“Jackie, get Claire,” Rob said. The eclipse had taken full hold, dimming the sky, but the moon did not pass beyond. It hung in place as if staying to watch the destruction of all reality, waiting for the battle to play out below.
Jackie nodded and hurried forward, dodging mounds of burning debris. She shot off bursts of laser energy to lay cover fire and ran to her friend while James slowly turned to face Rob. Her eyes gleamed with a certain fire of confidence as if she had done this before.
James wore an impressed grin upon his face. “How many times must I kill you?” James smiled maniacally. His smirk turned to a snarl and he flung blazing fireballs at the werewolf.
Rob deflected them with his massive sword and charged towards the sorcerer. James sidestepped and drew his sword in response. Eldritch flame burst forth, wreathing his blade with fire.
James slashed at him. Rob blocked and their crossing blades splattered sparks across the space between them. They thrust and parried, each trying to open an opportunity for a lethal strike.
Between blows, the sorcerer scooped up the nearby athame. Fire wreathed it, too, as he pressed the attack, striking with a flurry of blows. The warlock wildly cut at his enemy.
Rob whirled around, evading the blades and seeking a new angle on his enemy. He saw an opening as James over-extended his attack. Whirling the glaive high above his head, Rob held off the killing strike when Claire shrieked nearby.
Both Rob and James froze. A tentacle shot out of the void. Greyish green it wrapped around Claire while Jackie fired into the gathering vyrm troops, trying to keep them at bay.
Claire grabbed at anything that she could to prevent the Devourer from pulling her through the tear and into the nether. Both of the combatants rushed to her, momentarily forgetting their deep and bitter rivalry in defense of the princess.
James blasted the monstrous tendril with fire. The otherworldly appendage paid it no notice. The sorcerer hacked and slashed at it with both burning blades but it completely resisted all of his efforts.
Rob leapt towards it, bringing the Stone Glaive to bear. He sliced downward violently. The tendril cut partially and the wound turned to stone. The tentacle stiffened as it clutched its prey. Rob smashed it, breaking the arm to gray chunks which crumbled like old concrete as the severed limb retreated to the negative dimension.
He rushed to Claire’s side and broke her free from the stone appendage which wrapped around her. Jackie grabbed her friend. “Come on! Let’s go!” They dove out of the way of a second squid-like limb that tried to seize her.
Rob sliced cleanly through those as soon as able. A blast of hot air spewed from the nether-hole and a terrible shriek echoed through the town. Sh’logath hungered desperately for Claire’s blood.
Jackie grabbed Claire and they crawled underneath the semi-truck trailer, trying to stay shielded from the vyrm onslaught. “How did you get here!” Claire exclaimed her joy more than she asked the question.
She fired a quick burst of energy into the group that got too close. “I didn’t know what to do. I wandered around Europe until a very beaten-up werewolf found me. We couldn’t find you, so we went looking for that stone sword, figuring we’d catch up here before Sh’logath woke up.”
Claire beamed. Despite the dark circumstances, her friends’ attempted rescue made everything a little brighter.
The Heptobscurantum’s forces had begun to wane, even though the vyrm had stopped entering through the dimensional gates which had winked shut. The cultists’ numbers had simply been insufficient to contend with Nitthogr’s.
Rob hacked at a mob of vyrm soldiers as they charged towards his friends. Each that he drew blood on froze as stone. Half of the attackers turned and fled back to the safety of the larger group where Jackie peppered them with her assault blaster.
She changed out chargepaks with a high frequency and hoped that she had enough. The entire trailer suddenly ripped free from its position and skidded to the side, toppling to its side and crushing an entire faction of vyrm.
Jacob Sisyphus stood on the opposite sidewalk, manipulating the forces powerful enough to wield a tractor trailer as his toy. His hands glowed with energy, but his eyes looked fatigued and bloodshot. With robes tattered and torn he limped across the street, using an eldritch shield to block the offensive Jackie tried to mount. Summoning all of his rage, Sisyphus charged ahead and punched Jackie with a wild haymaker.
Jackie fell to the ground. Her head cracked against the pavement, knocking her unconscious. Sisyphus hurled her weapon into the distance so that Claire couldn’t grab it.
A cheer went up from the scattered Heptobscurantum and the remaining members of their cult targeted James, keeping him occupied with a rain of bullets. Sisyphus tried to grab Claire, but she proved more agile than suspected. She ducked and slipped away from him.
“Get her!” screamed Adams as Claire bobbed around the corner of the semi-tractor.
Sisyphus ran after her. He stepped around the edge of the cab just in time to see the werewolf charge forward with his swinging fist. The first blow stood the former wrestler up straight and the second one drove him to the ground.
Rob picked up the wizard and shook him violently. He hoisted the robed cult leader high above his head and flung The Seven’s eldritch master across the intersection where he crashed into his four peers.
The entire battle seemed to come to a halt as Sisyphus, clearly dazed, struggled to his feet. He stood in one corner of the offensive triangle. Summers, behind him, handed the Occultist another pack of blood and he bit into it with his one remaining false tooth. The remaining Illuminati stood behind their recharged magic wielder
Opposing him on one side of the Mexican standoff was James: the inter-dimensional warlock, Nitthogr. On the other was Rob, the werewolf with the mythic stone blade.
Adams tried to outfox his enemies in political fashion. “Tell us, almighty Nitthogr. Why do you oppose our sacrifice of the Princess? Wouldn’t it make sense that we pour out all her blood upon this altar? The moment of the Great Awakening is at hand!”
Clearly flustered by the turnabout, James shouted. “You know nothing! I am Nitthogr, true Herald of Sh’logath! Only I know the proper day and hour of the Awakening!”
The Devourer roared from beyond and the vyrm shifted on their feet, uncertain of their course. They lowered their weapons ever so slightly.
“We know everything!” Adams screamed back. “Caivev…” he looked around for something. “Caivev told us…” something had distracted him, like the ear ringing of persistent tinnitus. “Caivev told us of your treachery against Sh’logath!” He looked around, pulling a foreign object stuffed within Sisyphus’s cloak: a TRX718 blaster pistol.
The shrill whine it emitted had grown demandingly loud, now audible to all. Adams looked at Rob who had flung the man at them seconds ago.
Rob stared at the blaster with cold, hard expectation. The charging port on the battery pack rapidly flashed red, right above the terminal where a tiny metal clip had been jammed.
Boom.
The TRX718 exploded with a flash of light; its concussive fireball flattened the ragged remnants of The Seven. James shielded his eyes against the intensely bright eruption which seemed to suck all sound into the detonation. From the smoldering crater, Jacob Sisyphus struggled to rise; he shook under his own weight, and finally collapsed.
In the moment of silence that followed, jaws dropped and the faces of the on-looking Heptobscurantum members fell. A rally cry rose up from the vyrm army and they charged against their fleeing human enemy. The cultists routed in terror, scattering in any and every direction.
Rob walked towards James tentatively, like a mongoose stalking a cobra. Vyrm slinked around him, giving the sword wielding lycanthrope wide berth.
Behind the warlock, the tear through the fabric of space squirmed with the writhing of tentacles. They clawed blindly at the air in their vain attempt to pull Sh’logath into this realm.
James lifted his
two blades in challenge. “I’ve been killing members of your family for generations now! And it ends today!”
“One way or another!” Rob howled back, bringing his massive blade to bear.
James blocked and swung while Rob dodged and parried. Rob’s heavy glaive proved slower than the light blades of his enemy but the brute force behind his blows knocked the sorcerer back with each strike. James tried to keep a tight grip on his weapons.
Rob swung mightily with a slice that could have cleaved the sorcerer cleanly through. James blocked, but the hooked athame clattered out of his hand and skittered to the ground.
Summoning his dark power, the warlock blasted Rob’s face with a burst of searing flame. Rob flailed his weapon wildly, momentarily blinded.
James somersaulted away and scooped up the athame. He whirled around just in time to catch Rob’s next ferocious strike. James countered with five blows of his own; the final one lodged the nasty occult blade in the meat of Rob’s arm.
Rob growled in pain, recoiling slightly. He yanked the athame from his wounded flesh and threw it back at him.
The warlock ducked and it sailed across the open pavement, lodging firmly in the spine of a vyrm who tried to pull open the semi-truck’s cab door. Claire and Jackie sat inside the locked vehicle, obviously arguing with each other over how to operate the big rig.
James darted towards the vehicle, his prize threatened escape. Rob leapt over the warlock and stood between the two, barring the way, yet again. James ducked the werewolf’s clawed swipe that would have taken his head off. The deep cut from the athame had nearly stitched itself back together.
With a two finger strike that crackled with white lightning, James stepped inside Rob’s guard and jabbed a nerve on the lycan’s torso. Rob’s sword arm fell dead and he dropped the Stone Glaive, roaring as James slipped past him.
Rob swung around with his other arm and smashed the disengaging warlock with a massive blow, pivoting his hips like a baseball batter. He knocked James back across the asphalt, flinging him far over the stage, altar, and out of sight.
Shaking out the numbness from his arm, Rob picked up the rune-covered blade. He looked up and saw Claire reach over the wheel and locate the ignition.
The semi-truck chortled and belched diesel smoke. Claire revved the engine, intimidating the vyrm near the hood with the Peterbilt’s mechanical thundering.
Rob circled around the truck and slew any vyrm who threatened the girls. He cleared the area immediately surrounding them and spotted a pair of enemies crawling on the roof. Using his powerful lycanthrope legs, Rob leapt clear to the top of the cab. A second later, two stone statues shattered upon the pavement beside the truck.
The air sizzled and crackled with power. A roar emanated near the altar: a different kind of rumbling from the constant screeching within the nether void.
Rob bent his knees like a surfer as he stood atop the roof of the semi. It started to bounce and lurch as Claire struggled to work the transmission and the clutch in tandem.
What dim light remained seemed drawn into the glowing orb that James held in two hands above his head. The ball of energy grew and intensified as the warlock vampirically siphoned the power from anything in his vicinity. Vyrm warriors who stood too close fell dead as the incantation sucked their life forces into the black orb of destruction.
“I am Nitthogr! Herald of Sh’logath: Beast of the Tesseract! If I cannot have satisfaction, then The Devourer shall rise!” He raved like a madman. His intentions very clear: he would kill Princess Claire and cause the Awakening!
Guided by instinct alone, Rob flung the Stone Glaive at the sorcerer. It streaked towards him, spinning rapidly like a giant shuriken. It closed the gap in a split second, and missed the mark. The blade merely nicked Nitthogr’s wrist as it sailed past.
The sorcerer cackled at Rob’s failure. And then began screaming. The energy ball fizzled and dissipated in a greasy puff of smoke as Nitthogr clutched his wrist. The skin cracked, turning gray. A patch of stone hardened and started spreading.
Nitthogr swiftly drew his blade and wreathed it with fire. He hacked cleanly through his arm at the joint, stemming the spread of the effect and partially cauterizing the wound with flame. He howled with pain and rage as his severed limb turned to stone on the ground below.
Rob leapt down from the roof and sprinted towards his enemy. Nitthogr’s free arm grew razor claws formed of eldritch energy. He snarled, welcoming the challenge.
They collided in a flurry of slashing claws, pounding fists, and crushing knees. Vyrm flocked around them, circling the fighters; all of the Heptobscurantum had been chased off by now.
Crashing vehicle sounds echoed down the street as Claire and Jackie rammed their way through the blockade and upshifted, pouring on the gas and stomping on the throttle with diesel fury.
Nitthogr raked his claws across Rob’s face. The lycan howled and grabbed the wound, exposing his midsection.
Seizing the opportunity, the sorcerer stabbed his knife-like hand deep into the werewolf’s belly; just missing a plated section of armor he found a tender target, plunging his clawed hand through Rob’s thick hide and deep into his organs.
Rob clapped a taloned paw around his enemy and hugged him close so that he could not escape. The warlock could not even remove his hand. Nitthogr flailed his stump wildly; hissing, he tried to push himself free. The werewolf greeted him with a ferocious growl, spewing spittle all over the half-vyrm’s face.
Sinking deep into the warlock’s flesh with his own claws, Rob squeezed Nitthogr’s spine in his firm grip. Bellowing with fury he raised the sorcerer high above his head, ripping the razor-sharp arm from where it had lodged in his midsection. He turned to the nearby void and cast the flailing warlock into the vast nothing.
Nitthogr pitched headlong through the tear, shrieking curses as he evaporated into a noncorporeal essence, finally falling into the presence of his nega-god. The thrashing tentacles collapsed into the fissure and Rob stood there, staring into the maddening black maw.
A long pause ensued. None of the vyrm dared approach the creature who had just thrown their master into the emptiness.
As Rob stared into the supernatural vacuum, something passed between him and the agod, as if they’d come to some sort of understanding.
“Mighty Sh’logath,” Rob screamed through the opening. “Long has my family stood between your followers and the line of the Architect King. I stand here to tell you that it will forever be so! I stand here, in my place between you and her—keeping reality a constant!”
He could hear the reply as a terrible voice in his thoughts. It reached out to him from the abyss and touched his mind with palpable horror. You think that reality is a constant because that is all you’ve ever known. Prior to creation, I WAS. Your Architect King is an agod who overthrew a reign that stretched into eternity prior!
And yet today is not the day of my waking, and even now I drift towards slumber: the blood offering too weak to sustain.
The glowing tear had already begun shrinking slowly. Rob stood in front of the rip as an accuser.
“You have heard all the words here today, testimony of your own followers’ betrayal. Judge them according to your harsh standards! Your herald, Nitthogr has long conspired against you, scheming for his own profit—using you, as if you were some pawn to be manipulated.”
A great silence came from the grand nothingness on the other side of the diminishing hole. Suddenly, a sucking sound welled up, like a mighty wind.
All the vyrm began sliding, pulled towards the crack with a kind of electromagnetic force. Only the scaly warriors, dead and living, seemed affected. They flew towards the hole, pulled inside with increasing, hurricane force. Bodies collided and clogged the shrinking portal. They snapped and cracked, popping with sickening sounds as the power of the agod pulled his forces into the void where he slumbered.
Suddenly, the hole winked out of existence with a ghastly slurping sound, followed by stark
silence. The sun shone brightly. The eclipse had passed.
Rob looked down to his belly. Blood and viscera slicked his midsection. It healed slowly, slower than normal, he thought. He staggered on his feet and reclaimed the sigil engraved Stone Glaive.
Probably healing so slow because I’m so fatigued, he mused. Then he sank to his knees. I just need a minute to rest. His eyes rolled back in his head and he slumped over on his side, refusing to die, but unable to stay conscious.
Rob’s eyelids fluttered and opened. Jackie and Claire stood over him.
Claire weaved her fingers through his wild hair. “There you are,” she said warmly; her face was only inches from his. “You’ve been unconscious for days.”
“Where am I?” Rob sat up gingerly and touched his stomach where he’d been impaled. He moved the blanket away and saw the scar tissue that crisscrossed his abdomen like lightning bolts. His exposed skin was overlapped with other scars that he’d gained since he and Claire had departed company a month ago; they cross hatched his naked body, telling the story of his struggles since her escape. “How did I get here?”
“We drove a semi!” Jackie said, true to her bubbly self.
“After the sun returned, we turned around and found you lying next to the sword of the Architect King.”
Rob looked around, searching for the ancient blade.
“Don’t worry. It’s someplace safe.”
“With someone safe,” Jackie corrected.
Rob looked at Claire inquisitively.
“My father is alive,” she said. “He broke out of some kind of Heptobscurantum laboratory a few states away. He’s staying with Professor Jecima at the moment.”
“So now you tell us what happened in Mullen, Nebraska.”
Closing his eyes, Rob remembered every detail. He recounted his final battle with Nitthogr in front of the netherspace portal. “I stared into the face of madness and told Sh’logath to stay comfortable where he was. He’s not escaping the void any time soon. Not while I’m alive.”
Wolf of the Tesseract Page 23
