by Damon Alan
“Meckler worked for me. I should have seen his betrayal coming. That is why I will work to fix this. And see the Reich comes out on top in the end.”
“You are a hero of the fatherland in my eyes,” she said. “I will stand with you.”
“You are risking everything if I fail, Herta. I don’t want that for you.”
“You will not fail. We will not fail. We will secure the Ark and bring it to Germany. It will protect us and help us close the gate. If not, the Dropa Stones may have the answer we seek.”
“Maybe so,” Ernst agreed.
“All such artifacts should be in Germany,” she declared. “We are the only race smart enough to control them and protect the world.”
“Your voice and your words,” Ernst whispered in her ear. “They are like poetry I’ve waited all my life to hear, without knowing I was hollow inside. You have filled me.”
She looked up at him and they kissed. A passionate kiss between two people who’d finally found another who shared their values. The kiss was long, and she touched him inside, stirring things he hadn’t expected to feel.
He glanced up at the couch in his office, desiring to consummate their relationship.
She had other plans as she broke free of his embrace. “Let’s ready for the trip to Ethiopia. We can get a flight to Berlin in the morning, gather resources, and the entire team could be on the way by the end of next week.”
He stood carefully, so as to not reveal his excitement for her company. “An excellent idea. It is the Ark that will close the gate, I am sure of it.”
“Why so sure?” she asked. “Shouldn’t we be prepared for other options if it doesn’t?”
“It’s so clear to see,” Ernst said. “In the earliest versions of Deuteronomy, there wasn’t monotheism. There was simply a demand that the Israelites would not worship other gods. It is only later that progressed into the God of the Jews being the only god.”
“So?”
“Don’t you see?” he asked. “This god of the Israelites, he closed off this place to the other gods. Using the Ark he built. Whatever the reason, that god wanted this world and the people in it to himself from the very beginning.”
“And you believe in this god?” Herta asked.
“As my god?” Ernst scoffed. “No. I have no need for a god. Even if this god still exists, which I think unlikely, why does he not speak to us? No, I think he is dead for a long time now.”
“Then why will this dead god’s Ark work to close the breach?”
“Because the Ark still has power, whatever powers it.” Her eyes were ravenous as they ate up his words. “But it grows weaker, which allowed the Intepna Hojarr to create this breech. If we can bring the Ark close, I think it will close the hole between our worlds and allow us, humanity, time to prepare for when the Ark fails completely.”
“Brilliant,” she gasped. “But what is to keep the breach from reoccurring in another location. Say South America.”
“The Intepna Hojarr was needed to make this breach. Unless another such device exists, the Ark’s protection will hold long enough for us to build our weaponry.”
She smiled at him coyly, then walked to the door and locked it. She stared at him for a moment from there, smiling, then walked to the couch and sat down. She patted the cushion next to her. “I’ve waited a long time to meet a man as smart as you. Let us consummate what obviously exists between us.”
He smiled an eager grin. A brilliant woman was aroused by intelligence. He’d need to remember that if this day was to be repeated.
Although at the moment repeating was a secondary concern.
The important thing, at that moment, was how the first experience with Herta unfolded.
Chapter 29 - The Door
They were at the top of Nollen. Below them the peak fell away at a ninety degree angle on two sides. Only the way they’d come sloped gently enough for a dwarf to walk. Their footprints from the walk up to the peak disappeared into the distance.
Mordain was with them. The sky held low clouds, the bottoms of which almost scraped the peak where they stood. The air machines of the humans would not harass them this day.
“Behind us, several kokadros,” Numo said, his voice urgent. “Human soldiers ascend the ice sheet.”
“For the love of silver, you can see that?” Coragg asked.
“You can’t?” Numo replied.
“Silence,” Irsu ordered. “Coragg, set up the ropes, get us down to the door. Make it so we can deny the humans our path down.”
“As you command,” Coragg replied. “We have just enough rope between us to get it done.”
“Then you shouldn’t be telling me. Show me.”
Coragg turned toward the unwounded dwarves, selecting two. Within minutes the first rope was in place and they had disappeared over the brutally steep south side of Nollen.
Irsu looked over the edge. Snow clung to the granite, and it was a steep drop to where the door was supposed to be. If they could get within before the humans saw them, they’d be safe. No human, elf, orc, troll, gnome, or otherwise would be able to decipher the door from the markings. To them it would simply be another rock on the face of Nollen. This place was definitely dwarven, and definitely the place they were looking for since coming to Earth.
“Numo, you’re with me.” Irsu picked four more of the unwounded and started work on an ice berm from which to shoot behind. They worked fast and hard, even the wounded would be able to fire a crossbow. If something went wrong trying to get in, this is where they’d make the gray-blue humans pay dearly for the end of Iron Company.
A few hours later the trench was dug and the firing positions in place. One by one they moved the wounded into position, except for Hobrith.
Hobrith was going to die today. The gods had not seen fit to still his infection. Irsu intended it would be in the hold, but Coragg needed to hurry.
He ran to the edge and looked down. Rope disappeared over a ledge below. The ropes had loops every sungat or so, so that a dwarf could have a foot and a hand within. Below that ledge the faint sound of hammering reached his ears. Coragg was still working.
He dragged Hobrith to the edge and held the warrior’s head up. “You made it, my friend,” Irsu said to him. “The gods have seen you to the door.”
Hobrith didn’t answer. His eyes opened, and a gentle smile was all he gave in return to Irsu’s statement.
“I will get you in the door myself,” Irsu promised. “If you pass before then, I will burn you in the Great Hall of the Lost Hold.”
Hobrith’s eyes closed and Irsu felt the soldier’s forehead. The heat burned in him. Hot enough that Nollen should be snow free it felt to Irsu.
Numo ran up to his position. “Two kokadros.”
“When they are inside one, we will start our defense,” Irsu promised. “Do not fire until I say.”
“As you wish,” Numo agreed.
Fortunately, the humans weren’t that fast on the icepack. It was probably an hour later, although hard to tell with no sun, when Coragg appeared over the edge. “We are ready for you to open the door.”
“Just in time, my friend. I will head down. Hobrith is going with me.”
“You could fall carrying him.”
“Then I fall,” Irsu replied. “I have a promise to keep. Tie him to my back.”
It was awkward, but after removing all the weight from Hobrith they could, he was tied soundly to Irsu’s back.
“I see you next in Dwarven lands,” Irsu said to Coragg.
“In Dwarven security, in Dwarven iron,” Coragg finished the old promise friends made to friends when leaving for patrol.
Irsu stepped into the first hoop and grabbed the feed rope with his hands. He lowered himself to the first handhold. He repeated the process over and over until he dangled in the air over a wide gap in the mountain’s face. Below was the ledge that led to the door. A loop at a time Irsu continued down, his weapons, his armor, and Hobrith weighing on him like anchors
.
After what seemed an eternity, he felt the strong touch of stone beneath his boot. He looked up to see the next dwarf in line moving past the overhang into the air gap. There was no time to waste.
He inserted his hand into a crack in the rock, then climbed a short distance into the depression on Nollen’s face. At the top of the crack was a small ledge. That was all that remained of the old doorway’s landing after ten thousand years.
“I guess I should be grateful the doorway is still there,” he grunted out as he lifted his burden upward.
It took twenty minutes or so, but he made the ledge. By now six dwarves waited on the ledge below. The wounded ones. Coragg had sent them first.
Irsu pulled a small device from a pouch at his side. Given to him long ago by the priest of Ekesstu in Iron Hold, he’d kept it with him. He mentioned it to nobody other than Coragg, who would have taken it and opened the door if Irsu fell in battle. Not even Bordnu had known of the key, because Veznik was afraid his brother would take it from Irsu. The vision didn’t allow for that.
The vision didn’t allow for Coragg to open the door either, but Irsu only had so much faith regarding visions and other mystical nonsense.
Turns out this time the vision was right.
The key was an iron rod, about a hand long. Veznik told Irsu to simply plunge it into the stone of the door, no concern for where as long as it hit the door itself.
Irsu jabbed it at the stone, expecting the impact to potentially push him off the small ledge. Instead the door stone shimmered and vanished. Earth temperature air rushed out of a small tunnel to greet Irsu, smelling of stone and time.
He pushed inside and collapsed to his knees on the stone path. He pulled a cord that freed Hobrith, who rolled off Irsu’s back onto the floor. Irsu made the stricken warrior as comfortable as possible.
Soon, the seventeen surviving dwarves were in the hall with him, many of them sitting down and leaning on walls as well.
Coragg plopped down next to Irsu. “You should get the key and close the door. It’s cold out.”
Irsu chuckled as he wearily rose and walked to the door. He listened for a moment as the wind howled past. He thought he could hear voices up above, in the ridiculous language the humans spoke.
Floating in the air, the iron rod, Key to the Lost Hold, was easy to see. If the stone of the door was still present, the rod would be buried in it. Irsu grabbed the key and pulled it to him, inside the hallway. The door, after a half minute pause, solidified back to stone and the noise of wind vanished.
He returned to his spot on the wall. “Done.”
“Hobrith is dead.”
Irsu grimaced. “Did he—”
“He just passed. You kept your promise.” Coragg stood, then extended a hand for Irsu to do the same.
Irsu clasped his friends arm and they embraced, celebrating the completion of the worst of their journey.
“I’m tired. We camp here,” Irsu said, settling back down to the floor.
“I extended my hand to help you up. Stand for me,” Coragg said.
Irsu did so. Something in his friend’s voice said protest wasn’t an option.
Coragg leaned forward and put his forehead on Irsu’s. “You are the greatest leader I have served with. You upheld dwarven honor, even when we were ordered not to do so. You fought harder when your brother was lost. You gave enemies honorable deaths when they fought with dishonor. You brought us here, to our goal. You are, Irsu Crackstone, amblu-gane.”
That was a word Irsu wasn’t even remotely worthy of. But to discount the use of it by Coragg would be a huge insult. Irsu was conflicted inside.
The soldiers lined up, and one by one they clasped his arms and repeated the phrase. “Amblu-gane.”
Legendary warrior. The title hadn’t been given in centuries, and only the Underking could bestow it. But for his warriors to say it in association with him was the greatest honor he’d ever had. And they knew what he was four years ago. A second son. A child-maker. A hearth-cutter. Certainly no warrior.
“I am not worthy,” Irsu said, his internal conflict getting the better of him.
“That is why you are worthy,” Coragg replied. “You came from nothing to this. Most train their entire lives. You lived as a hearth maker. Now you are a warrior among warriors. Amblu-gane.”
“Amblu-gane,” the survivors repeated in unison once more.
“Damn it,” Irsu said. “We can’t camp now. Let’s get to the Great Hall and do what must be done.”
Coragg grinned. “As I expected. I will carry Hobrith from here.”
Irsu didn’t protest. He wasn’t sure he could carry himself let alone a dead dwarf. But he’d do it for his soldiers.
Chapter 30 - Flesh Wall
June 2, 1940
It was a good day so far. The Matador’s tanks were full, four 25 kilogram bags of French wheat were in the back of the truck, and Wilkes had sacked a small first aid clinic in Neuvilly. All that was missed on the east-west road they’d taken before; these resources were only visible from the north road out of town.
Now they were on the road with bellies full of porridge, cow haunch, and unleavened bread they’d cooked last night. Harry admired the French landscape as the hedges rolled past by the road.
“This land was once British,” Miller informed him.
“Get out,” Harry said.
“No, really. Back in the days when Kings weren’t just fellows in fancy clothes, this territory was controlled by our lot.”
“Really?” Tim asked.
“Close to back home as we been in a while then, innit?” Harry said to Tim.
The two senior soldiers laughed, Miller frowned.
“Relax, Miller, we’re just looking for a joy where we can find it,” Harry told him.
“It’s nothing anyway, this place is French as French gets now,” Miller said, venom in his voice.
“You don’t like the French?” Harry asked.
“Who does?” Tim threw in.
“It was the French who burned the Templars,” Miller explained. “Sacked the treasuries, that was the goal. Because some dainty French king couldn’t keep his bills paid.”
“Ah, and because your great-granddad—”
“Yeah, it’s mostly about him,” Miller conceded. “But what if the Templars were still around as they once were?” He waved his hand out the front window, through the hole left by the missing panel shot out by a crossbow bolt a week earlier. “All this might not be happening. If anyone would have known how to stop it, it would have been the Templars.”
“Harry, you reckon that’s right?” Tim asked.
“Kid knows more than I ever will,” Harry conceded. “Might be right.”
Up ahead movement on the road caught their attention. The somehow disconcerting movement of bodies not fully muscled.
“Damn them,” Tim fumed as he braked the lorry. “We were making good time.”
“Dead closing in behind. Half a mile away,” one of the men yelled from the back.
“Miller, you got a trick?” Harry asked.
“For one of them, maybe two,” Miller replied. Harry could see the fear on the young man’s face as he tried to stifle it.
“Be right back.” Harry climbed out of the cab and stood on top of the lorry. The men in the bed plagued him with questions, but he was busy and waved them off. Raising his glasses, he scoped the north pack. Several dozen yards of writhing skeletons and semi-formed beasts. Same to the south.
The road was out then.
To the west was a small village, it was packed with the dead. Thin feelers of the monstrosities, probably a few yards thick, stretched out from the village to both the north and south packs. Almost like the dead were a single living thing, feeling for food.
He turned around. To the east feelers were moving toward each other from the north and south but hadn’t connected yet. He jumped down and dove back into his seat. “East, Tim, and quickly.”
Tim plunged the M
atador through a hedge into the fields. The going was easier than Harry’d expected, this field wasn’t plowed. The farmers must have been chased off before the ground was ready.
Good fortune for Harry’s men in the back.
As they drove through the slowly enclosing box, the dead passed by about fifty yards on each side of the lorry. Their hisses and squeals could easily be heard over the Matador’s laboring engine.
“Don’t fail us now,” Harry said, patting the dash.
The smell of the dead was putrid. A mix of fresh blood, bile, and rot.
When they were finally past, Harry ordered a stop a half mile out of the trap. He climbed to the top again.
“A wall stretches north-northwest as far as I can see,” he said. “The road is out, we’ll never get past them.”
“Where to?” Tim called up.
“Northeast. Toward Belgium and Germany.”
“Delightful,” Tim said as Harry sat back down in his seat. “At least the Krauts won’t feast on us, I suppose. Better to be prisoners than dead.”
“Speaking of, we haven’t seen any Germans for a long time. Where are all the tanks? All their soldiers?”
“No bloody idea,” Tim said.
“Withdrawn to choke points would be my guess,” Miller said. “Bridges, river crossings, hills with good coverage of the surrounding terrain.”
“Now you’re a tactician?” Tim mocked.
“No, he’s right.” Harry shook his head. “We’re out here wandering the countryside with the dead setting noose traps for us, and the Germans are securing zones.”
“Should we find such a zone?”
“Do you want to be a guest of the Germans?” Harry replied. “Keep going northeast. The plan hasn’t changed, we’re going to scout that gate and get word to HQ with the wireless.”
“It’s going to be rough doing,” Tim said, not particularly to anyone.
“Grumbling, Tim?”
“Honesty. We’ll be lucky to make it.”
“Haven’t you noticed?” Harry asked. “We’re pretty damned lucky. Look at the things we’ve survived that destroyed entire units around us.”
“Then full speed ahead, by all means,” Tim laughed. “We’re the lucky lot, bastards of the 25th Brigade. Abandoned and left to wander, we’ll show them.”