Dave Hooper flew, and the city passed beneath him. Failed husband, absent father, wastrel, and asshole, he flew through the night air holding Lucille to his chest, knees bent and eyes slitted against the wind of his passage. Beneath his boots slipped the rusted roofs of shotgun shacks and cinder block apartments, some of them slumped and all but tumbled down, others maintained with the best of intentions in the face of the crushing, relentless weight that bore down every day on those millions of people, those countless millions, who lived at the bottom of the heap. Dave Hooper flew over them all. Over stunted leafless trees, rubbish-strewn vacant lots, lovingly maintained church gardens, darkened homes, and great fires ablaze where vehicles had collided and exploded, where flames consumed houses that lay cheek by jowl, and where some idiot was having a barbecue on his back porch. He was watching the Apocalypse engulf his neighborhood on a small portable television he had carried out onto a card table and plugged into an extension cord. Dave soared over it all and saw it all. A quick turn of the head, as though he were driving his car and checking the side mirror, and he could see Heath leading his men and Ostermann’s away from the Horde. So quickly was Dave moving that they appeared as tiny, static figurines arranged by a model maker.
Turning his attention to dar ienamic, he measured his progress toward the pack of slavering man-eaters and was content with his calculations. He would land exactly where he had intended: two strides from the figure that stood noticeably separate from the impacted mass of daemons. He would land in the tray of a pickup abandoned in the street by an owner who had tried to flee on foot and who now lay in pieces by the front wheel. Maybe the car had stalled. Maybe the driver had panicked. It didn’t matter. Dave flew toward his intended destination, powered in his flight by one great leap of such prodigious motive force that his rational human mind had doubted his ability to make it in spite of all that had happened.
His rational human mind was wrong, and Dave flew. He flew down upon them like an avenging eagle, talons out, ready to rip and tear and rend limb from limb. As he flew from the flat-topped roof of the Advance Auto Parts depot, he measured his foe. There stood the BattleMaster at the head of his fighting column, the tip of his sword resting on the surface of the road as though he were lost and pondering his next move.
“Should have checked Google Maps, dickhead,” Dave muttered.
Like gargoyles, two Grymm lieutenants stood shield- and daggerwise to the Master of Hunn. Dave contemplated the representatives of the ancient warrior order, as much priests as they were soldiers. The BattleMaster towered over them, naturally, and even the rank and file of the Hunn Cohort had the advantage of them in size and reach. All of which meant nothing, he knew. The Grymm lieutenants were combat-adept, as were all the members of that clan and order. He searched for a word from his human vocabulary that would do them justice. A couple suggested themselves: “fanatics,” “jihadi.”
They would do nicely.
As he began his descent toward the BattleMaster’s thrall, Dave took the measure of their power. There were still over two hundred daemonum afoot down there, frozen in tableau by the hyperaccelerated speed of his approach. But from their posture, from the way they appeared to be standing rather than leaping and running at the nearest prey, he could assume, he was reasonably sure, that they had ceased their charge into the housing projects while the Master of Hunn issued his orders. Dave guestimated there to be three reduced talons of Hunn and their leashed Fangr, the better part of a Dread Company. The Hunn were down to half of their original number. As he dropped through the night toward the tray of the pickup, he noted the distance between the rear guard of the BattleMaster’s company and the lead elements of the pursuing marines and gangsters. He hoped that Heath would get word through to the pursuers to disengage before they made contact again.
He needed the Horde to focus. Not on the marines, or the SEALs, or the gangbangers, and certainly not on the hundred or more terrified residents he could see within a few lazy strides of some of the outermost members of the daemon pack.
He needed the Horde to focus on him.
Dave flew.
He flew down upon his prey, swinging Lucille in a great circular arc like a cathedral bell ringer or that guy who used to swing the big puffy mallet to make the gong go boom at the start of the old movies.
He landed, boots crashing into the open tray of the pickup, the twelve-pound steel head of Marty Grbac’s enchanted splitting maul slamming down on the roof of the empty driver’s cabin with an explosive, head-splitting detonation that blew out not just the windows of the truck but all the windows up and down the street. As he decelerated, the world around him sped up, with thousands of tiny twinkling shards of automotive glass spraying outward, with some of the closest daemons flinching away from the fearsome noise, with even the BattleMaster of the Hunn taking one involuntary step backward. Car alarms blared up and down the street. Gunfire fell silent, then roared up again out of nowhere. People screamed, and dogs barked with such abandon that they sounded authentically mad.
“Hi,” Dave said. “My name’s Dave. And I hear someone sent out for an ass kicking.”
Thresh flinched from the enormous, volcanic noise, but it did not retreat. It was proud of that depth of self-possession, for even the BattleMaster could not help taking one unthinking step back from dar ienamic. That was hardly the fault of Urspite Scaroth Ur Hunn.
Thresh had caught a glimpse of the man flying through the air previously, just before the slaughter of the first Cohort of human warriors. When the man had collapsed after his flight, thresh had focused its attention on other matters. That the same man stood before them now left thresh cold to the core.
The ur-Champion requires a sacrifice. The Scrolls were explicit on that point. This champion had allowed his fellow warriors to sacrifice themselves in battle, a brutal, noble act. Thresh realized that not only were they dealing with something new, they were dealing with something far more dangerous than human warriors or skyborne riders in the night’s clouds.
The supreme human champion—for that was what he had to be, their ur-Champion, for nothing else could explain such a thing, could explain the calamity that had befallen the Dread Company—had come out of nowhere. Or rather, appeared to. But thresh had seen it coming. This was not to boast of its superior thinkings and attention to the battlefield minutiae; rather, it had been a stroke of luck. The human form, impossibly suspended high in the air, silhouetted against the bright background of the mysterious city in the distance, just happened to be exactly where thresh was looking when this warrior, the ur-Dave, appeared.
It was just for the briefest of moments, a fraction of a fraction of the tiny space between one beating of the hearts and the next. Indeed, when thresh turned its thinkings and feelings on the matter later, it decided that it had not in fact seen the Dave but rather a shadow, a ghost image of this Dave as it passed in front of an opportune light source at just the right moment. The Dave simply moved too quickly to keep one’s eyestalks on it. As they were about to find out.
“What?” Urspite Scaroth Ur Hunn roared in confusion. “Seize him!”
But the Dave seemed unperturbed. As one of the Hunn set two Fangr on the solitary man, thresh scuttled forward to advise caution.
“He knows the Olde Tongue, my lord,” the Thresh hissed. “He comes upon us like a great boulder, afire and falling from the sky. We should—”
The world turned upside down as the BattleMaster cuffed the lesser daemon across the head, knocking him end over end. When thresh came to rest at the foot of one of the Lieutenants Grymm, it saw what was happening to the acolytes as they tried to carry out their orders. The Dave did not so much as twitch when they approached. Not until they passed within reach of its lower limbs, which suddenly struck out with such speed that none could see them move, certainly not the hapless Fangr. Each squealed when struck, but the shriek of pain and shock was cut off by whatever damage the blow did, and they fell broken and dead to the ground many strides away.
“What’s your name, big fella?” the Dave said, speaking directly to the BattleMaster in the Olde Tongue with the slightly guttural, snouty tone of a Hunn from the Fourth Legion. The daemonum of the war party remained as still as bedrock. Only the Lieutenants Grymm moved, and only to lean toward one another and whisper in the secret voices of their clan.
Urspite Scaroth Ur Hunn was at a loss. His talons clenched and unclenched around the urminhide hilt of his long blade. He snarled and bared his fangs at the upstart human.
“Are you the champion of this village?” he demanded to know.
“A champion?” the Dave replied. “Hell, no. I’m just a guy. So who are you again?”
The insolent creature rearranged its facial features in a way thresh did not much care for. If it did not know better, it would have said the Dave was mocking them. Both Lieutenants Grymm tried to speak with the BattleMaster, but he pushed them away as they approached. One even stumbled and fell on its tail, sending a jolt through the assembled host.
“Pity I don’t have my phone,” said the Dave. “That would’ve made a great BuzzFeed GIF. So, really, who are you assholes?”
The shock that ran through every sinew in the BattleMaster’s body could have been no greater if the Queen herself had inserted a white-hot branding iron into his cloaca.
“I am the BattleMaster of this thrall,” roared Urspite Scaroth Ur Hunn. He drew his sword, the point screeching across the hard black surface of the street, a shower of sparks pouring from the tip. “This is my great blade, FoeSunder. With it I have slain ienamicae without number—”
“Wait a minute, hold on,” the Dave interrupted, holding up one of its small pink hands. “Did you say your gay blade? I mean, not that’s there’s anything wrong with that, but I noticed that none of you are, like, wearing pants, and if I’ve ruined a special moment here …”
The BattleMaster drew himself up to his full height, standing at least again as tall as the human champion, although they did stare level into each other’s eyes because for the moment the Dave still stood atop the beastless chariot onto which he had jumped with such a great booming report to announce his arrival.
“I am Urspite Scaroth Ur Hunn,” bellowed the commander of Her Majesty’s Vengeance.
Again the Dave did that strange unpleasant thing with its face that made thresh feel it was being mocked.
“Seriously?” he said. “Well, same as before, I’m Dave.” He spread his hands wide. “And these are all the fucks I don’t really give about who you are.”
Thresh twitched its ears in the direction of a new sound, a high-pitched keening that reminded it of claws scraping on a rock. The sound was growing. It risked taking its eyestalks off the human champion for just a moment, and what it found was even more disturbing. Villagers were gathering at the edge of the confrontation, pointing and staring and—it was sure of this—mocking them. The screeching and squealing it could hear was the sound of human mockery. It chanced a furtive look at the Lieutenants Grymm who had also noticed the change while most of Scaroth’s thrall remained mesmerized by the confrontation between their Master and this arrogant calfling.
Arrogant with reason, thought thresh.
The BattleMaster let loose such a roar that his thrall retreated from him. The sound of human screechings and mockery ended abruptly, replaced by a few satisfying cries of alarm. But not from the Dave. It merely quirked the edges of its mouth in a gentle way that suggested it was not much concerned by anything. Certainly not by Scaroth.
The BattleMaster raised FoeSunder on high, making ready to cleave the Dave in two, but even then the curious expression on its face did not change. It did deign to speak, however, before the BattleMaster could bring the giant blade down upon its head.
“I challenge you, Urspite Scaroth Ur Hunn, leader of this feeble pack,” the Dave cried out, stunning the assembled host. “I challenge you according to the lore of the ancient Scrolls and by virtue and warrant of my worth to make this challenge. You shall answer it or your name shall be etched into the Scrolls forevermore as a byword for shame and cowardice and failure. I challenge you, Urspite Scaroth Ur Hunn, and you shall answer this challenge in front of your thrall.”
The proper and prescribed form of the old words hung like a blade over Scaroth’s neck. They stayed his weapon from the downward strike against the Dave. The BattleMaster’s shock, his indignation, and his disbelief rippled out across the entire thrall, transmitted from Hunn to Fangr to Grymm and even down to lowly thresh.
The BattleMaster’s blade, dark with ichor and gore and bloodwine, did not waver at the apogee of its killing stroke. Scaroth drew the great sword down slowly but deliberately, as though he could not believe this was happening and so was forced to handle his blade with added caution lest in the madness of the situation it turn on him, too.
“You dare not do this,” Scaroth hissed at the human.
“Oh, you’d be surprised how often I hear that,” the Dave replied. “My wife, the IRS, Urgon Htoth Ur Hunn.”
Hackles suddenly flared up all along the back of thresh. The Lieutenants Grymm, too, it noticed, suddenly fell into a huddle of silent quickthinkings. Scaroth had the sense to look, if not troubled, then at least intrigued.
“What news have you of our brother Urgon?” Scaroth asked quietly.
The Dave twisted his face again into that annoying challenge that made his eyes squint and bared what few and tiny fangs he had.
“I kicked his ass. And I intend to kick yours in a few minutes, but by the lore of the Scrolls we must settle on terms. And my terms are pretty simple. I’ll kick your ass, and you’ll get the fuck out of here while the getting is good. Once your ass has been kicked, I promise to let all of your friends here leave without kicking theirs, too. But you will agree to withdraw from this realm without harming one more of these villagers. And you will not return. These are the terms of my challenge, now laid before you in the presence of your thrall. Disgrace your nest if you have not the stomachs for this fight.”
The entire thrall was focused on the confrontation between the BattleMaster and the human champion now. None could imagine how it had come to know the ancient forms of address and challenge. But it did, and the BattleMaster was bound by honor to respond. Thresh, being concerned with actual thinkings and feelings rather than with the baser pursuits of mere slaughter, was free to let its considerable mind wander, however. The Lieutenants Grymm, too, of course, although they seemed to have fallen into a dispute over whether Scaroth should accept the challenge. Thresh was more concerned, even disturbed, by the change that had come over the villagers. There were at least a Company’s worth of them now, edging up through the shadows to watch their champion. Some had even begun a war chant.
“USA. USA. USA.”
Thresh was at a loss to understand the meaning of the chant, but he did not like the way it seemed to embolden the cattle.
“By what right do you claim the worth of challenge?” asked one of the Lieutenants without seeking the permission of Scaroth to speak. A fact that for Thresh was telling.
“Dispute my right, then, if you have the talons for it,” replied the Dave, as though he did not care whether the Grymm answered him. The Lieutenants reared back as if struck. Scaroth seemed almost amused by their umbrage.
“Yes, why don’t we test the worth of its challenge? And of your craft at arms, my Lieutenants Grymm? Before I would lower myself or befoul my blade with the ichor of this creature, I would first know that it is worth raising my sword arm against him.”
The BattleMaster turned back to the human and seemed almost in good humor.
“You know your Scroll lore, calfling,” it said. “Our brother Urgon has taught you well. So you would know that I might test the virtue of your claim by right of proxy.”
The Dave lifted its shoulders as if this was no concern to it.
“Whatever. An ass kicking delayed is still an ass kicking, and you got one coming, buddy.”
“Indeed,” said Urspite Scaroth Ur Hunn.
It was working, Dave thought as he saw black-clad SWATs and uniformed patrolmen insinuating themselves into the narrow spaces between the houses, pulling residents away, forcing them to go at gunpoint if necessary. The volume of fire from the marines and T-Qube’s crew had died away, too. They were hunkered down behind whatever cover they could find, about fifty yards behind the last of the daemon pack. The air still thudded and hummed with the rotor blades of a dozen choppers. He dare not look back over his shoulder to check on Heath’s progress toward the ambush spot. He needed to keep the Horde focused on him.
The ritual of challenge by right of worth seemed to be doing that.
Fuck knew where that had come from.
Perhaps this Scarface dude was right and he did owe Urgon a solid. He’d wondered back at the command vehicle how best to confront the orcs and instantly knew without having to search for the knowledge that a challenge offered to the BattleMaster in the proper form could not be brushed off. It was an offer he couldn’t refuse.
Not so long as Dave proved his worth, and these bargain-basement monster Nazis in the char-grilled bone armor were about to do that for him.
The Grymm.
Sort of like the SS of the six clans.
Old Scarface certainly seemed happy enough to throw them under a bus, but from what Dave knew of relations between the Grymm and the other clans, that wasn’t surprising. These guys would be hurrying back to the palace first chance they had to bad-mouth him no matter how well the raid had gone.
And it hadn’t gone well at all, had it?
So Urspite Scaroth Ur Hunn would be scoping hard for some way to cover himself in glory. The chance to meet and defeat a human champion, perhaps one who could explain why the Horde had taken such a bloody snout here—that was a redemption shot worth taking. Especially if it meant seeing off a couple of Grymm as well.
He felt a slight hunger pang.
And waited for the crippling wave of pain and nausea that had taken him down earlier. The shame of that failure, his own failure, pushed Dave to find a way to redeem himself. If even just a little.
Lucille sent him reassuring vibes.
Be cool, Dave, he told himself. Time to get this party started.
“So, Scarface,” he said directly to the BattleMaster. “This all you got? These two cockchafers? Because you know what they say about the Grymm, don’t you? The only real fighting they do is over which one of them gets to ass kiss the Low Queen in the parts the other Grymm can’t reach. Maybe you want to throw in a couple of Hunn as well? Some real fighters? I got plenty of whup-ass to spare.”
The effect on Scaroth’s thrall was interesting. Many of the Hunn Dominants snorted appreciatively at the insult done to the Grymm clan, but their amusement turned to dangerous offense when he offered to take on a couple of them, too.
Another hunger pang.
He casually fished a chocolate bar from one of the breast pockets of his shirt. Not making a big deal of it. He was just a casual chocolate-lovin’ motherfucker, was all. Lookin’ to kick him some ass and maybe eat him some Hershey’s while he was waiting.
The hunger pangs dialed back a little as he chewed and swallowed.
A disagreement flared into an argument among what he took to be the leadership group of the raiding party: Scaroth, the Grymm, a couple of Hunn Dominants, and a smaller critter.
A baby Threshrend, he thought idly. Thinky little fuckers.
The minor daemon tried to offer its two cents’ worth, but a Hunn kicked it away. It yelped and slunk back to the rear ranks of the company. The daemons, he was glad to see, were tightly bunched now, many of them jockeying for a clear view of the challenge.
Dave took the opportunity to uncap an energy gel.
He drained that one as casually as could be, trying to look bored, all the while looking around, checking on progress. They played a lot of poker on the rig. Not everyone could get on the Xbox at the same time, after all. And though he wasn’t the coolest hand at the card table, he liked to think he had more game than these ass biters.
“So,” he said, deciding to push things along, “what happened to you guys? You used to be cool. And now a dude throws down a challenge and you gotta get into a full circle jerk to figure out who’s gonna get their asses kicked by him. Scaroth, man. That’s lame.”
“Enough,” Scaroth snarled, sheathing FoeSunder. With a flick of his wrists, he motioned forward two of the largest Hunn. They grinned hungrily at Dave, moving left and right, dagger- and shieldwise, to outflank him. The Grymm meanwhile drew their own blades and began to advance on him as the daemon war band took up their own chant.
“Hunn ur Horde. Hunn ur Horde. HUNN UR HOR—”
Dave Hooper didn’t let them finish. He tossed aside the gel pack and hopped down from the rear tray of the totaled pickup. As soon as his boots touched the ground, he stomped on the accelerator.
Again he was thrown by expecting the world to become a blur, when of course he was the blur within it. The Horde, the anxious human onlookers, the long swaying stalks of grass in the wasteland across the street, the outlines of the helicopters circling above them—all these things grew not just clearer to him but more vital, as though they somehow pressed themselves into the fabric of reality with much greater force.
He didn’t bother with theatrics for the Hunn, jagging shield- and daggerwise, using the ax head of the maul for the first time to decapitate the two dominants before turning on the Lieutenants Grymm in the blink of an eye. He swung Marty’s heavy-hitting sledge down low, breaking the knees of his first target, sweeping the slow moving feet out from beneath it. The momentum of the swing carried him across to the other unholy warrior, whose skull he split with the ax head before spinning in place to finish off the first lieutenant, which was busy crashing to the ground.
He had time to eat another chocolate bar before the carcass thudded down on the tarmac, but as soon as it did, Dave brought the hammer down on its head with such force that the explosion of bone shards, broken teeth, and brain flecks painted everyone within three strides.
He decelerated back toward the truck as the first wracking gut cramp hit him.
He was hungry. He’d burned through all of his stored energy, and now his white-hot metabolism was eating him from within. Taking a pull from the CamelBak Chief Allen had rigged up flooded Dave’s system with Gatorade. The cramps subsided again while he threw in a couple of CLIF bars, chocolate chip cookie dough–flavored, to power the internal turbine that was throttled up to full capacity.
“Damn if kickin’ so much ass don’t give a man a powerful appetite.”
He kept a cheesy grin plastered on his face, but it was hard. Sweat began to bead his forehead.
“So, worthy enough for you?” he asked the BattleMaster, who stood with jaws agape and dawning horror filling its black sharklike eyes.
“We can just leave it at that if you want,” Dave said, all but grimacing with the need to bend himself double around the terrible pains shooting through his guts. “Dead Grymm won’t tell no tales. How about we call it done and you just fuck off back where you came from?”
Urspite Scaroth Ur Hunn let go with an animal roar of enraged hatred just as Dave got his second wind. The BattleMaster strode toward him, each foot tread punching a two-inch depression into the road surface. With slow, casual relish, Scaroth unsheathed FoeSunder from his silver-trimmed scabbard, twirling the great blade. Glints of dark iron flickered in the night, giving Dave a glimpse of the railroad spike that extended from the pommel. It was all too easy to imagine that nasty fucking thing driving through the top of his skull.
“Trifle with the Horde?” Scaroth growled. “Think that treacherous Urgon has taught you everything? You have the strength of a score of your kind because you took all that Urgon had.”
Dave could see flashes of Urgon’s life. Long hours of training, rites of initiation, battles and campaigns fought with rival clans. The sacrifice and ritual required before each battle to sustain one’s strength. He could sense how Urgon might deal with Scaroth if he relaxed and let the knowledge flow to him.
“Hear that, Urgon? You Dave’s bitch now.” Dave shifted his grip on Lucille. Tried not to hold her too stiffly. “Make me a sandwich for ol’ Scaroth here.”
He could have sworn the splitting maul purred in his hands.
“Just as you stole all that Brother Urgon had,” Scaroth said, “I will take all that you have. But I will take it with honor. By killing you here.”
Scaroth brought FoeSunder up and flowed into a killing stance. The point of the blade glinted high above Dave’s head before rushing down with terrible speed.
Dave dropped down to his right knee with Lucille above his head, blocking the first blow, half expecting Scaroth’s blade to slice straight through the wooden handle. But the enchanted hardwood held, the blow landing with a giant clang. Holding the Hunn’s blade, he pushed up with his right hand, using the maul’s head to drive the blade off to his left. Coiled tightly, Dave’s legs launched him into Scaroth’s midsection, knocking the BattleMaster off his feet. He rolled over the snapping fangs and hot froth to land on his feet a couple of yards away.
They circled each other one step at a time, shieldwise. Helicopters, hammering overhead, focused their searchlights on the action, driving the remnants of the Horde away from the two combatants.
“I will feast on you this day,” Scaroth said, lunging toward Dave. “The little champion’s blood will make a fine aperitif before I feed on your nestlings.”
“They have aperitifs in Monsterland? Man, you guys have changed. It used to be all about the skulls full of bloodwine.”
Dave parried down with Lucille, a great clash of sparks bursting where the two weapons made contact. He whipped back and swung in an upward arc from the parry for Scaroth’s wrists, but the BattleMaster merely caught the splitting maul and with a twist of his wrists sent it flying through the air.
Shit, Dave thought, scrabbling across the ground.
“A charmed weapon?” Scaroth asked. “Is that all you have, champion? Pathetic.”
Scaroth kicked Dave, launching him skidding across the street. When he stood up, Scaroth was already there with a backhand that knocked him down. The BattleMaster raised his foot to crush Dave’s skull.
Hooper rolled over across broken glass, avoiding the foot stomp that punched up a cloud of pulverized asphalt. His lungs burned, and his mouth was full of cotton-thick spit that made it hard to breathe. Every muscle ached from the exertion of defending himself. With his last reserves, Dave backed up to the shattered truck, where the tailgate hung by a single hinge. He grabbed the F-150’s tailgate and tore it off.
Scaroth kicked the improvised shield dead center as Dave brought it down to protect himself. It folded like tinfoil around the Hunn’s foot, launching Dave across the street and through the front porch of a vacated home. He heard old dry wooden slats crack and explode, tasted dust, and felt broken bones knitting back together. His strength ebbed away ever more rapidly, and he wondered if he could even get back on his feet, when Chief Allen emerged from cover to kneel beside him. Scaroth approached slowly and surely, carrying his great war cleaver as though it weighed nothing.
“Dave, let Igor take the shot,” Allen said. “You are getting murdered out there, buddy.”
Dave rolled to his feet, sucking down most of the Gatorade in one long draw. “Zach, I gotta do this.”
“Why?”
“Reasons.”
They made eye contact not as civilian and soldier but as men, allies in a common cause. Chief Petty Officer Zach Allen drew his Gerber Mark II fighting knife. He handed it to Dave.
“Take this at least.”
“Thanks. A Snickers would have been better, but … no matter what happens,” Dave said, taking the knife, “if I kill Scaroth, you have to let the rest go. It’s a deal. They’ll honor it. That’s why I have to kill him, not Igor.”
“I’ll let Heath know,” Allen said. “And Dave?”
“Yeah?”
Allen extended his hand. “Good luck, man. Fight dirty.”
Dave took the blade. “It’s all I got. And beers later. Lots of beers.”
Scaroth casually swung FoeSunder through the picket fence, atomizing it, and stepped over the wreckage. “Champion? Why do you hide from me? Do you wish dishonor to your realm? Come and let us finish this bargain of ours. Perhaps if you die well, I will spare a few of your kind from this realm. Her Majesty could keep them as pets.”
Dave got to his feet and stepped onto the front porch. In the distance, he could see Lucille lying in the middle of the street, calling dolefully to him. He wondered if he could just wish her into his hand. Like Thor’s hammer.
Tried.
Failed.
“So that’s a bust,” he muttered.
The Gerber, the small black fighting knife, seemed pathetically inadequate for the job of carving up Satan’s own rhino here. He might as well have at him with a plastic coffee spoon. Nonetheless, he concealed the blade behind his forearm, gripped in the palm of his right hand, and closed with the giant Hunn. Knees bent, empty hand forward, just as his stomach cramped painfully and his vision grayed out at the edges.
“I can make this painless for you if you hold fast and bare your neck to the mercy stroke,” Scaroth said in what passed for a whisper. “I would do you that honor, for you have rid me of those inconvenient Grymm.”
They circled each other in front of the shack. He was vaguely aware of onlookers nearby. Not just the SEALs watching from cover but local people huddled fearfully in the shadows, peeking out from behind curtains as if thin doors and glass might protect them.
“Scaroth?” Dave sighed. “You talk too much.”
Dave hit the accelerator and with a flick of his wrist threw the Gerber straight into Scaroth’s right eye, where it buried itself up to the hilt. The monster screeched in pain and fury as Dave tried to run for Lucille, dizzy with hunger. The giant demon lashed out with one foot, extending a talon that tripped the human champion as he tried to slip past.
Scaroth howled, bringing his blade down again. With only one eye his aim was off, and Dave rolled away from each strike until he could scramble to his feet. He ducked a slashing attempt to behead him and drove a solid right hook into the BattleMaster’s naked crotch. Cock-punching an enormous monster penis was among the most unpleasant things he’d ever had to do in his life. A bellow erupted from within the creature’s chest as he sailed backward.
“You know …” Dave gasped for air as he staggered over to collect Lucille. “For once I’m actually grateful someone has balls bigger than mine.”
He made it to the splitting maul and felt a measure of his strength return as his hands closed around her. Scaroth gathered himself, still unsteady from the low blow, facing Dave, both hands on the hilt of FoeSunder, claws out. Blood ran down his face from the Gerber that was still embedded in his right eye.
“Trickery,” he grunted. “Feeble trickery is all you offer.”
“And a prizewinning cock punch. Gotta give me credit for that.”
“There will be much pain for that!”
He was at the point of collapse. The members of the thrall were all piled up across the roadway, straining against their bloodlust, wanting to charge him but mindful of the grave dishonor they would bring to their clans and nest if they intervened. Allen had disappeared back into the darkness, and those residents who had foolishly gathered or stopped in their flight to watch his challenge were all slipping away as quietly as they could. Time to roll a hard six. Summoning the last of his energy, drawing what he could from Lucille and not really understanding how that was even possible, he launched himself into the air, bringing the hammer up behind his back. Scaroth turned to carve Dave in half, but the human champion was moving too fast, bringing Lucille down with the last of his rapidly failing might. The splitting maul shattered the forged metal of FoeSunder and bit into Scaroth’s right shoulder. Dave roared his own shkriaa as the great wedge of American steel sliced through the BattleMaster’s armor, hide, sinew, and bone, bisecting him diagonally from shoulder to hip in a geyser of blood and horror. The two halves fell to the ground with a wet, spurting plop.
The Horde stood silent as the choppers circled overhead and sirens wailed in the background. Another Hunn stepped forth to look at the body of the slain BattleMaster. With a couple of kicks to the shoulder, the daemon grunted, nodding to itself.
“We shall withdraw from your realm, ur-Dave,” the beast said, its voice thick with contempt and shame.
Dave, hyperventilating now and swaying on his feet, took a gulp of air and nodded. “Well … bye, then. Don’t let the door hit you in the ass on the way out.”
The Horde turned as one and began to retrace their steps. And that was it. They were done. None broke ranks to feed on the calflings of New Orleans or even to gather the bodies of their fallen. With heads low, they trudged back to the construction site where the portal grew wider with each passing minute.
Dave leaned on Lucille, feeling a wave of fatigue and nausea building, threatening to sweep him away. Casting a glance at Scaroth’s corpse, he searched for some feeling but came up empty.
Chief Allen and the SEALs emerged cautiously from cover, tracking the monsters with their weapons. He knelt down to pluck the Gerber from Scaroth’s sightless eye socket, and his knees gave way, spilling him onto the ground next to the thing he had killed. Igor, towering over the pair, took a long look at the BattleMaster’s carcass before giving a nod of approval.
“You need training,” Igor said. “You fight like an idiot.”
Dave shook his head. “Nah, I don’t think so. We’re done here. Next time we see these cocksuckers, it’ll be at the multiplex.”
“I’ll bet they won’t show their junk,” said Igor. “Not if they want a PG-13 rating.”
Marine Corps helicopters roared overhead as he spoke. A mechanical ripping sound, perhaps the longest fart Dave had ever heard in his life, tore through the darkness. Long streams of tracer fire arced away over the roofline, and a shower of hot brass rained down on the street, a line of tinkling metal charms that raced away up the street in the wake of the gun run. Dave spun around. He could see Heath looking at him, as shocked as he. He hadn’t ordered the attack.
The war party scattered under the onslaught of the helicopter’s nose-mounted machine guns, but the surviving leaders of the thrall were there in the chaos and madness, organizing their forces back into a rough line of battle facing to the east, toward the tightly packed grid of slum housing in which hundreds, maybe a thousand people still cowered.
“Betrayers!” a Hunn commandant shrieked. “Kill them all!”
“Zach, get him to stop,” Dave gasped. “We’re breaking the deal. We had a deal.”
Chief Allen shook his head, dragging Dave out of the free fire zone. “Dude, I’m sorry. I dunno what—”
Tracer fire and rockets reached out from the sky, lightning bolts of technology breaking bodies apart, splitting muscle and bone, spilling the blood of the Horde into the soil. Dave took a step to intervene, to stop the Cobras himself if needs must.
Heath half ran, half hobbled over to where Allen and Dave had taken shelter on the porch of a small home. He was holding one finger to his ear as he ran with an increasingly debilitating limp, screaming into the headset that connected him back to the command truck and presumably up the chain of command. With his other hand he fired short bursts at any of the thrall that made to charge at him.
The screaming started again, the sounds of slaughter as dozens of Hunn and Fangr that escaped the conflagration of high explosives and flying metal burst into the surrounding streets and fell upon the fleeing populace.
“What the fuck did you do?” Dave shouted as his head swam and his muscles cramped. Allen tried to feed him a drink tube from his own CamelBak, and Hooper knocked it away at first before angrily grabbing the nozzle and sucking for all he was worth.
“Well, tell him to shut it the fuck down,” Heath yelled into the tiny microphone of his headset, ignoring Dave. He looked truly out of control for the first time since Dave had met him.
“We just avoided a war, and that fucking idiot starts another one.”
The SEAL officer almost ripped the comm equipment off, but training and discipline got the better of him and he repeated himself in a calmer voice. He was still quivering with anger and stopping to fire two more bursts from his assault rifle but no longer yelling.
“What happened, Heath?” Dave demanded to know when the officer signed off.
Heath let go one long, bitter exhalation of breath.
“Compton,” he said. “Compton did an end run around us. Plugged himself right into the command authority and got the green light for the gun run.”
Heath took up a firing position on the porch, sweeping the street with his rifle, taking head shots when he could. Beside him, Allen did the same thing after emptying his pockets of energy bars for Dave.
The whole street blazed and crackled with gunfire that was cutting into the surviving warriors of Urspite Scaroth’s broken thrall and probably killing dozens of innocent civilians as the high-powered rounds passed through flimsy walls and open windows.
“Compton?” Dave asked dumbly. “He can do that?”
Heath waved a hand despairingly at the street as if that answered the question.
“But I thought you were in charge here.”
Heath cracked off another double shot, knocking over an unleashed Fangr that was dashing to and fro like a rabid dog.
“I’ve never been in charge of anything but a couple of men on the ground, Dave. I don’t make the big calls.”
“And that fucking moron does?” Dave exclaimed.
“No,” said Heath, “but he’s got the number of the morons who do.”
The gunships opened up again a couple of hundred yards away, lighting up the vacant lot through which the Horde had emerged into the world.
Three of them were working the kill zone now. Miniguns, rockets, and door gunners were churning up the field.
Heath listened to something over his headset again, acknowledged the transmission, and climbed slowly and painfully to his feet.
No. To his one good foot, Hooper thought.
“Chief, round up your squad and Ostermann’s if you can. The hostiles have mostly broken and run for it. Back to the … the … what did they even come through, Dave? How did they get here?”
“No idea,” he said without emotion. “Neither do they. But I guess there’s some sort of portal thing in that lot. And under the Longreach. And on the highway up to Area 51. And who the fuck knows where else now?”
Heath and Allen both stared at him.
“Chief,” the officer finally said, “priority one right now is protecting the civilians. Sweep and clear the AO. Establish a perimeter with NOPD, then sweep and clear again. Casevac will need protecting when they roll in. There’s sure to be stragglers here and there. And find me Ostermann. He’s gonna have to run this. I need to get on the line and let the bosses know we’re at war.”
Dave tried to stand up, but the world tilted on its axis and tipped him off into darkness.
Thresh did not think.
Thresh did not look back.
Thresh ran like a hunted urmin cub.
Thresh ran through fire and steel, past nest mates who did not know what to do. It sent out quickthinkings for them to follow, but their minds were shocked and unmoored by the fire of the men’s captive metal Drakons.
It found the entrance to the UnderRealms and picked up the tempo, matching the speed of a Sliveen scout headed in the same direction. Thresh took some solace from that. The scout bore many scars and inked markings of skirmishes and battles below. None could doubt its proven courage, yet it outpaced thresh on the race to escape this accursed realm.
The Sliveen’s head exploded just as it raced past.
Quick panicked glances dagger- and shieldwise finally revealed black-clad human warriors wielding magic staffs. They sent dark enchantments in thresh’s direction, condensed bolts of searing sunlight that crashed like thunder as they whipped past thresh, impossibly faster than the swiftest arrowhead. Bodies and pieces of bodies were blown through the air every time they touched the thrall.
Puffs of dirt and stone erupted around thresh as it redoubled its gallop for the portal, churning up the filthy maelstrom of mud and ichor that had turned the small field where they entered this realm into a quagmire.
Thresh stumbled, and a young Hunn warrior changed course to offer help, only to be blown apart a few feet away. Gore splashed over thresh just before another explosion covered it in soil. This whole world was an insane mandala of explosive violence in which the lives of individual nestlings and even grand storied BattleMasters were meaningless.
A cloud of smoke puffed from the ruined buildings on thresh’s shield flank as a single Fangr disintegrated in a ball of flame.
Thresh could hear its own voice wailing wild thinkings inside its head, shaken and terrified and somewhat disgusted with itself as it recalled the words of Her Majesty.
“This shall not stand. We shall not be mocked thus. Not by the likes of men.”
A Hunn zigzagging in front of thresh lost his head to a long ropy ribbon of bolt fire licking out from the dark, foreboding tangle of the human village. It was so close to the portal now. But even there the path was not clear as a solid crush of broken, terrified thrallmates attempted to climb over one another to get away from the dire magicks of mankind.
Torn and blasted bodies of clan warriors and human fighters lay entwined together in death. Almost promiscuously, until one could see that the nest lovers had bitten one another’s throats out, torn their bellies, raked one another to offal.
Thresh slowed as it approached, not sure how to proceed. It could not scramble over the frenzied press of bodies at the portal mouth. It could not even crawl under them. But neither could it stand and wait while sun bolts and Drakon fire rained down.
It could only …
Some human wizard riding atop a metal Drakon solved the puzzle by throwing down one of the hissing, shrieking war bolts that exploded like small fire mountains, utterly destroying the crush of Hunn and Fangr at the portal mouth.
Seeing its chance, perhaps the only one it would get, thresh raced forward, ignoring the smoking remains of the slain and the cries of its thrallmates.
Once within, thresh raced down into the passages, past the straggling survivors of the once proud Vengeance. It waited for a few moments for others to come through after it. There surely had to be more. But reaching out for the thoughts of those still on the surface, thresh found only silence.
No more were coming, Thresh realized.
Not a one of them.
Turning its back on the Above, Thresh began the journey back to Her Majesty to tell of the Dave, of his inexplicable familiarity with the lore of the Horde and his betrayal of that lore.
There could be only one answer to this, thresh knew.
War.