by Mark Tufo
“I told Azile, but I wished to tell you myself.” She sat across from me, her honey brown skin glowing in the fire.
“How in the hell could that monster BT ever have someone as beautiful as you in his lineage?”
She smiled. “You are brave to say such things when your woman is not within earshot.”
“I appreciate you sticking with me this long.”
“I do not get the sense, Michael, that you plan on coming back with us.”
“I cannot. Either I get Mathieu, kill Xavier, or get myself killed. Those are the only options that are acceptable to me.”
“I understand.”
“You’re not going to try and dissuade me?”
“Do you wish me to? You seem relatively sure of your words and proposed actions.”
“I am. It’s just unusual that someone doesn’t try to convince me to take a less asinine path.”
“That would not be your way,” she said.
“Just when you would have me doubt your heritage, you come out with something like that. I do not know what the future, if I have any left, will bring, Bailey Tynes, but I am thankful that at least some of my time on this earth involved you.”
“Perhaps if you weren’t so old, Mr. Talbot, and nearly related to my great grandfather through the bonds of brotherly friendship, we could have had a little more.” She stood, leaned over and gave me a lingering kiss on the lips.
“Whoa,” I said when I pulled back. My lips felt like a small electrical charge had run through them. “I bet BT is rolling in his fucking grave right now.”
She walked away. I did my best to ignore her lithe form as she went.
“I guess I had it wrong about all those movies my daughter used to like. Chicks really do dig vampires. Weird.”
“You get that out of your system?” It was Azile, she’d returned.
“Um...what?”
“Your anger. I figured you would give Bailey some hell for turning back.”
“Yup. That’s pretty much how it went down.” Even Oggie had to roll his eyes over what a crappy liar I was.
“Lana has graciously allowed us to keep the horses.”
“Us?”
“Are we not together?” she asked.
This was a steel trap with a faulty spring if I had ever seen one. Not only was it a trap, it was one that I was being forced to enter like a sheep to the slaughter...but maybe even more meekly. “We are.”
“Then it only seems right that we stay that way.”
“I’m not coming back without Mathieu, whether he is dead or alive.”
“And I will not come back without you. Though I would prefer you continued to breathe.”
“Yeah, breathing would be preferable,” I told her.
Funny how quickly morale picked up in the camp knowing that tonight was their last night heading away from home. There were more miles between them and their homes right now than at any point in their entire lives, but the mood was light. I did not begrudge any of them for their joy. I was poking at the fire with a decent sized stick when ahead of me I saw the glow of the moon starting to peek through the trees. I stood up quickly; from my vantage point I wasn’t a hundred percent sure by sight, but something inside of me was telling me all I needed to know. Why I’d not been paying much attention to the phases of the moon is beyond me, considering our adversary. I found Bailey’s small tent and entered quickly. She’d been getting ready for sleep but that changed in an instant with my intrusion.
“I do not believe you to be naive enough to think that kiss meant anything more than a thank you.”
“The moon is full.” The way I delivered the words had to have been enough to send a spike of chills down her spine. She stood up and forced me back out so she could get out as well.
“Did you see something?” She was getting her boots on.
“No, just a gut feeling,” I told her. I did not clue her in to the fact that the very gut I was talking about felt much like a washing machine during the churn cycle.
“Have you been wrong before?” She was now strapping blades all around her body.
“Have you met me?”
“Okay—sorry. Are you wrong now?”
“Fuck, I hope so.”
“And yet you are at my tent. This does not bode well. Where is Azile?”
“I...I don’t know. She had been right next to me by the fire and I guess I zoned out. Next thing I realized I was standing and a sick feeling of dread swept over me.”
“Michael Talbot!” A blood-curdling yell came from across the camp. It was Azile; the voice seemed to be everywhere—I could not pinpoint its location. I wanted to run to her, I just didn’t know where to go. “To arms!”
The people there might have been frozen in indecision with her first outburst, but that was not the case with the second. The clang of metal rang out as people dressed, attached swords, strapped on knives. The ratcheting of multiple rounds being chambered echoed in the silence. Azile was quickly moving towards where Bailey and I were, she was once again dressed in her long, sweeping, blood-red cape. I hadn’t even known she’d brought it with her. Her face was shadowed under the hood, I could only see the intense stare of her eyes on mine.
“The watchers are here,” was all she said before either of us could ask what was going on.
“The Lycan?” Bailey managed.
“Not far behind, I would imagine.” Her lips were pulled back in a curse. I had never seen such a look of fierce determination and murderous intent on her face.
“How? I thought they were nearly a fucking week ahead of us!” I asked, and then it dawned on me, this was a trap that Xavier had been laying for the entire month and we’d blindly followed him right into it. We should have just killed ourselves and completed the circle he’d started. It had all been another brilliant, elaborate ruse. Xavier had doubled back to put himself in a position to strike at just the right time.
“Denarthians, to me!” It was Lana. She was decked out in brightly polished silver armor that covered her chest and legs as she sat astride her horse. She looked everything I would expect a Viking Goddess of War perched upon her steed would. Her sword was held high and glinted brightly in the moonlight. I turned to look up at Bailey who was painting red streaks across her cheeks.
These three might very well be the most powerful women, nope I take that back, the most powerful people on this planet at this very moment in time. I was honored to stand next to them. I only hoped I could hold my own and prove myself worthy.
In under three minutes we were ready. All that could be heard was the heavy breathing of the men and women as we prepared ourselves for battle. We’d formed a long line of horsemen facing out onto a large clearing. An angry, swirling mass of reds and oranges flitted through the treetops on the other side. I wondered if this was as unnerving to the rest of the soldiers as it was to me. The whinnying and nickering of the horses was enough to know that they felt something as well. Although, I held the thinnest of hopes that they were merely picking up on the tension from their riders. A tendril of mist crept out from the woods; it slithered halfway across the field before it turned back on itself and dissipated. Three more, wider than the first, took its place, these coming nearly three quarters across before they curled as well; though these did not fade away.
They seemed to be receiving more substance as the columns of mist pumped into the open space, wanting to fill it. One of the horses reared up when the first howl was heard in the distance.
“Steady!” Bailey’s brave voice filled the air. I had a feeling mine would have quivered if I could have even found it. My mouth was arid. Another howl, this time much closer. They were coming quickly, not wanting to miss their window of opportunity. An entire sheet of the eerie fog blew out from the tree line, quickly obscuring the ground in a thick cover. It stopped ten feet from where we waited, as if it would lose its power among us.
A lone figure stepped out from the other side. Xavier. He was immense. His thick, wid
e chest glistened from the unnatural wet air that coated it.
“The last of humanity’s hope stands before me!” He raised his massive arms to the air. “The Warrior, the witch, the vampire, and the princess,” he laughed.
“Well, when he says it like that, it sounds like a children’s book.” I was trying to calm my nerves. It didn’t work for me or the three around me.
“There will be nothing that can stand in my way after this most glorious night!”
“Not over yet, asshole!” I’d let my horse go a couple of steps forward so he knew where I was and that I had said it.
He growled; a line of werewolves formed onto the field of battle, double ours in length and width.
“Fucking gone and done it now,” I berated myself. “Where is Mathieu?” I shouted.
“You mean the traitor to both his kind?” Xavier queried back.
“Xavier, before this is over I am going to rip that ugly fucking head of yours clean off your shoulders!” I brought up my rifle. The odds I could get a decent shot off at this distance on a horse were minimal, but technically I was almost shooting at something the size of a barn door, so just maybe. Xavier melted back into the woods. Large Lycan appeared at regular intervals behind the werewolves. Handlers, I would imagine. Silence had returned and its presence was profound. And as if this night weren’t already turned askew, it got worse. The watchers, which had been dancing throughout the trees, made their way into the ground cover. The gray swirls took on hues of brilliant oranges and angry reds, creating the illusion that the earth was burning and a pit to hell had opened on this very spot.
“Lana!” I shouted. “Get your two fastest people on horseback and send them back!” I had a bad feeling about this.
“To where?”
“To get help if they can—or at least to let people know what’s going on.”
Within a minute there were two lucky bastards heading away from this place, and then we waited. A long, low, soulful howl perforated the perceived calm. The werewolves began running towards us en masse.
“Hello darkness my old friend,” I said as something of a prayer.
It was Lana who impelled us on.
A savage scream ripped forth from her. “AHHHHHHHH!” Her silver sword held high, her horse spurred forward into a gallop; her long blond hair flowed nearly horizontal as it was buffeted by the wind. Her armor reflected the torrid colors of the mist. She looked every bit a fiery goddess seeking vengeance and retribution for wrongs committed, and I was awed by her.
Her people raced behind her to catch up, Talbotons right alongside them. We raced towards our doom, we raced to our future; we raced toward our deaths, we raced toward continued life. The heavy percussion of rifle fire collided with the ring of steel upon bone. The ground shook from hundreds of thunderous hoof beats. The collisions of multiple bodies and snapping bones dominated, and battle cries filled the air. An impossible terror-filled shriek came from my left. A horse had gone down, its throat shredded nearly to its spine. The rider had been hurled deep into the werewolf line. He or she had attempted to stand but had immediately been pulled down and their head severed. I was jolted to the left with violent force as we collided with the werewolves. For a moment I was nearly broadside with the oncoming enemy.
I brought my rifle across my chest and opened fire, much like I manned a pirate ship of old. I shot a werewolf in mid-lunge. The bullet tore through the side of his mouth, decimating the row of razor-like teeth. The bullet exited the side of his neck, bringing a large tuft of blood coated fur with it. His momentum brought him into the rear left leg of my horse, cracking it in half as easily as it had been made from a twig. I was already on the move—not waiting to get trapped beneath the large animal. I pushed up and out of the stirrup with my left foot. My right came atop the saddle as the animal plummeted down. I jumped away as the poor beast kicked out in immense pain. I wasn’t overly fond of horses but nothing deserved to die that way. If I could have spared the second to do so, I would have put him out of his misery.
I had somehow found myself completely surrounded by werewolves, though not all of their attention was focused on me. It took two rounds to the one closest to me to stop his advance. Plumes of blood sprouted from his chest, arced past my shoulder and were diffused as they fell through the burning mist we were cloaked in. I put another slug in his forehead, he seemed too stupid to realize he was dead without the added incentive. A burning pain ripped across my back as a large claw shredded through my jacket and sliced me wide open. I was spun around and down...the ghostly mist may have been the only thing that saved me at that very moment, as my attacker was not entirely sure where I had gone.
A horse hoof came down not more than six inches from my skull. Blood cascaded onto my face, from foe or friend, I did not know. I grabbed a replacement hand axe given to me and spun, bringing my arm up and back down with enough force to cleave a werewolf's foot in two, completely cutting off the front half. I used the downward energy to propel myself up. He was howling. I torqued my arm and swiveled the blood dripping blade into the side of his neck; my arm shivered as the blade bit deeply and collided with bone. A sword sailed less than an inch from the top of my head and into the next werewolf, bursting through his forehead and pulling back the top of its skull. I reached down and snagged my rifle which was leaning against my now dead horse. Howls, screams, and cries for mercy were everywhere, yet I was alone, my mind was closing out everything that wasn’t directly a threat to my survival.
As the vastness of the battle expanded and it got louder and more deadly, my particular corner of hell somehow shrank. Misery and affliction boiled and eddied all around me, but I was less aware of it. My dance with death was a private affair. Two werewolves had honed in on me, I was able to put two bullets into the first’s thigh and groin. A shrill cry issued forth from him—a sound only one with obliterated genitalia can make. The second hit my arm with enough force that the rifle was torn from my grip, leaving the hand axe as my only weapon of war. My right upper arm had been laid bare. Pain coursed up my entire side as blood poured from it.
Moving my arm was torturous, but I figured dying would be worse—at least my death would be. My blade delved into the werewolf’s cheek, opening it enough to reveal the teeth and jawbone, the blade then struck the beast’s pectoral muscle and split it in two like a butchered chicken breast. I clearly saw the red rippling tendons before it became coated in a bath of blood. He leaned in as I backed up, his mouth snapped shut, his front teeth dragged across the top of my head. Agony erupted where he threatened to chew through. He might not have been satisfied with what he found when he broke through, yet I couldn’t give him another chance. We weren’t ten minutes into the fight and I had three grievous injuries that I knew of. Adrenaline channeled through my veins at a blistering pace, keeping the machinery running.
With my left hand I reached into the gaping wound in the animal’s chest and wrapped my fingers around a large muscle as tightly as I could, pushing through the cordage that kept it in place. I divided the mangled sinew and wrenched it back to me with enough force to snap the muscle. The frayed, slippery pieces were wrested from my grip as they twisted their way back into him, ruined and misplaced. His left arm fell slack, I pinioned and brought the blade into the meat of his bicep, neatly bisecting his arm. Desperately, his jaws cracked again at my head, the broken teeth just catching on the edge of my forehead, ripping a quarter sized disc of skin away. This might have been the most painful thing of all. I savagely lodged my blade into his fucking skull...repeatedly. I made sure that not even a memory of the pain he had inflicted on me would survive.
I was exhausted and I was bleeding out; I could not see an ally that would be able to help in my plight. Azile was more than thirty yards away, I could just glimpse her red hair through the chaos; she had also been unhorsed. I don’t know if it was my disheveled mind, but she appeared to be grasping swaths of the burning fog and hurling them at the enemy with explosive results. Three more
werewolves had found their way to me.
“This may be the end,” I told them, getting low into a fighting crouch. Blood lined my teeth as I grinned at them. “But it’s not going to go well for you either.” Another fighting pocket burst into our own circle. A Talboton and two Denarthians were ripping into a lone werewolf. I envied them their odds. A single rifle blast created a ditch in the back of the beast’s head; he fell and was swallowed up by the ground cover. One of my werewolves cleaved the top of the rifle bearer’s scalp off with a savage swipe of his razor sharp claws. I had the distraction I needed—anybody with anything resembling sanity would have turned tail and run, but I had launched. The werewolf had put up his paw to deflect my advance; my blade struck between the second and third finger, shearing through the webbing and his entire hand with ease. I was halfway up his forearm before my forward momentum was stopped.
The two halves fell away, not held together by much more than a tuft of fur. A sword slid past my right side as a Denarthian gut stabbed him. I was already rolling away from him as the other werewolf attempted to strike me. Instead he hit the one next to him; friendly fire had destroyed what remained of his compatriot, shattering his muzzle. One of the other Denarthians had disappeared in the maelstrom. I’d come down by the side of the second werewolf, my intention was to bury that axe in his forehead. Would have too, if the third hadn’t interfered. A rib cracking punch hit my midsection and I found myself falling to the ground. My axe struck the werewolf right below the knee on the outside of his leg; I shaved an inch and a half thick slab of steak from his calf. The muscle flopped to the ground still twitching from electrical impulses. He crashed into the third werewolf as he fell. His mouth snapped shut on my shoulder, the pain was all encompassing. It was impossible to think of anything other than the blinding agony that flared from that point of contact.
“GET IT OFF!” blazed across my brain. Swinging my axe hand was out of the question. With my left, I dug two fingers and my thumb into his eye, I’d hit with enough force to rupture the orb. I gripped the slimy globule and pulled it towards me, stretching his optic nerve taut. By the time it gave way, he’d forgotten all about me. My shoulder was a burning tangle of raw nerve endings. Dislocated, disconnected, disjointed—I don’t know, the pain was everywhere. My right arm hung uselessly at my side. I had to reach down with my left to grab the axe. I shoved it handle first into his new opening. He went rigid and stilled. The Denarthian had taken a pounding as well, but he was still able to thrust his sword into the other werewolf’s mouth, severing its tongue. The werewolf had pushed the man back ten feet and then threw his paws up to his neck in the classic “I’m choking” signal. He was not going to receive the Heimlich from either of us, of that I was certain.
