The Way of the Ram Read online

  Render crossed the distance between them in the blink of an eye. The red-robed creature overthrew the pig and slammed him to the floor. Then it bounded off him and over to the cages. A few quick cuts with its curved claws did away with the bars between the little lambs and freedom. None of them dared to move.

  “Go,” Render whispered, pointing at the exit. “Go home. Do not stay to see what happens here. In time we will make sure you are found by the Healer.”

  One little lamb found the courage to take a step. Emboldened by his example, two others followed in his wake. Two more had to help another to walk.

  The children passed through Healer and Dreamer on their way up the stairs. The wounds on them turned Healer’s stomach over again. He resolved that when the situation with Render was resolved, he would find these lambs and give them all of his skill.

  Scurvert recovered, rolling over in time to see the last of the lambs disappearing out of his cellar. “What have you done?” he seethed. “I have an image to keep up here, you know!” He got to his feet and lunged for Render, the switchblade snapping into view in his hand.

  The cloaked beast sidestepped the attack, sweeping its flowing sleeve over his face to distract him. Claws found Scurvert’s back and left four long, bleeding rips. The pig screamed and the knife fell from his grip.

  “Answer our question,” Render muttered. “You continue to torment lambs here. Does the pig city sanction this behavior?”

  “Not that it matters to you,” Scurvert hissed through clenched teeth, “but no. They don’t know.” He staggered against his workbench. The first thing his hands found was a sledgehammer. He remained facing away from Render while he prepared to strike. “See, they can’t negotiate on my behalf. I own this quarry!”

  He whirled around with a harsh, wide-reaching sideways swing of the hammer. Render did not try to dodge this time. The sledge impacted the side of its head, forcing it to turn in the direction of the blow. Scurvert drew back to admire his handiwork.

  Still on its feet, utterly calm, Render straightened up to look at its enemy. Scurvert gasped in surprise and wound up for another blow. He swung again, and this time Render caught the head of the hammer with one hand.

  “The Healer was right. You did not kill the Old-Timer,” it said in wonder. “You took credit for the murder in order to bolster your fearful reputation among these people… to make it appear as though you are the juggernaut pig of dog legend. But we—the Mauler half of us—fought the Old-Timer. You do not have the raw strength it would have taken to break the old ram’s neck.” Render yanked the sledgehammer out of Scurvert’s grip and tossed it to the floor.

  The pig held up one hand in defense as he staggered back against his workbench again. “Hang on a second… so you’re right. I didn’t kill the ram. That’s good, right? Is that what this is about? Are we square then?”

  “We are not square.” Render took another step forward. “What other terms of our surrender have not been honored? Have the blood sacrifices continued?”

  “No.” Scurvert kept talking, stalling for time as the hand behind his back crept across the workbench for another weapon. “Toxid’s been going without for a year. The whole Corporation is freaking out about it. I’ve been trying to send fresh quarry sheep just to shut them up, but they won’t let me!”

  “Good. Have you or the Megatropolis harmed the Healer? The Dreamer?”

  Scurvert’s searching fingers jumped when they pressed down on a sharp, jagged edge. He grabbed the tool and brought it around in front of him. He brandished the circular saw and revved it at Render. “Don’t come any closer.”

  Render’s orange eyes flared violet for a second. “The Dreamer! Has she been hurt?”

  The pig bared his teeth. “You haven’t heard, huh? When we discovered the wreckage of your prison cell, those two sheep were the first ones we suspected.”

  Enraged, Render disregarded the saw and dove forward. Driving Scurvert into the bench, the red creature twisted him painfully backward to pin his head against the wooden surface. The saw buzzed to life and Scurvert roared as he brought the spinning blade against Render’s face. The blade sparked, jostled, and finally fractured, jerking the saw out of Scurvert’s hand and across the room. The tool did not leave so much as a scratch in the wooden mask.

  “Get off me!” Scurvert howled as Render’s palm pressed his skull hard against the wooden slats. “If you gotta know, no, we didn’t get to them! Durdge tried, but we lost him! Your sheep are fine! But they won’t be if you don’t leave me alone! I’ll personally make sure of that!”

  “That will not happen,” Render said. “We will destroy Chugg before they can get to our friends. And you are going to help us do that.”

  Scurvert burst out laughing again. “You’re insane. You can’t touch us. You’re already dead for what you’ve done here. Your best bet is to just leave me alone before you make it worse on yourself. You can’t possibly go up against the Chugg Corporation and Toxid.”

  Render said nothing in reply. Instead, it grabbed hold of Scurvert’s shoulders, dragged him off the workbench, and threw him to the section of floor stained with old blood.

  “Stop!” Scurvert roared. “You’ve got no idea what’s coming to you! You’re better off just running away. There’s no fighting once the Chugg machine gets going!”

  “You do not even have the strength of will to stop torturing young lambs when ordered by your superiors,” Render mused. “You will tell us what we want to know, sooner or later. We will break you with the instruments with which we were broken.”

  With that, it seized hold of Scurvert again, lifted him feet-first off the ground, and shoved him against the wall and the chain with the metal hook. The curved barb pierced deep into the small of Scurvert’s back under his floating ribs. He let out a long, piercing squeal of agony.

  “WREEEEEEEEEK!!”

  Render stepped back and let Scurvert dangle upside-down from the chain.

  “You’re sick,” Scurvert said, glaring at Render through clenched, watery eyes.

  “We know how it is to be hung on a hook. To be chained. We are returning justice onto you for what you’ve done to so many others. Answer our questions, swine, and your suffering will be brief.”

  “You’re dead, you’re dead,” Scurvert whined as he descended into sobbing. Blood ran down his back and dripped onto the floor. “My dad’s gonna kill you. You won’t get away. You’re gonna suffer.”

  “Your father.”

  “My dad is the boss of the Chugg Corporation, you idiot…” Scurvert gasped. “My dad is Chugg.”

  “Chugg… we negotiated with him. He spoke to us through the bird that was half machine. He had the authority to fulfill our terms but chose not to.”

  “That’s because he’s in charge here, not you.” Scurvert’s eyes grew distant. “And as soon as you’re out of the way, your friends are going to suffer.”

  “Why? Chugg already has control of the world. What is his goal in inflicting so much death and pain? When we surrendered ourselves, why did Chugg press those pigs to do so many experiments and surgeries on our Mauler half?”

  Scurvert let out a noise that was half laugh, half sob. “I’ll never tell you that. Whatever you do to—”

  Render kicked the pig in the chest, causing him to swing back and rebound off the wall amid a fresh round of screams.

  “WREEEEEEEK! Toxid help me, I’m gonna…” Scurvert gasped. “Doesn’t matter… when we find a way to finish it… won’t matter…”

  “Finish what?”

  “My dad… he put everything he had into saving Durdge… worthless little loser. I was the good son… but Dad had to…”

  Render grabbed the chain, stopping the swinging. “You had best start making sense, pig.”

  “Tried to clone a new… all for nothing…”

  Render turned away from Scurvert and paced across the cold floor. “Clones. The answer we seek was right before us all along. We must return to Swill.”
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br />   Scurvert’s eyes rolled back in his head and then closed. “They’ll find a way… Dad will make them… there will be no place to hide from the Hogdogger… they’ll all go running for the sheep farm… that’ll be lights out for all of you.”

  “You have given us all we need.” Render drew close to the hanging pig. Scurvert’s filthy white tank top had gathered around his neck, exposing the girth of his sagging pink belly. A lumpy fist-sized scar near his navel was barely visible in the light from the lantern on the floor.

  “The Shiver did this to you,” Render mused. “The Dreamer’s memories tell us the horn was lodged in your excessive mass. Intuition tells us it remains there.”

  Scurvert didn’t answer. From Healer’s vantage point, it looked like the pig had passed out.

  Render reached a clawed hand up toward the scar. “You may not have been the murderer, but the Healer still has reason to draw comfort from the news of your passing. We will bring him a gift.”

  Healer looked away as Render pushed the tips of its claws into the wound. Dreamer froze the scene again.

  After a moment, Healer realized Dreamer was waiting for him to say something. “You know, I thought I’d enjoy watching this. But Scurvert… was pathetic. Sick and evil, yes, but not even close to the monster I used to think he was. For a while I’d been entertaining the notion that he wasn’t my dad’s killer. Now I know that’s true.”

  “So have you seen what you needed to see?”

  “Yes. We know how the story goes from here.”

  Chapter 42

  “Nothing Optera and Karkus told us was true,” Healer snapped, pacing back and forth at the bottom of the steps to Dreamer’s dorm. “They lied to us and to Ponder and Mauler. They never wanted to guide us to a peaceful future. They wanted slaves that they could make into a superweapon against their enemies. Some great and noble gods they turned out to be. Pincher was telling us the truth. They look at their subjects as tools to be used and thrown away. They’re deceivers. Manipulators. No better than these pigs.”

  Dreamer shivered in the cold night wind. “What are you going to do?”

  He stopped and looked at her. “Like I said before, I’m going after our friends.”

  “Right now?”

  “I’m heading out as soon as you’re inside, yes.”

  “What about your patients tomorrow?”

  “Swifter can run the place. And with Scurvert dead… I might just be out of a job. I’m not really worried about it. This is more important.”

  “Aren’t you going to at least call Caper? Boxer? They might be able to help.”

  “No. I’m going alone.” They already got themselves captured once, he decided not to add.

  “Well, let me just run to my room real quick. I’m going with you.”

  Healer took a long look at the courtyard. All the lights were off. No one was around. He came up the walk, stepped onto the landing, and stood close enough to whisper. “Dreamer, I don’t think you realize how bad it’s going to get. I don’t want you in the middle of that.”

  “I get it. And I can help. Maybe we can fix Render’s mind with our new therapy technique. It would be worth a try, at least. Don’t you think?”

  “Well…” Healer grimaced. “I hate the thought of it, but you’re right. It would be better if you came along.”

  “Be right back. I’m going to run to my dorm and then write Caper a note. They should at least know what’s happening.” Dreamer let herself into the building. Healer waited alone for a few minutes until she emerged from the dorm, ran down the walk to drop a piece of paper into the lecture hall’s mail slot, then returned to his side. She had her satchel, but it looked empty. Her hooves were dusted with dark soil. “Ready.”

  He glanced at her bag. “What are you bringing?”

  “Just my orchid. I’ll show it to you later. What’s our destination?”

  Healer turned and pointed over the massive wall bordering the Megatropolis to the top floor of the highest building they could see—the main headquarters of the Chugg Corporation. “We’re headed right there.”

  Chapter 43

  Dreamer lagged behind Healer during the walk east, constantly stopping and looking into her satchel. Every time, he waited for her. They had crossed about half the distance between the school and the front gate of the Megatropolis before Healer got fed up and turned around to confront her.

  “Is that thing going to be a distraction the whole way?” he demanded.

  She sighed. “I’m sorry. I’ll stop. He's not answering me anyway.”

  Healer stood in her path. “What’s so important?”

  Dreamer relented. “I’m… worried about what we saw in the visions,” she said through gritted teeth. “What if Scurvert was giving false information just to get rid of Render? What if he was just baiting our friends into going to their deaths? I keep wanting to ask the Father Orchid.”

  “Scurvert pretty much corroborated what Durdge told us. We don’t have time to be asking anyone a bunch of questions anyway.”

  “You’re right. We don’t. We can keep moving.”

  Healer turned to continue on the path, but he kept looking at Dreamer out of the corner of his eye. She hadn’t been honest with him, and he wanted to know why.

  He did not have much time to reflect on it further because the imposing wall of the Megatropolis loomed just minutes away. How am I going to talk our way into the city? And what will I do if that approach fails?

  As they drew closer, though, he realized something was off about the city. No lights were on in any of the windows or storefronts, which was unusual. The dark of night kept him from seeing more detail until they got up close.

  The twin motorized cannons were pointed away from them, toward the city and up into the sky, sweeping back and forth in a repeating pattern. Farther down to the right, another of the giant guns was doing the same thing. He looked to the left to see if the cannon down that way would be scanning the skies as well. A shaft of dim, amber light coming from the wall caught his eye.

  “Hey, Dreamer. Do you see that? I think it’s one of the holes in the wall the newspaper mentioned.”

  “Let’s take a closer look.”

  They headed along the wall, following the faint beam of light. A few hundred feet away from the gate, they reached the gap. It was about as big around as the wheel of a truck. Now that they were near, they could see four or five more spread out farther down.

  It was just low enough to the ground that Dreamer could reach her head and front legs into it by standing on her hind legs on Healer’s back.

  “What do you see?” Healer inquired.

  “The light is from a street lamp,” she said. “Those are just about the only lights that are still on, from what I can see. If you boost me a little higher I can crawl through.”

  Healer obeyed, putting his own front hooves against the wall and pushing up to raise Dreamer higher. She scrambled into the gap and disappeared from his view. Healer crouched down, coiled his hind legs under him, and jumped up to catch the edge of the hole himself. By that time, Dreamer had managed to turn around. She helped him pull himself up into the hole, then she backed up and lowered herself out on the other side. Healer followed her into the darkened Megatropolis.

  Down by one of the other holes, a crew of small porkers in hard hats was scrambling to pour concrete into the gap. They were having a difficult time in the dim amber light of the street lamps. One of them gave a startled squeak when he noticed the two sheep, alerting his five crewmates.

  “Hang on, hang on,” Healer said, reaching the pigs before they could raise an alarm. “We’re not here to make trouble. We want to stop whoever did this.”

  The little working pigs hesitated, exchanging glances among themselves. Finally one of them stepped out of the group.

  “Hi, Healer. I like the horns. Remember me?”

  Healer looked down at the pig, surprised. “Of course I remember you, Hork. But how do you recognize me?”
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br />   “You smell the same. Hey, everyone. This is the guy from TV. With the clinic. I went to him after I got hurt.”

  The others began to chatter among themselves.

  “Hork wouldn’t lie.”

  “He’s the guy with the clinic, all right.”

  “How come you have horns now, clinic guy?”

  Dreamer stepped in to change the subject. “How did the wall get damaged?”

  One of the crewmen pointed. Across from them, one of the big wall-mounted cannons scanned the sky.

  “The other day they were just blasting away,” the pig said. “They had the creature on the run. It ran along the ground here, and that cannon followed after it and just punched all these holes in the wall. That’s why they’ve been reprogrammed to stay high.”

  “We were told to close up these holes,” said Hork. He indicated several more holes farther down, sealed with bricks and mortar. The patches were not pretty, but they looked effective. “The boss said to do it fast, before anyone had a chance to… do exactly what you just did.”

  “Where is everyone else?” Healer inquired.

  “Here in downtown everyone’s shut up in their homes. Big panic. The monster took out every cloned dog and hawk we threw at it. Cut down a bunch of security cameras too. Replacing those is our next project. Uptown, everyone’s sealed up in a big panic bunker on the Chugg Corporation grounds.”

  “What about the monster? Where is it now?”

  “There was an emergency broadcast a few hours ago saying that it had returned to the city. They’re saying it’s trapped in the uptown district. All we know is every now and then we see it coming out from between some buildings and trying to fly up the big Chugg tower. Those guns just light up before it can get very far, and it scurries back down to wherever it came from. It’s happened three or four times now.”

  “Can we get into uptown?”

  “All the roads in and out are barricaded, but we use an underground maintenance tunnel not far from here.”