At the start of the next night, a champion rose up among the horde, a dogman whose righteous indignation was fed by the talk of several shamans and chieftains, and a barking crowd gathered around the challenger and ran to the tent of the Khan. Vito beat the dog to death before the crowd, who cheered in confusion when their champion was proven to be false, and then Ramos and several cooks gathered and tore the meat from the bones. Ramos even employed herbs that he’d gathered from the fogland, and more dogmen joined in the feast than before. Word spread through the camp that the Khan had been correct and blameless, as proven by the outcome of the rite of the duel, and that this must be another facet of the new way that the Khan showed them. While it seemed strange, it must be no sin after all.
As they continued through the age-worn hills, other accusations were heard. Many male dogmen were caught in love’s embrace with one another. An unmarried dogman was caught sleeping with his cousin’s wife’s sister’s aunt, who was married to a respected warrior. A married couple were caught relating with one another in a position that was forbidden by tribal law. It seemed that the laws of their forefathers were being broken on every side, so the hungry horde fell on them without mercy, eating them and consuming their sin and cleansing the world of it. As they drew nearer to Pontius, the dog warriors who had no wives or access to a chief’s harem either became like shrieking madmen full of pent-up sexual frustration, or they took to fighting bitterly with one another; old rivalries resulted in clubs bashing in heads or fangs tearing into throats.
They turned on the weak. Humans that were kept on as mechanics, men who kept their heads down and prevented the trucks from breaking down, the artillery pieces and machineguns from filling up with sand and grime - one by one they were struck down, rendered into flesh and guts and bone, and eaten by the beasts of war. The slightest infraction against the laws, those who stole from one another, those who cursed or misused the name of a god, those who displeased a chieftain or shaman - all were punished by consumption. When the Khan turned to the shamans for counsel, they no longer grumbled or complained. They all backed him and said that he was sent by the gods themselves, for they could plainly see that hunger, a force that could not be negotiated with, was now working for the Khan.
The sexual frenzy of the warriors grew every day. Brothers who could once be trusted with a special touch of relief in the night became hungry spies and potential traitors. They lived only in a world of blind frustration. Many dogs turned on the chieftains - the keepers of the women – with a fury never known to their people. Dogwomen could no longer trust their husbands or keepers, and the human sex slaves were often targeted and raped so badly that they had to be killed and eaten so that their sadness could not infect the noble dog warriors. Vito’s two women, the skinny redhead and the dark-haired leash-girl, lived in constant terror and could no longer offer any sort of resistance or even complaint. Vito could smell the terror on them; they knew that a sign from him was all that separated them from a few minutes of mind-numbing horror, then death followed by cannibalization.
Only Naarwulf, or so it seemed to him, did not partake of the new feast. He had to spend more time away from his Khan as he ranged farther and farther out to hunt any sort of game. But he hated himself for this disloyalty, and for the weakness of his body, and eventually he gave up the hunt and stayed by his Khan’s side. If serving him loyally meant death by starvation, then so be it. No matter how great the urge, he refused to eat strange flesh. He did not want to become the kind of monster that the wicked men of Hargis claimed he already was.
But Naarwulf was not alone. The Khan had already proven himself to be without peer in combat, so the tribes finally relented in challenging him. However, one night an entire tribe slipped away into the hills and disappeared. The clans of that tribe had already eaten the flesh of others, but they listened to the quiet counsel of their chieftain, a young dog who was the son of a chieftain who’d been murdered and eaten, and once they had gotten away from the horde they were never found by any scouts ever again. Khan Vito told himself that the deserters would starve in the wasteland, so far from home, even as they most likely told one another stories about how they were the chosen people who had been righteous enough to rebel against the false Khan. Their stories did not matter to Vito; the only thing that mattered was that Pontius was reached, ravaged, and made into a desolate place where suffering and weakness could no longer exist.
Their machines began to break down. Many of their trucks and their large artillery pieces were simply abandoned in the hills. “I wonder,” said Ramos, “if these are gonna be found by people in the future, and if they’ll wonder what kind of people left them here.”
Vito laughed, and said, “No, Ric. There won’t be any people in the future.”
The pestilence of wolves rolled over many villages in the hills in a frenzy of howling rape followed by cannibalization. Once, Vito ran to the smell of smoke and found Ramos turning a human boy on a spit while singing to himself, “People an’ hogs, hogs an’ people, dinner is served, time to eat!” For a moment Vito wondered if the boys shouldn’t have been given weapons and made to join their ranks. But it did not matter; no matter how many of themselves they ate, or how many abandoned them altogether, they were still legion, a horde that could not be numbered. If they had not been delayed by the shattered bridges over the gorge, perhaps things would have been different. But in the end, it did not matter. Perhaps nothing mattered.
So Vito sat down to eat with Ramos and his wolves. It was a wonder to him that these cooked villagers, for all their variety of body painting, for all the variety of totems that they made, for all the stories they told one another - in the end, they all tasted the same.
* * *
Zach hurried about Pontius with a unit of his soldiers in preparation for war. Only three lines of trenches had been dug along the southern front with connecting tunnels that led back into the city; if the invaders tried anything but a full-on frontal assault, they would find only a few trenches with wide gaps that left plenty of room to maneuver. He was pleased that Director DeSark, Lieutenant Virgil, and a few others had been able to create and train a sizeable fighting force out of Lawmen, Hargis soldiers, and even civilians - farmers, merchants, regular citizens, and even a few junkies and unstable psychotics who were ready to fight to defend their city.
The Smiths had complied and armed the ranks of the new army, and even filled it with their own Magi who were battle-hardened from their street wars. But Zach was disheartened by the secret of the Smith vaults: There was no forbidden technology of unspeakable power that they could use against the invaders. They found only a great storehouse of blueprints for devices that the Smiths were incapable of building, many of which had functions completely beyond understanding. If the Ancients had controlled the world in an iron grip and then destroyed themselves with their own technology, there was no risk of that happening to Pontius anytime soon.
Zach stood under a tall wooden tower placed some distance from the thick wall around the city. He knew that he and some of his men, armed with sniper rifles, would take up position atop one such tower. Zach would use a radio to try to coordinate the defense of the city. He had never done anything like that before, but he knew from various accounts that the amount of data, not to speak of enemies themselves, would be overwhelming and more than any man could really understand and account for. He worried that his best might not be good enough. As he surveyed the line of towers, he turned his thoughts back to the one soldier that he knew was capable of coordinating soldiers amidst chaos, a warrior from his homeland, and he thought, It sure would be nice if Vito was here now.
At that moment, one of his men conferred with someone on a radio, then said, “My lord, it seems the scouts have returned!”
“The... the scouts?”
“The young men who were sent out to slow down the invaders, my lord! They’re at Precinct Zero!”
Zach turned about and hauled ass with a train of bewildered soldiers
running behind him.
* * *
“... and I reckon that about sums her up,” said Chris, taking a deep breath.
Virgil and a handful of Businessmen sat back and exchanged glances. The story they’d just heard seemed fantastic, but the fact that only two young men had returned, and looked disheveled and weary and openly admitted that they’d done little to stop the oncoming horde, inclined them to believe the tale. Virgil thought of Wodan abandoned in the wasteland, and he thought of Jon whom he’d disliked from the start, but who ultimately turned out to be a decent boy, and the frustration was more than he could handle. He wanted to commandeer a zeppelin and do everything in his power to find the two boys, but the Smiths were currently filling them with bombs and devising a way to outfit them with light armor plating without throwing them out of balance; even if he could somehow convince them to dedicate an airship to finding the two young men, he doubted there was any way he could spot them since they were, according to Chris, travelling on foot and no longer burning fires.
The only way he could suppress the idea that he was abandoning Wodan, or had already abandoned him long ago, was to return to his duties and prepare Pontius for invasion. He rose and left suddenly.
Cedrik glanced about uneasily, and Chris said, “So… I guess all that leaves is the matter of payment, sirs.”
Several of the Businessmen glanced at the lockbox. One of the men who’d kept a tally of the tale of their deeds read off, in a slurred mumble, the final amount they’d earned.
“Sounds fine, that sounds fine,” said Chris, trying to stifle the urge to scream with joy. He glanced at Cedrik, who had suddenly developed a full-body twitch. The total amount was a small fortune, more than any of them had ever even dreamed of getting. “Reckon we’ll take it all in one lump sum here an’ now, if that’s fine by you.”
A Businessman opened the lockbox, reached in slowly, then said, “Of course, of course. Oh, and by the way... just out of curiosity... I was wondering… what are you boys going to do now?”
“Well,” said Chris, “we might’ve slowed down the dogs, but we stopped just shy of killing them all.” He laughed nervously. “So, I reckon I’ll get on the front lines and fight.”
They nodded, then turned to Cedrik, who hesitated for a long time, then said quietly, “Me? Uh... well, I figure I’m gonna go find my family, stick by them. You know, kind of watch out for them, make sure they’re safe durin’ all this...”
“Ah ha!” said a Businessman. “But there is the clause in your contract that states that if you return before the invaders, then you are, in fact, to report for duty to the new War Council of the city of Pontius!”
Cedrik snorted, then said, “Man, I don’t give a fuck about that.”
“You do and you will!” said another Businessman. “That is, if you want your money.”
Chris strode up to the Businessman, who was nearly two heads shorter than he, and gripped the man’s jacket. “You son of a bitch,” Chris hissed directly in the little man’s face. “We nearly died out in that bitch so you assholes could sit on your money. Now you’re gonna pay my man, or I’m gonna become your own personal mortician, you dick-eating toad.”
“Well now...” said the Businessman, looking about for friends who now stepped away gingerly. “I suppose a clause or two could be suspended, in light of recent developments...”
“Damn straight they can!” said Chris. Cedrik scratched his nose to hide a smile.
The Businessmen handed them two large backpacks full of glittering retirement, then scurried away. Chris and Cedrik left Precinct Zero, blinked in the sunlight, then turned to one another.
“Man, Chris,” said Cedrik, “I still can’t believe we made it through that shit.”
“Yeah. Just crazy. Too bad you aren’t gonna be there when the dogs hit, man...”
“Well...”
“But I understand. No big deal.”
The two looked at one another for a moment, turned away, shifted about awkwardly, then embraced quickly, pounding one another’s back.
“I’ll see you sometime,” said Chris, averting his gaze again.
“Yeah, sometime,” said Cedrik, then he turned and left. He glanced back, raised a fist, then continued on. Chris had the distinct feeling that they would never see one another again.
Chris walked in the opposite direction for a while. He felt tired and strangely empty after all of his experiences. He wondered if he should get something to eat, and out of habit he felt about in his pockets - then he remembered the giant bag of money and felt a sudden jolt of excruciatingly sharp happiness. Something to eat? Hell, he could have everything to eat, whenever he wanted and however much he wanted. He could even find a brothel and have something better than food for desert!
As he bounced down the street, he saw a freak in some kind of military uniform tear around the corner and streak past him. A circus entourage of foreigners followed close behind. Chris realized that it could only be the king of Hargis, who had warned them about the dogmen in the first place, then remembered that Wodan had said they were friends.
“Uh, your majesty!” Chris shouted. The outlanders continued on, so he shouted, “Hey, you! Wodan’s friend!”
Immediately the landless king whirled about, bumped into his entire train of bandanna-wearing goons, and ran toward Chris, unmindful of any sort of dignity or regal bearing.
“You!” said Zach. “Did you - did you go out there with Wodan?”
“Yeah, sure did. Except...”
“Where is he?”
“It’s a long story, man. Uh, sir. See, what it was, was it came down to four of us, and like two horses, and you know in a situation like that... uh, you gotta make choices and they can be hard, but you still have to-”
“Is he here or isn’t he?” shouted Zach. “Is he dead or alive?”
“Alright,” said Chris. “He’s still out there. I don’t know if he’s dead or not. Him and another guy, they’re walkin’ back this way. Uh, I mean, they’ll probably be back before you know it.”
“God’s death,” said Zach, backing away. He stood lost in thought as he wrestled with his disappointment. He noticed a familiar case at Chris’s side. “Is that my sniper rifle?”
“Oh… shit. Yeah, uh, Wodan gave it to me. See, for a while there, he, uh, he turned himself in to the invaders... like I said, it’s a long story. He gave it to me… ’cause, you know, I’m pretty good at sniping. That was kind of my job.”
In a flash, Zach understood that things had gone bad, and this young man had murdered his friend and left his body in the wasteland. Knowing this, he could even see signs of sociopathy in the young man’s face and mannerisms.
“Listen,” said Zach, hiding his rage beneath a cool demeanor. “Are the invaders still on their way?”
“Oh. Hell yeah. Uh, strong as ever. Sorry about that, by the way. I mean, we slowed ’em down, but-”
“When they get here, you wanna work with me? Me and my troops, we’re going to be sniping from those towers you might’ve seen on your way in. What do you say?”
“Oh, yeah, count me in.”
“Great,” said Zach, smiling strangely. “Should be fun.”
* * *
There came a day swept by dust-choked wind when the sun hung just over the horizon, glaring over jagged purple hills, and the men on the walls looked beyond the trenches, beyond the thin fields, beyond the solitary high stones on the red sand – and saw a great and looming darkness covering the earth. Its awful voice was carried by the harsh wind, a senseless grinding hum that stretched on and on. They could see a few vehicles riding ahead of the mass, oddly silent as the engines were drowned out by the raging sea that covered the horizon. The men of Pontius gripped their guns in white knuckles and stuttered over radios and generals assembled on the towers with their carefully assembled maps hanging limp in their hands as they stared ahead. The pestilence of wolves had come.
Several jeeps and motley jury-rigged vehicles drew nea
r, and they could see riders hanging from the sides and back, their figures dark and indistinct. Men with binoculars could see that they were dogmen, men with awful, savage faces, half naked or covered in ragged clothes, their hairy flesh painted up with blood and black-dried gore. Their eyes were wild and feral; most of them simply stared ahead, their faces somehow both hateful and empty.
One jeep stopped near the wall, and a dogman with a mouth full of fangs leaned on the cross-beam and shrieked into a loudspeaker, “Men of Pontius! The great Khan of the wasteland comes to you with an invitation to a feast! Lay down your arms! Open your gates! And come greet your friends, the people of the south!”
A lone voice from the wall cried out, shrill and nearly indistinct, “Hold your fire!” just as a farmer shot a bullet that whizzed over the ears of the wolf.
“So be it,” said the wolf, lowering the loudspeaker. He threw the thing into the sand and the jeep turned about and made its way back to the horde, eager to give the good news that came from the negotiations.
Chapter Twenty-Four
V E R S U S N O T H I N G
Wodan and Jon started out well before sunset because a great drum beat through the earth, the heavy and indistinct sound of tens of thousands of feet churning up the sand, a terrifying howl like an endless storm. In silence they broke down their tent, then set out at a jog, then dropped their equipment and ran because they could see a dark, writhing sea of wolves descending on a dark point in the distance - Pontius. When they’d made camp, they had no idea how close they’d been, but now there was no hope they would ever reach sanctuary behind the city walls because on their left-hand side they could see engines of war, wolves charging ahead impossibly fast, and behind them there were even more wolves, black and indistinct. The two ran as fast as they could but it became obvious that they had no hope of reaching the city; even breaking off and trying to reach the eastern wall was no longer an option, for the wolves had eaten the horizon at their backs and would soon consume them as well. They were cut off and without weapons. Several great mounds of red stone jutted up from the sand, and without a word they agreed that the only thing they could do was hide in the rocks and wait for nightfall.
Demonworld Book 4: Shepherd of Wolves Page 22
