[Demonworld #1] Demonworld

by Kyle B. Stiff

  “Weapons ready!” Brad shouted. “You and you - get the horses!” He ran about pushing people who stared in dumb shock.

  “Everybody, strap your guns on tight!” said Agmar. “We might have to swim!”

  The island loomed nearer. The dot of the ironclad grew into a black square. Maxil ignored the chaos around him and took the helm to steer. Wodan ground his teeth and tightened the strap of his rifle around his chest. He and Rachek stared at one another grimly.

  They felt a dull explosion hundreds of yards away, then another, and watched as plumes of water shot into the air. “They’re firing at us!” someone shouted, then another plume of water burst into the air, nearer than the others.

  Sheer cliffs towered over the ship and the shadow of the bay laid before them. “Get in there,” Maxil groaned, “get in there, hurry, hurry...” The cannons fired again, blast after blast, one on top of another, and the water near them shattered and sprayed them with salt and cold.

  The primitives gathered into armed groups and held tight to anything solid. “If only someone would help us!” Agmar shouted in desperation as they passed into the shadowy mouth of the bay.

  A single cannon fired, and the shell slapped into the steep side of one mountain with an incredible, high-pitched crack. A cloud of dust fell in a shower.

  Someone said, “Maybe the dark in the bay will cover us and-”

  The next volley tore through the ship. As in a nightmare, they felt the ground lurch into the air as the deck contorted unnaturally. Wodan felt himself falling upwards, sideways, faces flew by, mouths and eyes stretched wide. He saw the tall mast falling, tearing through the deck. His body collided with wood, sliding and burning. Timber shrieked maddeningly as the entire world collapsed in on itself. He saw a horse burst through a wall or floor and fly through the air, victim of a ritual that would surely destroy the world. Then he saw blue, shifting and radiating light, and he was cast into the sea.

  Down he went, falling with spirals of debris and red clouds. People kicked slowly, peacefully; he saw a few drift down into utter darkness. He felt heavy, and floated downward to join the cold, dark peace. Something heavy hit his back, then he saw a shower of many-colored berries and fruits, the remains of an uneaten buffet, tumble all around him. The sight of it stirred something in him. He arched his body, twisted, then raised his arms and kicked upwards.

  A great behemoth towered above him. It spun slowly. Shadows ran and danced along the thing as it spun and drifted down. It was the Hero of Old, and it looked much the same in death as it had in life. It fell past him in a great rush, the dead mass tugging at him. He kicked harder and pulled away from the thing, then came into the light.

  Wodan broke through the surface. The air was full of the agonized screams of the survivors. Chunks of flesh and wood rode the waves around him. The ominous throbbing of the ironclad’s engine echoed off the walls of the rocky bay. Wodan oriented himself towards the beach, fighting for each breath because his rifle was still tightly strapped to his back. A young man with a soaking-wet Mohawk haircut faltered before him. Wodan grabbed the man’s shirt before the waves could claim him and dragged him along.

  The man came to life and accidentally smacked Wodan in the face. Wodan winced, choked at the water gushing into his mouth, and pulled the man’s uncooperative weight with all his might. He saw other swimmers, and they inspired him to fight the urge to inhale. He leaned and pulled himself along with one arm. The man kicked and screamed, elbowed Wodan in the side, and wrapped his legs around Wodan’s. The abuse never seemed to end.

  Finally a wave slapped Wodan in the back and sent him and his bundle of flailing limbs rocketing toward the beach. He collided with someone’s legs, then felt arms grabbing him and pulling him up. Others were already on the shore of the narrow beach. Wodan saw Brad carrying a purple-faced woman in his arms. Rachek hit Agmar’s back as he hacked up water. Maxil sat apart from the others, arms around his knees, eyes vacant. Others dragged themselves from the sea and fell in ragged clumps on the beach.

  The throbbing of the ironclad’s engine deepened, a chant of doom echoing from the sides of the sheer cliffs. The ironclad entered the bay, black and brimming with destructive armaments. A trail of black smoke ringed it and filled the bay, as though the ship were an armored knight from Hell cutting through the water in pursuit of its prey.

  Everyone turned to Wodan. They were trapped between his world and that of their old masters, hunted and vulnerable. Wodan counted twenty-three of them, including himself, and many still had their weapons. He was unsure of the path himself, but he trusted that a path was there for them. “This way!” he shouted, pointing to a small copse of trees that separated the beach from the mountains. “We can still make it if we run with everything we’ve got! Go, go!”

  The sand sucked at their feet. They crashed through the trees and bounded up a rocky incline that marked the beginning of a mountain pass. A grotesque grating sound tore the land behind them as the ironclad slammed into the beach.

  The earth rose steeply. The path shifted, twisting and turning through a crack in the earth, a scar in the mountains. They ran into shadows and the water soaking them grew cold. The panting of the hunted echoed from black stone. Desolate peaks hung over them.

  * * *

  The line of runners became more and more ragged and drawn out as the tired lagged behind. Occasionally they heard awful, inhuman shouting behind them, laughter and cries echoing from the walls of the narrow pass, sapping their strength. Wodan looked back and saw people stumbling. He could no longer see Agmar at all. He called for those in front to stop. Whether they had run one mile, two, perhaps even three, when Wodan saw the others stagger and collapse in a circle he knew that this uphill journey was an impossible feat. Even his month-long trek through the wasteland could not have prepared him. He sat on the ground, spitting and breathless.

  Finally Agmar came into view, clinging to another who bore his weight. “You’re gonna have to leave me behind,” he said as they collapsed near the others. “I can’t make it.”

  “Just shut up and breathe,” said Wodan. “We have to make it.”

  Agmar shook his head slowly, said, “Give me a gun and find me a perch. I’ll slow them down for the rest of you.”

  “Shut up already!” said Wodan. He held Agmar’s shoulder to soften the blow.

  “You know these hills?” said Agmar.

  “I’ve never been here,” said Wodan. “But I saw signs where the path was widened, for vehicles and such. That means it’s one of the passes that leads all the way through the mountains to Haven.”

  “The lords in Greeley use devices to monitor others from far away. Does Haven have anything like that, so they can see what we’re going through?”

  Wodan shook his head, said, “We have that sort of remote surveillance, but as far as I know, Haven doesn’t have anything like that out here. This is the first time anyone from the outside has come this close. Surveillance has never been an issue.”

  Maxil began to cry. Wodan knew the boy had done a fine job hiding his fear, but there was no way he would be able to continue to run. Rachek put her arms around the boy, then said, “Are they… are they going to destroy Haven, too?”

  “No, not a chance,” said Wodan. “The number of Ugly that could fit inside that ship of theirs wouldn’t be able to handle one of our Guardians. The problem is that our Guardians don’t patrol this far out. They have no reason to! Haven’s first line of defense has always been its seclusion. We’re close, we’re so close, but as far as I can tell… we’re completely alone out here.”

  “We could be killed,” said Brad, grinding his fists into the ground, “and Haven might never even know it!”

  Wodan nodded, then said, “That means we have to keep moving. I’m sorry, but it’s our only chance. Come on – we have to keep moving!”

  Agmar and Maxil offered no complaint, but Wodan could see the defeat in their eyes. The others rose slowly. Wodan started them off at a jog,
but his legs felt hard and unresponsive. Their run was more of a frenzied walk.

  Then they heard the beating of cloven hooves ringing unmercifully along the walls of the pass. They ran faster, pushing themselves, but the riders drew nearer and nearer until the pounding echoed in their bones.

  Wodan knew they would soon be overtaken. He caught Brad’s eye and they fell behind. Brad tapped a few other armed people on the shoulders, who joined them at the rear. They rounded a bend in the pass and faced a straight stretch of climbing stone. The beating of hooves was maddening. “Stop! Crouch!” Wodan shouted. “We’ve got to meet them here! Turn and meet them head on!”

  The words were barely out of his mouth before riders charged around the curve – one, two, four riders total, clad in black and with deadly arms drawn. They had no time to find cover before the killers were on top of them, jerking their reins and firing wildly. The lead rider tore through them, knocking people aside, firing a handgun on either side and trampling a slow runner. The riders slowed down to maximize their accuracy but the one in the rear had to jerk his horse about in order to avoid a collision; he glanced at Brad, already intent on a kill even before his mount was calmed down. Wodan aimed his rifle and fired. The rider’s knee popped with a sickening sound. The rider leaned his head back and shouted, “Oh! Oh! Oh!” as Brad ran up to him and blasted him with his shotgun. In a thunderclap the rider flew from his mount, wrenched so violently that his boots remained secure in their stirrups. The horse screamed, a strangely human sound, then retreated.

  Wodan turned in time to see his friends empty their guns into one rider, bringing both man and beast crashing to the ground in a sputtering red cloud. The two lead riders had already turned about, eager to continue the slaughter, but seeing that their advantage was lost they ducked their heads down and rode through the crowd as quickly as they could. Bullets followed them but they safely rounded the bend. Wodan and Brad followed them, then stopped and aimed. Wodan felt his mind click into place as he leveled his rifle at the rider’s back. He pulled the trigger and felt the familiar explosive jerk; the rider flung his arms out wide as if accepting some divine vision, then Brad’s shotgun barked and the rider’s horse tripped on a shattered leg and collapsed in an amazing tide of meat and shattered bones. The remaining rider hugged his mount and kicked violently until he rounded a bend further down the pass.

  The pass was clogged with the stench of gunsmoke. The people regrouped.

  “Scouts, those were… just scouts,” said Maxil, his voice near panic. He bent over and vomited. Rachek left the boy and began gathering guns to distribute to everyone. She stepped over the dead with nimble feet.

  “Just four of them and they went right through us,” said Agmar. “We lost five of our people!”

  Agmar stopped Rachek as she drew near. “What?” she said.

  “I… I mean to help,” he said, gesturing to the guns she’d gathered. He glanced at Wodan, as if asking permission. Wodan nodded. Agmar took a long, single shot bolt-action rifle. Agmar hefted the sniper’s weapon, then released the magazine and checked it with ease.

  After helping arm and gather the survivors and taking a large revolver for herself, Rachek turned to Wodan, then said, “Wodan, what do we do?”

  The sky darkened. All eyes were on him. “We can’t run all the way to Haven. It’s uphill and we’re too tired. That place…” He pointed to a narrow plateau that jutted from the base of a mountain further down the pass. “It looks like the pass stretches around the base of that mountain. I think we can make it before they regroup.” He looked at everyone, then swallowed his mounting fear and said, “We can’t run any more. We’ll make our stand there.”

  * * *

  Didi’s computer crashed to the floor and he stumbled away from his chair. After weeks of being trapped in his own home under house arrest, the absurdity of his situation finally struck him to the core. He was allowed to work from home, but what did that matter? Whether he could solve the mystery of genetic traits wholly unassociated with mood still having a role in blocking serotonin reuptake inhibition via pharmaceuticals, what did it matter? His work, anyone’s work, or anything at all – what did any of it matter now?

  He stripped off his clothes, suddenly unable to breathe in the confined space. He fell on his bed and with jerky, panicky motions he unlatched his leg brace and let the metal anchor drop to the floor. He knew that they were all doomed. No matter what he did for the Department of Research, no matter what any Havender did in the pursuit of their own interests, it was a fact that Project was gone. The age of man was over.

  Didi stumbled away from the bed and gripped the wall, moving across the darkened room with crab-like gestures. He, Korliss, and Sevrik had irrevocably tampered with the genes of an unborn child in order to create a superhuman being. The other two did not know the truth of how it had been accomplished; he knew his allies, his former friends, would be horrified at the truth behind their accomplishment. But it was a fact that Project was gone. Project was either dead, or the flesh demons had taken him and added his genetic potential to the hideous catalogue of weapons already at their disposal. In either case, the human race was doomed.

  Didi reached a tall window and held onto the curtains for support as he bathed in the dying light. If anyone bothered to look up, they would see his twisted, stunted body shifting forward and back as he steadied himself, one malformed leg swinging beneath him. Project is gone, thought Didi, and there is nothing I can do about it. He saw a storm rising in the distance, black and deep, casting the city below into premature night.

  “God is dead,” he muttered. No other man knew it as he did. “God is dead!”

  In the darkness of the growing storm, he could feel something like enlightenment welling up in his soul. Vast, all-encompassing, and darker than the darkest storm, enlightenment hovered just inches over his forehead and threatened to encompass his entire being.

  I have to let go, he thought. There is nothing more that I can do. I did what I could. My part is over. I have to let go.

  He felt the texture of the curtains gripped in his fingers.

  But if I let go, I’ll fall, he thought. That would be irrational.

  Didi gripped the curtains, then looked back at his leg brace. He knew that his sorrow and desperation and dread and sense of failure were only results of chemical reactions occurring in his brain. That was why his work with the genetic markers associated with counterproductive antidepressant drug tolerance was so important. He had to return to work so that others could live as they wanted to live… even if only for a short time.

  He could not let go. If he did not do the work, who would?

  * * *

  Storm clouds gathered over the mountains. Gusts of wind rushed through the high passes, sending clouds of dust racing through the tortured paths of stone. The face of the sun dimmed pale and white.

  The primitives gathered on the back of a wide shelf that overlooked the pass. From their vantage point they could see the pass as it wrapped around and continued on to a Guardian checkpoint miles away. Nearby, several narrow paths continued further up into the mountains. If their ambush worked, the Ugly could be hit from above hard enough to either kill them or force them to retreat so that runners could be sent northwards and the Guardians could be summoned; if their plan did not work, they could use the mountain paths as fallback positions or simply scatter and delay the inevitable.

  While the others prepared themselves, Brad and Agmar laid on either side of Wodan, who laid on his belly and watched the pass through their binoculars. “I can see them,” Wodan said finally. “They’re on foot, but moving fast. I can see a few horses… I think they’re using them for cover. I think we outnumber them.”

  “Good,” said Brad.

  “Don’t underestimate them,” said Agmar. “Each one of them is a dangerous killer.”

  Wodan handed the binoculars off to Agmar, then said, “I saw four really big guys with shotguns gathered around Barkus. He’s hard to see
, but it’s definitely him. Wallach’s there, too.”

  “All our old friends,” said Brad. “We must have pissed them off good.”

  “Humiliated them, more like,” said Agmar. “Who the hell is that weirdo with them?”

  “The tall guy all covered up?” said Wodan. “No idea.”

  Agmar handed the binoculars off to Brad, then said, “They’re getting close, keep quiet!”

  Wodan signaled to the others, who already knew the basic plan: Those with rifles near the ledge, those with small arms stay back and prepare to cover the riflemen as necessary. Brad hissed and nudged Wodan, then whispered to him.

  Wodan gritted his teeth, then patted several of the riflemen nearby and whispered, “Apparently they’ve got two grenade launchers. When you fire, try to hit important targets first – the launchers or Barkus or Wallach. If we can kill those, it could force the others to back down!”

  Finally Agmar pulled his head beneath the ledge; if they were seen, the trap would be blown. They waited, clutching their guns, wiping sweat from palms. Heavy footsteps pounded harder, echoing throughout the pass. Wodan wanted to rise and shoot immediately, but he knew they had to let the enemy come close, as close as possible. Anxiety clogged in their veins. A bead of sweat rolled down Wodan’s forehead and dripped off his nose. A light rain fell, chilling their backs. Maxil wet his pants quietly.