DARKSIDE CH-12

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Chapter Eleven
 

          "We could always double back," Josh said. "We'll just leave the way we came in and make it to Tae Con Ra overland."

Leanne shook her head. She'd gone chalk-white now, so I knew she was really pissed. "We would never make it in time.

Drat suddenly broke out in an ear-to-ear grin. (And him being a troll and all, I mean that literally.)

"What are you grinning about?" Alex asked him. She still seemed too nonchalant about everything for my satisfaction. It was unnatural. I found myself wishing the girl would just panic once in a while.

"Doze ain't my boyze." Drat looked around at the surrounding forest. "By da Maker, I trained 'em good."

One by one trolls stepped out from behind trees, under shrubs, and up from the tall grass. A hundred trolls in all: Drat's boyze. They formed up just behind us, and Drat turned to address them.

"We're outnumbered at least two, maybe tree ta one," Drat addressed them "If dere's anyone who wants to back out now, I won't hold a grudge."

"Ya probably won't live long enough ta hold a grudge, boss," someone from the back ranks hollered. The comment was followed by good-natured laughter, but no one stepped out of line.

Drat grinned, showing all two hundred of his jagged teeth. "Don't count on it." The troops beat their chests in salute. He turned to face me. "Are youse ready?"

I'm not a violent man by nature. I think it fair to say that I have an honest aversion to killing. I looked at our impromptu army, and then at our enemy awaiting us at the entrance to the Ways. There was no way we were going to accomplish this without bloodshed. I didn't know these people. I didn't know the enemy, and I didn't know these trolls lined up before us now. And I didn't want any of them to die.

My stomach went all queasy on me, and suddenly I was angry. Angry at Rant and Snit for making me do this. Angry at Josh and Leanne for getting me into this. And angry at myself, because I knew what I had to do. "All right. If it's a fight they want, then it's a fight they'll get."

"We'll make a troll out a youse yet," Drat bragged. He turned back to his men. "We'll battle our way to da entrance. We're not here ta bloody Rant's nose, but ta get to da Ways. All you boyze have ta do is keep 'em busy enough for us ta get in, den hold 'em off until we make it to Tae Con Ra. So nutt'n fancy. Got it?"

"WE GOT IT, BOSS!" our troops replied as one.

I thought Drat was going to tear up there for a moment. I have to admit I was rather touched by their loyalty to their leader as well. "Dose guys would follow me anywhere," he said, then grinned. "Mostly outa curiosity."

A lightning bolt struck a tree near our position. It exploded in a rain of burning branches, leaving nothing but a charred stump. Snit had decided to bring the fight to us.

Drat raised his battle-axe. "Kill da bastards!" He broke into a run, the rest of his troops hot on his heels.

"Catchy battle cry," Josh said, then nodded toward the enemy. "Care to join me?"

"Go on, I'll give you a head start," I said. Josh nodded, and was off. I turned to Alex, and the four trolls Drat had left to guard her. "No matter what happens, I'll be back for you."

She threw her arms around me and gave me a big hug and a peck on the cheek. "Just watch out for Dad."

"Anything for you," I said. I kissed her forehead. "You realize you came this close to being "Alex, Queen of the Trolls?"

She giggled. "Yeah, but I would have had the coolest date at the prom."

Like I said, too nonchalant. I turned to Leanne. "Ready?"

Her eyes glowed a fierce red, and her veins showed translucent blue through her alabaster skin. The demon was just itching to get out. "Ready."

I hit the enemy while our troops were still a hundred yards back. I put my shoulder into them, driving them back into their comrades without slowing my momentum. Twenty or thirty trolls went down, or were tossed into the air, limbs flailing, only to lie gasping in a heap with broken ribs and fractured arms or legs.

Leanne hit their right flank a few seconds later, spinning, twisting, and striking out at every target. She stopped suddenly amidst the carnage she created, her alabaster skin and raven hair spattered with orange gore. Her eyes blazed like crimson fire now, and her lips and fangs were smeared with troll blood. She spat the foul-tasting stuff on the ground at their feet, and laughed. It was the first glimpse the enemy had had of their foe, and they panicked.

Many broke ranks and fled, trampling fallen comrades in their haste to escape. Others fell to their knees and begged for mercy. The hardier stock gripped their weapons more tightly and vowed vengeance.

Our troops collided with theirs, and the bloodshed began in earnest. Troll weapons are crude; they prefer the axe, the mace, and the morningstar to the more "refined" killing weapons. They battered one another, crushing skulls and shattering elbows and knees until the field was littered with the maimed crying out in anguish.

Individual skirmishes broke out now. Josh and Drat fought back to back. They made an effective team--Josh hit them high, and Drat hit them low. Leanne cut a swath through the trolls toward the entrance. She had slowed now so that she was at least visible most of the time. The enemy broke before her, more frightened of her than the rest of us combined.

I cleared a path about the entrance, making short work of the trolls set to guard it. Trolls have thick skulls, but a sharp blow to the top of the head still knocks them on their ass. Six trolls collapsed unconscious, as if they had suddenly fainted. I only hoped I hadn't hit any of them too hard. A crushed skull or bad concussion will kill a troll as surely as it will kill a human.

Leanne was suddenly at my side, her eyes burning bright. "Hold me," she said. "Drive It away, before I lose myself to It completely.

I held her in my arms as she trembled violently. The demon did not want to relinquish control and fought her for supremacy. I hugged her more tightly, and she gnawed at my shoulder, biting deeply into the skin there. Eventually the demon had to lose, though. My mere presence finally drove it back into the recesses of her mind. Her body relaxed so suddenly that I had to support her or she would have fallen.

Josh and Drat saw us at the entrance and fought their way to us. The shapeshifter was covered in orange troll blood. A slight gash over his left eye bled down his face, but the clothing Goibnu had provided had done its job and protected him from the worst. A shallow cut ran along the length of Drat's right thigh. Other than that, the troll seemed none the worse for wear.

"Hold Leanne," I told Josh. "I'm going to get Alex." I handed her off to the shapeshifter and raced back to where we'd left the girl. I think I almost gave her guards heart failure, appearing as suddenly as I did.

"You ready to go?"

"Sure, Bumper. Just give me a second." She turned and gave each of her guards a big hug and kiss on the cheek. "Thanks for taking care of me, guys."

I never would have suspected trolls could blush.

I picked her up in my arms, and she hugged herself close to me.

"You can't move quite so fast with me, James," she told me. "The human body can't handle speed like that, not to mention the sudden stop."

"Okay, cutie. Just hold on tight."

It's a good thing she had mentioned that little tidbit. I wouldn’t have thought of it. Superman never had that problem.

I kept my speed down to around eighty or ninety miles an hour. I'm just guessing here, of course. It's not like I have a speedometer embedded in my forehead or anything. The trolls saw us barreling down on them and cleared a path for us. None of them wanted to be standing in the way of anything moving that fast. I set Alex down beside her father.

Drat's Boyze had fought their way to the portal now. They formed a semicircle around us and defended our position.

"I think we've out-stayed our welcome," Josh said. "Time to leave."

I turned to the portal. The entrance was a solid jade pentagon, seven feet high and four feet wide, with rune-inscribed marble molding on all sides. Drat picked up an ornate mallet that hung from a peg beside the portal and struck the pentagon. A deep, resonating gong sounded. The jade seemed to shimmer for a moment, then was solid once more. He struck it again. This time the pentagon spatially distorted, expanding outward like a bubble, then inward, and finally snapping back to its rigid form. A slightly higher pitched note sounded, harmonizing with the first. Drat struck it a third time, sounding the last note in a primal chord, and the portal shimmered and shifted until finally it became translucent. I couldn't quite make out what was on the other side.

Drat stepped through the gateway. Once through I could just make out the silhouette of his form. Alex went next, then Josh. Leanne and I stepped through together. She still leaned on me for support. One by one those of our men that had managed to fight their way through appeared--sometimes singly, sometimes three or four at a time.

We stood on a narrow pathway of beaten earth. It stretched off into the distance as far as I could see. Everything save for the path was in total darkness, but the sky...

The sky sparkled and twinkled with more stars than I'd ever imagined, shining bright blue and white against the obsidian backdrop. Flashes of color--an aurora borealis in reds and greens and blues--washed across the stars at intermittent intervals. Meteors streaked across the canvas of the sky, blazing bright, then dying as suddenly.

"Move out!" Drat commanded, more to his troops than to us. Some of the enemy had managed to make their way through the portal now, bringing the battle to us. It would only be a matter of time before they established a defensible position there, and then Snit and Rant would join them. Drat took the lead; we followed. There were only fifty or sixty trolls with us now. The rest we'd abandoned on the other side, dead or dying.

I couldn't understand how someone could get lost in the Ways. There was only the one path--how hard could it be? Then Drat stopped. We waited while he looked around for a moment, and suddenly the path shifted about forty-five degrees to the right. "This way," he said, and we were off again. The confusion must have been evident on my face.

"To you or me, there is only the one path," Leanne explained. “To the trolls there are many.”

Drat had to take his time to ensure that we followed the correct trail. Snit and Rant were under no such handicap. All they had to do was keep us in sight. The enemy was gaining on us.

"I want ten of your men to join me in a rearguard action," I told Drat. "We'll hold them off until you're clear of the Ways, and meet up with you at Tae Con Ra."

"I'm coming with you," Leanne insisted.

I hugged her to me, and felt how her body still trembled. "I don't think you can handle it. It's too soon."

"Try and stop me." Her eyes blazed momentarily. Even that small act of defiance had brought the demon to the foreground.

I kissed her forehead. "They need you here. Alex needs you. She's all that matters." I stroked her hair, so soft and silky. "Get her to Tae Con Ra. I promise I'll be there. We'll rescue Sabrina and be home in time for pizza."

She pulled away, and brushed my hair back out of my eyes. "I hate pizza," she said, and smiled sadly.

"Then we're in real trouble. I'm such a lousy cook pizza's the only thing I know how to order without burning it."

"I don't eat, anyway."

"Yeah, yeah. You and every supermodel I know," Drat interrupted. He turned to me. "I got da boyze you wanted. Dey's ten a my best. Treat 'em good."

I clasped the troll on the shoulder. "You take care of mine, and I'll take care of yours."

Drat grinned. "Ya know, I'm starting ta tink maybe youse make a better friend den a snack."

I think that was a compliment. I could have been wrong though. Trolls really like their food. "Move out!" I called, and led Drat's men off toward the enemy at a slow jog.

"KILL DA BASTARDS!" I heard from behind me.

Lightning hit me when we were almost upon them. The energy sparked and crackled, spreading out through my chest and out along my arms and legs. I didn't feel a thing.

"You boys keep them busy," I said. "Snit's mine."

I bowled through the first four lines of the enemy, sending them reeling. I could see Snit near the back, goading the troops forward. Rant stood with him. For some reason the chieftain didn't look all that happy. I made a beeline for Snit, moving faster than the eye could see, and came up hard against his shield. Let me tell you, that hurt. It felt like I'd run full tilt into an oncoming Mac truck. I heard something pop and knew I'd dislocated a shoulder. Still, the maneuver wasn't a total loss.

I may not have penetrated Snit's shield, but the impact drove the mage back a good thirty feet and knocked him on his bony ass in a tangle of robes and gangly limbs. I picked myself up off the ground, popped my shoulder back into its socket, and advanced slowly this time. Rant stepped in front of me, a heavy two-handed mace clutched in his claws.

"You don't want to do this," I said.

"No shit! But I'm da chief here, and Eternal or no, I'm gonna take you out." He raised the mace high to strike.

I have to admit I admired him for his courage--but not enough to spare him any embarrassment. I took the mace from him and dropped it on his clawed toes. Trolls don't wear shoes, and it was a heavy mace. Rant hopped up and down cursing in pain, until I undid the belt about his waist and pulled his baggy pants down around his ankles. (By the way, Rant was a boxers kind of guy.) He tripped and fell flat on his face. I used his belt to hog-tie him. Have I mentioned I'm a big Three Stooges fan?

Snit climbed groggily to his feet, and leveled another blast at me that was as ineffectual as the first. To be honest, that kind of worried me. Was I that far removed from human already that I could shrug off being struck by lightning so easily?

The mage traced a faint outline in the air and mumbled more words of incantation, and suddenly a circle of fire sprang up all around me. The heat from the inferno was incredible, creating a vacuum that sucked the very air from my lungs. My clothes began to smolder as the circle slowly began to close in on me. To make matters worse, Rant's men had reached their leader and untied him. He looked pissed.

I concentrated on ignoring the flames, which is a lot harder than it sounds, especially when your hair starts to smoke. Have you ever tried not to think of something? I stepped through the blaze and out of the circle, and was pretty proud of myself until I noticed my boot was on fire. It's hard to look threatening when you're hopping about on one foot, swatting at the flames until they finally go out.

Snit stood there, the energies swirling madly about in that fancy snowglobe-on-a-stick of his, and grinning this malicious little grin. I wanted to shove his teeth down his throat--all two hundred of them. I stood beside him suddenly and caught him in the head with a spinning wheel kick; guruma geri, if I remember my Japanese correctly. Actually, I caught him just beside the head. That damn shield of his stopped me from actually connecting with his bony melon. Still, it knocked him to the ground and wiped that smirk off his face, so it wasn't a total loss.

Snit climbed slowly to his feet, and we stood eyeing each other not three feet apart. I tried to ignore the fact that Rant's men had by now ringed us in. I could still hear the clash of fighting as the ten men that I'd brought with me fought a running battle, harassing the enemy's front lines in an effort to slow them down.

"They say you can't kill an Eternal," Snit taunted as he traced another magical symbol in the air with his right hand. "That may be true, but I'm willing to bet I can make you wish you were dead."

The very air seemed to close in on me like some phantom boa constrictor, trapping my arms at my sides. My ribs ground together as they were forced inward, and I gasped in pain as one pierced my lungs.

"You should have let Rant have the Innocent. She would have kept him busy for a while, and out of my way." Snit closed his fist, and the invisible bands tightened once again, driving me to my knees. "You're an incredible source of power. Did you know that? You Eternals act as a focal point--one that I can draw on for my own use. Marrying you to Tirade would have ensured that you would be nearby, feeding me with your energies."

The mage kicked me hard in the ribs. "Oh well. You'll do just as well as my prisoner. Soon nothing and no one will be able to stop me. Once I rule all of the clans, we will look to Darkside--an unlimited source of food."

"Don't forget the women," Rant added. He grabbed Snit by the throat and one leg, and lifted the struggling mage over his head. "I never did like you much," he said and tossed him off of the path and into the darkness.

Snit fell away from us, as if sideways was suddenly down somehow, screaming and flailing his arms and legs until his shape had receded to the point where he was lost to view.

The pressure eased up, and my ribs sprang out to their normal position. That hurt almost as much as being crushed. I wiped at the small trickle of blood that ran from my nose, and Rant pointed to my ears. There was blood there, too. My shoulder throbbed where the tendons had stretched when it dislocated, but there was very little swelling. I had already started to heal. I knew that I could probably speed up the process even further--all I had to do was visualize--but I held off. In the back of my mind the thought that I could still feel pain made me feel human.

Rant motioned for his men to lower their weapons. "You," he ordered the troll nearest me. "Run up ta da front lines an stop da fighing dere." The troll sped off as fast as his bowed legs could carry him. "I should of knowed da mage was rotten. Nobody is dat helpful without dere being someting in it fer him," Rant confessed. "Besides dat, he talked funny."

"That'll teach him to go on and on about his evil plan instead of just finishing me when he had the chance," I said. Snit would have made a good Bond villain.

Rant nodded in agreement. "I don't like being made a fool of--which reminds me." The chieftain tugged at the belt about his waist, tightening it.

"So that's why you tossed Snit off of the path," I said, trying to change the subject. "What exactly happened to him, anyway?"

"Nobody's exactly sure. Dere's millions of paths, but youse can only see one at a time. I suppose if he thought hard about see'n anudder path below him, eventually one would show up. Still, dere's no telling where it'd lead, and he'd be moving pretty fast. He'd hit dat new path mighty hard. I don't tink we'll have ta worry about dat half-breed Snit any time soon."

I agreed. So why wasn't I surprised when flames sprung up all about us suddenly? From a pinpoint of reference far off to the side of the path, Snit's shape grew rapidly in size as he approached. He screamed in rage, the sound louder and louder the nearer he came. The rat-bastard was levitating, the snowglobe-on-a-stick holding him aloft. Several trolls around me burst suddenly into flames and rolled about on the ground as their comrades tried to beat out the fire. Snit hovered just off the edge of the path now.

Enough was enough. I dove off the path, hitting the mage high and dragging him with me as we started to fall, um...sideways. Snit chanted louder until the staff supported both our weights. I grabbed the crystal, squeezing hard. Snit's eyes bugged out as if I squeezed him instead. I pressed harder until a hairline crack appeared. The energies swirled frantically as if excited at their imminent release. The mage panicked, clawing at me with his free hand. His talons dug a furrow down the left side of my face, but I ignored him and concentrated on the crystal. Another crack formed, then another, until it finally shattered, first imploding--then exploding in a fine mist of crushed crystal fragments.

Snit screamed--a raw, primal sound bereft of intelligence--as we began to fall. A deep purple fog crackling with electricity arched from what was left of the staff and wrapped itself about the troll. It entered him through his eyes and ears, and down through his mouth, choking off his strangled screams. Purplish veins pulsed iridescently just beneath his skin, covering Snit from head to toe. The fog seemed to eat at the mage from within. His body collapsed in on itself, the leathery skin shrunken tight to the skeletal frame until he looked like a desiccated mummy. His eye sockets smoldered as the orbs were burned out. He fell away from me--still flailing, still alive in this unholy condition--until I lost sight of him.

The wind whistled past as I hurtled toward--what? I couldn't make out any other path. Only the sky, that magnificent sky. I was an Eternal, for all the good that did me now. Suddenly eternity seemed like a very long time.

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