Deadly Wands (36 page)

Tears burst from his eyes. Billy not only got
his friends killed, but let those bastards rape Blade like they did
his mother.

“Forgive me, papa,” he whispered on the verge
of an emotional breakdown.

Until they blasted the Mongols. Billy’s jaw
dropped in shock, and was so exhausted he could barely lift it back
up. The enemy in the fortress had run out to witness their victory,
so the American marathoners fell like a blanket to smother them.
Before Billy even landed, the Americans started mopping up inside
the castle.

Billy didn’t land so much as crash softly.
The emotional ups and down drained him. He found himself on his
back in the courtyard and could barely lift his arms. Princess fell
on top of him and Billy screamed in pain before she remembered his
fried skin. She took off his helmet and poured her healing energy
into him. With one wand on his forehead and the other on his chest,
she funneled her life energy. Prince showed up and gave Billy some
water. The twins helped him to his feet and Billy shocked Prince by
hugging both of them.

Until Bear walked up. “Where’s my hug?”

It took Billy a while to focus, then he lit
up. “Let’s find Blade! Bear, take command up here.”

Billy led them to the dungeon, killing the
few remaining support staff who had not fled in time. Billy found
the steel door pried open from the outside, smoke still floating
out, but apparently not in time to save the few hundred troops
inside.

"What happened?" Prince asked, trying to make
sense of it.

"They were in my way, so I locked them in and
smoked them to death."

“And I thought I’d seen everything.”

They walked over bodies, and had to climb
over partial cave-ins, until they came upon a pile of corpses at
the bottom. Frantic, they tossed the corpses up the stairs and
screamed her name.

The vault magically opened. Only then did
they notice the key still in it. Corpses five deep blocked it, but
it was wide enough for skinny Billy to squeeze inside and take in
Blade's relieved face.

"Did they hurt you?"

She knew what he meant. "No. You didn't give
them time to hurt me."

Blade flipped Billy’s mask up to give him the
kiss he deserved, but his baby face shocked her. She had never seen
him before because he was so paranoid about concealing his
identity. Even with all the blasted rock chips stuck to his cheeks,
he obviously was just a teenager. A really cute teenager. She
remembered the thousands of scars on his body and assumed he was an
old cruel jerk. Now she felt like she had never seen him
before.

“What smells so good?” Princess asked from
behind Billy. “Bitch, are you cheating on me?”

“Genghis Khan sure hired expensive
mercenaries,” Prince remarked at all the coin, hovering to take in
Blade's naked body in all its natural glory.

In contrast, Billy's eyes never left hers.
Blade almost joked, “hey, my boobs are down here!” Never once did
they veer towards her impressive tits or the stacks of gold bricks
behind her. The realization struck her like a fireball.

"I was so afraid for you," Billy whispered,
throat dry and near tears. A man who does not fear death can still
fear many things. "I was just ten when my father and I found my
mother's naked corpse. I wanted to improve my sword fighting
because the only guy who ever beat my father led the gang rape. I
miss her so much it hurts, and the only thing that eases the pain
is punishing her rapists. The thought of them doing the same to
you..."

The traumatized fifteen year old broke down
as his eyes burst into tears. Years of rage poured out as Blade
took him into her arms to comfort him. And to block Prince's view
of her. He didn’t know it, but Billy owned her now. She’d do
anything for him.

“I’m pregnant,” Blade confessed.

It took a moment before the news broke
through his exhaustion, but Princess shrieked and gave them a group
hug. “Our kids will be siblings! We should have sex to celebrate.”
Princess needed to distract her brother: “Put Tiny in charge of
packing all this. We need to leave before dawn.”

While the rest of them got to work, Blade
took the clothes off a corpse. She could not even see the floor, so
she walked on bodies until she found the general. Footsteps warned
her of people coming. She transferred his wands, kicked him until
she tired, then peed into his open mouth, not stopping even when
the new crowd appeared.

"Hey, Blade," Tiny said. "Heard you were
dead."

"I faked it like a good lesbian," she
replied, carefully aiming her last drops. "No, Red stormed a
fortress alone rather than let them rape me."

“Yeah, I’m sure he’ll do that for me, too.
Friend of yours?" Tiny asked, gesturing to the dead general,
pushing his people down the stairs.

"He tried to get friendly with me. He had to
stop when Red refused to die."

Each American climbing over corpses looked
stunned at what the Red Baron would do to protect a member of his
team. What a hell of a story to tell the folks back home! His
heroism multiplied the intensity of their loyalty.

“After this, the guys will follow him into
hell and the gals will throw themselves into fireballs to spare him
the heat.”

Blade looked up at the giant Indian. “I’m
gonna make myself pretty, tell the world what happened here, and
interview the Baron so everyone knows how he feels about rape.”

Tiny had good news. “When we heard
mercenaries were hunting Red, both divisions refused to empty banks
until we got them all. And that was before Red fought an entire
castle to free one quad. It’s scary to think what they’d do for him
now.”

“I’d kill or die for him,” Blade
confessed.

Tiny laughed. “Just wait til you see how many
he killed topside. I don’t understand how someone so puny can take
such giant steps.”

She walked past burnt corpses before she
found the steel door. Then she saw the other guy she was looking
for. Across the corridor, near the main entrance, she found the
mercenary, stuck like a pig and practically buried in bodies. She
took back the incredible wands she got from Billy, then strolled
into the courtyard to let the cold night air cleanse her. Hundreds
of dead Mongols lined the battlements and filled the parade ground.
At dawn she’d record it all to use in her anti-rape videos.

Blade could not believe she was still alive
and un-raped. She stared at the stars. I'm gonna be a mommy! Blade
said to herself in joyous disbelief.

CHAPTER 45

Jawbone, the company commander, noticed a
break in the snowfall. "Come on, everyone. Let's get out while we
can. Mongols don't kill themselves, you know."

A well-liked veteran, he had a tendency to
"jaw-bone" his team. The usual suspects made the usual groans, but
most of them quickly got ready for another day on top of the 500
kilometer-long Pyrenees Mountain Range.

"Wake up, Dreamy," he said, kicking a
super-quad who slept a lot, and handing him warm tea to clear his
head. "Last one out cleans the latrine."

The downside of not having support staff was
all the shitty chores.

Mongol control in Spain collapsed after their
defeat at Cuenca. The 2nd division blocked enemy access to the
peninsula while the 3rd bombed from Valencia. Then the new African
division arrived and rolled up the Mongols from the south. Genghis
Khan lost all his troops, government, and wealth in Spain. He vowed
to re-take Spain, which meant first controlling the Pyrenees.

They built the cabin into the lee of a small
cliff to minimize wind shear. Vulnerable from above, they placed
large rocks on the roof, then poured water to freeze the boulders
into place. A naturally-looking snowdrift hid frozen earth piled up
against the exposed sides of the bunker as Jawbone peeked out a
narrow slit before stepping outside.

The extreme cold made the interior feel like
an oven. It got so cold that a guy could see his pee freeze as it
landed.

The trick to surviving cold weather is layers
of clothing, to add or subtract as needed. Jawbone decided to go
back inside to take off a jacket now that the storm passed, but
something made him pause. On impulse, he popped up to check out the
roof. Unfortunately, a few dozen enemies blasted him for his sudden
appearance, blowing his head off.

With that, hundreds of Mongols shot at the
cabin from concealed positions, but did little more than melt snow
and blacken the stone walls. The Americans rushed to open wand
slits to fire back. Dreamy, now wide awake, noticed the white
masks, gloves, and expensive coats. If they had all gone outside,
the Mongols would have wiped them out.

"It's the special team we heard about!" he
warned the others. "Let's hope this works."

Dreamy and several others stuck their hands
out narrow holes in the back, then blasted blindly at anyone on the
roof. Others climbed onto the roof to finish off the Mongols. The
boulders gave them cover, while the curve of the cliff protected
them from above. A stalemate started, but with the Americans more
comfortable.

"Pass the shields up and prepare for a mass
attack," Dreamy yelled into the cabin. Some of the metal shields
looked old enough to be Roman, but would still protect against
fireballs.

Several hundred enemies attacked on the
narrow front. The defenders built their bunker so everyone could
shoot out, which crushed the attack. Owning the roof kept them
alive.

The Mongols had to destroy the Americans to
re-take Spain. Since Jawbone's company guarded the much-traveled
Somport Pass in Aspe Valley, it came as no surprise that Mongols
hit them. The other companies would hear and counter-attack in
force. All Jawbone’s unit had to do was wait.

When the counter-attack finally came at
sunset, the Mongols were stiff, frustrated, and very cold. The
Americans wiped out the remaining Mongols, but not before torturing
some to learn where they trained.

“Oh, boy,” Dreamy concluded sadly after the
third Mongol gave the same information. “I hope the Baron has come
back. Maybe he’ll know what to do.”

CHAPTER 46

With winter near, Billy flew to England and
Ireland to impregnate the mothers of his children again, confident
the Mongols would wait until spring to start an offensive. Then
Jack showed up to give him the bad news.

Everyone looked up when Billy finally arrived
at the country estate outside Madrid. The crowd greeted him like
royalty, which left American Jack feeling unappreciated. He spent
three centuries establishing himself, only to see some teenager
replace him. It never crossed his mind that Genghis Khan felt the
same at the Olympics.

Jack’s real talent lay in business. Without
the resources he poured into the war over three hundred years, the
Mongols would have conquered everyone long ago. But that didn’t
inspire warriors like spectacular victories.

Jack's wand called everyone's attention as he
tapped his throat to boost his voice.

"We have the leaders of every company here to
discuss how we should respond to our newest threat. Those of you
who already heard Dreamy's report know that the Mongol High Command
is training high-altitude quads on the Alps to take the Pyrenees
from us.”

“So much for re-taking Africa,” Mali
complained.

“No, since we now have a safe path to Africa,
the first of many American quads and their families plan on moving
there to take extraction enterprises from the Mongols. Many more
will follow if our initial efforts are successful. With Red’s
money, I’m recruiting more African quads to add to our African
division.

“Genghis has given General Jebe extraordinary
powers to take veterans from Europe. Remember how Jebe trounced us
outside Geneva a century ago? If Jebe can take the Pyrenees, the
Mongols could finally conquer France and Spain.

"One idea is to force them to fight us at a
place of our choosing -- say, on top of the highest peak in the
Pyrenees -- and hit them with our newly grateful Spanish and French
allies. We could thin them out on their way here and destroy their
supply lines. Feeding and housing so many troops will give us
plenty of opportunities to undermine them."

"Red, what do you think?" Bear asked, not
noticing the pained look on Grandma’s face when she was not asked
first.

Billy hovered above them and tapped his
throat. "First of all, sorry I’m late. I’d have been here earlier,
but I was too busy killing enemies and taking their treasure."

Everyone leaned forward. What was coming must
be good because he just paraphrased an old Genghis Khan quote.

"As you probably know, I led the 3rd Marathon
Battalion to gather more intel. We followed the golden mules from
the Alps to their regional headquarters in Vienna. Since Jebe is
basically robbing Europe of quads, we found it surprisingly easy to
wipe them out."

Oh, he had them now, like kids at bedtime
soaking up their favorite story.

"There we found more gold than the thousand
of us could carry, much less the silver. They also had a lot of
currency," meaning paper money used in intra-government
transactions. Billy coughed and took a very long time drinking some
wine. Everyone knew he was stringing them along. He, of all people,
wouldn't leave gold behind. "We took all the bills we could carry.
The guys are now arguing over what kingdom to buy." He pretended
his story ended, but everyone knew different. "Jack, this is
excellent wine!"

"What did you do with the damn gold?" Bear
demanded.

"Oh, that? We dropped it, actually. Every one
of us. I blame the humidity. Funny thing is, we went back to get
some more, and dropped it again. In fact, on every trip, the
thousand of us dropped all that gold and silver in the same hole.
Which should just about cover the bonuses for the volunteers who
help me beat Jebe.”