Fiddleback Trilogy 3 - Evil Triumphant

by Stackpole, Michael A.

  He looked to the right and to the left. On his right, two sandbag shelters down, Tadd stood amid a knot of hard and determined men. Tadd gripped his Mac-11 tightly and pointed it downrange toward the darkened forest and the glowing hill beyond it. Behind him, the men carried their shovels and other tools as if they were waiting for scab labor to try to cross a picket line. Will admired their bravery, but having seen what he saw, he knew they were whistling their way through a graveyard.

  To his left, Crowley crouched within a sandbag semicircle. He spoke to the men with him in a low but confident voice. Their faces slackened a bit, then closed up as a grim determination entered their eyes. Crowley had told them the score, and they accepted it. Will smiled, knowing how Crowley's ready acceptance of him made him feel. He is a true leader of men.

  Will looked at the men standing with him. Wearing yellow, plastic hardhats, threadbare flannel shirts and dirty jeans, they looked as about as unsavory a lot as he could ever imagine having seen in his life. As they looked back expectantly at him, he realized that they were looking to him for leadership, it struck him that back in Eclipse they could have just as easily been part of a gang who would have gone after him for being an Indian.

  "This isn't going to be easy, guys." Will gave them a half-smile and got nervous grins in response. "I'll soften them up, then you've got to take them down. You can used the sledges to break heads or crack backs. Belly button to skull, front and back, those are your killing zones. These guys have some sort of armor on — real fanatics."

  One of the guys waved Will's last remark off. "You don't need to lie to us, bro. Tadd gave us the word — we're a long way from home, and something out there opened a gate to Hell."

  "Okay, you're up to speed." Will ducked his head as gunfire started crackling down in the ravine. "They're coming, and they're not human. Kill all you want, they'll make more."

  The gun-thunder rose to a crescendo that filled the broad valley with deafening noise. Will strained to hear any screams, but he could hear nothing in the confused explosions. He tried to concentrate enough to push his mind out so he could see how the battle raged, but the fear from his men and the staccato popping distracted him. By the time the noise began to die, a great crashing sound began to build. Echoing from north to south and back again, the crashing grew louder as it came closer and told Will who had won and who had lost down below.

  Even having seen the troops Ryuhito had raised did not prepare Will for the spectacle of their arrival in the compound. Trees shivered and shook, then fell toward the compound as if being knocked down by a gigantic steamroller. When the last tree toppled, the enemy front line paused for a moment at the edge of the clearing.

  Tall and thick-limbed, the heavy creatures in the front line stared back at the human defenders with piggish eyes full of hatred. Their blocky fists ran with blood and plant juices, and a number of the creatures bled from open wounds. One by one they raised their muzzles to the sky and let out with a blood-curdling howl, then hunched their shoulders and charged.

  Their wide line narrowed toward the middle of the spike field, and Will opened up with his machine-pistol, it started to rise with the recoil on him, but he brought it under control and it came around in a tight little circle. It shattered the armor plate on one of the massive monster's shoulders. Armor fragments and more bullets minced the flesh beneath and blew apart the shoulder-girdle. As the monster twisted around with the impact, its arm dangling by a thin strip of bleeding muscle, another charging creature hit it from behind and drove it into the stakes.

  Four sharpened wooden shafts pierced the lead monster's body, but three others snapped off when they hit armor. The body, propelled forward by the momentum of its charge and the impact from behind, started to roll and flatted yet more stakes. Dead even before the heavy hooves of its companions stomped it to pulp, the creature Will had shot all but cleared a path through the stakes.

  Will hit the tab at the rear of the grip and slammed another clip home as the spent one dropped away. He felt the ground tremble as he brought the gun up again. A second monster, this one shot in the knee by Tadd, went down and opened a hole through the stakes. Leaping above him, the first of the behemoths started sprinting forward and his fellows followed in a tight arrow formation.

  Will tried to pick a target as the shaking ground toppled some of his sandbags. We are done! Ready to consign himself to death, his eyes narrowed, and he burned a clip at one of the approaching monsters. It fell, and he reloaded again, fully believing until he saw movement in the comer of his right eye, that he had two more seconds to live.

  From back behind the lines, having built up speed on a dead gallop through the center of the compound, the Plutonian Phantom Masons blasted into the monsters' line like Cathaginian elephants crushing a Roman square. Will saw one of the behemoths lifted up and tossed like scrap paper through the air. The snapping sound of armor plates being crushed beneath titanic legs filled the air, and an acrid, cloying stink washed over the battlefield.

  Vetha, a bone-pale death-goddess, rode perched atop the lead Plutonian. Bursting through the behemoth line, she faced an immediate attack by the secondary troops. Will saw scale-stars flash through the sky and ricochet from her ivory form. One of the creatures leaped high in the air to attack her, but she speared a forelimb through its chest, then discarded the body before he had even reached the apex of his jump.

  As the Plutonian charge carried on through the behemoths, scattering them like mobile homes in a tornado, the smaller creatures poured through the openings. Will heard things whizzing through the night air and heard a gurgle as one of his men went down with a chitin-star in his throat. "Down, down!" he shouted. Raising his gun enough to clear the sandbags, he tracked a prolonged blast against the front.

  Twisting around with his back to the sandbags to reload, he saw two more of his six men down with the throwing stars embedding in their bodies. More importantly though, coming on the heels of the Plutonian attack, the Japanese cyberninjas poured into the battle. "Yee-ha! The Cavalry has arrived!" he shouted, then laughed insanely when he realized what he'd actually said.

  Their automatic rifles lipped flame in controlled bursts that sent the smaller creatures reeling. Moving up in fire teams, they covered each other and directed withering amount of fire into the boiling mass of bodies. Their concentrated effort ground the enemy advance down and started the tide to ebb.

  Will rose to one knee and poked the snout of his machine-pistol over the sandbags as one of the behemoths rose up two feet from him like a titan. The monster raised both of its fists for a crushing overhand blow, and Will started to fall back away from what would have been ground zero for the blow. He knew, as he fell and weakly kicked out to propel himself backward, he could not escape.

  Suddenly someone grabbed Will by the collar and yanked him back. Tossing him clear with the lower pair of arms, the Yidam stepped up and stuffed the muzzle of an improbably huge rifle up under the behemoth's chin and pulled the trigger. The muzzle flash shined out of the creature's mouth and nostrils. A little fountain of blood spurted up out of the top of the monster's skull, then the beast fell backward, crushing two of the smaller attackers beneath its bulk.

  Crowley pulled Will to his feet and shouted in his ear. "These are what you saw, right?"

  "Yeah, but more and different things might be coming through." Will snapped off two bursts at the first creature to reach his former shelter. It went down, and one of his men pulped its head with a sledgehammer before breaking and running back behind the Japanese line.

  "Coming through?"

  "I told you, they were coming through in a circle of termite nests."

  The Yidam joined the two of them and shouldered his incredible rifle. Longer by a good bit than Will was tall, the rifle spat out a two-foot flame and the recoil half-slewed the Yidam around. Will saw another of the behemoths jerk upright, then fall lifeless.

  "What the hell is that, an antitank rifle?"

  "It is, and
aren't you glad he's carrying it." Crowley pointed off back toward the hill. "Will says there is a dimensional gate up there. We have to shut it down or he'll have reinforcements in a second."

  The Yidam nodded. "Ryuhito will not like that."

  "Agreed." Crowley grabbed Will by the back of the neck. "Let's go."

  "But wait..." Will looked back and through the smoke he saw Tadd go down. "They need us..."

  The battlefield vanished in a gray haze as Crowley tugged him backward. "No time, Will. We have to stop the troops from coming through or everyone dies." The shadow man half-carried him forward and up, then parted the gray mist with a knife-like chop of his hand. "Look sharp."

  Will brought his gun up and swept it toward the circle of termite mounds to the south. He was about to pronounce the way clear when one of the smaller creatures popped up and scrambled toward them. He fired a burst that started the beastie spinning, and Crowley hit it with another that stitched a line of holes across its chest. It went down and did not move.

  The Yidam raised an eyebrow. "They appeared much more vital than that to me before."

  Crowley grunted as he knelt beside what looked like a firepit and dirt clearing surrounding it. "Chlorophyll, remember? They're feeding off Ryuhito, and in the dark their batteries run down. He has their metabolism cranked, so in the dark they're dormant. Chances are he doesn't really realize this."

  Crowley fell silent as he studied a set of eight shallow holes scooped out of earth. Set in two rows of four, each hole had a small pile of pebbles in it. He poked at a couple of the stones, then glanced back at the termite mounds. He shrugged and thumbed two stones from one hole and pitched them into the depression opposite their original home.

  Will squatted down beside him. "Owari?"

  "Close. It's the control mechanism for the dimensional gate." Crowley picked a red stone out of a hole and tossed it away. As Will watched, the stone reappeared in the hole. "Primitive, but effective. Now I've set it to block more things from coming in."

  "Good." Will let the distant sounds of gunfire punctuate his sentence. "Now we can go back and help the others." He stood and checked his last clip. "I have a dozen bullets left to nail those things."

  Crowley shook his head. "We can't go."

  "Why not?"

  The Yidam shouldered his rifle by its sling. "We have to wait."

  The peaceful finality of both men's voices acted like a heavy blanket to smother the vengeful fire in Will's soul. "We have to wait here to make sure no one reopens the gate, right?" As both of them nodded, will continued, "Which means we're waiting for him."

  Ryuhito, riding a helios-disk, streaked up and over the lip of the hill. "Who are you that dares thwart a god?" The Japanese prince landed and strode forward, the solar glare lighting the hilltop like a halogen lamp. "Your friends are dying below, and I will kill you here."

  As Ryuhito strode casually into range, Will threw a punch at him. The prince parried the blow with little effort, tossing Will aside like a toy. Where Ryuhito's forearm touched him, Will felt a searing pain. Hitting the ground, he clutched his burned arm to himself and rolled up onto one knee.

  Ryuhito laughed at him. "I am a god, little man. It is not allowed for you to touch me."

  The Yidam lunged forward and grabbed Ryuhito's wrists in his powerful upper hands. He lifted the prince from his feet and held his arms wide apart, but Ryuhito seemed neither concerned nor frightened. His glow intensified, and smoke began to rise from the Yidam's clothing. The sling on his rifle burned away, but the Yidam maintained his grip and started to pummel Ryuhito with his lower set of arms.

  "It is not possible! I am a god!" Ryuhito roared.

  "As I have become, as well!" The Yidam gnashed his teeth as he rammed his head into Ryuhito's chest. "To catch a god, you set a god."

  The prince gasped aloud and his glare faded just a whit, then it started to build in intensity and focus itself down through Ryuhito's eyes. The solar light tightened down into twin nova-beams that started the Yidam's flesh sizzling at their touch. The Yidam screamed in pain, then pulled his clawed thumbs back and drove them both through Ryuhito's wrists.

  The Prince's blood ran like liquid fire over the Yidam's flesh.

  Will dashed forward, smelling the bittersweet scent of singeing hair, and grabbed the Yidam's rifle up off the ground by the barrel. Without looking, without thinking, but trusting in the spirits to guide him as they had before, he swung the massive rifle around like a baseball bat and smashed Ryuhito in the back of the head. Light exploded, and the gun ignited, then Will felt himself spinning like a top through an ocean of molten gold.

  In a heartbeat, everything went dark. Will didn't know if he had fallen or had been knocked unconscious or what. He felt dazed and dazzled. His hands began to hurt, pulsing with the angry sensations of a bad bum. He tried to take a step forward, but found he had to stand up first, then he blinked his eyes and saw shadows moving in a dark gray world.

  One more blink and tears ran down his cheeks. He saw Crowley pulling Ryuhito's motionless body off the Yidam. Will crawled over in their direction and looked up at the shadow man. "Is he dead?"

  "You cracked his skull, I think, but enough of the rifle stock had combusted that you didn't kill him." Crowley rolled Ryuhito onto his face and folded the youth's arms across his chest. "He'll be out for a good long time, and I know of a dimension where time runs slowly enough that he'll be out until we decide how to treat him."

  Will nodded unconsciously and looked down at the Yidam. Ryuhito's eyebeams had burned criss-cross scars over the chest, blistering and charring flesh. The Yidam's upper arms and hands were badly burned, and Will knew the creature had to be in incredible pain. "What can I do for you?"

  The Yidam forced his face into a smile, "it is too late to ask for sunblock, I think."

  Crowley shook his head. "We'll dip you in aloe and get you healthy again."

  "No. I was not god enough to stop Ryuhito on my own, and I am too much a mortal to recover from the attempt." The Yidam glanced over at Will then again at Crowley. "Tell my daughter I remembered her as such." His back bowed as pain radiated off him, then his body slackened and his eyes went glassy.

  Crowley reached over and closed the Yidam's eyes. "One more thing for which Pygmalion will pay."

  Will shook his head. "Ryuhito killed him, not Pygmalion.

  Your people believe in an eye for an eye, don't they?"

  "Yeah, but we also hold the person responsible for the actions of their agents." Crowley hoisted Ryuhito up and draped him over his shoulder. "And, yes, I'd shed no tears if Ryuhito here ended up dead. Of course, I'd rather see him on our side. I know some people in a place where he could learn some things. The Yidam came from there."

  Will stood slowly, holding his hands carefully in front of himself as the pain built. "I'd like to learn, too."

  Crowley nodded. "I can arrange that. Want a lesson now?"

  Will smiled and followed him over to the eight holes, then squatted down. "What do I do?"

  "Move one of those blue stones from hole two to hole four. Good. Once I go through the dimensional gate, you have to move the stones around so Pygmalion will have a hard time tracking me." Crowley shifted Ryuhito around as sporadic gunfire sounded from the encampment. "Get back down there, gather the survivors. I'll return for you then."

  As Crowley turned toward the termite mounds, Will saw something move behind him. The Native American kicked out, knocking Crowley down as the beastie they had shot before snapped both arms forward. The chitin-stars hissed through where Crowley had stood, missing him by inches.

  The shadow man shed the Prince in a roll and came up on one knee, with his Mac-10 blazing. The bullets tore up sod on a direct line between the creature's legs, then tracked upward. The .45-caliber slugs opened the monster up from groin to throat and knocked it back against a blood-splashed termite mound.

  Crowley jammed a new clip into the smoking Mac-10. "Ryuhito's light display must have been eno
ugh to revive it for that last shot."

  "It made it count." Will tried to roll up on his side, but the pain in his chest from where the chitin-stars had hit stopped him. He coughed once and felt a sliver of agony pin him to the ground. Again he coughed, and it hurt less, but he tasted blood in his mouth and felt a rivulet trail down his cheek.

  Crowley knelt beside him. "Hang on, Will. I'll dump Ryuhito and be back."

  Will weakly pushed him away. "Go, go before I can't move the stones."

  Crowley nodded grimly and stood up. "Your son wants for nothing in his life. You know that. You have my word."

  The Native American nodded. "My grandfather trusts you, so do I. The Man Who Dies Far From Home believes the Ghost Who Lives."

  Like a phantom, Crowley retreated with Ryuhito to the circle of termite mounds. Will saw a bluish flash, then reached out with his left hand and began to brush stones from one hole to another. He measured the rest of his life by the number of stones he could move between coughs. He didn't die as fast as he feared he might, nor did he live as long as he hoped he would, but he died happy knowing any search for Ryuhito would die right where he did.