the rhino wasn’t there.
“You’re just making things worse, Potter,” Lukeson warned. “Making stories up like –”
“What the hell is happening?” shouted a voice.
“Arm yourselves!” ordered Lukeson.
Everyone armed themselves, but Lukeson noticed Mengy was the only one who wasn’t. She just had her arms stretched out. He was about to demand why she wasn’t arming herself, but as the noise grew louder and closer to them, he realised what she was doing so he let her continue.
“Who is doing this?” the angry voice shouted again.
From the trees, out came Rustom. He was looking very angry as he was being dragged on the ground. He got out two daggers and put them in the ground, but all it did was make two rows on the ground. They were deep enough to bury well-hidden treasure.
As he approached Squad J, Rustom gave up and dropped his daggers. “Why am I here?” he demanded, getting back on his feet. “Who is doing this?”
“Is this him, Potter?” Lukeson asked Stu Pot.
“Aye, sir.”
Lukeson approached the rhino. “Good day, Mr. Rustom. I am Sergeant Lukeson of Global Creature Alliance. You have met Private Potter, the blue and white zebra. The pink and white one is Private Toronto. The crocodile is Private Rhodes. The penguins are Private Guzman, her nephew Pedro and niece Larissa. And the elephant demon is Private Meng.”
“And she’s the one who’s brought me back here,” said Rustom. “And she’s the one who has put the invisible chains in my feet.”
“I don’t see any chains on your feet,” said Pedro.
“Not on my feet,” said Rustom. “In my feet. Inside my feet. Your elephant friend has put something like invisible chains inside my bones so that I can’t escape a mile away from you.”
“How do you even know that?” asked Rachael.
“Ask my red eye that question,” said Rustom.
“Sergeant Lukeson!” called Paula, looking at her Spy Pad. “I found Akins. He’s somewhere in the Namib Desert.”
“But what could he be doing there?” asked Kathy.
“I suppose he’s hiding there to unleash more of his secret army?” guessed Stu Pot.
“Well, that is a possibility,” Lukeson said. “Let’s get over there and capture him before his invasion becomes completely unstoppable. Meng!”
Mengy closed her eyes to focus on her teleportation spell.
“Well, good luck,” said Rustom. “Just free me from the chains inside my feet and I’ll be out of your –” Then he found himself in the enormous, warm Namib Desert along with Squad J.
CHAPTER SEVEN
No one could see anything, but warm golden sand and the sun setting sky. It was also too quiet. No one at G.C.A. ever liked anything too quiet because if there was one thing they learned in their mystery solving experiences, it was always the quietest of times and areas when and where the cleverest villains unleashed their evillest cunning deeds.
“I don’t see Akins anywhere,” said Rachael.
“That’s because he’s about three point one miles away,” Paula replied, checking on her Spy Pad.
Lukeson growled. He was so frustrated that they were still nowhere near Akins. “I only hope you’re trying to improve yourself every time you teleport, Meng!” he snapped at the elephant. “We can’t keep working like this!” He had had only seven hours of sleep over the last forty hours and was in no mood to tolerate any minor hiccups.
Everyone was puzzled when they heard Rustom was speaking to Mengy in a different language. Then she laughed her trunk off as if she was embarrassed.
“What did you say to her, Rustom?” Lukeson aimed his solar panel pistol at him.
“Relax, Sergeant,” said Rustom, pointing Lukeson’s gun away. “I was merely complimenting on how well she teleports.”
“How well she teleports?” Lukeson scoffed as he withdrew his gun.
“Well, I’d like to see any of you, especially that know-it-all penguin, do any better since you can’t even do it in the first place.”
Paula was offended by what he called her. “Well, if you’re so smart, why don’t you try it?”
“I never said I could do it myself,” said Rustom. “So, Guzman, if you’re so smart, what language did I just speak in?”
“In Chinese,” replied Paula. “You seemed to make Mengy understand what you said.”
“But what kind of Chinese?”
Now that got the clever penguin. No one at G.C.A. had ever seen her like this before today. She usually had an answer for everything with her Spy Pad, but it seemed that her favourite and most useful gadget had been letting her down today because it couldn’t find out anything about Rustom’s history, weapons, abilities and now what he was saying. “All right, I give up,” she confessed.
“I was speaking to Mengy in her language,” Rustom replied. “Old Chinese. Even though she can’t speak through her mouth, she can only speak Old Chinese through sign language. How she can understand what we say to her is a big magical demon mystery to me.”
“Whoa!” cried Pedro. “You can speak every language of Chinese, Rusty?”
Rustom growled and sneered at the young penguin. “Don’t ever call me Rusty,” he said dangerously. “Ever.”
Trembling, Pedro nodded. “Yes, sir. Sorry, sir.”
“I can speak more than just every language of Chinese,” Rustom boasted. “I also can speak all the languages that has been ever been spoken and is being spoken, even twins’ secret language.”
“Can you speak mine and Larissa’s secret language?”
“I can’t.”
“See, you don’t know every single language.”
“The only reason I can’t speak your secret language is because you guys don’t have one.”
“How do you know that?” asked Larissa.
“I’ve scanned both of you with my red eye. It helped me track down your personal history from the
moment you guys hatched out of the same egg in the South Pole to this very second. And from what I’ve seen, you two are the worst twins in the history of worst twins. Even worse than Romulus and Remus.”
“Doesn’t bother me,” said Larissa.
Rustom spoke in a strange and unusual language.
“What language is that?” asked Larissa. “And what did you say in it?”
“It’s Mayan and I said, ‘You are the queen of all the drama queen penguins’,” explained Rustom.
Larissa was not impressed to hear it, but her brother was laughing his beak off. “I couldn’t agree more with you, Rustom,” he said.
“Soldiers, enough wasting little time!” snapped Lukeson. “We are on a mission here, remember? Guzman, make your gadget useful and lead us to Akins.”
Paula led everyone ahead.
“And, Meng!” Lukeson went on. “Keep our new friend under control.”
Mengy saluted with her trunk and pushed their new friend Rustom forward.
“Oh, Mengy, that’s very –” Then his green eye got poked by her trunk. “– friendly of you,” he finished, as he rubbed it and got pushed again.
* * *
“How long now, Paula?” panted Stu Pot.
“We have another two point four miles to go, Stu Pot,” Paula told him.
“We only started walking forty minutes ago,” Rachael said.
Stu Pot groaned. “My glasses are melting, I don’t have a hat to keep cool from the heat and I’ve lost my jacket from flying on that dragon.”
“Less moaning, more haste, Potter,” said Lukeson. “Don’t let the heat get to you.” Secretly, he was tired and dehydrated himself and what he told Stu Pot he told himself as well.
A hot and tired Kathy wrapped her jacket over her head like a hat to keep herself cool. Despite the sun close to disappearance, it was still very hot. She didn’t care that she looked like a large crab that had caught her neck; she needed to be kept cool. She was carrying little Pedro who passed out from the heat ten minutes ago.
“I can’t take any more of this, Rachael,” she said, wiping her face with her military t-shirt. “If I keep on going, I will pass out.”
Rachael was next to her with her jacket on her head as well. She was carrying little Larissa, who passed out like her brother. Then she looked at Mengy who was walking just fine like the heat wasn’t bothering her. She didn’t even have her jacket off. It didn’t seem to bother Rustom either.
Then that gave Rachael an idea. “Hey, Mengy, can you boil us a spell of fresh water?”
All she and Kathy got from the elephant was movement by her hands.
“I’m sorry, Mengy,” said Kathy, “but I don’t understand Chinese sign language.”
“She’s saying that creating water was one of the spells she never studied or was taught,” Rustom told them.
“What about you, Rustom?” Kathy asked. “Do you have any water to spare?”
“I don’t even have water for myself,” said Rustom. “Because I don’t need it. I leave it to those who need it the most.”
“Everyone, shut up!” Lukeson ordered. “I think I saw something.”
Everyone looked at where the sergeant was looking. They couldn’t see anything except low blowing sand and bare patches of grass.
“Probably a mirage, sir?” said Stu Pot.
“No, Stuart,” said Rustom, looking up to the sky. “It’s not a mirage. It’s a kongamato.”
“What’s a kongamato?” asked Rachael.
“Another mythical monster,” explained Paula. “A sort of pterodactyl that wasn’t wiped out with all the other dinosaurs.”
“Rustom, you got any weapons to spare?” asked Lukeson.
Rustom turned around and his back opened up. He reached inside and got out six Ghoul sniper rifles. He chucked one to each grownup soldier.
“Aim at the monster through the telescopic sight and it’ll automatically lock onto him,” Rustom explained, as he got one out for himself.
“Can Larissa and I have some weapons, please, Rustom?” Pedro asked. He and his sister had woken up when Kathy and Rachael put them down to grab Rustom’s Ghoul sniper rifles.
“Sure, hold on.” Rustom started to reach for his back.
“No!” Lukeson cried. “Sorry, Pedro, Larissa. I don’t think Rustom’s weapons are suitable for you. I don’t even know if the grownups and I can handle them. I’m sorry, guys, but no for now.” Then he turned to the rest of the squad. “Everyone, spread out.”
Loud screeching could be heard. Everyone looked up to see a grey kongamato zooming towards them. It was massive and terrifying, exactly how Paula described them.
Kathy looked through her telescopic scope and, when the kongamato was locked on through the scope, she fired. It landed flat on the desert ground like a pancake. She felt pleased with herself.
“Is that it?” asked Stu Pot.
“I fear not, Stuart,” Rustom said.
Everyone looked up to see he was right. Through the dark clouds came a blue cloud and from the blue cloud came a whole flock of kongamatos.
“Is that cloud a portal, Aunt Paula?” Larissa asked. It reminded her of the one inside the underground Egyptian temple before they fled it.
“It could well be, Larissa,” Aunt Paula said. She tried to study the cloud as quick as she could, but it vanished and left only the deadly kongamatos coming closer towards them. She just had to assume it was.
“Fire!” ordered Lukeson.
Squad J fired everything they had at the monsters. They were having more success shooting them down than they did with the cobra sphinxes. Kathy thought it was probably because they were larger but slower that made them an easier target, compared to the smaller but quicker cobra sphinxes.
Stu Pot thought it was Rustom’s weapons with easier targeting that were doing the trick. “I don’t care where you got these weapons, Rustom. I’m glad we bumped into you.”
“It’s very rare I help someone out,” Rustom said, “so hearing your compliments are a real rare treat, Stuart.”
Very rare you help someone out? Stu Pot knew the rhino must have bumped into some people before him and his squad, but he thought he would be like a vigilante protecting defenceless people from cutthroats and murderers. Has he made actual contact with these people and kept in touch of them? Could they be human beings, the well-hidden talking animals or some other creatures no one knew or dared to dream about? Could they be good or bad? Then kongamato screeching made him return to the present moment and he shot down his third one.
“Whoa!” Rachael cried happily, as she shot down her seventh kongamato. “We’re cooking on gas now!”
“It feels more like we’re cooking on sand,” Pedro said, looking at the warm sand beneath his feet.
“‘Cooking on gas’ is an idiom,” Larissa told him.
“Don’t criticise me,” said Pedro. “The idiot is the one who wrote that saying, not me.”
All Larissa could do was just groan.
Everyone really liked Rustom’s guns, though they were still annoyed that he still wouldn’t tell them where he got the weapons from and how he modified them.
After hearing a quick screech, Lukeson dodged a charging kongamato. As he got back up, he thought he could see a figure that matched Akins’s colourful robe on top of a large pile of bornhardts. Up above was a new dark blue cloud and out from it came cobra sphinxes and impundulus birds.
“Squad, to the Spitzkoppe now!” he ordered.
“The what?” Pedro asked.
“The Spitzkoppe,” said Larissa. “That’s what that hilly thing over there is.”
Pedro saw where her sister was pointing. Though he thought it was very rocky and looked quite tough to climb (from where he stood, anyway), he was impressed with its gigantic beauty as well. “Well, what are we waiting for? Let’s go.” But he stopped and froze in horror as a kongamato was charging in front of him.
“Pedro, move!” shouted Larissa.
But h
e was too scared to move. As the kongamato got closer, Pedro closed his eyes. He didn’t open them until he heard a yelling pain. He saw that its beak was sticking out past Rustom’s neck. “You all right, Rustom?”
There was no movement. Not a twitch.
“Rustom?” Pedro walked to his left side and saw that the rhino had stuck a sword through the kongamato’s neck as well. He was picked up by Kathy who was also holding Larissa. He turned back to see Rustom still not budging. He decided that the best thing to do was to not let the rhino die in vain by ending the war.
* * *
Squad J was climbing up to the top of the Spitzkoppe. So far they hadn’t seen or heard anything apart from Kathy slipping on a loose, sharp rock and falling on her back. She didn’t scream, but she made a light thud sound.
“Shh!” whispered Lukeson. “Whatever happens, he must not know of our presence, okay?”
The squad gave him the thumbs back. That was why Kathy didn’t scream, no matter how much pain the sharp rock caused her leg.
Though Pedro thought it wasn’t quite as bad climbing up the Spitzkoppe now that he was on it, it was still tough for him and his family. The taller creatures made it look easier, but he knew, judging by their panting, that it wasn’t a piece of cake for them either.
Lukeson finally spotted Akins. “Everyone, ready your Ghouls,” he ordered.
Squad J joined him in aiming their weapons at Akins. Everyone got a lock onto him.
“On my count,” Lukeson said. “One… Two… Three…” But before he could pull the trigger and give the squad firing orders, he felt like he was being pulled back. And he was! By a cobra sphinx!
“Sergeant!” Stu Pot tried to hit the cobra sphinx to free his sergeant, but it flew too far away.
“Come on, guys!” cried Rachael. “It’s now or never!” Then she started to climb up further.
“No, Rachael!” yelled Kathy. She tried to follow her, but she was blocked off by the cobra sphinxes.
“Fire at will!” Stu Pot yelled. “And keep heading for the top.”
The Cult of Kishpu Page 8
