The Last Protector (56 page)

She took a tentative step, bent over to pick up the knife, and took another, less tentative step. Scrornuck flinched.

And then, with the knife she'd intended to use to skin and sacrifice him, she cut the ropes holding his wrists to the stake. “Forgive me,” she said, and he saw a tear running down her cheek. “You came to save us, and I fought you at every turn. You have every right to kill me."

"Yeah, I probably do,” he said, smiling a bit as she flinched. “Maybe later. Right now I've got work to do.” He shook his arms and legs, trying to get the blood flowing again. “Now get outta here."

Calmly, with a dignity her underlings had not shown, she walked away. As she reached the top of the steps, she stopped, turned, and said, “May the Dragon be with you."

Scrornuck bit his tongue, suppressing his instinctive sarcastic remark, and as the Captain disappeared down the steps, he whispered, “And with you, Captain."

"What the hell are you eating?"
Jape gasped as Scrornuck used a razor-sharp claw to cut the rope securing him to his chair.

"Lunch, I think.” Scrornuck tore off another chunk of Abe's severed, slightly burnt arm. “And don't tell me I'll hate myself in the morning.” He hadn't checked his prayer book, but he was pretty sure his religion didn't condone cannibalism.

"Right now, I'll be happy just to see another morning,” Jape said, holding up his rings. One remained black as coal, while the two that had been blue and purple now glowed the brilliant near-white of an electric arc. He looked up at the Orb and shook his head. “The thing's become so powerful, I don't know if the term mind reading still means anything.” His gaze dropped to the bloody robes covering Abe's remains. “What happened to you, Ranger Matthews?” he whispered.

"Hit the dirt!"
Scrornuck tossed his meal aside and shoved Jape out of the way as an immense, violet-white lightning bolt enveloped Abe's body, making it dance like a sick puppet. When the energy retreated, the corpse was mummified—dried out, skin stretched tight over the bones.

Jape got to his feet and hurried toward the steps leading down the scaffold. “Let's get to work, Mister Saughblade."

"I'll be down in a minute,” Scrornuck said. After four hours tied to that stake, he found himself with needs that just couldn't wait any longer. Turning his back to the Orb, he lifted the aprons of his kilt and enjoyed a moment of blessed relief.

After finishing his business, he knelt to search the remains of Abe's robes. They crumbled in his hands like the ashes of a burned newspaper. Feeling something solid, he shoved the ashes aside and found Ol’ Red, scorched but undamaged. “Hello, old friend!” he whispered.

He noticed a sound above the sizzling of the Orb—the electronic whine of an energy weapon charging. Jape stood at the base of the scaffold, back against the wall, holding the remains of his fireball-shooter. “No!” Scrornuck cried, leaping from the platform and knocking the weapon aside just as Jape fired. A ball of white flame crackled into the darkness, barely missing the Orb.

"What the hell are you doing, Mister Saughblade?"
Jape demanded. “We've got to kill that thing!"

"Nalia's still in there!"

"You heard Abe—nothing survives in that thing!"

Scrornuck froze, remembering Abe's words. No! a part of him screamed. He'd promised to protect Nalia, and though he'd hauled her out of that abomination three times, in the end it had taken her. He buried his face in his hands and sobbed, a long, low animal moan that built to a wail of grief.

A hand gently patted his shoulder. “She went into that thing because she thought it would help save her world,” Jape said. “We've got an hour to prove her right."

Scrornuck raised his eyes and looked up to the Orb. It had burned him, shocked him, and now it had stolen the woman he loved. “Yeah,” he hissed, his voice full of hatred for the bloated purple bladder, “let's whack this thing."

Jape raised the weapon, took careful aim and fired. A ball of white fire hit the Orb, dead center. Circular ripples spread across its surface, reminiscent of a stone being thrown into a pond, and then bounced back, converging on the spot where the fireball had struck. An instant later, a massive bolt of blue-white lightning shot from the Orb, straight toward Jape. Scrornuck jumped instinctively, knocking the Ranger away, and the two rolled across the tower's roof as other blasts of energy struck around them.

"I think I made it mad,” Jape panted. Another blast shattered the scaffold, and for a moment they both stared in disbelief—the Orb floated in mid-air above the debris of the scaffold as if gravity no longer applied to it. Then, as one, they fled down the steps to the Black Dragon's loading area. “I've got heavier weapons in the skimmer,” Jape said, taking a step toward the emergency exit.

Scrornuck grabbed Jape's arm and pointed to a crackling snake of violet energy that had followed them down the steps. “No time,” he said, hustling Jape to the roller coaster.

"You know I hate these things,” the Ranger protested, as Scrornuck strapped him into the lead car.

"Tough shit.” Scrornuck yanked the release lever and leaped headfirst for the train's rearmost car. “Hang on!"

The Black Dragon left the loading platform and plunged straight down, spiraling as it fell more than two thirds of the way to the tower's floor. Then it made a gut-wrenching turn, passed through three tight loops, and came within inches of the floor before heading back up. As the car rocketed upward, Scrornuck saw tendrils of purple lightning ripping holes in the ceiling. The ride flipped over and plunged downward, its steelwork screeching and clanging as the Orb's energies tore at its upper supports. Pieces of plaster and foam, some of them smoldering, peppered the coaster as it grazed the floor and shot upward.

A loud shriek, a hard bump—and for an instant the car was airborne. Scrornuck suffered a moment of near-panic before they landed on the track with a hard thud. This thing's a masterpiece, he thought, realizing that the free flight was part of the ride.

The train went over the top of a loop, upside down and only a few feet from the seething mass of lightning that tore at the track's upper supports. As the coaster began another stomach-churning dive, a huge chunk of steel truss collapsed, clanging against the ride's framework and missing the car by inches.

As the track dropped toward a steeply banked turn-and-loop before veering back upward, Scrornuck decided it was time to get off. He ripped up the car's plastic floor, hoping against hope that the Black Dragon would be one of the few coasters with emergency brakes built into the cars rather than the track.
There!
He found a cable, and yanked with all his strength. The wheels shrieked, sparks flew, and the train came to a halt at the bottom of the turn, tilted at an absurd angle, still twenty feet above the floor.

Scrornuck found Jape leaning over the side of the first car, upchucking violently. “Sorry,” he said between heaves. “I told you I hate these things.” As another huge chunk of steel crashed to the floor, Scrornuck threw Jape over his shoulder and jumped, landing so easily that he wondered if he even needed his boots.

He ran, four steps at a time, down the grand staircase to the lower level pavilion. Plastic tiles rained from the ceiling as he sprinted across the stage and down to the rubble-strewn floor. Moments later, as he reached the exit, the roller coaster's main support column crashed through the ceiling and obliterated the stage.

Scrornuck set Jape down, and they stepped cautiously from the chaos of the central tower into silence and near-darkness. The castle courtyard was littered with hundreds of bodies, the remains of Draggott's army, and a dozen or more thin strands of the Orb's lightning moved methodically among them as if looking for something. Scrornuck and Jape watched as one found its target, a body that looked more asleep than dead. The strand brightened and thickened, surrounding the body in a pale, cold blue fire. In seconds the dead man shriveled into little more than dust, and the strand snapped up into the darkness.

They crossed the peculiar graveyard in silence, stepping between the bodies, giving a wide berth to the searching strands. As they reached the second ring of towers, the last row of the dead, a strand dropped from above and touched Jape's shoulder. He jumped, and Scrornuck instinctively slashed off the end of the violet tendril with a clawed fingertip. He felt a shock as the remainder of the strand snapped back toward the Orb, and the cut-off part dissolved into powder. An instant later, the other strands snapped upward, and something near the top of the tower rumbled ominously.

"Run!” Jape cried. Scrornuck risked a look over his shoulder, and saw a brilliant blue-white column punch down from the Orb, straight into the great tower. For an instant, light shone from the many gaps and holes in the wall. Then the tower split open, top to bottom, and a sheet of violet flame blasted across the courtyard. Slowly, almost gracefully, the smaller towers toppled inward, their flying buttresses first falling, then writhing upward like snakes attempting to strike the source of their pain. Hundreds, perhaps thousands of lightning-bolts poured from the Orb, tearing at what remained of the castle. Scrornuck grabbed Jape and ran, leaping over the debris of the gate and sprinting toward the drawbridge, as a great explosion lifted the floor beneath them and threw them headlong into the moat.

Wet and dirty, they scrambled up the sandy embankment, into the bright light of early afternoon. The Orb floated at the middle of a great purple-black bruise in the sky, surrounded by crackling bolts of lightning. Strands of energy shot down from the Orb, blasted apart the castle's walls, and snapped back up like some kind of insane yo-yo.

"Well,” Scrornuck panted as they reached the skimmer, “what now?"

Jape unrolled the softscroll on the vehicle's fender and stared at the graphs and pictures. “I don't know—I think our weapons will just make it madder."

"Even this thing?” Scrornuck hoisted a shoulder-fired energy cannon.

"Even that.” Jape gazed intently at his rings—and stopped, whistling softly. “Would you look at that..."

"What?"

Jape held up the ring. It was still jet black—but at its very center a tiny spark of green flickered, surrounded by bands of blue and silver. “It almost looks like there's a fight going on in there..."

"A fight?” Scrornuck stared at the ring, and then gazed up at the Orb. “A fight!
She's still alive!"
Suddenly, he understood the meaning of the words that had come to him in response to his prayer:
Your battle's not finished yet.
Duty had called him to see Jape safely down from the tower, but now something far stronger called him to return. “Jape, I've got to get back up there!"

"How?"

"I—” Scrornuck realized he didn't know. Clenching and unclenching his fists, he stared at the Orb. Another bolt of violet lightning shot down, obliterated a tower in the Castle wall, and snapped back up. He stared, thought, stared again—and an idea formed, a thoroughly lunatic idea, but the only idea he had. He raised the energy cannon.

"That won't hurt it,” Jape said.

"Doesn't have to. I just have to get its attention."

Jape frowned. “You know you're probably going to get yourself killed."

Scrornuck nodded. “Do you have any better ideas?"

"No,” Jape admitted, “I don't have any ideas at all.” He patted Scrornuck's shoulder. “Good luck, Mister Saughblade."

"I'll need it.” Scrornuck centered the Orb in the crosshairs. “And just in case this doesn't work, the coffee's in the rear pocket of the secondary backpack. Now get your ass out of here!"

"Thanks. Take care of yourself, Mister Saughblade!” Jape fired up the skimmer's engine and took off as Scrornuck squeezed the trigger. A bolt of white energy rose from the weapon and blasted the side of the Orb, raising a ring of ripples. He squeezed the trigger a second time. “C'mon, notice me, you bastard..."

The Orb noticed, abandoning its attack on the castle. A single, immense violet-white bolt shot forth, straight at Scrornuck. He dropped the energy-cannon and extended Ol’ Red's blade to full length. “All right, bitch,” he shouted, “come to papa!"

The lightning hit like an avalanche, pounding him toward the ground, enveloping him in smoke and sparks. His muscles jerked involuntarily, his hair smoked, he hurt like he had never hurt before, his defiant battle-cry turned into a scream of agony—but he stood. Slowly, very slowly, he shifted his trembling fingers, and Ol’ Red's blade dissolved into a million microfibers that somehow hooked the lightning.

Scrornuck felt the lightning-bolt trying to snap upward. It tugged with increasing force as if bewildered, and finally pulled hard enough to lift him into the sky, into the blue-black darkness surrounding the Orb. The bolt swung furiously, playing crack-the-whip as if trying to flick him off. No way, he thought, you're not making me let go. Fighting the spasms that shot through his arms, he shifted his grip again, and some of the sword's fibers wrapped around his forearms, tying themselves to his elbow-spikes to help support his weight.

More lightning crackled from the Orb, scorching and shredding his kilt, tugging and pulling at his arms and legs, trying to make him lose his grip. His boots smoked and bubbled as the lightning tore at the hydraulic cylinders, his legs cramped and danced as though they had a mind of their own. He closed his eyes and repeated, over and over: “Hang on,
hang on, HANG ON!
"

He opened his eyes and stared in amazement—a dozen lightning-bolts had lifted a thirty-foot chunk of the tower's wall and sent it tumbling end-over-end, directly into his path. There was just enough time to think,
oh, shit, this is gonna hurt!
before he crashed face-first into the fake-stone surface. The impact cracked his ribs, smashed in his face, and burst his left eye. His grip loosened and Ol’ Red went spinning away into the darkness.

As he pulled his shattered face from the plastic-and-stucco wall, he found himself grinning—the tumbling chunk of castle wall was still rising, its momentum carrying him closer and closer to the Orb. He dug his claws into the pale yellow plastic and hung on, feeling his face creaking as the millions of microbots rebuilt it. Vision returned in his left eye as the chunk of wall reached the top of its trajectory. Using those wonderful dragon eyes, he gauged the distance—the leap would take all his microbot-enhanced strength, plus every last bit of spring the ailing boots could deliver. He planted his feet firmly on the fake stone, wiggled his toes, crouched, waited.
Now!
Boots sputtering, muscles straining, throat screaming an old Celtic battle-cry, he leaped.