End of an Age by Mark Tufo
“Keep firing!” Bailey urged when she heard a drop off of percussion. I don’t know if there could have been a more disconcerting sight. And the closer they got, the worse and faster the changes became. I thought maybe it was because they were farther away from whatever source was causing the change, then I realized it was because they were getting closer to Azile’s sphere of influence. The treetops above us swayed as if they were in gale force winds, while all around us the day was still. Powerful forces were at play here. Fifty feet out seemed to be about the range at which the transformation spell from the other side was completely obliterated. Men, women, and children would run a few more feet towards us before they would look into the unyielding metal barrels of our weapons.
Many of Bailey’s people openly cried, but they kept firing. Those poor souls that survived the onslaught would turn and run to the sides or worse yet, back the way they had come, to the Lycan at the tree line. There was no escape for the human victims, they were things to be broken, to be destroyed, and slashed open. Yet still we fired. We were as uncaring about their plight as the Lycan. What choice did we have? A pile of malformed, disfigured, and ruined bodies began to pile up in front of us. Vicious, angry werewolves would jump over the death mound only to land as confused and frightened people. A distant horn sounded and as suddenly as the shit storm had started, it was over. None of us had the heart to shoot those that retreated.
“Holy shit, Azile. Are you alright?” I asked. She looked pale and slightly unsteady.
“There is someone of great power over there.” She looked to me. Pissed off doesn’t even begin to convey the anger on her face.
“I’m sure we’ll deal with that eventually. Bailey, how are we doing for rounds?”
After a few minutes I got an answer; not one I wanted, but an answer nonetheless.
“Between all of us there are slightly under three hundred rounds.”
“Fuck. Okay get your ten best shooters and give them each a full magazine.”
“And the rest?”
“Fix bayonets. Lana, you’re going to want to get on our flanks; you’ll be up sooner rather than later.”
“Have they not had enough?” Mathieu asked.
“They have.” I was pointing to the bodies. “They haven’t.” I pointed to the far side of the field.
Chapter 16
MIKE JOURNAL ENTRY 10
IT HAD BEEN two hours and still nothing. The adrenaline had long ago worn off; even the fear had been reduced to a dull knife edge. In shifts we had soldiers leave the front line to go back and get something to eat, relax for fifteen minutes, maybe take care of a bathroom break. When it was my turn I went right to Oggie, giving him my share of food. He was almost as happy to see me as he was the piece of meat I’d brought him.
“You being a good boy?” I scratched behind his ears. He’d no sooner left a thick wet swath up the side of my face when the cry of alarm came. “When this is over, you and me are going on vacation. You do not get hurt. You understand me?” I grabbed the sides of his face.
Somehow the line of werewolves had gotten bigger.
“This can’t be possible.”
Nobody actually groaned, but it wasn’t hard to feel the wind leave the sails of our ship. Azile had not left her spot, though she looked more rested. I kept offering her water and jerky and she kept politely refusing until finally she told me that if I asked again she was going to find a hidden crevice of mine to store those very things for later use. I got the message quick enough.
“What the fuck are they wearing?” I was squinting my eyes. It appeared that the werewolves had on large green necklaces. Looked like unadorned leis. Last time I checked we weren’t in Hawaii, though.
“Mistletoe,” Azile said breathlessly, and if I thought we had been deflated with the reforming of the enemy troops it was nothing in comparison to the flatness with which she delivered those words.
“Mistletoe as in the Christmas kissing tradition? Are they planning on getting personal with us?” I honestly wasn’t trying to be a smartass, I just didn’t know the significance of the vine-like growth.
“It will be enough to disrupt my counter spell.”
I didn’t ask anything else. Didn’t need to know anything else. The werewolves would now be able to advance unimpeded by any of their humanity. “Shit.” That about summed up my entire range of feelings. “Bailey, you heard that?”
She nodded. Horses nickered to our sides.
“No help coming, Lana,” I told her.
“My father was worried I was too fickle when it came to suitors and that I would die a spinster. He need not worry any longer!” She raised her sword, the Denarthians were digging deep for the remnants of their courage.
The werewolves were at first walking slowly, then trotting; within fifty yards they were at a full-on sprint. I had about fifteen rounds. I was going to make them count and then I was going to put the sword I’d grabbed to good use. And then when that was all done I was going to visit that chasm I’d seen yesterday and figure out if there was a way to construct a bridge. By the time I’d tossed my paperweight to the side, Lana’s forces had already engaged the enemy. Her sword danced and twirled in a dazzlingly lethal display of death dealing. I, in contrast, looked like a lumberjack trying to fell a tree with a spoon. Talbotons joined me, advancing into the teeth of the enemy with their bayonets. Oftentimes in my youth when we studied World War II, I attempted to comprehend the insanity of the Polish army that attacked the German Panzer division on horseback. It was not that they thought they stood any chance of winning, but to do nothing implied you had given up and that was when real loss happened.
“AHHHHHHH! FORWARD!” My voice shredded as I hacked.
I could not have been any more proud of my brothers and sisters as we fought and died side by side. In my right hand I held the sword, in my left the Axe of Vengeance. I figured all mystical blades of yore had famous names; why not this one? Not many could claim to have killed werewolves, Lycan, and zombies. My sword thrust caught a werewolf in the soft membrane of skin underneath its chin. I drove it up and through the roof of his mouth, piercing its brain. I shoved its dead body off my blade with the top of my axe. Muncher drove a bayonet so far into a werewolf it had nearly reached his rear sights. The werewolf looked like it had been punched by the hammer of Thor. We were killing werewolves all right, but we were dying as well.
We would only be able to fight for so long. Exhaustion and attrition would be our downfall. Our last and only line of defense was breaking and reforming as another defender of humanity was swept asunder. My sword was bathed in blood, its thirst unquenchable. I cleaved arms, hacked legs, sliced necks, pierced hearts. I was still losing ground with each kill, as were we all, to the point that we’d been pushed back into the woods, nearly fifty feet. There were pros and cons to this; the trees acted as natural barriers to attacks from different angles but they also prevented assistance from those nearby. This was a divide and conquer scenario. We had no lines of communication open, other than grunts and cries. Each man and woman was an island unto themselves. It was impossible to even gauge how many of us were left. I wasn’t yet the last man standing, but I knew that possibility wasn’t too particularly far into the future.
My arms throbbed from the constant movement and violent contact. Holding on to my life-saving implements was getting progressively more difficult, partly due to the growing slickness from the streams of blood that flowed over my hands. A hundred more yards and we would be pushed back to our makeshift infirmary. There would be no quarter for the wounded. Mathieu was off to my right; he’d changed over from spear to claw a while back. I think he alone could have held his ground and possibly even brought the fight to the enemy. The only reason he yielded ground was to stay paced with me. I occasionally caught glimpses of him tearing through the other werewolves. At one point he had raised one over his head and snapped it in half like one might a dry stick. He’d tossed the dead husk at the next werewolf with enough f
To my immediate left was Muncher. He’d been holding his own well enough but he was beginning to flag. Part of me wanted to help, I really did; I thought about my debt to him. Another part was like, why even fucking bother? I’ve got my own fucking problems and we’ll all be dead soon enough. Yeah, it was a pretty intense internal dialog. I even called myself a couple of names I’d never heard before. When I heard a large impact and saw Muncher go down to one knee, everything else went out the figurative window. After having my sword arm pushed to the side, I came back swinging my axe. The werewolf had come in close to get a bite and I lodged the axe into his snout. I shattered the bones in his mouth. He wasn’t dead, but he was out of the fight, his muzzle unequally split in two. Its tongue lolled about, having been evicted from its structure. Looked like some sort of special effect I’d seen on a science fiction movie a time or two before.
I immediately slid to my left, past two large oak trees. Muncher was on his knees, his rifle still in his hands but it was resting on the ground, he looked like he was about to fold in on himself but wanted to make sure he was as upright as possible when the end came. One of those male pride things, I got it. I didn’t think I was going to make it—the werewolf was already mid-swing, his claws rapidly approaching Muncher’s head, if he wasn’t decapitated immediately his neck would surely be snapped. I shouted in a vain attempt to divert its attention, didn’t work. I threw my sword like one might a javelin. So many things could have gone wrong and only one possible outcome could have gone right. I fully expected the sword to twist and the flat of the blade strike against the werewolf’s arm before harmlessly falling to the ground. Well maybe not completely harmlessly; he would have suffered a pretty good welt.
Maybe the gods of war were finally favoring us a bit. That sucker flew the straight and narrow like I’d launched it from a crossbow. It struck the werewolf in his exposed side, sliding effortlessly between its ribs, guided by a force higher than my own. A heavy expulsion of air from the wound let me know I’d punctured at least one lung and from the depth the sword had sunk, my money was on the second being ruptured as well. The werewolf’s blow did land but by the time it got to Muncher it ended up looking more like a lover’s caress. I left my sword in place as the werewolf fell over to the side, I grabbed the back of Muncher’s collar and yanked halfway up.
“Mathieu! Moving back!” I shouted over my shoulder. We’d gone maybe twenty feet, werewolves, friends, and foes in pursuit. At some point I was going to need to stop and fight. I just had to get Muncher into a defendable position first. The end must have been a lot closer than I’d realized. I’d caught a glimpse of at least two Lycan trailing; the cowardly bastards didn’t usually come around until the closing credits, so somewhere a fat lady was singing. I was within sight of a tail-wagging Oggie when I realized I’d not been bitten at within the last minute or so. I dared a look back, noting that nobody was behind us, at least, nobody living. The Lycan overlords had once again called their dogs off. I leaned Muncher up against a tree. Oggie was already in my face as I collapsed. I’d like to say it was because of my unnatural angle but I was flat out exhausted. I’d burned through everything I had to give. It was all I could do to raise a hand and gently keep Oggie from sniffing my face.
Mathieu was fast approaching. Within three strides he had changed over from one form to the other. “Are you alright?” He’d got down on one knee to check on me. I could not help but notice the latticework of cuts across his chest and abdomen.
“I could ask the same about you.”
“I am mostly fine,” he said.
“Mathieu, help me up. I need to go check on Azile.” He reached a hand down and more lifted me up than anything. “Thanks.” I took a few unsteady steps. Wounded, dazed, and dying people were all around me. Bailey was doing her best to comfort those in their final few moments. I found Azile tending to those who could still benefit from some care. I wanted to go over to her but just knowing she was okay was good enough for now. She was busy and didn’t need me distracting her. She looked up as if she could tell I was looking at her. There was a small smile and an acknowledging head nod. I don’t think either of us wanted the bloody wave she would have given if she’d pulled her hands from the wound she was dressing. Who needs to add that kind of imagery to their nightmare closet?
I backed up to a close approximation of where I figured a tree was. Fairly thrilled when I realized I was right. I slid down, my ass thumping onto the ground. Oggie, who had followed me over, sidled up to me and laid his head down on my lap. Maybe my eyes closed, maybe I dreamed about my eyes closing, maybe I just fucking hoped my eyes closed, whatever happened, it was Bailey that ended that reverie.
“Are you in need of attention?” she asked as she looked down at me. I cocked my head to the side, one eye open.
“That’s about the last thing I want right now.”
She blew past my words as if I’d never spoken them. You know, kind of like every other female I’d ever known. Why should she be any different? “There is much to do.”
“Not all of us are Amazonian,” I reminded her.
“There are twenty-four wounded and sixty-five that have the capacity to fight.”
Running was our only option. Running away fast was the only better one. Personally I would have been hard-pressed to make it to the next tree. Looking around I was convinced I was in the same Greyhound bus as the majority of those nearby. And even if I could somehow rally some energy, we still had the infirm to think about. We could not leave them, and it would be arduous to keep any kind of decent pace up with them in tow. There was always the tree climbing option, but we could not outlast the moon this time, and still, not everyone could climb. We would fall from those branches from exhaustion, starvation, and dehydration.
“Are you counting me as one of the sixty-five or the twenty-four because it really could go either way. Help me up.”
I raised a hand, which she enveloped in her own.
“Our children would be beautiful Bailey,” if not for the tree, her shove would have sent me reeling.
“These are serious times, Michael!” she scolded.
“Humor makes me feel better in times of great stress, Bailey, you should know this.”
“In that case, for the sake of our children we can only hope that our offspring take on more of my traits than yours.”
“It’s not funny if it’s true.”
“I believe that makes it better. Come, we must understand what the Lycan are going to do next.”
“You really think we need a committee to figure that out?”
We were coming up on Mathieu, who had found his way back to the edge of the woods. I’m not even sure if he was aware of it or not, but he was changing form almost with the cadence of his breathing.
“Mathieu?” I called out. The shifting immediately stopped; I thought perhaps he had stiffened when he thought he may have been caught.
“I am having difficulty keeping myself under control.” There was panic in his eyes.
“I see that,” I told him, coming up slowly. “It could be the effects of whatever they have going on over there. It’s okay though, man, you’re slightly easier on the eyes in your other state anyway.”
“Is that a joke too?” Bailey asked, “because I think he is quite handsome as a man.”
“I guess, if you’re into that rugged, chiseled, cowboy look,” I said to her.
All of this fell on deaf ears in regards to Mathieu. “I am also having problems holding on to myself within.”
Now that was a problem. Mathieu, after years of self-analyzing had come to a delicate balance with who and what he was. Controlling—taming the inner beast might be a better way of putting it. If he went rogue right now I was positive there would be little I could do to stop him.
“Do you need to be chained?”
He roared
“Holy fuck!” I’d not been prepared for the outburst and certainly not with those particularly wicked features he presented to me. As quickly as it had come on it had dissolved. He looked resigned to a fate that was being thrust upon him. “What’s good for one should be good for the other. Go to Azile and tell her you need some mistletoe and then when you get it, come back and I’ll tell you and Bailey about a custom we used to have with it.”
If he had changed at that moment and I was to catch a shot of his posterior, his tail would have been firmly tucked between his legs.
“You feel it is safe to leave him untended?” Bailey asked, keeping an eye on him.
“You guys leave me untended.”
“We don’t.”
“Muncher,” I said putting the puzzle pieces together quickly.
“We felt it would be better for us that you had a guardian that cannot speak, that way you would be less likely to talk to him.”
“I figured he was just being quiet because he always agreed with me.”
“There is more you should know.”
“Where’s Lana?”
“That is what I wanted to talk to you about.” She pointed outwards to a spot on the field. Birds had begun to come down and take part in the festivities. A bright gleaming piece of armor reflected the sunlight. It laid still.
“Oh no, no. Not acceptable, dammit.” My head sagged, the weight of the world seemed to grow exponentially on my shoulders. “She was so young. I need to get her body. I owe her that.”
“You cannot go out there.”
“Come on, Bailey, you know me better than that.” I wiped my axe down as best I could with the small area of fabric on me not yet coated in the substance that constituted living beings. I left the perceived safety of the tree line and walked onto that field.
A laugh emanated from the other side.