Deathstalker War (40 page)

“Wait a minute,” said Finlay. “Didn’t any of the heroes fight the villains to protect the humans? I mean, they were heroes, like you and the Bear.”

“They were the superpeople,” said the Sea Goat, his large upper lip curling. “And they didn’t give a damn for mere unpowered humans. After the slaughter was over, they went back to doing the only thing that interested them. Fighting their endless bloody battles, to see who was stronger, faster, or the better flier. They’ve never taken part in the war. I think they believe it’s beneath them. And I’ll tell you something else. For as long as Toystown has been a refuge and a sanctuary, we’ve never had one superperson come to us, seeking redemption or forgiveness for all the blood they spilled. Bastards.”

“Is it dangerous here?” said Evangeline.

“Hell yes,” said Bruin Bear. “They hate the thought that inferior Humanity created them. The only thing they’d interrupt their contests for is a chance to kill some more humans.”

“Then why are we slowing down?” said Toby.

“Well, sweeties,” said a familiar voice behind them, “I’m rather afraid we need more fuel. I mean, darlings, you wouldn’t believe how much wood it takes to keep our boilers running.” They turned around, and there was the Captain, balancing on his two peg legs and looking decidedly upset. The parrot dozed on his shoulder, muttering obscenities to itself. The Captain tried an ingratiating smile. “We need more wood, sweeties, and this is our last chance to stock up before we hit the Forest. And believe you me, we don’t want to stop in the Forest for more wood. Not if you like your head in the general vicinity of your shoulders.”

“All right,” said the Bear. “Pull us in to the side, and we’ll gather as much as we can. They’ll never miss a few flats. But be ready to leave at a moment’s notice. This is a bad place, people.”

He strode off with the Sea Goat to organize some axes. The Captain smiled nervously in all directions, then hurried back to his bridge. The humans looked at each other uncertainly.

“I always liked superheroes,” said Finlay. “I was a big fan, when I was a kid. You could always depend on super-heroes to save the day.”

“That was then, this is now,” said Anything. He’d changed into his best fighting shape, with spiked knuckles and elbows and razor-edged hands. “When they were made intelligent, the superpeople realized that though they looked human, they could never be human. I think it drove a lot of them crazy. Serves them right. Why pine to be human, when you could be more than human, like the Furies? They were the real superpeople.”

“Why are you here, machine?” said Giles. “You’ve made it clear enough you don’t care for humans.”

“I want an end to the threat of the Red Man and his army,” said Anything. “And you appear to be the best bet for that. But when it’s all over, and you’re gone, and the planet is ours again, trust me—I won’t shed a single tear to be shot of you all. This is our world now, not yours.”

And he turned and stalked away, the sun gleaming brightly on his silver body.

“I hope it rains, and he rusts,” said Toby.

The Merry Mrs. Trusspot slipped in beside the Riverbank, as close to the fake city as she could get, and then shut her engines down to the faintest murmur. No sense in drawing anyone’s attention. Anything lowered a gangplank, and the party went ashore, holding their axes more like weapons than cutting tools. At the toys’ insistence, they stood and listened for a while. In the distance, there was the sound of something that might have been fighting, but it seemed comfortably far away. Finlay and Giles, Toby and Flynn set about hauling in broken flats and parts of fallen buildings, while the toys labored to cut them into manageable sizes. The sound of steel cutting into wood seemed dangerously loud in the quiet.

It was hard and sweaty work for the humans. The Goat and the Bear labored tirelessly, torn between the need for speed, and their desire not to show the humans up too much. Anything didn’t give a damn. He stomped back and forth, carrying the heaviest weights he could find, his servomechanisms barely whining. Poogie’s cartoony hands had trouble grasping the axes, so he worked beside the humans, helping them carry awkward shapes and sizes. Halooweenie busied himself carrying cold drinks from the ship to the humans.

Giles and Finlay worked pretty much in silence, apart from the occasional grunted order. This wasn’t their kind of work, but they couldn’t spare the breath for complaints. Unlike Toby. They worked for the best part of an hour, piling up chopped wood and hauling it on board, and then the feeling of being watched grew stronger. People began looking suddenly over their shoulders, or turning around suddenly. They tried to work faster. This was a bad place, and all the humans could feel it now. The Sea Goat stopped suddenly, straightened up from his work, and looked out into the city, his great pointed ears upright and quivering. Bruin Bear moved in beside him.

“What is it?” he said quietly.

“It’s the battle,” said the Goat. “It’s moving this way. The superpeople are coming.”

“Right, that’s it,” said the Bear. “Everyone grab as much as you can carry. We’re leaving.”

“We can’t,” said Anything. “We don’t have enough wood yet.”

“We do if we’re careful,” said the Bear. “Now for once in your life, don’t argue. There isn’t time. They could be here any minute.”

They all carried as much wood as they could back to the ship, then formed a human chain for the last few pieces. Merry Mrs. Trusspot fired up her engines, vented steam as quietly as she could, and waited for everyone to get back on board. They could all hear the superpeople now. There were shouts and cries, crashing and tearing sounds, and what sounded like energy discharges. The humans saw the increasing tension in the toys, and tried to move faster. Finally Bruin Bear raised his paw for them to stop.

“That’s it. Time to go.”

“We need more,” protested Poogie.

“We’ll manage.”

“Just let me get one last piece!”

And Poogie the Friendly Critter, eager to help as always, went charging down the gangway to get the last heavy piece of wood he’d dragged in. Anything started to go after him to help, but the Bear made him wait at the top of the gangway. And then the superpeople came.

They came flying through the sky in their brightly colored costumes, swooping and diving like technicolor angels. They were bright and gaudy and so much larger-than-life, with their long limbs and huge muscles. They flew at each other, fighting with great crashing blows that sent them careening through the flats that made up the fake city. They fired energy blasts from their hands and eyes, the crackling energies rebounding from personal force shields. They flew so high, far above the concerns of mere humanity, and took no notice at all of the humans and toys below them. They were engaged in their own godlike business, and everything and everyone else was less than dust beneath their garish boots.

“They don’t even know we’re here,” said Toby quietly. “They don’t give a damn. Flynn, tell me you’re getting this.”

“As best I can, chief. Half of them are moving too fast for my camera to focus.”

“I know them,” said Finlay. “I remember them.” And he named the flashing figures for his companions, as a bird-watcher might point out sightings of special interest.

There the Mystery Avenger swapped punches with the Bloodred Claw. Heatstroke and Duo Devil clashed in bursts of lightning. Ms. Fate and Ms. Retaliator soared in savage attacks against the Wild Whirlwind Brothers. There were the Double Danger twins, and the Lethal Lightning and the Miracle Maniac. There were reds and blues, gold and silver, flapping capes and hooded cowls. All sorts of emblems and designs and clashing colors. They flew and fought with superhuman speed and savagery, and the city shattered around them.

Finlay wondered if they ever stopped to rebuild, and if not, where the superpeople would go when there was no more city to destroy. He visualized them crashing through Toystown, burying helpless toys under falling rubble, and his hand went to the disrupter at his side. Bruin Bear put a paw on his hand, and shook his head. Finlay understood. They couldn’t afford to draw attention to themselves.

Poogie got his piece of wood to the bottom of the gangplank, and then stopped and looked back at the super-people, to see how close they were. And there he froze, held rooted to the spot by a spectacle of savagery so much greater than he was. Everyone shouted at him from the ship, but he didn’t hear them. Finlay started down the gangplank, but Anything raced past him, moving inhumanly fast. He reached the bottom, grabbed Poogie by the shoulder, and shook him roughly. The light came back into Poogie’s eyes, and he dropped his piece of wood and started up the gangway.

And up above them, Ms. Fate hit the Miracle Maniac with a blast of lightning from her eyes. He was thrown back against a tall wooden flat pretending to be a tower block. It cracked under the impact, overbalanced and fell backwards, crashing to the ground. The first Poogie and Anything knew was when its shadow fell across them. They stopped and looked up, and saw its huge weight descending upon them. Poogie screamed. There was no time to run. Anything picked up the Friendly Critter and with one great heave threw him up onto the ship’s deck. And the great wooden flat came slamming down on Anything like the hammer of God.

Everyone rushed down the gangplank. Finlay covered them with drawn disrupter as Giles used all his boosted strength to lift one end of the massive wooden flat. Toby and Flynn ducked underneath it and dragged Anything out. The Bear and the Goat helped carry him back on board ship. Finlay backed up the gangplank, gun at the ready, but none of the superpeople dueling above so much as looked down.

They laid Anything out on the deck, then stood helplessly over him, not knowing what to do. His body had reverted to a simple humanoid shape, and his metal was cracked in a hundred places. One side of his head had broken open. Dimming lights came and went in the exposed workings of his mind, like drifting thoughts. Poogie knelt beside him, crying. Halloweenie patted him awkwardly on the shoulder, silent for once in the presence of death. Anything stared up at the sky.

“I always knew humans would be the death of me. I should never have come on this mission.”

“Don’t die,” said Poogie. “Don’t leave me.”

“Not like I have a choice. You go on, Poogie. Find the Red Man. Kick his ass. And don’t take any shit from these humans. Get them out of here. I don’t want them here. And someone get this damn light out of my eyes.”

Bruin Bear reached for something to shade him, and then stopped as he realized Anything was dead. Poogie picked the metal man up and held him in his arms, rocking back and forth, and the tears he cried were just as real as any human’s. Flynn stopped filming.

And up in the sky, the superpeople fought on, uncaring of the lesser beings below.

The ship chugged on through the day, and the sounds of war grew louder. They could almost make out now the individual explosions that made up the never-ending thunder. There was smoke in the air, too, gradually darkening the daylight till it seemed evening had come early. The humans and the toys watched from different sides of the deck. They’d been keeping themselves separate since Anything’s death.

The steamer pressed on, slowing slightly as wreckage began to appear in the dark waters of the River. And then there were bodies of toys floating past the ship, and bits of toys. So many dead they were beyond counting. Trees burned on both sides of the River, dark smoke billowing up into the false evening sky. Some patches were already burnt-out, dead trees in a dead landscape of rutted earth and trenches and bomb craters. Bright splashes of color lit up the sky in vivid moments, the flash of explosives and the tumbling stars of falling flares. The toys grew restless. The Sea Goat stared straight ahead, eyes wide and nostrils flared, as though deep within him his Shub programming was struggling to resurface. Bruin Bear held the Goat’s hand with his paw as hard as he could. Poogie had curled into a ball, hiding his eyes as he sought to hide from old memories of blood and death. Halloweenie sat guard at Julian’s door and would not move.

And then suddenly the war was all around them. Armies of toys covered both banks, running and shouting and fighting with boundless strength and fury. They were armed with all kinds of weapons, from crudely beaten blades to energy weapons. Grenades arced through the air, sending earth and broken toys flying through the air. Hand-to-hand combat broke out everywhere, toy fighting toy, with no sense of strategy. It was just chaos, a sprawling mess of death and destruction. The humans and the toys on the steamer ducked as rockets roared over their heads, exploding on the opposite banks.

“Where the hell did they get all these weapons from?” said Finlay, raising his voice to be heard over the din.

“From Shub,” said the Sea Goat, still staring out into the chaos with unblinking eyes. “We were supposed to use them against you. And some we made ourselves. Shub gave us that knowledge, too.”

“Can you tell who’s winning?” said Toby. “The good toys or the bad toys?”

“No one’s winning here,” said Bruin Bear. “They’re just dying.”

And at that moment, as though the warring toys had only just noticed them, the armies on both sides of the River opened fire on the paddle steamer. The waters erupted as bombs and grenades fell short, showering the deck with water. The humans and the toys had to cling to the guardrails to avoid being swept away. Energy beams shot out of the murk, piercing the ship’s sides in a dozen places. The deck shuddered underfoot as the Merry Mrs. Trusspot screamed. Fires broke out, flames licking hungrily along the wooden hull. The humans fired their disrupters at both banks, while the toys ran to fight the fires with buckets and hand pumps.

Evangeline stuck her head out of Julian’s cabin, and Finlay yelled for her to get back inside. She was safer there. Evangeline looked around her and didn’t argue. Giles and Finlay put away their guns and drew their swords. They knew someone would come. Toby kept his head well down, recording an exciting commentary, while Flynn sent his camera shooting back and forth, trying to cover as much as possible. More energy beams blasted ragged flaming holes in the ship’s superstructure. So far, they hadn’t hit the boilers. The ship was still screaming, but her great paddle wheels still turned.