End of an Age Read online

  “Five! Maybe six miles!” A gurgled scream issued forth, the prisoner had blood in their lungs; their end was near.

  “That’s us—he’s talking about us.” I think I said that; it could have been Mathieu. Things seemed a little surreal, like I was only partially here and partially somewhere else.

  “We have to warn them.” That was definitely Mathieu. We were on the move. We’d not gone more than fifty yards when we saw the origin of the voice. Three Lycan were circling a man; he’d been tied upside down between two posts, naked and spread-eagle. His arms had been pulled so far apart that they’d been dislodged from their sockets. I’d not noticed at first, but the same had happened to his legs as well. The ball at the end of his femur was clearly visible through the thin skin next to his hip. I choked down the vomit that was worming its way up my esophagus. Thick, red, runnels of blood traveled down from his scrotum onto his stomach and down his chest where they finally dripped off his shoulders and onto the ground.

  One of the Lycan had torn the Landian scout’s genitalia from his body and was showing it to another. They were laughing. They made sure the man could see them enjoying themselves. The Lycan holding the man’s severed privates in his hand nodded to the two others. They gripped the posts and pulled them further apart. The skin around the man’s hips began to tear; blood burst forth heavily from the new wounds. That was it. I’d taken all I could.

  “No, Michael.” Mathieu threw his arm across my chest to block my way, but it was already too late. I shoved him aside.

  “Fuck you, fuckers!” Not my most eloquent pre-fight speech, but I’d not had time to work on it. The rifle butt was to my shoulder; before I could even pick out a target, I was firing. The first hit the post, the second blew through the paw of one of the Lycan. He howled in rage and pain as I shot again and delivered him to the hell he so richly deserved. By now the other two had a good idea of what was happening. One was trying to escape; the other was coming straight for me. The urge to fucking run was huge. I braced myself and drilled the motherfucker three times in the chest, shattering his sternum and rib cage before he came to a thunderous stop not more than ten feet from me.

  “Not so fast,” I told the third. I felt no guilt whatsoever as I severed his spine. His arms were flailing to protect himself from the fall as his legs betrayed him. He hit the ground hard, face first. I saved the eighth round to put into the poor, unfortunate captive’s skull.

  “It is time to go, Michael!” Mathieu grabbed my shoulder and started running. A line of Lycan were on the wall of the fort not more than a hundred yards away looking at us.

  “Fuck you all! Fuck you all to hell!” I blew through five or six not-so-well aimed shots; maybe one or two found marks before we were on the move.

  We’d not traveled far before we stumbled onto the decapitated bodies of another two scouts. The reason the Lycan weren’t too concerned about a potential attack was because they thought they’d already eliminated the threat.

  “We’re being pursued,” Mathieu told me as the three of us somehow found another gear. There was still a fair degree of muscle fatigue lingering within us, but this was overshadowed by the fear of being caught and torn asunder. Watching body parts forcibly removed tends to have that affect.

  Sprinting zombies were one thing. Yes, they would never stop, they were tireless, but they were also limited by what they once were: human. You’re looking at fifteen miles per hour max, with most closer to eight or nine. The Lycan chasing us, well, they had no such limitations. They were crashing through the woods all around us, the only thing keeping them from surrounding us was the undergrowth to our flanks. They were pushing through dense foliage and still nearly keeping pace. Those coming up directly from behind would be on us in less than a quarter mile. Mathieu didn’t screw around, he changed form from one step to the next. I hoped they would cut pursuit, but the stakes were higher now. Obviously we had overheard them; they knew where we were. If we made it back to the Landians, we’d be able to warn them. Without the element of surprise, their plans would be useless.

  Branches were snapping, small trees were shaking, leaves rained down. For all intents and purposes, it appeared as if we were in the midst of a terrible storm. Unfortunately, for the moment we were at the epicenter, the eye of the storm where all things were quiet while destruction whirled around us. Note to self: when placing your rifle over your shoulder with the barrel pointing behind you, it is best to make sure the ejection port is facing away from your body. A smoldering piece of brass burned and stuck to the right side of my face as I pulled an errant shot. If I was going to pay my Guardian Angels overtime, I figured it was about time they earned their keep and maybe steered a shot or two completely without my aiming into a target. My cheek was blistered for my presumption, and if the heavy footfalls behind me were any indication, I’d have to go out on a limb and say I missed. So much for divine assistance.

  “Keep...running...” I huffed. “Warn...them; I’m sick...sick of running.” I slowed as did Oggie.

  I popped out my half expended magazine and fumbled with it for a moment before I switched out for a full one. I sped up to put a bit of distance between me and those that were closest. I dropped, skidding to my knees, and pulled back the charging handle. I slid on the path, shifting my body weight so that I would turn as I landed. By the time I came to a full stop, I was looking back the way we’d come. My targets would have been difficult to miss since the Lycan were so large that they could not run side by side on the narrow path. I plugged that first sucker four times before he had the good graces to die. The one following him immediately bolted into the woods. The noise of the beasts charging through the brush was all around us. I spun to see three emerge onto the path just ahead of us. Had we not stopped, we might not have beat them to that point and we certainly wouldn’t be in this defensive position. Because we’d be dead.

  Mathieu must have been thinking the same thing I was. “That was close,” he muttered; at least, that’s what it sounded like. Getting human speech through the elongated vocal cords of a werewolf was like playing Mozart by a bending a tree saw.

  “Come, come. What is all this foolishness about?”

  It was Xavier. I couldn’t have got a bigger snake of goosebumps down my spine if Freddy Krueger had dragged a frozen knife blade down a chalkboard. Using the word “fucked” to describe our situation really didn’t cover it. Skull-fucked felt better, skull-fucked with a blunt ladle was pretty close. How about boiled in bear piss and skull-fucked with a blunt ladle whilst having live scorpions shoved up your rectum fucked. I think that about hits it.

  “You should come out; we could discuss things,” I said. There was a long pause followed by hearty laughter.

  “We have the Old One!” he shouted. A series of howls came after from those surrounding us, some far away, some entirely too close. “I wondered when I would once again have the opportunity to confront you. I smelled the stink of you all over Talboton when you fled in fear from my might.”

  “Your might? You sure have a skewed version of yourself. I didn’t see your mangy ass anywhere in that fight. We battled your lackeys, while the rest of you disease-ridden, deformed, dog-wolves, cowered in the deep recesses of whatever fuck-holes you live in.”

  “I will dine on your ribs tonight,” he growled.

  “You’re going to wait for all your little foot soldiers to do your dirty work aren’t you? Just hide a little longer in the shadows of the trees while they turn, like the cowardly bitch that you are.”

  “You dare call me a coward? You, who stand with the weapon that nearly hunted my kind to extinction?”

  “I’ll put it down if you come out.”

  “I don’t think that’s such a good idea,” Mathieu said as he swiveled his head from side to side, detecting movement all around us.

  “Truly?” Xavier asked with more than a hint of incredulity.

  “Shit,” I mumbled. I did not, for even half a second, figure he would rise to the ba
it.

  “You will honor your words, Old One?” he asked. “You seem to be taking your time making a decision. Second thoughts perhaps? Regrets? Or just the liar that all your kind seem to be?”

  I put the weapon down. I apparently liked being called a liar as much as he liked being called a coward. Still, I stayed hunched over, my hand hovering for a few seconds longer than it should have; this was the chance I’d waited for. Diplomacy had never been an option here. When I rose, Xavier, in all his glory, was standing directly in front of me, not more than twenty-five feet away. It was all I could do to not glance down to the weapon that seemed miles away. If I grabbed it and shot his ass, would anybody give a fuck? Besides Xavier, that is, but he’d be dead. Was my pride and conscience really going to fuck up this prime opportunity to kill him? He spoke before I could conclude my internal debate.

  “You seem smaller than I remember you, Old One.”

  It was probably because I was subconsciously trying to get closer to my weapon, but I didn’t tell him that. He was fucking huge, huger than I remember. Each of his victories seemed to pump him up even further. If I didn’t know any better I would have said he was on the juice... steroids, that is, a muscle mass-increasing drug for those of you of this new age. It supposedly shrunk male genitalia, an unfortunate side-effect. Maybe that was why he was always so pissed off. He was all of three times my size; a wall of matted fur and muscle. I used to think Mathieu was big; he was like an infant compared to the magnificent beast before me. Even the other Lycan paled in comparison to their king. He was genetically predisposed to rule. The species survived on the principle of “might is right,” and they’d received their heir apparent. He was bipedal. After that, any similarity to a human man stopped. Looking into that mouth of razor sharp fangs was bad enough, but that they were in that massive head only made things worse. I don’t think if Mathieu and I wrapped our arms around Xavier’s chest that we would have been able to clasp our hands together to complete the circle. I mean, not that I’d want to, in fact, the thought is disgusting. I’m just trying to describe the girth of this thing. What the fuck did I really think I was going to accomplish by this display of bravado? Certainly my death wouldn’t prove anything.

  “Grab the gun,” this from the honorable Mathieu. Pretty sure he meant it as a stage whisper, but Xavier growled when he heard the words. Instead, I reached down and took my hand axe from its sheath.

  Xavier was smiling. He shaved ten feet of distance in two steps.

  “Fuck,” I hissed. I bent at the knees and waist making as small a target of myself as possible. I had my left arm partially out for balance and my right with the axe raised about head level. My head, I mean. I would have had to jump to be at Xavier’s head level.

  I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to figure out exactly what happened next. Xavier had somehow timed my blink with his strike. My eyelids were heading down for their quarter second eye cleaning when Xavier made his move, by the time my lids came back up, his arm and massive claws were already striking my side. Yep, I fucking blinked and he had me. I was hurled into a tree ten feet off the path with enough force to break bones. As luck would have it, Xavier’s aim was poor; I twisted a full revolution in the air from the hit. My ass skidded off of a large oak tree. I turned another half revolution before coming to rest in a bed of pine needles and broken branches. I was still trying to orientate myself, my eyeballs, still spinning from centrifugal forces caught Xavier in flight. He was leaping to where’d I’d been flung.

  I brought up my right hand, hoping I still possessed my weapon. I was almost as surprised as Xavier when that blade glinted in the light. Blind fucking luck. The silver skinned a sliver of meat from his forearm as he swung, trying to take my head off in one swipe. His cry of pain and rage was deafening this close to him. His left foot landed not more than an inch from the side of my head before he bounded away from my blade, leaping easily fifteen feet. I groggily got to my feet, my derriere feeling like I’d slid down the world’s largest cheese grater in my skivvies, leaving grated ass down the entire path. He turned to face me. I don’t know if I thought my words or I said them aloud.

  “So...strong.” I was looking at him. The injury I’d dealt in a pathetic attempt to stave off death seemed to piss him off more than cause him any real pain.

  “More where that came from,” I said between clenched teeth. I was going for threatening. In addition to my ass having a world class road rash, I’d had the air blown out of me like an early 2000s Firestone retread. Makes a lot more sense if you’re from my time period. Azile will get it if she reads this after I’m dead. It came out in quiet, forced breaths, about as intimidating as a rabbit showing a cougar its teeth. He was hesitant though. I’d like to add wary, but that might be pushing it. That silver coated blade had given him a good “what for.” The more time he had to think about killing me the more time I got to spend alive. He jumped again, this time coming right for me. I rolled but his claws ripped through the tough material on my sleeve. Slices opened up in my arm, traitorous blood rushed out of the sinking ship. The tree behind me caught the brunt of the assault.

  Xavier tore a large chunk of thick bark off, exposing the soft wet sapwood of the tree and digging grooves deep into the heartwood beneath. Much like me, that tree’s fate was sealed. I was rocked a good five feet to my left, but another tree was kind enough to halt my trajectory. Xavier spun and came at me. I felt very much like a shuttlecock as he hit me again. Something in my shoulder popped loose as I was sent sprawling into the dirt. I plowed into the earth, my mouth open. I rolled over, spitting out a shovel full of leaves and debris. The good thing about slamming that hard into the ground was it knocked my dislocated shoulder back into place. The bad thing was the near blinding pain that threatened to shut me down altogether. I could hear Oggie barking savagely in the background and maybe a few guttural words of encouragement from Mathieu, but I also heard that fucking bell and it was definitely tolling for thee. That, or it was my brain pinging around inside my skull like a rogue clapper.

  I was writhing in pain. I knew it was imperative to get up but the neurons were misfiring so randomly in my head I couldn’t even figure out how to do it. What little sunlight had been able to get through my squeezed tight eyes was blocked out as Xavier stood astride my broken form. I was able to open my eyes enough to realize he was smiling down at me.

  “I truly thought you would have put up more of a fight, Old One. Why have Lycan been so afraid of your kind for so long?”

  “Shut up and get it over with.” Bad enough I got my ass handed to me by a ‘roided-up Lycan, now I had to listen to his victory speech?

  “Perhaps I should send your friends off first. Make you watch as they are torn apart. This will give you something to remember me by in the afterlife.” He motioned off to his side, I guessed where Oggie and Mathieu were. I turned my head to look but all I could see was a massive, furry leg.

  “Have you never seen a movie?” I asked.

  Xavier turned to look at me, but it was too late. I was already in motion, sitting up.

  “Villains are so fucking stupid,” I said as I brought the blade of my axe down with all I could muster onto the giant, offending, fucking foot he had planted right next to me. “Just have to ramble on about how big and bad they are.” Xavier’s howl splintered the air. The blade bit deeply, a spray of blood splashed across my face. I’d been hoping Xavier would take off again. I thought he’d learned a lesson somewhere in all of this, but a giant paw closed in a fist struck the top of my head and slid off to the right. Luckily it wasn’t a full contact strike, but it was still enough to send me back to the earth at an accelerated pace. If I got hit like that again I was going to think I was Batman. Xavier’s long arms were coming dangerously close to ripping my face off as he swung wildly back and forth, maybe to kill me, maybe to dislodge the blade. There was a loud, sucking, squelching sound as I pulled it free. Even his howls could not hide the sound of dislodged bones moving around in hi
s foot. He propelled away from me again.

  I was finally able to get up; I was standing, though I looked like I was on the deck of a crab boat during a particularly bad squall. I’ve had enemies want to kill me, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen such a blazing look of pure hatred. Xavier was gingerly keeping all of his weight off of his left foot. Even hobbled he was still more lethal than just about any adversary I’d ever encountered. I struggled to regain my wits and my equilibrium before he struck again. He would not repeat the mistake of talking first and acting second.

  “Come on!” I baited him. My ploy worked; I was actually hoping for a little extra time and my words seemed to confuse him rather than egg him on. “The big bad wolf afraid of a little red blood? You should fear me, Xavier, I took the best you had to offer and here I stand on the verge of sending you to your death.”

  Xavier looked like he was about to erupt into a furious howl; instead, a hearty laugh boomed from his throat. “You can barely stand, Old One. A stiff breeze would put you down. Kill them,” he ordered, looking over my shoulder. I turned quickly to see four Lycan surrounding Oggie and Mathieu. As is usual in battle, a lot of things were happening at the same time. I spun to rush to help my friends. My knee buckled and I pitched to the side just as Xavier came for me. A large claw raked down the top of my head, digging into my scalp. His own howls were not too far off. I planted that axe into Xavier’s hip, deep enough I hit the dense ball joint and felt it vibrate through my axe handle. His reflexive backhand shattered my nose and my orbital socket. It would be weeks before I could get the stink of Lycan out of my nose. This is where it gets hazy for me. I heard a symphony of bones break, screams of anger, cries of pain, but all with the lilt of lupine to it. I may have been carried at some point, though I do remember running as well. However, if pressed, I couldn’t tell you what I was running from. My past? Death? Purgatory? Any of them would have been valid reasons to keep moving away. This part is Mathieu’s; I’ll let him recount it.