“Goblins?” asked UIuula.
Henry dodged the question. “Uh, yeah, so then the Mosquito is going to head towards Mensk to meet up with us if we survive this. The rest of us are gonna take the Battlewagon through the portal. Jason is putting a shit ton of ammo into magical storage for me.”
“I understand the basic plan. Now do you have any more information for us?” Uluula asked. “Also, how do you know that the cultist you tortured was telling the truth about any of this?” Henry could see a few other members of the group nodding to that. They’d been wondering the same thing.
Henry said, “That’s a good question. Volleyball?” He gestured at the young women in the huge armor.
Volleyball said, “I am Lady Tanushree Bobrik. We were able to verify the cultist’s words with a combination of Agent Gonzolez’s knowlege and some of my own. Jason’s magic, too.”
Henry patted his scarred leg and said, “Plus, it turns out that Volleyball is a priestess for some church or other and she converted the cultist, Celina, to a mainstream religion of Berber—Creator-something… I didn’t know before that a bunch of nobility women are also religious leaders. Anyway, the combo of Celina believing she was avoiding Asag’s anger after death plus a lot of painkillers encouraged her to talk.” The memory still made Henry sick. It was yet another thing he’d have to work through later.
He continued, “Brecken is a weird place. Once we go through the portal, we’ll probably be surrounded by demons. What’s more, the world affects everyone differently. Some people lose their powers, or magic, but some orb-Bonded get stronger. The same thing happens to equipment and enchanted gear. It’s all random. This is why Jason is moving a lot of extra enchanted stuff out of the Battlewagon before we go.
“The plan is to find the other portal, which will take us about a day of travel, then kick the shit out of everything. Bezzi-ibbi and Uluula will guard our backs once we’re back on the Ludus side and the fighting starts there. Jason will be running air support. I already talked to Gonzo about the layout of the place and the most likely thought is that the helldoor will be on the grounds, so the rest of us will just move towards the ceremony chambers as quickly as possible.”
Henry crossed his arms. “Okay, that’s it, people. Go piss, get your gear ready, do whatever you gotta do. We’re going to Hell. Well, a hell. You have less than five minutes.”
Like the hardened adventurers they were, the group didn’t ask any further questions and all scattered to prepare for their suicide mission. They might be spending their last few minutes on Ludus. If they failed, at least they’d know they tried. But if they succeeded, they’d probably save thousands, if not millions of people. Henry had never had finer friends. The stoic man from Earth pretended to scratch his cheek and wiped a single tear away.
Mareen, please still be alive, he thought. We’re coming. Everyone is coming for you, Baby.
***
Uluula suppressed her jitters through a lifetime of experience. The hellgate loomed ahead, and it still hadn’t produced any new demons in the last few minutes. The small hairs on the back of her neck were standing on end - both from the electrified air and the fear in the pit of her belly. A hellworld. Brecken. Who would have thought she’d be doing something so insane before she was even sixty standard years old? She’d been meant to fight this sort of thing in a starship, not on foot with a jaalba.
If my sister could see me now...
Uluula triggered her magical weapon to life and braced herself as the Battlewagon slowly started forward. All her comrades around her had the same level of tunnel vision, thinking their own thoughts. Tanushree’s armor was so heavy as it clung to the back of the vehicle that there was a noticeable slope to the floor.
Keeja and her companion Philana followed behind the Delvers, both demigoddesses stony-faced as they hovered in the air. The High Priestesses had shown up a few minutes before, about the same time a number of boxes had flashed into existence, holding orbs and spirit stones as rewards for all the defeated orb-Bonded enemies.
Jason had told everyone to just grab the boxes and stow them away to sort out later. Even Uluula had a spirit stone now, which was a strange feeling. It wasn’t useful to her at all, but having that amount of wealth casually rolling around in a drawstring pouch on Ludus was a first.
From behind them, Keeja suddenly said, “There is no way you are going to a hellworld without some sort of music. I gave up too much to live without it anymore.” The ancient woman waved a hand, and her music player, back on the Battlewagon, came to life. The tune was jaunty, happy, and light. Uluula believed Terrans called it ‘Pop’.
“This is Owl City!” exclaimed Jason from the driver’s seat of the Battlewagon. “This stuff is totally inappropriate for the situation!”
“Yeah, this is that song with what girl, what’s her name,” mused Henry from the turret. “The one who did that annoying song about giving her number to someone.”
“Call Me Maybe?” asked Jason. Carly something, right? I think this song is Good Time or something.
Keeja drifted forward to the side of the Battlewagon. “I want to listen to this song,” she said before silently hovering back to where she had been.
“Well, you heard the lady,” said Henry. “Fuck it, whatever, let’s just go. It doesn’t matter and we fucked around enough.”
“This is so dumb,” Uluula heard her husband mutter. Then without warning, the Battlewagon surged forward and through the helldoor.
Uluula’s world exploded in violence and pain, images of madness.
Flashes of red.
Baleful eyes.
Thousands of people being eviscerated. Hungry camera lenses devouring every scream of agony.
Children coughing up blood.
A horse impaled on a spike, kicking at the air.
Eyes wide open, slowly inserting a needle into her eyeball.
Abandonment, grinding her teeth for eternity. The raw nerve endings mocking.
Rivers of blood and the wails of women.
Babies wailing. Cutting her own wrist with a dull knife.
Tears mixing with raw organs on the floor amidst feelings of betrayal.
Coughing in the dark.
Phantom pain inside, the sensation of insects all around. They begin burrowing into her flesh...
Being watched while doing something dark, shameful.
Throwing up for eternity.
Images and sensations flashed through the Areva woman’s mind, dozens of them all compressed into a single moment as the Battlewagon crossed the threshold of the helldoor. Every endless moment of the transition was set to the background of the never-ending, peppy beat of pop music by Owl City.
I think I might hate that song now with every cell of by body, Uluula thought. She felt horror deeper than any sensation before in her life, mentally clawing away from her memories of traveling through the hellgate. She shut down and compartmentalized the experience with the desperation of someone drowning.
Uluula snapped back to the present when the Battlewagon crunched down, skidding forward across the ground. The stars and red haze cleared from her vision as the vehicle came to a stop. On Brecken. A hellworld.
The first thing she understood was that there were demons everywhere. The second thing that went through her mind was they’d landed in the middle of chaos. True-demons were everywhere, but they were rushing around, distracted, some were even fighting each other. The third thing that she processed was when the music changed and got several times louder than it ever had before.
Sorry For Party Rocking. She recognized the song. The music swelled, growing even louder, eventually seeming to attract the attention of every hulking, fanged, hideous true-demon within sight. They all turned their eye stalks, tentacles, claws, maws, and horrible heads to stare directly at the newly-arrived Delvers.
Other than some commotion in the distance, the area around them grew completely still, the silence only broken when the first demon screamed and pawed at th
e ground, turning to rush at the stalled vehicle full of adventurers.
Oh, Creator, guide my blade, Uluula prayed as her military training finally reasserted itself. She scrambled to get out of the Battlewagon as Henry’s cannons, once again manned by their creator, spat fury into the surrounding demon hoard.
Uluula felt a strange sensation on her hand as her enchanted spear ring began to glow. The tool surged with power, making her hand tingle. At the same time her shield bracelet sparked and went dead.
Her enchanted jaalba and mobility gauntlets were luckily still working normally, and she cut off a demon’s leg at the knee as she flashed past. A roar in the distance made the ground tremble and she caught a glimpse of what had been causing all the demons to fight or panic earlier.
Mareen darted around in midair, battling a giant demon, so large its feet were the size of a small house. Uluula’s friend was almost unrecognizable now, a dark, primal fury of blood and bone, challenging the enormous beast of nightmares. The true-demons around her tried attacking, but more out of self-preservation than aggression. Mareen flashed down into the surrounding monsters to drain them of blood or messily destroy them as she dodged the giant claws and energy blasts of the behemoth she fought.
Crimson lightning flashed overhead like it had back on Ludus, illuminating the bare bone and enormous, grinning teeth of the unnaturally huge true-demon that Mareen battled to a standstill. Its enormous body crushed and minced smaller demons as it surged back and forth with single-minded rage, trying to kill the goddess of meat and fury that Mareen had become.
“An infernal destroyer,” breathed Uluula. It had to be. Such monsters were used to break cities or crush the forces of light and were incredibly tough. They usually required the sustained, combined efforts of large Areva war machines to kill. A powerful Holder could kill one too, but Keeja and Philana had already disappeared.
Uluula wasn’t accustomed to feeling despair, or fear so strong she had difficulty thinking. But as she stood on a hellworld, witnessing her berserker best friend fight an infernal destroyer, Uluula’s other friends surrounded by demons, and their vehicle grounded, she felt a flash of true helplessness. Then just as quickly, she rejected it.
I will not bow. She was named Uluula b’ Anami b’ Pairose of the Blue, daughter of Amani b’ Pairose b’ Heseth of the Blue. Her powerful, loving husband fought beside her, and some of the best friends she’d ever known were at her side. She fought for the lives of countless other people, and for the future of Mareen, lost in combat with a demonic nightmare.
The fierce, white-haired Areva woman triggered a magic spear from her ring into the face of a goat-headed demonic monstrosity. Uluula snarled in defiance as she cut down the demons around her. She was born for battle, and so far, taking part in this fight was the most important thing she’d ever chosen to do in her life. She fought for her friends and perhaps an entire world. There was no time to be weak, there was work to do.
Sorry for Party Rocking continued to play in the background as the frantic battle, perhaps to decide the fate of Berber on Ludus, truly began.
Red Zeds
Aodh darted forward, too amped up and terrified to even focus properly. Instead, he relied almost entirely on his magic.
Ever since his fight with the rock wyrm, he’d been full of life, full to bursting, in fact. He’d been stronger, faster, and more alert. Little cuts had healed almost instantly over the last week or two, and as he was discovering during his fight on Brecken, larger wounds healed fast, too. This was a good thing, because even with luck magic, he was still getting laid open to the bone.
His regenerative powers were also handy because he was drawing so much magic that he was harming the inside of his body. He spit up blood from time to time, but there was no time to feel the pain or the horror of the hellworld he stood on. There was no time to think or feel much of anything. Aodh just acted, over and over again.
He gave himself a general sense of direction, but was otherwise fully lost in the magic that pulsed through his veins. Instinct guided his movements, and no true-demon he faced was any match for his dark dagger.
As he fought, Aodh caught glimpses of the other Delvers fighting near him, almost creating their own islands of violence. Henry poured shell after shell from the downed Battlewagon into the packed ranks of demons, sending dozens of them to oblivion with each shot. Uluula darted around the battlefield, triggering spears from her enchanted ring into the ranks of monsters reaching for her with fang and claw.
Gonzo seemed to have benefited from a power increase on Brecken, the hellworld. Everywhere he gestured, huge spears of ice burst from the ground or flew from his hands to impale nightmare creatures. The Berber Intelligence agent was strong and fast, his superhuman strength allowing him to shove enormous demons back even as they died.
Suddenly, the music blasting from the Battlewagon changed, turning to another pop song, My Humps. Even in the midst of his battle trance, Aodh inwardly blinked at that one. Overhead, Jason teleported nearby, cutting the wing off a huge, draconic demon. Before he disappeared again, the tall Terran yelled, “This music is so inappropriate! We are fighting in hell. For fuck’s sake! Change it, Henry!”
“I’m kind of busy over here!” yelled Henry, his voice barely audible over the din of battle and the loud music. “Besides, I think Keeja has it locked. It keeps changing on its own!”
Aodh killed another demon and was pushed back when it fell, the shove caused a blast of acid from some other creature to barely miss him. He avoided a reaching tentacle by ducking, then came up slashing at a scaled hide with his dagger. The demon died, screaming and thrashing around, but Aodh had already sprang over the vanquished foe to plant his spear into new enemy. This one looked like a plant with legs and had a huge mouth instead of any kind of head.
Absently, the young man wondered where Keeja and Philana had disappeared to. They’d come to Brecken behind the Delvers, after all. He got his answer a few moments later as the clouds above, lit before with red lightning began flashing green, yellow, and other colors. Massive amounts of power were being unleashed high in the sky.
A stray blast from Keeja and Philana’s unseen battle landed far in the distance, vaporizing a large hill and making the entire landscape rumble. Aodh though he could see a few tiny, impossibly fast fighters descend from the cloud cover near the destroyed landscape, zipping around in a deadly dance. He couldn’t watch for long, though. Being surrounded by murderous demons was requiring most of his attention.
Nearby, a sudden explosion of demon bodies launched twisted forms in every direction as something big, angry, and purple reared up, roaring. Aodh did a double take as he recognized an enormous version of Honey, crackling with energy, pouncing on top of true-demons and literally ripping off arms and heads. Every time she got damaged, she’d grow bigger and angrier, her aura making the entire area smell of ozone. A demon with long talons clawed Honey’s face, but the wounds almost immediately healed. After being wounded, the huge purple badger just grew slightly larger and batted her enemy away with a paw, turning its body to paste.
If Aodh had not been fighting for his life and submerged in the throes of magic, the sight would have been shocking. Henry’s pet Honey badger carved a path of destruction directly through the masses of demons before her, ripping apart enemies the size of elephants on earth. The other large demons within sight bellowed, taking Honey’s sudden appearance as a challenge.
Aodh caught glimpses of Mareen fighting a huge, terrifying demon in the distance, their noisy, destructive battle still attracted a large number of the demon hoard, but not as many as it had before. The Battlewagon crashing through into this world had presented a new challenge, more targets for the mindless monsters surrounding the portal to Ludus.
The chaos of the battlefield grew, violence and madness reaching a fever pitch. All the stunted trees on the baked plains of Brecken were splintered, demolished as waves of demons climbed over each other to get to the Delvers, but the forc
e from Ludus held firm, defending the area around the helldoor.
From the Battlewagon, Aodh heard the music change again and grow even louder. Now it was playing, Gangnam Style. In the back of his mind, he wondered if Keeja was actually controlling the playlist or if the device was just running wild. In the distance, Jason was fighting, teleporting from point to point, cutting down demons in midair. Aodh assumed the tall, powerful man was probably still complaining about the music.
Aodh ran his spear, Vampire Stabber into the side of a long, snake-like demon. Then he jumped on top of the slithering thing, its powerful body as wide as he was tall, and slammed his dagger into its side. The rush of life energy made him light-headed for a moment, a portion of the power immediately disappearing as it repaired his damaged shoulder as the dying demon wrenched it out of its socket.
Then the whole battle seemed to slow to a crawl and the sky grew dark. The world around him grew to higher contrast than usual. Colors could take on strange hues when he was surrounded by the cloud his horse-head dagger generated, but this new effect was even more pronounced. The dagger spoke to him then, thundering, “USE ME!” in his mind.
He understood. The weapon had awoken, he’d awoken. In that moment, he understood what the dagger actually was. It was too late to go back, though. He could help his friends. He knew how now.
Aodh felt the resistance within himself, the cautiousness built from the scars of old hurts. The hesitation was already weakened by his magic and his experiences as an adventurer, but now he blasted through the wall, demolishing it. It didn’t matter what people thought of him, or what he looked like. All that truly mattered was what he thought of himself and how he could protect his friends.
That truth reverberated through his bones and mingled with his magic, swelling together with the incredible power from his dagger. The large, serpentine demon he stood on was dead, its life sucked out by the dagger, but Aodh could feel it now. He took hold of some life, some death, and he put it back into the true-demon’s body.
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