by Steve Lang
When Ramos returned the next morning, the wolven tribes had already begun moving into the plains outside Wasatch woods. Yawl had seen this as his forces were clearing the Bog Lands, and what he originally thought was going to be an easy victory over the woodland wolven was fast becoming an allout war for Eritria. Dante had returned with the Minotaur king Yxx and his army of fearless braves, but as Yawl watched the plains fill with his mortal enemies, his mind became set on one thing: the star gate. He would have it in his hands by the end of the day or Asura would skin him alive over hot coals, and that was an unthinkable end. One way or the other, it would be in his hands or he would be dead.
“Sir, their forces are growing stronger.” Said a centaur soldier.
“No matter. We will have the star gate device and its controller by the end of today, or we will all be dead. It’s that complex and just that simple, sergeant.” Yawl replied. His sergeant nodded and looked back to the field of battle.
“Best of luck, sir.”
“And to you, sergeant. Remember, all we need is the device and its remote in order to beat them. If any of you get your hands on those two things, run! Get back to Scowl castle and turn it over to Asura immediately.”
The undead had begun rising out of the swamp as Yawl’s warlocks summoned them from their watery graves. The slime bubbled and gurgled as the bones of wolven, centaur, mole men, and other creatures long dead rose up once more, stinking of grave rot and swamp gas.
Back at the human front, Mac was looking with concern at the star gate and at how large it was becoming.
“General, I don’t know if we should leave this thing open for so long. It could be dangerous. I believe we could fly a Chinook helicopter through there now and still have room.” Mac said.
“You might be right; I think we have everything we need for now.” General Martin said.
As he finished speaking, a truck carrying atomic warheads rolled through the portal and a second later Mac pressed the button. The star gate blinked closed immediately, leaving the suitcase-sized gray box in its place.
“That device is…I don’t trust it.” Mac said.
“Well, you know what they say: any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” The General replied.
“Arthur C. Clarke’s third law!” Mac said. He laughed.
“That’s right. The man was a genius.” General Martin said. He chuckled with Mac, and in a rare moment the two connected like old friends.
“Next you’ll be talking to me about fractals.” Mac said.
“Mac, when this war is over I’m sure there will be a great many things we can discuss. This is a chance to start over on a new planet and leave the old world behind.”
“I don’t know how much bigger that star gate would have gotten, but I can imagine that it might be bad for this world if it got too big. I felt some kind of energy coming off it, like a gravitational pull.” Mac said.
“You think it might try to pull earth into it if got too large?” General Martin asked.
“I don’t know for sure, but it occurred to me that the TSA-2056 could create a space-time distortion and meld the two planets together, if the gate were open far enough. It might even cause a mass molecular disruption.” Mac said.
“Blow both planets to dust?” General Martin asked.
“It’s only a theory, but I still think we should limit our use of that device. At the very least, we need to protect it. I’m concerned that if the wrong people got their hands on it they may be inclined to enter other worlds or dimensions and bring over some bad mojo. If the centaurs had this remote they would have already done it. When we landed they captured Captain Brandt and the TSA-2056, but she escaped with the device and made it back to us.” Mac said.
“Escaped, or was she let go?” The General asked. Mac thought about it for a moment.
“Now that I think about it, the more probable explanation is she was let go. They needed the controller, and when they figured out she didn’t have it…”
“This is what they’ll come for then. You have to hide it, Mac. Give me the controller and at least the two will be in separate places.” The General said.
“Put it in the craft, sir. You can hide it in the clandestine compartment onboard.” Mac said.
Yawl was looking through his telescope and saw the man in the black uniform with the eye patch take the control device from the other human in leather garb.
“Remmy, see the man in the black uniform?” Yawl said, and handed the telescope to Remmy, a sergeant in the centaur army.
“You mean the one with the eye patch?”
“Yes. He’s our primary target. He’s got the controller.” Yawl said.
“We got him, sir. I’ll inform my men.”
Yawl stood as a symbol of fierce bravery to his centaur soldiers, his body covered in plate battle armor etched with the skulls of wolven and Minotaur. He would have his long awaited war with the centaurs’ fiercest enemy and finally take the wolven lands. The sky burned with early morning light as the centaur army emerged from the Bog Lands. Warlocks continued to summon the spirits of dead bears, libmocks and centaur undead to fight alongside them. Asura summoned his dragon kin from the Isle of Fire, and swarms of fire breathing death dealers were swooping though the sky like a blanket threatening to blot out the sun.
The wolven, Minotaur, and human armed forces equally matched the supernatural strength of Asura’s vile legions. General Martin winked at Mac as his elite special operations forces readied their weapons. Snipers were positioned along the tree line, aimed and ready as tension grew. Human infantry and artillery aligned behind the wolven, all of them nervous and ready to get the fight under way. A silence swept over the vast plains as the allied armies stood motionless, watching for the enemy.
“Highly trained killers against odd creatures with medieval weapons? This won’t take long.” General Martin said.
“I wouldn’t count these creatures out just yet, sir. This world is mysterious and the inhabitants enchanted.” Mac said. He looked over at the General and winked. A second later, he turned as his body transformed into wolven. Mac grew two feet taller assuming his wolven form, grinning as General Martin’s eye widened to the size of a telescope. “I’ve been going through some changes lately myself.” Mac said.
“I can see that.” The General replied, taking a step back.
At last the centaurs were in sight. Their horde stomped and snarled, clopping their hooves into the loose dirt, kicking up dust and chunks of earth as they neighed and growled. The undead were among them, taking their unorganized, chaotic formations. Dante gave the order to charge, and as he did, all five tribes of the wolven nation howled a battle cry and ran forward to meet their mortal foe on the battlefield. The centaurs raced toward the wolven. As they did, General Martin’s snipers began to pick off centaurs one at a time as they trotted down the plains. The battlefield was set and chaos ensued as blood spilled in torrents. Screams of agony rang through the air as shouts and howls of defiance and rage returned to the enemy. Yawl ran forward, ever the soldier and brawler, with his sword swinging down into the wolven onslaught, cutting down wolf men left and right. Minotaurs pushed forward, bashing centaurs and shambling undead. Within minutes the battlefield was a frenzied cauldron of arms, legs, fists, and iron weapons clashing in a chaotic frenzy. From the northwest, the libmok army joined in the fight, rolling across the fields and springing to their feet brandishing poison quills.
The human infantry was ill-equipped to deal with their enemy, and undereducated about their foes’ resourceful weapons. When the first of the libmock army encountered the infantry in hand to hand combat, the porcupine men took out a large number of the humans with poison tipped quills. Eventually, plasma rifles split their ranks, sending the libmoks reeling as the powerful energy weapons shredded their numbers. There were now men atop armored vehicles blasting across the battlefield with plasma cannons, but the army of Yawl continued to press forward. Yawl disappeared into the melee, he
ading directly for the spacecraft. So far he had been largely unnoticed by the wolven and Minotaur forces. He could see the human with the patch over his eye taking the metal case up the ramp and disappearing inside the craft.
General Martin was working as fast as he could to secure the TSA-2056 before one of their enemies spotted it and tried to take it from him, when he realized he had taken an order from Mac for the first time in their career together. Mac still had the remote control so the two systems were separate, and even if the centaurs did get the star gate they would not be able to operate it. As he was coming out of the ship he felt the sharp tip of a spear pierce his chest, and a second later the General was arching over the head of a very large and scary centaur.
“Where is the controller for that device you put aboard the star craft?” Yawl asked with a calm voice.
Dante saw the General skewered on Yawl’s trident and ran as fast as he could to help. This caught Mac’s attention, who looked with horror as his commander and friend was hanging fifteen feet in the air with a steady stream of blood dripping from his mouth.
“Dick!” Mac yelled. He followed Dante through the hordes of combatants closing the distance between himself and Yawl.
Dante leapt through the air and landed on Yawl’s back with his claws and teeth bared. With a swift strike he slashed Yawl’s back open before the centaur general had time to react, and ripped muscles and tendons, causing the other to scream in pain and rage. He dropped the general to the ground with a thud, and as General Martin lay gasping for breath on the maroon-colored grass, smeared with his blood, Mac pulled him away.
“You’ve got to get… away.” General Martin said. He was choking on his own blood and his eyes were fixed and dilated.
“Sir, you’re going to make it.” Mac growled.
“Horrible liar. By the way, that wolf thing is a better look for you.” He said. “They want the controller.” With a final long sigh, the General died in Mac’s arms as the heat of battle raged around them.
The controller, he thought. Where was it? The pocket he’d kept it in was empty, and then he saw it directly under Yawl as he and Dante struggled. Mac left the General on the floor, and with all of his power he jumped through the air and kicked Yawl in the side, knocking him off balance. The three of them went tumbling. While the wolven were distracted fighting Yawl, a small libmok private named Toga had snuck aboard the craft and took the TSA-2056 without anyone spotting him. On the way out, he found the controller lying on the ground, and with a sly smile he picked it up, disappearing into the battle a moment later. He sidestepped the dead and dying, going unnoticed by the much larger warriors fighting above his head, and vanished into the Bog Lands without a trace.
Yawl kicked Mac hard in the stomach, knocking him backward as Dante ripped off the faceplate and stabbed Yawl in the right eye with one of his claws. As the centaur leader yelped, Mac got to his feet. While Dante had Yawl on his side, he stomped down on his neck, snapping the bones and suffocating him. Yawl got up; stumbled around for a minute holding his neck, and fell dead beside General Martin.
“That did not go well.” Mac said.
He was holding his broken ribs as he looked down at his dead friend. The two had not always seen eye to eye on everything, but he would miss General Martin. The general had protected his children, and he didn’t know if he’d ever be able to repay the late leader.
“Yawl is dead. We have broken the leadership of the centaur army.” Dante said.
“Where’s the controller?” Mac asked. He panicked and ran inside the ship. “The star gate is gone, too.” Mac began uttering expletives in a finely woven tapestry that to Dante seemed like some kind of out of place poetry.
“This is not good.” Dante said. He was shaking his head in sorrow.
“No, it’s not. Whoever took it can open a gate to…anywhere, I suppose.” Mac said.
“I have a feeling it’s on its way back to Moktar right now.” Dante said.
“My god! We have to go get it before we’re too late.” Mac said. His eyes were wide, frantic.
“You’re right, let’s get this under control and then we’ll retrieve the star gate.” Dante said. He took a large knife out of the sheath at his side and cut Yawl’s head off. Then he stuck it on the center spike of Yawl’s own trident like a pike and began to walk through the battlefield.
A centaur necromancer named Eog had seen Yawl die and panicked, commanding one of his undead Minotaur’s to capture a stockpile of atomic weapons sitting on a palate. Having no understanding of how the Poseidon worked, Eog thought that maybe the metal cylinders with white panels containing strange numbers would make it fly. The undead Minotaur picked up the heavy bomb and walked aboard the Poseidon before anyone could see what he was doing.
“Eog will be a hero for the centaur people!” Eog said to himself.
His Minotaur disappeared inside the ship. As Eog looked through his undead’s eyes to manipulate the control panel, he pressed the number two and three, and then a red button. A dark panel showed numbers, but he could not understand what they meant and was waiting impatiently for the star craft to lift off the ground. Had Eog known what he was doing, he would have chosen to run as fast and far as he could before inevitable destruction. However, the bomb was now armed and Eog had twenty-two seconds to live before it detonated.
Dante stepped over libmok corpses, dead centaurs, his slain wolven brethren, and the ruined bodies of the undead. Ramos was on the far end of the plains raising fallen soldiers to fight against their own. Centaur undead fought the living ones and ran rough shod over the libmok forces. Ramos the Necromancer commanded a great power, and the more bodies he raised from the dead, the more his eyes burned with purple flame until all that could be seen beneath his hood was brilliant violet light. The human snipers worked with Ramos’ army and were mopping up the battlefield. When the centaurs saw their general’s head on his trident they lost heart and began to flee.
With a loud bang and a whoosh of flames from the entrance, the atomic warhead decimated the Poseidon in a poisonous mushroom cloud of chaotic destruction. The ET craft reduced the enormity of the blast, but fallout and radiation from the explosion was burning everything it touched.
“Get away from here, now!” Mac said. He was screaming at the top of his lungs as radioactive ash fell on the ground. Dante’s fears were confirmed about the destructive power of the human’s technology.Double Head had been vindicated in his judgment of the alien invaders. All armies cleared the area around the blackened, fiery crater as fear and awe swept over them.
“Let none leave alive!” Gregor shouted as he and Yxx commanded their troops.
The centaurs ran and got tangled in the muck of the Bog Lands. They were pursued swiftly and their forces crushed under the boot heel of Yxx’s Minotaurs. The remaining libmoks, cowards by nature, slunk away into the mountains back to their homeland as sniper fire and cannon blasts from the humans knocked them from their feet as they ran. The day had been won with only two thousand allied casualties on the wolven side, but the battlefield would create sickness for many years in anyone who dared to stay too long on the prairie.
“They’ll not be back for another three hundred years, my friend.” Yxx said to Gregor. They laughed together and clasped forearms.
“Father, the star gate is gone.” Dante said.
Double Head was standing nearby and also heard what Dante said. “I told you those humans were going to be trouble, but you never listen to me.” He said.
“Well, we’ll have to go get it back before something even more awful happens.” Gregor said. He ignored Double Head, who was shaking his head at Gregor in disappointment.
“I’ll go, father.” Dante said. “Who else is with me?”
“I’ll go, of course.” Mac said.
“Count me in.” Ramos said.
“I’m going as well. To keep you boys out of trouble.” Gregor said.
Stephanie walked up to them and all turned her way.
“Mac, I’m a doctor by trade and there are a lot of hurt people out here. My job is to try to save as many men as possible. You guys can go fight your battles. I’m triaging the wounded. Kim is coming with me.” Stephanie said.
“Fair enough, you guys ready to move out?” Mac asked.
“Let’s go. This time we’ll all fly.” Ramos said. He blew his whistle and Saki flew down to greet him. After Ramos explained the situation, she called to her kin and three more beautiful, silk-feathered birds arrived to carry them over the Bog Lands.
The libmok Toga knew shortcuts through the bog, and it took him less time than most to come out the other side. Once he reached the emptied citadel of the centaurs, Toga ran up the stairs of Scowl castle to the room where Ragnok awaited his general’s return.
“Where is Yawl!” Ragnok barked.
“Sir, he died on the battle field, but not before distracting the wolven so that I could bring you the star gate.”
“Where are the rest of my men?” Ragnok asked. He was deflated, defeated, and depressed.
“All dead, sire. They were crushed by the Minotaur as they fled from the field of battle. I turned back to watch for a moment, but I knew you required these items for Asura.” Toga said. He handed the case over to Ragnok and placed the control on top of it.
Ragnok had been thrown into an odd space, finding out that his army had been crushed and that he may be the last of the centaurs. How had it all gone so wrong? He thought.
“Gregor and those rotten sons of his!” Ragnok screamed. “They took everything from me!”
He walked over to the mirror, and after a moment it began to shimmer. He could see Asura on the other side, perched on his throne.
“You have the human star gate?” Asura asked.
“Yes, master.”
“Then walk through the mirror and hand them to me, my friend.” Asura hissed.
Ragnok halted for a moment and placed the star gate device on the floor. He then opened a cabinet next to his mirror, pulling out a burlap sack. Inside the bag was a round ball with an arrowhead sticking out. He placed it on a pedestal and aimed the tip at the doorway.
“Halla soku lindrel.” He said. The magical incantation poured from his lips like slow, rolling fog, and the arrowhead retracted, waiting for a target.
Ragnok then did as requested and walked through the looking glass, holding the metallic case with pride while the mirror solidified behind him.
“But, what about me?” Toga said. “Take me too!” Silence was his answer.
Toga sat on Ragnok’s throne and sulked until Ramos, Dante, Mac, and Gregor came running up the stone staircase with their weapons drawn. Gregor entered the room first, and as he did, the dart from Ragnok’s magic ball shot across the room, piercing his heart. The wise old wolven chief uttered a single grunt and fell to the hard stone floor, dead.
“Father!” Dante yelled.
“No!” Ramos cried and dropped to his knees. Their father had been murdered, and it was too late for them to do anything about it. The room was empty except for the small libmok, looking terrified and uncertain about his future.
“Bring him back, Ramos!” Dante cried. He was grief stricken looking desperately for a way to undo the effect of Ragnok’s deadly arrow.
“We would not have our father back, but something foul and undead, under my control for a brief period of time; then it would wander through the land until rot withered the flesh and returned it to the soil. I’m sorry, brother. Our father was murdered and what is left now for us is revenge.” Ramos said. He looked up with tears in his eyes and saw Toga sitting on the throne trying to look innocent.
“Where’s Ragnok?” Dante yelled.
“Where’s the star gate?” Mac asked.
“Gone, long gone. Ragnok walked through the mirror to Asura’s castle. He took the device with him.” Toga said.
“You stole a device from us that has the power to destroy worlds and gave it to a mad man who is bent on controlling this one and all the people in it? Why?” Mac asked.
“Because I was told to.” Toga said.
Mac grabbed Dante’s crossbow from off his shoulder and fired a bolt into Toga’s forehead. The little libmok was forced back and as the bolt entered his skull, it pinned his head to the wooden throne, killing him instantly.
“I figured we got all we needed out of him.” Mac said. Dante was nodding approval when Ramos used his power to reanimate the little libmok. Now undead, but trapped, the small libmok tried in vain to move his head forward and free himself.
“He’s not going anywhere for a while.” Ramos said.
Where’s Asura’s castle?” Mac asked.
Meanwhile, on the other side of the world, on the Isle of Fire, the lizard king Asura meditated in silence over the metallic box. He sensed the creature living within, and knew it was able to see all worlds; the being inside was a time traveler from a very distant dimension, possibly captured and enslaved to open interdimensional portals. Asura could also see that if this being were ever set free, it would mean the end of everything they knew. The tiny creature was an Ing, a devourer of energy and very dangerous if set loose upon the cosmos. Asura’s mind melded with the Ing, and although it begged him to set it free, he smiled his wicked grin and rejected its pleas.
“You are going to help me do so many things, little one. We have just begun.”
As Ragnok looked at his master with curiosity, Asura pressed the button on the controller, which activated a tiny consciousness trigger inside the case and woke the Ing. Inside Asura’ palace, the gold rings materialized and began to rotate in opposite directions while space opened before them, but this time the journey was shorter because the Ing’s consciousness was binding with Asura to bring him to a lush green planet. As his vision brought him closer, Ragnok could see billowy white with patches of blue and green, and the centaur king knew he was on the planet Mars. When his vision dipped down below the thick layer of clouds, in every direction there were vast continents of green grass and oceans so blue and clear they reflected the sky and clouds. In the distance, a massive black castle rose on the horizon, dotting the sky like a burnt rock. They had arrived at the beginning of a long road leading up to the castle walls where dragons sat perched upon the towers watching, waiting, while long tendrils of dark smoke wound up and away from their nostrils.
“My kingdom awaits. Broad Axe has been in exile for far too long. At last he can come home to take back his kingdom. And then, we have so many more worlds to see. The wolven will fall and Eritria will be ours once more.”
They both walked through the portal, and as they did Asura closed the star gate placing the control in the pocket of his robe. He whistled once and a giant black iguana appeared, offering him more comfortable passage to the castle, while Ragnok trotted alongside.
With no knowledge that Asura had trapped them there, Ramos, Dante, and Mac would have to cross the Death Sea to gain access to the Isle of Fire and reach Asura’s castle. As their fair-feathered friends landed at the port town of Last Resort, Mac wondered how much damage the device he had brought to this new world was going to cause his friends. Had Double Head been right about the humans all along? Before they reached the end of this quest, Mac and his friends would have to survive many trials in a fight for their lives, for the fate of Eritria was in their hands.
Mac, Dante, and Ramos will return in
In the Company of Wolves: Brothers in Arms
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Steve Lang is a science fiction, fantasy and horror author living in the Charlotte, NC area with his wife and son.
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