by Alan Baxter
Artillery thundered off in the distance. The Americans were close and the Nazis would be alert. Taking point, I crawled to the edge of a grassy berm and lifted my binoculars.
The dome tops of helmets peeked above the low, makeshift wall of a machine gun nest. Scanning further up the line, I let out a curse. A pair of giant, forms moved along the shore, loading boxes into a boat. Checking the truck, I saw that more crates were still being unloaded. There was no way to determine from here which one might contain the weapons.
Make it fast, Audrey.
A single soldier stood in the shadows outside one of the trucks, fidgeting with something in his hands. Audrey appeared behind him and hacked his neck. The man crumpled without a sound and she was again gone. A second sentry, further down the line, fell shortly after.
Minutes crawled. The distant shells thundered faster, the raging battle still miles away but creeping ever closer, unstoppable like a glacier. Three more boxes were loaded. The bright lanterns and beams of headlights meant Audrey couldn't enter the area without notice. The nests had to be eliminated first. I focused my attention to the darkened house on the far side.
Finally, I breathed a relieved sigh as a match lit in one of the windows and moved left to right before extinguishing.
"It's done," I hissed, motioning my arm. "Move!"
Peter hurried up beside me as Richard and Dennis quickly crawled across the open road separating us from the rear of the gun nest.
Giving Peter a silent nod, we moved in a crouch toward the wall of parked trucks.
A loud voice shouted, "Zwei weitere kisten. Schnell!"
We reached the first truck. The sharp stink of urine rose from between the mud-caked tires. It appeared I'd found the latrine. Wrinkling my nose, I braved a peek back toward the nest to see Richard and Dennis slip inside, weapons out. Ten seconds later a helmeted shape rose and moved the MG42 around.
"They're in position." I drew my sword and moved around to the rear of the vehicle. I glanced inside the canopied back, verifying it was empty before creeping between it and the neighboring truck. As I'd thought, half the company had already relocated across the lake, leaving thirty or so men. Four of the giant monsters lumbered through the ranks, towering above young soldiers. I motioned to Peter to move forward when shouting erupted somewhere behind us.
"Eindringlinge! Eindringlinge!"
Bloody hell! Someone had found one of Audrey's victims.
Seizing the moment of surprise, Richard opened fire. The machinegun roared like a buzz saw, tearing through the ranks. Soldiers dove for cover, scrambling behind anything they could find. Their backs now exposed to the darkened house, Audrey opened fire from a second floor window, tracers streaking down.
Roaring, one of the beasts hurled a wooden box at Richard and Dennis' nest. The crate shattered beside the foxhole and a stream of machinegun fire tore into the creature. The non-silver rounds only seemed to slow its charge. A grenade landed in its path. The explosion sent the creature tumbling. Dennis' silver-loaded rifle flashed beside the machinegun's blazing flare.
Tearing my eyes from the chaos, I dove into the first truck and began searching. Peter raced off to check the vehicles on the far side, leaving me alone. Inspection done, I dropped a grenade into the cab and hurried away. Come Hell or high water, the Nazis weren't escaping this time.
The easy targets gone, Richard focused his gun at the lights, shattering them with short bursts. Peter hurled a grenade at a pair of soldiers maneuvering toward the house. Audrey's shooting had already ceased, her job to fire the gun dry and then move once the lights were mostly gone.
One by one I scoured the outer trucks, slashing open bags and flipping back lids, praying to find the weapons. A soldier rounded the corner as I exited a vehicle and I plunged two feet of blessed steel through his chest.
Twin blasts exploded inside the house. I only prayed Audrey was clear of them.
Howls bellowed as three more monsters smashed from the side of a locked truck. Purple lightning crackled and two beasts died before they'd made it fifteen feet.
I'd almost completed checking the trucks when a boat engine roared to life. I rushed out to see it starting across the water. Firelight glinted off an enormous gold bowl at the bow.
Richard swiveled the gun toward the vessel but a barrage of German fire forced him down. A potato masher twirled through the air, landing in his foxhole. My stomach lurched, but the bomb flipped back out before exploding, sending gravel and flames into the air.
Crouching behind a car, one of the hulking beasts charged, pushing the vehicle across the beach toward the foxhole. Richard opened fire, as did Dennis with his rifle, but the bullets only pummeled the sliding shield. More suppressive fire forced them down as the car charged their position like a train engine.
I leveled my gun at a pair of the shooters, killing one and forcing the other to scramble away. I stopped firing as Audrey appeared and slashed him open before vanishing into the shadows.
"The boat!" I screamed, firing ineffectually at it.
More grenades exploded, drowning my words. With a howl, the monster pushed the mangled vehicle up the low wall and down into the foxhole with a crash. Trusting the knights made it out in time, I charged the shore, firing at the fleeing boat.
Lighting flashed, momentarily blinding me. Breaking his cover, Peter raced across the open beach, Glisuan in hand. He launched another bolt out across the water. Electricity danced along the surface. Orange flares of gunfire flashed from the boat.
"Peter, get down!" I shouted.
Bullets whizzed around him. Peter stumbled, but continued on, heedless of the danger.
I returned fire, but through the choking smoke and darkness I couldn't see where I was hitting. Stubborn bastard.
With a defiant scream, Peter hurled another bolt across the water. A fuel tank exploded, launching flames into the sky. A burning man tumbled over the side. Clutching his stomach, Peter turned toward me, a triumphant smile on the American's face. Machinegun fire tore through his chest, sending him down in a spray of blood.
"Peter!" I screamed. I spun to see a young soldier, no more than sixteen leaning out from behind a boulder, rifle in hand.
I fired.
My shots struck the rock, sending him back for cover. Anger boiling, I ran for a better position. Reaching the central truck, I spied the killer's leg peeking from behind the large stone. I crouched to take aim, but leaped back as a crate flew out from the vehicle, missing me by inches. It smashed on the ground, spilling clinking sacks. I whirled as one of the great pale beasts dove toward me. SS runes adorned its thick breastplate and armored shoulders.
Slashing my rapier, I spun and leaped aside. The monster growled, white froth dripping from the corners of its mouth. It swiped its huge arms at me, its hooked claws a blur. I hopped back and then lunged. The indirect blow glanced off its armor, leaving a deep scratch.
The beast charged for me, claws arcing toward my face. Ducking and springing away, I slashed the monster's calf as it passed. The creature bellowed in pain as it fell to its knee. Twisting its body, it swiped again and I whipped the rapier around, lopping off its claw at the wrist. Blood splattered my cheek and the beast fell.
Turning back to the hidden soldier, I saw Audrey standing above him, bloodied sword in her hand. In an instant, she was gone. Dozens of dead and dying littered the rocky beach and smoke choked the air. Another grenade exploded, igniting one of the trucks. Dennis popped up from behind a dead beast and shot a charging soldier. He ducked as return fire pulped the grotesque corpse.
I dove into the open truck beside me. It reeked like a pig sty. Five crates rested against the back, the SS rune stenciled across their sides. Strange books, and what appeared to be Egyptian figurines, filled the first one. Pushing it aside, I opened the next. I recoiled at the rows of embalmed human hands, tattooed and packed like sardines. I
shoved the box away, spilling them across the floor.
A burst of gunfire barked outside.
Please be here, I prayed throwing back the next lid. A golden scepter rested inside, an outstretched eagle as its head. Ignoring the fortune, I hurled the box off the stack and opened the next.
Two swords, an iron spear head, and an elaborate war pick rested inside, cradled in straw and cut-out supports. I blew a relieved sigh, my fingers touching Lukrasus, the sword plundered during the Polish blitz. The sacred weapons were all that stood between humanity and annihilation. They were safe.
A man's choked scream sounded outside.
Not safe yet. I closed the hinged lid and heaved the heavy box out, holding it by the rope-loop handles. Outside was eerily still. I peered around, seeing no one. A smattering of burning debris floated atop the water – all that remained of the sunken boat.
"Did you find them?" Audrey appeared from the shadows.
"Here."
She hurried toward me.
Peter's axe hung from her belt. There was no need to ask his condition. "Richard and Dennis?"
Audrey took the other side of the box and I hopped down. She nodded toward the line of trucks, most of them on fire. The huge knight hobbled through the smoke, practically carrying Richard with one arm. The smaller knight's face was scrunched in pain.
No! I cursed myself for even bringing him on this mission.
"He took a bad cut to the abdomen," she said as we hurried toward them. "I'll patch them up once we're out."
Trying not to think of his injury or of our fallen knight, I focused only on escape. We made our way the half mile to where our automobile was hidden in the shell of a stable.
Richard's face was ashen as we loaded him inside. "Really… gave 'em Hell… didn't we?" He smiled weakly.
"That we did." I brushed the grit from face to hide my concern. We still needed to slip past the American line, change vehicles, and get back to France.
Audrey climbed in beside him, clutching an olive-coloured med kit.
"The cauldron?" Richard asked.
I glanced in the direction of Chiemsee Lake. "It's gone. No one will ever see that abomination again."
He nodded, seeming satisfied. "Then it was worth it."
Smiling to him, I shut the door. I only wished I could believe my own assurances.
– Field Report from Lady Helen Meadows, 1945
UPDATE:
A pair of divers have discovered the cauldron in Chiemsee. It is intact. Recovery or destruction of it are considered Top Priority.
– Master Alex Turgen, 2001
GOD-KILLERS IN OUR MIDST
James Lovegrove and N.X. Sharps
When men come face to face with their gods, it generally means they’ve died.
In my case, it means I’m going to die.
Probably horribly.
I’m brought to Kha’cheldaa in chains, ascending to heaven in a fiery chariot – or, if you prefer, a fusion-powered reusable shuttle craft. But most people’d call it a fiery chariot. Because most people are dumb.
The journey into near orbit is smooth; the squad of Templars escorting me are rough. For example, as we disembark at Kha’cheldaa’s docking bay, the captain of these goons thinks it’d be funny to stick out a leg and trip me up. With my hands manacled behind my back the only thing I have to break my fall with is my face.
Then, for good measure, as I try to get up the same guy clubs me on the back on the head with the pommel of his sword. Could have used the butt of his sidearm, but this way is more ceremonial, I guess.
Still: fucking ouch.
“Not such a free thinker now, eh?” the captain jeers. “Not with a bump like that on your noggin.”
His subordinates roar with laughter. It’s pure comedic gold. No way are they being sycophantic minions or anything.
After that hilarity I’m force-marched along a broad tubular corridor, one of the many spoke-like arms that radiate in all directions from the hub of Kha’cheldaa. Viewports show us planet Earth in all its glory. The terminator between day and night is crawling across its surface, but few lights twinkle on the black landmasses below. Cities no longer blaze with neon after sunset like they used to. I can just about remember a time when they did, but that’s a couple decades back, long gone.
It’s a benighted age, a dark age, this new age, this age of the Savior Gods.
Gravity in Kha’cheldaa is weird. Feels like there’s no real up or down, although me and the Templars stick to the floor normally enough. The air smells metallic, slightly burnt. Our footfalls have blunted echoes. I’m taking in these sensory impressions because it’s all I can do. I can’t have many minutes of life left. Might as well clutch and savor each precious remaining second of it.
A couple of antechambers, more Templars, some scurrying servants. The Savior Gods like to have mortals guarding them and waiting on them hand and foot – gives them a warm, fuzzy glow inside – and these people have been led to believe it’s an honor to have been chosen for the roles. To live in Kha’cheldaa and be of use to our deities is a privilege, the kind you’d sell your very soul for. Right?
Maybe it’s just me, but I can’t help feeling some of them are at least wondering what they’ve gotten themselves into. There’s furtiveness in their body language, a secret fear in their eyes. The gods aren’t known for their restraint and good behavior. Word is, things can get pretty rowdy up here. There are rumors: abuses, humiliations, rapes, random killings – things to make even Marquis de Sade blush. Omnipotence – it can go to a god’s head, you know.
Finally the core chamber, Kha’cheldaa’s heart, the huge sphere that is the throne room of the gods.
And lo and behold, they’re all waiting for me. The full complement. The Big Twelve. Some sit, some stand. There’s food on the tables, drink in tankards, and the light here is coruscating and dazzling, a million hazy rainbows criss-crossing, and I think I hear music, like choirs and orchestras, distant halleluiahs crescendoing and falling. Meanwhile Dominions, tucked away in recesses set high up in the chamber walls, maintain sentinel over their lords and ladies, poised to descend on any aggressor with wings of steel and flame.
I’m supposed to be impressed.
Secretly, I am.
But fuck if I’m going to show it.
The Templars drag me forward. Make me kneel by not so gently booting the backs of my knees. The captain shoves my head down with a gauntleted hand.
“Bow, humanist dog!” he orders.
He actually says that. Humanist dog. Like he means it. Like it isn’t just what he thinks the Savior Gods would expect him to say.
Trakiin waves an imperious hand. The Templars are dismissed.
Trakiin, god of all gods. Trakiin the Father. Heavyset, grey-eyed, all-wise. He’s stationed in a chair that’s about five times the size it needs to be. Its back looms sheer, chalk-cliff white, arched and spired like some cathedral tower. He doesn’t so much sit in it as occupy it, like an invading army. His robes hang in iridescent folds off his massive shoulders. His hair and beard are grey as thunderclouds.
Got to admit, I never thought I’d feel genuine awe in his presence. I know what this dirtbag really is. I know him for a lying, cheating charlatan, organiser of the greatest con ever perpetrated in history.
But still, he has a… majesty is the word. It’s there. It’s undeniable. He looks every inch a deity, even though he’s anything but. If I weren’t on my knees already, it’d have been hard to resist the urge to genuflect before him.
“So,” he says, in a voice like tectonic plates grinding.
The word resonates around the throne room. It’s just one empty syllable but it sounds like it encompasses universes.
“This is he,” Trakiin goes on. “The leader of the expedition. The mortal who dared venture where it is forbidden to g
o. Who sought ‘proof’ that we are not who we say we are.”
I’m going to reply when Xorin steps forward.
I hate this guy. He’s such an asshole. Xorin, God of War, son of Trakiin. You’ll never find a stupider god, or a bigger bully. He’s like every low-IQ, over-muscled jock you ever knew in high school, mashed into one.
“Let me have my way with him, father,” he implores. He’s got a fist clenched, poised. It’s nearly as big as my head. His chin is nearly as big as my head. “Let me show him how disobeying your will is a bad idea.”
“No, my son. Not yet. Answers first. Then you may have your fun.”
But Xorin has little self-control, so he whacks me in the face, taking a down-payment on the violence he’s going to unleash later.
For a moment all I can see is whiteness, all I can hear is a ringing in my ears.
I spit out a tooth and some blood, then raise my head.
“Someone open a window,” I say. “I think a butterfly just brushed past me.”
This enrages Xorin, as I expected it would, and he draws his fist back for another punch.
Trakiin stops him, as I knew he would. Or at any rate hoped.
“Xorin, stand aside,” he booms. “Now!”
Reluctantly Xorin moves off, muttering, pouting. He goes to the side of his mother, Hlaarina, who puts an arm round him and pats him and comforts him like the overgrown baby he is. Hlaarina is, of course, Trakiin’s twin sister as well as his wife. Who knew gods and hillbillies had so much in common?
Trakiin rises, saunters over to me, hands clasped behind his back.
“Name,” he says eventually.
“You’re the god,” I reply. “Shouldn’t you know it already?”
“I do, Ethan Nash. I know all there is to know about you.”
“Oh goody. So we can do away with the whole interrogation bit then.”
“This isn’t an interrogation,” says Trakiin.
“It isn’t?”