Deathstalker 03 - Deathstalker War

eyes.
    "Oh, we have many friends, waiting along the way for you. We know where you're from, where you're going. We have ears and eyes everywhere. You'll never reach the Red Man. We won't allow it."
    "What's your name?" said Toby.
    The head laughed at him. "Names? That's a human thing. Our identities interchange as our bodies do. We are lost to who we were, and we like it that way."
    "Tell me what you know about Harker," Giles said patiently. "Tell me what you know about the Red Man, and his plans. And why you're so determined to stop us getting to him."
    "I don't have to answer your questions. Human." The head spit at Giles. He didn't flinch.
    "I could make you talk," said Giles. "Look at me, toy."
    He leaned forward slightly, staring into the head's dark eyes. His presence was suddenly overpowering, frightening, awful. As though something unexpected and horribly powerful had emerged from behind the mask of Giles's face. The Bear and the Goat shrank back, and Toby had to fight down the urge to do the same.
    Flynn's control over his camera wavered for a moment, but he kept filming. The head made a high, whining noise, a terrified, pitiful sound, like a child being tortured. Giles relaxed suddenly, and the overwhelming presence was gone, as suddenly as it had come. The head had its eyes squeezed shut.
    "All right," it said quietly. "We're scared of the Red Man. No one who goes to him comes back. Ever. Even those most fanatical to our cause. From what we hear,
    he's building a private army of his own, deep in the Forest. It's said he's going to end the war. Or end the world. They say he's crazy, crazy as only a human can be, and he's infecting toys with that madness. I know you humans.
    You'd try and reason with him, and you'd end up mad as he is. Mad as the Red Man. And who knows how powerful he'd become with more humans to help him, humans as crazy as he is. So, we're lying in wait, all along the River. You'll never live to reach the Forest."
    "We want to take him away," said Giles. "Take him offworld with us. Isn't that what you want?"
    The head just laughed. "You're lying. Humans always lie. We know that. They said they loved us, when they came here to play with us, but in the end they always went away and left us behind. We were just toys, to be used and discarded on a whim. They never loved us. You'll all pay for that."
    "I think we've heard enough," said Giles. "This is for Julian."
    He picked up the head, and pressed his thumbs firmly into its eyes. The huge eyeballs crunched inward, destroying the fragile instruments within. The head howled piteously. Giles pulled his thumbs out, and tossed the screaming head over the rail and into the River, to be found and recovered by its fellows, or not. Giles looked at the others, but neither the humans nor the toys had anything to say. Giles put his back against the guardrail.
    "Not as helpful as I'd hoped," he said calmly. "Did I miss anything pertinent?"
    "Just the one, maybe," said Toby. "Why do you suppose they keep referring to Harker as the Red Man?"
    "They say he's crazy," said Giles. "Dangerously crazy. Maybe the red is a reference to blood."
    "And we're going to meet him," said the Sea Goat. "Lucky old us."

    "Shut up, Goat," said the Bear, not unkindly.
    They continued on down the River, passing abandoned battlefields and dead toys.
    The war had been here, and passed on. The constant rumble of explosions in the distance grew gradually louder, nearer. They passed playhouses; forts and castles, log cabins and rose-covered cottages. Burnt-out, torn apart, utterly destroyed. A farm, complete with barns and outbuildings for artificial animals.
    The animals were long gone, but the buildings had been torched, and only the blackened bones of humans remained, from where they'd been tied to spits in the blazing farmyard. Signs of the war were everywhere now, as the paddle steamer drew nearer to the Forest, and everywhere lay the broken bodies of dead toys, lying looking up at the sky with empty eyes; no way now to know whether they'd been good or bad toys, or if they'd even given a damn. The ship sailed on as the day faded into the evening and then into night.
    They found an open field, apparently untouched by the war, and pulled in beside the River-bank. The humans felt a need for fresh air and the chance to stretch their legs. The toys didn't really understand, but went along with it. Though they hadn't said anything, it was clear their growing nearness to the Forest