I hoisted Ithalen, point forward like a pike. And then, the mound of pale, armoured bodies hit the wall. I thrust forward, skewering a zom in the face. I pulled the blade up, its quicksilver edge sawing through the abhorrent’s skull like butter. To my side, Crusaders stabbed and chopped at the famished horde, as it clawed and cut relentlessly at us. Men cried out as their limbs were cut. But they did not pull back. They responded with every wound in kind. More so.
“Deal them a dozen kills for every cut!” I yelled.
I bashed a heavy abhorrent with the Aegis and, with the room to manoeuvre, beheaded another. Treth danced through the horde, slaughtering them. His fighting now was more distinctly mine than his. It seemed I was now the teacher. Well, I was using his long-advised strategy of a shield wall. And on this flank, it seemed to be working.
I heard bone and metal crunching from behind me. I spared the north flank a glance. Kyong was a whirlwind of jabs, punches and kicks. With every blow, undead shattered and burst. The shield wall was unbroken. More than that, it barely had to participate.
The abhorrent horde thinned, enough that I broke out of the shield wall. With enough room to move around, I advanced into the assorted group of undead survivors. Beheaded one. Spun as another was set aflame by my coat and sliced off its arm before skewering its head. Other Crusaders broke the formation and helped me mop up, bashing undead onto the floor before finishing them off with stabs to the head or a lot of cleaving.
The gurgles, growls and roars stopped. Silence. Well, in our immediate vicinity. The sounds of battle continued to the north. And faintly, through the walls heading eastward. Guy had pushed further into the building. As to be expected.
I wiped down my blade on my coat, searing off the necro-blood, and turned towards my troops. They stared back. No deaths. Just some gashes and cuts. Medics and purifiers were seeing to them.
“Norley,” I indicated one of the Crusader sergeants. “Keep some shields and gunmen here and watch our backs. Hold the breach and fall back outside if it gets too tough.”
“Roger, Commander!”
I nodded, satisfied, and then took the lead alongside Kyong as we headed up the north-side hallway. The going was slow, as we cleared rooms along the hall. Empty, except for tables full of drugs, fae-dust and abandoned hunks of human meat. No signs of struggle. The inhabitants must have fled as they heard us breaking through. And gone where?
I heard padded feet behind us and saw pairs of golden eyes in the dark. Trudie, in half-wolf form, with her entire pack. Pranish was providing oversight from the outside. We didn’t want our finest wizard getting shot in a dark hallway.
The Gibsons sniffed and growled, looking towards the north.
“Close…enemies…close…” Trudie growled. She was erring on the beast-side more than the human. She looked at the eastern wall. “Through…wall…”
Kyong looked at me questioningly. I nodded.
We stood back as Kyong took his place by the wall and cracked his knuckles. With a flat-palmed strike, he formed a large hole in the wall. Light shone through, followed by bullets.
“Shields!” I shouted again. The werewolves paid no heed and charged right in, followed by their elf hanger-on.
Ari dodged and weaved, as if seeing the bullets in slow motion.
As I entered through the new breach, I surveyed a courtyard packed with assembly lines. Livers, kidneys, lungs…everything an undead minion didn’t need…were lined on these assemblies. Gangsters with assorted firearms hid behind their fleshy loot and opened fire, as terrified and cowering workers wearing aprons and rubber gloves, lay on the ground.
Ari fell upon an Ak-wielding gangster with ferocity, slicing off his hands and letting him bleed out as she moved onto the next. The werewolves pounced on the enemy, ripping out throats and pummelling the humans into the ground. They shrugged off the bullets like they were merely paintballs.
Police charged into the room, past the shield wall, and opened fire. The bullets sprayed, hitting gangsters and the unarmed workers. More bullets sprayed from above, as police and Crusaders appeared on balconies overlooking the courtyard.
I wanted to tell them all to stop. But gangsters still fired on us. A Crusader was hit, and Senegal was staggered by a point-blank shotgun blast. This put his elf girlfriend into an even bigger frenzy, as she cut into the perpetrator with her dagger, before liberating his shotgun and using it one-handed to blast his comrade.
The shield wall broke entirely, and Crusaders charged into the fray, consumed by bloodlust. They cut into the enemy. Ruthlessly. Until there were none left. The courtyard was littered with corpses. The wolves were covered in blood. Police shied away from them. But they couldn’t be too disgusted. They had shed more blood themselves.
I averted my eyes from the rapidly pooling blood and looked up towards the Crusaders and police on the balcony.
“Status?!” I yelled.
Guy pushed his way to the front and waved down.
“East-wing clear! Orders?!”
“Rendezvous north! Clear your floor.”
Guy saluted and disappeared back inside.
I kept my eyes on the open sky for a bit longer. The smoggy, grey sky was reddening. Fires, and the setting sun.
I took a deep breath of air that smelled like burning rubber. It was fresher out here, even with the corpses. And I knew I wouldn’t be smelling its like for a while longer.
After I was satisfied, I turned to the group of fighters.
“Back inside,” I ordered, simply.
And we re-entered the darkness.
***
We met pockets of resistance again and again. Abhorrent, zombies and more gangsters. We lost men. Good men. But they lost more.
Slowly, we ascended the structure, the sound of battle to the north growing closer and closer. But the darkness did not abate. Relief came through, catching up to us with high-powered lights to illuminate the tunnels. But they accomplished little. As was often the case in dark weylines and necromantic fortresses, the darkness was enchanted. Our artificial light would only carry so far, stopping short of our enemies.
I gave myself time to pant after a more gruelling fight. Gangsters had been immediately replaced by abhorrent and we hadn’t been given any respite.
“My spark is low, Commander,” Kyong whispered. He had bags under his eyes. I winced. Kyong seldom ever depleted his spark. But we’d been going at it for hours.
“Just a bit longer. There can’t be much more.”
“Why, by the Rifts, did they send us into this hellhole?” a cop asked, holding a bandaged arm. “We should have bombed it!”
Collateral damage or not, I couldn’t blame him. Despite all my promises, some of his comrades lay dead. The comms operator had been bitten by a zom crawling along the floor. She’d ended her own life before any of us could. Good soldier.
“We’re almost to the north-side,” I said, surveying the group.
Brett counted his rounds. He frowned. He was down to just a few more. Then, he’d be part of the shield wall. Not his strong suit.
Ari sat crosslegged, her eyes closed and bloodied daggers on her lap. She was coated in blood. The werewolves panted, licking their wounds.
I stood up and started moving. Reluctantly, the group followed. Well, Ari followed along eagerly.
The sounds of fighting were rarer now. Just the occasional gunshots. I hoped that there were still troops on the north-side to help. And we hadn’t heard from Guy or the other Crusaders in an age.
We trudged through the dark halls in silence. No talking. Just footfalls and the faint rumbling of the werewolves growling their discontent.
Then, we heard boots. And lights up ahead. We stopped. Silence. The boots up ahead stopped as well. The light flickered.
No voices. Nothing.
Gangsters? Or Puretide? Maybe Guy with the Crusaders?
But there was no way to know just yet.
In the 2nd Boer War, the British ascended Spion Kop under the c
over of night and a dense fog. They stopped in a position that they thought safe. Until the sun rose in the morning, and they found themselves face to face with their enemies, metres between their lines.
I learnt from history. And I didn’t want to be face to face with my foes unless my sword was in their guts.
I signed to the group to keep quiet and proceed cautiously. We kept our lights on. Undead didn’t need lights. We did. I stepped closer. Closer. I heard shifting just ahead. They lay waiting. Giving us the initiative or setting an ambush.
Treth appeared before me and went ahead. He was gone for a minute, as we advanced. Slowly. Slowly, sidling up the wall and towards the corner.
Treth returned, and nodded, reassuringly.
“Blood,” I whispered loudly, directed at the corner.
“River,” Edward replied.
Relieved, we rounded the corner.
A dozen Puretide operatives stood behind their commander, their white armour covered in blood. Edward’s rune-covered axe was coated in black, viscous blood.
“Last Light,” he said. I had expected distaste in his tone, but it was a simple acknowledgement instead.
“Taragon,” I replied, nodding in greeting. “Status?”
Edward sneered. “This is a clusterfuck. We’ve been here for hours.”
I couldn’t argue.
“The police?” I asked, looking behind him for his police retinue.
“All dead.” I saw a glint in his eye. More than just cops had died. So had many of his men.
I couldn’t help but grimace. Phillip Brown had a lot to answer for. But he’d just cite arithmetic. We’d killed far more enemies than troops we’d lost. That’s all that mattered to government lapdogs.
“What’s the plan, Last Light?” Edward asked. He sounded tired. There was no argument in his voice anymore. He just wanted to leave here alive.
“We rendezvous with my men coming from the east. Then, we leave.”
Edward, looking half-dead himself, nodded.
We joined ranks with his men and proceeded eastward now. The flesh factory was silent. Not a gurgle, scream or bang.
“You lost men,” Edward said, quietly, as we proceeded.
“You too.”
His expression darkened even more.
“We should never have agreed to this. It is just like last time. They throw us into the meat grinder. Just like at the Three Point Line.”
“You served?” I asked, genuinely interested. Edward was hard to read. His white hair suggested that he was old, but his well-muscled physique made him look younger. Perhaps, forties at the latest. But the tired look in his eyes suggested he was far older.
“In a different age. It wasn’t the CDF then.”
Definitely older than his forties!
His fist tightened on his axe-handle. An empty shotgun was strapped to his back. His eyes were a million miles away.
“It was called parliament, then. They sent us into the breach to fight impi. To take back South Africa. They threw us at their lines. Again, and again. Grinding and grinding. Like today…as monsters tore apart my home. Killed my…”
He paused at that, as we surveyed some side-rooms. Empty. He continued.
“I came home to a torn city with nothing but dead comrades. And I knew that we’d been fighting the wrong enemy. That the real enemy gurgled and snarled. I vowed to never fight a war like that ever again. Until…now.”
“The Necro Lord is the real enemy,” I replied, trying to reassure him.
“No…” Edward replied, slowly. “He’s just one of its facets. The real enemy is the war itself. The violence. The need to kill.”
“We have to kill, Edward…else they kill us.”
He glowered, but then nodded. “Unfortunately, you are correct.”
We stopped at a double door, plated with steel. Kyong took a step forward but stumbled. Brett caught him.
“Perhaps take a breather, buddy?” he whispered.
Kyong hesitated, but nodded.
“Parker, Latuhli, take point!” Edward ordered, before putting himself next to them. I joined them by the sides of the steel door. I looked Edward in the eyes with a new understanding and nodded.
We opened the door, and it gave way.
No bullets came flying at us.
It was another courtyard, constructed just under the open sky. And, in the centre of it all, was a statue. In this sea of poverty, it was the finest thing we’d seen. Black marble, shining in the rapidly setting sun.
A cloaked figure, with a book in one hand, and raising a corpse with the other.
We fanned into the room. No packing tables. No enemies. Curious, I approached the statue, glancing between the cloaked figure and the corpse. I realised that the scale was off. The cloaked figure was far shorter than the corpse. Unless…it was the real Necrolord. Candace.
He truly worshiped my soul-sister. If only he knew the truth. That she’d seen the error of her ways. That she’d found the light. At least, a bit.
We all spun, guns aimed, and shields locked as the door on the other side of the courtyard opened.
Crusaders stopped, as Guy pushed his way to the front, Cindy by his side. He silently surveyed the courtyard as he made his way to me. The jumpiest of our crew lowered their weapons, finally.
“It’s good to see you, Giles-Mgebe,” I announced.
He nodded in response.
“Did a final sweep of the east. Clear.”
“We’ve met no more resistance in the west,” I replied, turning to Edward.
“North is clear,” he added, almost growling. There was an unspoken question. At what cost?
“That leaves the south,” I said. “Let’s rest, regroup and push southward to…”
A rumble cut me short, followed by cracking.
“The walls!” Heather cried.
“Form up!” Brett yelled.
Without hesitation, I joined the hastily forming shield wall, surrounding the mages and gunmen. As Heather had said, the walls surrounding us were cracking. Crumbling. Revealing…faces.
“Abhorrent!” came a dozen yells, just as heads popped up on the rooftop, and rained lead and corruption magic upon us.
Cindy incanted a hasty spell, deflecting the corruption from the dark mages with a shield of translucent gold. Dark shards splattered on the golden, shimmering surface, but bullets flew right past, pelting into us. I raised Aegis to block the onslaught, as abhorrent poured from the walls. A cry of pain sounded from behind me. I turned my head, just as Brett fell. My vision blurred.
No…
Before I could do anything, abhorrent fell on our lines. Treth beheaded one of them, and my coat seared a second, before I got my head back into the game and skewered a third.
Cindy’s shield dropped as cops opened fire on the roof, pinning the mages. She knelt down, channelling her spark into Brett, muttering…
“You don’t have my permission to die yet, Callahan. Not till you’re Guy’s best man.”
My arms were numb from the slaughter. Crusaders and cops dropped their depleted firearms, using rifles as clubs when they didn’t have other close combat weapons.
It was too much. And the undead kept coming. Just like at Ithalen…
But this wasn’t meant to be a last stand. We were meant to win this. To avenge Busani. To avenge them all…
“Retreat!” I tried yelling over the cacophony. But my voice came out hoarse. No one responded. And there was nowhere to run. The press of undead bodies suffocated us, pressing the shield wall tighter and tighter.
Until all the abhorrent were pushed back by a shockwave. A panting Kyong collapsed where he had been standing, his fist on the ground. But it was all the delay that Hammond needed, as he leapt upon the shield of a Crusader, and let loose an inferno unlike anything I had seen before.
The detonation temporarily blinded me, as it was like staring into the sun. Abhorrent couldn’t feel pain. But they screamed as the fires touched them, spreading out in a ci
rcle, sparing us in the centre.
Hammond kept up the onslaught, until the final abhorrent, pushing through the flames, crumbled into ash.
No gangster or dark mage from above fired on us. It was over.
Hammond jumped off the Crusader’s shield, his grin infectious, even as his arm was covered in burn marks. He was used to it.
I wiped down my blade, surveying the carnage, before turning to Hammond.
“You saved us, Mr York…”
The ground shook.
“Not again…” the cop officer whined.
But this rumble didn’t come from the walls. I looked down, and then towards the statue of the Necrolord. It shook. Vibrating with an intense, feverish energy. It wasn’t a quake. And not an explosion.
I felt something dark in the air. I looked at Cindy. She was pale, her resolve flagging. She sensed it too.
“Run!” I yelled, making a break for the exit.
Too late.
Like ragdolls, we were flung up as the floor exploded outwards. The Necrolord statue rose into the air. I clutched my head, my ears ringing. My coat sputtered. It was down to its embers. The red clouds had turned to grey, as rain fell, putting out the remainder of Hammond’s fires.
I stood, wincing as my new wounds shocked my body. Treth manifested before me, his expression filled with horror.
“Run, Kat. All of you.”
I tried to yell but winced in pain. Crusaders, Puretide and cops were slowly rising. But not fast enough, as a creature rose from the depths. The statue was only an ornament on its back. Under the black marble decoration was a mound of pulsating flesh. Flesh, mixed with concrete, rock, metal and…Athena save us.
Clay.
Somehow, my nightmares had come true. The jobs were linked.
Before I could yell a warning, Kyong charged forward, despite his negligible spark. He fell into a stance and pulled his arm back. I saw the air warp around his fist. The last of his power. Enough to dent a tank.
His fist pelted harmlessly into the monster’s fleshy, rocky hide. Stunned, he didn’t have enough time to dodge as the necro-golem’s arm, a writhing limb of multiple undead, swiped at him, knocking him clean across the room. He hit the wall and slid down to the floor. Unmoving.
Cursed Earth (Kat Drummond Book 12) Page 17