Fire on the Mountain
We managed to make it to our hotel room and as we were
grabbing our things and cramming them into our bags (mostly weapons) Hannah
looked over at me and said, “Ah Jack, didn’t I drive you here?”
“Yeah, of course.”
“Well, if I drive you here, how did you get your motorcycle?
I thought you said it was hidden in the woods near Ophir Pass. And it was like
you remembered where you bike was, even though you didn’t drive it here.”
I was dumbfounded. “I, ah, what the hell is going on? I just
talked to Loskeep. He said he would try to help me, but he isn’t even on this
planet and…well Yig is the all-father snake. He has never had time to help me
before.”
“Yig loves you, Jack.”
“He does?”
Suddenly we heard some shouts from below. “Get out here
Primus! Or are you scared, like all the other Stalwarts we have killed. Come
out here and meet the Creeper.”
“Here we go again. I’m locked and ready to C.K.A. I say we
give them what they are asking for.”
“Yeah, sure, Jack, as long as we play by our rules.”
“I won’t roll any other way. Those Xemmoni bastards need to
stay off my planet!”
“So are you geared up Hannah?” I asked, as I took up an axe
in one hand while a sledge hammer filled the other.
Turning, I saw that she had just finished strapping a gold
handled samurai sword onto her back. She reached into her duffle bag and with a
wicked smile drew out a double barreled shotgun. She cocked it loudly and said.
“I’m good.”
She sure was, I was thinking, but instead I said, “You
aren’t really a normal gal are you?”
“We can talk about that later. Right now we need to waste
these Sks.”
“I think we need to be careful. That bastard Creeper batted
me with a car.”
“Primus, we have your precious bike,” a shout came from
below. “I wonder how long it will burn.”
“That does it. Have you heard of the jump and stab?”
“Since I have the feeling you are making it up as we go, I
doubt it.”
I made a face. This woman was no fool, no matter how blonde
her hair was. “That’s when I get all of them to attack me and then you come in
behind them and axe them each, one by one.”
“I’m down, but it sure seems like you getting the rough end
of that deal.” She leaned in and gave me
the best kiss of my life and
whispered, “Good luck.”
A second later I was leaping out the window!
I saw a gaggle of Darcarre clustered around my bike. Half of
them held torches and their flicking light danced in my eyes as I plummeted to
the ground.
The Creeper was there, looming as large as an upended bus.
My boots took the twisted freak in the face and it grunted, but really let out
a scream when my sledge smashed him in its tattered ear. The scream only
increased when my axe tore through his mangled face as I fell.
I had surprised and stunned the Creeper enough that the
Darcarre got some of my special Stalwart attentions when I smacked down on the
snow.
“No one touches the bike!” was hurled at them about the same
time my axe was. One of the younger darklings had turned towards me and was
rewarded by having my axe split his face. Then, grabbing the sledge with both
hands, I waded into them. Swinging it wildly, I didn’t bother to aim, but just
kept the weapon moving. Screams and the sounds of breaking bones surrounded me,
but I focused on my task until a hand the size of a bookcase batted me across
the parking lot.
I tumbled violently, smacking pavement, ice, and finally a
stone wall.
“Primus!” the Creeper screamed through bloody torn lips as
its titanic form raced at me.
“Quit talking my ear off,” I yelled, as I got to my feet.
The guy was over forty flippin feet tall, I just stared for a second, and then
said, “Screw this,” and began to run. Creeper growled like 20 grizzlies as he
chased after me. Looking of my shoulder, I yelled,” Oh damn,” as I saw him
tossing cars from his path, like they were empty beers cans.
I jumped, wild eyed and startled, when a car crashed into
the pavement only seven feet to my left.
“Oh crap,” I yelled and started to arc
around the back of the hotel. The sounds of a shotgun going off could be heard
and really hoped Hannah could hold out for a while, but I would be lucky to
last out the minute.
As I continued around the old hotel, the Creeper took off a
section of its roof and chunks of wood, plaster, and shingles rained down on
me. A splintered beam connected with my shoulder, but I didn’t have time to
feel it.
Yep, things were getting tricky.
I managed to make it around another corner of the hotel and
that was when I came across a corpse of trees. “Oh Hail Yig,” I muttered, as I
began to weave a spell. Yig had heard me, for the pines came alive clutching
and tearing at the Creeper as he turned around the side of the hotel.
Now I had a terrible choice.
I could either strike against the Creeper while he was
entangled or help Hannah. I could no longer hear her shotgun going off.
I chose Hannah.
So after flipping Creeper the bird, I ran off to aid to aid
her.
I could only hope that I would be in time.
The mangled, angry screams of The Creeper followed me and I
blazed around the side of the house.
Hannah was holding her own, but fighting the Darccare frankly just sucks. They are the only
Xemmoni race that can heal themselves and
half of them are immune to bullets. I saw that her
shotgun was gone and she was
trying to hold a half dozen of the inky darklings back with frantic swings from
her Samurai sword.
I still had the sledge and I was forced to use it when the
two remaining Glooms, that we had faced earlier, tried to block my path. Their
fingers were moving like wounded spiders and before I could reach them, their
damned Flesh To Mist Bestow crashed into my chest. I couldn’t help myself and I
cried out as my very body began to disperse into string of fog.
“Oh so you play like that,” I growled and before the Glooms
could snatch their sickles off their belts,
I had already dashed forward and
broken one’s jaw with a snap that woke up every baby in the neighborhood. That
one tumbled back. The second one moved in, but I yelled, “batter up,” and his
head crumbled like he was a rotten corpse.
I wanted to finish the wounded one off, but Hannah was
crying out in pain. She had been holding them back- yeah, this was no normal
girl- but now they were releasing their Black Veins spells on her and I looked
on in horror as corrupted threads of darkness spread over her body, tearing
into her flesh.
The Darcarre forgot one thing though…me! I was in their
ranks before they even knew I was there. My sledge took down two and despite
how wounded Hannah was, she killed a third. You can’t heal decapitation.
We might have finished the scum off, if the Creeper hadn’t
escaped the trees that held him. He roared around the corner of the hotel, like
five hundred lions. I tossed my hammer into the ranks of Darccare and grabbed
Hannah by the hand. We would have made it to my bike of the biggest Cell
Disruption I could imagine crashed into my back. I rolled in the snow screaming
as my flesh bubbled and boiled. It flowed off my bones and I thrashed in agony.
Somehow, through everything, I could hear the
Creeper chuckling.
Then I heard my bike starting. But Hannah was right there
trying to help me. I think she might have even used a spell to heal me. Yep,
this was not you typical blonde beauty.
“Hop on if you want to live,” I heard a man’s voice call out
from off the back of my bike. I was in too much pain to make out more than the
fact he was dressed in mostly scarlet and leather.
“How can we all fit?” I managed to gasp.
“Become a snake dumbass. Do I have to do your thinking for
yah too!”
There was a wush of flame and suddenly a wall of fire
separated us for the Xemmoni. I knew it wouldn’t hold them back for long, so I
transformed myself into a servant of Yig and entwined myself around Hannah’s
leg. I wasn’t too pleased that her hands went around this stranger, but
sacrifices had to be made and my bike bike roared off into the night as behind
us the smoke mixed with the fog and the falling snow.
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