Skeletor's Arc

Chapter 3 of 4

The chanting faded by dawn, but Skeletor knew it would return that night. His keep held the walls, yet his monsters were still scattered and beaten. Half had not returned from the streets. The rest slept in corners, licking wounds. A fortress meant nothing without an army to fill it. Skeletor called his monsters to the keep's main hall. He would rally them tonight or lose them for good. They came slow. Beast Man dragged himself in first, his orange fur matted, his shoulders bent. He had led charges before without fear. Now he would not meet Skeletor's eyes. "The boy's people broke us," he muttered. "They keep coming. We cannot win." Around him the others nodded. Skeletor felt the rot spreading through them. Evilin stood at his side, her staff crystal glowing faint. "They don't need swords," she said low, for him alone. "They need to believe again. Show them a victory they can taste." Her purple eyes held his. "Give them one enemy they can crush tonight, or they'll drift away by morning." He saw the plan then. The people gathered each night by the water near the keep. Skeletor turned to his two strongest. Merman, green and broad, his fish-jaw full of teeth, had come up from the harbor after the defeat. Klawfull, the crab-headed brute, cracked his claws in the dark. Neither had fought the boy's mob yet. Both were fresh. "Trap Jaw," Skeletor said. "Open a side gate at midnight. Quiet." His engineer grinned through his metal jaw and slammed a fist to his chest. Skeletor pointed at Merman and Klawfull. "You two lead. Not to hold ground. To take one prize and run. Break the crowd's edge. Show them our monsters still have teeth." At midnight the gate rose without a sound. Merman and Klawfull slipped into the dark. The crowd had gathered again, torches bright, the boy at their center on a crate. Beast Man watched from the roof, hunched, unsure. Then Klawfull's claw closed on a man at the edge and dragged him screaming into the black. Merman surged through the panic and seized the boy's raised crate, ripping it from under him. The boy fell. The crowd scattered. Beast Man roared from the roof. The sound spread. His monsters poured to the walls and roared with him, alive again. Merman and Klawfull vanished back through the gate before the people could rally. Skeletor stood in his hall as his army pressed close, hungry, loud, restored. The rot was gone. He had his army. But Evilin did not cheer. She lifted the prisoner's torn jacket that Klawfull had left on the stones. Beneath it lay a folded paper, a crude map of the keep, every gate marked. "They were scouting your walls," she said. "They know how to get in." Skeletor stared at the map. He had rallied his monsters, and shown the boy exactly where to strike.