her utility belt. One-then a second grenade-sans pins-dropped to the moss-covered floor.
While the mob closed in from the sides, one of the Ogres met her at the dead body pierced by her thrown sword.
Captain Nina Forest acted in a flash of lightning. While the clumsy brute raised its arms in attempt to pound her from above, she drew the sword from the fallen monk like Arthur pulling Excalibur from the rock and slashed across the creature’s kneecaps. She felt the bone there-or what passed for bone-crunch and the flesh gape open.
The monster stumbled to a knee.
The monks swarmed in.
She balanced her left hand on the shoulder of the half-collapsed beast and swung over as if she were a gymnast working the vault. As she landed, the grenades exploded. The shrapnel bore into the face and chest of the wounded Ogre; its body served Nina as an unwilling shield. A shotgun blast of an explosion hammered the horde of Monks. Bodies flew. Blood rained. Limbs tumbled through the air
The second Ogre confronted Nina.
Her sword plunged up where a crotch should be, driving in nearly to the hilt.
The Ogre fell forward; it’s face directly in front of her.
The Desert Eagle appeared in her hand. The Ogre’s alien eyes gazed at the big black barrel. From point blank range she pulled the trigger once, twice, three times. Each powerful round tore away a chunk of monster-skull. The dead creature dropped over and hit the floor with a heavy tremor.
Nina turned around. A handful of monks remained to face her. A handful of bullets remained in the Desert Eagle. She found a match for each.
The last gunshot echoed through the chamber, replaced by the steady gurgle and throb of the fuel tanks and feint moans from the mortally wounded.
Nina let the hand gun fall and then struggled to retriever her sword from the body of the second Ogre. It took some doing, but the blade came free.
Her eyes-still determined; still alive with anger-turned north again.
Next.
The walls wore a thick coating of green growth that took on the texture of not-quite-dry spackle. Wires-that could easily be mistaken for vines or perhaps even veins-hung loose over the musty corridor. A pair of glowing orbs drooped from the ceiling on twisting ropes casting the hall in a pale light.
No opposition greeted Nina. The last of The Order’s minions lay dead or dying (whatever that might mean to such abominations) behind her in the fuel depot. Only the buzzing sound of the Frisbee-thing with the glowing eyes followed her, and she had determined it presented no threat other than broadcasting her position. She decided that no longer mattered.
She knew the Bishop would not run. She knew he would wait for her with, no doubt, a surprise or two. Admittedly, as she entered the dome-shaped chamber that served as the Bishop’s final refuge, the nature of that surprise managed to take her off-guard.
Three images played on rectangular screens lining the curved wall on the far side of the dome-shaped room. The video in the center came from the surveillance drone showing Nina’s backside as she passed through the open sheath at the chamber entrance.
The one to the left presented video taken from an aircraft; most likely one of The Order’s Chariots. The scene depicted a mixed eastern forest covered in a blend of turning autumn leaves as well as stalwart evergreens. In a clearing atop one mountain she saw two people.
The man wore shoulder-length hair and pointed toward the shipboard camera. Nina recognized him: Trevor Stone.
Behind Trevor stood Nina Forest, evident immediately by her telltale ponytail and tactical gear. She fumbled for something in a bag as the craft circled the clearing in an obvious attempt to land.
“This is who you are, Captain Forest,” the Bishop’s voice spoke from alongside the monitors. “Rather impressive, actually.”
The Nina on the mountainside pulled a small device just as Trevor turned to address her. After an electrical flash Trevor Stone doubled-over onto the grass and rocks of the mountain top clearing.
The image jumped. The camera now much closer; the Chariot had landed. Two monks moved from the craft toward Nina as she directed them at Trevor, who writhed in pain on the ground, unable to defend himself.
Again the video jumped, starting from the beginning in a continual loop of her sin.
“Such an accomplished soldier. Why you even used his affection for you as a weapon. You used it to isolate him. To deliver him unto Voggoth. I say again, impressive.”
The remaining video screen offered a darker image from a monitoring device mounted in the corner of a dimly lit chamber. She saw Trevor there, naked and bound by tentacle-like manacles. She saw herself approach him. And while no sound played, she could see by the anger in her eyes that she berated Trevor; scolded him. Taunted him, even. Much like the Bishop taunted her now.
“You are the greatest warrior of your people, Nina,” the words hissed from the Bishop’s mouth like a snake offering an apple. “Yet you served in his shadow. You won more victories than any other human, but never recognized. Your efforts go unappreciated.”
The image of Stone naked and weak taunted by Nina Forest looped as well. The screens continued to play over and over again. Her hand gripped the hilt of her short sword nearly to the point of crushing the metal. Her eyes left the fun-house-like screens and focused on the shadow of the fake-man standing along the wall.
“Voggoth has taken note of your abilities. There is no reason for you to perish alongside the rest of your species. It would be a shame for a creature of your talents to be thrown away.”
Nina did not speak. She listened. Certainly the Bishop knew she had come to kill, but it did not seem as if he spoke to save his existence. As slickly as he delivered his lines, the words felt rehearsed. A speech made to more than one group, no doubt.
She wondered how often the Bishop-or Voggoth itself-spoke such words. While the looping images tried to raise doubt and regret in her heart, the monster flattered her in an effort to turn Nina away from her kind.
Divide and conquer; but this time on a micro scale.
“Come, join with Voggoth. I promise the majority of your personality will remain intact but without doubt or regret or fear. With these weaknesses removed, you can be the greatest warrior the universe has known.”
Nina raised her sword.
The Bishop stepped forward. The light washed across him reflecting the crimson, squirming robe.
“I see. You may be under the misguided notion that my destruction will somehow benefit your people on the battlefield. This is not so. The army of Voggoth is replete with redundancy. It relies on no one piece. I offer for the last time a chance for you to survive and become something greater than your species could know; something immortal.”
Nina held steady. Her eyes ignored the looping images and focused entirely on her prey.
“Very well then.”
The Bishop held his arms aloft as if praying to something above. His head shook. Whatever lurked beneath the robe pushed against the cloth.
Nina had no intention of waiting. She lunged forward.
The Bishop’s skull opened like a blooming tulip. A thick appendage shot out from the sprout that had once been a neck. At the end of the four-foot-long tentacle hovered a shiny point of steel.
Nina plunged her sword toward its mid-section, but before her blade struck the robe tore open and a series of limbs unfolded like a fist of crab legs stretching. Behind those tendrils dwelled something hideous. Nina glimpsed it-only a glimpse-before a blast of air in the form of a raucous scream knocked her backwards, rolling away from the monster.
The real face of the Bishop lived there, in what might have once been the chest of a man: a jagged orifice like a broken sore lined with blood-red gums and metal shark’s-teeth; a trio of slits-eyes-around the circumference.
The six smaller tendrils grew foot-long blades of steel. The apparition walked on legs that bulged into stumps where feet should be. It lumbered toward her. The maw huffed and puffed as if catching its breath; each exhale sent a cloud of muck into the air so pungent in smell that it served as a weapon.
