We tore out of the hallway with Wyatt and myself in the lead, and the ladies behind us, our weapons ready but not firing until we had good targets.
Though out of the corner of my eye, I saw Ella cut down a surprised cultist with her sword in passing, so that was a start. Fortunately, big as it was, and crowded, the stage wasn’t that big. We also didn’t have far to go.
And most important of all: we were practically being ignored.
Not surprising when a strange, hovering hole to somewhere else, with floating eyes in the darkness of it starts gushing gallons upon unending gallons of slime onto people literally trapped in their seats.
So yeah, in that moment we were kind of a sideshow, at best.
For the moment, that was the best place to be, for as long as possible, until we were as ready as we could get. Which wouldn’t be ready enough, but that was the nature of war. You go to war with the army you have, not the army you dream about.
And at this moment, on this stage with that giant audience, we were definitely at war.
A few cultists finally noticed us as we reached the center, the last few right before we could reach their twisted orchestra, and they whirled around to face us. Wyatt and I opened fire, dropping the ones immediately in front of us and clearing a path for the instrument players that encircled their glowing device. For a moment, it seemed like we had a straight shot at them, and their glowing gizmo behind them before any of the rest could react.
But that moment came and went in the blink of an eye.
I quickly sighted one of the instrument players, while the rest of the cultists, and actual orchestra people for that matter, all finally began to resister us among them. However, before I could shoot a strange glowing, shimmering dome of light came down from the floating hole around the twisted orchestra. I fired anyway, as did Wyatt, but our shots didn’t even bounce off the shimmering wall.
They just got caught, hanging in midair, before falling to the ground, all their momentum taken from them.
We came to a halt just on the other side of the energy dome, unsure of what to do. Above us, the hole had stopped spewing slime, likely for when it switched to the energy shield, but then it slowly started back up. Around us, the cultists, now once more paying attention, began to circle around us, ready to attack.
We were not in the best of positions at the moment.
Well, at least things can’t get any worse. I couldn’t help but think as I desperately searched for a way to get around the energy bubble.
“Welcome, welcome, welcome!” The head cultist shouted to us with loud laughter, his voice somehow carrying across the whole hall. “My my, look who it is! The legendary fools of the throwback humanity, desperate to save you all! To keep you bound in primitive, basic, human forms!”
Oh, I was wrong. I thought sarcastically as I turned to face the mad lunatic. Things just got so much worse! Now we’re stuck hearing more self righteous monologuing!
“I’d heard a bunch of so-called living legends had been gathered here tonight, I just didn’t think I’d meet you in person!” The head cultist continued, laughing at us. “Hey, could I get your autographs?”
“Sure.” I laughed at him. “I’m happy to give you my signature in hot lead or cold steel!”
If there was one thing I refused to do, it was cower before the likes of this guy. I knew that death would have me at the appointed hour, like everyone else, for there were no exceptions to that. And when I finally met my end, whether tonight or decades from now, and stood before the Throne of God, I would not be counted as a coward.
‘God hates a coward’ my father likes to say.
I would not be someone God Almighty actively hates.
So as I looked at the lunatic head cultist, in spite of our situation and bad odds, I just smiled and laughed at him.
He didn’t look like he was taking it very well.
“You dare act as though I am a joke?!” He shouted, his cocky veneer giving way to instant rage. “You stand at the moment of triumph of our great one! And you would laugh?”
“Oh, I’ll do more than that you self absorbed windbag!” I shouted right back, facing him down and looking for a clear shot. “I’ll stand against you and your false god! For the Lord is with me! What have I to fear?”
I figured that would set him off, if nothing else would. I was right.
“You dare mock his great power and status as a mighty deity?” He ranted at me, while all the other cultists faced us with weapons out, but had stopped advancing. They, like the captive orchestra and even the wider audience, I suspected, were getting caught up in the drama.
Problem was, at the moment, I couldn’t do much with it. Yet, anyway.
“All the power you see being displayed before you, and yet you still cling to the pitiful man obsessed construct of your Lord?” He half shouted, half condescendingly laughed at me. “Our great Xantrogis is from the darkest of marshes between the stars and the depths of the void! He knows secrets from beyond worlds and ages long past! Behold his power!”
He gestured from the floating portal-hole that was steadily starting to spew more slime again, to the shimmering fields of energy to the still captive audience.
“And you would still cling to the Lord of Hosts?” He asked, looking at me in patronizing curiosity and condescending sympathy. “Despite all this raw power before you, and arrayed against you?”
I fully turned my back to the twisted musicians, whose music was still grating at my spirit, pushing at my thoughts and emotions in bizarre ways, and focused on the head priest.
“Always.” I replied stoically, my voice carrying as I glanced at my friends, our weapons at the ready. “After all, your false god has a beginning. Which means he has an ending! He has peers and rivals, which means he has equals. He has created nothing! He only twists what someone else has made! Why the hell would I worship such a small, worthless, false god like that?!”
I laughed at the high priest again, just to drive the point deeper under his skin. “I belong to He who has neither beginning, nor ending! Him to who all bow to! He who is all powerful!”
“Do you now?” He replied coldly, looking furious on a deep, personal level. “Well then, allow me to show you a different perspective!”
With that he raised his hands and shouted something in a strange, unintelligible tongue, and the slime once again cut off as a new shimmering, glowing box enveloped all of the stage.
Before any of us could say anything, the glowing field of energy, which was a hazy purple color, began to lift up off the stage, with us still in it!
“You just had to chat with him!” Wyatt half yelled, half laughed as we; the cultists, their machine, and ourselves all began to float up and out into the middle of the vast room. “Couldn’t just shoot him, no! Not Wild Ranger! He has to chat it up with his enemies first!”
“Couldn’t get a clear shot.” I snapped back reflexively as we slowly came to a halt, hovering in the middle of the massive room, with the eyes of roughly three thousand people more or less glued to us. All of us, cultists included, were a little shaky on our legs for a moment, but as we stood there, on what almost felt like hazy, purplish tinted glass, we quickly became confident that we could move around.
I also noticed that the captive orchestra was left behind on the stage.
In fact, the only ones that had been lifted up had been everyone who’d been standing, except for the orchestra’s conductor, since he’d been just outside of the energy field. Lucky him. The rest of us were now up inside a giant glowing box, with our enemies, and no cover.
“Behold the true might of the harmonies of the dark of the void and the hidden depths of the marsh from between the stars and beyond this mortal veil!” The head priest again shouted, and then he turned and actually started conducting the twisted little group of instrument holders. I stared, stunned.
This guy was going to conduct as well?
Seriously?
Then he actually did it, and suddenly, springing from their little circle was a milky-green light that spread out like a disc, and slowly poured across the room. It passed right through me, and it was like I was suddenly hammered with all the base desires of my body all at once!
I wanted to eat.
I wanted to run.
I wanted to drink.
I wanted to have wild sex.
I wanted to kill.
I wanted to scream.
I wanted to rage.
I wanted to do something!
Everyone around me whom the light touched was groaning, yelling, bobbing on their feet in confusion. Not just us, or the cultists, but the audience down below were groaning as well. The music had somehow created this light that was driving the desires of my body, my flesh, full tilt wild!
Wait a minute. My mind, which was struggling desperately to keep me standing upright and sane, suddenly latched onto that. The music? I wonder if that would work? I mean, why not?
Still groaning from the mixture of desires roaring through me, I turned and looked back down to the stage.
“Play something!” I shouted down to the conductor on the stage.
He looked from the slowly encroaching wall of sickly green light to me, and stared in confusion.
“Push back their music!” I could barely put my idea into coherent words beyond those basics. “Play something grand! You’re still able to use your instruments! Play a song for God! Play for the greatest audience member, like your life depends on it!”
This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.
That was about as coherent as I could get, which I hoped was enough.
No clue if it would work, even if they did do it.
The twisted, foul music of the cultists was shoving it’s way through me, all but making me physically sick. At a glance, I saw that Wyatt, Lilly and Ella were hardly any better, while Maggie looked torn between needing something to kill, and needing someone to take her to bed. Hard.
Not a lot of room for planning, or fighting.
The actual cultists seemed enraptured by the music and the light show, and just stood where they were, basking.
I looked back at the conductor, but he was already gesturing to the orchestra, and they were moving around, pulling off music sheets for others underneath them. All still glued to their seats, but still able to play all the same. For the first time, I saw that there was a choir to go with the orchestra sitting in rows along the wall, apparently also trapped.
Guess I’d had some tunnel vision.
Then, the conductor shouted, I think, though at that point I couldn’t hear anything other than the cultists, and the orchestra began to play.
At first, nothing happened, though the song was beautiful, even as it fought the echoes of the cultists song.
Then, a bubble of golden light began to coalesce around the orchestra on the stage, and bubble outward! This seemed to bolster the orchestra and the conductor, who all sped up the song they were playing. The golden bubble began to grow and push outward, slamming into the milky-green wall of light.
A moment later, as the orchestra got into it, the golden light pushed the green light back more, and after it had pushed its way through me, I was suddenly able to take a breath!
It was working.
Now the cultists looked like they were groaning in pain, as we all began to pick ourselves back up.
Glaring at us all, the cultist leader-turned-conductor sped up, and his twisted orchestra, from behind their little energy wall, played a newer, faster tune. This pushed their sick green light back out more, shoving the gold light back, and making me feel sick all over again. As I groaned in misery once again, I noticed the conductor on the stage actually turn and glare at the head cult leader.
I’d seen glares like that before. Most often with professional champions at games who got bested by an up and comer with some gimmicky trick. If I had to put words to the look, it would be something like: Okay, you arrogant little upstart brat. Here’s what winning and being the best really looks like!
Without a word, the conductor on the actual stage turned back to the orchestra, and had them shift their music. The golden light shrank for a moment as they switched to a new place in their book, but then they began playing in earnest, with the choir jumping in, loudly. Suddenly, the golden light not only came back but came roaring back with a vengeance!
Now, it was the cultist orchestra that looked frantic, with the cult leader snarling and all but ranting as he desperately tried to conduct his cultists just as well as the maestro on the floor was doing.
For a few notes, they pulled it off. Parts of the music on either side was almost like a sword fight, with the flooding lights behaving like almost physical waves that would recede or surge. Every few notes from one side was answered by the other, and even though it was practically two different songs, in an almost twisted way, they complimented one another.
It was a show like no other, as though my very soul was given front row seats to the ultimate duel of sound and light. As if I was watching twisted beauty battle true beauty. No one could look away, or move, or speak, or even fight.
For me though, and from the looks of it, everyone else, it was also hell.
Not because of bad music, but because of the sensations and raw feeling brought on by the lights, and the sounds and songs that accompanied them. As they went back and forth, I was alternately bathed in the gold or drowned in the milky-green. It was like being dragged by a runaway horse through mud covered gravel with the green, only to be bathed in a warm, relaxing bath by the gold.
Over, and over, and over again!
I puked at some point, and I wasn’t the only one.
If something didn’t give soon, we’d all be driven insane, the crazy lunatics in robes included!
Then, suddenly, the shield of shimmering light around the cultist orchestra began to flicker and flash, as though it was surging back and forth. I was reminded of a bucking mustang that was tied down, only for some of the ropes to suddenly be cut. I stared for an infinite moment before I suddenly understood!
The other relay points!
The Pinkertons, and whoever else had been fighting, were breaking the cultists there, and shutting their machines down.
We have a chance! I thought desperately, not even able to stand at this point, but still able to raise my arm and pull a trigger. Now we just need to hit what we’re aiming at!
At the moment, that was a harder prospect than one might think.
“Blast them!” I half shouted, half choked out, and as quick as I got my gun up, and aimed, I opened fire. Wyatt and even Maggie joined in as well. Our shot weren’t doing much, with some still getting caught in the flickering energy field, but a few got through.
Some slammed into the wood of the massive devices base, but a few, a few managed to catch a couple of the cultist orchestra. They were spun around screaming, and knocked to the ground. That was the end of the battle of orchestras.
Such as it was, since the actual orchestra had been pushing the cult orchestra back more and more.
Frankly I was just sick of being dragged through the fight.
“No!” The cult leader screamed in frustrated rage. “Kill them!”
The other robed men picked themselves up, and in a few cases hopped up, and began half stumbling, half charging at us in response to his cry.
Wyatt and I were barely able to stand, and I had no time to check on the girls as a large clump of the bastards closed in on us. This is gonna be bad. I thought grimly, still just getting my breath back.
Then a strange glowing shot arced out, from Lilly’s coppersmith pistol I realized, and landed right in their little clump. A flash of light, and suddenly another bubble of hazy, swirling faded blue energy swelled up, catching the whole group, and several of the others who were close by. Everyone caught in the ‘bubble’ were lifted off their feet by a few inches, and seemed to just hang there, as if they were submerged underwater and unable to swim or float.
“That won’t kill them!” Lilly shouted, sounding half exhausted herself. “And it won’t last! Shoot them!”
“Yes ma’am!” Wyatt shouted with a laugh, and everyone who had regular guns opened fire on the group of floating cultists. In under twenty seconds, we were all out of ammo, and there were only a few cultists left alive and on their feet.
We were all still being bathed in the golden light, as the actual conductor hadn’t stopped, and the orchestra hadn’t stopped either.
It helped, since it seemed to make the remaining cultists weaker. I took advantage of the moment as I half stumbled over next to Maggie.
“I’ll distract that head lunatic.” I hurriedly whispered to her, despite all the ringing in my ears and general fatigue. “You go wide and drop him from behind!”
“I love a good frog hunt!” She quipped back before she somewhat gracefully moving around the large, still glowing machine, attacking some of the few remaining instrument playing cultists. The last of the standing cultists charged us, and with no time to reload, I pulled my knife and started swinging.
Wyatt fell in with his own knife and spare pistol next to Lilly, who was doing something to her pistol, and I fell in next to Princess Ella who was now carving through cultists with ‘my’ sword. I guarded her side and back from a few would be lunges, and sliced more than I stabbed, since I didn’t want my knife stuck in someone’s guts. Having only an empty pistol to act like a tiny club wasn’t a situation I wanted to be in.
“Head towards the chief idiot!” I called to her over the music and shouts.
“On the way.” She replied, looking both terrified and excited at the same time.
We moved forward fairly quickly and soon were facing down the head lunatic, who was holding long wooden rod with strange runes carved into it. And of course, they were glowing.
“Oh, Princess Ella!” He laughed, looking at her with a manic grin. “We’d thought we’d lost track of you! So good of you to turn up!”
“Oh is it now?” She asked, tensing at his attention. We’d stopped and were in an open bubble, since the fight was happening more elsewhere now. I took the time to desperately start reloading my pistol.
“Indeed!” He laughed, wholly off his rocker. “You, the daughter of mighty, generational royalty, will be needed for coming ceremonies!”
Ella stilled next to me, while I stared over her shoulder at the lunatic in disgust.
“Oh let me guess.” I snapped, snapping my reloaded pistol chamber closed and cocking the hammer. “Something about human sacrifice and bloodletting?”
“Sacrifice?” He laughed, looking crazier, and more twisted, by the word. “Oh no, can’t waste a prize specimen like her! Her blood will supercharge the coming rituals! And after that, she can be made to be the first breeding brood mother to the first spawn of Xantrogis after his ascension!”
“Oh, I see.” Ella replied, sounding stunned and speaking by rote, before she turned to look at me and spoke with a quiet, soft, and intense voice. “I have never thought this before, and have never asked it before. But please, please I beg you.”
She looked me square in the eye, and I saw her resolution, revulsion, and fear. “Please kill this man!”
“It would be my pleasure darling.” I nodded, smiling at her briefly before I looked back at the old lunatic with hard glare and stepped forward. “My pleasure indeed.”
“Oh, and is the wild one going to stop me, and stand against the might of the coming Great Old Ones!” He laughed, pointing his odd little rod at me, while his other hand made a gesture. Suddenly, another damn energy wall appeared around him in a small circle, like an oval version of a tower shield.
God, but am I ever sick of that trick! I thought darkly as I fully stepped in front of Ella. “You know, I heard of a list once back home, a list of descriptions about heroes. I never forgot it, but always wanted to be one of them.”
“Oh really?” The old cultist asked. “And which of those fallen, bloody kinds of fools would you be?
“They were honest titles.” I laughed at him, suddenly feeling worn out, and yet wildly invigorated as the music down below us picked up, and all the seats of the great hall came into focus. “Come forth, ‘Champion of Valor!’ ‘Courageous Warrior!’ ‘Cruel and Greedy Legend!’
“Such lovely titles!” He laughed, eyeing me in an obsessed way. “Yet all fall in the end! All are made fools of! But we serve the endless rulers of the dark places on the edges of the stars!”
“I always wanted to be the champion of valor.” I laughed back, stepping forward near his shield, hoping I could keep him talking and focused on me long enough. “But there was one more title. One I didn’t really like. One that, as the war went on, and the life that followed after, I feared I was more like than the valiant champion.”
“And which one was that?” He asked, pointing his glowing stick at me.
“The one that as my oldest sister put it, was the only one that mattered. The one that got stuff done.” I smiled darkly at him. “The ‘Unyielding Savage!’”
He blinked and laughed hysterically for a moment before looking back at me, his eyes murderous. “Fits you like a glove, Wild Ranger. But here, let me help you out. I’ll cure all your ills!”
He raised his stick, but as he did, a shadow flew by over head, and I glanced up despite myself. And out of the corner of my eye, I saw the mad cultist leader do the same. Above us, sailing over our heads, and his shield, grinning like a thrilled, bloodthirsty little child, was Maggie.
Whom, I could only guess, had climbed up and leaped from their strange device, while apparently ignoring the floating hole with the strange eyeballs in it.
She laughed as she came down right behind the shocked old cultist, who hesitated too long to properly face her. Her arms snatched out, and she ripped his arm holding the glowing stick to shreds!
He screamed in pain and his shield vanished.
Then, before he could react further, she moved forward just the one step and wrapped her clawed hands around his throat, while bringing her own fang filled mouth up next to his ear. She grinned at me, and then pointed behind me.
“I loved your little speech!” She laughed. “I’m happy to let you kill him all epically, but they look like they want to object.”
Turning, Ella and I saw the last of the surviving cultist orchestra surging towards us, screaming in incoherent rage.
“That’s fine!” I laughed back. “I know better than to get between a woman and her fun! Besides, I already did kill him.”
“How so?” Maggie asked, using her free hand to shred his other arm, leaving him screaming in pain and rage.
“I sent you!” I shouted before I brought my gun up and started shooting, while Ella whirled to one who got too close with a knife, and proceeded to dismember him in the blink of an eye.
In seconds it was over.
I looked back and saw a smiling Maggie, her lower face, chin, neck, and dress covered in blood, while the leaded of these nutcases laid at her feet, gurgling as he died.
“Well, if you need to kill a crazy frog, I guess a little Hell Cat would do the trick.” She laughed, licking at her bloody lips. “What a fun night!”
Before I could answer, the glowing box we were in shifted, and suddenly we were returning to the stage.
What sounded like the final movements of the song from the original orchestra were being played, and when I glanced over I saw only Wyatt and Lilly still standing. No cultists were left alive, just their glowing machine, and the strange hole it had created, which was slowly shrinking.
Eyes glared down at me from the hole in open air, and sounds rang out, but nothing understandable, and thankfully, no more slime.
Until at last, as we landed back on the ground, the hole sealed itself up, the machine began to shut down, the energy fields vanished, and the orchestra song came to an end.
For a moment, we all just stood or sat there on that stage, with all the sound going away, and the only thing I could hear was my own breathing. Our little group all looked at one another, each of us looking astonished that it was over. That we were still alive.
Then a strange, thunderous sound began to wash over us.
Turning, I looked and saw all the audience of Carnegie Hall on their feet once more, applauding and cheering as loudly as possible! The sound was like a tsunami crashing down upon us. I blinked for a moment, and then turned to the conductor who was standing and looking at us, and the crowd in shock.
Even the folks who’ been slimed were now standing and applauding, seemingly no worse for wear.
Shrugging, with a little smile, I bowed politely to the conductor, like I’d learned to do back in my officer days. The crowd loved it and went even more nuts. He laughed, and bowed back.
Hell of a show. I couldn’t help but think, amused in spite of everything.