Chapter 34

Mykella found herself trapped in some sort of limbo between unconscious minds. She had slipped into Connor’s dream, but now she had freed his soul. She could feel the other thousand of other souls that were unconscious all around her – she couldn’t see them because she was in that strange limbo, but she could feel their presence all around her. And it frightened her a little and made her sad at the same time.

What would happen to these souls? They weren’t dead. Would they awaken? Should she disconnect the dream-lines now that Connor, their Host, is finally dead? She would need to wake up first and sneak into Orion’s castle. That could be done, she mused, now that he is being distracted on all sides.

In fact, she was almost certain that Orion had awakened – she hadn't felt his presence in a while. Maybe she could wake up for a short while.

And that was the last thing her unconscious mind thought.

The next thing she knew, her eyes were opening and were looking at a bunch of leaves which had either fallen on her or were placed over her to cover her up. Agnes would have done that if she thought danger was close.

She lifted her head and looked into the sky. It was cloudless yet darkness seemed to be covering everything nevertheless. A sudden pain went through her heart and she grabbed at her chest. There was nothing wrong with her body, but she could still feel the pain. It was an abstract pain that you feel when you know everything is wrong. It was that six sense tugging at her soul telling her that all is lost.

She closed her eyes and calmed her nerves. She reached out into the unknown universe – the one that Orion has no knowledge of – and realized that both Agnes and Ilias are dead. Her friends weren’t that far behind them. She couldn’t let that happen! Wasn’t she humankind’s savior for Christ’s sake?

She knew that her friend’s army was severely outnumbered by twenty to one. Maybe if she could free the sleeper’s, then perhaps she could change the odds a little more in their favor. It wasn’t a guaranteed victory, but the numbers would be impressive.

Mykella stood up, found that her back was sore, and began limping her way toward the large tower she could see just beyond a small wall of trees. She knew that Agnes was dead so she decided that it would be useless to find her body – she would have to mourn her friend later. The tower was coming closer and she began wondering how the hell she could get into the fortress.

By the time Orion returned to his castle, the mob of Dreamkillers were becoming louder and looking angrier than when he had left them. The darkness was making it almost impossible to see except that a couple of the monsters held flaming torches. Orion smiled as he went to his window to look down at the mob and knew then that the wait was over – ten Dreamkillers were running up to the front door carrying a very large tree, determined to knock the door down.

Orion closed his eyes when he felt the vibration of the first collision.

* * *

The entire brigade of Dreamkillers roared out loud as they saw their human enemies from across the meadow. Their fun begins – neither one of them could remember having a fight as grand as this one – they were too young. Their elders could tell stories of the times of the Great Human Pillage. Their elders had seen many battles.

But now it was time for the young to have their first battle – and they were more than up to the task. They wanted to show their master what they could do. They would die for their King Orion, but they really didn’t think they would die, judging by the looks of their enemy.

They had to give the humans one credit however; they didn’t get intimidated when they heard their war cries.

Vince stopped, almost tripping over an uprooted vine, when he heard the loud war cry. He instinctively reached behind him and pulled out an arrow and began to place it in his bow, and then stopped. They were close, he knew, but he needed more of a vantage point. If he were going to make this work he needed to use the element of surprise.

“How close are we?” asked Tracy as she tried to see through the trees. She didn’t like giving up her spiritual self. It was a choice she made much similar to the one when she chose to become the final guardian to the gate of Eden. But now she wished that she could use her ethereal being to see through the trees.

Vince looked around; quietly listening for sounds he wasn’t too sure he was listening for. “We’re not far now. They must’ve stopped,” he said and knelt down and laid his hand down on the ground. “I can feel the ground move.”

Tracy looked at her son and then knelt down next to him, putting her hand down, but did not feel what he felt. She glanced back up at him behind a questionable look. Something was different about him. For a fraction of a second she saw the young man she had first met, telling him that he must let Orion follow him. But now he looked like some older man with a flicker of all-knowing in his eyes. She couldn’t put her finger on it, but it almost looked like there was some kind of transference when she became “human” again and when he awakened from a death-like sleep.

If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.

Was it possible that he had inherited some of her spiritual abilities?

Vince stood back up and looked forward. “They’re not far – I can almost see them,” he said. He glanced in his hand and realized that he was still holding the arrow. He reached back and placed it back into its bag. “Need to keep moving.”

Tracy watched her son take a few strides before she went after him. She looked down at her hands and laughed inside her mind at how odd this looked. She was a woman no more than thirty (she couldn’t even remember how old she was when she had given up her mortality) but he looks almost like he’s fifty years old. She knows he’s only forty, but that was another strange aspect of his awakening – he seemed to have aged ten years.

“Dear God, don’t let him die before me,” she whispered under her breath. She picked up her pace and began walking by his side.

Chris saw that Karl had raised his sword in a victorious salute and raised her own as well. Deep down, she knew there was no way in hell they were going to be victorious over these hideous creatures of damnation. She looked behind her and saw that almost all of their army had raised their swords in a mirror reflection. Again she felt sorrow for those souls which were about to die – she never wanted to lead a suicide mission. But she had to keep reminding herself that these people knew what they were getting themselves into. It was their choice to come with them.

She only hoped now that Mykella was ending Orion’s reign of terror for good. If Mykella could kill Orion, and even if this small army does all die, then this battle was meant for something.

Karl watched the front line of the Dreamkillers and was wondering why they weren’t attacking. Why were they just standing there screaming their grotesque heads off? What were they waiting for?

But the wait was over.

It was one of the young men in the human army that had screamed and started running forward, toward their enemy. He was screaming curses that were incoherent because of his running. His sword was held high above his head.

By the time the young man had reached the half-way-point, Karl blinked and realized what was going on. “Attack!” he screamed, taking Chris’ free hand, and began running at top speed after the young brave soul who was going to be dead in a matter of seconds.

Vince heard the screaming and knew that the battle had begun. A tear fell from his eye and he looked up into the trees. “Need to get up,” he said and then began climbing the nearest tree.

“What the hell are you doing?” called Tracy as she watched her son climb the tree like he was a child again. There was no way he could have climbed that smooth tree the way he was doing so five days ago. Not at forty years of age (and he looked like fifty now).

“My vantage point,” he called down and said nothing further. He began crawling from branch to branch, from tree to tree, like he was some sort of human monkey.

She shook her head and followed him until he came to an abrupt stop. She wondered why he had stopped and then looked straight ahead of her. There she saw the battle in the meadow – the one she had seen so many years ago. It made her sick just to be watching it.

Karl and Chris were running as hard as their heavy feet could carry them; the armor was weighing them down considerably. He lifted his sword above and around his shoulder, ready to bring it down on the first bastard that met his steel.

But before he could attack that bastard, the Dreamkiller opened its eyes as wide as they would get and black blood spurted from its mouth. It grabbed its neck and that was when they saw an arrow had shot through it from an angle above them.

Chris lowered her sword and turned around and almost fell over her own feet. “Look,” she cried to Karl.

He turned and saw what she was pointing at. He laughed out loud as he watched Vince shoot arrow after arrow at the approaching Dreamkillers, who knew nothing of his whereabouts, hidden behind the leaves of the trees.

It was only Chris and Karl who seemed to have spied their friend in the trees. No one else seemed to have either noticed or else didn’t care that arrows were raining down on them. And at the moment, upon turning back to the battle, it didn’t really matter all that much. Yes, Chris and Karl were grateful that they had one more ally, but in the full scope, they saw that their two-hundred-man army had dwindled down to what looked like a hundred and fifty in less than half an hour.

At that rate, Karl knew that they would all be dead in just under two hours. Not much of a last stand-off. But they had agreed that it would be better to die than to live under Orion’s rule.

Karl looked down and saw that the green meadow had turned into grass of red and when he looked up, a tear in his eyes, he met the edge of a large claw as it swung down and cut through the left side of his head, severing his ear clean off. He screamed and put his hand over the new hole in his head and looked away just as the same claw grazed his chest. He had been in plenty of fights with Dreamkillers before, but this pain was entirely new.

This was a pain that would never feel better. He thought he heard Chris screaming his name, but he could not hear from the side she had been standing on. He didn’t want to look at her like this (this is not the way newlyweds were supposed to look at each other), but he also needed to see her.

He turned (and oh what a slow turn it felt like – everything seemed to be in slow motion) and just as his frightened eyes met her equally frightened eyes – she was frightened for him – he felt the final pierce as the four claws came through the back of his neck and out the front. In the single stroke, Karl’s head came neatly off into the Dreamkillers vicious clawed hand.

The last thing that Karl could think was that he thanked God that he had that last look at his wife before he died.

Before she could control her rage, Chris came after the monster that still carried Karl’s head like a trophy. But she couldn’t get to it fast enough because that similar arrow came down and shot it in its head just under its red eye.

She stopped in her tracks and looked up at Vince. She glared at him behind eyes of hatred. “Goddamn you, Vince!” she screamed. “That one was mine!”

Vince saw that she was about to be attacked from behind and sent an arrow down and fell the Dreamkiller who was running up to her.

Chris turned around and drew up her sword and began waving it at anything monstrous that got in her way, using rage as her ally. She kept a realistic eye open as she scanned the battle and saw that there were perhaps a hundred humans left alive and maybe three hundred Dreamkillers.

She would never call a retreat – they have come so far. She would die for Mykella no matter what happens in the end. And then a memory snuck its way into her mind. It was the last time she had seen Mykella “alive” before she was born. She, Vince, Karl, and Ben Krieger made a tight circle around Mykella and Orion looked at Chris and asked her if she would be willing to die for Mykella.

Well, she thought, I guess I haven’t got a choice now.