At dawn, the battles halted at the fourth defensive line of South Bend along Olive Street. Once more, the mercs chose not to attack during the daytime.
Mason staggered back to his tent to sleep again, and witnessed a heated, open argument between Blondie and one of his latest conquests. But the half naked young woman held her own and screamed at Blondie, raving something about some promise he had made to her to get her taken off the front lines and assigned to his personal bodyguards. But apparently, those posts had already been filled by other eager young gals.
She called Blondie on his broken promise and slapped him hard.
He slapped her back and told her to go away and stay the hell away from him.
The young woman left crying, slipping the rest of her clothes back on.
Mason was drifting off when he heard another gal slip into Blondie’s tent mere minutes later. The giggling and whispering started up once more.
Now that their unit kept a regular camp, Blondie continued to be quite popular and entertained female guests on a regular basis. He could apparently afford to be choosy.
But if Blondie was betraying them to the enemy, he was sure taking his own sweet time about doing so, and had a funny way of going at it.
Mostly, Blondie just enjoyed being Blondie. But it was just that egotistical selfishness and hedonism that Mason truly worried about in his friend, and not just a little.
For the present, all Mason wanted was the sweet release of sleep. At least when he slept, he could get away from everything, and shut most of his fears out.
37
Kevin Policinski, high school science teacher, and several scientist friends at a local medical lab downtown called Dirk, David, and Jerriel over to be part of the group that they made their findings report to, including the analysis of enemy anatomy and the composition of the enemy firebombs.
First, life-sized diagrams detailed vulnerable points on torgs, ka-torgs, mor-kahls, and gozogs.
“The militia will find this information invaluable,” David said. “Thank you. I know it could not have been pleasant work.”
They moved on to a discussion of the enemy firebombs.
“So, what are they made of, and can we duplicate them?” Dirk asked.
“I think so,” Kevin said. “We’ll have to substitute some of the ingredients, but it’s only a matter of time before we improve on the mix.”
“What are the ingredients?” David asked.
“A combination of wood alcohol, pine tar pitch from a new species of black pine, the highly flammable resin and oil from another new plant, and the soap like sap or juice from yet another. Plus, a touch of sulfur for good measure. Quite an effective napalm, really. Historically, it would have given Greek Fire a run for its money. The delivery vessel? Simple but effective. More or less a Molotov cocktail in design. Any brittle clay or glass jar or bottle will do.”
“Good work, Kevin,” Dirk told him. “You and your people get us the right mix, and we’ll put them into production for various weapons. We can even make a hydraulic pump sprayer that will act as a flame thrower.”
Kevin nodded. “That shouldn’t be hard at all to work up.”
“Any luck on getting anything electric or with gunpowder to work?” David asked.
Kevin grimaced and shook his head. “Sadly, no. We’re still baffled. Stymied at every turn. It’s as if the laws of the universe suddenly decided that they would never work again as they once did. It is maddening. Completely irrational.”
“Well, keep trying,” Dirk said. “Let us know if you have any breakthroughs. Be sure to say hi to your wife, Laura, for me and Belle.”
“Will do, Dirk.”
They said goodbye to the scientists and headed back to their other duties.
“Here, Dave,” Dirk said, handing him and Jerriel older-style watches. “They’re self-winding. Mechanical, not electric. You both need something that keeps time. Use them well. The faces glow slightly at night.”
“Thanks, Dirk. You think of everything. This is great.”
“Yes, yoo and Belle are always soo kind.”
“You and Jerriel have both been a big help to us,” he said. “We just wanted to find some small, useful way to say thank you. If either of you need something, let me know.”
“We will.” Dave slipped his watch on.
Somehow they made it through the rest of that week and into the next, exhausting themselves every day. David briefly told Jerriel about his out-of-body experience one night, just before they both drifted off on the couch. He never got to mention what the enemy wizards said about the demon.
No further monster horde attacks gave them all some breathing space, but reports of monster raids on the outskirts and in the wilds remained constant. More foes seemed to surround them in all directions, limiting travel, mapping, an exploration. Let alone hampering any attempts to reach out to other distant communities.
With no enemy to fight, internal tensions continued to mount between various racial and political factions within Michiana itself. The militia had its hands full discouraging looting, petty crimes, revenge violence, suicides, and several troubling disappearances.
Suicides continued to be a major problem, and very upsetting to everyone.
An older woman in her forties climbed up on the Angela Street Bridge near the Portage turnabout one day. David and some of his troops were guarding it on duty. “Another one!” David shouted, and rushed toward her. “Grab her!”
His right hand just brushed the flapping hem of her floral print dress. Her feet were in walking shoes.
She calmly dropped down from the bridge into the churning dark water of the St. Joe River at flood stage in the spring.
She sank without a word.
She didn’t come back up.
The militia river patrol in boats, canoes, and kayaks wouldn’t find her body until a few days later, downriver.
Even the dullest duty could suddenly become a tough one, like that day.
But David grew to look forward to his training sessions with his troops. Swordsmanship, fighting, and small unit tactics and strategy were all skills he both enjoyed and excelled at.
With it came the camaraderie and respect that quickly grew between people risking their lives together. David finally got to know his people relatively quickly. Together they culled out the undesirable and recruited the elite.
Not everyone was suited for the life of a warrior. And if that was the case, then other meaningful work could be found for them. But everyone had something to contribute to the cause of keeping Michiana free and alive.
Many of his troops naturally took and emulated David’s aggressive style of fighting, and tried to obtain or make weapons and armor similar to his. Longsword and tomahawks, sword-hilted fighting dagger. Katana and wakizashi as backup weapons. Bow or crossbow for missile fire. Small shield or buckler, if needed.
David started calling his unit the Blackhawks, an homage to the Chicago hockey team, and the name stuck. Their valor on the battlefield had earned them no small amount of respect, even though most of them joined the unit after the first two days.
“Many of the guard duty sessions can be pretty tedious,” he told Jerriel. Sometimes she went with him when he was stationed at various locations throughout town to maintain peace and order.
Sometimes she stayed home, tinkering with her spells, magic, and enchantments for hours at a time.
There were long hours of patrolling areas block by block, checkpoint to checkpoint. Where, often, nothing happened. But that was the strategy. They kept up peace and order through a constant show of armed force on the streets and at key bridges, intersections, and strategic buildings.
But one night a frantic young mother in her night gown came running to their guard post, telling them her five-year-old daughter was missing from her bedroom.
Other people, including three children and a young teenage girl, had gone missing in that same neighborhood as well. All within a space of the weeks since t
he Merge.
David and a full platoon of three dozen troops searched around the house with lanterns and torches, and throughout the blocks nearby.
The window had been pried open with something like a screwdriver and forced open. No footprints.
They started questioning the neighbors about anything weird going on.
David feared that perhaps a few stray monsters, torgs or perhaps ka-torgs, were still holed up somewhere nearby, maybe in an abandoned house. Those fears were the worst kind, because they usually meant that the missing people had been horribly killed and eaten by hungry monsters.
One neighbor, an older man in his fifties, had a big dead dog in his backyard. It stank to high heaven. The other neighbors complained about it too, and the clouds of flies it attracted.
The man in that house politely told them he hadn’t seen anything that night or any other night. He claimed he had a bad back and would they mind burying the dead dog for him? It had been an old wounded St. Bernard that wandered in from somewhere and expired.
“Our main concern right now is the missing girl,” David told him. “Tell the militia if you see or hear of anything. I’ll send a burial detail to take care of the dead dog tomorrow, if it doesn’t rain again.”
“Thank you, sir,” the man said. “Good night.”
“Good night.”
They walked around the house, heading for the next. David spotted the dead dog stinking up the neighborhood in the backyard. That was weird. He didn’t want to get too close, but the dog hadn’t been injured or wounded in any way. There wasn’t any blood on it. In fact, from the bluish-white and black chemical stains on the dog’s jowls, and the dried pool of bluish vomit, it looked as if the big dog had been poisoned.
Sergeant Eugene Blaylock, a short, beefy guy with black curly hair, shook his head. “Dave, there’s something not right about this house. Look how tight it’s buttoned up.”
David looked it over. Windows and all but one door were nailed shut with boards and plywood–to the point of obsession.
“That’s a lot of physical labor for a guy with a bad back,” David said.
Even the upper windows of the two story colonial had been barricaded, inside and out, apparently. White aluminum siding, dark blue trim. It had been well fortified. Perhaps the owner had a lot of help from neighbors who didn’t have bad backs.
“And he’s only been here since the Merge,” Blaylock said. “Three of the neighbors say so. A divorced woman and her three kids lived here before. This guy told everyone that the monsters took them all. His house in town was burned down, so he started staying here for protection. He had nowhere else to go.”
“Well, he didn’t tell me any of that,” Dave said. “I’ll go have another talk with him. Keep a few troops watching the house. Ask around the neighbors for more about this new guy. Let’s make sure we have some reason to be suspicious before we accuse him of anything. His story could check out.”
“I’m on it,” Blaylock told him.
David went back to the front door and knocked again.
It took a while for the guy to come back to the door. David knocked several times. Maybe he was on the toilet or something.
“What is it now?” the man said. This time, he sounded irritated. Not so polite as before. “I told you I don’t know anything. It’s late and I’m tired. Go away; I’m busy.”
Something smelled wrong. An odor emanated from within the house, and not from the dead dog in the backyard. It smelled like a backed-up toilet and something else.
Like death.
“I just had a few more questions,” Dave said. “I’m sorry, sir. It will only take a minute. May I come in? We can sit down for a moment, if you like.”
The man hesitated. “Oh, all right. But make it snappy. I want to turn in.”
A few locks clicked and the door opened.
The smell wafted out again, even stronger. No mistake about it.
He let David in.
David turned as the man closed the door but did not lock it in any way.
“Would you like something to drink?” the older man said. “I have a bottle of wine open.”
“No, thank you,” David said. “On duty tonight.”
“Oh…sorry.”
David wasn’t about to drink anything this guy might hand him.
“So,” the man said. “You had some other questions?”
“Oh, right.” They sat down in the living room, across from each other in soft chairs. “Have you seen any of the monsters around this area, especially late at night? They would move around cautiously, trying to avoid being seen. There might be only one or two of the smaller ones, and you might mistake them for a person in the dark, or from a distance.”
“Like I told you. I haven’t seen anything.”
Something crashed to the floor upstairs. Then it thrashed and bumped around. “What the hell is that? What’s up there?” Instinctively, David rushed to the stairs.
The older man snarled like an animal and tackled him from behind.
38
The following night, Mason noted that the fighting at the front had definitely returned to the same pattern as before.
Then within the hour, it changed again–this time for the worse.
The enemy mages finally joined the battle both in numbers and in earnest.
They hit the front defensive lines, apparently at random, along much of its length. They struck from both the south and the west.
A dizzying array of destructive spells and magical effects played havoc with the defenders: mostly flame, ice, and explosions. Then there were various kinds of lightning, clouds of poison gas, and bursts of acidic vapors that also burned skin, eyes, mouths, throats, and lungs. And there was magical ice that froze everything in an area solid–including troops.
Mason saw showers of magic needles, spikes, missiles, or slicing blades like shards of glass. The ground burst open violently. Great waves or rushes of water swept in out of nowhere to sweep troops away. Or areas suddenly turned into scalding pockets of super-heated steam that threatened to cook troops where they stood within such zones.
Strange rays of light zapped people and dissolved flesh or caused bones or internal organs to explode violently from within, or boils that erupted and exploded.
Terrifying illusions emerged that put entire units to flight–horrors of the mind that defied rational description. One group swore that a wave of large, flesh-eating insects had instantly swept over them. They ran in panic, although no one else around them could see any bugs at all.
Another platoon said that they were suddenly surrounded by thousands of enormous, poisonous snakes biting and snapping at them. The illusions were always horrifying bugs and other nasty creatures, some that ate their way into or even out of the body.
The defenders reeled in shock, surprise, and fright at all such magical onslaughts, backed up by the regular, conventional enemy assaults.
From what the spotters and observers could tell, there was no pattern to the attacks from the enemy mages. They could occur anywhere along the front lines at any moment.
Various lights and the illusions of lights also flickered and flashed all along the enemy lines. No one could tell if they were the flashes of spell glow from mages, or some of the enemy briefly flaring various colored, hooded lanterns in order to decoy, confuse, and throw off militia attempts at detection or attack.
The enemy clearly proved themselves to be the absolute masters in fighting in these fashions with magical support. According to Thulkara, Sylurria and other nations had used combined magic as part of their military strategy for more than a thousands years.
The foe used every trick and advantage that they could think of against the Urthers.
Mason and the Shooting Stars blasted at the enemy front lines, trying to hit the enemy mages, but their efforts were mostly in vain. They raced back and forth this way and that, trying to isolate the positions of the enemy mages and engage them–to no avail.
&
nbsp; First the fourth line of defense collapsed.
The enemy troops and monsters backing up the mages surged forward in a great rush.
The foe redoubled their efforts, and hit the retreating defenders with everything they could muster–arrows, magic, and massive frontal assaults. They had the militia on the run now, and strove to keep things going that way and roll them up.
The fifth defense lines buckled within minutes of the retreating troops passing within, before they could even catch their breath and turn about to help reinforce it.
The South Bend militia was reeling and in great trouble now. Panic and terror took hold of the troops and the retreat was rapidly in danger of becoming a complete rout as they fled once more.
Militia began to fling their shields and weapons aside and simply run headlong away from the line of destruction. Many were cut down from behind.
Hundreds of small children were being protected at nearby grade school. The intense fighting drove them out into the open, with only a few adults to lead them.
Their militia guards did their best to hold off the enemy advance and give the children time to get away.
But the enemy was moving too fast from what Mason could see.
It didn’t look as if those kids were going to make it.
Major Avery called out to Mason. “Let’s sweep in among those houses and taller buildings over there and cut off the enemy before they intercept those fleeing kids!”
Bill was right. They couldn’t let the monster hordes reach those helpless children.
The main unit cut off the street.
Mason, Thulkara, and Blondie ran into a wide alley between two brick buildings. Some of the kids were still streaming down that alley, the littlest ones, only four or five years old, screaming in abject terror, and in real danger of being left behind by the older kids and the few adults.
Thulkara wove her way among the kids, hewing down any monsters trying to leap among them. Blondie fired his crossbow as fast as he could.
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