The catwalk creaked as they walked down. Stepping over the pile of corpses slashed and half frozen; was the most difficult part so far, though looking down into the swirling pool of muddy water through the thin metallic railings was a close second.
“Ah, dammit.” Fen muttered, “Does it always rain here?”
He shook his head; fat droplets of water splashed out and splattered the granite walls, and the three humans beside him. Ernesto, Seth, and Alfredo were speaking with one another; fondly remembering when they were hired to install these very catwalks. How scared Ernesto had been.
“It usually doesn’t.”
One of the humans; a middle-aged man who they had rescued from the church.
“It’s an awfully convenient thing for Roki though, isn’t it?” One of the Efrans taking up the rear said. “Surely those apostles of Earth would be slowed because of the rain, no?”
Fen had cast a translation spell on each of them so they could better communicate during combat.
“And the river would flood, and the lake would be in trouble of flooding...” the man responded. “Think it might have been something set up?”
“Could be.” Fen said; tugging at a tuft of white fur on his chin, “It would be a strategic move; weaken not only the response time of certain parts of the world, but also weaken infrastructure, and even kill off entire population centers. Tell me; what parts of the world are currently being hit the hardest by the invasion.”
“Hit the hardest? Well, as far as I know, Australia’s already fallen except for the northern tip. Something about a massive monster rampaging across the outback.”
“Australia? Where is that?”
The blond man pulled out his phone opened up a map of the world and scrolled out until Australia came into view and showed the Myko a map of the continent.
“So did this place have any disasters?”
“I don’t think so.” The man said as he pulled the phone away before the rain destroyed it completely.
“No, remember, there were those hurricanes.” One of the other humans chimed in.
“Ah! You’re right. Pretty big hurricanes hit it when was it...”
“July.”
“Right, July. Two at once, hitting the biggest cities on either coast.”
“Right, John here,” the other man smacked the shoulder of the last human in the group, “Thought that it was some kind of government depopulation thing.”
John was the youngest of the militia by far. 18 or 19 years old. He was a thin boy, with a thin, freckled face that terminated in a pointed chin, and straight auburn hair. He wore a pair of round glasses that sat at the tip of his square nose.
“So aside from this Australia place, is there anywhere else that was hit hard?” Fen asked.
“Lots of places in the Middle East.” John said as his eyes glazed over for a moment, “Cairo has been captured, Algeria is nearly captured, Jordan has fallen completely, and Israel is in chaos; though that’s normal.”
“How do you know all of these, John?” The blond man asked.
“His parents said he’s artistic, or something like that.”
“Nah, I just try to keep up on current events.”
“Did any of these places have a disaster?”
“Yes, all of them. A massive sandstorm from the Sinai desert has been battering Egypt for months now. It’s unusual. A typhoon in the Red Sea swelled the Nile and flooded its bank...”
“Okay...that’s enough. I do think this storm is unusual now. There’s something else causing it.”
“What can do that?”
“A mage at Lawrence’s level could.” Fen said, “And if that’s the case, we have to hope not to run into it without him around.”
“Is he really that strong?”
“He is.” One of the Efrans cut in, “You don’t know because you haven’t seen it. Alone, he killed two hundred soldiers after killing an apostle.”
“An apostle? Aren’t those the really strong monsters those chosen fight?”
“Not, ‘monsters,’” Fen said, “Efrans. Apostles are chosen by their gods. I’m one.”
“Oh...sorry, but they’re supposed to be really strong, right?”
“Most of them, yeah.”
“The Sage killed one of those things?”
“He did.” The large deerman grunted, “Cut him in two.”
“Not with a spell?” Fen asked.
“No, he used a sword. That dagger he carries was forged from the shards of the blade, and with the blood of the apostle.”
“Interesting.”
“Well, I’d have to see it to believe it.”
John, on the other hand, was excited to talk about it. While information about Lawrence was scarce, the video of him defending the hilltop from an army alongside the Strategist really stirred something deep inside. If John ever got chosen, he would want to be like that: a mage raining destruction on their enemies at a distance. Ah, if only some god or spirit took interest in him...oh well, at the very least he wanted to become a hero, even if he didn’t have magic or a god backing him, and he would do that by the barrel of a gun.
The tunnel’s entrance was broad; measuring about six feet across and twice that in height; bored strait into the granite walls, and stretching out into blackness. Seth, Fen, Alfredo, and Ernesto took the lead; their lights cutting through the blackness. The enemies they encounter are put down quickly by either Seth or Fen. A large minotaur; whose horns brushed the ceiling of the tunnel? an icicle through his chest. A sling-using satyr throwing explosive bullets? Boiling water to blind it, and a saber’s sting to end it. No matter how deep they went through the tunnels, they couldn’t find a single human being; slave or not.
Strange moss grew on the wall that glowed a strange green. John ran his fingers over a patch of it, and it stuck to his fingers. It was cold and damp, but not slimy as he was imagining. These patches of moss led further and further down into the bowels of the earth. Arches of fresh lumber held up the sagging earth ceiling once they made it through the granite and began to walk through the tunnels of deep, damp earth. Flickering lanterns hung off the beams. Picks lay abandoned, embedded in the earth, with discarded shovels lying next to them. Had the work already been finished? Were there already tunnels stretching to Porterville? No, it wouldn’t have taken that short.
As they continue down the tunnel, the new beams begin to slowly fade into older and older ones. Some damn near rotted all the way through; held together with hopes, dreams, and shiny new rivets and steel plates.
“Have you guys heard the stories about tunnels running underneath Porterville before?” Seth’s whispered words carried like an echo.
Indeed, there was an old story sometimes told by the old folks of Porterville about tunnels dating back to the time of the Civil War stretching beneath the streets of Porterville
“Think this is them?” John responded excitedly.
It had been one of John’s favorite local myths. There was something romantic about ancient tunnels under the very streets he walked on. Perhaps their entrance was hidden in the oldest buildings in town: the old church off of Main, the Victorian manor turned museum.
“Perhaps, or perhaps the remains of an old mine, but what I do know is that there are Doors here. Embedded in the walls, standing in the middle of the tunnel...almost as many as there are on the streets above us.”
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His voice wavered. Was he scared? What was there to be scared of? They were closed and couldn’t be opened right; John thought.
“Should we go in quickly and close them?”
“No... this one here is a level 90. There’s no way the two of us could close it. I think we should find the slaves and get the hell out.”
“Should we come back with Lawrence?”
“It would have to be after we settle the cult nonsense.” He said with a sigh, “That’s the most pressing problem facing Porterville and the valley.”
“I don’t understand something.” Fen said, “Why is it that they’re focusing their attacks here of all places.”
“Agriculture,” Seth said. “We’re known as a breadbasket; we grow a large percent of the crops for the nation.”
“Ah, so that’s it. Surely your nation is putting all of its resources into defending this place then, no?”
“I wish.” Seth chuckled, “No, they’re more worried about protecting large cities, and trade hubs.”
“...without food, those’ll be graveyards in a few months.”
“I know.”
“Is it incompetence or...”
“Opening ahead, over.” Came a voice over the radio Seth had clipped to his belt.
Alfredo had gone ahead of the group once the number of enemies thinned out.
“10-4, over.”
“Making my way back, over.”
The Efrans tensed up, and the humans there racked rounds into their guns. They met up with Alfredo a couple of minutes later. The damp smell of earth was replaced by the pungent odor of copper and viscera wafting in from the opening they neared. Seth was the first one through the entrance. He extends his hand as he freezes on the spot. He pivots on his heel before a massive force slams against his back from behind. His body flies down the tunnel and rolls against the ground.
“Run.” Was his only command before he raised a wall of ice behind them. The ice blocked the opening, and whatever had hit Seth slammed against it with enough force to crack it.
The militia began to chase after the fleeing chosen, as another loud thud and a sudden rush of air let them know that the ice wall had been shattered.
“What about the slaves?”
“They’re all dead,” Seth responded. “Used in some ritual...”
“What’s in there,” Fen asked.
“I don’t know what it is.. a mass of green, barbed tentacles, sucking the blood from their open chests....” Even in the faint light of the lanterns, John couldn’t help but notice the man’s skin take on a noticeably paler shade of white. “Efrans — hundreds of them, surrounded it with their arms raised, silently moving their mouths. The eyeless, formless mass of tentacles seemed to notice my presence and reached out toward me. That’s when I ran.”
The blond man, who had fallen behind the rest of the group, yelped as he fell face-first into the hard-packed ground. He turned his body and fired a couple of shots down the tunnel. John glanced back and noticed a shimmering, emerald tentacle wrapped around the man’s ankle. It pulled him hard and fast through the tunnel and slammed him against the wall. The gun fell out of his grasp as his eyes spun in his head.
Fen leaped back and sliced the tentacle with a downward chop. The man fell to the ground, and Fen helped him up, but another tentacle latched around his waist and pulled him further in. He latched onto Fen’s arm in mortal terror and pulled the fox thing to the ground as the tentacle dragged them away. Fen freed his arm and went to pick up his dropped saber, but it was too late. He was already too far gone to help, so Fen grimaced and sprinted forward.
One of the Efrans was next; the deerman who had been chatting casually with the rest of the group a mere five minutes prior, was yanked down by the throat and dragged backward. Seth tried to step in to help, but the tentacle yanked hard to one side, and after a sickening crack the burly arms of the large deerman hung slack at its side as it was dragged backward into the black. Thanks to the moisture in the air, Seth managed to form two more walls of pretty solid ice behind the group as they continued to run to hinder the reach of the monster at the end of the tunnel.
Another moment later, they were broken through, and another Efran; and Ir, were yanked away screaming and thrashing, by the leg, before being slammed against the wall. John had never run so fast in his life. When the dim gray light of day finally began to bleed through the dark, a wave of pure joy flowed through him. A joy that drowned out the screams still echoing in his mind. A joy that lasted until he felt something wrap around his ankle, and pull him off his feet. The world rushed by, as he turned his rifle down. Thorns bit down into his flesh, and he felt a rush of cold through his body. From the feel of it, and from the bite of the thorns, he knew, at once, that this was not a tentacle of some deep-sea creature; no, this was a living vine of thorns.
He shot his rifle into the vine, and the bullets tore chunks out of the plantlike flesh, but those wounds quickly recovered. Seth was chasing down the vine; John had been one of Paul’s friends, and much too young to die so soon, but he was too slow. The vine wrenched John to the side and slammed him into the granite walls. He hugged his rifle his body right before the impact so that he didn’t let go of his weapon. Even then, in the middle of the panic he was feeling, he knew he wouldn’t stand a chance. His bullets wouldn’t do anything...ah, if only he had access to those guns that the sage enchanted, or if he could use magic. Wait. Who’s to say he can’t? What were the words on those rifles? He aimed down toward the vine. Oh, right, there needed to be a rune as well? What was the rune for fire that he saw all the Western magic users on war-efra use?
He drew a triangle with the barrel of his weapon and uttered the inscription currently carved on the howitzer the militia had within the underground complex:
“Oh thou Salamanders; dancers within the fire, lend thy bite and lend thy ire.”
A hot wind flowed through John’s nostrils and down his throat. This wind pushed through his body and circled his heart and up his arms. He pulled the trigger and his shoulder jerked back as the barrel exploded in a fireball. The ball of flame slammed against the vine and tore through it; freeing John. He hopped up and sprinted toward the exit. Seth rose four walls of ice, and soon they were both out of the tunnels and climbing up the catwalk. They were safe. Safe.
John stopped as soon as he was at the top of the pit walked to the nearest truck and leaned against it. Ernesto fetched a potion from his pouch and handed it to John.
“Drink it.” He said, “Holy shit you’re in bad shape.”
And he felt it. His head throbbed, his arm ached, and his ankle was swollen.
“Seth, we’re going to head back and get this guy to Lawrence to heal.”
Seth looked back to the truck.
“Do that. We’ll be right along. Unplug the generators! Roll them into the back of the Uhaul.”
“Was that magic you used?” Alfredo whispered to John as he helped the kid into the front seat.
John nodded as the adrenaline faded and the pain assailed him. He spent the drive back writing in pain. It took nearly an hour to drive from the quarry to the orchard. When they were finally there, a crowd of people meandered near the treeline of the orchard, forcing the car to a standstill. Among the crowd, Alfredo spotted Laura hugging and reassuring her younger children.
“Laura! What’s wrong?”
“Oh thank god you’re back. Where’s Seth and Fen?”
“They’re still back. We have another injured with us.”
“Quick, let me use your phone.”
Alfredo fished his old Motorolla out of his pocket, unlocked it, and passed it to Laura.
“What’s going on?” John managed to stutter as he peeked over the window.
“The Cove is under attack, and Lawrence is defending it alone.”