Winds of War

by Dennis Morrow

  “That’s a lot to think about,” Steve said. He wiped his cheeks and went back to his game.

  ~~~

  “We spent nineteen and a half hours in the air with Steve curled up in the corner seat and either asleep or playing games on his phone,” Jeremy complained. “He’s completely disengaged. He drives me crazy.”

  “He’ll be there when we need him,” Jesse said as they stepped out of the plane. “He always is.”

  “Where are we on the island?” Matt asked.

  “The airport is called Crossbones Flats International, if that gives you a clue,” Caroline said.

  “Crossbones Flats,” Steve said. “This is where we met Ten, remember?”

  “Yeah, now he talks,” Jeremy said sarcastically.

  “Hey, I’m the sarcastic one, not you.” Steve patted Jeremy on the shoulder as he passed him.

  A lot of changes, Jesse thought as she watched the countryside go by. The bus they were on was traveling on a dark, narrow, two-lane road. Homes and condos along the beach. I would never have thought this island would become a tourist destination. I wonder what it looks like during the day. Probably pretty spectacular.

  “Daydreaming again?” Jeremy asked.

  “Yeah.” Jesse sighed. “We were here a little over a month and a half ago for us, but over three hundred fifty years ago in island time. It feels strange seeing the changes.”

  “Well, you won’t really see the changes until we come back and you can see the place in the daytime,” Matt said.

  The bus stopped in front of the old cave. All ten members of the team plus Slatel, Haven, and T-Bone got out and approached the cave, where a woman waited at the entrance.

  “This is Sandy,” T-Bone said. “She and I will watch Haven until you return.”

  “Don’t worry,” Caroline signed to Haven. “We’ll be back as soon as we can.”

  Haven walked away with Sandy, looking back longingly at Caroline.

  “The cave has been sealed with a solid steel wall and door,” Steve said.

  The door looked like it had been opened recently. The lock was new. Steve started to pull it off the door.

  “Whoa, whoa, Steve,” T-Bone said. “Here’s the key.” He handed the key to Steve and went to his restaurant.

  Steve unlocked the padlock, grabbed the handle, and tugged on the heavy door. Its hinges groaned in agony, but the door opened easily and they all went inside. The cold, damp air smelled like wet dirt. Jeremy threw up a couple of lightning balls, and Matt located them as they walked to the back of the cave into a large bunker. The white paint was peeling off the walls.

  Matt went to a cabinet standing next to a wall. He reached up and removed a plaque, exposing a cavity. Jeremy took a candlestick off the table in the center of the room and handed it to Matt. Matt slipped the candlestick snugly into the cavity. When he turned it a quarter of a turn clockwise, the cabinet swung out of the way and a small door opened.

  They went inside, and Jeremy and Matt lit up the room. Jesse pulled a lever next to the door, and the door closed behind them. They could hear the cabinet sliding back into place on the other side.

  Timeworn paintings graced the walls, along with weapons of war: swords, javelins, battle-axes, and shields. Two doors stood at either end of the rectangular-shaped room. The first was the door they had come through from the bunker. The second was the entrance to Gandoral.

  Matt approached the large wooden door at the other side of the room. It had Alliance-like carvings all over it and a golden doorknob in the center. He grabbed the doorknob and opened the door. There was nothing there.

  Matt put out his hand and encountered a wall. He pressed his hand against it. “It’s the same as before. It feels like a jelly-filled balloon. When I push it and take my hand away, the doorway goes back to its original shape.” He stopped for a minute before speaking the words everyone was waiting for. “Enter Gandoral.”

  The filmlike barrier melted away, and a dimly lit room came into focus on the other side.

  Chapter 45

  Cotton

  The Alliance, Slatel, and the special forces team went through the door into Gandoral.

  Jesse went to the opposite wall and pulled down a lever. A large stone door moved into the room and then out of the way. They stepped through the opening into a chamber at the base of the Tower of Master’s Keep. She pulled a second lever, and the door closed.

  “It’s been almost six hundred years since we were here last,” Jeremy said. “We should go to the top to see what’s changed before we do anything else.” He began to climb the stone stairs.

  “Wow!” Matt said. “Torron has been busy. It looks like most of the Longline Region has been turned into military bases. Some have runways.”

  “She’s preparing for another invasion,” Jeremy said. “Look over there. There are ten mother ships sitting on the ground.”

  “And hundreds of Oar-7s on the runways,” Steve said.

  “This makes it even more urgent we get this done sooner rather than later,” Jesse said.

  “Way over there to the east is a huge pale blue dome, much larger than the domes we saw on Earth,” Jeremy said.

  “So you believe that the eleven of us will be able to defeat this entire war machine?” Trish asked.

  “Okay, you can create little balls of light, and Steve can fly,” Rocky said, showing a little doubt in his voice. “This looks like a suicide mission. We need to get reinforcements and get them here fast. Eleven against . . . what, a million?”

  “Let’s see what the map and scroll show us,” Jesse said as she pulled the folder from her knapsack and then pulled the map out of the folder. She spread the map out on the ledge.

  Jeremy unrolled the scroll. It read as follows:

  There are many on Gandoral who will follow you. You must raise an army of Gandorians. The city of New Cambridge in the Broward Region has been deceived. You must convince them to join you in this battle against Torron. The key is Dieter Schmidt. He will not be easily convinced. All Torron loyalists must be pushed behind the Gates of Horgon. You must root them out with the Dagger of Valdar and the Shield of Innocence. When the queen realizes the end is near, she will become desperate, fierce, and unpredictable. She will be ruthless in her quest to defeat you. Do not lose focus. Danger is extremely high.

  “Okay, there it is,” Rocky lamented. “We have six trained soldiers. We’ll be facing millions of desperate fighters on the other side. Why do you think we have a sliver of a chance?”

  Steve grabbed Rocky by his shirt, lifted him off the ground, and looked him in the eye. “You may be older than me and bigger than me, but you’re not stronger than me. Stop sounding like defeat. You’re embarrassing your fellow special forces teammates. You are not here to fight Torron or her army of creatures. You’re here to protect us, the Alliance, so we can complete our mission. Stop whining, man up, and do your job.” Steve pushed him away as he let him back down to the floor.

  Rocky looked through his eyebrows at Steve and shook his head. “Be careful, little man. One day I won’t be here to protect you.”

  “Cool your jets, Rocky,” Trish said. “We have a job to do. What do we do first?”

  “Torron will arrive here tomorrow,” Jeremy said. “We have a day or two to get ready. Slatel, go talk to your father and have him spread the word that the final battle against the queen is about to begin. Have all the leaders of the clans opposed to Torron meet with us at sunrise tomorrow at the base of the Celestor. We’ll make plans then.”

  “We need transportation,” Scotty said. “There are trucks on the road down there.” He pointed to a road about a mile away. “We’ll borrow one of those.”

  “We’ll head for the city of New Cambridge to talk to this Dieter Schmidt guy,” Matt said. “Can you get a loyal Horkin to meet us there, Slatel? We need someone we can count on to get us inside the city undetected. Can you do that?”

  “Yes,” Slatel said. “I’ll ask my father. He’ll know some
one we can trust.” He jumped over the side of the tower.

  Rocky watched in amazement as the little man fell to the ground. “Why did he jump?”

  Slatel didn’t hit the ground like Rocky had expected. Instead he simply slipped straight into the ground as if slipping into water—no splash.

  “It’s his way of saving time,” Matt said. “He’s probably halfway to his father by now. Let’s go.”

  ~~~

  “We’re pushing the aliens back into the domes,” Colonel Smith said as he entered General Wisecoff’s makeshift office. “They’re only fighting back in self-defense.”

  “We need to teach them a lesson,” General Wisecoff said. “We don’t want them to ever return. Hunt them down. Don’t take any prisoners.”

  “Once they reach the domes, they’re protected,” Smith said. “The domes still have their shields up.”

  “Get as many as possible before they get to the domes,” Wisecoff said. “What about the black clouds? Have we been able to penetrate any of those?”

  “The ones that are attached to the standing domes seem to be impervious to our attacks. The four from Ontario, San Jose, Miramar, and Vancouver have weaknesses. We don’t know what we’re firing at, but if we fire continuously into the cloud, eventually we hit something and it falls out of the cloud to the ground.”

  “Send attack helicopters to the four clouds and have them concentrate their fire on the clouds,” the general said, looking Smith in the eye. “I want to kill as many as we can while they’re retreating. No mercy!”

  “Yes, sir.”

  ~~~

  I don’t know why I sit around when I could easily fly to the city and grab the guy and bring him to the Alliance, Steve thought. Jesse and Matt believe we need to approach this guy with care, sweet-talk him into joining us. I say we kick his butt and demand loyalty. We’ll see. We’ll probably run out of time. Then we’ll kick his butt and demand loyalty.

  Jack was driving the vehicle too fast for the road conditions. Dust billowed up behind the vehicle, letting everyone know they were coming.

  “I’ve never seen a three-wheeled truck before,” Matt said.

  “I’m not sure you can call it a truck,” Steve said. “It’s more like a three-wheeled motorcycle with a pickup bed attached to the back.”

  “Yeah, barely big enough to fit us all in,” Trish said.

  “We’re not all in,” Scotty said. “Rocky and I are riding on the rails.”

  They went over a bump in the road, and both Scotty and Rocky lifted two feet off the rails before coming back down. No harm, no foul.

  ~~~

  An hour later, the Alliance and the special forces team were waiting in a grove of trees and underbrush for the Horkin to show up.

  “We all have our jobs,” Matt said. “It’s the Alliance’s job to push Torron and her evil army back behind the Gates of Horgon. It’s the special forces team’s job to protect the Alliance.”

  “It’s a waste of time to have them here,” Steve said. “We don’t need their protection. We’ve done just fine without them.”

  “Well, we’re here to stay, so get over yourself,” Scotty said. “We have about seventy-five years’ experience in combat and training between us. How long have you been fighting this queen?”

  “Oh, let’s see . . . a little over six months,” Jeremy said. “Of course, we faced her and her army five different times in five different centuries. We started going after the queen in the thirteenth century. When did you start fighting her army? Two weeks ago? How did that work out? Without us, you’d still be fighting her on the West Coast.”

  “Settle down, Jeremy.” Matt said.

  “You do your job,” Caroline said, “and we’ll watch your six.”

  “Watch our six?” Jeremy said under his breath. “Where does that come from?”

  “Was that a rhetorical question, or do you really want to know?” Jesse asked Jeremy quietly.

  “What does it mean?” Jeremy asked. “Really.”

  “It means to watch your back,” Jesse said.

  “Okay, I get that, but why six?”

  “If there was a large clock on the floor and you were standing in the middle facing the number twelve, the six would be behind you,” Jesse said. “Watching your six is watching your back. Get it?”

  “You know what?” Jeremy said. “You’re smarter than you look.”

  “Look, there’s a man with a hood over his head standing near the gate, waiting there,” Rocky said. “Do you think he’s our contact?”

  Slatel popped up out of the ground. Startled, Rocky and Scotty jumped.

  Steve laughed. “Marble-head, I see you’re picking on someone else.”

  “Cotton is his name,” Slatel said. “He’s loyal to our cause and is well connected throughout New Cambridge.”

  Slatel sank into the ground and popped up next to the Horkin. They talked for a second, Slatel disappeared, and the Horkin walked to the underbrush where the Alliance was waiting.

  “I’m Cotton,” the Horkin said as he shook everyone’s hands. “Is it true, what Slatel told me? Is it true that you’re going to get rid of Torron? That doesn’t seem possible. No one has the power to do that, no one.”

  “We’re the Alliance of the Quad,” Matt said.

  The four pulled out their four Symbols. They glowed bright.

  “We have the power to push the queen and her army behind the Gates of Horgon and lock the gates. However, we need to raise a loyal army. Loyal to us, not Torron.”

  “Everyone in the city is loyal to Torron,” Cotton said. “They won’t turn.”

  Just then the gates to the city opened. A black jeep pulled out, and the gates closed. The men and soldiers inside the vehicle pulled off their oxygen masks as they passed close to where the Alliance was hiding.

  “That’s Hans Schmidt,” Cotton said. “That’s strange. They took his mask off. He’ll surely die. I wonder where they’re taking him.”

  “Hans Schmidt? Is he related to Dieter Schmidt?” Matt asked.

  “Yes, he’s Dieter’s younger brother,” Cotton said.

  “Why is it strange?” Jeremy asked.

  “First, no one leaves the Broward Region unless they’re heading back to Earth. I knew that Hans wasn’t happy here, but I didn’t know he had requested to go back to Earth. Second, if he were going back to Earth, they would be taking him to the queen’s castle. That’s where the earthlings come and go from. They’re heading north. There’s nothing up north except the Valley of Darkness. It’s forbidden to go there. You can’t even get close. It’s too well guarded.”

  “That’s where Torron is taking the Imphogs,” Steve said. “You wait here. I’ll follow them and see what’s going on.” He held out his hand to Jesse. “Do your thing.”

  Jesse took his hand, and they both disappeared. She reappeared not holding his hand.

  “You stay here out of sight,” Steve said. “I’ll be back as soon as I find out what’s going on.”

  The wind caused by Steve’s departure kicked up some leaves and a little dust. The group settled in as the sun began to slip behind the mountains in the west.

  Chapter 46

  The Mayor

  Steve was flying about a hundred feet above the black jeep. The jeep had joined several trucks traveling the dark road below. In the distance, he could see reflection of bright lights coming from a valley up ahead. He flew ahead to see what was in the valley.

  The road split. The first road continued straight ahead, and the second road turned off to the left and stopped at the edge of a valley. A truck was unloading dead bodies onto a conveyor belt leading down into the valley below, and the bodies were being burned in a furnace.

  Steve watched as the black jeep stopped at the conveyor belt and a man was taken from the jeep and shot, then loaded onto the belt. Steve recorded what he had seen with his cell phone. He then flew down to the belt as Hans’s body was lowered into the valley. He searched his body and found a distincti
ve ring on his hand. He took the ring, then followed the trucks heading down the other road.

  They stopped in front of a maximum-security prison, and the Imphogs were forced to go inside. Steve got close enough to see thousands of Imphogs sleeping on the ground inside the high fence of the prison.

  ~~~

  Cotton had brought a change of clothes for them all. He also brought helmets and oxygen tanks for each of them.

  “What are the tanks for?” Jesse asked.

  “The air inside the walls of the city is poisonous to everyone out here,” Cotton said. “We can’t go in there without breathing gear, and they can’t come out here without breathing gear. It’s not only unsafe. It’s deadly.”

  After the soldiers loaded up their backpacks with weapons and supplies, Jesse made the backpacks and the Alliance’s knapsacks disappear. They followed Cotton through the main gate and through a decontamination chamber and then into the Broward Region. The ride to New Cambridge took a little over an hour.

  This city is like any major city in the US, Jesse thought. It was modern, with people moving around in cars and bicycles. It was almost midnight, and people were out and about. There’s a lot of life going on, even at this late hour. This is unbelievable. Everyone seems to be happy. How can this be, living under a tyrant like Torron? There are some who have the breathing gear on. They must be from outside of the wall.

  “I’ll get you to the capitol building,” Cotton said, “but you’ll have to get in and to the mayor on your own.”

  “Mayor?” Matt said. “Dieter Schmidt is the mayor?”

  “Yes, and he’s a hard man to get in front of,” Cotton said. “It’ll be difficult to see him.”

  “Not so difficult,” Jeremy said. “We can handle that part. You get us to the capitol.”

  Soon they were standing across the street, looking at a large wall surrounding the capitol compound.

  “The mayor lives in the capitol complex,” Cotton said. He pointed at the gates. “You have to get through those gates and then get to the residence. I have Flox waiting for you on the inside. He’ll lead you to the residence and get you inside. Flox is a little paranoid, so be nice to him.”