Stone Soldiers 5: Black Knight Down (14 page)

CHAPTER NINETEEN

Borne of man and Angel, they had reigned as gods. Humanity had strayed far from the path intended by their Creator, and B'Ashmayaw and his siblings had been all too eager to take advantage.

Their kingdoms had stretched wide over the world, built by the slaves that worshipped them. Slaves who fought wars for them, waited on them hand and foot and met their every need.

It was a glorious age for the four-armed children of the Fallen. Then the vision had come. A terrible nightmare B'Ashmayaw's wife, Yo-ahyuwatt, had described in great detail. A cataclysm that would erase the scourge of humanity from the face of the world with cleansing waters.

For the first time since he had slain his own father, B'Ashmayaw had been afraid. His wife's visions always came true- just as when she had foreseen him slaying their father.

The Lord of the Sky quickly consulted his brothers, B'Yabshaw, the Destroyer, and B'Yamaw, the Builder. At first they had considered fleeing to the Other World, where their children had built a mighty slave city. But the Other World had oceans as well. What if it too was wiped out in the Creator's coming fury?

Oddly enough, it was the very heavens they turned to for salvation- the inky blackness of death surrounding their world. They would flee the coming cataclysm in a lifeboat of sorts- a craft to contain them safely above any waters.

The vessel would have to sustain them for centuries. While Yo-ahyuwatt's vision of the times after the coming disaster were cloudy, they did indicate a return of man to the world. It seemed the Creator had a soft spot for his weakest creations- he was only going to kill most of them.

B'Ashmayaw and his siblings had no doubt man would one day stray from the path of righteousness again when his numbers were vast. They merely need wait for that time and rise up to enslave humanity again. Their vessel would therefore, must become a place of long sleep.

And so, they built. The built their vessel, they had their slaves build monuments in their glory- depicting in stone carvings their power. Carvings that would survive the coming floods and inspire future generations of decadence.

They warned their children- as ungrateful as the second generation was. Warned them to flee the world and wait. They convinced them that they would be safe on the Other World and that when the world was big enough once more for all of them they should awaken their parents.

And then B'Ashmayaw and his four siblings slept.

Their awakening was not what they had envisioned. The sacrifices needed to trigger the vessel had been weak. Dozens of them. When one came along with their blood in its veins they finally awoke- disappointed at how far their progeny had fallen.

But it was not just their descendants- it was the world itself. The very air was thin and weak. And a curious darkness lay over the land, rather than the twilight of the old world. Worse, the water that had been used to cleanse the world seemed in short supply. The air was dry and nearly tasteless.

When they appeared to those who had awakened them, they were surprised at the reaction. The one all in black had failed to even recognize them. Then he had dared slay B'Ashyamaw's beloved wife and sister. Was this the world their children had prepared for their return?

B'Ashmayaw might be weak from countless centuries asleep, but he was not too weak to fight back. He would slay these children of his children and take this world by force. Starting with the man in black.

***

Josie Winters awoke with a start. The foul taste of dead, human hair and sweat was in her mouth again and her hands were tied behind her back. Dirt was in her nose and a terrible chorus of noise filled her ears.

She rolled onto her side and was surprised by the bright light all around her. Above she could see slowly turning storm clouds. Beside her, Jimmy was coming to. They both were laying on the hard-packed ground of the crash site, between what looked like two overturned desks or tables.

Josie concentrated and the hair binding her wrists froze solid. With a desperate pull, she managed to snap the frozen fibers and pulled her hands free. She sat up quickly, clawing at the hair gag in her mouth.

The Black Knight had opened. The impact crater was illuminated by an eerie white light emanating from the fallen satellite. A light that revealed the combat all around Josie.

The Stone Soldiers were on the defensive now, fighting desperately against strange, four-armed, blue men and a woman.

To the left, partway down into the crater, Victor and two of the Navy SEALs turned to stone- Stevens and Jacobson- were fighting a blue man in a short white tunic. Their M60s had been discarded, and the soldiers were fighting with stone fists against an axe, a trident and two clubs- all excellently wielded by the blue man.

Behind the fallen satellite, another stone SEAL, Paul Briones, was exchanging fire with a four-armed man in red robes. The latter wielded a magical staff glowing with energy that lanced out at Briones, hammering him with bolt after bolt of red light. Each blast of energy seemed to strike with impact, ripping Briones' uniform and making it difficult for him to aim his M60. The latter was discharging short bursts of fire, some of which reflected off an invisible barrier around the Black Knight.

To the right of the satellite, a wild-eyed, naked blue woman lashed out with blinding speed with four long, curved swords. Her frenzied attacks were sparking against the arms of Dean Johnson and Chad Phillips. Josie could see the battle was not going well for the two stone soldiers, as bits of uniform and equipment lay in cut, broken pieces on the ground around them.

Not far from Josie, in front of the satellite, the last of the blue men, wearing a white tunic and sporting a peacock-feather crown, hammered at Father Schuler and Captain Smith. He hammered them with his club, his axe, and a wicked curved sickle. Smith and the priest each were barely holding back the ferocious attack of the blue man, and the air thundered with the combat between all the combatants present.

"Jimmy!" Josie said, shaking her boyfriend.

He sat up slowly, and Josie immediately saw the deep wound in his chest.

"I'm okay- just need a minute," Jimmy said, struggling.

"Get up you two!" a familiar voice yelled. A strong hand grabbed Josie by the arm and lifted her to her feet. It was her grandfather, Colonel Kenslir.

His face and neck were marred with gray lines, like the branches of a tree. His black shirt had been blown open in the chest- which was now a stony gray as well. He was smoking and smelled burnt.

"Get out of here!" Kenslir yelled. He had lifted Jimmy on his feet as well.

By the satellite, B'Yamaw slammed the base of his long staff against the crystal covering the ground. A boom sounded and wind radiated out from him like a shockwave from an explosion. All the stone soldiers and Father Schuler were knocked off their feet by the expanding shockwave. When it reached Josie it slammed into her like a wave of seawater and nearly tore her from Mark Kenslir's grasp.

The Colonel remained rooted in place, bright green light flaring around him as the wall of force passed him.

B'Ashmayaw's eyes went wide at the sight of Kenslir on the crater rim. He immediately plucked a large disk from his belt and threw it.

The disk sliced through the air as fast as an arrow, but failed to reach its target. It was batted out of the air by a lethal-looking tomahawk the Colonel had drawn from the ammo carrier on his left thigh.

Spinning in the air, the disk made a long circle around, and returned to B'Ashmayaw's hand even as the Colonel stepped around in front of Josie.

The blue man had already dropped his axe and sickle and now had his bow out, held up by his upper arms. He quickly began firing arrows- one after the other, his arms a blur.

The first arrow to reach the Colonel was batted away by the tomahawk, the second he caught in his right hand. The third he dodged, while the fourth lanced into his right thigh, just above his knee.

Around the crater, the stone soldiers were all slowly recovering, while the three remaining blue men and women watched their leader.

B'Yamaw now reached into his long, red robes and pulled something out. He threw it on the ground before him and his long staff began to glow brightly.

"Get her out of here!" Colonel Kenslir yelled to Jimmy, ripping the arrow from his leg.

A sudden bolt of lightning from the right momentarily blinded the Colonel- a discharge thrown by Chad Phillips at the four-armed woman with the swords. It slammed into her chest and sent her flying- almost landing at B'Ashmayaw's feet. The leader of the blue people's eyes went wide in surprise and he hesitated, another arrow set in his bow.

Father Schuler charged in, punching at the four-armed archer and managing to knock the bow from his hands. The fallen Ah-moowatt immediately leapt to her feet and kicked at the priest, nearly knocking him off his.

Behind the Black Knight, the two handfuls of dirt the red-robed sorcerer B'Yamaw had thrown to the ground were rapidly expanding. Great blobs of wet soil, they rose up quickly, passing the height of a man. They congealed in on themselves, forming boney, bipedal structures. Structures that continued to swell in size.

In just seconds, the each pile of wet dirt had formed into a two-legged beast larger than a giraffe. They had black, leathery skin and heads the size of small cars- filled with teeth. Each beast opened their mouths and bellowed loudly, shaking the ground.

Jimmy Kane quickly grabbed up Josie Winters and began to run.

CHAPTER TWENTY

It was the strangest fight he had ever been in by far. Mark Kenslir had fought a variety of monsters in his long career. But normally he had only fought one kind at a time. Like most evil, the monsters of the world could not stand one another- if they did work with another monster it was nearly always one of their own.

Now though, the first stone soldier looked down on a scene of utter chaos as the four-armed, blue people from the fallen Dark Object battled alongside what his tactical targeting visor had clearly identified as two eight-meter long allosaurus dinosaurs.

The huge lizards were wreaking havoc alongside their blue masters. The stone soldiers were being scattered like bowling pins, while the priest found himself desperately trying to fend off the attack of both the peacock-crowned leader and the naked, sword-wielding woman the tactical visor had identified as KALI.

Mark Kenslir charged down into the crater, Tomahawk in his right hand, his lucky Kabar knife in his left. He doubted that these were indeed the Hindu gods of old- the Black Knight clearly predated the earliest account of Kali, Shiva and the rest. He put the thought aside as he charged toward what the tactical visor told him was Vishnu. He would worry about who or what these strange blue people were after he killed them.

Vishnu was prepared for Kenslir's attack- he and Kali had been hammering Father Schuler with blow after blow- the priest was barely able to fend off strikes from their sharp weapons. In the fast combat, Kenslir was able to make out the gleam of metal gauntlets under the priest's torn sleeves. He had been prepared to fight. Unfortunately, his protective arm guards were useless as offensive weaponry.

Vishnu blocked the tomahawk Kenslir swung at him- parrying the blade with his own double-headed battle axe. The Colonel was ready though, and thrust forward with his Kabar.

Again, the blue-armed man parried- using his throwing disk to deflect the blade. And that left his chest wide open.

Mark Kenslir unleashed a front kick- channeling all his power into the blow. The years he had spent mastering unarmed combat paid off, and the ball of his booted foot connected with B'Ashmayaw's floating ribs.

The impact was so strong that the four-armed man was hurtled off his feet, his ribs crushed. He collided with his brother, B'Yamaw, as the sorcerer was readying another handful of magic dirt.

Ah-moowatt turned away from the priest she was slashing at with her swords. Her brother had been knocked off his feet by the man in black. She saw her chance- an exposed chest she could have sworn was stone-colored seconds ago. The four-armed banshee shifted and lunged with her lower right arm. But the point of her sword found only air. The man in black was no longer there.

B'Yabshaw kicked the man of stone grappling with him away and turned to his left. His beloved wife had shifted her attack from the blonde-haired human to the strange man in black. But the leader of these humans was fast. Inhumanly fast. After kicking B'Ashmayaw off his feet, the axe-wielding human had leapt up, into the air and spun around in place- snapping a foot out.

Kenslir's spinning back kick crushed into Ah-moowatt's head and she was knocked off her feet- even dropping one of her swords as she was cartwheeled to her right.

B'Yabshaw charged in, ready to stab the man in black right in the back with his trident. But again, the human was faster than he had expected- maybe faster than B'Yabshaw and his siblings.

Colonel Kenslir dropped to the ground and whirled in place again, a leg sweeping out knocking the charging blue man, tagged as SHIVA, off his feet.

As the axe and trident-wielding blonde-haired, blue-skinned First Born tumbled over him, Kenslir pulled his legs in and kicked. Both boots caught the tripping blue man in the chest and catapulted him up and out of the crater.

Kenslir kicked again, launching himself upright- one of Ah-moowatt's blades passing just centimeters behind his head.

The Colonel blocked with his right arm, and was going to follow up with a thrust from his Kabar. But Father Schuler was back in the combat now. He tackled Ah-moowatt and slammed her to the ground once more.

Then something the size of a train hit Kenslir.

***

"Stop!" Josie Winters yelled, finally managing to break free of Jimmy's grip. Her boyfriend had scooped her up and thrown her over his shoulder when he sprinted from the impact crater- following her grandfather's order to retreat.

Jimmy skidded to a halt, trying not to drop Josie, but she was already free. Her feet hit the ground and she tumbled and fell.

"Josie!" Jimmy yelled and reached for her.

Josie smacked away his hand and got up herself. "What are you doing?!"

"Following orders," Jimmy said. "The Colonel said to run, so I did!"

Josie was going to reply, but instead her eyes went very big as she looked over Jimmy's shoulder, toward the impact crater.

"Running is a good idea!" she said, then turned and began to sprint.

Jimmy hesitated and looked back behind him.

Impossibly, a huge, black dinosaur was charging up out of the crater. One of the stone soldiers- maybe Victor- was clinging to its long tail. As it reached ground level, it flicked the huge tail and sent him flying, out of site.

The dinosaur locked eyes on Jimmy and bellowed, then took off running again.

Jimmy Kane felt his adrenalin surge and he spun in his bare feet and took off after Josie. He scooped her up in mid stride and kept running as fast as he could. As he did so, his body began to change.

Every other time he had turned, Jimmy had been filled with terrible pain as his bones rapidly grew and changed position, His skin had felt as though it was tearing as it tried to keep up with the rapid growth of new muscles. His mouth had been on fire with a pain more terrible than a thousand dentist drills as new teeth had rapidly grown in his expanding jaws.

This time, adrenalin and terror masked any pain Jimmy felt. All he could think about was running.

Josie on the other hand, was on the verge of screaming. Not only was a gigantic, prehistoric beast rapidly gaining on them, but Jimmy was turning into a werewolf once more. She wasn't sure which one was worse.

Suddenly, they were inside a large cargo container- the kind normally pulled on flatbed trailers by semi trucks. The werewolf tossed her roughly inside the container, then turned and pulled the metal doors shut.

Josie bounced and rolled on the floor of the container for several feet. When sh
e’
d stopped tumbling, she climbed to her hands and knees and looked up, expecting to be attacked. But the werewolf, Jimmy, was holding the doors shut with both clawed hands. And impossibly, he looked scared.

"Jimmy?"

The werewolf whined once, like a dog, then the whole container shook violently and Josie was thrown onto her side. The dinosaur had just rammed the container.

***

Mark Kenslir ached from head to toe. He could feel several of his ribs were broken, and maybe a vertebrae or two. Luckily, his spine hadn't been severed by the impact, and he could still move- albeit painfully.

He rolled with the impact and leapt to his feet as an allosaur charged past, head lowered. It continued up the slope of the crater, headed in the direction Jimmy and Josie had fled. Not good.

Kenslir had to do a sudden series of back flips as the other allosaur came at him. This second reconstituted monster was charging around the Black Knight, counter clockwise, smashing into the Stone Soldiers and sending them flying, one after another.

Worse, as Kenslir landed, he could see the red-robed, pseudo-Vedic being with the white beard had started on two more dinosaurs. Their churning, boiling columns of wet clay and mud were already forming flesh over bones.

Kenslir looked around quickly as the second allosaur passed him. His men were barely holding their own. Wayne Stevens and Isaac Jacobson were recovering from their own run in with the dinosaur, while Dean Johnson and Chad Phillips were being knocked down even now by it. Victor and the quiet SEAL Paul Briones were nowhere to be seen. Smith and the priest were duking it out with the neo-Kali and Shiva.

Kenslir wondered where the Vishnu-like antediluvian was.

B'Ashmayaw answered that question in short order, landing beside Kenslir and narrowly missing him with a spike-studded war mace. The blue skinned man was different now- his blonde hair was gone and his eyes burned red, like fire. His skin was no longer smooth, blue flesh, but a dry cracked material Kenslir suspected as being stone. The four-armed antediluvians were upping their game.

Kenslir parried a slashing attack from a sickle with his tomahawk and the thrust of the
B’
Ashmayaw's trident-headed spear with his Kabar knife. Then two flashing red triangles in his upper field of vision told him it was time to move.

Kenslir leapt again, channeling his strength into the leap. He arced high in the air, somersaulting and passing over a sudden stream of lead- the torrent of minigun fire from an approaching helicopter.

The barrage of lead hammered into B'Ashmayaw, staggering him with its intensity, but doing no real harm. The Lord of the Sky scowled, turning and throwing his trident in the direction of the minigun.

The three pronged spear sliced through the air like a missile, punching through the closed door of the circling Blackhawk helicopter like it was paper. It quickly continued on, penetrating the opposite door and arcing out of sight.

But the helicopte
r’
s gunner continued to fire his minigun. B'Ashmayaw had hit nothing vital.

***

Inside the shipping container, Josie was having a hard time staying on her feet. The dinosaur outside was doing its best to breach the steel walls of the container. It rammed the long box with its head, slashed at it with enormous feet and even struck it with its tail.

The shipping container was showing the scars of this battle, with huge, inward-bulging dents and tears in the metal walls. Through it all, the werewolf clung to the doors at the end like a rodeo cowboy, somehow holding them closed.

"Jimmy? Is that you?" Josie asked, trying to brace herself. The problem was, the container was empty, and it was just too big for her to touch both sides at once. It was like being tossed around in a dryer on tumble.

The werewolf suddenly shapeshifted, hair falling off in clumps, body changing back to something more human. Still larger than normal, and with a face closer to dog than human, it looked at Josie with something like embarrassment.

"It's me!" Jimmy growled in barely-human tones.

"How?" Jose asked, bouncing painfully off the side of the container again.

"When the witch possessed me," Jimmy said, grunting to keep his grip on the doors, "I saw how she did it- how she changed me."

"You're doing this on purpose?"

The shaking of the container suddenly stopped. Josie looked around, expecting a dinosaur head to come bursting through the side of the container. Instead, she heard the all-too-familiar sound of minigun fire- and the wall of the container suddenly had dozens of holes in it.

Outside, the dinosaur bellowed in rage.