“Monster!” The cry spread like wildfire to dry brush. “Monster! Monster! Monster! It’s come to kill us all!”
The front of the crowd tried to flee whilst those at the back jostled their way forward. The inside of the jailhouse turned to chaos as the villagers shoved against one another in panic. Sheriff Rodrick forced his way to the front. Spying Brittle, he drew the short sword from the scabbard at his side.
“A witch’s demon.” The sheriff’s dark eyes narrowed. He edged a cautious step forward, separating himself from the rest of the busting crowd. “I knew something wasn’t right about you.”
“I’m not a demon!” Brittle saw the glint of rusted steel as others followed suit. With knives drawn, they formed a defensive line behind their sheriff. Brittle’s mind scrambled for a believable excuse and came up woefully short.
The rickety floorboards shuddered as the front desk was kicked onto its side with a slam. Pieces of ceramic cups shattered and rolled across the floor. Shards of broken ceramic crunched underfoot as the last of the onlookers took their cue and scrambled for the door. Sir Thomassin positioned himself between Brittle and the sheriff, longsword held at the ready. The knight moved steadily backwards, shepherding Brittle towards the open mouth of the hallway.
Sheriff Rodrick practically foamed at the mouth. His sallow skin was pink and covered in sweat. He wiped the moisture from his bloodshot eyes. He lifted his sword and screamed, “Kill them!”
Two swordsmen leapt around the sheriff and charged Sir Thomassin together. The first struck the floor almost immediately. The second managed to get in a few turns of his blade before joining the first.
With Sir Thomassin acting as his shield, Brittle reached the passage unharmed. He looked back at the front of the jailhouse and regretted it. Armed reinforcements came spilling in through the front door faster than Brittle could count. There were far too many for Sir Thomassin to take on at once.
Sir Thomassin agreed. “Run!”
Lastar didn’t need to be told twice. He leapt from Brittle’s pocket and struck the ground as a two-tailed rat. “Don’t just stand there!” he said. “Come on, this way! Follow me.”
Brittle fled down the dark hallway after him. The clash of steel on steel rang out at their backs, echoing along the stone walls as they fled. The pair reached the back room to find the door locked from the inside. Brittle slammed his fist against the heavy wood. “Let us in, hurry!”
He heard shuffling from the inside, but the door didn’t budge. Rochelle’s voice cried out in protest only to be shushed by her granddad. Brittle heard more shuffling as an argument broke out on the other side of the locked door.
“But they helped us first!” Rochelle’s words carried from inside of the sealed room.
Brittle knocked harder than before. “Rochelle, please!”
Lastar stopped pawing uselessly at the door and swiveled his head to the side. The hallway did not end at the back room. It banked right and continued on. The unrelenting darkness rendered it impossible to see where the passage led. For Brittle, anyway. From the way Lastar’s body trembled in fright, he seemed to have a pretty good idea.
“Brittle, there’s a back door,” he squeaked.
“There is?” Brittle’s hopes rose. “We can use it. Lead the way, let’s go.”
“That’s the thing though.” Lastar edged several timid steps backwards until his tiny fuzzy body was pressed against Brittle’s foot. “We didn’t find it first.”
Peering into the gloom, Brittle saw a handful of dark shapes slinking along the shadows further down, bent on blocking their escape. Brittle turned and struck the door for all he was worth. “Rochelle, it’s me! Open the door!”
The door remained still. Unlike the men slowly advancing towards them.
“Lastar, shift to something scary. Hold them off!”
“Yes, scary. Good idea. Let me think.”
“You don’t have time to think!”
“I’ve got it!” Lastar shifted forms. His black and orange shape scuttled forward on eight hairy legs, repeating Brittle’s instructions. “Scary, scary, scary!”
Brittle’s timber shoulders fell in disbelief. “Seriously?”
“What? I’m a spider.” Lastar jumped into the air and splayed all eight legs aggressively. “There’s nothing scarier than a spider.”
“You’re the size of a button! You could have at least been a bigger spider!”
“Scientifically speaking, I’m already stretching the limits of believability. This species of spider doesn’t get larger than a–”
The dark shape of a man broke from the shadows and lunged at them.
“Lastar!”
“Yep, got it. Bigger spider.” Lastar’s spider form grew to the size of a small dog. He didn’t even have to do anything. The sight of the giant arachnid was all that was necessary to send the baddie scrambling back into the shadows with a startled yelp.
The clang of steel on steel rang louder. Flickers of torchlight from further up lit the passage, highlighting Sir Thomassin’s retreating form. It was a slow, methodical retreat. Thom moved backwards with his attention focused on the frenzy of swords, clubs, and pitchforks coming at him from the front. Steady sweeps of his longsword kept the unorganized lot at bay. The narrow passageway worked in his favor, limiting the number of enemies that could come at him at once. Despite this, his form had already lost some of its edge. His strokes grew slow and heavy with each cumbersome swing.
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“Is that door still not open?” he called over his shoulder at Brittle, voice laden with panic.
“Working on it.” Brittle gave up knocking and resorted to kicking. His foot bounced uselessly against the door. A surge of pain shot up his leg.
“I’m not going to be able to hold them much longer,” Sir Thomassin panted.
“Rochelle, please!” Brittle screamed. “You have to open the door!”
The muffled voices from the other side rose in volume. Rochelle must have won because mere seconds later, the heavy wood door opened with a reluctant jerk. Brittle, Lastar, and Sir Thomassin all stumbled over one another inside before Rochelle’s granddad slammed it shut again. The old man drew the bolt and braced his shoulder to the wood, shuddering as something slammed against it from the other side. Lastar shed his spider form and joined him.
“I’ve changed my mind,” Lastar announced. His face was drained of color. “I don’t want to do this any more.”
“It’s a little late to back out of the rescue plan now, don’t you think?” Sir Thomassin put his shoulder to the storage cabinet and shoved it towards the door. Brittle and Rochelle helped him. It scraped across the floor at the speed of a giant wooden turtle.
“Not that!” Lastar moved long enough for the others to wrangle it against the door before resuming his position as the world’s most pathetic barricade. “This!” he wailed. “I don’t want to do this anymore. The road to becoming a demigod, I mean. All the scheming, running, fighting, it’s just not worth it. Forget powers, I only want to go somewhere quiet and read books.”
The boom of Sheriff Rodrick’s voice cut Lastar’s sudden change of heart short. “Surrender yourselves now,” he screamed, “or else!”
Brittle had a sneaking suspicion they were dead either way. There was no mercy in Sheriff Rodrick’s voice.
Sir Thomassin leapt onto the work table and broke the window with the hilt of his sword. Tearing the shredded cape from his shoulders, he wrapped his arm in what had once been a window curtain and swept the broken glass away. “You two,” he said to Brittle and Rochelle. “Up here, now. Before they think to circle the building.”
The window was too small for either Thom or Mr. Nettles to pass through. Rochelle quickly realized this. She swiveled her head around at her granddad, eyes already welling with tears. “But–”
“Go!” His body shuddered, still braced against the door as the sheriff’s men slammed against it from the outside. “Run, Rochelle. Run as far into the forest as you can and don’t look back.”
Brittle wasn’t given the chance to protest. Sir Thomassin plucked him from the ground and heaved him through the window. Brittle struck the cobblestone outside in an undignified pile. Rochelle came through next. Her landing wasn’t nearly as bad as she had Brittle to cushion her fall. Wiping the tears from her eyes, Rochelle pulled Brittle to his feet and started to run.
The village stirred with frenzy. Torch-wielding villagers scurried from their homes to join the crowd assembling around the front of the jailhouse. Rochelle moved in the opposite direction. She saw a dark alley between two stone cottages and sprinted for it, pulling Brittle along by the hand in her wake. Hope swelled within Brittle’s hollow core when he saw the dark outline of trees from the other side.
His hope deflated the moment a pair of villagers emerged from the alley, blocking their path. Rochelle spun around only to find more of the same. The men and women of the village moved in, their grim faces lit aglow from the flickering firelight of their yellow and orange torches. Brittle recognized the boys from the woods amongst the crowd.
Rochelle tried to breach the barrier only to be chased back from the swing of a pitchfork. “Get back!” she cried. “Let us through. I’m warning you.”
Brittle stood back-to-back with Rochelle, watching in terror as the ring of villagers grew tighter around them. He tried to speak, but the words got lodged in the back of his throat. Torch smoke clouded the air. The taste of hot ash coated the inside of his mouth and clawed its way into his trunk. A familiar pain flooded his hollow bones.
Rochelle yelled, but her voice was distant, as though she was calling from the bottom of a gorge and not mere inches away. The advancing crowd hesitated. Fighting the pain roiling deep inside of him, Brittle glanced over his shoulder at Rochelle. She stared back at him with wide, panicked eyes. And then he realized why. Pale green light leaked out from between the hairline cracks in Brittle’s bark, highlighting the scars given to him by Gabor. The inside of the circle was cast in an eerie emerald glow.
A handful of the villagers lost their nerve and ran.
“That’s right, get back!” Rochelle seized the moment and exploited it for all it was worth. “Get back, or you’ll see what happens!”
Brittle desperately wanted to ask what would happen, but something told him Rochelle didn’t know either.
A swell of emotion stirred within his hollow chest, intermixing with the smoke and ash. Brittle’s heart stone burned hot, flooding his rickety bones with a heat he’d felt once more. He remembered the night he’d fought with Edvin and the dinner table and how his anger had turned gold to dust. And, just as before, a crackling pop pop pop filled the air. Brittle snapped his head in the direction of the sound and watched, frozen with terror, as a villager’s torch burst to pieces in a flare of eerie green flame.
“Rochelle?” Brittle’s words sounded like a whisper amongst the panicked screams.
Rochelle was unable to tear her eyes from the green flame. “That’s not me.”
More villagers deserted, leaving a half circle in their wake along with a growing patch of green fire. Unfortunately for Brittle and Rochelle, the men that stayed were of substantial size and strength, capable of overpowering a young girl and bog log beast with ease. Having overcome their shock, the five of them advanced with their makeshift weapons held at the ready. The light of the green fire flickered in their dark, soulless eyes.
The ground shook.
Rochelle and Brittle traded frightened looks. “Still not me,” Rochelle said.
“Don’t look at me! I didn’t do it, either!”
The cobbled road buckled and cracked as a giant-sized shadow pounded down the middle street towards them. A blood-curdling roar lit the air as the giant leapt the reminder of the distance and landed in the center of the ring, sending a shockwave of cobbles skyward. Brittle huddled against Rochelle, waiting to be struck dead by the falling stones. He cowered for several agonizing seconds, listening to cries of pain and the clatter of falling rubble, before the deadly rain subsided.
Tentatively, Brittle lifted his head to find the giant standing over him, shielding them from the worst of it. Edvin glanced down at him, lifting a skeptical eyebrow high on his forehead. “You make green fire now?”
Brittle was too relieved to deny the accusation. “Edvin!”
The god’s blazing blue eyes swept over the upturned street, taking in the damage. They were the only three left standing. Those that hadn’t been crushed by the falling cobble stones had fled. “Where’s smelly Thom and the sheep man?”
“There.” Brittle pointed to the jailhouse behind them. The torches from the milling crowd lit the outside like a beacon. “They’re going to need help getting out.”
“Of course they are.” Edvin shook his head with a sigh. “Get somewhere safe, Little Loggo. And don’t come out until one of us comes for you. You hear me?”
“Yes, Papa.” Brittle flinched, realizing too late what in the great green swamp had just come out of his mouth.
Edvin noticed too. For a split second, the giant stopped and the two stared uneasily at one another.
The split second was over the moment Rochelle grabbed Brittle by the wrist and started to run. “What are you waiting for? Let’s go!”