Stone Soldiers 1: Mythical

by C. E. Martin

  Ketzkahtel struck with his free hand- his boney fingers punching through the diver’s wetsuit and skin. Inside the diver’s chest, Ketzkahtel felt the warm heart as blood swirled in the water around them both.

  Ketzkahtel ripped the heart free from the diver and proceeded to eat it as the diver’s companion panicked and headed for the surface, far far above.

  Ketzkahtel swam after the second human as he chewed the delicious heart. He felt his limbs swell in size- not to their former glory, but something considerably better than a walking skeleton.

  The diver, with his flippers, was faster, and kept his distance from Ketzkahtel. But his rapid ascent came to an abrupt end. Ketzkahtel later would learn that nitrogen narcosis wracked the suddenly-ascending diver’s body with pain as he neared the surface, incapacitating him.

  Ketzkahtel caught the second diver and ripped his heart out as well. He consumed it in the salt water, again feeling the power flow through his veins.

  Ketzkahtel looked around as he broke the surface. Drifting in the ocean current nearby was the Lady Jane Franklin. Research vessel and home to twenty-eight scientists and explorers. All with hearts.

  After he had consumed all the humans on the ship, Ketzkahtel sat still for nearly two days, sifting through their memories. The world had changed greatly in the thousands and thousands of years he had been trapped below the surface. Such time had passed that the modern world wasn’t even aware of his now-submerged kingdom.

  A new land lay not far to the West. A land he had visited many times in his youth. Its geography might have changed, but it was now a land full of millions of humans, all waiting to be sacrificed to Ketzkahtel.

  The shapeshifter leapt off the research vessel and transformed into the red-scaled dragon he had slain in his youth. Beating his wings, he soared over the ocean, headed for his new hunting ground. A land called America.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  The pool area behind the hotel was now abandoned. Guests of the hotel had fled- some through side exits back into the hotel, some out to the parking lot. Some had even fled across manicured lawns to the beach of the nearby lake. Gunshots tended to clear crowds out.

  Tables and chairs, loungers, and large umbrellas lay on their sides, or pushed out of place by the mad stampede. The water in the pool was still and unmoving.

  Suddenly, the glass wall separating the hotel’s massive lobby from the pool area exploded outwards- shards of glass and Ketzkahtel, still wearing the form of Agent Finch, propelled out onto the concrete deck of the pool.

  Ketzkahtel hit the ground hard, and rolled on broken glass. His bones were broken in at least thirty places, and several of his teeth were missing. His skin was cut in dozens of places from broken glass. His suit was just tattered strips of black fabric.

  Mark Kenslir walked through the broken window, his wounds fully regenerated. Blood, Ketzkahtel’s, was smeared over the knuckles of both his hands.

  “Don't go running away,” Kenslir said. “I'm not done with you.”

  Ketzkahtel stood slowly, shedding the spent body of Agent Finch, and transforming into Agent Ehrer. His wounds all healed, he felt better. The human did know how to fight.

  In fact, Ketzkahtel thought, reflecting on several tennis shoe hits to his face, the human knew how to fight exceptionally well. These modern era humans had truly mastered unarmed combat. Colonel Kenslir was surely one of their best fighters. When he was done killing him, Ketzkahtel would have to find another such master and consume his heart.

  “I look forward to killing you again, human,” Ketzkahtel said to Kenslir. He still had plenty of lives left. For all his prowess, he doubted this Antaean had the endurance to beat them all out of him.

  Kenslir and Ketzkahtel charged at each other. They collided in a fury of fists- trading punches of terrific force. Ketzkahtel’s punches landed with meaty thwacks against Kenslir’s dense flesh. Kenslir’s punches made crunching sounds as they shattered the shapeshifter’s bones.

  After a flurry of blows lasting several moments, Kenslir unleashed a boxer’s roundhouse, crushing Ketzkahtel’s jaw and knocking the shapeshifter off his feet. He flew backwards and landed roughly on the pavement. Again.

  Had he not spent centuries, broken and bound in chains, Ketzkahtel might have felt fear at the prospect of much more of the beating he was taking. But the shapeshifter was accustomed to pain.

  Ketzkahtel rose to his feet again, several teeth missing, his nose flattened and one eye starting to swell shut. The shapeshifter’s body convulsed and twisted, bulging under his skin and tattered suit. His hair turned silver and lengthened. He transformed into a kindly, heavy-set old woman he’d murdered in a bus station in Alabama.

  “I think you're burning through all those stolen lives pretty fast, Clyde,” Kenslir said.

  He stepped in and pivoted on the ball of his left foot, his right foot smashing out, into Ketzkahtel’s chest. The sidekick shattered ribs- driving some partially out the shapeshifter’s back. The blow lifted the shapeshifter off his feet and sent him flying into the pool.

  Ketzkahtel disappeared beneath the water in a large splash.

  Josie appeared at the broken window leading out of the hotel. She was stunned by the sheer power and fury of the fight she had been watching. Kenslir had been hammering the shapeshifter with blows any of which she was sure would have killed a normal man immediately and completely.

  She wondered if the shapeshifter was finally going to stay down.

  Kenslir walked to the edge of the pool. He could just make out the shape of Ketzkahtel laying on the bottom. The water was clouded with blood leaking from the shapeshifter’s battered body.

  “Marco?” Kenslir asked. Then he jumped down into the shallow, three-foot-deep water.

  Ketzkahtel suddenly erupted from the water, rising up to his new, full height of eight feet. Again, he had transformed to his natural form- the six-fingered, six-toed giant. Only the barest shreds of a suit clung to his shoulders, while his slacks were torn and stretched, barely containing him.

  Ketzkahtel regarded the black-haired Colonel Kenslir standing in the water before him. He was struck by the irony of one of the largest humans he had ever met, about to be bested by the smallest giant from Ketzkahtel’s family.

  Kenslir suddenly leapt straight up from the water. He spun in midair, his hips twisting around as his right leg swinging out. His heel struck Ketzkahtel in the side of the jaw, nearly knocking the giant off his feet. The giant felt three teeth break free inside his mouth.

  Kenslir splashed back down in the water and pressed his attack. He lunged at the stunned giant, punching with both fists- hammer blows aimed at the giant’s stomach and sternum.

  Organs ruptured in the giant’s torso from the power of the blows. Impossibly, the human had been holding back before. He was even more powerful in the water.

  The force of the double punch staggered Ketzkahtel back, several steps. Into deeper water.

  Again, Kenslir spun in the water- not slowed at all by the liquid. This time he crushed a sidekick into Ketzkahtel’s left hip. The joint exploded inside the giant’s body and he nearly toppled as he was pushed back again. He felt his feet slide down the incline of the pool.

  Ketzkahtel quickly healed his internal injuries, but kept his true form. He was now standing chest-high in the pool. Kenslir stood on a slightly higher elevation. Their eyes were nearly level with one another.

  Kenslir attacked again. He was in his element now. On land, any fatigue he felt was healed quickly. In water, he not only wouldn’t ever suffer from fatigue, he could heal any injury in seconds. The giant had made a huge mistake by fighting him in the pool.

  Kenslir grabbed the giant’s wrists, then rammed his forehead into the giant’s surprised face. Where Kenslir’s flesh was normally denser than elephant hide, his bones were like stone- unyielding. Kenslir crushed the giant’s nose, cracked his skull in six places and dislodged most of the giant’s front teeth.

  Ketzkahtel would be worri
ed, if he could die. But despite the inhuman beating Kenslir was dishing out, the giant knew from past experience he simply could not die. Beaten, broken, barely recognizable, he had lain wrapped in chains for millennia. And survived it.

  Ketzkahtel decided that if he could not outfight the human, perhaps he could drown him.

  Ketzkahtel suddenly wrapped his legs around Kenslir and jerked his own body backwards. The two titans toppled backwards, beneath the water.

  Josie ran to the edge of the pool, trying to see what had happened. Blood tinged the roiling water as Mark and the giant wrestled beneath the surface. Even though she knew water healed Mark, she worried about what was happening.

  “Mark!” Josie called out, worried.

  Agent Keen appeared at the broken window, barely able to stand. His head throbbed, and he ached all over. The telepathic assault had rendered him barely able to stand. But he had to see what was going on. He staggered out to the pool side where the girl was standing.

  Keen saw the bloody water, splashing and roiling while two dark shapes twisted around in the deep end. “Where'd they go?” He still wasn’t sure what was going on or who was fighting.

  Under the pool’s surface, Ketzkahtel was losing the wrestling match. Impossibly, the six-foot, four-inch human was stronger than he was. The two combatants twisted and turned in the water, straining against each other.

  Kenslir tried to headbutt the giant again, but his neck wasn’t long enough. Ketzkahtel tried to free himself from Kenslir’s bone-crushing grip, but he could not break loose.

  Ketzkahtel finally managed to use his greater mass to turn in the water, so Kenslir was on the bottom, his back against the floor of the pool. Ketzkahtel grinned evilly at Kenslir. Then his neck stretched- transforming not into something new, but deforming his natural shape. Like a tentacle, the neck swept out, taking Ketzkahtel’s head closer so that he could bite into Kenslir’s right arm.

  The double row of the giant’s teeth took a large chunk out of Kenslir’s arm- that promptly turned to stone. Ketzkahtel spit the stone out of his mouth. It sank to the bottom of the pool.

  In horror, Ketzkahtel saw Kenslir’s arm heal from the bite- gray stone filling in the hole for the missing chunk of flesh, then turning quickly back to flesh. Ketzkahtel suddenly realized his error. Water healed Kenslir.

  Ketzkahtel redoubled his efforts to break free, shrinking his neck back to normal size. Then he noticed Kenslir was smiling.

  “I can do this all day,” Kenslir said, voice distorted as he breathed the water with no difficulty.

  Ketzkahtel was now worried. He needed to breathe to have the energy to fight, or use up his stolen life energy. And the human had been correct- he was burning through all the life forces he had taken. Meanwhile, Kenslir was surrounded by the source of his power- thousands upon thousands of gallons of water.

  Ketzkahtel worried that Kenslir could win this fight, smashing him to a bloody pulp and imprisoning him once more. Ketzkahtel could not face more millennia in solitude.

  Ketzkahtel unwrapped his legs from Kenslir, and tried to kick off the bottom. Kenslir shifted, wrapping his legs around the giant.

  “Running out of air?” Kenslir asked.

  Ketzkahtel had to try something different. Something bigger. He began to transform again.

  The shapeshifter’s skin turned red and grew scales. His body swelled to the size of a large horse. His limbs thickened, forming clawed paws at the ends. A great tail and wings sprouted from his back.

  Kenslir could not keep his grip on the transforming shapeshifter. He watched Ketzkahtel pull free as the shapeshifter turned once more into the large, red dragon. Its tail and wings swirled the water, the current pushing Kenslir back.

  Ketzkahtel turned and swam to the surface. He grabbed the edge of the pool with his claws and pulled himself free. He shook water from his wings and turned around to face the water.

  For Josie, standing behind Keen, it was simply unbelievable. She knew Mark had been fighting a shapeshifter. And he had told her and Jimmy about it turning into a dragon and killing him. But to see such a thing in person... she was simply stunned.

  Agent Keen was stunned also. Two people had been in the pool, but now a dragon, larger than a passenger van, had emerged. This made no sense.

  Keen took aim and began firing his pistol at the dragon.

  Ketzkahtel felt the tiny bullets ricocheting off his scales and thick hide. He turned to face Keen and Josie, surprised a mortal would even try to shoot him in this form. Ketzkahtel immediately recognized the young girl behind Keen. Kenslir’s companion.

  The dragon opened its jaws and drew in a breath. Fire began to swell in its throat. It would roast the girl and the meddling agent, then see how the man of stone and water liked fire. This time he would burn Kenslir until not even ashes remained.

  Suddenly, the pool water burst upward as Kenslir leaped out. He had pushed off from the bottom of the pool. He soared out of the pool, punching with his right fist. His blow landed squarely on the dragon’s chin, knocking its head to the side.

  Ketzkahtel released his throat full of fire- a long stream of flame that completely missed Josie and Keen, instead burning tables and umbrellas pool side.

  Kenslir landed on the concrete pool deck beside the dragon and grabbed it by the neck. He tucked his body in close and squeezed with all his might.

  Ketzkahtel suddenly felt panicked. He began to thrash his head around, trying to dislodge Kenslir. When this didn’t work, the dragon threw himself on his side and began to spin in place like a crocodile.

  Kenslir held his grip, looping his other arm around the neck, then both his legs. Tables and chairs went flying as the bucking, convulsing dragon tried to shake Kenslir off.

  Josie and Agent Keen quickly dashed away from pool side. They ran up to the side of the hotel, watching the rampage of dragon and super soldier from a safer distance.

  In the windows of the hotel, at least a half-dozen reporters began snapping pictures of the fight. Agent Keen’s men had recovered now and were trying to push through the spectators to see what was happening outside.

  Ketzkahtel was desperate now. He flapped his wings, even beat his own head against the concrete, but Kenslir would not release his grip. It was like a vice on Ketzkahtel’s neck, blocking his airway and threatening to crack his vertebrae.

  The dragon rolled onto his back, his weight crushing down on Kenslir. The dragon kicked at the air with all four legs as it struggled to break free. Its wings flapped feebly, blowing gusts of wind out that blew the toppled pool furniture further away. The dragon bellowed in rage.

  Josie happened to glance to her left and saw a red fire box. Behind the glass door of the box was an axe.

  Josie smashed her elbow against the glass, shattering it. She pulled the axe free and turned back to Mark wrestling with the dragon.

  Still bucking wildly, rear legs clawing at the air, Ketzkahtel now was trying to scratch Kenslir off with his front paws- like a dog trying to dislodge a tick. The long claws ripped through Kenslir’s pants, cut his legs- but he still held his grip.

  “Mark!” Josie yelled. She stepped forward, holding the axe by the end of its handle with both hands. Turning in a half circle, she threw the axe, directly toward Kenslir and the dragon.

  Kenslir turned his head and saw the axe flying toward him. It bounced on the concrete, sliding toward him. Kenslir released the dragon, and rolled out from under it, toward the axe.

  Free of his unwanted rider, Ketzkahtel sprang up, flipping over and landing on all fours. He flared his wings out, and tilted his head back, letting loose a primordial scream of rage.

  Kenslir scooped up the axe and turned to face the dragon as it opened its mouth and unleashed a stream of fire at him.

  Kenslir swung the axe around, like a baseball bat, the head of the axe turned so the side, not the edge, struck the dragon on the side of the head. The blow was so terrific it almost broke the wooden axe handle. The dragon’s head was knocked vi
olently to the side with the crack of steel on bone.

  The dragon’s head arced around, streaming fire harmlessly away from Kenslir. Several chairs and toppled umbrellas ignited as the stream of flames passed over them. The dragon’s head and neck swung around with such force Ketzkahtel found himself looking back, at his own tail.

  As the dragon recovered from the blow, his blast of fire expended, Kenslir stepped in close with the axe reared back, over his shoulder. Kenslir struck down with the axe, slamming the cutting edge into the joint where the dragon’s left wing connected with its body.

  The axe chopped through the leathery, red skin, bone and tendons in one chop. Blood sprayed out as the huge wing of the dragon was severed from its body.

  Ketzkahtel screamed in pain, whipping his head around and unleashing another stream of fire- directly into Kenslir’s face.

  At such close range, the fire was like a burning, hurricane force wind- it pushed Kenslir off his feet and out into the pool. He felt his hair, his skin and even his eyes melt under the terrific heat, then he splashed down into the water, still gripping the axe.

  Kenslir touched down on the bottom of the pool- his chest, shoulders, neck and face had already begun healing, turning to stone as they reformed. His vision came back, as his regenerated eyes turned back to flesh.

  On the edge of the pool, Ketzkahtel shook with fury and pain. He glanced down at his severed wing, which lay twitching, partially on the concrete patio, partially hanging down limply in the water. Ketzkahtel stepped closer to the edge of the pool, fire swelling in his throat.

  Kenslir leaped up from the water, his flesh restored, his hair and eyebrows starting to regenerate. He was once again shirtless, and his Christian fish pendant gleamed in the sunlight. As did the blade of the axe, held over his head.

  Kenslir threw the axe, sending it arcing, end over end toward the dragon.

  Ketzkahtel unleashed another stream of fire at Kenslir. The plume of flames passed harmlessly over the tumbling axe, then washed over Kenslir who this time squeezed his eyes shut.