The Unwanted Winter - Volume One of the Saga of the Twelves

by Richard Heredia

  “Enough!” bellowed Garfield and lunged.

  He never got further than two feet.

  From above, in varying parts of the cave, fell strange blob-like creatures, pinkish in color, no more than a foot long and half that wide, egg-shaped, stretching, elongating as they searched for purchase like huge, plump earthworms.

  One them fell across the hind-quarters of Garfield and for the first time since he’d known him, Joaquin heard the mighty feline scream.

  ~~~~~~~~<<<<<<{ ☼ }>>>>>>~~~~~~~~

  ~ 79 ~

  Invasion

  Day Four, Sunday, 6:51 am…

  Anthony saw the great cat leap forward as more than a score grotesque-looking, slugs-like things fell from among the stalactites. They cascaded all about the cave, but were concentrated the most heavily about their makeshift beds. Oh god, they were going to drop on us en mass while we slept! he had just the time to think before he heard Garfield yowl in pain.

  His eyes shifted toward the scene before the entrance of the cave, seeing Garfield twist away from some unknown assailant just as the massive jaws of the Isig-Pjäs bit into the left hand side of his chest. The impact sent them both deeper into the cave in a heap.

  Kodiak and Mr. Patas immediately took flanking positions, making ready to dislodge the smaller, more agile beast from their fellow Fistian when Joaquin yelled, pointing outside.

  “Hël-Hünds!” was all he managed to say before he accidently stepped upon one of the giant, pink slugs, his voice suddenly caught in his throat.

  Anthony was caught between dueling visions. He saw the large teen kick his foot outward, in an attempt to dislodge the worm-like creature from his lower extremity, only to see it hold fast, a sickly steam beginning to waft off Joaquin’s boot. A split-second later, he saw two more dog-like beasts breach the threshold of the cave only these ones didn’t have the deformed skull of a man. These beasts were clearly something else. Hël-Hünds, Joaquin had yelled. The name was apt, for they looked like dogs straight out of hell.

  They were squat and heavily muscled, running on short, thick legs that powered over the rock and snow. With short, somewhat pushed-in snouts, their heavily drooping jowls dripped with long streamers of saliva. Their ears were short, laid back against their skulls. Their coats were a piebald mixture of black and browns, splotched with an occasional white. Though they didn’t have large fangs, they possessed powerful jaws, strong enough to break through the thickest human bones without a moment’s hesitation. Even from across the cave, he could see their glowing eyes, bobbing orbs of crimson, twin sets of angry fire-flies darting about their sanctuary.

  That was when he gazed beyond them and saw more and more of those hate-filled, gleaming eyes. There had to be at least a dozen of them, but he couldn’t tell for certain. They had only paused for a moment.

  Kodiak and Mr. Patas rounded on them, roaring and hissing respectively.

  From a few steps before him, Kenai and Mugzy charged and so did the Hël-Hünds. Ululations and screeches resounded painfully off the walls of the cave.

  Everything seemed to be happening at once, but Anthony saw it all with stark clarity, down to the minutest of detail. He knew his heart should be pounding in his chest. He knew he should be paralyzed with fear and maybe he was. Only, he didn’t know it. He didn’t feel it.

  There was an odd tingling arching across the front of his forehead, a streak of electrical current shooting up his spine, a nervous pain surging through his fingers and toes - inward, upward. For him, there was nothing else. When they combined somewhere in the center of him, he jolted as if shocked by electricity. Everything slowed, or so it seemed. The entire scene before him unfolded as if he’d been blind to more than half it a second prior, though the lighting in the cave had been sufficient enough for him to see perfectly. It was a different sort of light, a new sort of perspective. It was as though a fog had been lifted from his mind. The truth of the world about him was abruptly revealed.

  Oddly, he thought back, more than a week ago, when he’d been playing video games with his uncle and they couldn’t lose. He had seen things happen before they had within the game. They’d had an unfair advantage because of it.

  This was the same. This is what it was to truly see.

  In that second, he understood. He accepted it and every aspect of reality it implied. He was the Kring-Hël. He was the center. He was the middle that held the Twelve together. He was Anthony Herrera, Leader of the Guardians of Man.

  A calm that shouldn’t have been in his breast steadied him. A long breath issued forth from his lungs. His eyes flashed about the cave, never lingering in any given place for long, but it was enough. He only needed a glance. In his mind, unbelievable calculations began to tumble, line after line, equations solved in fractions of a second – velocity, vectors, gravitational relationships, friction, air-pressure, mass, density, probability – the list went on and on. He was able to make decisions before he knew he had actually made them.

  “Elena!” he yelled of a sudden.

  His tiny sister yelped at his side.

  “Take care of that,” he commanded, pointing toward Joaquin, who was dancing about the cave with one of those strange slugs stuck fast to his boot. “There is little time, Ellie. It is eating through his shoe.”

  There was something in her brother’s tone that galvanized her, something demanding her attention, her focus. She responded in kind. Her mind was really not her own.

  The cave went dark for no more than a blink of an eye. All the light suddenly consumed, pulled within chest of the nine-year-old girl. She giggled with joy, as though she’d been tickled, and released it.

  As fast as the speed of light, a sparkling web of smoldering, red fire enveloped the worm-ish thing about Joaquin’s foot. It lasted for no more than a second. The creature fell to the floor, charred through and through.

  The Fist and the Hël-Hünds were now a roiling mass of teeth and claws, blocking the entire front of the cave.

  Joaquin was limp-skipping around a dozen or so of the ugly slug-beasts, skirting past the privy crack, angling around the fire pit, trying to get closer to the rest fo them.

  “Mikalah, bring wood, as much and as fast as you can,” directed Anthony. “The rest of you, rebuild the fire, except Jason.” He peered over at the Asian boy. “You’re with me.”

  Suddenly, there was a huge wind, hurtling back and forth within the cave, as if the storm of the past few days had taken root within. A few feet from the fire pit an inordinate pile of wood began to grow as if it were growing out of the rock itself. But, it wasn’t. It was Mikalah streaking to the far end of the cave and back faster than any of them could follow.

  “What do you want me to do?” asked Jason, bewildered.

  “Grab wood, one for each hand,” Anthony replied sternly.

  Already, the others were throwing log after log into the fire pit. It didn’t take long. Soon, there was a bonfire raging at the middle of the cave.

  *****

  Garfield shook with all of his might, trying desperately to dislodge the burning fire stuck onto his hips near the base of his tail. It was difficult with the Isig-Pjäs trying to shred the muscles of his chest. He was only able to grind the slimy creature into the ground.

  Before him, the man-beast reared back and bit him again, same side, deep into his shoulder.

  Garfield suppressed another scream. His eyes tearing, his jaws clamped shut.

  There was a popping sound and the acidic goo of the slug clinging to his hind-quarters spread even further.

  Garfield roared this time. He couldn’t hold it in, white-hot fury seared through his body. He whipped his tail up and over him, embedding the spiny, bone-like appendage at its’ end into the Isig-Pjäs, where its’ neck met its’ back. Instinctively, the fell creature released its’ grip on the great cats’ flesh. It was all he needed. With tremendous effort, he placed a foot between him and the evil dog-man and shoved with all of his might. The Isig-Pjäs flew backward, momentari
ly free of the melee, reeling back on all four of its’ heels.

  Mugzy was there an instant later, claws extended, jaws flung wide, bellowing with the war-cry that had been festering within him for more years than he could remember.

  The cunning Isig-Pjäs crouched, snarling savagely, drenching the floor with wide swaths of spittle.

  Mugzy side-stepped, using the natural curvature of the cave to cordon-off the dog-man from its ‘allies.

  Seeing he was being deliberately cornered, it slashed out with a vicious swipe at Mugzy’s knee.

  The man-dog slip-stepped out of the way, his longer arm shooting forward, grabbing the other beast above its’ paw. The one-time Brussels-Griffon wasted no time. With a thundering howl, he squeezed. Through the racked, Garfield heard bones breaking.

  He had no more time to recover or see what happened next.

  Another dog-like creature attacked him from the front, squarely. He could only manage to get his forelegs about the beast as they tumbled backward even further into the cave, closer to the Guardians. Intentionally, Garfield rolled and rolled, tangling the Hël-Hünd within the grasp of his legs as they went across the cave floor. Since he outweighed the creature by four hundred pounds, he manhandled it easily.

  At once, the cave went dark for a second time, then a third, a fourth, a fifth time - over and over, in rapid succession.

  By the time, Garfield regain his feet, the dog from hell pinned beneath him, acrid ozone permeated the entire space. He ignored it. Without as much as a growl, he took the Hël-Hünd by the neck and ripped out its’ throat. It was dead before he leaped away.

  He turned back toward the fray, his powerful eyes quickly assessing the situation before they bulged at the sight of Elena. She was walking gracefully on the tips of her toes through a veritable throng of the lumpy slugs, her finger dancing as if she were conducting an orchestra. Whenever and wherever she pointed, she called forth fire. What she left behind was nothing more than smoldering ash.

  Impressive, he surmised as he turned and saw the bear-dogs facing more than half a dozen of the fell beasts, seconds from attacking. Now, the Fist will show you a thing or two regarding death.

  Despite the terrible pain on his lower back, he was gone as if he’d never been.

  *****

  Mugzy, squeezed, and then turn his wrist. His mighty hand flexed. It was wondrous to felt the enemy’s bones snap underneath the sheer power he held within his palm.

  The Isig-Pjäs squealed like a pig, trying desperately to yank itself free from the man-dog’s vice-like grip.

  Mugzy held on furiously, pulling the beast closer to him. “I will teach you a lesson in combat, foul dog!” promised the one-time Brussels-Griffon as he reared back and clouted the dog with the human-like skull hard, just below the socket of its’ left eye.

  With a sickening crack! the Isig-Pjäs’ head snapped backward. It would’ve fallen to the ground, if Mugzy wasn’t supporting the creature with other hand.

  “You want to hurt my Little Flower and her friends?” It was a question, though it was delivered with a harsh rasp.

  The dog-man’s eyes rolled in its’ head, tongue lolling.

  Mugzy struck it again, harder. The bones in its’ face crumbling before his huge knuckles. “You will learn the price of your folly!” Mugzy’s eyes were glazed with rage, salvia gathered at the corners of his mouth, slathering through his mighty teeth. “They are my family!” he yelled, striking the beast again and again, a feral shriek building inside of his chest.

  The man-dog would’ve slain the fell canine in his grasp. The Isig-Pjäs itself knew this. His end was near…

  …If it hadn’t been for their relative isolation from the rest of the fray, Mugzy would’ve taken its’ life with the next few blows. But, being apart from the others with Mugzy’s back to the entrance of the cave left the group as a whole vulnerable on the right side of their line. When Mr. Patas chose to help the bear-dogs, along with Garfield, the way opened and five Hël-Hünds fill the gap within seconds.

  As Mugzy bellowed the death cry of the Isig-Pjäs, his fist hurtling down, he was struck, unawares, by two of the Hël-Hünds – one high, the other low. In half a second, he was ripped free of his enemy, landing hard on the rock of cave floor, his head smacking cruelly upon its’ unyielding surface. He was instantly dazed, unable to protect himself.

  The Hël-Hünd that had pummeled him about the chest, bounded off, following those that hadn’t hammered into the man-dog. Those four made an unerring beeline for Joaquin, who was still on the far side of the cave, away from the rest of the Guardians.

  The other stepped up slowly, its’ seeping tongue dripping hot, noxious blood onto the helpless form of Mugzy. Its’ glowing eyes already focused on the arteries of his neck. It would dine upon the exquisite flesh of a Fistian this morning.

  *****

  The Kring-Hël knew the weakness in their defenses develop two full seconds before it happened. There was little he could do about it. He stepped forward a few strides, his mind ablaze with possibilities. As fast as his neurons could fire, he made a decision, just as Mugzy was flattened, his head thwacking into solid stone. Absently, Anthony hoped his skull hadn’t fractured.

  “Joaquin, run!” he hollered, knowing four of the five evil canines were going to go after him.

  The big teen shared a furtive glance with Anthony, but no more than that, redoubling his efforts to get to the far side of the fire pit.

  “Elena, help Mugzy! Mikalah, help Joaquin!” said the Kring-Hël within moments.

  “How, Tony?” asked his youngest sister.

  Elena nodded, turning from her task of annihilating the slugs flexing grotesquely across the ground. Her eyes found the Hël-Hünd looming over her Poochers. “Noooo!” she yelled, her heart in her throat.

  “Think of a meteor hitting the ground, Mikalah. Speed! Speed! Speed! Now, go!” he said forcefully, not even bothering to look at her.

  His command was like law from on high. She was gone before she knew she had left.

  Anthony didn’t notice. “Jason!” he called. “Are you ready?”

  “Ready for what?” asked the frightening Asian teen.

  Anthony’s eyes hardened. “To do your thing.”

  “What thing -?” he tried.

  “Go!” was all he said and Jason was gone.

  Anthony half-turned, peering back for no more than a blink of an eye, “Andrew, keep Louis safe!” Then he tore his gaze from them, his mind demanding his attention elsewhere.

  His orbs locked on Kodiak and Kenai, both of them faced off with at least three Hël-Hünds each. He felt himself smile as Mr. Patas slammed hard into their unsuspecting flank just as the two bear-dogs charged. In seconds, he could see nothing more than gigantic bodies twirling and spinning, huge jaws gaping, biting. The noise was tremendous.

  Garfield came of out nowhere, leaping high over the entire scrum, his massive claws and wicked tail poised to strike.

  Anthony never saw what happened after, though. A great red mist out of the corner of his eye confused him for a heartbeat before he realized Mikalah had figured out what he’d meant seconds before. She had struck one of the Hël-Hünds with a piece of wood she’d been holding with both hands. If she had been a typical eight-year-old girl and she had hit a beast as strong and solid as a Hël-Hünd, her blow would’ve gone completely ignored. Yet, Mikalah wasn’t your normal third grader. She was a Guardian of Man and… she had come at the beast at over three hundred miles per hour. The blow she inflicted upon the creature was nothing short of catastrophic. It’s whole left, front quadrant was reduced to mush, the flesh pulverized so thoroughly, it was reduced to no more than a mist, ten, twenty times finer than any like precipitation falling from the sky.

  Then, the cave went dark.

  Anthony had less than a second to see a deadly web of flame, much like those that had made quick work of the slugs, streak across the cave. Only this one was much bigger, four times as lethal. It engulfed the Hël-
Hünd looming over Mugzy, making the creature careen off the man-dog, wailing in agony. A blink later, it was burnt to a crisp.

  Good job, Elena, thought the teen, his eyes sweeping left. He saw Joaquin, no longer limping, running headlong toward the back end of the fire pit a tight knot of Hël-Hünds racing after him, gaining ground, huge chunks at a time.

  “Jason, use you freakin’ Gift!” he bellowed at the boy who had only moved twenty feet away, still confused.

  Jason was frowning, uncertain, trotting toward Joaquin now, a wooden log in his right hand, not really sure what he should be doing.

  A strange “popping” drew Anthony attention. He turned to see one of Kenai’s giant paws flatten the skull of a Hël-Hünd, while her mother – within an instant – stood upon the chest of another, ripping out its’ throat in one swift bite, nearly decapitating the fell beast.

  He heard laughter then, hissing, menacing. His mind exploded with possibilities. He felt his heart sink as something within his brain told him, he’d miscalculated. His startled orbs moved yet again, centering on the origin of this newfound dread.

  It was the Isig-Pjäs, gazing at him thirty yards away, an impossible grin etched across its’ nightmarish face. It was laughing. “You are mine, Kring-Hël,” it said and charged.

  *****

  Jason, use your freakin’ Gift! It was still echoing within his head, reverberating within the inner boundary of his skull when Joaquin yelled.

  “Heeeeelp me, god dammit!”

  Stunned, Jason made himself comprehend what he was seeing. His friend was running frantically from three Hël-Hünds, one nipping at his heels. His face was stretched in a rictus of sheer terror.

  The massive jaws of his assailant were overflowing with saliva at the prospect of consuming such succulent flesh, so young, so – human.