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dochermes"ATRUMO THE CONQUEROR III: The Boiling Pit of Filth"
3/27/2015
I.
Two of the stinking Ghulgol held him up by the arms, his legs dragging across the gleaming marble floor, and hauled Bane toward a massive wooden chair that served his enemy as a throne. He was flung brutally down at the boots of the Conqueror as the unliving creatures stepped back awkwardly.
Dazed and aching from being beaten with maces, his field suit hanging in mere shreds and tatters from the corrosive Alchemical mist which had engulfed him, Jeremy Bane remained completely defiant. He pulled himself up to a seated position, unfastened the crumbling helmet and yanked it off. Revealed in the overhead fluorescent lights was an intense narrow face with short black hair and cold grey eyes that glared up at his enemy.
No one knew Atrumo's true backstory. Some said he had been sold to Chujiran slavers to work their jade mines and had escaped by killing twenty guards when he reached manhood. There were those who claimed he had been lost as a child in the wilderness of Evaho and had raised himself as a wild beast might. Rumors also circulated that Atrumo was a disinherited illegitimate son of some Melgar royalty, perhaps even a bastard child of King Holmir himself. It didn't matter. He was a threat to be reckoned with now.
The raider chief wore high-laced boots and leggings of deerhide and was naked from the waist up presumably to display immense hard muscles a blacksmith might envy. Around his waist was wrapped a thin cord of red metal links. On a leather thong around a neck thicker than his head hung a faceted scarlet crystal wide as a man's outstretched hand. Atrumo's hair was concealed beneath an black iron helmet forged to resemble the maned head of a lion from within which his flat brutal face glared out. Between the bristling dark beard and the shadowy overhang of that helmet, little could be seen of his features. "The Dire Wolf. Again! We will not meet a fourth time."
"That's just what I was thinking," Bane snapped back, forcing himself up on to his feet. "The last thing the realms need is an imitation Saturnius like you."
"Defiant to the last breath, I see. I will not waste your carcass, Dire Wolf. Even in death, you will further my campaign." He gestured to the Ghulgol. "Each of you take one arm and one leg. Another of you, stay close to crack his skull open if he resists. Come, let us visit the Boiling Pit."
II.
Even if someone on the ground had been earnestly searching with binoculars, they would not have been able to spot the CORBYs in the night sky. Hovering at three thousand feet, the stealth copters were both solid black with no external lights and eerily silent. Their rotors made little more noise than a brisk wind might.
At the combined cyclic/collective stick of CORBY ONE, Megan Salenger studied the reading being fed into the heads-up display on the interior of the windscreen. Luminous green letters and numbers rolled up in a steady flow. "Sable, are you getting all this?" she said into her helmet's microphone.
"Reading it now," came her captain's voice from the other copter. "But I'm only working at a Human rate, I need to slow it down. We can't all be Trom-raised geniuses."
Megan made no comment but, from the compartment behind her, a sassy voice prompted, "Are you gonna take a dig like that?"
"Haley, please do not instigate," said Megan imperturbably. "These readings should be considered carefully. I'm seeing three hundred and twelve life forms in the buildings below us. I count seventy-two active Humans and one anomalous heat signature much stronger than normal. The rest are Ghulgol."
Sable's voice held relief. "There, Jeremy's locator. His Link is damaged but his vital signs seem good. Uh-oh, look at his pulse. He's in fight mode."
"SOMEone's gonna get it," added Haley, "I wouldn't wanna be the one he's that mad at."
Sable continued to study the readings. "Timothy and Josef, take the sticks. If anyone makes a run for it, use the chain guns to disable those cars and chase them back inside. Galvan and Jin, enter from the West side. Haley and Jocelyn, you go in with me from the east side. Megan, I want you to fly down and enter through the roof. We're attacking in full assault mode. Megan, neutralize their power."
"Targeting their generators for a disable pulse," said the Trom Girl. "Power is off... now. " And far below, the building's windows went dark.
III.
As hardened as a lifetime spent in Midnight War had made him, Bane was still disgusted and enraged at the Boiling Pit. A walkway overhung a vast cast iron pot twenty feet across, filled with thick bubbling black goo. Many arms, legs and heads floated half-dissolved in that steaming-hot filth, including parts of animals. The stink was nearly fatal in itself. Even the Dire Wolf fought back a strong urge to vomit.
Over the lid of that hellish pot, a thick stone plug hung on a hinge designed to seal off the Pit. It was held up by a rope which stretched down tautly to be knotted around a steel bar inches away from Bane's reach.
"The source of my Ghulgol," announced Atrumo. "Of all the secrets revealed by the Crown of Boundless Knowledge, this has been the most useful. Daily, several Ghulgol reach a point where they attempt to climb out. Some are too deformed or incomplete to be of any use, so they are cut up and tossed back in to try again."
Determined to appear unruffled. Bane said, "It's monster stew. You add ingredients until you get it the way you like."
"I'll be stirring in fresh and quality parts today. I think the Ghulgol which form around your body parts will be exceptional." His back to the Boiling Pit, Atrumo raised a massive fist toward his enemy, and took a breath to continue speaking.
The lights went out. Instantly, Bane hopped one step closer, chambered his leg and blasted a simple high straight kick to the chest. Atrumo was lifted off his feet and hurled bodily back into the Boiling Pit with a grisly splash. One single outraged gasp escaped him before he went down under the surface of that unspeakable gunk.
Even in the darkness, Jeremy Bane remembered where the rope was that held the plug up. He whipped out both silver daggers from their forearm sheaths where they had escaped detection when he was being searched and sawed away furiously at the rope Within seconds, those well-sharpened blades had sliced through and the plug crashed down to seal off the simmering contents of the pot.
All the action had taken only a few seconds. Bane wheeled around to face where the guards were standing and whipped his daggers left and right in horizontal arcs that made wet ripping noises as they sliced through chests. Bane hopped over the bodies as they fell with thuds and reached the door. His team had come through in the nick of time once again. Unseen in the darkness, his face held a fierce predatory grin.
IV.
As Timothy took the stick, Megan Salenger dove out through the opening hatch to her right as if a swimming pool was directly beneath her instead of three thousand feet of empty air. The hatch slid shut automatically. The Trom Girl arched her body, legs together and arms extended in front of her as she plummeted straight down. There were three sets of controls for the gravity shield disc between her shoulder blades. One back-up set was on a plate just above her left collarbone. The sets she normally used were built into the stiff cuffs of her field suit and she tapped instructions into them now.
Not a hint of uncertainty entered her mind as she felt her descent slow and come under control. The Trom technology was surrounding her body in an unseen aura of anti-gravitic force, a familiar sensation like no other. Her visor was combining light enhancement with ultra-violet projectors to give her a view of the landscape below sharper than high noon on a cloudless day.
The main building was a steel-sided warehouse with a corrugated metal roof, a concrete loading dock and a smaller separate structure that had once been an office. A variety of cars sat parked in the rear, three of them varying from a battered Ford pick-up truck to a gleaming black BMW. There were no neighbors to wonder about these strange people coming and going, this long-closed facility sat on the side of a mountain where roads were poorly maintained and seldom used. The outskirts of Russia near the border with Norway held more abandoned buildings and villages than thriving ones.
Down she silently swooped, angling her descent to aim for the center of that long metal roof. With her right hand, the Trom Girl detached the flat rectangle of her beam projector from its plate on her belt. Before leaping out of the stealthcopter, she had inserted the photon ram cartridge and adjusted it to maximum.
Somehow there was no recoil, but the pale narrow beam from her projector stove in the roof with a grinding scream of steel being ripped apart. Megan plunged down through the opening and dropped her legs to land lightly in a wide white-tiled corridor. A dozen of the hideous Gulghol heaved up from the cots lining that hallway. Without hesitation, they charged right at her and were blown apart by the photon ram beam.
The unliving creatures did not seem very hardy in the first place, giving the impression of being squishy and spongy but the photon ram sent stray limbs and heads whirling away in all directions. Megan quickly ducked as a leg spun past her. The stench was appalling. She clicked the visor down to seal off her helmet and breathed through the built-in filters, which helped.
She instantly recognized the gaunt figure coming through a door at the far end of the corridor. Seeing that he was not wearing a helmet with its enhanced vision systems, she called, "Captain! It's me, Megan. are you all right?
"I'm fine," he responded, accepting a pencil flashlight she handed him and playing it over the gruesome scene. The scattering of severed limbs and splatters of black tarlike blood didn't seem to trouble him. He had seen much worse in his long career."Our team is attacking?"
"Within seconds. Tim and Josef are hovering overhead in CORBY ONE and TWO. Jin and Galvan will be coming in from the West, that's that way behind you, Haley and Jocelyn will enter from the East side."
"Good. I dumped Atrumo into a vat of the nastiest toxic sludge you ever saw," Bane said. "But of course I need to recheck his status. You know our rule."
"Always double tap," she replied just as horrendous dins of crashing, shouting and explosions thundered from both ends of the hall. Despite her stoic reserve, the Trom Girl could not hide a faint wry smile. "Sounds like our guys have arrived."
V.
It was no surprise to Timothy when both Galvan and Jin jumped out from the rear hatch while the CORBY was still twenty-five feet above the ground. He was used to such feats from them by now. While Demrak Jin was a Gelydra, tough and resilient as the shark which was her totem, Galvan was as close to being indestructible as flesh and blood might approach. When his work boots hit the parking lot, cracks radiated out across the asphalt from the impact.
Small and thin in her grey sharkhide outfit, Demrak Jin bristled with eagerness. The three foot bone-bladed knife she had fashioned herself twirled from hand to hand. Jin's flat feral face grinned under the short stiff white hair. "Hah! Life has been far too placid lately for a daughter of Ulgor. Open that door, will you?"
Impressive as he was to see, Galvan's huge muscular form did not even hint at his actual strength. He was the Melgar in each generation born with the Legacy of Malberon. Every muscle, tendon and bone was reinforced with vast gralic force. He stepped up to the plain green metal door and gripped one pair of the hinges with his left hand and the knob with his right, then simply tore the entire door free and tossed it off to one side. Instantly, he and Jin were fighting for their lives. From within the building swarmed out flying creatures like thick neon-green Moray eels, jaws gnashing furiously. Jin whipped her blade in lightning quick arcs that sliced entirely through the slimy beasts and sent fragments spinning away. But one got past and sank its curved fangs through the sharkhide outfit into her left shoulder.
It was the only time Galvan had heard his lover cry out in pain. The air eels could not break his skin. He had been quickly slapping them away with open-handed swipes that broke them in half, but all thoughts of the creatures were forgotten as he spun toward Jin. The Gelydra woman's left arm dropped by her side, she was whirling the bone-bladed long knife around her head and slashing off great chunks of the monsters. Galvan bent over her protectively, smacking away the attacking creatures as he tried to keep them away from Jin.
From overhead boomed an amplied voice. "Galvan! Shield her with your body!" Dropping down, the big Melgar crouched to cover the wounded Jin entirely as he realized what Timothy was going to do.
The CORBY ONE had dropped down to treetop level, its rotors still nearly silent. On the short stubby vanes on either side of the fuselage, panels clicked open and the barrels of 30mm chain guns roared in five second bursts. Not only were all the flying eels splattered into bits of mush, great cavities ripped open in the outer walls of the building. Galvan's red flannel shirt and work pants were instantly shredded but he himself was not even stung. It took more than gunfire to harm him.
The silence following that barrage was eerie in comparison. The CORBY's three wheel landing gear had lowered as it touched down and the back hatch slid open to let Galvan haul his partner into the rear compartment. Timothy slid open the clear divider between the cockpit and passenger compartment to watch. "I saw one of those things bite her and from the way she reacted, I knew it was bad."
Shockingly feeble in contrast to her usual fierce movements, Demrak Jin was trying to sit up on the metal floor. "I have suffered much worse and kept fighting! There is a battle we are missing, Galvan, let me go back..."
The Melgar effortlessly tore the sharkhide tunic away from her shoulder. The wound already looked inflamed. Four incisions where the fangs had sunken in were surrounded by angry red tissue that was swelling up. Despite her protests, Jin's voice was unsteady. "I'm fine, I tell you..."
"I have never seen the likes of those vermin before, " Galvan said, taking her pulse. "What anti-venom would be called for? Not even a doctor would know."
"Here, give her two of the Tagra tablets," said Tim, handing over a clear plastic bag with white tablets. "I know she's tough as a real shark, but those bites are scaring the hell out of me."
Jin did not resist and swallowed both tablets with sips from a canteen. Her shoulders lowered and her breathing became less frantic. "Thank you. I'm going to be fine in a second."
Glancing up at Timothy, Galvan said, "Jin is not a knight of Tel Shai. You are risking your membership in the Order by sharing Tagra with her."
"Like I care!" Tim snapped. "I'd give up everything I own in life to help her. Here, take her vitals." He handed over his Link and Galvan adjusted the flat Trom device.
After a few seconds, the Melgar champion clicked the screen off. "Blood pressure elevated even for her Race, blood oxygen level is ninety-eight. Heartbeat rapid but steady, and the EKG is fine. Core temprature only a few degrees above normal, no fever yet. Hand me another Tagra pill, Tim. I know you're not supposed to take more than a mimimum dose at one time but we'll see how her condition stands."
"I can fight," Jin insisted but she knew better than to struggle. Being held in Galvan's arms was an inescapable as being in an iron cage. She finally relaxed and settled down.
Minutes crawled by. Timothy said, "I'm remote reading everyone's signs in there. They're all active and unharmed, so far. Release of gralic energy is topping the scale, so I bet Jocelyn's released her lightning."
"Atrumo is going to be facing four of the most dangerous people in the Midnight War," Galvan grumbled. "The Dire Wolf, Windcatcher, Trom Girl, the Red Spectre. And yet, even so, I should be joining them."
"Go, please," Demrak Jin said, finally wriggling loose enough to sit up. Her voice had gotten much stronger. "I am no weak surface wman to be coddled."
"True, true, you Gelydrim are indeed born with the spirit of the shark," he agreed. "Wait a few more minutes, Jin. See if you improve further, then maybe I will go in there and teach Atrumo what it means to harm the one I love."
VI.
As Josef lifted CORBY II off the ground, Sable turned slowly in a full circle to scan the area. While in the air, she had used the Trom sensors but found not a sign of a single guard. Now she drew on her own gift of enhanced perception. Her vision, hearing and smell extended far beyond what flesh and blood should be capable of perceiving because she was augmented with gralic force. Sable could hear a person's heartbeat across a room, count the pores in that person's skin or smell the amount of adrenalin in their trace perspiration. Not much could escape her.
"No sentries anywhere," she told her partners. "Strange."
For once, Haley Lawson had agreed to wear the full protective KDF field suit with its inner armor and visored helmet. As much as she enjoyed her flamboyant Windcatcher costume with its blue cloak and shorts, she had agreed to be prudent against any enemy like Atrumo. On a soft chocker under her clothing was fastened the mystic Air Gem, source of her power to summon air from anywhere in the world. As long as she had this on her person, her confidence was sublime. "Watch this, you guys! I can sense a tornado in Oklahoma, I'll blow that door in with a blast of two hundred miles an hour wind."
Jocelyn laughed unexpectedly. She was usually so quiet that it was a jolt to her friends when she did that. "Oh, I insist. Allow me." She dropped to one knee and propped herself up on both stiff arms. Gliding up from within her petite body rose a flat two-dimensional apparition roughly her own size and shape. Dark red, crackling ominously with gralic force eager to be released, the Spectre lifted up and shot forward at the door as quickly as any normal lightning bolt. The effect was dramatic. The green metal splintered and flew apart at the detonation. Thunder damaging to the ears cracked sharp as a whiplash.
One jagged piece of the door whirled end over end and missed Haley's cheek by two inches. Her green eyes bugged out but she decided not to mention it. Looping back from the open doorway, the Red Spectre slid effortlessly back into Jocelyn's chest and the hissing tingle of static electricity was gone from the air. Jocelyn Garimara rose and tugged down her field jacket. When the Spectre had first manifested itself at her puberty, her own family and the entire town in Northwest Australia had been terrified of her. She had fled because she was certain they would have killed her as a witch or demon. Now, ten years later, she had never gone back home. Her deepset dark eyes met the impressed stares of her teammates but she didn't feel like gloating about her power.
No one showed in the darkened opening where the door had been. Sable sidled up alongside the gap and peered in, holding her dart gun up by her head with a two-handed grip. "Girls," she said finally, "You might want to take a look at this."
Suspicious, alert, Jocelyn and Haley moved up to the opening, each of them ready to unleash her particular power instantly. But what they saw made them stop short and stare open-mouth. Gazing into that doorway was exactly like staring up into a brilliant night sky. Innumerable stars shone and twinkled thickly as diamond dust against black velvet. There was no floor, no walls, only the sky.
"There's the Big Dipper," Windcatcher breathed after a moment. "See it? Ursa Major." She almost put a booted toe across the doorway but stopped short. "Sable? What do your enhanced senses tell you?"
Their captain did not reply for a long moment, and they gave her time to take in information. After half a minute, she slid down the visor of her helmet and tapped patches on the ridge that ran across her brow. "I honestly don't know what to say. Trom sensors aren't sending back any readings from their scans. My own vision isn't any help either. As far as I can tell, that IS Outer Space in that room."
"I suppose it could be some sort of god-gate?" asked Haley. "Like the Yellow Fog we know Atrumo is using, that stuff opens gates to different realms. This could be a sort of doorway straight up?"
Sable continued to peer at the uncanny sight. "It doesn't make sense. You'd think all the air in this area would get sucked violently in there."
"I'm going to step in there if you guys hold on to me. I don't want to fall up out of the atmosphere, ya know?" said Haley.
A low beep in their helmets interrupted them. Sable tapped her right earpod to signify it was okay to transmit. After the three of them heard a terse report from Timothy about what had happened to Jin, Sable told him to alert them of any changes but that they were going to proceed with the mission. Bane and Megan were in there dealing with Atrumo and the horde of Gulgol and they expected reinforcements. Signing off, Sable said, "We're going in a different way. Come on, there's the main entrance on the front of the building."
But Jocelyn Garimara had gone over to the brush and returned with a straight broken-off branch long as a walking stick. Leaning in through the opening, she tapped hard on the interior. With relief clear in her voice, she told her teammates, "Bloody hell, I can feel the floor and walls, solid as you like. It's just an illusion."
"I'm mortified," Haley said. "I really thought we were going to fall into Outer Space."
"We've lost too much time already being fooled." Sable snapped and strode boldly through the opening. The air shimmered and suddenly she was standing in a mundane foyer with tiled floor and a bench next to an inner door. Finding it unlocked, the team leader entered a long wide corridor with Haley and Jocelyn right beside her. There were no windows and the building's power was out but their helmet's light amplifiers and infra-red projectors let them see normally.
"What was this building originally?" asked Haley.
"Some document storage and processing facility for the State," Sable told her. "Looks like it wasn't quite completed before being shut down. The Russian economy isn't doing too well. I bet Atrumo bought the land through some Human proxies. Hold up, I hear footsteps around that corner!"
Shambling into view came a dozen of the Gulgol in their ragged clothes, lurching into each other as they unsteadily headed straight for the three intruders. Only a few held simple tools to be used as weapons, crowbars and hammers.
"You guys smell like our septic tank when we got it pumped out!" yelled Haley. She drew on the power of her Air Gem and focused her entire concentration to summon a blast of sub-zero Arctic winds that slammed into the creatures and hurled them bodily back the way they had come. Ice crystals formed on the walls and floor. After the roar of wind subsided, dead silence hung in the air.
"Are they Zombies or what?" asked Haley. "I thought I'd seen some nasty Undead before but these things are just unbearable."
"Jeremy and I think they're sort of collages. Assorted body parts held together as Unliving constructs. He said he was going to find out where they're being brewed together and close it down." Sable checked her weapon. For this mission, she wasn't carrying one of the merciful anesthetic dart guns but a pistol which fired explosive resonance caps. These were designed to stop charging wild animals as well as most creatures of the Midnight War. "Let's keep going."
The interior of the facility looked as if it had been shabby even when new. Years of neglect and some exposure to the elements had added a dingy patina to everything. Some open doors showed rooms empty except for occasional chairs, desks and stray scraps of paper. One such room was lined with green metal filing cabinets whose drawers had been left open to show nothing left within.
As they neared the end of that hall, the glass-paneled door sudden crashed inward from a sudden blow. Jeremy Bane appeared in the opening, Megan beside him, and waved to them. "Good to see you guys."
In a very terse exchange, they all filled each other in on what had happened during the few minutes since they had arrived. Sable said, "Tim says Jin is getting better. Her vitals are back to normal and she's arguing about getting back in the fight."
Haley laughed. "That's our girl."
"Before we do anything else, I want to check on Atrumo," Bane said. "He should be finished but... in the Midnight War, you never take an enemy's death for granted. We've had too many survive against all odds." He led his team back through the open doorway, toward the chamber where the Boiling Pit was located. He turned the knob and glanced back at his partners, "This is going to stink pretty bad."
The instant he opened that door, a huge misshapen hand bigger than his torso clutched him and yanked him bodily inside.
VII.
Not for a heartbeat did the KDF members hesitate at even such an unexpected sight. Even as the door was closing, Megan Salenger triggered her device and its photon ram beam crashed the door inward, smashed into a dozen pieces which were still falling as she leaped through the opening. But what she saw made her, as well as her teammates, freeze into position.
More than twice as tall as a normal man, wide and misshapen with horrid chunks of flesh built up along his body, Atrumo loomed up on the walkway. In his massive hand was Jeremy Bane, arms squeezed at his sides within that grip. The Melgar conqueror was holding his prisoner mere inches above the bubbling surface of that cauldron of filth and decay. Bane kicked with both legs, struggling to get free but making no progress.
"Stay back!" boomed a voice made unsteady by the changes its body had gone through. Atrumo was barely recognizable. A few scraps of his clothing and armor remained. Steam still rose of that vile carcass from the transformation.
Sable faced the monster with Megan at her left side and Jocelyn at her right. Behind them, Haley Lawson was having trouble catching her breath, both from the tension of the situation and the noxious fumes which filled the chamber. "What do you want?" Sable asked as calmly as if taking a phone call.
From either side of the KDF members, the remaining Ghulgol were advancing. They held whatever might serve as weapons.. hammers, kitchen knives, broken boards. The stench from both their decomposing bodies and the Boiling Pit was close to unbearable. Atrumo swung his grotesque swollen head to see them approach and what might have been a laugh escaped him. The monster slightly lighted the struggling Dire Wolf and shook him fiercely.
Sable tapped Megan on the shoulder. "Go."
With perfect co-ordination between a computer-quick mind and a finely honed body, the Trom Girl shot forward too swiftly for anyone to follow her motions. The photon ram beam blasted entirely through the muddy arm at the shoulder a split-second before Megan flew right into it. The severed arm with Bane still in its grip dropped heavily to the stained floor behind the Boiling Pit. Another instant, and the Dire Wolf had broken free of those lifeless fingers and was on his feet. He seemed to know immediately what Megan intended. The Trom Girl wrapped an arm around him. Without having touched down, she flashed back up and flew through the open door out of that chamber.
Their teammates had already retreated back out into the hallway. Only two or three seconds had passed and the horde of Ghulgols had not begun to process the events through their sluggish Unalive minds. Haley Lawson leaned into the opening and saw the hulking monstrosity which had once been Atrumo clutch at the stump of his left elbow. She drew on the full power of the ancient Air Gem.
From a storm at the heart of Antarctica, sixty mile an hour winds roared into that chamber at seventy degrees below zero. Everything immediately vanished beneath a layer of ice as floors and walls cracked loudly as rifle shots. Stepping back hastily, Windcatcher coughed from drawing in a little of that air, colder than dry ice. "Kaff. Whoa. Dang, I may have overdone it, guys."
Sable peered quickly into the gleaming white chamber, where the ruined Ghulgol and their master were only vaguely recognizable under inches of ice. "No. I think you did exactly what was necessary, Haley. Good work, you and Megan."
"You know, we ARE amazing. No calling out, 'use Plan C' or anything, we just worked instinctively," Haley boasted. "No wonder everyone in the Midnight War is scared of Tel Shai knights."
Jeremy Bane was on his feet, slapping off some of the vile substance which Atrumo's grip had left on his suit. "Thanks," he said simply. "I wasn't sure how to get loose from that guy."
That made Haley laugh out loud. "I love your attitude, captain. There's a guy twelve feet tall ready to drop you in a boiling pit of the most toxic goo ever and you were deciding how to break free and fight back. You know what? I bet you would have thought of something."
2/5/2023
3/27/2015
I.
Two of the stinking Ghulgol held him up by the arms, his legs dragging across the gleaming marble floor, and hauled Bane toward a massive wooden chair that served his enemy as a throne. He was flung brutally down at the boots of the Conqueror as the unliving creatures stepped back awkwardly.
Dazed and aching from being beaten with maces, his field suit hanging in mere shreds and tatters from the corrosive Alchemical mist which had engulfed him, Jeremy Bane remained completely defiant. He pulled himself up to a seated position, unfastened the crumbling helmet and yanked it off. Revealed in the overhead fluorescent lights was an intense narrow face with short black hair and cold grey eyes that glared up at his enemy.
No one knew Atrumo's true backstory. Some said he had been sold to Chujiran slavers to work their jade mines and had escaped by killing twenty guards when he reached manhood. There were those who claimed he had been lost as a child in the wilderness of Evaho and had raised himself as a wild beast might. Rumors also circulated that Atrumo was a disinherited illegitimate son of some Melgar royalty, perhaps even a bastard child of King Holmir himself. It didn't matter. He was a threat to be reckoned with now.
The raider chief wore high-laced boots and leggings of deerhide and was naked from the waist up presumably to display immense hard muscles a blacksmith might envy. Around his waist was wrapped a thin cord of red metal links. On a leather thong around a neck thicker than his head hung a faceted scarlet crystal wide as a man's outstretched hand. Atrumo's hair was concealed beneath an black iron helmet forged to resemble the maned head of a lion from within which his flat brutal face glared out. Between the bristling dark beard and the shadowy overhang of that helmet, little could be seen of his features. "The Dire Wolf. Again! We will not meet a fourth time."
"That's just what I was thinking," Bane snapped back, forcing himself up on to his feet. "The last thing the realms need is an imitation Saturnius like you."
"Defiant to the last breath, I see. I will not waste your carcass, Dire Wolf. Even in death, you will further my campaign." He gestured to the Ghulgol. "Each of you take one arm and one leg. Another of you, stay close to crack his skull open if he resists. Come, let us visit the Boiling Pit."
II.
Even if someone on the ground had been earnestly searching with binoculars, they would not have been able to spot the CORBYs in the night sky. Hovering at three thousand feet, the stealth copters were both solid black with no external lights and eerily silent. Their rotors made little more noise than a brisk wind might.
At the combined cyclic/collective stick of CORBY ONE, Megan Salenger studied the reading being fed into the heads-up display on the interior of the windscreen. Luminous green letters and numbers rolled up in a steady flow. "Sable, are you getting all this?" she said into her helmet's microphone.
"Reading it now," came her captain's voice from the other copter. "But I'm only working at a Human rate, I need to slow it down. We can't all be Trom-raised geniuses."
Megan made no comment but, from the compartment behind her, a sassy voice prompted, "Are you gonna take a dig like that?"
"Haley, please do not instigate," said Megan imperturbably. "These readings should be considered carefully. I'm seeing three hundred and twelve life forms in the buildings below us. I count seventy-two active Humans and one anomalous heat signature much stronger than normal. The rest are Ghulgol."
Sable's voice held relief. "There, Jeremy's locator. His Link is damaged but his vital signs seem good. Uh-oh, look at his pulse. He's in fight mode."
"SOMEone's gonna get it," added Haley, "I wouldn't wanna be the one he's that mad at."
Sable continued to study the readings. "Timothy and Josef, take the sticks. If anyone makes a run for it, use the chain guns to disable those cars and chase them back inside. Galvan and Jin, enter from the West side. Haley and Jocelyn, you go in with me from the east side. Megan, I want you to fly down and enter through the roof. We're attacking in full assault mode. Megan, neutralize their power."
"Targeting their generators for a disable pulse," said the Trom Girl. "Power is off... now. " And far below, the building's windows went dark.
III.
As hardened as a lifetime spent in Midnight War had made him, Bane was still disgusted and enraged at the Boiling Pit. A walkway overhung a vast cast iron pot twenty feet across, filled with thick bubbling black goo. Many arms, legs and heads floated half-dissolved in that steaming-hot filth, including parts of animals. The stink was nearly fatal in itself. Even the Dire Wolf fought back a strong urge to vomit.
Over the lid of that hellish pot, a thick stone plug hung on a hinge designed to seal off the Pit. It was held up by a rope which stretched down tautly to be knotted around a steel bar inches away from Bane's reach.
"The source of my Ghulgol," announced Atrumo. "Of all the secrets revealed by the Crown of Boundless Knowledge, this has been the most useful. Daily, several Ghulgol reach a point where they attempt to climb out. Some are too deformed or incomplete to be of any use, so they are cut up and tossed back in to try again."
Determined to appear unruffled. Bane said, "It's monster stew. You add ingredients until you get it the way you like."
"I'll be stirring in fresh and quality parts today. I think the Ghulgol which form around your body parts will be exceptional." His back to the Boiling Pit, Atrumo raised a massive fist toward his enemy, and took a breath to continue speaking.
The lights went out. Instantly, Bane hopped one step closer, chambered his leg and blasted a simple high straight kick to the chest. Atrumo was lifted off his feet and hurled bodily back into the Boiling Pit with a grisly splash. One single outraged gasp escaped him before he went down under the surface of that unspeakable gunk.
Even in the darkness, Jeremy Bane remembered where the rope was that held the plug up. He whipped out both silver daggers from their forearm sheaths where they had escaped detection when he was being searched and sawed away furiously at the rope Within seconds, those well-sharpened blades had sliced through and the plug crashed down to seal off the simmering contents of the pot.
All the action had taken only a few seconds. Bane wheeled around to face where the guards were standing and whipped his daggers left and right in horizontal arcs that made wet ripping noises as they sliced through chests. Bane hopped over the bodies as they fell with thuds and reached the door. His team had come through in the nick of time once again. Unseen in the darkness, his face held a fierce predatory grin.
IV.
As Timothy took the stick, Megan Salenger dove out through the opening hatch to her right as if a swimming pool was directly beneath her instead of three thousand feet of empty air. The hatch slid shut automatically. The Trom Girl arched her body, legs together and arms extended in front of her as she plummeted straight down. There were three sets of controls for the gravity shield disc between her shoulder blades. One back-up set was on a plate just above her left collarbone. The sets she normally used were built into the stiff cuffs of her field suit and she tapped instructions into them now.
Not a hint of uncertainty entered her mind as she felt her descent slow and come under control. The Trom technology was surrounding her body in an unseen aura of anti-gravitic force, a familiar sensation like no other. Her visor was combining light enhancement with ultra-violet projectors to give her a view of the landscape below sharper than high noon on a cloudless day.
The main building was a steel-sided warehouse with a corrugated metal roof, a concrete loading dock and a smaller separate structure that had once been an office. A variety of cars sat parked in the rear, three of them varying from a battered Ford pick-up truck to a gleaming black BMW. There were no neighbors to wonder about these strange people coming and going, this long-closed facility sat on the side of a mountain where roads were poorly maintained and seldom used. The outskirts of Russia near the border with Norway held more abandoned buildings and villages than thriving ones.
Down she silently swooped, angling her descent to aim for the center of that long metal roof. With her right hand, the Trom Girl detached the flat rectangle of her beam projector from its plate on her belt. Before leaping out of the stealthcopter, she had inserted the photon ram cartridge and adjusted it to maximum.
Somehow there was no recoil, but the pale narrow beam from her projector stove in the roof with a grinding scream of steel being ripped apart. Megan plunged down through the opening and dropped her legs to land lightly in a wide white-tiled corridor. A dozen of the hideous Gulghol heaved up from the cots lining that hallway. Without hesitation, they charged right at her and were blown apart by the photon ram beam.
The unliving creatures did not seem very hardy in the first place, giving the impression of being squishy and spongy but the photon ram sent stray limbs and heads whirling away in all directions. Megan quickly ducked as a leg spun past her. The stench was appalling. She clicked the visor down to seal off her helmet and breathed through the built-in filters, which helped.
She instantly recognized the gaunt figure coming through a door at the far end of the corridor. Seeing that he was not wearing a helmet with its enhanced vision systems, she called, "Captain! It's me, Megan. are you all right?
"I'm fine," he responded, accepting a pencil flashlight she handed him and playing it over the gruesome scene. The scattering of severed limbs and splatters of black tarlike blood didn't seem to trouble him. He had seen much worse in his long career."Our team is attacking?"
"Within seconds. Tim and Josef are hovering overhead in CORBY ONE and TWO. Jin and Galvan will be coming in from the West, that's that way behind you, Haley and Jocelyn will enter from the East side."
"Good. I dumped Atrumo into a vat of the nastiest toxic sludge you ever saw," Bane said. "But of course I need to recheck his status. You know our rule."
"Always double tap," she replied just as horrendous dins of crashing, shouting and explosions thundered from both ends of the hall. Despite her stoic reserve, the Trom Girl could not hide a faint wry smile. "Sounds like our guys have arrived."
V.
It was no surprise to Timothy when both Galvan and Jin jumped out from the rear hatch while the CORBY was still twenty-five feet above the ground. He was used to such feats from them by now. While Demrak Jin was a Gelydra, tough and resilient as the shark which was her totem, Galvan was as close to being indestructible as flesh and blood might approach. When his work boots hit the parking lot, cracks radiated out across the asphalt from the impact.
Small and thin in her grey sharkhide outfit, Demrak Jin bristled with eagerness. The three foot bone-bladed knife she had fashioned herself twirled from hand to hand. Jin's flat feral face grinned under the short stiff white hair. "Hah! Life has been far too placid lately for a daughter of Ulgor. Open that door, will you?"
Impressive as he was to see, Galvan's huge muscular form did not even hint at his actual strength. He was the Melgar in each generation born with the Legacy of Malberon. Every muscle, tendon and bone was reinforced with vast gralic force. He stepped up to the plain green metal door and gripped one pair of the hinges with his left hand and the knob with his right, then simply tore the entire door free and tossed it off to one side. Instantly, he and Jin were fighting for their lives. From within the building swarmed out flying creatures like thick neon-green Moray eels, jaws gnashing furiously. Jin whipped her blade in lightning quick arcs that sliced entirely through the slimy beasts and sent fragments spinning away. But one got past and sank its curved fangs through the sharkhide outfit into her left shoulder.
It was the only time Galvan had heard his lover cry out in pain. The air eels could not break his skin. He had been quickly slapping them away with open-handed swipes that broke them in half, but all thoughts of the creatures were forgotten as he spun toward Jin. The Gelydra woman's left arm dropped by her side, she was whirling the bone-bladed long knife around her head and slashing off great chunks of the monsters. Galvan bent over her protectively, smacking away the attacking creatures as he tried to keep them away from Jin.
From overhead boomed an amplied voice. "Galvan! Shield her with your body!" Dropping down, the big Melgar crouched to cover the wounded Jin entirely as he realized what Timothy was going to do.
The CORBY ONE had dropped down to treetop level, its rotors still nearly silent. On the short stubby vanes on either side of the fuselage, panels clicked open and the barrels of 30mm chain guns roared in five second bursts. Not only were all the flying eels splattered into bits of mush, great cavities ripped open in the outer walls of the building. Galvan's red flannel shirt and work pants were instantly shredded but he himself was not even stung. It took more than gunfire to harm him.
The silence following that barrage was eerie in comparison. The CORBY's three wheel landing gear had lowered as it touched down and the back hatch slid open to let Galvan haul his partner into the rear compartment. Timothy slid open the clear divider between the cockpit and passenger compartment to watch. "I saw one of those things bite her and from the way she reacted, I knew it was bad."
Shockingly feeble in contrast to her usual fierce movements, Demrak Jin was trying to sit up on the metal floor. "I have suffered much worse and kept fighting! There is a battle we are missing, Galvan, let me go back..."
The Melgar effortlessly tore the sharkhide tunic away from her shoulder. The wound already looked inflamed. Four incisions where the fangs had sunken in were surrounded by angry red tissue that was swelling up. Despite her protests, Jin's voice was unsteady. "I'm fine, I tell you..."
"I have never seen the likes of those vermin before, " Galvan said, taking her pulse. "What anti-venom would be called for? Not even a doctor would know."
"Here, give her two of the Tagra tablets," said Tim, handing over a clear plastic bag with white tablets. "I know she's tough as a real shark, but those bites are scaring the hell out of me."
Jin did not resist and swallowed both tablets with sips from a canteen. Her shoulders lowered and her breathing became less frantic. "Thank you. I'm going to be fine in a second."
Glancing up at Timothy, Galvan said, "Jin is not a knight of Tel Shai. You are risking your membership in the Order by sharing Tagra with her."
"Like I care!" Tim snapped. "I'd give up everything I own in life to help her. Here, take her vitals." He handed over his Link and Galvan adjusted the flat Trom device.
After a few seconds, the Melgar champion clicked the screen off. "Blood pressure elevated even for her Race, blood oxygen level is ninety-eight. Heartbeat rapid but steady, and the EKG is fine. Core temprature only a few degrees above normal, no fever yet. Hand me another Tagra pill, Tim. I know you're not supposed to take more than a mimimum dose at one time but we'll see how her condition stands."
"I can fight," Jin insisted but she knew better than to struggle. Being held in Galvan's arms was an inescapable as being in an iron cage. She finally relaxed and settled down.
Minutes crawled by. Timothy said, "I'm remote reading everyone's signs in there. They're all active and unharmed, so far. Release of gralic energy is topping the scale, so I bet Jocelyn's released her lightning."
"Atrumo is going to be facing four of the most dangerous people in the Midnight War," Galvan grumbled. "The Dire Wolf, Windcatcher, Trom Girl, the Red Spectre. And yet, even so, I should be joining them."
"Go, please," Demrak Jin said, finally wriggling loose enough to sit up. Her voice had gotten much stronger. "I am no weak surface wman to be coddled."
"True, true, you Gelydrim are indeed born with the spirit of the shark," he agreed. "Wait a few more minutes, Jin. See if you improve further, then maybe I will go in there and teach Atrumo what it means to harm the one I love."
VI.
As Josef lifted CORBY II off the ground, Sable turned slowly in a full circle to scan the area. While in the air, she had used the Trom sensors but found not a sign of a single guard. Now she drew on her own gift of enhanced perception. Her vision, hearing and smell extended far beyond what flesh and blood should be capable of perceiving because she was augmented with gralic force. Sable could hear a person's heartbeat across a room, count the pores in that person's skin or smell the amount of adrenalin in their trace perspiration. Not much could escape her.
"No sentries anywhere," she told her partners. "Strange."
For once, Haley Lawson had agreed to wear the full protective KDF field suit with its inner armor and visored helmet. As much as she enjoyed her flamboyant Windcatcher costume with its blue cloak and shorts, she had agreed to be prudent against any enemy like Atrumo. On a soft chocker under her clothing was fastened the mystic Air Gem, source of her power to summon air from anywhere in the world. As long as she had this on her person, her confidence was sublime. "Watch this, you guys! I can sense a tornado in Oklahoma, I'll blow that door in with a blast of two hundred miles an hour wind."
Jocelyn laughed unexpectedly. She was usually so quiet that it was a jolt to her friends when she did that. "Oh, I insist. Allow me." She dropped to one knee and propped herself up on both stiff arms. Gliding up from within her petite body rose a flat two-dimensional apparition roughly her own size and shape. Dark red, crackling ominously with gralic force eager to be released, the Spectre lifted up and shot forward at the door as quickly as any normal lightning bolt. The effect was dramatic. The green metal splintered and flew apart at the detonation. Thunder damaging to the ears cracked sharp as a whiplash.
One jagged piece of the door whirled end over end and missed Haley's cheek by two inches. Her green eyes bugged out but she decided not to mention it. Looping back from the open doorway, the Red Spectre slid effortlessly back into Jocelyn's chest and the hissing tingle of static electricity was gone from the air. Jocelyn Garimara rose and tugged down her field jacket. When the Spectre had first manifested itself at her puberty, her own family and the entire town in Northwest Australia had been terrified of her. She had fled because she was certain they would have killed her as a witch or demon. Now, ten years later, she had never gone back home. Her deepset dark eyes met the impressed stares of her teammates but she didn't feel like gloating about her power.
No one showed in the darkened opening where the door had been. Sable sidled up alongside the gap and peered in, holding her dart gun up by her head with a two-handed grip. "Girls," she said finally, "You might want to take a look at this."
Suspicious, alert, Jocelyn and Haley moved up to the opening, each of them ready to unleash her particular power instantly. But what they saw made them stop short and stare open-mouth. Gazing into that doorway was exactly like staring up into a brilliant night sky. Innumerable stars shone and twinkled thickly as diamond dust against black velvet. There was no floor, no walls, only the sky.
"There's the Big Dipper," Windcatcher breathed after a moment. "See it? Ursa Major." She almost put a booted toe across the doorway but stopped short. "Sable? What do your enhanced senses tell you?"
Their captain did not reply for a long moment, and they gave her time to take in information. After half a minute, she slid down the visor of her helmet and tapped patches on the ridge that ran across her brow. "I honestly don't know what to say. Trom sensors aren't sending back any readings from their scans. My own vision isn't any help either. As far as I can tell, that IS Outer Space in that room."
"I suppose it could be some sort of god-gate?" asked Haley. "Like the Yellow Fog we know Atrumo is using, that stuff opens gates to different realms. This could be a sort of doorway straight up?"
Sable continued to peer at the uncanny sight. "It doesn't make sense. You'd think all the air in this area would get sucked violently in there."
"I'm going to step in there if you guys hold on to me. I don't want to fall up out of the atmosphere, ya know?" said Haley.
A low beep in their helmets interrupted them. Sable tapped her right earpod to signify it was okay to transmit. After the three of them heard a terse report from Timothy about what had happened to Jin, Sable told him to alert them of any changes but that they were going to proceed with the mission. Bane and Megan were in there dealing with Atrumo and the horde of Gulgol and they expected reinforcements. Signing off, Sable said, "We're going in a different way. Come on, there's the main entrance on the front of the building."
But Jocelyn Garimara had gone over to the brush and returned with a straight broken-off branch long as a walking stick. Leaning in through the opening, she tapped hard on the interior. With relief clear in her voice, she told her teammates, "Bloody hell, I can feel the floor and walls, solid as you like. It's just an illusion."
"I'm mortified," Haley said. "I really thought we were going to fall into Outer Space."
"We've lost too much time already being fooled." Sable snapped and strode boldly through the opening. The air shimmered and suddenly she was standing in a mundane foyer with tiled floor and a bench next to an inner door. Finding it unlocked, the team leader entered a long wide corridor with Haley and Jocelyn right beside her. There were no windows and the building's power was out but their helmet's light amplifiers and infra-red projectors let them see normally.
"What was this building originally?" asked Haley.
"Some document storage and processing facility for the State," Sable told her. "Looks like it wasn't quite completed before being shut down. The Russian economy isn't doing too well. I bet Atrumo bought the land through some Human proxies. Hold up, I hear footsteps around that corner!"
Shambling into view came a dozen of the Gulgol in their ragged clothes, lurching into each other as they unsteadily headed straight for the three intruders. Only a few held simple tools to be used as weapons, crowbars and hammers.
"You guys smell like our septic tank when we got it pumped out!" yelled Haley. She drew on the power of her Air Gem and focused her entire concentration to summon a blast of sub-zero Arctic winds that slammed into the creatures and hurled them bodily back the way they had come. Ice crystals formed on the walls and floor. After the roar of wind subsided, dead silence hung in the air.
"Are they Zombies or what?" asked Haley. "I thought I'd seen some nasty Undead before but these things are just unbearable."
"Jeremy and I think they're sort of collages. Assorted body parts held together as Unliving constructs. He said he was going to find out where they're being brewed together and close it down." Sable checked her weapon. For this mission, she wasn't carrying one of the merciful anesthetic dart guns but a pistol which fired explosive resonance caps. These were designed to stop charging wild animals as well as most creatures of the Midnight War. "Let's keep going."
The interior of the facility looked as if it had been shabby even when new. Years of neglect and some exposure to the elements had added a dingy patina to everything. Some open doors showed rooms empty except for occasional chairs, desks and stray scraps of paper. One such room was lined with green metal filing cabinets whose drawers had been left open to show nothing left within.
As they neared the end of that hall, the glass-paneled door sudden crashed inward from a sudden blow. Jeremy Bane appeared in the opening, Megan beside him, and waved to them. "Good to see you guys."
In a very terse exchange, they all filled each other in on what had happened during the few minutes since they had arrived. Sable said, "Tim says Jin is getting better. Her vitals are back to normal and she's arguing about getting back in the fight."
Haley laughed. "That's our girl."
"Before we do anything else, I want to check on Atrumo," Bane said. "He should be finished but... in the Midnight War, you never take an enemy's death for granted. We've had too many survive against all odds." He led his team back through the open doorway, toward the chamber where the Boiling Pit was located. He turned the knob and glanced back at his partners, "This is going to stink pretty bad."
The instant he opened that door, a huge misshapen hand bigger than his torso clutched him and yanked him bodily inside.
VII.
Not for a heartbeat did the KDF members hesitate at even such an unexpected sight. Even as the door was closing, Megan Salenger triggered her device and its photon ram beam crashed the door inward, smashed into a dozen pieces which were still falling as she leaped through the opening. But what she saw made her, as well as her teammates, freeze into position.
More than twice as tall as a normal man, wide and misshapen with horrid chunks of flesh built up along his body, Atrumo loomed up on the walkway. In his massive hand was Jeremy Bane, arms squeezed at his sides within that grip. The Melgar conqueror was holding his prisoner mere inches above the bubbling surface of that cauldron of filth and decay. Bane kicked with both legs, struggling to get free but making no progress.
"Stay back!" boomed a voice made unsteady by the changes its body had gone through. Atrumo was barely recognizable. A few scraps of his clothing and armor remained. Steam still rose of that vile carcass from the transformation.
Sable faced the monster with Megan at her left side and Jocelyn at her right. Behind them, Haley Lawson was having trouble catching her breath, both from the tension of the situation and the noxious fumes which filled the chamber. "What do you want?" Sable asked as calmly as if taking a phone call.
From either side of the KDF members, the remaining Ghulgol were advancing. They held whatever might serve as weapons.. hammers, kitchen knives, broken boards. The stench from both their decomposing bodies and the Boiling Pit was close to unbearable. Atrumo swung his grotesque swollen head to see them approach and what might have been a laugh escaped him. The monster slightly lighted the struggling Dire Wolf and shook him fiercely.
Sable tapped Megan on the shoulder. "Go."
With perfect co-ordination between a computer-quick mind and a finely honed body, the Trom Girl shot forward too swiftly for anyone to follow her motions. The photon ram beam blasted entirely through the muddy arm at the shoulder a split-second before Megan flew right into it. The severed arm with Bane still in its grip dropped heavily to the stained floor behind the Boiling Pit. Another instant, and the Dire Wolf had broken free of those lifeless fingers and was on his feet. He seemed to know immediately what Megan intended. The Trom Girl wrapped an arm around him. Without having touched down, she flashed back up and flew through the open door out of that chamber.
Their teammates had already retreated back out into the hallway. Only two or three seconds had passed and the horde of Ghulgols had not begun to process the events through their sluggish Unalive minds. Haley Lawson leaned into the opening and saw the hulking monstrosity which had once been Atrumo clutch at the stump of his left elbow. She drew on the full power of the ancient Air Gem.
From a storm at the heart of Antarctica, sixty mile an hour winds roared into that chamber at seventy degrees below zero. Everything immediately vanished beneath a layer of ice as floors and walls cracked loudly as rifle shots. Stepping back hastily, Windcatcher coughed from drawing in a little of that air, colder than dry ice. "Kaff. Whoa. Dang, I may have overdone it, guys."
Sable peered quickly into the gleaming white chamber, where the ruined Ghulgol and their master were only vaguely recognizable under inches of ice. "No. I think you did exactly what was necessary, Haley. Good work, you and Megan."
"You know, we ARE amazing. No calling out, 'use Plan C' or anything, we just worked instinctively," Haley boasted. "No wonder everyone in the Midnight War is scared of Tel Shai knights."
Jeremy Bane was on his feet, slapping off some of the vile substance which Atrumo's grip had left on his suit. "Thanks," he said simply. "I wasn't sure how to get loose from that guy."
That made Haley laugh out loud. "I love your attitude, captain. There's a guy twelve feet tall ready to drop you in a boiling pit of the most toxic goo ever and you were deciding how to break free and fight back. You know what? I bet you would have thought of something."
2/5/2023
