“You alright?” Mandi asked Darius.
“Fine,” Darius said.
“What happened?”
“A bunch of the wastelanders are blazing ticked off that’s what happened.”
Ben approached the knocked out wastelander. He looked like most of the other bandits—grizzled beard, missing teeth, and a face full of piercings, scars, and sun marks. Ben was sure he had seen the man earlier, but there was nothing specific that he could recall. “Why’d he attack you? What did he want?”
“I told you: they’re angry,” Darius said. “Right after I started running, I was ambushed by the guy in line ahead of me. I managed to take him out without much trouble but apparently made enough noise for a few others to hear me. I was surrounded by three of them and cornered against an old brick wall. They talked about wanting revenge on us for that fight back in the marshes and how we beat their asses. Managed to get outta that one with the help of a loose brick. Gave them a long enough distraction for me to climb over the wall and getaway. Well, until ugly over here found me.”
“Ugh, this is all my fault,” Ben complained. “If I hadn’t lost the fang at the camp, we’d have been able to get into Ney without all this nonsense.”
Darius didn’t disagree. All he said was, “Doesn’t matter much now. Any idea where this Mouth of Ney is?”
Ben and Mandi shared a grin and explained their plan to Darius. He was skeptical and slow to accept that the solution could be so easy. The idea that all they had to do was reach the sound of water just didn’t seem like much of a test to him.
“Then stay here and wait for it to magically call you some other way,” Mandi said as she walked off on her own.
Ben looked at Darius and shrugged before catching up to Mandi. Darius cursed and followed. Ben was quick to suggest that Darius wipe away the blood on his face as best as he could. Though he wasn’t too sure how much help it would be since Darius had picked up a few new wounds from his fight. They weren’t bleeding too badly and had already slowed. Ben wasn’t sure how much blood was needed to attract the ferals.
As it turned out, the route to the Mouth of Ney wasn’t so easy. There were fewer trees the farther they went and more old buildings. On no fewer than five occasions did they need to turn around completely because their way was blocked by a toppled tower that was impossible to pass or climb. Likewise, some areas were littered with ivy so high and dense that they could just barely make out a path beyond that would be perfect for them. It was just another trivial obstacle forcing them to expend more energy than they had. And they had very little.
Not only were the three exhausted, but they were also hungry. They had neither the time nor patience to search for edible plant life or hunt for a quick meal. Their best bet was to carry on and hope that the Orks were preparing a feast to welcome them to Ney. Stranger things had happened.
Worst of all, it was hot. Very hot. The last days of summer were going out with fiery fervor. Ben imagined that he and his companions would have sweat to death if it weren’t for their thin garments. He wondered if this was the reason that the Orks had provided them with such small and thin outfits. He couldn’t imagine navigating his way through this wilderness of a city in full leather, a backpack, and a sword weighing him down. The Orkish garb put everyone on a equal footing and left the test up to skill.
Finally, the thunderous crashes of water welcomed them as it drowned out all other sounds. The city had gradually shrunk, and once again, plant life seemed to outnumber the cement and steel of the crumbling city. Whatever remained of the ancient civilization here had been devoured by the brush and ivy. They found a large stream at the edge of the city that carried them deeper into the wilderness of the wasteland. They knew they had to have been close.
The stream led them through thicker and thicker foliage until there was no longer any hint of civilization. It was as if the city had never existed here. They were excited now, Ben especially. He was restless and eager to finish this test and meet with the Orks. More than that, he just wanted to rest. Suddenly, as quickly as the thicket had appeared, it vanished. Now the three were standing by the edge of a massive river, one at least three times the width of the Gjoll. The flowing water was bright blue and green and hopped down cliffs and ravines. This was no ordinary river. They had stumbled upon massive cascades.
“We’ve made it,” Mandi said. “The Mouth of Ney.”
Ben paused to enjoy the scene. There weren’t many times in life that one knew a moment was something they would never forget. Regardless of the circumstances, he counted himself lucky to have already had many such memories from traveling the world. What lay in front of them was nature in its most raw, unchecked power. Not hampered down by human’s shadow of devastation. Despite its terrible power, it was a sight of beauty, for the splashing water sparkled under the moonlit sky like beads of diamonds in the air.
“Now what?” Darius asked, interrupting the moment.
“I think we have to keep going a little bit,” Ben said. “It still gets louder. Downstream.”
“The rest of us don’t have super hearing,” Darius pointed out. “We listened to the call, and this is where it brought us.”
Ben shook his head, then realized that was a bad idea with the headache. He pressed against his temples and closed his eye to make it go away. “Just listen. I’m not even using my powers to hear it.”
Mandi and Darius stilled and leaned their heads downriver. Darius waited a moment, a puzzled expression painted on his face. “Well, they can’t expect us to follow the river all the way to the ocean, can they?”
“We have to go farther,” Ben insisted.
“I think Ben has a point,” Mandi said. “It’s pretty clear this river is enormous, but small cascades like these wouldn’t make a noise all the way by the other end of the city.”
Darius groaned but forewent further argument.
“There’s no telling how far the true Mouth of Ney really is,” Ben said. “We need to hurry.”
“Sorry to say, y’all won’t be making it there,” a familiar voice said from behind.
The three turned to the direction of the voice. There were three people—Liv and Kirk, who’d ambushed their camp, and another man. All of them wielded rusted steel bars that they batted against their palms. The other man had a swollen nose and two black eyes, giving him the none-too-flattering resemblance of a raccoon. Ben barely recognized him as the one Darius had been wrestling with earlier.
“What do you want with us?” Mandi asked. Her fists were raised and ready for a fight.
“Revenge,” Raccoon Man said.
“What for?” Mandi asked.
“D’you civs know the hell you put us through?” the Liv asked.
“We don’t even know you!” Mandi yelled.
“Save it, Mandi,” Darius said. “I’ve already had this talk with Ugly over there and a few of his other pals. They don’t wanna hear it.”
“That’s right, civ, talk down on us,” Kirk said.
“The none of y’all accept us into your towns ’cause we had the bloody misfortune of being born outside your walls,” Raccoon Man said. “So we have little choice but to wander, cheat, and steal. How else are we supposed to survive? And then there’s the disrespect y’all showed us in the forest, encroaching on our territory! Don’t you already have homes? If that weren’t good enough, now we’re supposed to share our place in Ney with scum like y’all? I don’t think so. We can’t let that go by unpunished.”
The wastelanders rushed toward the group, steel bars raised. Ben didn’t have time to digest their grievances. He stepped in front of his friends and braced for impact. The girl struck first, swinging low toward Ben’s legs. He jumped, narrowly avoiding the swing only to feel the full impact of Raccoon Man’s rusty weapon slamming against his collarbone. Excruciating pain swept down from his neck to his fingers.
A rock tumbled through the air and slammed against Raccoon Man’s chest, knocking the wind out of him. Darius
ran forward at full speed, ready for a rematch. He tackled the man to the ground and wrestled the steel bar from him. Mandi picked up another rock and aimed it at Kirk. Liv batted the rock away with her metal pole, and it soared just over Ben’s head. He ducked and readied himself to assist his friends. They didn’t need to get hurt when he could easily put an end to this. He just needed to concentrate. Wake up and focus. Deal with the consequences later.
There was suddenly a pair of hands around his neck. In the brief second that he had turned his blind spot to Kirk, he’d made himself vulnerable.
He could feel the blood and air being choked off from his brain and lungs. Being asphyxiated felt like his head was filling with air until it was ready to burst. Kirk’s murderous eyes and blond hair reminded Ben all too much of Longinus. His lip twisted at the thought of his adversary. It was that comparison that finally broke him. Added to the sheer physical and mental exhaustion he had sustained thus far, the added thought of Longinus was too much. The flickers went faster and faster until his vision was solid red. Ben grasped the strangling hands and squeezed. He could feel bones in the hands around his neck crack and splinter. He didn’t let go and instead tossed his assailant over his head, thrashing him against the ground. Kirk wailed and writhed around in the leaves and mud.
Mandi and Darius were still in the midst of their battles. Mandi was dodging every other swing successfully. The last hit landed on her shoulder with a loud crack, and the steel bar snapped in two. The metal weapon was now the length of a dagger and tapered to a point. She stabbed at Mandi, who rolled out of the way. Mandi grabbed the other half of the bar and used it to block her attacker’s strikes. Meanwhile, Darius traded punches with his opponent. Darius’s lip was split and right eye swollen, but the wastelander looked much worse. His nose was pouring blood, and he was constantly spitting it out. Darius seemed to be handling himself just fine, but Ben simply wasn’t thinking straight.
Unlike in the past, Ben was now conscious while under the trance of the Nephilim defense mode. Enough training in controlled environments had allowed him to at least be aware of what he was doing and the ability to make simple decisions—though ‘decisions’ was a strong word. It was more like he was sitting in the backseat while the Enochian within him took the reins. Ben could yell out suggestions and sometimes his body would listen. Most of the time it just acted on its own. He couldn’t even choose which enemy to attack during a fight, though he could at least determine who was friend or foe. On some level, he knew he didn’t want to fight Darius’s opponent first, but it was so hard to tell himself that. Having thoughts while in this state was like trying to hear a single voice in a crowd of people all screaming variations of the same thing while his own voice served as nothing more than a brief whisper in a tornado of rage.
Raccoon Man threw a punch that was aimed for Darius’s lower jaw. Instead, it landed in Ben’s hand. He gave a hard twist at Raccoon Man’s wrist—so hard that it dislocated his elbow and fractured at least one of the bones in his forearm. He howled, and Ben thrust an open palm at the man’s chest. He flew back several feet and smacked against a tree trunk. Ben turned around absentmindedly.
“Blazes, Ben! Was that necess—” Darius stopped short when he looked into Ben’s eye. He cursed and started to yell at Ben and waved his hands in front of him. Ben could tell Darius was trying to get his attention. It was in vain. All of his focus went to the rumbling ground, the crunching leaves overpowering even the furious rapids. They scampered out from the tree line, with necks and backs arched into unnatural positions as they clambered over fallen trunks and piles of brick and stone. At first, there were only a few—five or six—but as those poured out, more and more arrived, pushing the backs of Ben and the others to the roaring cascades.
Ferals, Ben realized. They shuffled around, using their hands as front legs with their hunched, crooked spines. Their nails were long and pointed, just like the sharp fangs barred in their drooling mouths. Naked, their emaciated bodies were exposed, and their milky white skin seemed to draw in all the light around them. Some screeched and cackled, and others kept to an unsettling silence as they eyed the blood dripping from Kirk’s nose and Raccoon Man’s wrists. Ben had unwittingly attracted the ghouls here. He’d seen a creature like this before. Not a creature—a man. Gal had nails and fangs just like the ferals and scampered and screeched too. But he also spoke and could stand upright. Unlike these nightmarish fiends, Gal’s face bore the same Orkish tattoos as Skalle and the Orks they had recently met. The only marks on these things were bruises and scars. As they closed in on the group, none spoke nor showed any semblance of humanity. Something about them was different. Ben didn’t know what separated creatures like these from men like Gal.
Ben’s body didn’t give him time to think before it reacted to the swarm of bloodthirsty ghouls. He clapped his hands together, sending a shockwave toward the group of ferals. A few were swept backward. The rest scattered about, separating from one another. They were no longer one giant target.
Three closed in on Kirk, who was still on the ground wailing in pain. As soon as he saw them, the wastelander screamed for help, kicking at the creatures as they surrounded him. Liv stabbed one in the back of its shoulder with the broken steel rod, but not before the other two had already clawed out his eyes and bitten down on his throat. They fought one another for the blood pouring from his body. The feral Liv had stabbed squealed as she yanked out her weapon and turned its attention on her. One of the ferals had claimed Kirk’s body for itself, and the other noticed the blood spilling from the back of its companion. It seemed they didn’t have much sense of loyalty; the feral immediately tackled the other in an attempt to get some blood of its own. Liv narrowly escaped from the brawling creatures, with no help from Raccoon Man, who ran away the instant the ferals had split up. He seemed to have as much loyalty for his companions as the ferals.
Raccoon Man didn’t get far. Four ferals caught a whiff of his bleeding nose and broke apart from the pack and chased after him. He had the wherewithal to bring his steel rod with him and killed one of the ghouls. Two of them were distracted by the dead, bleeding body and stopped to snack on their fallen ally. The fourth feral wasn’t so easily done away with, and it lunged onto the man’s back as he ran. It bit into his neck, and with a scream, he swatted at the creature. In the struggle he lost his footing and fell into the cascades, taking the feral with him. They were swept downriver in an instant.
Mandi and Darius had their backs to one another, protecting their blind spots. Mandi wielded the other half of Liv’s steel rod, swinging and stabbing at anything that came close to her. Darius held two large rocks, one in each hand, and he used his hands like hammers to crush the incoming ferals. Hüginn swept down in all the chaos and pecked at as many ferals as it could.
Every time someone bled, more ferals found their way to the river’s edge. This wasn’t just a pack of them, it was a swarm. There were dozens, everywhere he looked. Ben hadn’t been scratched or bitten yet like the others, so more were attracted to them. In that time, he’d already taken out ten ferals, either by sending them flying with a shock wave and concussing them upon landing or by lifting them over his head throwing them into the river. He didn’t know if he’d killed any of the creatures, either. If he’d been in full control—rather than his body reacting automatically—he liked to think he’d have tried more conservative methods. But how much of a difference could he make at this point? There were so many, and they hardly reacted to pain. They went into a deeper frenzy as the smell of blood flooded the air.
More than twenty ferals swarmed around Mandi and Darius, who’d been covered head to toe in blood and guts from the ravenous ghouls. Liv had joined them and had given Darius Kirk’s weapon; the rocks he’d been using had crumbled to pieces just like the rubble in the city. Those steel rods wouldn’t hold for very long. They’d been rusting for centuries, after all. Ben screamed at his body to help his friends, but it didn’t listen. It just kept fending off al
l the ferals that came his way.
A minute later, he and his friends ran into some luck. Sierra lunged through the forest and into the fray. The muzzle snapped as she opened her jaws and mauled a pair of ferals surrounding the others. Seeing her had been so unexpected and filled him with such relief that he was able to overcome the fierce grip that his Nephilim defense held over him. He shot over to the horde of ghoulish creatures and tossed them away from his friends one by one. Except now that he was in control again, he suddenly felt all the pain his Nephilim mode inhibited. There were bites and lacerations all over that he hadn’t noticed. A migraine exploded inside his skull with an aura of nausea and vertigo. His fractured collarbone screamed at him, and something in his right arm was definitely torn from all the stress he’d put on it.
He pushed on anyway. He still had a surge of power while maintaining control. Ferals squealed and hissed as he and Sierra tore through them to get to the others. By then, he’d been covered in more blood than the other three combined. Some of them started turning their attention from the others and attacked Ben. He cursed at himself as he mutilated whatever these things were, knowing he’d never forgive himself for probably killing more than just a few—even if they were probably little more than mindless creatures. Yet that didn’t stop him. There was a mind-numbing effect of all this ghastly gore. He just kept fighting. He’d never controlled this much power before, and it was all too much for him to properly handle. When he meant to shove a feral to the side it ended up flying a dozen feet away. Kicks and punches—no matter how soft he tried to make them—turned into bone-crunching ensembles.
The Heir of Ænæria Page 25