We marched along the winding mountain roads. A human army would have been exhausted by the ascent. The cold air would have cut to their bones. Our beastly troops were unphased by the journey.

Lonely pines grew in patches of dirt, little oases or perhaps prisons among the rocks. Few things lived that high. The road was desolate, a total wasteland, save for those few hardy evergreens.

The highway was curvy, steep. Signs warned of falling rocks, replacing those that cautioned drivers about deer. Just ahead of the frontmost rank of our horde a sign proclaimed that Diefenbaker was a mere twenty miles away. We were near the top, most of those twenty miles would be downhill.

Up there the peaks seemed to be reachable. It was as if the white caps could be touched by simply reaching out, grabbing a handful of snow.

There it was. John’s pickup raced up the road. The purpose of the thing on its roof was clear now. It was a rotating mount for an M2 .50 caliber heavy machine gun. This was a weapon that was often mounted on aircraft. It would blast gaping holes in our troops. The ammo belt was long, filling a metal box that was attached to the side of the mounting.

[Our army is so vast it would matter,] The calm voice reassured his companions.

We felt something else. The truck was stuffed with powder, powder which was tightly wrapped up. And color, such color!

A few seconds of confusion passed before we were able to figure it out. The vehicle’s bed was stuffed with fireworks.

(The young fool thinks that some paper and gunpowder will be enough to stop us. Let him embarrass himself.)

[The older one, the veteran, he would have known better. Thank the goddess for our powerful vision.]

Lit torches were jammed into the stake pockets. While Jill operated the massive machine gun, Gavin stood in the bed. Grabbing, lighting, tossing, this was how he emptied the truck. There was no aiming. He didn’t even try. He ignited and threw massive mortar shells, big multi-rocket displays, cluster charges, sparklers and firecrackers tied together in long strings.

The fireworks went off. Rockets raced in every direction, spiraling and twisting randomly, leaving behind thick trails of smoke.

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

A cacophony of little pops and big booms. The blasts echoed around the valleys, off the cliff faces and the snowy caps. The sound started a few small avalanches in the surrounding hills, the tumbling rock and ice adding to the cacophony.

Weeping willows, the golden strands hanging there like the slow deaths of cosmic phenomenon. Bottle rockets racing in all directions, bursting into screaming embers. Firecrackers snapping with surprising vigor.

Shells burst into countless sparks. Metallic blue, radiant copper, berserker red, alchemical green. Sparks in every imaginable color. Flickering and spraying. Countless sparks, more than there were stars in the sky.

In unison, all three of the voices cried out in horror that they had been rendered blind. The barrage of loud and colorful inputs was too much for our senses. They guarded themselves by simply shutting down.

None of the three had ever known the dark as other beings know it. Blackness, like the blackness of the void, darkness without even the pinpricks of far-off stars. Only one thing remained, one thing in all of creation, her. From deep within another place, another realm, she waited on her throne.

And in the nothingness, we could see her more clearly than ever. It was even clearer than during that first ritual. Even clearer than with the aid of the magi’s chemicals, there in that ancient starport. And we saw that she is more beautiful and terrible that we can grasp.

Dull and blurred, our senses returned. They swept a scene of total carnage. Black and green blood pooled ankle high. Bodies shredded to pieces by the .50 cal. Corpses piled up so that no clear path could be found across the battlefield.

The few troops that still lived stood there in a daze. Monstruous hands were clasped over sense organs which were beyond the comprehension of the people of that savage world. The fireworks had blinded our spawn too. The assault had been turned into a shooting gallery.

Then the truck slammed into us. The push bar shattered several bones and caused a few organs to burst. We were pushed along, still half blind, feebly trying to work our way off of the vehicle.

The pickup stopped, the breaks screeching and the tires burning. We kept going, the momentum sending us forward. We fell, sliding across the pavement, coming to a halt against a guardrail.

We could feel the truck move closer toward us. The three of us fought off panic as we got up. It was a slow, painful process. We lost our balance, nearly fell, managed to steady ourselves.

Behind us, a sheer drop. A tall, rocky cliff face led down into a long gorge. A raging river cut through this gorge, turning a sleepy valley into a roaring conflagration. The three enemies got out of the truck and walked to us, weapons at the ready.

Smoke hung in the air. It drifted away in thin whisps and little puffs. These combined to become a heavy haze. The stench of sulfur was overwhelming. Burning paper rolled around in the breeze. Cardboard tubes smoldered.

Gavin strode over to us, calmly pressing shells into the magazine tube of a shotgun. We stepped away, nearly fell again. Existence went blurry. Colors popped and jigged. Distance folded and tumbled.

The young man spoke to us, “I’m not going to do this for pleasure. I’m going to do it to protect the innocent. But I’m still going to enjoy it.”

We tried to leap at him. He emptied the weapon into us. We tumbled over the edge.