Four Protectors, including Strong Heart, mounted back up. Strong Bones shouted something in Osage to his niece, then the three men galloped down the beach toward the outlaw. Hanging back with a frown, Strong Heart glanced at the young riders. “Uncle says we need to help the elders. They can’t stand alone against the bad man.”
“We’re with you,” Keech said.
The girl kicked her pony back into motion. “Follow quick!” she said.
Keech and the other young riders fell in, riding side by side, galloping just behind her, occasionally parting to steer their ponies around thick boulders.
Strong Bones and his two companions soon surrounded Big Ben. Yellow Hawk and Big Moon released a series of arrows, but the sand tornado swatted the shafts away, scattering them to oblivion. Strong Bones and Yellow Hawk tried to approach on foot, their war clubs held high, but neither man could gain ground.
“They’ll never hurt him that way,” Quinn said.
“Doyle’s the only one powerful enough to stop him,” Keech said. “We need to get the Fang and heal him.”
“No, we should attack him head-on,” Duck said.
“We’ll face him soon enough,” Strong Heart said. “For now, circle around and head to the bonfire.”
Still following the girl, the young riders trotted their ponies toward the steep cliffs, giving Big Ben and his windstorm the widest berth possible. As they passed the scuffle, Big Ben’s cyclone whipped Strong Bones off his feet and slammed him into a boulder.
Seeing her uncle fall, Strong Heart cried, “Hahn-kah-zhee!”
Keech looked her firm in the eye. “Go help your uncle. We’ll stand with the elders.”
Clutching her war club, Strong Heart reined her pony and hurried toward the battle.
Suddenly, a nerve-shattering din thundered over the shore.
Keech turned back to look and felt his heart plummet. The Chamelia stood on its hind legs in the distant surf, ripping away the nets that Weeping Cloud and Red Stone had thrown. Both Protectors had tumbled off their horses. One lay unmoving in the shallow water while the other crawled away from the beast. Nearby, John Wesley struggled through the ocean swell, closing in on the Shifter.
“John!” Cutter yelled, then turned back to the others. “He’s alone with that thing!”
“Stay on course,” Keech warned.
But Cutter swiveled Chantico back toward the ocean. Despite Keech’s plea, he kicked his heels and galloped across the narrow beach, zigzagging through the boulders to get back to John Wesley.
“What’s he doing?” said Quinn.
“Getting himself killed,” Duck answered.
Keech called after him to no avail. He could see that Big Ben blocked the boy’s path to the ocean, but at least the Protectors were still surrounding the outlaw, distracting him with a flurry of attacks.
For one moment, Keech thought Cutter might make it past, but as the boy steered Chantico around the battle, a wall of whipping sand blasted him off his saddle, tossing him onto the ground.
Big Ben shouted to the sky in fanatic praise. “Reverend, thank you for the Prime! Your faithful servant will see your destiny fulfilled! You shall rise again in the Palace!”
High above, the fiendish crow answered, Ack!
Keech clenched his teeth in frustration. “Keep on to the bonfire,” he said to Duck and Quinn. “I think there’s a little bloodroot left. I’ll fetch Cutter, and we’ll help John.” He tore off toward the place where Cutter lay.
The Protectors once again approached Big Ben, but with a rapid flutter of his hand, the outlaw sent Yellow Hawk and Big Moon tumbling down the shore along with their ponies. “The Reverend wills that the bonfire be destroyed!” the brute thundered. Only Strong Bones remained to block the outlaw’s path.
“Change of plans,” Keech said to Hector. “We need to take that man down.”
As if he understood, Hector lowered his head and picked up his pace.
Passing the dazed Cutter, Keech aimed the horse at Big Ben, hoping to stampede right over him, but as the stallion closed in on the outlaw, heavy tornado winds lifted Keech off the saddle. He grabbed at the horn with both hands, but the gale snatched his grip loose, and the world went topsy-turvy.
Keech crashed down hard in the sand, narrowly avoiding a rock. When he sat up, he spat a mouthful of grit, noticed his hat nearby, and snatched it. His head felt fuzzy, but he struggled up to his knees in time to see Strong Bones slam into Big Ben. Despite the Protector’s own size, he bounced off the outlaw as if he had thumped against a tree.
Big Ben reached down, grabbed a discarded war club from the ground, and swung the blade. Strong Bones rolled out of the way, letting the cleaver bite into sand. The Protector jumped to his feet and pulled a short knife from his breechcloth.
“You can’t win,” Big Ben said.
Strong Bones charged, and his knife struck the center of Big Ben’s chest. With a cruel snap, the metal blade broke from the handle. The Protector tossed aside his ruined weapon.
“Surrender!” Big Ben cracked his meaty fist across the side of the man’s head.
Strong Bones dropped like a sack full of stones.
Keech caught a flicker of movement. Strong Heart galloped out of nowhere, heading straight for the outlaw. Big Ben swiveled to meet her. With a ferocious cry, the girl drove her pony into his path and brought her war club down on his head. A terrible crack echoed across the beach, but the brute didn’t flinch.
“Enough of the likes of you.” Big Ben snapped a finger as she raced by. A frenzied gust whipped over the beach, and Strong Heart peeled out of her saddle. The outlaw waved his hand toward the ocean, and the mystical wind hoisted the young Protector over the sand. Releasing a scream of raw fury, Big Ben flicked his fingers, and Strong Heart flew far across the water’s shimmering reach. She splashed down in the distance and disappeared.
With no more foes in his path, Big Ben resumed his steady walk to the bonfire.
Keech searched for a plan that could save Strong Heart, destroy Big Ben, and rescue John Wesley and the others from the Chamelia, but his mind was a panicked blank. And when Strong Heart’s faint voice called out over the crashing tide, shrieking for help, he felt despair clutch his heart.
Then suddenly, a voice from up the beach shouted Strong Heart’s name. A midnight-black horse galloped over the cove and toward the ocean.
Quinn Revels rode Saint Peter, dragging one of the Protector’s nets behind him. The Kelpie’s hooves met the tide but didn’t sink.
“Strong Heart, hold on!” Quinn called as Saint Peter charged across the top of the surf and out to sea.
Keech loosed a victorious peal. “Go, Quinn, go!”
Vicious barks yanked his attention back to the nearby shoreline. Keech spun to see John Wesley waist-deep in the surf, entangled with the Chamelia. The larger Shifter slashed with furious claws, but the boy refused to surrender. They snapped and howled and thrashed in the waves.
Keech was surprised to see that a few feet farther up the beach, Cutter was dragging Red Stone away from the brawl. The boy stumbled but refused to slow, tugging the horseman out of the tide and onto dry land.
Back on the beach, Big Ben stepped up his pace to the cove and the bonfire. A short distance away, Duck stood at the cove’s mouth, guarding the two elders behind her, ready for a scuffle. She was whipping her sling, ready to loose a stone, her feet set wide in a fighting stance.
A terrible dread washed over Keech as he realized that Duck would never defeat the man alone. He tore off running, desperate to reach the outlaw first. He bellowed a war cry, hoping to catch Big Ben off guard, but the fiend didn’t bother to glance around.
There was no way to help her.
Duck released her sling, and a stone shot like a bullet through the unnatural winds, but it never came close to reaching him.
Big Ben laughed and simply waved a hand.
A violent wind pitched Duck sideways. She tumbled over the cove, past Doyle and the elders, and smacked into a boulder standing in the wash.
Keech’s legs and lungs burned, but he refused to slow.
Big Ben had reached the cove.
Buffalo Woman waited under the glow of the inferno, holding her ground. Her partner, Doesn’t Fear Thunder, stood over Doyle’s body. A few yards away, Duck sat up in the shallow tide and clutched her temples in a daze.
Keech heard Big Ben mutter two words: “You’ve lost.” The man snapped his fingers, and heavy gusts ripped at the elders. The old pair held up their hands and pushed against the magical surge, as though trying to keep a stone wall from tumbling on them. For a moment, their effort worked, but then Big Ben wailed in fury, and the winds howled even louder. The elders plummeted off their feet.
“Big Ben, stop!” Keech cried.
Glancing over his shoulder, the outlaw scowled at Keech. The frenzied light of the bonfire turned his face into that of a red monster. “I am your Harvester of doom,” he called back. Then he leaped over Doyle’s body and dived straight into the inferno.
Keech skidded to a halt at the edge of the fire.
Struggling up from the ground, Buffalo Woman turned frantic eyes on Keech. She shouted in fierce English, “You must go now!”
Do not fear the fire, she had said earlier. But Keech hesitated. After all, Big Ben had survived the whistle-bomb explosion in Wisdom, the blast that had killed Nat. Perhaps fire didn’t even hurt the fiend but would leave Keech a cooked goose if he followed.
The crackling, red-hot mountain menaced before him. Terrible heat cascaded over his face, conjuring memories of the burning Home for Lost Causes. He remembered Sam inside the flames, waving him away. He heard the cries of his orphan siblings. He yelled out to them, but he realized he was only shrieking at phantoms.
Keech also realized he had made his decision. He would not hide from the fire.
Nearby, Duck clamored, and Buffalo Woman bellowed to him in Osage. But he didn’t turn back. Instead, Keech squeezed his eyes shut and hunkered low in the sand and muttered a small supplication to his fallen brother.
“Be with me, Sam.”
Then before he could change his mind, before the magnificent flames could rob his body of all courage, Keech vaulted into the inferno.