Skeletor's Arc

Chapter 2 of 4

By dawn Skeletor's monsters straggled back up the mountain road, beaten. The werewolf limped through the castle gate, his fur clotted with blood. The vampire followed, one arm hanging wrong. The zombie shambled last, half his shirt torn away. They had no fortress in the streets. The people had driven them from block to block, and scattered, they were easy to hunt. Skeletor watched them come and knew the truth. Without a place to gather, his monsters would be picked off one by one. He found his engineer in the lower hall, hunched over a workbench. Trap Jaw was Skeletor's oldest friend and his best builder, blue-skinned and broad, his purple helmet scarred from old fights. His yellow eyes glowed as he worked. "You want a foothold in the city," Trap Jaw said, not looking up. "A wall they can't push past." He slammed a metal fist on the bench. "Give me the abandoned warehouse near the water. I'll turn it into a keep by nightfall." "Then do it," Skeletor said. Evilin swept into the hall, her staff dark, her robes still torn at the shoulder. She was his lover, and she alone spoke to him without fear. She set her hand on his arm. "A keep is stone," she said. "Stone does not win hearts. The boy has their hearts." Her purple eyes held his. "Take that from him and the walls won't matter." "First the walls," Skeletor said. "Then the boy." Trap Jaw led the monsters down at dusk. Skeletor watched from the tower. Saber Wolf tore the warehouse doors from their hinges. The vampire drove out the few people inside. By midnight, Trap Jaw had welded steel across every window and raised a barred gate. Torches burned along the roof. His monsters no longer scattered. They held one strong point, and the people could not break it. Skeletor descended and stood inside his new keep. His monsters pressed close around him, hungry again. Trap Jaw grinned through his metal jaw. "They can't touch us here." Then a sound rose outside. Not screaming. Chanting. Skeletor climbed to the roof and looked down. The people had gathered in the dark, hundreds of them, more than the night before. At their center stood the boy, small and bloody, a broken bat raised over his head. He pointed at the keep, and the crowd roared. "They know where we are now," Evilin said beside him. She had climbed up behind him. "You gave them one place to march on." Skeletor gripped the rail. His keep would hold the walls. But every night the crowd would grow, so long as that one boy stood before them and called. Evilin was right. He had bought himself stone and lost the streets. To rule this city, he would have to break the boy who kept the people standing.