Cyrus LongBones Box Set Page 18

CYRUS’ BODY SAGGED with relief. The vessel began to take on water. Great clouds of raging steam swirled and wound with the black smoke. Cyrus breathed deep. They would not have to turn back, and Rorroh could not follow them.

  He watched for a long time as the boat burned, slowly slipping deeper and deeper beneath the sea.

  He could not believe he had done it. Somehow Fibian had been right. Cyrus had defeated the Sea Zombie. He could never have done it alone, but he had done it.

  He thought of his home. He thought of his brother Niels, of Sarah. He missed them so much. He thought of his stepmother and Hoblkalf. He pictured the villagers. They had caused the island to cave in and had blamed him for it. They had run him off, tried to murder him. But was it really their fault? By Rorroh’s own admission, wasn’t she truly to blame? Was it not she who had first murdered the very giant his people had called home? Was it not she, all those generations ago, who had haunted and terrorized his people, confused and disfigured their past, made them petty and weak?

  Cyrus had been chased from his own home. He had been run off, right into Rorroh’s child-eating grasp. If it had not been for Fibian, he and Edward would surely be dead.

  But they had not died. They had escaped, escaped to a once two-headed dragon. They had made a deal with the beast. If the dragon would fly them north to the Yeti Kingdom, Cyrus and company would rid the seas of Rorroh’s tyranny.

  It had been a fool’s bargain, and in the end, they had been double-crossed. Instead of being taken to the safety of the yeti, they had been dropped in hostile territory, surrounded by the blood-sucking klappen. And to make things worse, Cyrus and Edward had lost their leader. The only one who knew what to do, the one that had taught them everything, gone, captured by those vile creatures.

  But somehow, Cyrus and Edward had discovered the klappen’s lair. And somehow, even after learning of Rorroh’s presence, they had found the courage to go in after their friend. And Fibian had been right. Not only did the dragon’s blood not kill Cyrus, but it also saved his life. When all hope was lost, it mended his broken body. It gave him strength beyond any he could imagine. He had fought Rorroh hand-to-hand, eye-to-eye, and he had taken her head…

  He thought of his broken bones and felt his nose. What had once been narrow and straight felt jagged and scarred. His nose had healed, but would forever be marked. A small price to pay compared to what Fibian had lost.

  And what of Edward? Edward had thrown himself at the witch and attacked her without fear or mercy. Cyrus drew the small spider from his pocket. He stroked the blue skull-and-crossbones marked across his now white fur. Would he live? Would he ever be the same?

  Cyrus thought of Rorroh, lying in pieces on the floor of that savage torture chamber. According to Fibian, she was not dead; could not be killed. That meant she was coming; would never stop coming, until Cyrus’ people were enslaved in her soulless hell.

  Cyrus gritted his teeth and felt a low ache in his mended jaw. He would die before he let that happen. He would give every last piece of himself before he let Rorroh take another life from him.

  Cyrus walked to the mast, untied the rigging and set the mainsail. They were heading out into the North Sea. They would weather whatever the winter sea could throw at them. They were going in search of the Yeti Kingdom, the giant hune, and they were going to rescue Cyrus’ people. And if Rorroh got in their way, he would cut her up into so many tiny pieces that even the Angel King would not be able to make her whole.

  There was only one problem with Cyrus’ plan. He did not know how far the Sea Zombie’s crippled grasp reached, did not know how far her lies and curses had traveled on the wind. For if he did, maybe, just maybe, he would have chosen a different path by which to find their wayward hune. Instead, Cyrus had set a course for sure disaster, and Rorroh’s vengeance grew ever near.

  *

  Greetings adventure seeker, from the treacherous, frozen north.

  It’s your independent, underdog author here, Jeremy Mathiesen, hoping that you’ve enjoyed Cyrus LongBones and the Curse of the Sea Zombie.

  Reviews are how I get the word out and keep this old, dusty typewriter tapping. If you could click here and leave just a couple of words, I would be mightily grateful.

  Cyrus LongBones and the Yeti Kingdom

  By Jeremy Mathiesen

  Text copyright © 2017 Jeremy Mathiesen All Rights Reserved

  Reproduction in whole or part of this publication without express written consent is strictly prohibited.

  To my lovely wife, Olivia

  for without your great sacrifices, my world could never be complete

  Chapter 1

  THE ANGEL QUEEN

  RORROH LAY IN THREE BLOODY PIECES on the floor of her torture chamber. Her nose filled with the reek of her own rot.

  The alveling had cut off her right hand weeks earlier. Now she found herself decapitated with her left hand newly severed at the forearm. Was that wretched LongBones child truly the one? Was the legend true?

  Rorroh’s wounds felt somehow outside her senses as if she had slept on a limb for far too long. Through the eyes of her lopped off head, she could just make out the foot of her right leg kicking along the floor. Must save the Angel Queen!

  Concentrating, Rorroh maneuvered her headless body to the left. Her bony right leg shifted out of view. Realizing she had crawled the wrong way, Rorroh turned herself right. Her body began to scuttle back into sight. With a great deal of awkwardness, Rorroh remotely forced her body to gather her head up under her handless right arm. With her view elevated, she spotted her left hand. She stumbled over to the blood-stained table, crouched down and used her torn mouth to collect the severed appendage from the tabletop.

  Rorroh peered about the darkened room. Water seeped from the crumbling ceiling. Putrid blood dripped from racks, vices and jangling hooks. Rusted manacles scraped against stone walls.

  Rorroh’s servant, Aghamore, lay crumpled against a fractured pillar. Was the water klops dead? Rorroh would worry about that later. First, she needed to gather her armies. She needed her orb.

  She made her way out of the chamber, past several of her tall klappen soldiers. The gaunt creatures had become cowering wretches in the wake of the boy’s assault on the castle. He had simply caught her off guard. It would not happen again.

  She stumbled down the long winding stairway, to the docking bay far below. She sensed her ship, still moored in the secluded cove, but something was wrong…

  She shambled out of the narrow tunnel and entered the seaside cavern. The gray sea rolled through the cave, lapping at the jetty and curling around the stone walls. Rorroh looked beyond the cavern, out into the bay. The Angel Queen! It was gone, and yet, her senses told her otherwise.

  A cool understanding came over the Sea Zombie. Her hand, clenched between her teeth, balled into a fist. She walked to the end of the jetty, head in arms, and stepped off the edge. She plunged deep into the oily black sea. The frigid waters barely registered with her decaying system.

  She would raise her sunken ship from the deep and gather her armies. Then, she would make Cyrus LongBones pay for what he had done, ripping his gasping lungs from his still breathing chest.

  Last of all, for casting her from the heavens, and making her diseased and wretched, she would exact her revenge on the Angel King. She would destroy his precious hune and its alvelings, taking their souls for her own. Then the sea would be forever hers.

  Chapter 2

  NORTH

  ONE MONTH LATER

  THE EVENING SKY WAS DARK AND BROODING; the sea chalky and gray. Sixteen-year-old Cyrus LongBones drove a large, twin-mast ship north on a snowy wind. The salty chop churned and rolled, resembling snow-capped mountains.

  Cyrus and his crew were in search of the Yeti Kingdom. Cyrus prayed the yeti would have knowledge of a long lost hune. Would the hune really rescue his stranded people?

  Cyrus’ stomach grumbled with hunger, and his tattered clothes hung loosely on his withering frame.
He tightened the hemp rope securing his sagging denim trousers. Then he pulled a wool blanket snug around his shivering body.

  Cyrus stood, manning the ship’s tiller. The wheel was cold and grimy in his calloused hands. He looked over at Fibian. The froskman sat with his back to the cabin wall, his own wool blanket wrapped around his shaking shoulders.

  Fibian had found the blankets in the ship’s cabin, shortly after they had defeated Rorroh and stolen the vessel from the klappen fortress.

  Fibian too had grown uncomfortably lean. The froskman peered into his remaining left hand. Edward lay within, thrashing and kicking his seven long legs in a feverish dream.

  The tiny white spider had yet to recover from their clash with Rorroh. He would wake at times, enough for Cyrus or Fibian to feed him, but he never spoke. He would only stare blank-faced off in the distance for a time, before falling back asleep.

  “How’s he doing?” Cyrus asked.

  “I do not know,” Fibian replied.

  The froskman stroked Edward’s fur with the stump of his right arm.

  Cyrus thought about the path that had led them to this desolate sea. They had bargained with a dragon for safe passage beyond Rorroh’s grasp, but the beast had betrayed them. For his treachery, Edward had bitten and killed the serpent.

  They had then been forced to battle Rorroh and her klappen minions, barely escaping with their lives. Edward had bitten and poisoned the witch, but in doing so, had swallowed much of her rancid blood. His black fur had turned white, and the yellow mark on his back faded to blue. There was no telling what the toxic fluid might have done to his tiny system.

  Cyrus studied Fibian’s glowing blue eyes. Fibian too had thrown himself between Cyrus and the witch. That is when he had gruesomely lost his right hand.

  As usual, Fibian’s wounds had healed at an uncanny rate, but no amount of mending would return his lost limb. He had sacrificed so much to help defeat the Sea Zombie.

  Cyrus sensed the mended bones of his own wrist and ankle. He felt the crook of his broken nose.

  “I drank dragon’s blood and lived,” he said, “I cut off her head and both hands. She should be dead. How far behind us could she be?”

  “We have time,” Fibian replied, “We have slowed her advance, and she has tipped her hand to us. Once we find this giant hune, we can lead it to your people, save your village, and fulfill your destiny.”

  “You said my destiny was to defeat Rorroh, scatter her ashes across the sea. How do you stop something that can’t be killed?”

  Fibian did not answer.

  Cyrus thought of his bewitched village, trapped on the crumbling shell of a giant, fossilized turtle. Cyrus had trespassed over the dead fence. He had discovered that his people lived on the back of a long-deceased turtle-like creature called a hune. The skeleton was decaying and would soon crumble into the sea.

  Cyrus’ people would not heed his warnings. Instead, they blamed his trespass for his brother’s death and their village’s destruction. It was Sarah Heiler alone who had risked all to help Cyrus escape execution. He owed her so much.

  Would Cyrus’ people accept his aid upon a successful return? They would have no other choice. That is if they had not yet drowned, or if the Sea Zombie had not yet killed them.

  “We need to stitch your suit,” Cyrus said, nodding to the several cuts in Fibian’s whale skin wetsuit.

  “When Master Edward recovers,” Fibian replied, “I will ask him to do me the honor of spinning his silk and mending the damage himself.”

  The froskman spoke more to the furry, white spider curled in his webbed hand.

  Cyrus wanted to press Fibian further about Edward’s health. He wanted to know what more they could do to help, but Fibian was no doctor. He was a froskman, a born hunter-killer, once under Rorroh’s command. Badgering him would only make matters worse.

  “Do you think we’re sailing in the right direction?” Cyrus asked.

  Fibian peered up at the night sky.

  “I believe so,” he said, “but I would feel much better with Master Edward’s assistance.”

  Cyrus nodded agreement. They would never have gotten this far without Edward’s heightened sense of direction.

  “It’s so cold, and it’s only going to get colder,” Cyrus said, pulling his fleece cap tight over his blond hair and pointed ears.

  “Yes, I am concerned about that too,” Fibian replied, “but at the very least, the cold is holding Master Edward’s fever at bay.”

  The froskman’s chattering teeth added to the hum in his voice.

  Fibian passed Cyrus a small leather bag.

  “Eat, it will give you warmth and strength.”

  Cyrus drew four tidal nuts from the pouch. They smelled over ripened, like shriveling grapes.

  “Is this all that’s left?”

  “Yes,” Fibian said, his dark gray flesh gaunt and goose-pimpled.

  Cyrus heart sunk. They were starving. Fibian would have to dive for more food if they were to live. Cyrus studied Fibian’s wasted form. Could the froskman survive another plunge into the icy sea? Unless he could think of another way, they would soon find out.

  Chapter 3

  THE COLD

  FOR FIVE DAYS, the trio continued north on a snowy sea. Their rations were spent, their bones were chilled, and their destination, the Yeti Kingdom, was nowhere in sight.

  Cyrus stood at the ship’s tiller, watching the chalky green ocean.

  “That’s enough,” he shouted, “It’s too cold and deep for anything to survive down there. You’re going to get yourself killed.”

  Fibian teetered at the edge of the portside railing, wet and pale. The large gills in his ribcage flared with each inhale.

  “We must not give up,” he said, “We must find food.”

  He drew a deep breath and dove into the slushy ocean.

  “Stupid idiot,” Cyrus said, through clenched teeth, “He’s going to freeze to death.”

  Cyrus pulled his blanket tight around himself and hugged Edward to his bony chest. His eyes scanned the misty waters.

  “F- Fibian, hurry,” he said, his anxiety rising.

  An angry wind swept the boat. Snow swirled the mast. Moment after moment passed. In the distance, a fork of lightning pierced the heavens. Thunder roared like a demon across the cloudy sky. Cyrus’ eyes began to droop. Then his head started to nod. He shook away the drowsiness, willing Fibian to return. His shipmate was nowhere to be found, or was he? A dark shape bobbed to the surface. It was just off the vessel’s port side.

  “Fibian?”

  The froskman did not move.

  “FIBIAN!”

  Fear charged Cyrus’ limbs. He ripped the blanket from his shoulders, curled Edward within its folds, and set both down next to the tiller. Cyrus ran to the ship’s railing. He tied a mooring line around his waist and gathered all the breath he could muster. Then he dove into the sea.

  The cold ocean bit at his every sense. His mind flashed blinding white, his head ached as if pierced by a spike, and his chest constricted, refusing to take in breath. Cyrus fought to keep his head above the surface. Panic electrified his system. He swam to Fibian and flipped him over.

  “Fibian?” Cyrus shouted, “Fibian!”

  The froskman coughed up a mouthful of water. His glowing blue eyes opened a sliver.

  “Land, close by,” he whispered.

  In his left hand, he raised a kelp bulb out of the sea. Cyrus grabbed the kelp. He inspected it, then looked about. Land, where? All he saw was sea and fog. Lightening flashed in the distance.

  Fibian went limp. The wind began to blow, and waves started to rise. Cyrus threw the bulb aside and clutched Fibian around the chest. The boat was close within reach, but the water felt heavy and grasping.

  Cyrus yanked hard on the mooring line, dragging Fibian back towards the ship. He reached the vessel and pulled the froskman up the mesh ladder. It took the last of his reserves to heft Fibian over the railing. He dug his heels in and hau
led him into the ship’s cabin.

  Pots and pans, hooked to the walls, clanged and crashed as the ship rode the bucking sea. Cyrus laid Fibian against a wooden cupboard and wrapped him in a wool blanket.

  Cyrus’ lungs were raw and gasping. He wanted to collapse, curl up into a ball. He remembered Edward.

  Cyrus took a deep breath. He forced himself back through the cabin door and towards the tiller. Thunder boomed overhead. The blanket still lay on the deck. Edward looked like a fluffy snowflake within. Cyrus gathered both Edward and the blanket up and made for the cabin. Beyond the bow, emerging through the mists, he spotted foaming waves crashing over a jagged reef.

  “NO!”

  Where had the reef come from?

  Cyrus ran back and gripped the ship’s tiller. He spun it hard right and braced himself. The vessel cut right, its portside rising high out of the sea. A wave struck the broadside of the portside hull. Ice water washed over the deck. Cyrus cast the blanket aside and stuffed Edward in his shirt pocket. The reef was nearing. The sails were down. They were powerless. Cyrus needed Fibian to raise the mainsail. He ran to do it himself. Another wave crashed over the port side. The sea washed across the deck, knocking Cyrus to his knees. He regained his footing and dashed for the mainsheet. Lightning arched out of the sky. It struck the foremast in two. The heavy timber fell towards the stern, bringing the ship’s riggings with it. The mast splintered and twisted, breaking over the cabin’s roof. It crashed down at Cyrus’ feet, nearly shattering his spine. Rope and steel cleats rained down all around. Cyrus’ mind became overwhelmed and froze. His feet would not move. He saw the jagged reef bearing down on the starboard side of the ship. Their boat would be shattered.

  Fibian! Cyrus bit his lip and willed himself to move. He clambered over the smoking foremast and ran for the cabin. A third wave crashed over the railing. Cyrus burst through the cabin door. He ran to Fibian’s side. A splintering shriek reverberated throughout the wooden ship. Cyrus was lifted off the floor and thrown across the cabin. He felt his throat engage and heard his voice cry out. He was hurled, weightless, towards the cabin wall. All was lost.