Owen and Benjamin slowly raised their hands in the air.
“And when losing the game could mean losing your life, it’s kind of important,” Beatrice said.
If they both jumped her at the same time, one of them could probably subdue her, but the other would most likely be shot. It wasn’t worth it. Owen made a calming hand motion toward Benjamin.
“Well, I’m not getting any younger. Move your skinny asses,” Beatrice said.
Beatrice stripped them of their pistols and rifles and directed them down the hill toward the road.
As they navigated down the slope, snow fell in front of them. Their breath hit the air as hot mist. The occasional yell and gunshot could be heard up on the estate, but there were no more explosions.
They reached the road and arced around a bend. Here they saw several stationary cars. A group of figures moved out of the embankment, leveling weapons at them. There were four people and two guardians standing rigidly behind them. The two people in the front were easy to recognize—Preston Hatch and Rourke Rama.
“Oh sweetheart, you shouldn’t have,” Rourke said, beaming from ear to ear with a pistol in his hand. “It’s not even my birthday!” Beatrice walked over to stand beside Rourke.
Rourke slapped Beatrice on her behind and then flicked the end of his pistol barrel toward Benjamin. “And who is this dapper young man? Could this be the errand boy for missus self-important-pants?”
“This is Rourke Rama,” Owen explained to Benjamin.
Benjamin nodded in understanding, “Ah yes. The one Madison refers to as the man with a thousand smiles, none of them good.”
The ground shook ever so slightly. To the casual observer, it could have been a distant bomb going off.
There was no sense trying to overcome Rourke’s insanity, so Owen ignored him altogether and focused on Preston. “This is your last chance, Preston,” Owen said. “Gail needs to be stopped. Help us before more people get hurt.”
Preston guffawed. “My last chance? You were wrong from the start, but now you’ve really lost it Owen. You can’t even tell who’s captured who here.”
There was more shaking, louder now. The source was closer.
Rourke wasn’t about to let them argue without him. “Yes, it’s true. Poor Mr. Spotty Face still doesn’t get it. Maybe it would’ve been better for all of us if I had accidentally hit your head against a rock at the bike towers. It would’ve saved you the trouble of embarrassing yourself over and over again.”
There was more shaking, this time accompanied by a loud rumble. People around them tensed to keep their balance. The two enforcers looked at each other in confusion, and Preston’s brow knitted in contemplation.
Rourke didn’t seem to notice. He had that devilish look in his eye. When he had that look, it seemed like nothing would distract him until he’d attained whatever demented victory he sought. He raised his pistol toward Owen and said, “but better late than never.”
A chorus lark flew between them, hovering in front of Rourke’s weapon. It was singing a complex melody. Rourke was momentarily distracted by it, confused even.
For once, he even lost his smile.
And then a great stone fist, twice the size of a man, flattened Rourke into the ground from above, pummeling his body into a small crater, and vaulting everyone in the vicinity of the impact onto their backs.
LOUIE
Nobura watched as the Lewis Mountain beholder pivoted its leg easily over the massive exterior wall and pounded its stone foot down into the courtyard, sending shockwaves through the ranks of his troops and the enforcers alike.
Much of the beholder’s mossy surface had fallen away. Underneath you could see it was stained by numerous colors, in some parts faded, in some parts blended together by weathering. It looked somewhat like one of the popular lawn gnomes from the Toyama Prefecture, dipped in a vat of tie-dye. But of course this was where the similarity ended. The beholder was no lawn gnome. It was a giant. It was a giant, and the men around it were like ants.
Nobura also noticed that a number of chorus larks were bobbing and weaving around the beholder’s head, torso, and legs, while at the same time humming rich melodies.
Louie scooped up a fleeing guardian in one of its hands and clenched its fist around it. When the massive stone mitt opened, crushed metal peeled off the surface of its palm as the remains fell to the ground. Then with a foot it stomped on another guardian bolting away, flattening it and again shaking the ground around them.
The enforcers were no longer charging on Nobura’s position. Their objective had lost meaning in the face of this titanic reversal of fortune. Most of them scattered. A brave few shot their rifles at the beholder, but with no effect. One leveled some kind of a grenade launcher at the giant, but the beholder flicked him fifty feet with a finger before he could get a shot off.
But then a great blast assailed the beholder’s right side, the force of it twisting it backward. It was the southern artillery gun; it was working again. The big gun fired again, hitting the beholder’s right arm this time, pushing it back farther. The explosive impact of the shells dislodged huge blocky fragments from Louie’s body, hurtling the pieces in all directions like arcing meteors. The artillery gun fired again, but by now the beholder’s inertia had taken it too far backward. The shells narrowly missed its head, pulverizing a bunker in the background.
The beholder landed on its back, shaking the earth and crushing the husk of the truck that had exploded earlier in the day. The artillery gun stopped firing, rotated left and then right. It began angling down but then it stopped and shuddered, as if something was blocking the downward tracking of its targeting mechanism.
No one in the Barnyard moved.
The beholder was also still, but chorus larks continued to circle above it. Its arm was severed in the middle, revealing a layered cross section of the giant’s innards. The stone-like skin of the arm was actually no more than a foot thick. The interior core was a complex network of shiny metal layers and translucent fibers.
Nobura looked to Cecile. She began crouching down behind cover again, brandishing her weapon.
Nobura followed her example. He could see the enforcers regrouping. Those who had been fleeing had stopped in their tracks. Some were gathering back together behind cover positions. A higher-ranked enforcer was pointing and shouting.
The beholder wasn’t completely lifeless. Rhythmic noises were emanating from it, channeling subtle vibrations into the ground. The chorus larks seemed to respond, copying the noises, sometimes chirping back a different tune. It was a peculiar, indistinct symphony. Nobura quivered with the deepest notes as the ground transferred its resonance throughout the Barnyard area.
The beholder moved again. It began rolling forward, toward Nobura’s position. For a moment Nobura thought it had malfunctioned and was about to bowl his men over, but it slowed and teetered before it could flop over on its front. Then its momentum shifted. It rolled back the other way, gaining speed. It propelled itself with its good arm and then with its legs as well. Its massive body steamrolled awkwardly toward the artillery gun tower, leaving small buildings crumpled in its wake.
The artillery gun fired, but again the shot just missed, nearly skimming the top of Louie’s good arm. The shells struck a destroyed bunker in the distance, throwing up a volley of earth and concrete.
Finally the commando roll of concrete limbs impacted the tower, collapsing into the base of it. The top of the tower began falling onto the beholder. To accelerate the tower’s demise, the beholder’s left arm reached up and swatted the upper portion into the ground, leaving only a tangle of crumpled steel where the gun turret used to be.