Chapter 9 – Meetings

Last time on Beyond the LAN: Lots of walkin’ and talkin’ as the boys headed west towards the mountain range where mileena is supposedly being held. A meal and first watch were kept when the howling of wolves and the voices of “The Arzenal’s” army signaled the coming of Darkness. Let’s meet them, shall we?

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My most vivid recollection (or dream, or memory, or brainwashed vision) of where I lived came when there was a storm. I would sit by my bedroom window and watch the sweetgum tree start to sway and bend with the front that was pushing just ahead of the storm. The sky would darken and the metallic smell of rain would filter in through the screen. I then would hear in the far distance rumblings of thunder. The thunder, my mom would say, was God bowling. The rumblings became louder and more distinct. I then knew the storm was near.

“Ok, troops, this is it!” Chuck’s calls brought my focus into the here and now. The rumbling of the wolves’ advance reminded me of those spring and summer days. Only this time the storm was much more deadly.

“Butress and HS…you’re up!” Chuck waved them forward. They were our long distance fighters. Butress grabbed a metallic staff from HS’s condo-tent as his partner picked up his quiver of arrows. Butress walked to the front of the group stuck his staff in the ground, spit on his hands and rubbed them together.

“Here we go.” He picked up his staff that had a sliding mechanism in the center of it. He pumped it with a *chik-chak* and let loose a blue ball of energy. It advanced quickly and after a couple of seconds, he fired a laser at it causing it to explode. Those near the explosion were immediately incinerated. Those within a 10 foot radius made their bodies into gibs of flesh and bone. After every missile he would pump the staff.

“Shock whore.” I said to Jupe.

“The bitches love me cuz they know that I can shock!” he replied without looking back at us.

Immediately after the balls started to fly, HS started his barrage. It was pure art watching him grab an arrow from his backpack, notch it, let it fly, and take another one. Although we couldn’t see the arrows hit the targets, I saw him track them one by one, pivoting slightly or turning and letting loose the arrows. I was confident he was taking them down.

Ten seconds passed by and Butress stopped his firing. “That’s all I have.”

“I’m out, too.” said HS.

The stampede was growing in intensity and I could feel the ground starting to move beneath my feet.

“Ten seconds and they’ll be here.” remarked HS.

“They’ve got bretheren with them!” I called out.

“If you have silver, use it!” barked Chuck.

Jupe’s head turned sharply to his four-legged companion who had her teeth bared and ready to fight. “No! You stay back! You get into a fray, they’ll gang up on you and rip you limb from limb!”

With a slight snarl, she backed off a couple of steps but not completely out of sight.

The hissing inside my head was now audible to the rest of my party as red eyes became visible. Our lights began to reveal bodies moving ahead of us.

“Take them one by one! Don’t be overwhelmed!” yelled Chuck as mileena sparked, revealing a ghostly, transparent apparition. She grew brighter and pulsed, pushing magic through Chuck’s fingertips in the form of an arc of fire that raged into the beasts. The ferocity of the blaze took me by surprise but I quickly regained my senses as something brushed against my leg and made me lose my balance and I fell onto my back.

“Criminy! Who’s got our backs?!” I thought of Lil Skold was usually in the rear of the party because no one wanted to hear his prattling. No wonder they were getting through so easily. From my back I stared up into the sky, a clear cloudless night where the stars winked. I heard the first growls close up and then a short man with a tremendous beard jumped over me.

Quickly rolling over to my stomach I saw this stout, wide, muscular little man brandishing a battle axe running into a wall of wolves that were battling other little men who were stout, wide, and had beards. They positioned themselves between us and our enemies. The ground still rumbled and from behind us great beasts….no…great huge men charged past us wearing furs and little else on leapt into the fray with battle cries.

“Llamas!” which was the code-name given to us by Chuck, “go for the vamps!”

The dark creatures were charging from three points. Flanking themselves around the main battle and others leapt over the main wall of fighting directly into our hands. We no longer needed long range fighters and, for once, were more than happy to go hand to hand.

As I rose up, a vamphyr vaulted over the frontline combat zone and landed directly in front of me. My reflexes were sharp and I was ready to strike with my long sword as soon as he hit the ground. However, I was taken aback by his age. A boy, no older than nine or ten years old, I stopped in my tracks and gave an opening to the creature. He leapt onto me and dug his fingernails into my armorless shoulder and cut deep into the muscle.

“Gah!” Quickly pulling back, I looked at the rest of the vamps that had crossed the first line of defense. They were all children.

“My god.” I whispered. I barely blocked another attack by my counterpart. He had no qualms about my age. The boy reached behind his back and pulled out a silver sword. Not only young, but trained to fight and fight towards their opponents’ weaknesses. My sword clashed with his and even though young, his strength almost matched mine. I had to gain the upper hand somehow. His attacks kept me off balance striking at different angles and directed at all parts of my body. Reeling and stumbling backwards, I backed into something solid and furry. Looking up I saw that a huge barbarian stopped my progress.

With no chin to speak of, his whole torso bent down to look at us. He stretched his arms out with a span of at least ten feet. As if to smack a fly, his hands came together and right in the middle of the two of them was the creature’s head. The barbarian hurdled me and then lumbered to the frontline. I was left to wipe myself off. Not quite the way I would have done it, but the result was the same.

“These are freakin’ girls!” I heard Burnsy yell.

“They,” Chuck retaliated a complex attack from a little girl with a spiraling move of his own, “are NOT human anymore!”

I now had one on my back. Dropping my sword, I reached over my head to pry her loose. Her one claw dug into my bleeding wound and pain shot down my back making me fall to my knees. I could hear her hissing and getting close to my exposed skin.

Gunblaze extended a hand toward Skold. “Stay back, Skold! I don’t want my buddy injured on his first trip! Watch and learn!”

Gunblaze ran up to my situation, drew his sword and with a clean swipe, cut her head off which plopped to the ground. He put his sword back into its hilt.

“Oh mama! That there, Skold, was a twenty on the attack die!” He hip thrusted twice and was jumped by three attacking wolves.

The headless body still had its grip on me and I swore to god in heaven that I was not going to be like Burnsy and have appendages stuck to me even if it meant gaining a few more holes in my back. I ripped the body off me and I fell to the ground exhausted. I could only watch from this point on.

As our luck had it, the three wolves picked the only one of us who had armor on and Gunblaze quickly diminished any hope of the wolves hurting him when Skold threw him his most coveted sword. The Bloodmark Sword. A halbred forged from dwarven mountains, of purest metal, and encased with elven shamanism. This was presented to him by both the leader of the dwarves and elves when he saved the western hemisphere from a ruthless defiler aptly named Adimas.

Gunblaze and the sword seemed to have a seamless bond to where each would move as one by instinct and heart. Gunblaze did not even look to the side, but the sword moved gracefully to impale a wolf and without hesitating, he swiveled to one knee, pivoted, and killed another in mid-air that was leaping towards him.

I felt my back getting wet. The vampire must have ripped out more flesh than I first thought. My head was pounding but I no longer heard their voices in my head, which was a good sign. I saw Butress come over to me and lay a blanket over me.

“Don’t get up.” He must have yelled it, but to me he sounded like a 72rpm record on 33. Eyes blurring as Jupe defended his companion against two wolves advancing. Little men…with beards running around…on barbarian shoulders. Mileena sparked. Burnsy….yelling…..Skold….

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I awoke to the sound of Jupe yelling.

“I took that crap over six hours ago! You should have gotten wind of it and been here way before this!”

He was talking to a nine-foot-tall bulk of a man. Being five-ten himself, Jupe was almost yelling at the man’s bellybutton.

When the man replied, his deep voice went through you and rattled loose any earwax you might have had.

“Well, you know…” he didn’t make eye contact with Jupe. How could he, I thought.

“What? WHAT!?” growled Jupe.

The barbarian bent downward and gurgled something to him. Jupe cracked a smile.

“Heh-heh.” chuckled Jupe. He slapped the man’s thigh. “I don’t blame you. If I had to decide between sex and fighting, I would of….” he trailed off and then waggled his finger at us, “Hell, y’all be dead now!” They both bellowed at this.

“Lemme get something straight.” Burnsy strode up to the two of them. “You told them to help us out by crappin’?”

The barbarian puffed his chest out. “Isn’t any better way than that! You think there’s gonna be trouble, eat something that upsets your system. You need time alone with the little woman, eat a sweet fruit. How do you think animals communicate?”

Jupe turned to Burnsy who had a look of disbelief on his face. “I had sensed we were being followed so I sent out a signal.”

“By crapping.” monotoned Burnsy.

“Yep,” replied the big guy, “so we picked up our drinking buddies and here we are.”

“You didn’t even tell us,” complained Burnsy.

Jupe furrowed his brows. “No need to have gotten your pretty pink lacy underwear all bunched up.”

“HEY!” Burnsy pointed a finger at him. “There are times I want to feel…pretty. Sue me.”

“Step aside, girls, I got to see how our savior is doing.” Chuck broke their conversation up and started to walk towards me. Butress was administering a salve to my shoulder.

“This will numb the shoulder for a while.”

Chuck looked down at us. “How is he doing?”

Butress did not look up at him, instead he concentrated on my wounds. “The dwarves are creating a sling that will provide both flexibility and protection to the arm. If he abuses it too much, breaks the stitches, nerve damage and loss of any type feeling in the arm and shoulder.”

I looked up a Chuck. “I-I just froze when I saw they were just babies.”

“Yer always getting your ass kicked!” I knew Burnsy had said it as a joke to get me to smile but I didn’t feel like smiling.

“Just think how many sons and daughters we killed tonight.” I looked up at everyone. “Those kids probably have moms and dads at Whitehaven wondering where they are. I-I wasn’t able to save them.”

Chuck leaned down to me. Lights and shadows created from the torches around the camp flurried across his face. “They died months ago. You’ve kept so many alive with your vigils in Whitehaven. You’ve got to think of it that way or else you’ll go crazy.” He put his hand on my good shoulder.

“Now, get some sleep. We’ll have a home-cooked meal tomorrow night.” Chuck stood up. “That goes for the rest of you. I’ll finish the watches.”

Butress gave me something to drink that he said would make me sleep soundlessly. I told him that I haven’t had one of those since we left the Earth.

“Who the hell kidnaps children and turns them into this?” I asked no one in particular.

HS offered me a room in his tent and as I was going in through a side door, I saw Chuck sit down with what looked to be the leader of the barbarians and the dwarves. Speaking in low tones and drawing in the dirt, I could not tell what they were speaking of, but I didn’t like the fact that we were being left out.

I pulled myself into a sleeping bag, my arm resting on some extra pillows HS had. My mind drifted from the fighting of tonight, to the rumblings of the wolves, and finally to the thunderstorms of home.

As the rains started I would press my face against the screen mesh of my window, close my eyes, and listen to the patter of rain against the leaves of the sweetgum tree. My heart would slow, my breathing calmed, and I would think of things inconsequential.

-Next, “Home”.