by Brent Reilly
CHAPTER 38
Billy dragged thousands of enemy escorts behind the main body, then out-raced them back. He attacked the battalion in the middle since they had no protection. It felt like dueling: dodging blasts while targeting bomb packs. Eventually enough bombers dropped their bombs in order to drive him off. He simply hit the next battalion. When they finally swarmed him too much, he hit the next formation.
Except this battalion dropped their bombs at once to envelop him. Billy barely escaped with his life. Two lucky swipes cut through his heavy chest plate like an “X.” The wound didn’t bleed much, but its sting made his eyes water.
Billy rose above their ceiling, lost them in a cloud, and went north, humming a catchy song from his childhood to help him relax. Exhausted, he spotted a dark shadow on the horizon and saw tiny fireballs on their right wing.
Prince and Princess arrived! That energized him. Soon, more of his fastest fliers would get here.
A battalion drove the twins back, so Billy hit them from behind. Falling in an arc, Billy fired four wands from five hundred meters. Although not hot enough to burn flesh, the pressure waves that accompanied the fire swatted them down like flies. He first targeted the battalion commander, then aimed for company commanders. As he fell closer, his volleys burned smaller groups of airmen until he concentrated all four to ignite the bombs.
At that distance, he shot as many as he could while adjusting his speed, angle, and position. Fire! Change position. Fire! Dodge. Mongols exploded in the sky like Chinese New Years. He sure enjoyed his job; it’s only work when you’d rather be doing something else.
The sergeants shrieked the signal for dropping their bombs. Billy made the most of the minute this gave him, then he swerved left or right, or adjusted speed and altitude, to avoid the most aggressive as he shot those slowest to rid themselves of their backpacks. The explosions certainly rang his ears from two hundred meters away. It must be hell for the survivors nearby.
Just as he started considering his next move, a wall of quads dropped out of a cloud and fired in volleys from a position of height.
Company #1 arrived!
While it’s easy to evade one hundred blasts fired one at a time, it’s nearly impossible to avoid one hundred fireballs that cover one hundred square meters like a blanket of fire. This is what happened to the Mongol front lines. The best tactic is to pop out of the way. Instead, the battalion did what they were trained to do when they had superior numbers -- fly at maximum speed to close with the attackers.
Which would have worked if Billy and the twins had not spread them out so much. Now the air unit lacked the mass to effect a decent punch. But they tried, so Billy paused them by doing his famous scream. Marathoners are superior quads, so these Mongols may still have succeeded except Company #1 abruptly flew backwards at a thirty degree angle. Recently practicing in their new units now paid off. The old training adage held true: the more they sweated in practice, the less they bled in battle.
Billy realized the rest of the flight would be like this: the super-quad company using their higher ceiling to blast Mongols with impunity.
Oh, hell. Billy suddenly realized that the division commander would also see this, and take them home. He groaned when he saw what he must do: kill the new unit commander. Crap. It’s hard to fool an enemy with the same trick twice, but otherwise these marathoners would escape his trap.
Since he didn’t see a better option, he flew over the remaining battalions until he found the guy in charge. Billy dived fast. Wary escorts shrieked warnings. Billy’s face turned to horror as the entire battalion rose up so they could all fire at him.
Oh, this was going to hurt. Bone tired, Billy had less surprise, time, and velocity than when he took out the general. Now committed, he didn’t have any choice but to expend his dwindling energy reserves to maximize speed. His arms folded against his legs, he squeezed his wands of all juice.
The commander, however, didn’t even bother looking up. He dropped down, then reversed thrust to put the battalion between him and the Baron.
Billy blanched as a thousand fireballs monopolized the sky in front of him. A square kilometer wall of fire flew up at him. He aligned himself with the commander and blasted a narrow hole through the firewall, although no one had ever used fireballs to deflect fireballs before. Because of the distance, the Mongol fireballs expanded to fuse together like a giant yellow blanket in the sky. In contrast, Billy’s fireballs targeted exactly where he’d hit the firewall. His stronger blasts carved a momentary opening that saved his life, if not his hair.
In the history of wands, no one had ever thought of this before. In the centuries to come, daredevils would get paid a fortune trying to replicate this stunt.
With only seconds left, Billy targeted the unit commander, who looked over his shoulder in horror.
He then tried to wrap himself in four metal shields. If only he hadn’t grown taller! Most quads were lucky to cover their face, but Billy could almost enclose himself like an egg. Behind the fires lighting up the night sky, the last thing Billy saw before closing his eyes were his blasts engulfing the commander as if struck by the Sun itself.
Billy rolled in place to protect his face. His back -- despite the armor and heat-resistant clothing underneath -- cooked as if someone just branded him like a cow. He screamed inside his own head since he’d die if he opened his mouth.
Although Billy never told anyone this, he lost most feeling in his skin years ago. The layers of disgusting scabs insulated his fried pain receptors from minor cuts, bruises, and burns. It wasn’t that he didn’t feel anything -- he just didn’t feel it as much. He not only looked like he wore the thick leathery hide of a reptile, but it felt like he did.
Unless cut, smacked, or burned too much. That he felt. And now he felt like he jumped into a cooking pot like the infamous dodo bird.
Deaf, blind, and mute, he slammed into another body at high speed. It felt like hitting a wall while running through a burning building. Flame tried to pry open his mouth and suck out his breath. His nose felt like he snorted a lit match. Terror seized him as he realized his burning clothes were cooking his skin. The stench of burning flesh nauseated him. Hell, his eyebrows were on fire!
Billy used his boot wands to maximize thrust while frantically stripping. He cut off George’s armor like it had lice. His clothes seemed glued to his melting skin. It was like peeling off hot sticky mud.
Weakened by fire, the leather straps that held his wand sockets broke loose. Billy hoped his foot wands, protected by thicker leather, held up. If he lost even one wand, he’d bloody the ground like a giant tomato.
So this is how his enemies spent their last moments, a rogue part of him ruefully realized, elated at how horribly their lives ended.
The smoke burned his eyes, but when he could finally do more than blink, he spied a large lake right below him. But, rather than head for obvious relief, Billy dived over a hill towards the smallest stream he could find.
The burst of speed increased the distance from his pursuers, but then he had to use full power to slow his descent. His head seemed to sink into his shoulders and a different type of nausea washed over him just as he belly flopped into the shallow water. He kissed a riverbed of smooth rocks and his groin hit something hard that curdled his blood. He rolled over to cool his burning back and gulped water for his dehydration. The abrupt change in body temperature sent him into shock.
A shadow falling from the heavens turned into hell as a Mongol battalion searched for him. Fireballs pounced on suspicious shadows. As the fires grew in number and strength, the Mongols briefly turned night into day. So many fires cast so many shadows that its reflection seemed to have a life of its own. Billy half expected the lake to bellow like an angry dragon.
Billy waddled like an beaver to the thickest brush and submerged everything but his hands and face while holding his wands to heal his wounds. He covered his hand
s and face with cold mud. A dragonfly landed on his nose and he lacked the energy to swat it away. The damn thing made him cross-eyed when he needed to track enemies targeting him.
He assumed they wouldn’t stop until they found him. He couldn’t beat a thousand vengeful marathoners now. Hell, he couldn’t stop a rabbit from nibbling him to death. It was hard enough to keep his nostrils above water. He had always wondered how he’d die. He just always assumed it would involve falling from the sky burning in agony. Not lying in the world’s most horizontal waterfall. He smelled death like a fart in a tent. After giving so many others the fiery death they deserved, Billy was finally gonna get what he had coming. And he knew he deserved a horrible death. A spectacular, mind-blowing, soul-shattering, body-blazing death. That was all that kept the guilt away.
But it wasn’t until the rock hard erection popped out of the cold water to look him in the eye that he realized his possible imminent death turned him on. Pre-puberty, it just had not manifested itself sexually before. He knew warriors who got off killing -- literally twisting the knife in others got them off -- but fascination with one’s own death was a kink he had not known existed. And he watched every porn his father bought him -- he totally lied to Emily! -- so he thought he saw everything.
But this was new. Too bad he couldn’t do anything about it. He couldn’t feel his numb hands, much less his penis, swaying in the stream like a reed. Then a Mongol blew past, shrieking like a dying wolf, and Billy convulsed in an erotic panic as he waited for a fireball to consume him. His erection not only had a mind of its own, but apparently a volition as it spewed like a micro-volcano. If Billy had not already screamed his throat raw, he’d have given away his position for sure.
Yet the fireball never came. Instead, the shocking discovery that he enjoyed being scared overwhelmed his exhausted mind. The threat of death thrilled him. Fear aroused him. No wonder the world’s most powerful guy squealed in delight at his lovers tying him down.
The realization horrified and elated Billy. Of all the world’s perversions, why did this have to be his? No wonder he risked his life so often. It made so much more sense now.
The dragonfly landed on his penis, which sunk on its own below water to get the damn thing off. Billy gulped down more cold water, careful to wait until his ejaculate floated downstream. The cold water in his stomach made his entire body numb. The odd sensations put him in a weird trance. Like meditation after someone whacks your head.
Then the shaking started. This wasn’t the first time he got the shakes, after barely escaping death, but this was the worst. His whole body shook as if a demon wanted to get out. Something warmed his bowels and Billy naturally feared bleeding in his private parts, then sighed in relief that he had just involuntarily peed himself. You know you’re in bad shape when you take pissing yourself as good news.
William liked to take Billy to the beach on their vacations. One time, Billy tried to take a wave in, only it tumbled him head over heels, smashing him against sharp rocks. Thankfully, his dad had told him what to do. Billy relaxed his breathing to avoid panic and assured himself it’d be over soon. The more he slowed his breathing, the sooner the shakes subsided.
Billy laid there, not asleep, but not really awake. Exhaustion took a new form. He had no energy, but the freezing stream running over his body numbed his burnt nerves. His eyes mostly closed, he drifted in and out of consciousness, as unconcerned as those Buddhist monks he once meditated with. He hummed a song he used to sing with his parents, which brought back fond memories. He sometimes got so involved watching wand memories that it felt like he was reliving the moment.
“Thank you for getting Tamerlane for me, Billy. That was sweet enough to give justice a cavity.”
He looked up and saw his parents, floating above him, looking good for dead people. “Mama?”
“You’ve been such a good son, Billy. You put my father on the thrown, helped my family through the dark years, and avenged our deaths. I’m so proud of you.”
The boy started crying. “I miss you, mama.”
“We miss you, too, Billy. One day we’ll be together again. It won’t be the same as before, but it’ll still be wonderful. But please don’t rush it. I know you’ve been trying to get killed since my death, but I want you to promise me that you’ll live longer than Genghis.”
“I promise, mama!”
“I could not have asked for a better son,” William said, smiling down on him. “You’ve made me the proudest dad ever. Every day you honor us more. Few children do what they’re told, but you’ve done even more than we have asked.”
“I’ll never be half the man you are, papa.”
Dad laughed. “You’re everything I’ve ever wanted in a son. You even gave us grandchildren. My soul can now rest in peace, knowing those murderers have not exterminated our line.”
“Papa, I thought I was gonna die. I don’t know how I survived.”
“You have a destiny, Billy. One day you’ll kill the Great Immortal and bring peace and prosperity to the world. By then everyone will have allied against the Mongols and it’ll be up to you to stop their extinction as a people.”
“I’m not suppose to kill them all, papa?”
“Their defeat does not require extermination. Leave a million non-quads to endure a subsistence existence so foreigners can visit them like depressed lions in a zoo.”
“So I’m not dead? Because I don’t feel so good.”
Mommy and daddy laughed. “No, Billy. In fact, you have to go now. The Mongols are energized and your team demoralized because they believe you’re dead. That girl you like is gonna get herself killed unless she sees you soon.”
“I love you both so much.”
“We love you, son. Now wake up and go!”
Billy’s eyes were already open, but he had to blink again to see. Like a drunk after a hangover, he struggled to lift his weighty bones from the water. He ached everywhere. He felt really hot and really cold at the same time, what the Spanish call calor-frio.
The fires around the lake had died out, which made Billy wonder how long he napped. He felt a cord around his neck and discovered that he didn’t lose his leather mask. His soggy boots held his wands, so he took to the air, naked as a bird without feathers.
