Hell On Earth Box Set | Books 1-6

by Wright, Iain Rob

  He looked down at the human corpse he'd impaled and removed the spike from its skull. Then, with one massive hand, he lifted the corpse into the air and tossed it over the walls. Let the humans keep their dead so they might wallow in what was to come.

  Every soul inside the stone fort would perish before dawn. If it took a thousand troops to achieve it, no matter. Caligula had more than enough loyal creatures at his disposal. That was what had provided the luxury of attacking the fort from both sides. The humans might have high stone walls, but they lacked numbers. Most of them were children—he could sense their skittish heartbeats.

  Their flesh would be a delicacy.

  Caligula turned away from the castle and descended the steep slope. His troops clambered in the opposite direction, ready to assault the walls. They would do him proud this day, and he would savour their victory.

  But there was something troubling Caligula, an ethereal beetle scuttling through the edges of his perception. He sensed a weakness in reality, a thinness to the air. An infernal gate existed nearby—a portal back to the Abyss. He didn't know where it was, but better it be left out of play.

  A second presence also troubled him, a being not of this world. An ancient soul more ancient than his own. He did not know the being's identity, and variables were unwanted in war. Even if it were an ally, Caligula did not want their involvement. This victory would be his alone. A god did not share glory.

  Caligula reached the wooden cabin at the bottom of the hill and assembled his Germanic Guard. “Torch this building,” he told them. “Let the humans watch their tiny world burn. Tomorrow, this land will be reborn. I am Caligula, god of a new and everlasting empire. Go, make war and conquer.”

  “Yes, Imperator!”

  45

  HANNAH

  Hannah watched the massive abomination retreat down the hill—although retreat was not the correct word. As the giant, skeletal creature marched away, a horde of demons threw themselves at the walls, and against the wooden sally port. Every thud made Hannah wince, but slowly, she gained confidence that the walls would not suddenly fall down. They were safe for the time being.

  But they were besieged and surrounded.

  The teens were impressive, lining the walls with their bows like a bunch of Elvish archers. They loosed arrows with a pick-pick-pick. Hannah could not see if their shots landed beyond the wall, but she could see the enemy amassing behind the portcullis, rattling it inside its alcove.

  Ted climbed back up to the wall above the sally port, firing his nail gun she had retrieved for him at the demonic assemblage below.

  “I need my rifle,” she shouted up to him. “I stored it in the larder.”

  “Then go!”

  Something flew over the wall and clattered into the courtyard. Hannah covered her mouth to keep from screaming when she saw it was Steven’s mangled corpse. “Oh god...”

  Ted saw it too, and looked sickened, but then he glared at Hannah. “Keep your head. Go get your rifle.”

  Hannah dragged her eyes away from Steven’s corpse and sprinted across the courtyard. The pain in her ankle disappeared as adrenaline turned her body superhuman. She would have to make her remaining rounds count, but before she retrieved her rifle, she couldn’t help but check on the other defensive line at the front of the castle.

  Frank led the teenagers above the portcullis, barking commands and directing the fight. Hannah shouted up to him and asked if he had things under control.

  He looked down at her. “Everything is bostin, kidda. The buggers are sliding around all over the place down there while we bury arrows in their skulls.”

  Hannah looked through the portcullis and watched the mass of demons. Some clawed at the gate, but beyond them was a pile of thrashing bodies. She understood now why Ted had instructed all the teenagers to piss down the side of a ditch. To attack the gate, the demons needed force, and it was very hard to apply force when you couldn’t get your feet underneath you.

  Satisfied that Frank was in charge, Hannah raced into the castle to retrieve her weapon. She had only seven rounds in the mag, but it would be seven guaranteed dead demons. She would make every shot count.

  The Great Hall was empty, which made the fire blazing in the hearth oddly disquieting.

  “Help me, please!”

  Hannah halted. The voice was muffled, coming from beneath her. The dungeon.

  “I need help. I’m hurt.”

  It sounded like Nathan and seeing how he was only one of two people being kept in the dungeon, she didn’t see how she could be mistaken. The boy was a killer—possibly a psychopath—but he was also just a kid. If he was hurt, she couldn’t ignore him.

  She grunted in frustration and then headed for the castle’s staircase and headed for the dungeon.

  Nathan continued shouting. “He’s crazy. Keep him away from me.”

  Shit! Vamps must have gotten loose. The prisoners were tethered to an iron hoop on the wall but, lacking handcuffs, they had been forced to use nylon rigging from one of the lake’s sailboats. It was possible Vamps had got himself free.

  She pulled the Ka-Bar from her belt, its weight immediately reassuring her. Nathan had gone quiet now, merely sobbing to himself.

  The dungeon was dark, lit by a collection of candles in the centre of the room. Shadows flickered and danced on the walls and ceiling. Nathan huddled in the corner.

  She went over to the boy.

  “Nathan? What’s happened?”

  “Help me, I’m hurt!”

  She hurried over to the boy. His forehead rested against the wall, and he was completely still. It felt odd. Wrong.

  “Help me, help me, help me, help me.”

  “Nathan, stop! Just tell me what’s—” She put a hand on the boy and turned him around to face her. His face was covered in blood, and he was unconscious.

  So how had he been calling out for help?

  Hannah sensed a presence to her right, and she turned just in time to see something slice through the shadows.

  Vamps struck Hannah in the side of the head and sent her to the floor. She tried to get back up, but he kicked her ribs and sent the air rushing from her lungs. She clambered through the dark, trying to find safety, and then she realised she still held the Ka-Bar knife.

  Vamps stalked her, but she flipped onto her back and sliced at the air. The tip of the large military knife caught Vamps under the knee, and he withdrew with a hiss before the shadows swallowed him up.

  Hannah blinked and strained her eyes, trying to see in the dark. Vamps flickered in and out of view, but mostly he dissolved out of sight.

  “Help me!” cried Nathan, although the voice came not from the boy who remained slumped in the corner. It was Vamps, using Nathan’s voice in mockery. “Help me, please!”

  “Fuck you, man. You’re gunna die, I promise you.”

  “Death holds little meaning to that which is eternal. For you, it means endless suffering in the darkest corners of the Abyss.”

  “Sounds lovely. I need a holiday.”

  Vamps shifted in and out of the shadows, his eyes oily and his jaws full of wickedly sharp teeth. “Your petulance will fade with your screams. You think these walls will protect you? Even now, a gate opens in your midst, and my faithful Fallen shall crush you like ants.”

  The pain in Hannah’s ribs became bearable, and she scrambled to her feet. She searched for Vamps in the dark, but he was nowhere. His presence strangulated the air itself, but all she saw were shadows.

  What had he meant? A gate was opening? Did he mean the one beneath the lake?

  And what of the Fallen?

  Hannah took a step, wondering if Vamps had truly left, or if he was about to leap out at her. The dungeon was still, the shadows themselves seeming to freeze. The candles were the only thing moving, their tiny flames waving in an invisible breeze.

  Then the candles blinked out.

  “Oh shit!”

  Hannah went for the stairs, but a white-hot pain gripped h
er stomach. She gasped but struggled to make another sound after that. Her fingertips moved to her middle and sank into wetness. She was bleeding. Badly.

  Vamps emerged from the darkness, his eyes shining like the surface of pennies. “Enjoy the darkness, for it shall last forever.”

  Hannah slumped to her knees, feeling her life slip away.

  46

  TED

  The demons were everywhere, spilling out of the trees from all directions. The front approach was the castle’s most secure front, with the stake walls and trench keeping the demons bunched up and helpless. Teenagers loosed arrows constantly, gaining confidence with every shot. Frank barked commands at them, keeping them all focused.

  It was the rear approach that gave Ted concern. They had set up no fortifications there, and the wooden sally port was weaker than the iron portcullis on the opposite side. There was also that huge, skeletal monster. Ted would advise Hannah to locate the thing and bury whatever rounds she had left into its skull.

  But where was Hannah?

  She’d been gone too long. He rifle was stowed in the pantry which was right inside the castle. She should have returned before he’d even noticed she was gone.

  Ted fired off the last brads he had left in his nail gun, then tossed the power tool aside. Several teenagers joined him at the wall and were burying arrows into the lines of demons hammering at the walls—but it wasn’t enough. They would run out of arrows long before the enemy ran out of demons. They needed to do more damage.

  Ted decided it was time to test his invention.

  He ran down the steps, trying not to look at Steven’s corpse, and headed for the children’s rope swing. Its true purpose was far bloodier, and he got to work assembling the straps and carabiner clips into their proper locations. Finally, he picked up the pitchfork he had left there and shoved it in between a pair of entwined ropes. He wound the pitchfork around, using it as a large handle, tightening the ropes as they twisted round and round. As he did so, a small basket he had made from wood and a nylon tarp lowered. Once it was all the way down, Ted held the pitchfork in place with a hook and tie.

  Here goes nothing.

  He had designed the catapult to be maneuverable and light, and he had erected it using a trailer he’d found in the boat shed. It allowed him to wheel the weapon around and point it at the rear approach.

  For ammunition, he’d cut blocks of wood from the heaviest trees—beech mostly—and piled them together into a stockpile. He grabbed the first one now and hefted it into the basket.

  “Fire in the hole, you ugly shitbags.”

  Ted yanked the pitchfork from the ropes and stepped back. The tandem ropes untwisted rapidly, lifting the basket into the air faster and faster. At the top, the basket arm hit a crossbar and the block of wood launched into the air.

  The catapult was less powerful than he’d hoped, and the block of wood didn’t get much air. It sailed over the teenager’s heads and only just cleared the wall. But the sound it made on the other side was gruesome, flesh and bone breaking. It had been a successful hit.

  Ted wheeled the catapult closer and loaded it again. This time the wooden block sailed over the wall easily and resulted in that same glorious sound of demons being crushed and mutilated.

  The teenagers turned back and grinned at him, revealing their delight at whatever they were seeing on the other side of the wall. He had brought them some breathing room. Now he needed to do the same for Frank.

  Ted raced across the courtyard with his hammer but stopped at the old well. Kamiyo and Aymun were there, tending to a badly wounded Philip.

  “Shite, is he going to make it?”

  Kamiyo nodded, although he didn’t seem convinced. “I stopped the bleeding.”

  “I’ll be fine,” said Philip batting the doctor away. “Just keep those monsters outside.”

  Ted chuckled. “I’ll do my best. You got things here, Doc?”

  “Yeah, we’re good. Soon as Philip is stable, Aymun and I will be right on the walls beside you.”

  “Good man.” Ted raced up the steps to join Frank on the front wall. The teenagers were like automatons, moving in rhythm—notch, pull, release, notch, pull, release.

  Frank was sweating. “Ted,” he said, a breathlessness to his voice. “This is really happening, ain’t it?”

  “Maybe there’s still time for all of this to be a dream. I’m ready to wake up. How are things going at this end?”

  “Take a butcher’s yowself.”

  Ted looked over the wall and was shocked to see the ditch filled with demon corpses—a hundred or more. Arrows stuck out of them like porcupine quills.”

  “They die whenever they touch the gate,” said Frank. “Just drop down dead.”

  Ted saw what Frank meant. Slumped against the portcullis was a second, smaller pile of smouldering bodies. It was like they had been electrocuted by the iron.

  “Well, that’s a turn up for the books. Maybe this will all blow over in time for tea.” But as Ted scanned the front approach, he wasn’t so sure. There might be a hundred dead demons piled at the gate, but there were several hundred more on their way. The ditch was full of bodies, which meant the ground was once again solid.

  Ted studied the piles of arrows at the teenager’s disposal and estimated they would run out before the job was even halfway done. He put a hand on Frank’s shoulder. “Time to light ‘em up.”

  Frank nodded. “Alright, warriors, time to rain fire.”

  One teenager struck a match and ignited a small bowl of petrol. The other teenagers ceased grabbing their arrows from the main pile and pulled them instead from a smaller pile wrapped in moss and brambles. They dipped each fuzzy arrowhead into a canister of petrol and then lit them on the flaming bowl.

  All at once, the teenagers leant over the wall and loosed their arrows, not at the demons, but at predesignated spots Ted had assigned them. The front approach had been soaked in petrol.

  The grassy slope burst into flames, smothering a dozen demons in fire while trapping others between the stake walls. The wooden stakes caught fire too, and would reduce to cinders in time, but the loss was worth it.

  Ted watched the demons burn with a grim smile on his face. Was this what war felt like—the only happiness was that of watching an enemy die?

  With things under control, Ted needed to get back to the catapult. This siege would be a balancing act of trying to protect each side and letting neither fall. So far it was going well.

  He hurried down the steps and back into the courtyard. Kamiyo and Aymun were on their feet now, with Philip resting against the well. All three men looked towards the castle—or rather at the person stumbling out of it.

  Ted skidded in the dirt and stared in disbelief. “Nathan? W-What have you done?”

  Nathan’s face was a mask of blood, a wide gash above his left eyebrow. He looked lost, disorientated, but when he saw Ted standing there, he seemed to gain his senses. “S-She needs help,” he muttered.

  Ted was lost for words, so Kamiyo took over. “What? Who needs help, Nathan?”

  But Ted already knew. He charged at the boy, hammer raised above his shoulder. “What the fuck did you do? Where’s Hannah?”

  Nathan didn’t defend himself. He just stood there looking bewildered. “She’s in the dungeon. She needs help.”

  Before Ted could crush the boy’s skull, Aymun and Kamiyo bustled Nathan out of the way. Kamiyo put himself in harm’s way and pointed to the castle.

  “Go find her, Ted. I’ll be right behind you, okay?”

  Ted glared past the doctor at Nathan. “If I find out you did anything, boy. You’ll be dead in the next ten minutes.”

  Nathan said nothing. It didn’t even seem like he was listening.

  Ted felt his heart beating against his ribcage as he raced through the castle to the stairs. The dungeon below was pitch black, not even lit by candlelight. Ted was about to call out to Hannah, but then decided he would just go down. He held onto the wall as he t
ook the steps faster than he sensibly should have.

  Hannah was too important to lose. She was too capable. Too brave.

  She was his friend.

  In the darkness of the dungeon, Ted’s eyes saw nothing. But his nose smelt blood. He called out then, and his heart leapt when Hannah replied.

  “Ted, is that… is that you?”

  “Hannah, are you alright?”

  “Just a flesh wound. My liver and bowels count as flesh, right?”

  He found her in the darkness, having to rely on his fingertips to orientate himself. “What did Nathan do to you?”

  “Not Nathan. Vamps.”

  Ted glanced around even though it was pointless trying to see. “Where is he?”

  “Gone. He left me here to bleed to death.”

  “Well that ain’t happening. Come on, get your arm around me.”

  “No, Ted, just forget about me. You need to defend this place.”

  “It’s all going fine. Don’t worry.”

  “No! Before he left me, Vamps—or the demon formerly known as the fucking Red Lord—told me there was a gate nearby, and that the Fallen were coming.”

  “What does that mean?” Ted wracked his brain. “You don’t think…”

  “Yeah, I do! Ted, I think... I think giant demons are going to come out of our lovely lake. It won’t matter then how strong our walls are. They’ll step...” She stopped to catch a pained breath. “...right over them.”

  Ted froze in the darkness, his throat turning to syrupy lead. He tasted metal in his mouth and realised it was the tang of Hannah’s blood on his tongue.

  He grabbed her under the arm and got her up. “You ain’t dying in no sodding dungeon, luv. I need you around, you hear me?”

  “I thought the only thing you ever wanted was to be left alone.”

  “Only because I thought there was no one left worth knowing. Now get your arse in gear and move.”