by Steve Vera
“Do you think they have noticed us?” The black-robed wizard grunted with a twinkle in his eye. Sweat streamed down his rosy cheeks and his cone-shaped hat tumbled over his right eye as the flames continued to rage around them, just outside the protective field being provided for them.
“Possibly,” Donovan rasped, amused that this wizard was enjoying himself.
The moment the flames died, the shield went down and his amused Olympian Black Wizard unleashed his own flames, a giant ball of golden fire that shot into the sky like the Space Shuttle, only to break apart and go streaking after a flight of Flyborne still populating the skies. Eleven of them burst into flames as if hit by a surface-to-air-missiles. One got away.
His Wizard was getting tired.
Donovan locked on to the survivor like a tracking computer, put his rifle to his eye, picked his spot and squeezed the trigger. The men around him were getting used to the contraption of Earth and nodded with varying degrees of satisfaction as the Flyborne’s head snapped to the side before it tumbled out of the sky.
“Holy shit, Donovan,” Walkins said with wide eyes, pointing to the ground. “They’re in the city.”
Donovan followed the police chief’s finger and felt an unfamiliar stirring through his stomach. Walkins was right. And they weren’t Flyborne either; they were Soldiers. Sneaking.
“The tunnels,” the White Witch whispered in alarm. The twang of two bows sounded.
A flash of scalp-tightening heat washed over Donovan’s head. It made perfect sense now; why wouldn’t the Underworld utilize their strongest talents?
Had Donovan the Offlander just been flanked?
“Everybody back in the Tower,” he said quickly.
This could be trouble.
* * *
Amanda waited with the rest of the Olympians, crossbow at the ready, its golden quarrel giving just enough light for her to see.
“Are you scared?” Pyrk asked her, his tiny onyx eyes probing her thoughts. He’d chosen her left knee to wait for the apocalypse.
No, I’m feeling just ducky over here, Pyrk. What the hell? She was trying to concentrate, trying to hear. “Yes,” she finally whispered through dry lips when she realized he was going to ask again.
“Worry not, fair Enchantress, I shall protect you.”
Yeah, from a stag beetle, she thought but gave her best smile and offered her forefinger to him as he insisted she do. With great formality he accepted it, put his lips to the top of her nail and then kissed it as if he had been bred in a medieval French court.
Dwensolt looked on from her right. He was like a big tree in a storm, a compass she could get her bearings from.
Every once in a while she’d feel the eyes of the Olympians looking her over. She couldn’t tell if it was curiosity, the crossbow, her boobs, but modesty at that moment was down on her list somewhere near five thousand fifty-four. Just as long as she wasn’t alone. Not now, not in these circumstances.
Her heart rate had been so high for so long that she was already exhausted and she hadn’t even done anything. Nothing good ever came from a panic, Amanda. Be calm, be cool, be a protector...this is not over. Donovan was just upstairs, Gavin would come and rescue her, all she had to do was weather the storm, weather the storm, weather the storm... Okay, distraction, ask good questions and you’ll get good answers...what should I pay attention to...?
The Olympians. She should get to know them better. Amanda personally liked the Fu Manchu jouster guys in all of their fancy armor. They reminded her of peacocks. Subdued peacocks, that was for sure, but still, their heads were up, their chests out...
And then there were those three fierce, long-bearded Nordic-looking guys. Their helmets seemed a little plainer than everybody else’s, but solid, as if they’d seen action before. Two of them had huge, long hafted axes but the guy in the middle, the biggest and burliest of the three, had a sword the size of a kindergartener strapped to his back. He hadn’t even taken it out yet. His fire-copper hair fell in regal curls down his armor like lava down a volcano.
Dwensolt stood suddenly. His eyes were wide. The red-headed Norseman she’d been staring at who hadn’t taken out his sword yet rectified that. There was something satisfying about the sound it made as the sword’s blade scraped against its sheath. He said something to his two companions and they immediately grabbed their axes.
“They’re here,” Dwensolt said, and the certainty in his voice curdled Amanda’s stomach. “To arms, Olympians!”
Pyrk disappeared as Amanda brought up her glowing crossbow and got ready to fire. With her other hand she patted the small of her back to verify for the ten thousandth time that Donovan’s .45 was still there. She still had four shots.
A second later Pyrk re-appeared just inches away from Dwensolt’s face. “They are in the tunnels—”
A now-familiar roar shook through the tower like when Asmodeous had tunneled under the Bastion back on Earth, conjuring memories from another night of terror. Following the initial bladder-withering roar were the yells of the jousters below and the squeal of terrified horses.
“To the stables!” one of the Fu Manchus yelled, pulling his sword while dashing down the white stone stairs in a jangle of full plate armor. The rest of his team followed.
“Spears,” the Nu’romian officer stationed in the Hall said to his seven Legionnaires. “To the stables.”
The troop, or Contubernium in Nu’romian, followed behind them. The Vikings, however, as well as the three gigantic Minotaurs did not. They were watching Dwensolt.
“It’s not just the stables, Dwensolt,” Pyrk said in a tone Amanda had never heard before. “They’re coming from the tunnel on the other side of the banquet room. There are many.”
Additional yells and battle-cries joined the jousters already downstairs as metal clanged against metal and human bellows clashed against Drynnian roars. Outside too, Amanda heard screams. Panic seized her. Oh my God, there are tunnels all through Nu’rome!
Dwensolt said something in magic and after the second syllable his eyes began to ribbon with light the way Gavin’s did when he was about to do something magical.
About twenty feet away was a double door—huge, ornate and thick. The stone tiles just before those doors began to smoke like burned bread in an oven and then as if by some invisible hand, liquid emerald mystic runes began to carve themselves in the stones. It was Amanda’s first experience with the facial expressions of Minotaurs. No different than anybody else’s really. Their jaws separated and their bodies coiled. The sharp tang of musk filled the room. When the writing stopped, Dwensolt put a finger to his lips and though both of his eyes were in her direction, neither one of them was focused on her.
Between the clamor and yells downstairs, the screams and undeniable stench of ash, blood and Drynn from outside, Amanda was surprised at how calm she was. I am a protector. I will protect Pyrk, he’s small. I will protect Dwensolt, he’s old. I will protect the Minotaurs...they might be mistaken for hamburgers. She actually laughed at her own stupidity, but that was better than hyperventilating, right? All she had to do was weather the storm... Donovan would come for her, he was right upstairs, and besides, everybody here raise their hand if they’ve ever met Asmodeous the Pale and lived to tell about it? No? How about if you’ve ever pumped a couple of shotgun rounds right into his fat fucking chest, anybody...?
With the exception of the heavy, bovine breathing emanating from her hamburger friends, the sounds of the end of the world receded into the distance. She felt as if she were in a bubble, a submarine with depth charges dropping all around them.
And then one hit.
* * *
Caesar Tiberius Au’nauthiatu stood outside in the spring night, looking out at a city in flames from his imperial patio, dressed in full battle armor. Seventeen thousand years this city had stood, and to
day, ante diem III Id. Mart of the 17th Age would be the day Nu’rome fell.
And he would go down in history for that.
The screams of his people rode the whorls of fire like echoes in a nightmare.
They’d come in through the tunnels. Nobody had shut the tunnels. In fact it had been his orders to make sure they remained open in case they needed paths to run. Why hadn’t anybody told him?
Why did I arrest Legatus Dakanon? The numb lucidity that unfolded in his mind reached out with cold fingers and made him look, shoved his face at the truth and all its terrible glory. This is your fault. Your petty fears, your childish ego...this is your fault.
There was no more army. His cavalry was gone. The last bastion of his defenses were making their stand at the North Gate, slowly being slaughtered, and the damnable thing about it was that he’d been given a chance. Many chances.
Only now did it become clear that the North Gate attack had been a feint. They’d been after the Sanctuaries the whole time, even while they pummeled Nu’rome’s army.
He should have listened to the Shardyn.
“Food,” his Captain of the Guard growled. “That is what we are to them. Cattle.”
The small number of reserves he’d held in the city itself, his very own elite Cesarean Guard were too few in number to challenge the invaders, but Au’nauthiatu ordered the attack anyway. He’d hidden long enough. The only modicum of comfort he might draw yet from this day was that they wouldn’t find him cowering in some cellar; these spawns of hell would taste his steel before they took any bites out of him.
He’d noticed that they had spared two great ships in the central harbor after wiping out the crews and were now using them as their cattle ships, a place where the Flyborne would drop the unfortunate citizens who had been snatched. No. If the Caesar was going to die today, it would be burying his sword in the enemy’s throat.
And he had a poison capsule under his tongue filled with basilisk blood. Just in case.
“Draw swords.”
* * *
The first Drynn through the doors died without ever knowing what hit him. The moment his taloned foot put pressure on the stone tile, his milky, alien eyes seemed to lock onto Amanda’s, widening in an unbelievably human expression of “uh-oh.” Then he disappeared in an explosion of green fire. The detonation blew back toward the emerging Drynn and for a couple of long seconds there was silence.
Downstairs the battle continued. The Minotaurs were the most eager. Hulking by the sides of the doors they stood with their spears brandished, brown, whiteless eyes waiting for Dwensolt’s signal. A moment later another Drynn came flying into the room full throttle, but even at top speed the mystic runes engraved from the ceiling burst down, turning the charging creature into a green, fiery cannonball of ghastly, gurgling death. The stench was sickly sweet and overwhelming. Amanda gagged.
Another one came and met a similar fate, this time from the runes on the left side of the door.
An eerie silence followed. Amanda could hear the Drynn discussing their options, could even understand some of their guttural syllables because of the ring on her right ring finger. The last set of runes on the right side of the doors glimmered in anticipation like venom off a spider’s mandibles. Amanda clearly picked up the word “through” and “wall.”
“They’re gonna come through the wall!” she said and no sooner did the last word fly from her mouth did the granite wall to the left of the doors explode outward, sending a hail of rocky shrapnel straight toward them.
They all ducked—Minotaurs, Vikings and Amanda—but before a single fragment touched them, they sparked off a thin field of emerald light projected by Dwensolt’s staff.
The first Drynn through the gaping hole was hurled back by a spear thrown full strength by the first of the three Minotaurs. Even the vaunted Drynnian chestplate crumpled by the force. It disappeared, legs up, in a gurgle. The same fate was met by the next. Amanda held up her crossbow to her eye and waited for the sign of movement.
“Everyone behind me,” Dwensolt said quietly. “Quickly.”
Nobody had to be told twice. The Norsemen and the Minotaurs departed their posts with alacrity just in time for a wall of crimson fire to roar through the hall, combusting the priceless rugs and tapestries of the chamber. Even the marble blackened.
But they were all safe behind Dwensolt’s shield. Almost casually Dwensolt dug into one of the myriad pouches he had lurking in his robes. “Ah, here they are,” he said and took out a handful of small, spherical pinecones.
“Pinecones?” Amanda asked.
He laughed his phlegmy smoker’s laugh. “Behold their despair.”
The moment the red flames died two Soldiers rushed the room leading with huge, circular black shields. Dwensolt tossed the pinecones at them with a grunt, and they all beheld...
...what might as well have been cannon fire, because the resulting green explosions blew the onrushing Drynn apart like cans of tomato sauce. Ears ringing, crossbow raised, Amanda scanned the smoke and saw a hulking silhouette gripping a staff.
It was a Warlock. It was huge. It was looking at her.
“Greetings, cattle,” he said with a leer, showing his teeth in a toothy smile. His voice was low and grating, almost staccato, but held intent. Personality even. He was so large that he was actually looking down from the hole. She could hear his leathery wings scraping against the walls as he moved closer. “And what sort of toys are we playing today, little cattle?”
It was eight against one, the Warlock the only one left—for now at least—but nobody was charging. Nobody was even moving. The crossbow was so slick with her sweat that it felt like it was going to squirt out of her hands any second. She could hit him through that hole...
Not yet, Amanda, came a whisper on the currents of her thoughts. Donovan? Or her imagination. He wants to play, so let him. Give him a little taste of what he’s looking for...
“Put down your little toys, cattle, and I shall grant you clemency. Not all are to be devoured.”
Amanda’s hands were shaking and that was no act. He’d have to be three feet away for her to have a shot at hitting him. The Warlock smiled again, sensing this, only his teeth looked bigger this time.
He took a step forward. The floor thumped with his weight and the sound of his claws on the rubble of the room reminded her of a construction truck backhoe scraping against pavement.
Why isn’t anybody doing anything? Nobody was shifting, mumbling, planning. She could feel Dwensolt behind her, see two of the Minotaurs through her peripheral vision, but they were frozen.
He was a Warlock. Warlocks did magic.
“What’s your name, she-cattle?” he asked. He took another step. Leathery wings. Thud. Claws. “No? Too frightened?” Step. Thud. Claws. Rasp. “Because I am feeling gracious, she-cattle, and I am intrigued by your resistance to my power, I will give you one last moment—” Step. Thud. Claws. Rasp. “To put down your toy and taste my mercy.”
Her hands were shaking like a handful of leaves on an idling lawnmower. “Or,” Amanda said, trying to swallow but failing. What would Donovan do? What would Donovan say?
“Or what, little she-cattle?” Step. Thud. Claws. Rasp. Her hands stopped shaking.
“Or you could go fuck yourself.”
Amanda fired point blank. The golden quarrel hit the Warlock so hard that his entire, enormous, monstrous frame was blown back against the wall he’d come through. Even before the widening, burning hole in his chest could properly register, Amanda had already pulled back the lever and was firing again. “Or you could go fuck your mother!” she screamed and shot him in the face, which disintegrated into a mess of purple blood and charred bones. “Or you could go fuck...Krakenwood!” She fired again. Arms pulled her back and suddenly the Warlock’s corpse was being impaled by Minotaur spears.
“Die motherfucker, die, die!”
And die he did.
* * *
Donovan arrived just in time to see Amanda’s last shot, Dwensolt grabbing a hold of her and the Minotaurs savaging of the Warlock’s corpse. It must have been quite a show; half the artifacts in the vast hall were on fire or charred and there were two gaping holes in the wall behind the Warlock along with two other Soldier corpses.
“I did it, Donovan, I fucking killed him!”
Donovan gave her a nod and concentrated on the clash of steel and the grunts of men coming from below. Outside he heard the running of boot soles and the wails of fear among the roar of leaping predators.
This city was done.
Right behind Donovan came Ladom’er, then the Black Wizard and then everyone else. Within fifteen seconds everybody was downstairs.
They hadn’t lost a single man.
“How many downstairs, Druid?” Ladom’er asked, eyeing the carbon-stained crumbled hole and the smoking, mutilated corpses of the Drynn.
“How the bloody hells should I know?” Dwensolt said and jabbed his staff at the Warlock carcass. “I was occupied.”
“Where’s the Sprite? Pyrk!” Donovan yelled. He found him with his Othersight a moment before he appeared.
“Seventeen Soldiers and a Warlock fighting eleven jousters, four Legionnaires and three angry Northmen,” Pyrk said, appearing six inches away from Donovan. “But more are coming.”
“How many more?”
Pyrk seemed uncertain.
Donovan shook his head in irritation. “Go find out.”
“Yes, Donovan,” Pyrk said and then zipped off.
He felt Ladom’er’s stare. “To think that only two days past you were barely familiar with the alphabet. That is impressive even by Elven standards.”
“I learn quickly,” Donovan answered and glanced downstairs.