“Knavish,” Cyrus yelledup, making his way across to the base of the fore bridge, “Show me how you pilotthe hune.”
“Bearings?” thehunch-backed klops asked, rising from the captain’s chair.
Cyrus climbed therickety steps with Fibian on his heels.
“We’ve veered offcourse five degrees east,” Edward said, clinging to the froskman’s back.
“Five degrees west,”Knavish ordered, walking to the bridge rail.
The signal klops alertedfirst the starboard tower, then the port side. The lookout atop the starboard structureshouted below. The cables running beneath him grew taut.
Cyrus sensed the hunereach out to him in pain. Then he felt the entire fortress shift west. He lookedto Knavish, then to the heavy steel cables running over the wall and down to whatcould only be Gabriel’s face. A cold dread settled in Cyrus’ stomach.
“With me!” he commandedthe hunchback.
He ran down thestarboard battlement. Knavish and Fibian followed. He found within the hune’s defensesa second, smaller tower, and a second massive wheel mounted on a steel base. A teamof klops walked in a circle, pressing hard on the wheel’s wooden handles and windingthe cables tight.
“Where do those lineslead?” Cyrus demanded.
“It’s how we steerthe hune,” Knavish replied.
Understanding washedover Cyrus like an icy shower. Those cables were pulling at Gabriel’s flesh.How could he have been so blind? He ran down the wood and steel parapets.
“Get down fromthere if you want to live,” Cyrus yelled, to the spotter perched atop the starboardtower.
He dashed down aset of stairs to a wall cannon below. Then he shoved the two gunners aside.
“Help me,” he orderedFibian and Knavish, as they made their way down the stairway.
He grasped the cannonby its heavy wooden housing. His wound pulled at his back. The two gunners watched,bewildered.
“What are you doing?”Knavish asked, incredulously.
“Destroying that wheel,”Cyrus cried, wrestling with the big gun’s iron barrel, “Help me lift this thing.”
“How will we steerthe beast?” Knavish challenged.
“Either you help melift this cannon, or you stand in front of it,” Cyrus roared.
Fibian and Knavishgrasped the front of the base. Cyrus gripped the rear. Together they heaved. Steamspit from Fibian's mechanical arm. The three lifted the cannon off its iron tracksand dropped it with a dull thud onto the slushy, tiled earth. Cyrus aimed the artillerytowards the cable’s wooden reel.
“Move,” he shouted.
The team of klops workingthe wheel looked over. Cyrus grasped the weapon’s lanyard. Confusion became understanding.The klops fled the contraption like cockroaches from a flame.
Boom!
The cannon kicked.It flew off of its base and crashed into the sentry post’s foundation. The cables’wheel shook and splintered. The cables quivered and frayed. The spotter clingingto the large tower only now heeded Cyrus’ warning. He raced to descend the metalframework. It was too late.
The twanging linessnapped within their housing. They ripped and slashed through the two towers, tearingthe structures to shreds. The cables’ recoil lashed the escaping klops to ribbons.Then the steel snakes slithered over the wall.
Bits of metal anddebris rained down on the battlements as the larger exterior tower teeteredlike a drunk. It crashed to the earth, a groaning tangled mass of twisted steel.
“What have you done?”Knavish shouted. “How will we steer the hune now?”
Cyrus grasped thehunch-backed batalha by the oily gilled throat.
“Have a detail dothe same to that second wheel,” Cyrus demanded. “Let me worry about piloting thehune. If those cables are not gone within the hour, it’ll be your face I hookand tow around like a fish.”
Cyrus then turnedhis broad back to the batalha and stalked away. Knavish glared after him, hatefestering in his heart.
Chapter18
A DEBT YET UNPAID
GUILT WRACKED CYRUS’ THOUGHTS. Why had he not knownof Gabriel’s suffering sooner? Why had he not done more to ensure the giant’s safety?
He recalled first boardingthe Battle Hune. He had touched Gabriel’s hide with his bare hand. Shame andrejection twinged in his guts. Gabriel had seen inside of him, seen what he haddone, what he had become. Cyrus could not go through that again, the vulnerability,the judgement, yet what other choice did he have?
He delved down asecluded trail, then plunged deep into the murky forest. He could hear the clickand pop of his blodbad guards shadowing him. The hair on his back stood on end.He suspected Fibian and Edward too were close by. The froskman was growing everuncertain of Cyrus’ nature, but that did not matter. Cyrus knew what he mustdo.
He searched the woodsand found a small clearing amongst the thorns and brambles. It would have been amuddy bog when not frozen. He knelt down and withdrew his right glove. Then, takinga deep, frosty breath, he shoved his bare hand into the slushy snow, probing theicy mud beneath.
POP!
Cyrus’ ears rang, andhis vision grew bright. The ground shifted beneath him. Then the scent of sunnyorchards filled his senses. Finally, Gabriel’s warmth wrapped him like a quilt.
Are you okay? Cyrus asked.
His stomach filledwith butterflies. He felt gratitude, relief mixed with pain and fear. Cyrus’ anxietywaned.
What more can I do?
Cyrus saw beyondhimself a vision of a half-finished steel battle mask bolted to Gabriel’s face.What had the klops done? The rusted metal plating was anchored to the hune’sscaled flesh with long, painful screws.
The scene shiftedto the giant’s shell covered in a dark, twisted forest. The vines and creeperswere choking the trees and souring the earth. Then, like magic, the clouds clearedand the sun rose. The predatory weeds rotted away, leaving the forest to bloom.Then an alveling village of bright homes and fertile lands sprung forth amongstthe glowing woods.
Soon, Cyrus said, picturing the stranded villagers of Virkelot. In the meantime, I’ll have the mask removedand the forest cleared of the poisoned creepers.
Cyrus flushed withthe hune’s love and warmth. Then a dark shadow crossed overhead. The giantbrought forth a vision of Cyrus stabbing Moro through the back. The moment feltpresent, real as if it was happening all over again.
Bile rose up inCyrus’ throat. He wrenched his hand from the frozen earth and fell backward, sprawlingon the cold forest floor. He coughed and retched. His eyes cleared. His surroundingsslowly returned to the dark shadows and tangled tree limbs of the familiarwoods.
He peered about, gatheringhis bearings. His head spun and his stomach rolled. Two glowing blue
