CHAPTER 24

SACRIFICE

The five aircrafts had moved steadily forwards into enemy territory and were flying over and around Clemson's castle when Skipper gave his squadron the final instructions for the attack.

"Okay, so I actually planned this attack with three aircrafts; now we've got five – even better. That means we can attack from several sides simultaneously," he explained, "Considering Flight Team Four's earlier report, our plan of attack is now the following: Flight Team Two, you head for the South Tower, distance 1500 feet from your current position. Flight Team Three, you head for the East Tower, distance 1200 feet, and Flight Team Four for the West Tower, distance 800 feet. Flight Team Five, since you are not properly equipped to dogfight in that bulky airship of yours, you'll keep your distance and watch surroundings to cover our tails. The rest of you, come in as close as you can – make sure you scare the hell out of them! Meanwhile I'll come up from the north side and look out for Ringtail and Maurice. Let's hope they've made it to that tower in the meantime… Remember, it is imperative that we do not open fire under any circumstances until they're out of the danger zone! As soon as I have them aboard, we'll finish bringing that castle down together. Does everyone copy?"

"Roger," the other Flight Teams answered before Mort and Seven could even sort out what exactly Skipper wanted them to do. The leader's plane swung close to the Maverick IV, wing to wing. "You too, Flight Team Four?"

"Uh… sure. It's just that, uh… This is sort of our first flight…"

"Yeah, so I noticed. Look, you guys needn't fight on the front line. Just take your position and try not to die, alright?" – Seven and Mort made eye contact, just a glance, and exchanged a curt nod, acknowledging the challenge. Then the fight was on again.

Mort watched in awe as Kowalski and Private pushed the Maverick II through a series of loops and rolls, climbing high into the cloudless sky, then plunging back toward the ground, effectively shaking off a pack of Harpies on their tail. He also watched as Skipper, flying like a madman, jerked back on the control stick, did a half roll and then pulled right aileron and hard right rudder, skidding his plane into a right turn that no one would have thought possible in an aircraft that once had been a toy plane.

There was no way they could fly like this.

Neither could Karl, but at least he was equipped with the best weapons – while his airship wasn't fast, it could carry incomparably more heavy weaponry than the whole rest of their little squadron. The Harpies didn't even dare to approach him. More and more of them were coming in – there was death up here, screaming and attacking and soaring in every direction, and suddenly Mort felt small and forlorn.

Seven's voice cut into his thoughts. "Mort, do you really want to stay with me even though I've been such an evil witch? You don't have to do this, you know; I can just put you down. It's not for you to atone for my mistakes!"

Mort pushed his fear to the back of his mind and forced himself to dredge up his courage and give her a reassuring nod. "I want to stay with you, Seven. You're not an evil witch anymore now. You're my friend – and friends are supposed to stick together in situations like this."

"Thank you." Her smile was dazzling, her face bright with undisguised glee. His answer seemed to have a noticeable effect on her; immediately she looked a lot calmer. Maybe that little support was all she'd needed, and Mort was happy to have given it to her. She jerked the wheel to the left – heading straight into the fight.

Soon they were flying at the top of their speed; Mort's eyes itched fiercely behind the glass of his goggles. He wiped a finger across both lenses, but it didn't help much to clear his sight. With Skipper shouting instructions from his readouts, the battle closed in rapidly, and all five aircrafts were now hard at it, circling and dodging and supporting each other the best they could.

"Two bogeys, five o'clock low, Kowalski." – That was Clover's voice, coming in loud and strong. "Reverse right!" – Just as her words rang out, the Maverick II was already caught in what seemed a red storm of hail and lightning. Two Harpies swept down on the plane – Kowalski and Private dove. The Harpies stayed on them. They streaked across the sky, low, skimming the surface of the Indian Ocean.

"Still on your six, coming at you like a bat out of hell! Bug out! Bug out!"

More bolts of destructive energy flew past them from the Harpies that were hot in pursuit. Kowalski pulled a hard left, then a vertical, straight up.

"We can't shake them off!" Private cried, his voice sounding slightly panicked. The two penguins were putting the Maverick II through some fancy paces now, owning the sky at several hundred knots and turning square corners, but when they came out of the maneuver and looked around, the two Harpies were still right at them.

"Wait, I'll cover you." Skipper steered the Maverick I closer to the Harpies, jerking left, right, twisting and turning, coming in on the demons from behind, no matter how hard they tried to evade and break away. For a long breathless moment they kept streaking around the sky at an insane speed, testing and taunting each other, each refusing to back down… until Skipper had his missiles locked on them. When they realized this, both Harpies abruptly dipped their wings and peeled off in a dive that took them into the cloud cover and away.

"Bogeys turning away," Private reported with obvious relief in his voice.

However, not far behind the Maverick II another Harpy shot down like an arrow at his other brother's already damaged plane. Rico and Clover pulled up at once and slammed right into the demon – it shrieked with pain but didn't drop. With all the strength it had left, it kept clinging to the wing of the Maverick III, all wet feathers and bloody breath. It continued to tear at the structure of the wing, trying to rip it loose from the previously fractured hull.

"Bottoms up!" they heard Clover yell as Rico tipped the plane upside down, trying to dislodge the demon's claws. The creature wrenched backward onto the nose of the plane but still refused to let go. They were hurtling nose first toward the solid rock face of a cliff nearby when, mere seconds before smashing into its unforgiving surface, the Harpy finally retracted its claws and swooped back up into the sky. Rico barely managed to whip the plane around in a tight turn to avoid the collision. The engines howled like a sick animal, straining desperately.

Slowly they kept fighting their way ahead through the hostile swarm, finally managing to move into their destined positions.

All four jets were now positioned facing the castle's towers while Karl and Chauncey's airship hovered in their periphery, keeping their tails covered.

The balloon of the airship had been perforated several times and the Maverick II and III, too, were heavily damaged and full of flak holes caused by the Harpies' attacks. Clover and Rico struggled to keep their plane airborne as they were closing in on the East Tower. Coming in parallel to them were Mort and Seven in the Maverick IV, directly approaching the South Tower, just as planned. The Maverick IV was the only aircraft that had received barely a scratch so far, since Mort and Seven had wisely stayed as far away from the enemy as possible and left the more intense part of the dogfighting to the professionals.

Now their eyes were following the sweeps of their radar. Three tiny red dots were positioned around the target circle in the center, one a little further off, and one single dot was flashing towards it from the upper fringe of the screen as the penguin leader approached the castle from the north side.

"We're in position, Skipper," they heard the penguin team's second-in-command report.

When they looked down at the castle again, they saw another swarm of Harpies charging out from all sides – like a swarm of bees coming out of a hive, the demons were pouring out of the building in malicious flocks.

"I'm coming in," Skipper replied, "Keep those monsters busy."

But that was just the problem – they were already too close for new counterattacks.

Now that they were forced to hold position in order to target the towers, they were practically defenseless: if they fired away now, their rockets wouldn't only hit the incoming demons but also the castle itself and without doubt destroy it right away. They couldn't veer off to aim at the demons from a greater distance without losing their target; neither could they open fire now as long as Julien and Maurice were still in there.

All they could do right now was watch as Clemson's servants came closer and closer – they were trapped like defenseless prey by a pack of furious fossa.

"Any sign of the missing lemurs?" Kowalski asked, trying not to sound too concerned and failing miserably. Everyone had realized the seriousness of the situation, and the sight of the rapidly approaching enemy frayed their nerves right to the very edge. They listened to the transmission with bated breath now, settling their paws and flippers on the sticks, letting their thumbs hover over the fire buttons.

"No, unfortunately I –." – Another moment of crackling radio silence. – "Wait, yeah, I'm getting a visual now! I see them! I see them right there! And Clemson, too – Hoover Dam, he's hard on their heels!"

Mort and Seven exchanged a terrified glance.

"Have Julien and Maurice cleared the danger zone?"

"No, not yet. But they're on their way – heading for the tower now; they're almost there."

They needed to take the castle down now to keep the Harpies from coming in – or the Harpies would take them down.

"Hurry and pick them up, Skipper. We need to open fire – bogeys are getting too close! We're on condition red. Repeat, condition red!"

"Hold position. I'm circling the tower now; they're coming up. Almost there. Don't fire until I give the order!"

The Harpies were so close now that they could see them clearly, their crooked, razor-sharp teeth flashing, their faces distorted into twisted, horrible masks of savage hatred.

"Any time now, Skipper," Kowalski urged, and Mort's heart twisted at the panic they could hear stark in his voice, even muted and scratchy over the radio.

"Not yet, give them a second!"

Sounds of rushing air vibrated against the hulls around them – the demonic creatures were up close, preparing to deliver their fiery assaults again.

"Skipper, we can't hold out much longer! New bogeys coming in and fast –!"

"I know. Wait!"

The beasts raised their paws, forming red balls of energy in their palms – they were so close now that even over the engine noise they could hear the crackle of the deadly current.

Seconds ticked by. Maybe minutes. It felt like forever.

Mort couldn't take it anymore. He closed his eyes.

– "Fire."

Julien and Maurice ran up and up but seemed to come no nearer the top. For one irrational moment it seemed to Maurice as if the staircase was a trap – it was never going to end, it was going to keep them in the twist until Clemson would finally manage to catch up with them and finish them off.

But he didn't.

When it seemed as though neither his legs nor his lungs would hold out for one more step, they'd finally reached the very top of the tower – a large viewing platform surrounded by the battlement wall. And when they stumbled out on the platform, Skipper was there – the sun glancing on her back, the Maverick I was cruising around the tower in a beautiful Lufbery circle, just waiting for two additional passengers to join the flight.

Maintaining low altitude, the penguin leader opened the Plexiglas canopy and waved at the two lemurs. "Jump!" he yelled over to them as he came in on the tower, close enough they could have hit the plane's hull if they'd thrown a rock straight at it, "Now!"

And they did – Maurice put on a final burst of speed and leapt off the edge of the platform, arms outstretched, curling his toes for extra lift. For a moment, he hung there, suspended in time and space – then gravity grabbed him, yanked him down. He screamed as the winds tore at him. For a moment he thought his flailing legs would never find shelter –

But then he hit down hard in the Maverick I's cockpit right next to Skipper, causing the passenger seat to split in two. His foot got trapped amidst a tangle of bent metal, a long splinter of wood from the wrecked seat back jutting into his calf – but he was safe.

Grimacing and spluttering, he pulled himself up instantly, gazing back – only to see Julien jump off right behind him with outstretched arms, wide, staring eyes, and a silent scream on his lips… not far enough.

For a moment he heard Julien scream, but then his voice was ripped away by the deafening winds. Without conscious thought Maurice scrambled forth and unhesitatingly flung himself over the edge of the cockpit, reaching out as far as he could – down below, stretched to his full length, his fingers clinging to the heavy structure of the landing gear, the lemur king was holding on for dear life.

"Julien!" Their paws met – clung. The younger lemur's fingers dug into Maurice's as he clawed his way up headfirst, and Skipper was there to help pull him up, but just then a sinister flock of Harpies came up right beside them, snapping and biting at both wings of their plane. Their flyby rocked them with a blur of shadow and noise – Skipper pulled the stick back, and they shot up as they heard the crackling of energy bolts pass under the fuselage. He had to keep both flippers on the steering lever now or else they knew they'd be dead seconds later.

"Pull him up and get him in here," he yelled over his shoulder, "Come on, Maurice!"

He went into a hard evasive maneuver, turning directly towards the ground, flipping upside down and trying to circle into a reverse direction to escape – Maurice tried his best not to fall out while clinging to Julien's paws at the same time. However, the centrifugal forces threatened to pull them apart any second – tears were streaming down Maurice's cheeks as he screamed against the wind, his voice angry and desperate.

"I can't! I can't make it!"

"Damn it, Maurice! Try!" Sweat trickled its way across Skipper's face as he pushed the Maverick I for all she'd got, leaning into the windshield, flippers firmly glued to the steering lever, eyes peeled open. Maurice watched as Julien pushed his foot into the side of the landing gear; for a moment his feet seemed to find rest and Maurice felt the strain on his arms lessen.

Meanwhile the other Flight Teams made their moves: a deafening screech split the air just before a fusillade of small rockets slammed into the South, East, and West Tower about two-thirds of the way up their sides. All three towers instantly burst into billowing fireballs, flaming meteors that spewed out over a considerable distance. The entire castle shuddered violently and tottered, belching a great plume of smoke.

The North Tower they had just jumped off, however, was still standing – finally managing to shake off the Harpies, they roared past it again in a wide arc. And down below on the platform, his slender figure bathed in the sun's golden glow, a red lemur was now watching their struggle… the gun in his paw pointed at them, the barrel tracking their movements with fluid ease.

An inarticulate cry of horror froze upon Maurice's lips.

What happened next was so fast he didn't know what to do. Just as Julien was almost within his grasp, the space where his feet were resting crumbled away and then his terrible scream pierced through the air, a streak of light illuminating his frightened face as Maurice saw him plummet down into the depth, his body tumbling and twisting through the mind-numbing cold air.

"Julien! No –!"

An inchoate cry tore through Maurice's throat. At the same time the aircraft began rattling uncontrollably – all of a sudden it was hot in the cockpit, as if the jet itself was emitting heat. The dashboard was beeping furiously, blinking red lights under the control panel of the landing gear signaling system failure error.

"Sweet Mother Macarthur!" Skipper cursed, "That bastard! That freaking, miserable little bastard! – All Flight Teams, hold your fire!" he yelled into the radio before the others could continue their destructive work, "We've lost Ringtail!" – He turned around, lowering his voice. "Maurice, I'm so sorry…!"

But the older lemur barely heard him. His mind was elsewhere, his gaze frantically flying from right to left as he leaned over the side of the cockpit, searching the ground down below. He couldn't believe it. He couldn't. Julien had to be alive –!

Then something moved into his view, and he could no longer see the ground – Clemson's servants were back, dozens of them circling the jet again with shrill moans and cackling, mocking laughter, their faces elongated with mouths agape.

"Buttermilk biscuits!" Skipper cursed as he grasped the stick hard and took the plane straight up into a vertical climb. Frigid air blasted at them. The Maverick I cut trails into the sky, but two of the demons stayed close on her tail. Skipper pushed the throttle forward, kicking the rudder and whipping the stick, making the plane dive again with a turning roll. He showed every trick he could pull out of the Maverick I: hard right, then hard left, rolling into vertical, flapping into a dive. But no matter what he did, they stayed with them.

There was no escape – droves of Harpies converged onto their plane, their dark fur whipping around as the winds whirled, their screeches and screams deafening them. Skipper pushed the throttle all the way forward, full afterburner – the engines howled as they jumped into overdrive. Maurice squeezed his eyes shut and clasped his paws before his face, convinced they'd blow up any second –

And then it was over. All of a sudden the Harpies vanished into a luminescent mass of churning mist and vicious claws. Only moments later, the cloud dispersed into dozens of howling forms, and then their ghastly shrieks faded – in a matter of seconds every demon up there was gone. Nothing was left but the beautiful dawn; a rosy-colored sky edging its way to blue brightened above their heads. Silence enveloped the jungle once more, with the exception of the engine noises of their planes.

"What in the name of pickled schnauzers?!" Skipper breathlessly uttered into his microphone.

For a moment there was only silence on the line, but then they heard Seven's voice, distorted but undeniably her: "He made it! He made it!" They could hear her and Mort's gleeful laughter over the radio. "Look, everyone – Faraday made it; he took them away, he undid my last spell in Clemson's services! Now those demons can't harm us anymore. They won't harm anyone ever again; they'll never come back to this world!" – Stunned silence followed her words for a moment.– "Farewell, King Julien I… Now it's all over!"

"Hooray!" Mort squealed behind her in the background, his voice high and happy, and then relieved laughter followed on all the radios.

"Well, finally!" Clover muttered, "I was beginning to wonder if we'd actually survive this!"

"Well, that's really good news," Karl replied, "Because we just ran out of ammo." From behind him Chauncey gave a confirming hiss.

"So did we," Kowalski added, "Besides all that gyrating and swooping used up our fuel twice as fast."

In the background Private also had some more bad news: "Kowalski, check our undercarriage! I'm sure I felt one of those monsters get too close before we got it…"

"Damn, you're right. Skipper, we really can't stay aloft much longer. We've got to land in about five minutes if we're going to land at all!" Indeed the rest of them could see huge clouds of black smoke pouring from the tail section of the Maverick II.

"Roger that," Skipper confirmed, "Let's bug out of here, get these babies down in a hurry and then look for Ringtail –."

"I see him!" – Just then Maurice grasped the penguin leader's flipper so tight it hurt, and Skipper turned away from the radio, the rest of his transmission suddenly forgotten. "I see him, Skipper, look! He's alive! He's down in the castle's moat!"

Skipper leaned over the edge of the cockpit and peered down. In the moat around the ruins of the destroyed castle he could see Julien, alive and well…

But he wasn't alone. Just as Skipper was gazing down, another lemur climbed into the moat and began approaching Julien, slowly, steadily.

Skipper's eyes narrowed, his expression growing dark. Very dark. "So is Clemson."

Julien stood frozen, mesmerized. What felt like minutes ticked by, though it might have been seconds. The adrenaline coursing through him skewed his sense of time.

Clemson tightened his grip on the gun in his paw, his thumb automatically going to the hammer, his forefinger gently hooking itself around the trigger.

Julien waited for that slender finger to pull it, for the convulsive jerk that would bring out the gleaming bullet, the explosion, the spurt of smoke – and he, lurching forward, falling face first onto the stony ground. Sweat was dripping off him in layers, and his breath hitched in and out of him as he tried to keep himself from crying while panic threw its arms around him and wouldn't let go.

But then the red lemur lowered the gun again, a smirk barely breaking the line of his lips. Julien guessed he wanted to prolong the enjoyment he derived from this delicious moment of victory.

"Well, here we are, Julie." Clemson spoke slowly, dragging out every word, savoring every second of the panic he was inflicting upon his arch foe. "And once again it's either you or me. It's always been this way, from the very first day we met back in the Central Park Zoo. And now I've got you… Finally, after all this time!"

Julien could feel his heart leap into a frantic staccato as claws of panic curled into him, twisting his stomach. "And then what?" he asked, surprised to hear his own voice. The words tumbled out before he could think about them.

Clemson frowned. "What do you mean?"

"You'll kill me, and then what?" Julien swallowed hard; his throat was dry like sandpaper, his lungs heavy. "You already have my crown and my island – what will killing me accomplish?"

"Everything." Clemson's eyes slid to his face, and the silver lemur quailed beneath the look in them. "You are my arch nemesis, Julien. Killing you will fulfill my one and only true purpose in life." A joyless smile came to Clemson's face and Julien gazed back into his madly sparkling eyes, thinking that if he looked into them too long, he would surely go insane, but he did it, knowing he couldn't look away.

"But I can't believe this! Don't you see? This won't solve anything!" He didn't even know how he mustered the courage to raise his voice. "This… is not what you want… Deny it all you want, to yourself, to the rest of the world – but being king is not the thing you wished for most. It's something else, something much more important…"

Julien took a step forward, his heart like a stone in his chest at the way Clemson was staring at him. He was dancing on a wire, and he didn't know how much longer he could keep himself from falling. His voice dropped to a hoarse whisper as he added, "All you ever wanted… was to be loved. Wasn't it!"

The red lemur's face hardened suddenly and his eyes went cold. He shoved the gun in the air toward him again, his paw gripping the handle so tight his knuckles under the red fur turned white. "Shut up."

And then he fired, twice.

The first shot ripped into Julien's shoulder. The second one smashed into his leg. Blood spurted from the wounds, drenching his fur. Julien stumbled back, gritting his teeth and crying out in pain – how he still managed to stay on his feet, he didn't know.

"You killed my dreams first, Julien. And the only thing that kept me going all these years was my burning thirst for revenge!" Clemson stared back at him, sparks of vivid anger flaring in his eyes now. "You killed me. Hoboken killed me. Seven killed me. And yet I'm still standing here… yet I'm the one who is about to finish you off now – to finally send you to hell, where you belong!"

Julien straightened himself up again with willpower he didn't know he possessed. Blood was running down his arm and thigh; he brought his trembling paw up to touch the wound on his shoulder, wiping the glutinous substance from his silver fur, thick rivulets of it staining his fingers.

"I wasn't the one who killed your dreams, and you know this. You are the one who's insane, Clemson – you did this all to yourself! You knew these dreams were poisonous and deadly, hopeless beyond all bounds! But you were too proud to give them up, too obsessed with them to ever let go. You held on too tight and ended up empty-pawed. And now you're lost – because you can't make things right, can't get away from yourself… from the irrevocable choice you made. Facing Seven fail to get you what you wanted – it was like facing your own failure, over and over again. But now it's too late to regret this."

Every muscle in the red lemur's face focused with intent as he stared back at Julien. Suddenly his paws were visibly shaking; he moved his fingers slightly, getting a better grip on the gun. "No." His voice had dropped almost to a whisper. "No, that's not true…"

"Yes, it is! Because the only one who ever meant anything to you was the one you chose to sacrifice in order to fulfill these dreams. And you just couldn't live with yourself with that decision, knowing that your best friend had to die because of your own twisted sense of pride. You always have to have things your way, Clemson, or not at all. But you can't sow bitter seeds and pray for a harvest of sweetness… it was just a matter of time until your restless quest for power would become an obsession that would take you to any extreme – even death." Paws still raised, Julien took a tiny step ahead toward the red lemur. Even though, of the two of them, he was the one who was armed, Clemson began moving backward. At that moment Julien saw a million things flash in his emerald eyes, and then something broke behind them.

"Shut up!"

Clemson shot again. The bullet hit Julien's stomach dead center. His vision churned, and the taste of blood flooded his mouth, threatened to gag him. He could feel it running down the back of his throat, coating his tongue. He swallowed it. Held himself still. Enduring. Trying to keep his voice unaffected.

"After we'd gotten away from Hoboken, after you'd escaped into the Sahara, you could have had it all…," he murmured, a gush of meaty blood pouring out over his bottom lip, "Freedom… a love to last a lifetime. Why would you even need my kingdom when you already had one that was so much bigger, that could have offered you so much more? Why did you choose to sacrifice it? Why?" Clutching his midsection, he bent over, gasping and spitting blood, the words clawing their way out between coughs. – "It was a useless decision… so damn useless!"

When he looked up again he saw the muzzle of Clemson's gun hovering only inches away from his face. He had no idea where he found the strength to raise himself up again, to rise like a wraith before his foe, soaking and bleeding and sweating.

– "…Because killing me is not going to give you what you wish for most." Thick rivulets of blood were dripping from the edge of Julien's chin as his arch foe's image began to blur before his eyes. He felt himself growing weaker, felt the life drain from his body with each second; he was about to faint, and he fought it. "– It's love. Love. That's why you dreamed of becoming king in the first place – because you wanted to be loved by your people, not because you wanted power over them. But when you couldn't fulfill this dream, you became bitter towards life and began taking your frustration out on everyone. Your disappointment soon turned into a destructive greed for vengeance, for power over those you've been wronged by. That's why from the moment the throne was yours, you ruled over this island as a miserable, reckless, blood-thirsty tyrant. But you're missing a crucial part of the whole issue… You can force your subjects to obey you. You can force them to die for you. But you can never force them to love you."

Julien tried to continue but only coughed violently, retching. "The only one who ever loved you with all his heart – no matter if it was a real heart or not – was your own creation," he finally ground out, his voice sharp with pain, his breath raspy, "But despite the fact that you relished being loved by him like you probably haven't relished anything else, you never thought about returning that love – all you ever loved and cared about was yourself. And that's why you sacrificed him, and he willingly went along with it to make you happy – even at the cost of his life."

Another coughing fit hit him. Big droplets of blood sprayed the ground around him.

– "If you think about this just for a moment, you'll realize that I'm right – and that shooting me now won't change or undo anything. It won't bring you back what you're missing… It won't bring him back to you, or bring you to his side."

Julien was on his knees now, bracing himself on his paws, digging his fingers into the dirt. He couldn't take more than that – the next shot would finish him off for good.

So he had lost, he thought. But at least he had said everything that needed to be said.

For a long time nothing happened. The pain in his stomach was becoming unbearable; he almost wished that Clemson would just hurry and get it over with.

But then, awfully slowly, the red lemur lowered the gun.

"You're right," he answered, his voice strangely calm and steady. "Nothing ever will."

Julien raised his head a little, squinting up at him through the white-hot blur of pain.

– "Except this."

And Clemson raised the gun to his own temple and pulled the trigger.