“Good move,” said Mass. “Our grudges can wait.”
He bent down, not to retrieve his weapon, but to hold his dead friend. The bullet Tox had taken had been meant for him. Colonel Wanstead would pay.
But it would have to wait.
Mass straightened back up. “Okay, Vampires, arm up. There’re demons to kill.”
The demons came in waves throughout the night until dawn eventually broke, and Ted looked up at what could be his final sunrise. The tangelo sky was beautiful, and he wondered if it was a gift from God to a dying man.
Where the hell is God? Was He ever even real?
“We’re out of ammunition,” said Frank, standing on the ramparts beside Ted. “Only arrows left. The troops are preparing for hand-to-hand.”
Ted shook his head, desperately sad. “If it comes to that, we’re already beaten.”
“I know. The kid, Damien, wants a word w’yow.”
“Did he mention what about?”
“No idea. He’s a bit of an odd ’un.”
Ted looked down at his short, hairy-faced companion and chuckled. “Not as odd as some, Frank. I’ll speak to him later. I need to be here.”
“Been forty minutes since the last lot came at us. Must be more soon, I reckon.”
Ted nodded, already spotting demons amassing in the distant trees. Between the forest and the ramparts there looked to be at least a thousand dead bodies – a carpet of demon flesh. Several times during the night, the demons had made it to the walls, but the ancient stone and deep trenches had foiled their every attempt. Sooner or later though, when the arrows finally ran out, the demons would amass at the walls and get inside. Even if they didn’t, the people inside would eventually starve, cut off from the lake and the forest. That everyone had even made it inside the castle’s walls was a miracle, but it was a lot of mouths to feed on a month’s worth of supplies.
“’Ere we go,” said Frank, shaking his head in despair.
Ted watched as the latest wave of demons spilled forth from the forest. Like before, there were a hundred at least, possibly two hundred. They sprinted, shrieking and wailing, towards the ramparts. The primates were the quickest, the shambling burnt men further back. Some shouted obscenities that might once have been funny.
Turdy turdies.
Bitches.
Wank socks.
Katy Perry.
Ted gave Frank a nudge. “Keep everyone’s head up. We’re all tired, but this has to end eventually.”
Frank rushed off, barking orders and offering stirring comments along the lines of letting “the bastard’s ’ave it” and “don’t give up”. Ted turned back to face the enemy. By now, the demons had made it into open ground. The wooden spikes were all broken or blunted by bodies. The pits and trenches were filled with corpses. This new wave had a clear run at the ramparts. Ted was useless with a bow, so he could do nothing but watch. When things inevitably grew more intimate, he would happily get to work with his demolition hammer. He’d lost count of how many demons it had claimed, but it remained sturdy and capable. In a strange way, it was his closest companion. There was sadness in that.
The first primate made it to the wall, but an arrow found its head. It stumbled backwards, the shaft sticking out of its eye, then fell down dead. Two more demons leapt over its corpse.
Arrows filled the air in swarms only half the size of earlier ones. Many archers were out of ammo and now stood on the ramparts aimlessly. Others, the most accurate among them, still had sheaves of arrows piled at their feet. They weren’t toothless yet, but they soon would be.
The demons kept on coming. The forest seemed to shake in fear of them as they tore through its innards. All the birds had long since taken flight. Accompanying the rustling of leaves and the creaking of the branches was a new noise – a heavy crashing sound like an elephant racing through the wilderness. All the previous waves of demons had been the same, but this one felt different. Several of the taller trees suddenly leaned, as if taking on a life of their own. A few of the smaller ones uprooted and fell over. Fighting men and women surrounded Ted, but when he spoke, he spoke only to himself. “It’s here.”
The fallen angel that had emerged from their lake months ago now exploded from the forest. It hurled an uprooted tree trunk like it was a toothpick. The length of gnarled wood flew like a javelin and came crashing down on top of the ramparts, shattering the wooden scaffolds erected there. Ted watched a dozen people he knew die in an instant.
Frank began shouting. “Eyes on the big’un, eyes on the big’un.”
A swarm of arrows pierced the air. Most came down in the earth or pierced the hides of unlucky demons, but a dozen more struck the beast known as Lord Amon and brought forth blood. The giant released a pained howl that sounded like the Earth itself was weeping. Several deep scars already blotted its body, reminders of its previous visit to Kielder.
“Fire again,” Frank shouted. More arrows pierced the sky, and more landed and drew blood. Lord Amon stumbled and swatted the air, catching arrowheads with its arm.
“Again.”
More arrows. More blood. The angel was hurt, staggering.
“Again.”
More arrows flew, but not so many this time. Only a couple found the target.
“Again.”
Even fewer arrows flew. The archers were all out.
“It waited,” said Ted, once again speaking to himself. “It waited until we were low on ammo. Now we’re defenceless.”
The massive beast slowly recovered, standing tall and gingerly taking a step forward. One or two more arrows flew, but they landed harmlessly in the mud. Lord Amon reached down and plucked up the demons at its feet, collecting them in its massive hand like writhing insects. It was unclear what it was doing.
Until it became clear.
Lord Amon hurled the demons into the air just like it had the tree trunk. They sailed through the air almost comically before raining down on top of the arrow-less archers. Havoc ensued. Those armed with melee weapons were down below, not up top, and it meant the archers were defenceless against the thrashing beasts that now tore them apart. Ted rushed across the wooden platform, sweeping up a demon with his heavy hammer and lifting it up and over the wall. The next demon he couldn’t get to because a man named Brian was in the way. Brian screamed, batting at the demon frantically with hands that were being sliced to pieces. The primate leapt on Brian and tore out his throat, then Ted crushed its skull.
More demons flew in from overhead, scattering along the ramparts and in the courtyard below. Men fought everywhere, but there was no order or strategy to their defence. This was pure chaos, demon against man.
Frank was on the other side of the ramparts, separated from Ted by the broken section caused by the flying tree trunk. He gave Ted a nod that summed up what they were both thinking. This is it.
“Don’t let ’em scare you, lads,” Frank shouted. “They’re just grumpy ’cos their mums never loved ’em. Send ’em back to Hell.”
Ted left the ramparts and entered the courtyard just as another round of demons came raining down from the skies. Some landed badly, snapping legs or even necks, but others landed on top of people and began clawing and biting. Ted ducked as a primate almost landed on top of him. It hit the muddy ground at his feet and bounced. He didn’t wait for it to recover. He caved in its chest with his hammer.
Dr Kamiyo fretted nearby. He shouted to Ted, but it was out of fear more than reason. The doctor could fight, but he had spent the last few months caring for their sick and injured. Ted’s fondness for him forced him to fight his way over. He bashed aside two demons and then a third just as it was about to pounce on the doctor. “Where are the children, Kamiyo?”
Kamiyo just stared at him.
Ted shook him. “Where are the kids?”
“In the Great Hall.”
“Go to them. Protect them with your life.”
Kamiyo nodded and took off, the man’s courage greater than his fear. Ted
suddenly missed Hannah.
That kid would’ve been an asset right now.
But even with Hannah’s loss, Kielder still had a secret weapon.
Sorrow charged like a raging bull, swatting aside primates and twisting the heads off burnt men. Demons managed to leap onto his back but were quickly thrown high into the air by the flapping of his jet-black wings. Sorrow was a force of nature – a whirlwind of destruction – and each second he crushed another demon to dust, without a moment’s hesitation. There was no sign of Scarlett, but Ted knew she would have been banished to the Great Hall along with the children.
There was an almighty clatter, and bricks rained from the sky. Part of the castle’s original stone wall toppled. The rivets holding the portcullis popped loose and the iron gate flopped onto the shingle pathway. A stream of demons tore their way inside, eviscerating everything in their path. For the first time in history, the walls surrounding Kothal Castle had been breached.
“Ted! Ted, we need to get out of here.” Ted turned in the direction of the voice and saw Damien and his small group of soldiers standing at the far edge of the courtyard. They were hacking at demons wherever they could find them, Damien waved a hand at Ted and shouted again for him to get over there. “I can get us out of here.”
Ted ran, dodging a burnt man that instead fell upon a poor woman named Jamie-Lee. He made it over to Damien, huffing and puffing. Tosco was there with the woman, Maddy, and the other newcomers from the Hatchet. Maddy grabbed Ted and straightened him up, then fired a handgun into the demonic crowd to buy some breathing room. Tosco was holding a radio and said, “I can level this place, but we need to not be here when I do.”
“There’s no escape,” said Ted. “There’re demons everywhere. Where would we even go?”
“That’s what I need to know,” said Damien. “Give me a destination and I’ll get us there.”
Nancy appeared, and begged in a voice both fragile and fierce, “We need to get to The Hatchet. I need to be with my daughter.”
“So that’s option one,” said Damien. “Ted, do you have an option two?”
He was about to shrug and go with what Nancy had said, but then he shook his head and frowned. “What does it even matter? This is our last stand. We can’t escape.”
“Yes, we can,” said a woman who Ted thought was called Steph. She was dating a guy named Harry, and the two seemed to be friends of Damien’s. Damien reached out his hands and they each took one, the three of them linking up in a line. A smell of burning arose. The air seemed to tingle… and then crackle.
“I can get us out of here the same way me and Nancy got here,” said Damien, “but we can only do it once without resting, so I need to know where we’re heading.”
Ted didn’t know why he said it, but it was the only place he could think of. “Portsmouth.”
Nancy hissed, and it looked like she was going to lunge at him. Damien held her back. “Let him explain.”
“There’s nowhere else,” said Ted. “If we run, we die. Our only chance is to keep fighting. If there are people in Portsmouth, we need to add our strength to theirs. The war doesn’t end here.” He glanced over at Sorrow, still smashing demons to pieces in a magnificent display. “We have to keep fighting.”
Tosco nodded. “He’s right. There are many good people in Portsmouth. This place might be lost, but we can still carry on the fight by helping them.”
Nancy sobbed, but Damien moved her aside and rejoined hands with Harry and Steph. All of a sudden, it was like the air was being torn apart and the oxygen was dispersing. A brilliant blue light bloomed. A gate appeared right there in the courtyard.
Damien grunted as if in pain. “Now all we need to do is get everyone through.”
“Okay.” Ted yelled like a drill sergeant. “Everyone, get to the gate. Move!”
Several lives were lost in the moment of confusion that followed. People saw the gate but didn’t understand. They stared at it but didn’t move, which allowed the demons to leap on them and kill them. Ted grabbed the nearest person he could find and had to literally throw them into the glowing blue circle. The startled man didn’t so much disappear as fade away, but it was enough for people to realise it was a way out of this horror. Ted bellowed again. “Get through the gate if you want to live!”
A stampede began, people abandoning the fight to sprint towards the light. Some were taken down from behind while attempting to flee, while others managed to toss themselves to safety. Ted tried to clear a path for them, swinging his hammer back and forth, cracking demon skulls and shattering ribs. People flooded into the gate in their dozens, seeming to zap out of existence, but those on the ramparts were doomed.
Sorrow saw what was happening and hurried over to the gate. “We leave here? I must retrieve Scarlett.”
Ted nodded. “Then go! Fetch her and all the others in the Great Hall. The children are inside.”
Sorrow took off, his lumbering footsteps heavy like an ox while somehow as light as a rabbit. He bounded across the courtyard towards the keep, charging through demons and knocking them aside. Ted and the others continued fighting to clear a path for the survivors.
Lord Amon made it inside the courtyard, stomping on Kielder’s defenders as if they were ants. Dozens lay crushed into the mud as more demons spilled through the gaps in the walls.
Sorrow disappeared into the keep, and it took mere moments for him to re-emerge with Scarlett beneath his arm like a teddy bear. She kicked and protested, but the demon wouldn’t put her down. For a moment, Ted feared Sorrow had left without the children, but then the beast turned and shielded the entrance while Dr Kamiyo rushed outside with the elderly and young in tow. The children screamed at the sight of so many monsters, but Kamiyo kept them all moving. Ted hurried to meet them, taking out demons on all sides. Other demons saw the children and gave chase, but Sorrow flared his wings and blocked their path. They climbed on the demon’s back, forcing him to put Scarlett down. He bellowed at her to run, but she was surrounded.
“I’ve got this,” said Angela, emerging from amongst the older survivors from the keep. It was unclear whether she’d been hiding with them or trying to protect them. Now, her eyes rolled back in her head and she began chanting.
First one demon exploded.
Then a dozen more.
The space around the castle’s front entrance was suddenly drenched with demon blood as limbs and flesh blanketed the ground. Everyone coughed and spluttered, wiping at their gore-soaked faces, but it gave them time to run. Kamiyo led the retreat.
Ted managed to grab Scarlett and shove her towards the gate, but she fought him and turned back “No, I have to get Sorrow. I’m not leaving without him.”
Sorrow must have had super-sensitive hearing, because he turned and bellowed furiously, “Scarlett, go! You must live.”
“No, I can’t! Sorrow, please…”
Nancy and her soldiers grabbed Scarlett and threw the girl backwards through the gate mid-protest. Sorrow flapped his wings at Ted in what might have been a thank you.
The children made it through the gate, the elderly quick to follow. Ted was about to join them but found that he couldn’t. Angela continued her chant by the castle, demons exploding whenever they got near. Sorrow turned his back and resumed fighting with his fellow demons, but they quickly surrounded him. He was visibly tiring. He couldn’t fight them forever.
Ted groaned in anguish. Sorrow was too valuable to lose. Portsmouth would need him in the battles ahead. More than that, Ted could not abandon the demon to die. Sorrow was a friend.
Or a familiar colleague at least.
Maybe a distant cousin.
Ted cut a swath with his hammer, battling towards the demon that he now considered family. He bludgeoned demons left and right until he was finally able to make it to the keep. With one black wing unfurled, Sorrow fought to dislodge a demon biting into the other wing. Ted swatted the demon away with his hammer and rescued his ally. Suddenly free, Sorrow looked at
Ted in confusion. “The gate is over there. You will die now.”
“I needed to make sure you were okay. Scarlett needs you and so do we. Get through that gate and help humanity survive.”
The demon swung a taloned fist and caved in a demon’s face without even looking in its direction. Then he spread out his leathery black wings and formed a barrier to keep any more from interrupting them. “I’ll take you with me. Are you tired? Sorrow will carry.”
Ted shook his head. “I can’t leave until I know everyone that can be saved has been saved. That includes you, Sorrow. Please, just go!”
Sorrow bowed. “Goodbye, Ted. You will die. This displeases me.”
“Thank you. It displeases me too.”
The massive demon bounded away and leapt through the gate. Ted continued searching for more survivors. Angela stood ten feet away, obliterating demons with her chanting. She was holding her own, but further away a group of people fought back to back to keep the demons at bay. Ted ran in their direction, crushing the demons that were blocking their retreat. When he reached them, panting and covered in demon blood, they merely stared at him, wide-eyed and terrified. He had to yell at them to run. Next, he rescued a couple backed up against the castle’s rear wall. He swung his hammer and created an opening. They too made it to the gate.
Ted doubled over, gasping for breath as he looked for more people to save, but all he saw were demons. They surrounded him on all sides, cutting off any chance he had of making it to the gate himself. He peered over and saw Nancy leaping through into safety, sobbing for her daughter who was so close and yet so far away. Damien remained with his friends, Steph and Harry, powering the gate like a trio of batteries. Tosco and Maddy stood beside them, the American yelling into his radio, Maddy popping off shots from her handgun. Ted knew what Tosco was doing.
He’s calling in the big guns.
The fact Kielder was about to be razed to the ground broke Ted’s heart, but it pleased him that so many demons would die – and hopefully Lord Amon too. It had all gone to shit so quickly. This place that had been home for an entire year was gone – reduced to blood and splinters, and soon to be cinders. It was time to give up.
Hell On Earth Box Set | Books 1-6 Page 157
