Disclaimer: Not mine, not making any money. I'm just playing.
Shadow Puppets
Chapter 26
Lula fidgeted constantly as they walked into the village. It was obvious that something was bothering her.
"Edna, did you have to put so much green stuff in my hair?" she asked. "People are lookin'. They're probably wonderin' what the funky smell is."
Morelli looked around. "They always look at us when we go into the villages. Doesn't feel any different to me."
"Yeah? Well I sure as hell feel different. I feel like the Swamp Thing. This shade of green don't suit my skin tone. And another thing–"
"You look beautiful," Tank interrupted.
She beamed. "Thank you, baby."
"Now can you shut up and let me think?"
Morelli winced. Tank was going to pay for that one. He saw Lester wince too out of the corner of his eye.
Lula stopped and put a hand on her hip. "Excuse me? Did I just hear right? Did you just tell me to shut up? Do you wanna know what I think of that?"
Lester took a step closer to Morelli as Lula told Tank exactly what she thought of that and murmured in his ear, "Her head's starting to wag. It's going to be a good one."
Morelli fought back a laugh. "Shh, don't attract her attention."
"Man, no power on earth could make me step into the firing line. Look at Tank's face."
Morelli sneaked a look. "Yep. He knows. Last time I saw a face like that my dad had insulted my grandma's cooking."
"Yeah, I remember your grandma. I can believe that one."
They stopped when they realized that Lula's tirade had stopped too. Lula was glaring at them.
"You two got somethin' to say?"
"Nope. Not me," Lester said cheerfully. "Talking about Morelli's grandma. What's up, Lula?"
Tank's face said that he wasn't fooled for a second, and that Lester would be hearing about this later.
A shout from across the square prevented them from finding out if Lula bought it. Berin ran across to meet them.
"Finally. I have a cart waiting for you, and we think we know where she is. They're going to wait until we get there before moving in."
"We might not need to find her," Morelli said. "We might have another way."
"Tell Garrick when we catch him up. Right now, come with me. We can get there tonight if we move fast."
* * *
Lula staggered down from the cart at the side of the track and groaned. "Damn, that was nasty. My ass is killing me. How do you people sit in those things for so long?"
Berin shrugged. "Mostly we ride. The carts are for other things."
Lester swung down on stiff legs and stretched before lifting the children out. "Look at it this way, it beat walking. Just about."
"I have the ointment if it's really bad," Edna said as she waited to be lifted out as well. "Does anybody need any help?"
"Nope, not me," Lester answered hurriedly. "I'm fine."
Edna winked at Morelli over Lester's shoulder as he lifted her down and Morelli bit back a smile as he dismounted from Ami and joined them on the ground.
Tank got down from the front bench of the cart and looked around. "I don't see the warband. Where are they?"
Berin pointed up a shallow rise to where a pine forest loomed above them, dark and dense. "This is as far as we can take the cart. We'll take the horses and leave the cart here. The place that we're heading for is about three miles into the forest. Follow me."
They left the sunshine behind and followed Berin into the shadow of the trees.
They walked into a quiet camp. A few of the men looked up and waved from around the fire but there were no dice games and no laughter. Even the horses were quiet. The sense of fear was palpable.
Garrick raised a hand and walked over to meet them.
"Why so quiet?" Morelli asked as he dismounted.
"You'll see in the morning. There's not enough time before dark to show you tonight." Garrick looked around for Edna. "Mrs Mazur, do you still have your medicine? I have an injured man, his horse too."
Edna nodded. "I do."
"Then follow me. The rest of you might want to see this too. Leave the children and the horses with Berin."
He led them to where Gareth was huddled in a woolen blanket by the fire. "Show them," he said.
Gareth lifted the end of the blanket and extended his legs.
Lula sucked in a breath and Lester muttered, "Jesus," under his breath.
Yellowish fluid oozed from deep scratches that grooved around both his legs from the knee to the hip. The skin around them was reddened and puffy and he sat very still, in obvious pain.
"They got my horse too," he said. "Can you help him?"
"Edna?" Morelli asked.
She nodded. "It should work. I'll see to him after you."
"No." The boy shook his head. "I can wait. He's really hurt."
Morelli put his hand out. "Give me some of the stuff, Edna. I'll see to the horse."
Edna passed him a plastic bag.
"Show me the horse," he said to Garrick. "Edna can deal with Gareth."
Garrick nodded and took him over to the pickets where the horses were.
Ami whickered a greeting. The black horse next to her didn't. It stood unmoving with its head lowered, shivering.
"Oh my God," Morelli said.
Garrick nodded, his face grim. "You see why we were waiting for you."
The horse's injuries were far worse than the rider's. Its legs were lacerated and bloody. Spatters of blood pocked the dirt where it stood.
"What the hell did this?"
"Plants. I'll show you tomorrow. Now, I'll hold his head if you can put that on. Can you do it or shall I call one of the boys?"
Garrick took a firm hold of the horse's reins and lifted one of his forelegs up by the hoof, holding it off the ground. "You should be safe to do it now."
"Why?"
"He can't kick you without losing his balance. You don't want a kick to the head while you're treating him."
"Would he try?"
"He's hurting. Now get that stuff on him while we have enough light to see him."
Morelli got to work.
* * *
"You think you're really something, don't you," Stephanie said as she watched the witch puttering around the gingerbread cottage lighting the lamps.
The witch put a kettle on a stove that looked more like cast iron than the cake and candy that the rest of the furniture was made of. Everything but the cage, that was.
"You're so impressed with yourself that you don't even care that Ranger hasn't woken up since you took us at the apartment," Stephanie went on.
"It would be a shame to break up the set, but not the end of the world. After all," the witch waved a hand at the fragrant sponge of the walls, "this was all about the inside of your mind, not his."
"You need to stay outside of my head, bitch."
The witch sat on a chair that looked suspiciously like chocolate with a sponge cake seat and put a cup on the small table. "Biscuits. Now what did I make with biscuits?" She looked up. "Ah yes, roof tiles."
She went outside and returned with two cookies. "Would you like a cup of tea?"
Stephanie glared from the cage. "Very funny."
"Some things are just habit." She found a plate for the cookies and sat back down. "It's rather hard to stay out of your heads. It's so interesting. So many strange things. I couldn't believe all the things I saw in poor Bella's."
"You keep saying that. Why poor Bella?"
"Because everything comes with a price. Poor Bella," she said in a mocking, sing-song tone. "Such pride. Pride in herself. Pride in her feeble power. And most of all, pride in her beautiful grandson. Such a good boy. So handsome, so strong, so dedicated. She wished so hard, I felt it here. She'd do anything to make her beautiful boy happy and hurt his betrayers. What better price to claim for her borrowed vengeance than him? He's ours now."
She smiled happily, and suddenly she would have passed for anyone's warm, cozy grandmother. "I'm rather proud of this one. It might even be my best work yet, do you think? It lacks grandeur, certainly, but it has an… elegance to it. And it's so much fun playing in your world. The things in your minds: talking toys, machines that fly and light with no fire. You come from a very strange place, I can tell you."
Stephanie shook her head. "You're nuts. And you need to get over yourself. Joe is going to be first in line to kick your ass when he gets here. And I'm going to be second."
* * *
The field of desiccated giant thistles stretched out in front of them like a jagged sea of bone in the morning sunlight, each of them as tall as a man.
"They look dead," Morelli said to the field at large.
"They're anything but. Watch." Garrick signaled to Savin, who picked up a branch lying on the ground at the edge of the trees. He threw it a short distance into the thistles.
The branch arced up into the air and fell toward the thistles. As it reached them the skeletal plants erupted into a frenzy of lashing limbs, snatching it out of the air. It disappeared without a trace and the plants stilled.
"The villagers told us about them when we rode in," Garrick said. "They came in to cut wood and found them. They weren't here the week before. Gareth rode his horse too close yesterday and those things grabbed at the poor beast's legs and ripped them to shreds. Gareth came off as it tried to get away and they got him too."
"Dear God."
Garrick nodded. "I'm willing to bet that what we want is in there somewhere."
"Is there any way past them?" Tank asked.
"No. It's the same all the way round."
"Have you tried burning them?"
"Not yet. We wanted to wait for you before we attacked."
"We haven't got anything for this," Tank said, squinting into the thistle-sea. "We weren't expecting killer plants when we outfitted."
"What we need is about a thousand gallons of weedkiller," Lester said.
Tank shrugged. "We'll just have to do it the old-fashioned way. Let's get a fire going."
* * *
They gathered around the fire, the Trenton team and the warband both. Edna and Lula watched with the children from a safe distance.
Garrick lifted a long branch from a heap next to the fire and held it in the flames until it smouldered and caught. He met Tank's eyes and the two of them moved to the nearest thistle. It rattled its branches, dry and threatening. Garrick held the burning branch to the base of the plant. The fire took hold quickly and licked along the dry branches. It twitched and rattled as it burned.
Lester had just exchanged a high five with Morelli when the thistle froze, unmoving. At the same time the flames flickered blue and died.
They watched for a moment, waiting for something to happen. Nothing did. Garrick poked the stem with the branch and it rattled and swished, as alive as ever.
Tank shook his head. "It was never going to be that easy. Let's try something else. Light another one then I'll take over."
Garrick put the burning branch to the next plant and it exploded into life, slashing at the invader with an angry hiss of dust-dry leaves. Garrick fought to keep the branch steady until the flames caught.
The flames raced along the tinder-dry branches, which thrashed before stopping motionless the way the first one had done.
In that moment Tank stepped in with one of the machetes and struck hard at the base. The plant slashed a branch at him, galvanized by his presence, and blood seeped through a jagged rent in his sleeve. He ignored it and struck again. The plant fell to the ground and continued to burn there. The other plants leaned away from the flames as fire consumed the corpse.
Morelli nodded to Lester and took a branch. They moved to the thistle next to the remains of the fallen one. As if it knew what they planned it erupted into a frenzy of motion. They ignored it and Morelli fired the plant the same way that Garrick had done. Lester waited for the burning plant to still before hacking it to the ground. Unlike Tank, he escaped without injury.
Garrick nodded with satisfaction and turned to the warband. "In pairs. One burns, one cuts. Anyone free stays back to help the women guard the children in case she turns up. We go in as a wedge. Stay clear as much as possible."
The warband nodded. They didn't need to be told that last part.
They worked their way in gradually, hacking a wedge into the thistles and gradually opening up a path. Lula and Edna took it in turns to rake the twitching corpses clear, making sure that one person was always free to guard the children. A pile of charred plant debris grew up at the edge of the field and an uneasy rustle spread across the field.
The live thistles on either side of the passage lashed their branches into the gap trying to reach the invaders. Now and then one would have a longer reach than expected; more than one of the men had tears in his clothes and bloody flowers blooming on his skin. The leather that Morelli and the warband wore did better than Tank and Lester's Trenton clothing.
The heat was intense as they penetrated the field. A pall of gray smoke hung over them making them cough and choke.
Morelli felt the sweat trickling down his back underneath his leather jerkin but didn't dare remove it with the thistles straining to reach him. The others looked tired and sweaty too. Lula hung back in the cleared area with the children, trying to keep close enough to the warband for safety but keeping them away from the worst of the smoke.
He was preparing to attack another plant when Edna tapped him on the shoulder. He accepted the cup of water she offered with relief, drinking half of it and pouring the rest over his head. The sudden cool on his face was bliss.
Edna stared towards the point of the wedge where Berin and a short blonde warrior were hacking a thistle to the ground as it grabbed at their faces.
"She's close," Edna said.
"Ash?"
Edna nodded. "I can feel her. We're nearly there. You'd better talk to the others and let them know."
"Thanks. Watch the kids for me?" Morelli wiped the last of the water from his brow and called over to Tank and Garrick. He pointed back to the way they had come. "We need to talk."
Garrick called the warband away and they made their way back to the camp and the clean air of the forest.
* * *
"I think he's dead, you know." Stephanie had no idea if the witch was even listening, but she kept talking anyway. "He hasn't moved, even when I've pushed him."
The witch ignored her and carried on sweeping loose crumbs off the floor that looked like hard toffee.
"Please." Stephanie tried to inject a note of panic into her voice. "Please don't leave me locked in here with a dead body."
The witch didn't even look at her as she swept the crumbs out of the open door and left. The door shut behind her with an air of finality.
"I think she's getting bored with us," Stephanie said to the motionless body laying next to her on the floor of the cage.
"I agree," Ranger answered. "I think we're going to have to change the plan."
"To what?"
"I'm going to try to kill you."
* * *
Morelli sat down on the ground with Garrick and the rest of the team a few yards away from the warband. "Edna says she's close. We're almost through. We need to get ready to face whatever's inside."
The boys looked nervous for a moment before visibly straightening their backs and forcing their features to impassivity.
"Do we know how close we are?" Garrick asked, too quietly for them to hear.
Edna shook her head. "Only that it's not far. I don't know if she can feel me too but she might already know we're here."
"Do you have enough of your weapons for some of my men to use?" Garrick asked Tank.
"Our weapons were no good against her. We tried." Tank's voice was grim, matter-of-fact. "We were able to push her back, no more."
"Then we go in with what we know best." Garrick scrubbed his hand through his hair, nerves finally showing. "We'll do what we have to, but I want these boys to see their families again."
"We have a few things in reserve," Lester said, "but we'll have to use them. They need training to use, or we'll hurt ourselves more than her."
"Then that will have to do," Garrick said with finality. "Let's arm ourselves as best we can and go back. I don't want her to have a chance to think of something new while we talk."
He stood up and called over to the warband where they sat whispering together. "Fetch the rest of your arms. We're ready to break through."
He went to his pack and pulled out a frightening array of knives, hanging them around his body. The boys did the same, until the group bristled with steel.
Tank passed out clips for the guns to his own people then pulled out a small cylinder and showed it to Morelli. "You ever used flash-bangs?"
"No."
Tank threw it to Lester and pulled another out of the pack for himself. "We'll carry them then. Remember to duck and cover if we shout."
Morelli looked at the sword and scabbard in his hand and hung them at his waist next to his gun holster, telling himself that it couldn't hurt.
As he stood up to join the warband Greta flung herself into his arms, almost knocking him over. "Please don't leave me," she whispered. "Don't let her take me."
He wrapped his arms around her. "Shh. I have to go, sweetheart. I have to fight."
She broke into hysterical sobs, wailing into his shoulder.
"Oh please, sweetheart, don't cry," he said, holding her tight. "It'll be okay."
"I'll take her."
Morelli looked up from the crying child. Hans stood there, face set. A new dagger sat next to the kitchen knife in his belt.
"I'll take care of her. We'll be fine. We don't need anybody else."
"Oh Jesus," Morelli muttered. He stood up with Greta still clinging to him and walked over to where Tank and Lester stood with Lula and Edna. "I can't do this. I can't go."
Tank and Lester looked stunned but Edna nodded in understanding. "I know."
"But what about Stephanie?" Lula asked.
"It's the kids. I can't leave them knowing that she wants them, I just can't. It's not that I don't–"
"It's okay," Edna interjected. "I know you, Joseph Morelli. I know you love her. But we love our children more. It's just the way it is."
"I'm not their father."
Greta burrowed a little deeper into his neck.
Edna patted his arm. "Maybe not by blood, but I think in all the ways that count, if you accept the offer."
"Offer?"
"This place wants you. Don't ask me how I know. What do you dream of Joseph? In your heart?"
"I'm just protecting them. They need me."
"Of course they do. It's playing hardball."
"Keep the children here with Gareth," Tank said. "We'll see you afterwards." He strode away to join Garrick and the warband. Lester, Lula and Edna followed him.
"Hey," Morelli whispered to Greta. "Calm down. It's over, I'm not going."
She refused to look up and hung on.
* * *
"Where's Morelli," Garrick asked as Tank joined him.
"Change of plan. He's staying back with Gareth and the children."
Garrick nodded in approval. "Good."
"Good?"
"Do you want to be in that field when she appears behind you? Tell Morelli we'll need him to guard the way out of the field."
"Will do." Lester jogged back to Morelli to deliver the message.
"Let's start walking," Tank said. "I need to tell you what we've got and what you'll need to do if we use them."
The thistles rustled as they approached. The smoke had cleared and a creeper-covered wall was now visible beyond the field.
Garrick drew his sword and gestured towards the remaining plants at the point of the wedge. "Burn them."
Berin and another dark-haired youth stepped forward with burning branches and attacked while the others stood ready for what might be on the other side. The thistles died in the same way as the ones before them, smouldering and thrashing.
Another four and they were through to a narrow strip of bare ground around the wall. They stepped through the narrow passage between the thistles in single file, careful to avoid the swipes from the plants on either side of the passage. Berin was the last one through. He turned back to the last plant as it reached for him and severed the outstretched branch with his sword. It fell to twitch at his feet, where he stamped on it for good measure. When it had stopped moving he turned back to face Garrick's reproving glare with a shrug and no excuses.
Garrick muttered something under his breath and moved on.
They snaked along the wall in single file between the thistles and the wall looking for a way through. Eventually they found it.
"Hold," Garrick shouted from the front.
The column straggled to a halt.
Tank eased past the warband towards the front, stopping once to hack off a branch that slashed at his face. He joined Garrick in regarding the narrow break in the wall.
The rock wall rose high above their heads except for the break immediately in front of them. Creepers clambered up either side. They clung motionless against the wall, but as Tank looked he could see the tips of some of the tendrils twitching like the tails of a hundred angry cats. They were waiting for them to make a move.
"Wonderful," Tank said sourly. "Just wonderful."
Garrick nodded. "At least she's consistent."
"Which is a good thing, why?"
"Because it means all we have to fight is the creepers. The walls probably won't close on us and crush us."
"Probably."
"Do you want to live forever?"
"Good point." Tank hefted the sword in his hand and looked around. "Let's cut these thistles back first. I don't want to be backed right up against them if we have to retreat."
"Agreed."
With practised ease they cut a swathe of thistles back and gave themselves space to the rear. They faced the twitching vines that guarded their destination.
"Ready?" Garrick asked without taking his eyes off them.
"Let's do it," Tank said.
They moved in and started hacking at the vines that snaked out towards them.