Chapter 6
New friends?
A group of four tactically outfitted soldiers appear from around the corner of the crossroad. Two of them carrying grenade launchers and two carrying s.a.w light machine guns. The four walk up to the creature’s corpse and examine it. As they finished checking it, they turn to us.
"Who are you folks and why are you in a warzone just wondering around." The larger of the four stepped forward undoing his helmet. As he pulls the helmet off he runs his hand through is short black spikey hair.
I quickly look sideways at my brothers and think to them
"I am Wingless and these are my brothers Shyft and Baker." They both nod as I say their names. "We are fighting these demons and trying to discover a way to defeat their leader 'Him'." I look from person to person and ask "Who are you? You don’t look like any military I have ever seen."
The man in front of us looked at me skeptically "You are fighting the demons? Using a bow and some shitty weapons. How?" I raise my hand and created a ball of ice energy in my hand. He didn’t move or seem bothered. I send the ball at him with minimal force hitting him in the chest just enough to move him and have him feel it. His eyes widen and he raises his s.a.w
"What the hell was that? What the hell did you do." He asks frantically.
"Calm down, I meant you no harm. I didn’t realize you couldn’t see magick. We are magick users able to create effects using the energy inside of our bodies. We are not your enemies." I say as calmly as I can. Baker moves forward and lays his hand on my shoulder covering me in his energy making sure that if these people attack I have some sort of protection. The other soldiers raised their weapons as well not really knowing what is going on. Shyft lights his hands-on fire and crouches in attack position. I put my hands out to my brother
"Shyft calm down we are not going to fight these people. They are doing the same thing we are doing, just using different means." I turn to look at the four people in front of us. The man that was talking still has his gun trained on me when a voice sounds from behind them from an unseen person.
"Stand down, Sergeant. All of you, stand down. They have not made any threatening actions. You asked how they can fight the demons and he showed you." The female voice was full of authority but not harsh. As the sergeant and others lower their weapons, there is a shimmer in the air in front of us and then a woman in black sleek armor with a pair of basically sunglasses just appears out of that shimmer.
She smiles at us and says "Hi my name is Allie, and I am the commanding officer of this squad. We are from an organization that prefers to remain anonymous. So just call us the Organization." she extends her hand in front of her and says, "Nice to meet you Wingless."
I shake her hand and smile "You too Allie." I say. She shakes my brothers' hands "Baker....Shyft, nice to meet you."
Allie turns and says, "That’s Steve, Bianca, and Roger." She points to the others in her squad. Then she clasps the sergeant on the shoulder "You already know Cliff." She smiles a little.
I think to my brothers
Shyft looks at me
"We have incoming. Two small groups of ravengers." I nod and look back at my brothers
"Well that is the direction we need to go." They didn’t disagree, so we followed Allie to the position that Bianca and Cliff had set up. I let out a pulse of my sensory energy and get back the tell-tale ping of about sixteen ravengers, shambling corpses only intent to eat living flesh. Basically, they are zombies but they aren't infected these were raised by dark magick.
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"There are about 16 incoming, what's the plan?" Allie looked at me in surprise.
"You can tell how many of them there are?"
"Yeah, I can also tell where the 'leash' of energy is going too. Ravegers are usually controlled by someone else." I answer back. I focus for a second and send a more directed pulse to follow that 'leash' and sure enough it ends at the building that my brothers and I were heading to. I relay the info to my brothers quickly through the link. From up the street I can see the two grenadiers, Roger and Steve, have taken up defensive positions a few yards ahead of us. Getting ready to ambush the ravengers no doubt. Slowly the seconds ticked by until the sound of shuffling and groaning starts to become audible.
A few more moments go by before the first of the hoard comes into view. The almost set sun was creating large deep shadows between the buildings. The ravengers enter another four way and are lit up by the golden orange rays washing down the street. Steve and Roger raise their launchers and rest them on the tops of cars to steady the long shot. They both launch two grenades each. We watch them arch toward the group when they suddenly explode in midair with no effect to the ravengers.
"What the hell?" I hear Cliff say confused as to why the false impact. Baker leans over so Allie and I can hear and says
"They are warded with powerful defensive energy. It would take all the fire power you have just to make a dent." Allie looks at us and says,
"We will see about that." She lays down in the middle of the road and lines up a shot. The large rifle made her look even smaller in stature than she already was. She takes a breath and lets it out slowly then pulls the trigger. A large fireball emits from the end of the barrel as the .50cal round speeds down the street intended to take out a line of the ravengers.
My brothers and I can see the effect of the round hitting the energy and then being reflected straight back from where it came. Baker was already moving and pushes Allie to the edge of the street. He raises his other hand and creates a cone of energy in which the bullet gets trapped. He stands from the kneeling position and throws the bullet to Allie.
"Let us take care of this." He says positioning his shield on his arm and then opening his spear. Shyft unfurls his warriors chain and lights his other hand on fire. I drop my rifle and bow; this energy is meant to stop long range so my stuff would be useless I pull my kukris. The blades grow steadily colder and start producing the green and black vapor from my energy coursing through them. I roll my shoulders and say to my brothers
"It's a good day to die." They both reply,
"It’s a better day to live." We take off down the road closing the gap between us and the ravengers. Baker runs between Shyft and myself and puts a hand on our shoulders. I can feel my skin harden and see it take on a silvery sheen. We closed the distance quickly because of our enhanced speed from being magically powered and in no time, we were face to face with the corpses. We penetrate the barrier with no effect and start hacking and slashing the undead assailants to pieces. Making sure to sever the head from the body before turning our back on them. It only took us a few minutes of fighting before the horde was defeated. Shyft walks from body to body setting them aflame. We then bow our heads and recite the Viking funeral prayer that Roland had taught us, when he was alive.
"Lo, there do I see my father.
Lo, there so I see my mother and my sisters and my brothers.
Lo, there do I see the line of my people back to the beginning.
Lo, they do call to me. They bid me take my place among them in the halls of Valhalla!
Where the brave may live forever!"
The squad of Organization soldiers walk up to us as we are finishing and just stare at us in amazement. Cliff looking the most amazed
"What are you guys?" he asks.
"We are the start of the resistance." I reply.
"What resistance?" Allie asks. I look at my brothers and we all knew what had to be said even without using the link.
"We are Sanctuary." all three of us echoed each other. "Or at least the start of it." I added smiling. This was the first time we had ever talked about what our actual plans were. I looked at my brothers and smile
"Roland would be proud of us continuing his legacy." I say thinking of our master. Allie looks up at us with a puzzled look
"Who is going to be in this resistance, you know most people are either too scared or helpless against the demons. Hell, most of the operatives in our Organization can’t even fight these things. They stick to collecting info and helping survivors." I look at my brothers and back at operative group.
"Well we will look for the ones that have magical potential and we will aid them in harnessing that. We will work with others by helping provide non-magical people that are willing to fight with weapons that have been enchanted to work against the demons." I finish by adding "I also hope we can have help from your organization." Allie chuckles and says,
"The Organization doesn’t work with other people." Cliff walks up and whispers something to Allie. She nods and turns back to us
"Sorry guys but we have to be going apparently, we have another mission." Allie turns and speaks to her squad " Let's move out, we have evac in 5 minutes at the lz." The soldiers start getting their things together. They arrange themselves in formation and start heading off down the street without any other conversation.
"So that happened huh?" Shyft looked down the street while talking. "We are going to continue with Roland's Sanctuary legacy." I nod slowly and say,
"I guess so it is the only thing that made sense." I add "Well should we continue with our quest?" Shyft runs up the street and returns with the weapons we had left before the attack. I sling my rifle over my shoulder and nock an arrow on my bow. We set off down the street to the location of what we hope is one of the Keys of Solomon. I take the map out of my pocket and open it. The dot has gotten bigger and brighter, no doubt because we were close to it. We turn the corner and the change in almost immediate.