“You are in our way. Would you happen to be from the Hillside?” Eric began.
“Yes, we are from the Hillside, Major, we came out to talk with you.” The man said, but the blowing snow and the remaining fifteen feet obscured his vision and he couldn’t see the face. It was clearly someone who knew him, and he recognized the voice.
“Do we know each other?” Eric asked.
“Of course,” The man said back and Eric looked into a face he had not seen in years, one he had thought already dead all those years before in the sand. Sergeant Ted Craven, though bearded and a little grayer, looked pretty much the same as he remembered him.
“Craven?” Meyer said as they walked closer.
“Hello Zane.” Ted responded, “Why have you come to our little encampment with four companies of men at your back?” Ted smiled, but this was the usual battle parlay, and all three men knew it.
“Well, Sergeant, we have a list of grievances.” Eric replied, letting his companion quietly know to shut up. “You are harboring a criminal; we have come to reclaim her. But, I am surprised you are here. Your buddy Ward always took the lead with you two. Where is he? Is he one of those hiding in the bushes?” Eric looked around to make it clear he knew there were others there. He couldn’t be sure how many, but he guessed a small number. Looking back at Ted, he saw the grief there. “Ah, didn’t make it, huh?”
The young woman shifted uncomfortably, and Eric looked at her for the first time, “Are you going to introduce us, Craven?”
“No, I am not, Major.”
Eric’s jaw set, “I don’t go by that title, it is Shogun now.”
Ted looked at him dismissively and cleared his throat. “Yeah” he said in a monotone, “So I have heard. Anyway, Fine, what are you talking about?”
Meyer stepped forward, “You will show the Shogun the respect he deserves or I will personally make you kneel before him.”
“Well look at you getting balls, Meyer...” Craven said, and Eric held out a hand to hold his companion back.
“Okay, enough. Here are our terms. Tear down your defenses, and bring out every person in your little walled restaurant. Those of you we deem valuable can return with us, the rest can leave. The Hillside is now ours. We will give you until tomorrow morning to consider our offer. If you do not accept, we will attack, and no one will survive. Not you, not this little girl, not your wife,” and much louder so all could hear in the bushes, “Not one of you shall live through the day tomorrow. Go, ask your people what they want to do, Craven. You needn’t answer. I will know if you are surrendering tomorrow morning that you have chosen life. If not, you have chosen death. Come, Meyer, let’s give them the space to realize the futility of their situation.”
Eric turned, Meyer following, and walked back to where the horses were. He yelled out to his force, “Make camp for the night!”
Turning and looking back to where they had just been, he saw no sign of the two people he had just been talking to. He smiled to himself.
“Do you want me to send someone after them?” Meyer asked.
“No, let them go” Eric replied.
“So, you are going to let them choose?” Meyer asked more quietly.
“Of course not. They have no intention of complying, which would be sad if they did, General.” He looked off north toward the restaurant, the snow landing on his face and melting against his warm skin. “No, they will not comply. Leave two columns here. As soon as it is at its darkest, send one column around to flank them and block them in. You take another column and have twenty men climb that cliff in front. I want their exits blocked and our men inside their camp before they wake in the morning. We will begin the hangings after dawn. Not many trees or poles around though, what do you think? Maybe we hang them from the cliffs?”
CHAPTER SEVENTY-SEVEN
The snow was still falling lightly, but the best part of the night was the fact that the cloud cover remained. Meyer stomped his feet to keep the blood moving. It was bitterly cold and he could feel his toes growing numb. He had taken his one hundred men right up to the cliff on the south side of the restaurant, and no one had noticed a thing. Another hundred men had gone around to the entrance side. They had given a wide berth, so as not to be seen approaching. The Shogun’s orders were to attack at first light, so here they waited in the brush.
There were lights up on top of the cliff, but they didn’t look like fires, the light was too white. What could cause lights like that to shine? Could they possibly have working flashlights? No, that didn’t make sense. No light, lantern or even pin light worked in the last nearly four months. He really couldn’t wait to find out what made the lights.
Turning to those under his command, he whispered, “Spread out along the cliff. We climb before first light. We have to be in the compound before first light so we can attack.”
The men nodded. These were all soldiers. Shogun had kept all of the Tigers with him, and Meyer really wished he had a few now. The Tigers just responded better, more quickly, to his commands. The soldiers were decent fighters, but all a little dull, in his opinion. One of the soldiers held up and hand and Meyer crouched his way over to the man.
“General,” the shivering man began, “Up on the left, I saw two people for a moment in the light. It looked like they were looking down on us, but the lights went out.”
Meyer looked up to where the man was looking, but saw nothing out of the ordinary. He did see, however, that finally all of the lights that shined on top of the cliff were out. What the man had probably seen was whoever was turning the lights out, looking out toward where they assumed the army was south of the encampment. There was certainly no sign of any problem. Still, he would need a better vantage point to make sure.
Motioning for two men to follow him, he made hand gestures to the rest of them to stay put, low in the bushes. He had noticed a small rise back along the side of the mountain here that gave no advantage for attack, but would set him about half way up the cliff in view. From there, he could get a better vantage point and more accurately assess the situation.
It took about fifteen minutes to climb the little rocky incline, but once atop he could see there was nothing to be worried about. It looked like their enemy hadn’t even posted guards on that side of the cliff, probably assuming it was inaccessible. Meyer would prove before the night was finished that it was not.
One of the men with him tapped him on the shoulder and pointed to the far side of his company of men. He could make out the brush, but couldn’t see any of his men. That was a good thing. Then he saw what the man was pointing at, there were two large dogs creeping toward his men. He was a little concerned about them startling the men, someone shouting out and the company losing their stealth advantage, but the dogs stopped and ran off east at a full sprint. They must have seen a rabbit or something.
As he watched the dogs, they passed a tree and he saw movement, he was pretty sure someone was climbing that tree. Perhaps that was the guard he was looking for. But, after watching the tree for a good five minutes, there was no more movement. It must have been the wind.
CHAPTER SEVENTY-EIGHT
George had been given command of this company and he was not going to lose the favor he had gained in Shogun’s eyes. He might even be able to take over as General if Meyer slipped up. His orders were simple, make a wide berth and flank the Hillside, kill or capture anyone trying to escape. He would do his duty.
He remembered the Hillside fondly. He had asked his girlfriend to marry him beside the pond there before his last deployment. Then the skeezy bitch had cheated on him while he was serving his country in combat. It had been his great pleasure to choke the life out of her when all this shit went down. He thought about the man and girl who had stood in the road before Shogun, maybe Shogun would let him have the girl. He would keep her in line.
He motioned to the men, and whispered, “Turn west. We head for the Hillside now.”
Turning, he saw yet another dog. Had someone
released every damn mutt in a shelter near here or something? This had to be the fifth dog they had seen since they left Shogun, and they all seemed to just stare at the men. It was kind of creepy.
His men were all standing around. “Move out, god damn it.” He wasn’t whispering any more. These soldiers were pissing him off.
A scream tore through the night. Was it one of his men, had someone attacked? George ran through the line they had made to the far side and the sight that met him was gruesome. One of his men, lying on the ground with his throat torn out, lay there dead. He remembered seeing stories on the local news about bears and mountain cats in this area. But he didn’t remember any of the stories about them attacking people. He had also assumed that they would be hibernating by now.
From the side of the line he had just run from, he heard, “No, no, no, aaaaaughh!”
Running back that way, he noticed the men were getting skittish, and he couldn’t blame them. Another man lay dead at his feet when he arrived to where the sound had come from. He saw two men make a bolt from the group in different directions. He was about to run after one of them, when the man dropped from sight. He heard some kind of muffled sound, then silence. He turned to steady the men, but what he saw now was chaos.
A small group of his soldiers seemed to be fighting amongst themselves, others were fleeing. He saw some rolling around on the ground. It was pandemonium. Gathering all the energy he could muster, using the techniques that Shogun had taught them, he strode into the group of men to put an end to this. He almost immediately realized his mistake.
The first sight to change his view was the men rolling on the ground. They weren’t alone, there were dogs attacking them. The men who fought amongst themselves were not fighting amongst themselves. There were fighting women among them, and Shogun had no women in his fighting ranks. Also, a group of a dozen or so of those fighting wore camos that looked more Air Force than Army, as he had seen them in the sand. The ones who ran, were immediately set upon by dogs in the perimeter. George started to back away, but when he turned, there was a little girl in front of him. She was maybe ten or eleven years old, with medium length blonde hair and pale skin. But the look on her face chilled him to the bone. It wasn’t a look a child should ever have on their face. It was a look of hate, a look of war.
George decided his only chance was to take this girl hostage. Reaching for her was a mistake, a growling dog moved into his sight on his left. He pulled his hand back, but looked to his right and saw another, its hair raised on its back, snarling sharp teeth and drool. He planted and kicked at the dog on his right as it leapt, hitting it cleanly in the chest. The dog flew into a nearby tree trunk and he heard the satisfying crunch of broken bone and a small yelp, as it lay there dying. Turning toward the other, he shouted at it.
“Oh, you want some too?” Then he reached for the girl again, and teeth bit into his arm.
He spun and delivered a spear hand to the dog’s throat. The dog released his hand, but the one on his left lunged and tore through his camos, sinking its teeth deep into the flesh of his calf. As the dog ripped, George dropped to one knee and drove the point of his elbow into its neck at the base of the pitbull’s skull. He lost the flesh that was in the pit’s mouth, but he was free of the dead animal.
“Princess, no!” The little girl called, and George looked up to the face of a monster. The little girl herself ran at him full speed, and with an unexpected force, knocked him to the ground. His back hit with a dull thud and she was on him. He reached out to throw her off, and she bit deeply into his hand around the thumb. She shook her head like the pit had and ripped his thumb off. George screamed in pain as blood squirted out of the hole where his thumb had been.
He back-handed the girl across the face with his remaining good hand, though that one had teeth marks from the second dog. Gathering as much wits as he could in the pain and blood loss he was now experiencing, he got to his feet and began to limp his way away from the men who were dying behind him. Searing pain in his one good leg overtook him, as yet another dog grabbed ahold of him. Turning to deliver another killing blow, he was bowled over by a giant German Shepherd. The Shepherd bit hard into his shoulder and George screamed out once again, he reached up to push it off and found it was the little girl who had bitten him again, she released and he looked up at her pale blue eyes, her mouth smeared with his blood, and saw the rage there. He looked above his head and the Shepherd was rushing him, but it was a ruse. The dog had got him to look up, exposing his neck, and the little girl lunged at him, burying her tiny teeth into his exposed throat and ripping his throat out.
As he slipped from consciousness and into eternal rest, he saw this little girl spit his flesh from her mouth and turn back to finish off his men.
CHAPTER SEVENTY-NINE
The men moved in the cold, they were hard to see, but Nat could just make them out in the bushes. A little while before, she had seen the three men go up to the rise, but there still had to be about one hundred and fifty in the brush. She scampered down the tree and quietly pulled the long blade rom the sheath. Most people thought it was a machete, but it was a long knife used in certain Marital Arts in Polynesia, and Natalee Ward knew how to use it. Jumping lightly to the ground, she also grabbed her bo staff that she had leaned against a nearby rock and made her way back to where Kim was waiting.
It had been difficult to get Kim to agree to come out from behind the walls, after all that she had been through back in Black Forest. No one had ever given her all the details, but somehow Max’s dogs had saved Kim from some men in the forest. Based on the fact that Kim was nearly nude when Nat first met her, she assumed it had something to do with rape. That was not something you really asked someone about. But, this was her chance to get back and stand her ground. Kim Pile had been working on her ability for the last two months. She was a pyrokinetic, her abilities were around fire. Kim’s abilities had created the warmth stones that were a godsend as the nights grew colder and colder. Now she needed to muster all her strength to bring more fire than she had yet been able to bring.
Natalee crouched down as soon as she was in the hiding place with Kim.
The woman trembled. “I don’t think I can do it.” She whispered.
Natalee calmed herself, she was tiring of this conversation. If the woman didn’t want to help, then Nat would do what she did and take as many out as she could. “We talked about this, Kim. You are doing your part to save us.” Ted had been the one who made Nat bring this lady with her, and Nat wasn’t happy about it. Natalee had no qualms about what needed to be done.
“I know, but I have never brought this much fire,” Kim continued, “Do you know how many of them are out there?”
“No. But I am not going to lie to you. There are a lot. If you don’t light up those bushes, I will have to try to fight them all off at once.” Nat put a hand on the woman’s shoulder, as she had seen her Dad do a number of times to calm people. “Kim, we need you, or these people will rape and kill every last one of us.” Nat felt bad about the rape comment, it was intended to manipulate Kim and she could see on the older woman’s face that it shocked her and hit her in the core. But it also worked.
Kim nodded, clearly steeling her resolve. “Then let’s do it. Let’s get it over with.”
Both women stood. Nat knew just where Kim would have to start the fire, and also knew that as soon as she did, there would be no cover for them. They crept to the place, only about fifteen feet behind two men who were looking up at the cliffs. These men’s attempt to hide in the brush was going to be their undoing. They all sat, knelt or crouched in about four feet of dry bushes. The snow would keep natural fire at bay, but the abilities were not hampered by such things. Nat hunched her shoulders and readied her weapons, centering herself the way she had been taught since she was four.
Turning to Kim, she gave a short nod and the woman closed her eyes, as did Nat. The first fire would be blinding in this darkness. She immediately saw the light throug
h her eyelids and felt the warmth on her face, but it was the screams of the men that made her open her eyes. Many of them were on fire themselves and they ran around trying to put themselves out. But as the flames grew higher, she saw that the enemy also saw them.
Locking eyes with Nat, one of the men pointed and shouted something and about six of them ran right for Kim and Nat. As the men drew close, their teeth clenched, their faces hardened by purpose, Nat stood calmly and waited. At the last possible moment, Natalee Ward erupted in a deadly dance of fury and malice. Her staff cracked across the face of the first man to get to her, the second lost a hand just above the wrist to her singing blade. The third took a side kick to the throat and the fourth was disemboweled where he stood. Nat spun in place and lopped off the handless man’s head, before turning toward her two remaining attackers. They had stopped in their charge, suddenly faced with this she-demon’s onslaught.
Natalee smiled at them. She actually really enjoyed the fight, every time she was in one. Oddly, in was in these great moments of violence that Nat found the most peace. She heard Kim’s scream behind her, and dispatched the two remaining attackers before turning to see three new attackers surrounding Kim. Before Nat could reach them, Kim unleashed a fury of her own. Somewhere deep within the petite, yet buxom, woman there rose an anger for what had been done to her. Nat saw it on her face, and then saw its power unleashed in her abilities. The older woman put her hands out as if to push her attackers away, but fire appeared in between Kim and the three men. That fire engulfed her foes with such heat that Nat was afraid she herself might be singed by it. Unlike the men in the brush, these ones did not run around patting themselves and trying to get away. The heat and flame was intense, and the men incinerated in place.
But Kim collapsed and Nat ran to her side. Nat caught the woman before she fell to the ground.
“I did it,” Kim smiled up at her young friend.
Age of Mystics (Saga of Mystics Book 1) Page 25