apparitions-sharp and blunt weapons, fists and kicks battled talons and jaws, breath of fire, spitting acid, and swinging clubs.
A V-shaped formation of motorcycles cut through the madness. Heavy cavalry led the charge with lances knocking aside and skewering any beast that dared block the path. Guns blasted; swords swung. Armand’s riders led the way like a plow clearing a snow-covered road.
In the middle of the formation, Rick Hauser drove the heavily armored van Trevor and JB had called home during three weeks of travel from France to Eurasia.
One of the Royal Marines sat in the passenger seat alongside Hauser. Trevor and JB huddled behind gripping the van’s cargo nets as the vehicle bounced and wobbled over rough terrain and dead bodies. Through the windshield Trevor could see Armand on his Ducati zipping side to side and adding his FAMAS fire wherever the battle needed it.
The scene outside the van’s windows reminded Trevor of the Battle of Five Armies, albeit on a much grander scale. The shots of gunfire, the thumps of explosions, the clang of armor, and the screams of victims filtered to his ears but the sounds were hollowed by the insulation of the van’s walls. It gave the noise an unreal edge; as if it might come from a radio broadcast.
He glanced at his boy. Jorgie held the cargo net in a death-grip. Water streamed from his eyes.
“Jorgie, what is it?”
A stupid question, of course. Nine-year-old boys did not belong in the midst of such carnage. Still, Jorgie looked more sad than afraid.
“Father-this is so-this is very bad…”
Trevor slung an arm on his son’s shoulders.
“Yes, it is,” he felt it important that his mysterious son realize as much. “People are dying out there. Lives are being lost, Jorgie. Fathers and sons; even mothers and daughters. That’s why we have to stop it.”
Trevor waited for a response from the boy who had often thought battle a glorious endeavor.
Jorgie mumbled only, “Yes.”
The vehicle took a particularly nasty jolt and a side of the van bent in from an exterior impact. Trevor glanced out and saw, through the tiny windows at the rear, a motorcycle spin out of control into a mob of dog-sized worms. A second later that bike detonated in a flash of yellow and orange.
Trevor turned his attention forward. He saw Armand balancing his FAMAS in one hand while steering his bike with the other. The man shot a flying thing that tried to dive bomb the formation.
Inside the van, Hauser-struggling with keeping control on the rocks, uneven ground, and bodies passing beneath the wheels-said, “We’re almost to the front entrance. Get ready.”
At that moment one of the heavy cavalry riders in bulky body armor tumbled end over end, separating person from bike. Trevor saw something akin to a horned turtle standing where the rider had been but he caught only a glimpse as the spearhead continued on at a rapid pace leaving both the turtle-thing and the rider to their fates.
Trevor leaned forward to see above the fray. And yes, there loomed the massive Temple of Voggoth beneath boiling black clouds.
“Just drop us off, Rick. Then you and the rest get out of here.”
“Sir, I signed on for the whole ride.”
“Thanks, but you can’t help us inside and if you stay outside you’ll be overrun. Get back to the main lines and help Armand and Alexander keep the fight going.”
Bam!
The van flew and landed on the driver’s side. Crates, buckets, Jorgie’s cot, ammo boxes, canned food, Trevor and JB all fell in a jumble against the toppled side of the van which slid and spun several more feet. From outside came the roar of something very big. And gunfire.
Trevor immediately found his son. Jorgie appeared dazed but in one piece. Then he leaned forward to check on Rick Hauser and the Royal Marine. With the exception of the indignity of having fallen on top of one another, the two men up front remained uninjured.
“Something big came out of the ground,” Hauser said as he struggled to right himself “We have got to get you moving. Is JB okay?”
“Yeah. We’re ready.”
“Wait here,” the Marine said as he produced an SA80 bullpup assault rifle and reached up for the passenger door. “I’ll pop open the back.”
Hauser used his hands to help hoist the soldier up and out through the passenger side door that was now at the ‘top’ of the overturned vehicle.. Then he, too, went in that direction.
More gunfire rang out from the immediate vicinity as Armand’s riders dealt with whatever had flipped the van.
Trevor found an HK MP5 and urgently grasped it in one hand. Jorgie did something similar, except he grasped his wrapped bunny albeit with even more urgency.
The rear of the van opened. Hauser motioned them out while the stoic Royal Marine stood nearby pointing his gun at something. Judging by the way he craned his neck, that something was rather tall.
“Father…”
“C’mon, Jorgie. It’s time to go.”
Trevor took his son’s hand and led them from the overturned van.
The air felt cold. Far colder than even a Russian summer should feel; cold enough to see white puffs from Hauser’s mouth as he encouraged their exit. Trevor suspected the chill came from a blackened sky that had blocked out the sun in that area probably for more than a decade.
Now that night had fallen, not even the faintest of glimmers tried to poke through the rolling clouds. No stars shone. But light did come from the periodic flashes of lightning. Those flashes-as brilliant as they could be-felt sterile, too: less like a force of nature and more like the snap of a photographer’s bulb.
The motorcyclists had successfully cut a path through the mob of combatants. While that mob still raged 50 meters away to the west, the immediate area surrounding the fallen van was clear. Save for the thing sprouting from the ground.
It wavered in the air like a warped version of Jack’s beanstalk, stretching a hundred meters into the pitch- black sky and swaying side to side. Trevor saw scales and pulsing veins and slithering eel-like parasites all along the thick body. At the top lived a triangle of bone and tendons that opened wide and screamed a high-pitched holler into the night.
“Around the front-move it, you hear?” The Marine ordered as he fired a burst at the tall creature. Hauser acted the part of usher and shuffled Trevor and JB away.
The van had come to rest 20 yards from the short but wide flight of granite-like steps that led to a set of fibrous doors.
A Spider Sentry fired at Armand’s cavalry from atop those stairs. Bodies of several of the gray-skinned Ogres lay nearby. Armand had kept his promise to get them to the temple. Unfortunately, two bodies clad in riders’ leather lay on the hard ground at the foot of the stairs and several more carried on the fight despite serious wounds.
“Move! Move!” The Marine shouted as he covered their advance to the temple.
The giant creature struck down. It’s triangular head split open and engulfed the armored van. A moment later the creature straightened to its full height and spat the car with great force. It tumbled through the sky and crashed into the mob of monsters.
The orb that served as body and head to the Spider Sentry at the temple doors cracked and withered from a string of bullets. Its spindly legs lost strength and the creature collapsed.
Armand wasted no time.
“Perimeter! Form a perimeter!”
When the beanstalk-thing struck again it was met by licks of fire from a flamethrower. Its ‘head’ burned like a grotesque candle, melting from the top down.
As for the rest of Voggoth’s pets, machine gun fire and tossed grenades from the half-circle of human defenders kept the army of monsters at bay for the time being while Armand slapped a bundle of explosives on the temple doors.
“Fire in the hole!”
