by Craig Zerf
As the massed Annihilators bunched together, forced by the charging cavalry, Nathaniel pulsed his mortar crew.
‘Fire one round each.’
There was a solid thud as the four mortars threw their explosive payload high into the air. Then the whistling cacophony of the shells plunging to earth followed by four massive explosions. The HE rounds landed near the rear of the Annihilator ranks, in the exact position that Nathaniel wanted them to. Body parts and earth were tossed into the air like leaves in an autumn wind.
‘Fire again,’ pulsed Nathaniel. ‘And then fire at will.’
The Annihilators rushed at the wall, crushing each other together as they pushed forward in an attempt to escape the explosions that were marching across their rear ranks.
Just before they were close enough to throw their scaling ladders up against the wall Nathaniel drew in power, formed a massive orange ball of fire above his head and then punched it into the sky.
It arced overhead like a meteor, blazing and crackling for all to see.
Ten machine guns opened up as one, pouring a torrent of hot lead slugs into the massed Annihilators. Moving methodically from side to side as they scythed the enemy down in a wave of destruction.
The men on the wall cocked their sub machine guns and fired down into the Roaches with short accurate bursts, driving them back into the mortar explosions and machine gun fire.
And then the Vandal ground support flyers appeared over the treetops, coming in at just over one hundred feet. They dropped their Mills Grenades and Naphthalene bombs as they flew past. Shrapnel tore into the packed enemy and fire stuck to them as they exploded into flame.
The orgy of destruction lasted for less than five full minutes. In that short space of time over sixty thousand rounds of ammunition was expended and hundreds of explosive bombs and grenades.
In those terrifying unholy three hundred seconds over thirty thousand living beings had been extinguished.
Alien medieval era warriors torn to shreds by modern weaponry in human hands.
Then Nathaniel gave the command to open the gates in the wall and the humans poured out, charging into the dazed and broken Annihilator warriors. The Forever Man was with them.
The twenty thousand Annihilator survivors fought back with utter desperation, looking to destroy as many humans as possible before they were dispatched. Hoping desperately to turn the tide and take the wall before the Fair-Folk army moved on them.
The battle had degenerated into hundreds of separate skirmishes as small groups of warriors clashed and fought to the death. Both humans and Annihilators were still dying in the thousands.
Tad, Kob and Nathaniel cut through the center of the massive mêlée. The Orc and the Little Big Man supporting the marine as he struggled to reach the Annihilator leader, deducing from the last time he beat a supreme warrior that it would take the wind out of the Annihilator sails if he killed the leader.
Akimiri Hijiti, the undisputed Hatomoto, or Supreme Warrior of the Annihilators saw The Forever Man hacking his way through the press of fighting warriors in an attempt to meet him. The Supreme Warrior yelled out to his men.
‘Clear the way for the human Hatomoto,’ he shouted as he strode towards Nathaniel. ‘He is mine.’
As they approached each other the Annihilator leader called out to the marine. ‘At last we meet,’ he said. ‘It will be my greatest honor to take your life in mortal combat.’
‘In your dreams,’ quipped the marine.
And he pulled the Colt 45 from his belt, aimed and pulled the trigger, emptying the entire magazine into the Annihilator’s chest.
Akimiri Hijiti, the undisputed Hatomoto, or Supreme Warrior of the Annihilators fell backwards, dead before he reached the ground, his chest a mass of bloody holes.
‘Sorry, mister supreme warrior dude,’ said Nathaniel. ‘But my people are dying and I don’t have the time for this crap.’
The news of Akimiri’s death rippled through the massed Annihilators and, from that moment on, the battle turned into a mere exercise of extermination.
The human warriors cut and killed without pause, delivering death without showing mercy or quarter.
And as the sun lay heavy above the horizon, waiting before it gave way to the blue light of the moon, the final alien was eradicated.
The scourge of the Annihilators was over and the earth ran red with the blood of the fallen. Fully eighty thousand bodies lay on the field of battle. Eighty thousand vanquished souls.
Sixty thousand Annihilator warriors. Ten thousand flying Yari.
And ten thousand men who had paid the ultimate price for humanity’s freedom.
Chapter 30
Tad and Kob walked over to Nathaniel. Both were covered in blood, their own and the enemy’s.
‘Well your people weren’t much help,’ said Tad, speaking to the Orc.
‘They are not my people,’ grunted Kob.
‘Whatever,’ continued Tad. ‘You know what I mean. The only thing that the Fair-Folk didn’t do was actually run away.’
Kob didn’t answer. He merely stood staring at the mass of the Fair-Folk army that had now marched much closer.
‘Oh, here they come,’ said Tad. ‘Now that the battle is over they finally begin to move. Idiots,’ he snapped.
Still Kob didn’t react, he simply continued staring, his eyes narrowed to slits. He raised his hand to shield his sight from the setting sun.
Then suddenly he shouted out loud. ‘Look to the archers,’ he cried. ‘Take cover.’ He grabbed Nathaniel by the arm. ‘Betrayal!’
And the rays of the setting sun were blotted out as a storm of arrows was unleashed by the goblin archers, arcing through the air towards the human survivors. The goblins fired again and again, filling the sky with a swarm of steel tipped death. By the time the first volley of arrows struck home there were already another three hundred thousand in the air.
Human warriors threw up their shields in an effort to protect themselves and the sound of steel ripping into flesh and shattering shields was overwhelming.
‘Form up,’ shouted Tad. ‘On me, shields up. Form a tortoise.’
Humans gathered together in packs of twenty and thirty, over-locking their shields above their heads to form an arrow proof roof. But many were being struck down by an arrow storm the likes of which none had ever seen before.
Then the ground shook as half a million Orcs began their charge, bearing down on the exhausted humans like a wave of rushing death.
And, at the rear of the Fair-Folk army, Ammon and Seth congratulated each other. The plan that they had formulated after they had seen The Forever Man’s weapon display had worked perfectly. It had been a gamble; they had to assume that the humans would use up all of their ammunition. The assumed that the humans would win, and, finally, they had assumed that the win would exhaust the human warriors to such an extent that it would be relatively easy to overwhelm them.
In one fell swoop they had gotten rid of all of their enemies. It was now only a matter of time before the five hundred thousand Orcs dispatched the broken human warriors and ended their resistance forever.
Nathaniel saw the Orc horde charging in and something in him snapped. He could actually feel it happen, like a boat breaking free of its moorings in a storm, or a wild horse slipping its halter. His mind left the confinements of his consciousness and expanded across the land, drawing in prodigious quantities of power from the pulse light.
Heat boiled off him in waves, so hot that the snow around him melted and evaporated in billowing clouds of steam. The air shimmered and flashing colors coalesced about him as lightning bolts crackled through him, short circuiting into the earth with explosions as loud as thunder.
Then the very earth itself started to crack and buckle and heave as it shook violently.
‘No!’ Shouted The Forever Man. And his voice thundered across the battlefield like a clarion call.
‘I will not allow this to happen.’
He ra
ised his arms and spread them wide, grimacing in pain as untold quantities of pulse-power rushed into him. His nose started to bleed as the surfeit of power threatened to literally tear him apart.
And then he spoke.
‘Shield,’ he commanded.
A translucent dome appeared above the humans and the goblin arrows simply bounced off it and skittered down the side, unable to penetrate.
‘Fire,’ he commanded.
A wall of flame rose up between the charging Orcs and the human survivors. Blood started to pour from Nathaniel’s ears as his brain began to rupture under the strain.
‘Nathaniel,’ yelled Tad. ‘Stop it. You’re killing yourself.’
‘Wind,’ commanded The Forever Man.
And a group of small tornados sprang up and started to push the wall of fire towards the Orcs, forcing them back.
Blood began to flow from the marine’s eyes and he fell to his knees and then fell forward as waves of unbearable pain drove him to the floor.
Tad tried to grab him and support him but as he touched the marine, his hands were seared from the heat and he had to pull back, his palms red and blistered.
The Forever Man’s clothes started to smolder and burn, but still he persisted, pushing the Fair-Folk army back.
‘Stop it,’ shouted Tad. ‘Please, Nathaniel. Stop before you die.’
Kob grabbed the Little Big Man by the shoulder. ‘Come, my friend,’ he said. ‘We must use this time to retreat back behind the wall. If we do not then his sacrifice will have been for nothing.’
‘I’m not leaving him,’ said Tad as he tried once again to grab Nathaniel, but he had to pull back as the heat raised more blisters in his hands and arms.
‘Go,’ repeated Kob. ‘Gather the men. They need a leader. But do not worry, I will keep The Forever Man safe, you have my word.’
Tad nodded and set to gathering the men together and getting them to the wall while the pillars of flame still held the Fair-Folk army back.
The Free State warriors flooded back to the wall, crowding through the gates and running to the top of the wall to defend against any attack that transpired after the flames had died down.
Tad glanced up to see Grim-son flaring his wings to land on the battlement. He folded his wings and walked over to The Little Big Man. ‘What is happ-ening?’ He asked in his staccato accent. ‘We saw flames so we have come.’
‘Good,’ replied Tad. ‘We have been betrayed by the Fair-Folk. As soon as the Annihilators had been vanquished the Fair-Folk turned on us. Nathaniel magiked up a wall of flame so that we could escape but he’s still out there. He’s with Kob.’
‘We have brought more fire-bombs with us so we can provide air supp-ort,’ said Grim-son as he unfurled his wings and leapt into the sky. ‘If the Fair-Folk push their attack they will rue the day. We may be diminish-ed but we will still burn them from the field of battle.’
Without warning the wall of flames and the tornadoes winked out of existence. Tad saw Kob pick The Forever Man up and run for the gates, holding the marine in his arms like a broken doll.
As the Orc got closer Tad could see that Nathaniel was still giving off massive quantities of heat. Kob’s skin was burned and blistered and his leather armor was smoking. Tad realized that the pain must be immense and he marveled at Kob’s ability to keep functioning despite the terrible injuries he was causing himself.
As soon as he ran through the gates they were closed behind him and he laid Nathaniel’s smoking body on the ground. Roo ran over and threw a bucket of water over Kob and Nathaniel and the water sputtered and steamed as it hit them.
On the wall, Tad had rallied the archers and they were ready, bows strung, waiting for the Orc charge. Above, the Vandals circled, ready to drop their flasks of fire.
But no charge came.
Commander Ammon knew that he had lost the initiative and he was unsure of how injured The Forever Man was. He would not risk his troops to be subjected to a storm of fire that could, quite possibly, wipe them out completely. So he ordered his army to stand down and pull back. There would be time later. The humans had taken a dreadful battering and this war was far from over.
Chapter 31
The human army had been decimated. Of the thirty eight thousand men who had fought in that final battle only ten thousand remained. And the cavalry had been wiped out completely, destroyed by the goblin arrow storms. There was not one family that had not lost someone, Father, grandfather, son, mother or daughter.
The Vandals had lost fully half of their able bodied flyers and of that half, many were badly injured.
With a heavy heart, Tad came to realize that their numbers were too few to man Hadrian’s Wall any longer. So he gave his order to retreat to the Antonine Wall. In the heavy snow and sleet, the last surviving humans trudged northwards, leaving their farms and their houses behind, taking only what they could carry, their carts full of the wounded and dying survivors.
And in the one cart, swaddled in furs, was the corpse of Nathaniel Hogan. Once a king, once a marine and once known as The Forever Man.
Tad refused to acknowledge Nathaniel’s death.
‘Gogo will cure him,’ he said. ‘He’ll come back to us,’ his face wet with tears and his eyes bloodshot from constant weeping. And none dared gainsay his belief for, like him, the death of their leader was simply too much to comprehend. He had been humanity’s rock. Their shelter from the storm and their only light in a world gone dark.
But when the column of refugees finally reached the wall and Gogo had seen Nathaniel’s body she had merely shaken her head and turned away.
There was nothing that she could do. He was gone.
There was no wake for The Forever Man like there had been for Papa Dante. No party, no speeches. The clocks were stopped and the bells muffled. Candles and torches were extinguished and no food but bread and water was served in any household.
The body was wrapped in pure white linen and laid at the foot of the Tomnavarie standing stone. For two days people filed past and the sound of weeping could be heard from over a mile away.
On the third day there was a storm the likes of which had never been seen before in living memory.
Thunder tore apart the sky and jagged bolts of lightning stitched it back together. Snow and sleet were driven across the land by shrieking winds and the pulse lights flared and sparkled in the heavens like God’s fireworks.
The next day when the mourners struggled through the snow drifts to the standing stone they arrived to find that the body was gone.
But the linen shroud was still there.
Tad allowed himself a small smile.
Chapter 32
There were two moons in the sky.
And the sun seemed closer. Larger.
The air smelled of snow and when he looked through the open window he could see why. A large mountain loomed over the house, its peak capped in white. Outside a cherry tree shed its blossoms as the wind ruffled its branches. The floor below the tree, a carpet of pink. Beyond it, a wide stream, clear and sparkling with little shards of ice.
He looked around the room that he was in. Walls consisted of rice paper between black lacquered wood frames. A pitched ceiling and floors of highly polished cedar wood.
The bed that he had just risen from was a futon that lay directly on the floor in the center of the room. On the side, next to the door stood a washstand. On it, a ceramic bowl of blue and white, a pitcher of water and a vase containing a single white orchid.
He was dressed in a loose black tunic and matching black trousers woven from the finest silk.
His axe was nowhere to be seen.
There was a soft knock on the door and it was opened before he could speak. A man walked in. He was dressed in a similar fashion, his long gray hair tied up in a bun on the top of his head. Long gray mustache and beard, neatly combed.
He was quite obviously old but his face was unlined and his eyes seemed to shift in color, one moment obsidian and the
next a winter’s blue.
He bowed. ‘Good,’ he said. ‘You are awake.’
Nathaniel nodded but said nothing.
‘You must be hungry and also have many questions.’
Again the marine nodded, but stayed quiet.
The old man clapped his hands twice and two more men entered the room. They were dressed in short red robes and their demeanor was that of a servant. Or perhaps a novice, their manner less about subservience and more about respect. They were carrying a large tray. On the tray were two covered bowls, a tea pot, some cups and chopsticks.
They lay the tray on the floor and left, after bowing low.
The old man sat down, cross legged, in front of the tray and gestured to Nathaniel to do the same.
The marine did so. Then he spoke.
‘I died.’
The old man smiled. ‘But you are hungry?’ He asked.
‘Yes.’
‘Do the dead feel hunger?’ Continued the old man.
Nathaniel shrugged. ‘Perhaps. How would I know? I’ve never been dead before.’
‘Strictly speaking, that is not true,’ said the old man. ‘Technically, you have died many times; you have simply been resurrected afterwards.’
‘Whatever,’ said the marine. ‘This time was different. I could feel myself dying. I felt the lights go out. I am dead.’
The old man nodded. ‘Yes, you are correct. This time it was different. This time you are deader than before.’
‘So what next?’
‘Next,’ said the old man. ‘We eat,’ and he waved at the bowls before he poured some green tea into the two cups.
Nathaniel took the lid off one of the bowls. It contained plain boiled white rice. He tried the next one. It was the same. So he picked up his chopsticks and proceeded to eat, sipping the tea as he did so.
The old man ate as well, holding the bowl close to his mouth and using the chopsticks to shovel the rice in.