The Beasts of Upton Puddle (43 page)

“What?” said Mrs. Merrynether. “The Conclave hate humans. Why would Gnauserous side with him?”

“I don't know, but whatever the reason is, Gnauserous will put up with Redwar only as long as she has to. She probably considers it much easier to take on one group than two at a time. Once she has finished us off, she will deal with Redwar. Then she will turn her attention to the rest of the world.”

“How long do we have?” Joe asked.

“They will most likely attack at dawn. I doubt she considers us much of a threat, but Gnauserous is not foolhardy. She will consider her strategy carefully.”

“So we have a few hours to prepare,” said Heinrich.

“Prepare?” said Mrs. Merrynether. “Prepare what? That last fight took all we had. If Gnauserous knew how few of us are left, I doubt she would bother to wait at all.”

“Mrs. Merrynether is accurate in her assessment,” said Kiyoshi. “We have only nineteen dragons, sixty-three wyverns, one hundred twenty trolls, and a handful of us left. The squonks may help, but that cannot be guaranteed. The enemy still commands thousands of dragons, several hundred trolls, and now they also have a small army of heavily armed human mercenaries.”

“So what do we do? How do we stop them?” Joe asked.

“Should we run? Try and warn the governments before they attack?” Heinrich suggested.

“It would take too long to convince the outside
world,” said Mrs. Merrynether. “And soon their numbers will be even greater when a new nest of dragons hatch later this year. Somehow we have to find a way to end all of this on the island, but I have no idea how.”

Joe looked at Danariel, a grave solution becoming painfully obvious to him, and he decided to put a voice to it before he was able to change his mind. “We have to kill Gnauserous. She's the one most determined to go to war, so without her, we might be able to change the Conclave's mind.”

Danariel stared at Joe, her angelic face expressing both grief and resignation. Silence fell, so strong, so tangible, Joe thought it would crush the noise of the celebrations behind them. With the death of her kin-tie, Joe had just offered Danariel a slow and lingering death.

“You'll need me to flush her out,” she said eventually, casually. “She may not come at all, but if she does, she won't be easy to find among so many dragons. I can help to pinpoint her, but it's all very risky. Even if we succeed, the Conclave might decide her death should be avenged.”

“But it's a better chance than no chance, right?”

The silence fell again, but this time Aunt Rose broke it. “I agree with Joe.”

Everyone looked at Mrs. Merrynether.

With terrible regret in her eyes, she was looking at Danariel. “Yes. It would seem to be our only choice. Heinrich? Do you agree?”

Heinrich gazed at his feet for the longest time before uttering the quietest of agreements.

“Then we're all agreed,” said Mrs. Merrynether, lifting her head slightly. “Gnauserous is our target.”

“It's the best chance we have,” Danariel said with a philosophical smile.

As the hour ended, the celebrations died away, replaced by growing solemnity as the dwindling army made preparations for the next battle. Heinrich had brought some provisions from the boat: first aid kits, grenades, land mines, explosives, but most important of all, two crates of cucumbers, which were given to Kiyoshi to replenish his cranial fluid.

The kappa set to work gobbling up as many as he could until he was fit to burst; then he forced more down until his tired monkey face had turned almost the same color as his amphibious limbs. While he ate, Heinrich siphoned kappa juice from Kiyoshi's cranial vent and sealed the potent liquid in tiny plastic bottles ready to feed those who would have to fight.

The trolls buried land mines at regular intervals along the edge of the gorge. Grenades were stacked in piles behind the cover of rocks, and Mrs. Merrynether used the first aid kits to patch up the wounded dragons and trolls. The night passed with grim wordlessness as they all went about their business, counting the cost of their fallen comrades as they buried the dead, hoping by some miracle they might somehow survive what was
expected to be another massacre.

As dawn's first light glistened gold across the mountaintops, Joe patted down the dirt around the last of his trip wires that would detonate a pack of explosives. He looked at the others, who appeared to feel the same as he did. All he wanted to do was curl up somewhere in a comfy bed and fall fast asleep for a year, but he knew that couldn't happen, especially not today. An old phrase came to mind that seemed appropriate—”I'll sleep when I'm dead.”

He smiled ruefully, knowing he was probably not alone in his thoughts, and then he saw Danariel, quiet and mournful as she sat cross-legged at the base of a burnt tree. The look on her face told him she was grieving over all the seraphim who had suffered the loss of their dragons and were now wilting before her in the hollow of the gnarly tree trunk. Joe imagined them bunched together, mourning over the loss of their dragons and beginning their slow journey toward death. Tabariel would be among them now, coming to terms with his own future, and he could see that Danariel was thinking she was already part of that heartbroken group.

Joe sat next to her.

She looked at him with a bright but unconvincing smile. “Hello, Joe. Everything ready?”

“I suppose so. There's not much else we can do.”

“No, I don't suppose there is.”

Joe stayed quiet, staring at her tiny face and admiring the perfectly formed features. The subtle glow pulsing across her skin reminded Joe of the calming patterns of a lava lamp he used to own. It was hard to believe a creature like this could ever die.

“How long will you have . . . if we manage to . . . you know, stop Gnauserous.”

She sighed, looking again at the seraphim Joe could not see. “Difficult to say. Some seraphim can carry on for scores of years before they pass away, but most die sooner.”

“I wish there was another way.”

“There isn't,” she said quickly. “Besides, everyone here must face death today. I'm no worse off than anyone else, and it may be that none of us survive this day.”

“Well, we'll soon find out,” said Mrs. Merrynether, who walked toward them. “Flarp has seen them coming.”

Flarp's warning of the Conclave's approach didn't prepare Joe for the sight over the mountains. As if to herald their coming, the rising sun seared the landscape in a blaze of deep yellow as it peeked over the snowy tips. In the sudden glare, a dark writhing mass spread in the sky like a splash of black ink in a pail of water. Then it shifted. Thousands of tiny dots, each one a powerful dragon, converged into the shape of one almighty dragon with wings outstretched and neck pulled back like a cobra about to strike. It was a deliberate show—an intimidating vision that sent a wave of ice from Joe's head to his feet.

“How long before they reach us?” Joe gulped.

“Twenty, maybe twenty-five minutes,” said Mrs. Merrynether grimly, “but they won't attack yet. The ground forces will strike first. They'll be sent in to soften us up, and then when that's over with, and if we're still
alive, they'll turn this whole area into an inferno.”

All Joe could do was nod. He couldn't take his eyes from the leviathan hovering in the distance.

“And there they are,” said Danariel, “right on schedule.”

On the other side of the gorge, two armies marched toward them, one from the east and the other from the west. Just as before, but in far greater number this time, an army of trolls lumbered between the trees on the eastern side. Some were naked apart from tiny loincloths; others were clad in leather armor festooned with chains and wore helmets decorated with crooked spikes. A smaller army came from the western side that looked much more familiar: men. A profound sadness came over Joe as he watched them surge forward, so eager to bring death and destruction, so proud of the weapons they carried. For a fleeting second, he could almost understand the Conclave's desire to destroy humanity.

“Get to cover,” yelled Heinrich.

“And keep our dragons and wyverns out of the way for now,” shouted Mrs. Merrynether. “We'll need them if those dragons decide to join in.”

Rocket-propelled grenades screamed across the gorge. They were far louder than Joe had expected, but in a way he was glad of the noise. It drowned out the sound of his own fearful cry as he ran. All but their own brave trolls headed for deeper cover within the woods. In less than a minute, they were safely hiding
behind rocky coverings and ledges they had identified earlier, and Joe peeped over the top of his rock, watching through showers of dirt the unfolding battle.

Half of the trolls, each having drunk a measure of Kiyoshi's kappa juice, leapt across the length of the gorge as if the chasm was a crack in a pavement. Two were knocked down into the gorge by rockets, but the rest made a rush for the army. Cheering erupted when some of the trolls managed to sweep aside five, then ten, then twenty of the mercenaries, but the celebration quickly stopped as they were gunned down by a line of camouflaged soldiers.

The rockets stopped, but Joe soon realized the barrage was a diversion so that bridges could be quickly placed across the gorge without any resistance. The larger trolls, hungry for war, stampeded like crazed bulls across to Joe's side. The ugly behemoths rushed forward unchecked, but there was no sense in running now. Joe had expected this. With a sudden spike of adrenaline, he gulped back a bottle of the kappa juice.

Two heavy explosions thundered out as a trip wire sent a bunch of the blue-skinned thugs sprawling. Overhead, Joe saw several grenades fly at more of them. A series of blasts echoed across the gorge as Joe waited for the flood of strength to take over his body; then he ran out to meet the rest of them, screaming his own defiance as he swung a troll's club around his head.

Heinrich ran alongside him, screaming too, and
Cornelius launched into the air, firing barbs.

One of the trolls actually turned and ran when he saw the trio come at him, but two others didn't, and Joe had to knock them aside.

A full forty minutes of chaos dominated that small part of the island as the battle took its course. There seemed to be no opportunity to locate Gnauserous among the dragons. All their time was taken up in staying alive. With casualties mounting on both sides, the fighting became more and more desperate.

Kiyoshi lay exhausted, almost unconscious and hidden inside an old tree trunk, unable to produce any more juice. Mrs. Merrynether and Aunt Rose did their best to get the wounded trolls to safety to be treated, but even Danariel with her soothing tones could offer no words of comfort for the failing troops. Joe could almost sense the despair. Even if they somehow survived the assault, this was just the first and easiest part of the Conclave's strategy. The real army was above them, a host of dragons brooding like angels of death.

“We need Snappel and the wyverns,” cried Joe, trembling with the exertion of wrestling a large troll to its knees and knocking it out. He was on his third bottle of kappa juice now, and the burning in his veins had become almost unbearable.

“We have to hold out,” said Mrs. Merrynether. “No!”

“Yes! We
can't
hold out any longer without help. We need the wyverns.”

Mrs. Merrynether shook her head and looked at the gorge.

The enemy trolls had beaten back most of their own, the trip mines were gone, and now the human army jogged across, searching out points of cover.

Joe saw the dejection in Mrs. Merrynether's eyes.

“We're beaten,” she said. “Beaten.”

“It isn't over till the fat lady sings,” said Aunt Rose, tightening a bandage on the knee of a wounded imp. “And I haven't sung a single note yet.”

Joe grinned, more out of pride than pleasure, but before he could add his own comment, a roar of water caused everyone to duck. A majestic wall of muddy liquid poured upwards from the gorge, twisting like the cords of a colossal water rope. It searched the air; then individual watery fingers lanced downwards on top of individual trolls, sweeping them away in a violent flood to the gorge.

“Squonks! They're back!” Joe whooped and clapped.

Mrs. Merrynether's face flinched into a smile.

At the same moment, another flood erupted from the depths of the gorge, but this one was very different. Joe thought some gargantuan machine had sprayed a stream of slime up onto the island, but soon he realized he had seen an invasion of individual gooey-green eyeballs shooting upward like mushy peas from a fire hose, jostling with each other in rampant excitement.

As the panicking enemy fled in confusion, the globbles, led
by Flarp, picked out their targets and attacked.

“Clever little fellow,” said Mrs. Merrynether. “So that's where he's been disappearing to. He started his own little rebellion and got all the globbles from the Tree of Sanctuary to come with him. They must have been hiding in the caves with the squonks.”