But he didn’t. Zeke’s words had troubled him too much. That and the Supervisor’s brooding attitude toward promotions. Instead of going home, he decided to take a walk down to the river.
Work, to Jae-Hoon, was more than just a way to earn a meal. Work was what a man did with his life. It defined him. When men introduce themselves, the first thing they talk about is their jobs. To understand another man, one had to understand his influence on the world.
Slaying draugr was his own influence. His contribution towards eternal fame. His mark on the world. People would remember him as a hero.
The contemporary Beowulf.
And if slaying was his effort to keep humanity from dying, promotions were his efforts to make sure it lived. To both pull men out of the mucks of Hell and place them at the gates of Heaven.
But the last few days had cast doubt on his success.
The draugr are increasing, he thought. The draugr are increasing. The thought, like the monsters themselves, multiplied in his head. Despite his efforts, the draugr were not dying out. Did God view slaying as a sin? Atonement would rid the world of the monsters. Had he not atoned enough? Was he not doing his part?
The only way he thought to rectify the situation was to move people to the plate. But Zeke had shown him that the second-class citizens didn’t trust the Church, and the Supervisor was growing less pleased with the process every week.
Jae-Hoon stopped by the river. Thick and green with pollution, it looked wretched under the dim city lights. He wrinkled his nose. The city always smelled foul, but today it seemed somehow worse.
He thought of the prophets of the old religions. Moses. Jesus. Mohammed. Buddha. Zoroaster. They were known for heroic faith. Was that true, or had any of them ever doubted themselves?
Did Moses ever get an irresistible craving for bacon? Did Jesus want to crack Judas’s skull open when they were alone in the garden? Did Mohammed have a secret stash of dirty pictures under his bed? Were Buddha’s clothed actually made of silk? And did Zoroaster really give a damn about the balance of the universe?
Jae-Hoon was too depressed to laugh at the thoughts. He stared out over the fetid water and did the only think that came to mind. He prayed to God for help.
But God didn’t answer.
The only reply was a woman’s scream and the unmistakable sound of a gurgling hiss.
“Any word from our supply runners?” Dumah asked his secretary. Lilith stood over his shoulder silently. She tended to do this whenever he had trouble with his job. When they were first married, he thought this was to offer help and support.
That was before he learned she was a spy.
“No sir,” answered the secretary. “Nothing since their departure two days ago.”
“News from them is your first priority,” he instructed. “When you hear something, inform me as soon as possible.”
“Yes sir,” she said and left the room.
“Are you still worried about your precious soldier?” asked Lilith, stepping forward into the light.
“Of course. Him and my own men.” He spoke strongly, but closed his eyes.
“The soldier who hates you? The one you blackmailed? The one who would kill you if given even a poor reason to do so? You’re a fool to be concerned about him.”
He tried to stay civil. She was, after all, his wife. “Dear, this is my job. Try to understand.”
“As I understand, you’ve never been capable enough to do your job without my help. Adam, let him go. You don’t have to protect him. He doesn’t want your help anyway. Let the Karellan have this one.”
Dumah readied a biting retort, but didn’t deliver it. He was interrupted when his door slid open and his secretary nearly fell into his office. “Any news from them?”
She was nervous. “No, but if I might suggest a new priority, draugr are attacking the city!”
He relaxed in his chair. “Just call a lockdown on the gates and boost the guard wherever they’re attacking,” he said calmly. Disappointed. Draugr attacked the city all the time. It was nothing special.
“Sir, you don’t understand,” continued the panicked woman. “They’re inside the city. Everywhere!”
This was different.
He jumped to his feet. “Call the militia into action!” he commanded. “Find out where they’re coming from and evacuate the citizens to a secure location.”
The secretary was calmed by the confidence the commander displayed. “Yes sir,” she said, throwing in a salute for good measure.
As she rushed out, Dumah took a small ring of keys from his desk and opened a closet. An array of weapons hung inside. Knives to swords, pistols to assault rifles, grenades to rocket launchers. He may not have been a confident politician, but he was well prepared for a draugr attack.
“What do you think of that?” he asked Lilith, selecting a powerful assault rifle from the closet. The same model he had sent to Pusan with Zeke.
She was unmoved. “I think you should have let the Karellan release the draugr here in the first place. Then you’d have a few more soldiers to help you.”
Dumah was tired of losing arguments to her. “You do understand that you are in danger now, right? Because of the Karellan.”
“Of course I do,” she said calmly. “Now be a man and go protect me.” She smirked. Dumah glared at her, but he didn’t have time to stay and argue.
Jae-Hoon spies the woman. The draugr throws her to the ground. She lies twitching. The monster raises its claws for the kill, but the stroke never comes. The Slayer slams into the monster with all his weight. They roll.
Jae-Hoon gets up first. He pulls a thin, silver spike from under his robes.
The draugr roars and swings its claws at the priest. He stops the attack with a strong kick. Bones crack in the demon’s hand.
But it keeps coming.
He catches the draugr in a bear hug and jams the stylus into its body under its arm. The monster screams loudly in his ear. A direct hit on the heart. The monster is soon dead.
The woman is still twitching in a heap on the ground. “Ma’am,” he says. “It’s okay. You’re safe.” He reaches down to help her up.
She’s dead.
Underneath the warm corpse is the source of the twitching. A young boy, no more than four years old.
That’s when the alarms sound.
It wasn’t alone, thinks Jae-Hoon. He looks up. Soldiers are now marching through the street. Distant gunshots sound. Scanning the city, he spies more and more draugr. He holds his spike defensively. The city is in danger. It is his duty to help.
But the boy! shouts a voice at the back of his mind.
He looks down. The boy cries over his mother. Jae-Hoon grabs his shoulders and speaks. “Run to the nearest house. Any house. Lock the doors, then hide. Go!” The boy is too frightened to argue. He bolts the instant the priest’s grip loosens.
Watching the child for a few moments, he prays the boy makes it to safety. The sounds of guns and screaming monsters grow louder. He turns from the river and dashes into the fray.
When Dumah hits the streets, the draugr are swarming. One charges the Supervisor, but he downs it with a single, well-placed shot. It feels good. He is back in control. He has been given a problem he knows how to fix. He scans the city. A young soldier fires nervously into a crowd of oncoming monsters.
Crack! Crack! Crack!
The Supervisor fires single shots from his assault rifle. In the loud battlefield of the city, the shots don’t echo. Draugr fall. Over years of inactivity, his aim is as precise as ever.
The guardsman drops to the ground, relieved.
“Stand up, soldier,” Dumah commands. “The battle is not over. Keep your head.”
The young man snaps back to attention. “Yes sir.”
“Where is your captain?”
“We got separated. I think he’s down the street.”
“Stay with your unit. You are stronger together.” He turns in the direction the young soldier has poi
nted. “Come with me.”
They run.
A slow draugr appears on the street ahead of them. Dumah doesn’t stop. The beast collides with the butt of his rifle. It falls. A single shot to the head finishes the monster. “Leave none alive,” he instructs the young guardsman. “But don’t waste ammunition.”
The soldier listens intently. Despite the urgency of the situation, the old warrior is excited. He is once again the commander. The battlefield philosopher. Perhaps he has not lost his purpose in life after all. He is there to teach.
They reach a small line of soldiers being pushed back by draugr. They join ranks and begin shooting. One man is a step closer to the draugr than the other soldiers. Dumah takes his place beside him. “Are you the captain of this unit?” he shouts over the gunfire.
“I am now,” the man shouts back. “These freaks got our last one.” He sprays his gun rapidly into the demons.
“Keep your head, soldier. Do we know where they’re coming from?” Dumah continues to fire steadily. The ranks of monsters before them thin out.
“No clue, sir. But the rumor is they’re clustered around the Namsan sector.”
Of course. The Karellan! he thinks. The swarm of draugr around them has dwindled to a handful. “Here are your orders, soldier; evacuate the northern sectors. Round up the transport vehicles. Get all civilians south of the river, then set up a barricade on the bridges. Civilians are your first priority. Attack draugr only when necessary to protect them.” One more shot from his rifle, and the street is clear.
“Yes sir,” says the man. He salutes.
The soldiers begin to follow their captain, but Dumah shouts to the first young guard. “Rookie, I got another job for you.”
The boy stays. “Yes sir?”
“Round up enough soldiers to clear out the draugr south of the river. I’m assisting with the evacuation here, but draugr extermination will be top priority in the south.”
“Yes sir.” The guard runs south, to the bridges. Dumah turns north.
Jae-Hoon makes noise. Lots of noise. He screams. Hits things. Anything he can do to attract attention.
Non-human attention.
Draugr charge him. Ignoring the civilians, he thinks. The monsters are nothing against a trained fighter. His feet and fists fly, guided by twenty years of training. The spike in his hand tastes the hearts of many monsters.
Their corpses pile up at his feet.
He grows tired. The monsters seem endless. For each one he kills, two more seem to take his place. Coming to pay their respects to their fallen friends. Coming to avenge their deaths.
Do draugr have a respect for the dead? he wonders. Do they have a sense of friendship? A sense of vengeance?
A girl screams.
Jae-Hoon looks over. A young boy leads his sister through the streets. A draugr chases them. It looks strong. He buries his spike in the nearest monster, then fights his way out. Toward the children.
The pursuing draugr is not incredibly fast, but fast enough to close in on the kids. Jae-Hoon leaps, his stylus extended. But the monster already knows he’s there. It swings a powerful arm. The blow connects with the priest.
He drops his weapon.
Getting up, he looks around. The stylus is gone. He glances at the monster. It ignores the Slayer and continues toward the children. There is no time to find the spike.
He knows his duty.
Throwing himself on the kids, he pins them to the ground. Holding them safely to the earth. He braces himself, waiting for the final attack from the monster.
The attack he has been waiting for since he became a Slayer.
A sword sings.
Instead of piercing claws, something else hits his back. Something heavy. Dropping. Then it rolls off, harmlessly.
The priests looks up. Zeke crouches nearby. His katana is still extended in follow-through position. He picks an object off the ground. The spike. “Here,” he says, giving it back to the Slayer. “Get them somewhere safe.”
“Thank you.” Jae-Hoon nods and takes the children in his arms and dashes south, to the bridges, where the barricades are being set up.
Zeke dashes north.
Down by the river, Charlie and Joel tied up the small boat they used to get into the city. “Real mess, isn’t it?” said the pirate, very calmly. Guns fired in the distance. People screamed. “Think we’ll be able to help any?”
“The others seemed to think so.” He glanced at the draugr. They moved slowly, stumbling. Very zombie-like. “These guys don’t look so tough.”
One broke through the ranks. It moved faster than the others. Human speed. Charlie fired his rifle. The hollow-point bullet tore off the monster’s head. Dark brown blood sprayed on the other draugr.
“Nice shot! Awful mess, though. I hope the monsters have a good dry cleaner.”
“Good thing Emily got out when she did.”
Joel ignored the ambling hoards for a moment. “Emily? Who’s that?”
“That’s right, I didn’t tell you!” He pulled out his wallet and flipped it open. “She’s my little girl. Just been promoted to first-class citizen.”
A draugr closed in on them and hissed excitedly. Gooey saliva sprayed all over the two men. The pirate pulled out a long dagger from beneath his tattered coat. He slashed. The monster’s neck began seeping with blood. It fell.
“Congratulations!” He looked at the picture again, now ruined by draugr spit. “Terrible mess, though. Sorry about that. I should have been watching.”
“Nah, it’s all right. Got a hundred more of these at home.” He beamed proudly. “Beauty of a knife you got there.”
“Oh, you like it? I have two of them, actually.” He flicked it off to one side. It embedded itself in the chest of an oncoming draugr. Then he pulled a matching dagger from beneath his coat. “Iron-titanium alloy. Incredibly strong. Almost never needs sharpening. A gift from my old master.”
“Damn fine weapon.” Charlie took it, examined it, then handed it back. “If my teachers gave out knives when I was younger, I might have paid more attention in school. Hey, you mind ducking down for a moment?”
“Not at all,” said Joel, politely. He took the opportunity to pull his first knife out of the fallen draugr. When he bent down, the big man fired a grenade over his head. It landed in a crowd of draugr. The monsters flew into the air, burning.
Joel examined his handy work. “Nice shot, once again.”
Charlie looked at the fiery corpses on the ground. “Damn. Thought they smelled bad enough when they weren’t on fire. This is one hell of a mess.”
“I wouldn’t worry too much. I think the fire will take care of most of them.”
“Yeah, well, that was my last grenade.”
“Oh. Well, too bad.” They looked into the city. “You want to get started?”
“Yeah, I think I’m about warmed up,” said Charlie.
Jae-Hoon speeds through the city. It’s not easy. The children slow him down. Occasionally, he is forced to set them down and fight draugr.
But he presses on.
The military transports seem to be heading south. The soldiers must be gathering there. If he could only make it, the kids would be safe.
He rounds a corner and comes face to face with a massive draugr. It stands three meters tall, with dual claws the length of kitchen knives on each hand. Every centemeter of him a brown mass of wrinkly veins. The smell seems stronger than normal draugr as well.
The little girl throws up.
“Stay behind me,” instructs the priest. He wastes no time, throwing a strong kick at the monster. He aims high.
The draugr catches his foot. Jae-Hoon is surprised for a split-second. Only a brief moment, but it is long enough for the draugr. The monster lifts, throwing him off-balance. He falls on his back, hard. A rock connects with his head.
The beast advances, swinging powerful fists downward. Ignoring the pain in his head, the Slayer rolls. The monster misses him and hits the ground, harmless
ly. Jae-Hoon leaps to his feet and plunges his spike into the demon’s side.
It roars a terrible, gurgling roar, but the beast is too big. His spike isn’t long enough to reach its heart. It jabs down with its elbow, knocking him to the ground. The monster stands to its full height.
A gun fires.
The draugr swats at the bullet like a fly. More guns fire. The annoyed monster turns to face this new threat. Soldiers with rifles keep it at bay. Another rushes forward with a flame thrower. It spits a massive cloud of flame. The monster is not singed by the blast, but it screams in fear. It turns and bounds off in the other direction, running on all fours, like an animal.
Not like an animal. It is, after all, humanoid.
More like a werewolf.
“Sir, are you all right?” asks a guardsman, helping Jae-Hoon to his feet.
“Yeah,” he answered, rubbing his head. “I’m all right.”
“We have orders to evacuate the north sectors of the city. You should get on the transport.”
“What? Oh, no thanks. I’m a Slayer. I should stay and fight. But I do have someone you can take.” He gives a whistle, then calls for the kids. They appear, a short distance away, crawling out from behind some garbage cans.
“Understood,” says the guard. “If you’ll be staying, is there anything we can do for you? Any supplies you need?”
Rubbing the back of his head, he asks, “You got any aspirin?”
Daniel is efficient in executing draugr. He has to be. He isn’t carrying much ammo, and there are thousands of monsters in the city.
Trapped.
The city’s extreme outer defenses are now strangling them. The demons that once could not get in now can’t get out.
The shotgun booms once. The two draugr standing before the gunner fall. They were close enough that he could feel their breath. He doesn’t like cutting it so close, but doubling up on kills helps to save cartridges.
A scream resonates in his ear. He spins and shoots without thinking. The draugr’s head explodes. Only a single kill. He attributes that one to self-defense.
The ground starts to shake. Some draugr scamper off.
Ragnarok: The Fate of Gods Page 10
