“I’ve allowed you to grow on me, darkling,” Kaibyn laughed. “You aren’t so bad for one of your race. I find I rather like you.”
“Fuck you,” Rabin mumbled. “You could have warned me this would be different.”
“Oh, if you think that was bad, wait until we journey back to our time,” Kaibyn chuckled.
The dark man grunted. The thought of a return trip made him wish he’d stayed in his own time. The sights and sounds around him were unnerving at best, terrifying at worst.
“We’ve a couple of items to pick up and then we’re outta here, as they used to say in this era,” Kaibyn commented.
“What year is this?” Rabin wanted to know for the strange conveyances that rolled past them on the hard black roadway were enough to stop any warrior’s stalwart heart.
“I believe the year is 2004. We are well behind the start of the Burning War. That won’t take place until the year 2219, if memory serves.”
Rabin looked around at his companion. “You are full of shit, demon!” he sneered. “It was the Year of the Rat, 183 when we left Akkadia!”
“Aye, but after the Burning War, time began its count all over again,” Kaibyn explained. He was sitting on a metal bench, his arms stretched out along the back, one knee bent, his foot upon the bench’s seat. He cocked his head to one side. “Would it surprise you to learn that the world has been forced to begin its count several times and at last count, this earth is over four billion years old?”
“Ah!” Rabin scoffed, waving a dismissive hand. “You think you are fooling me but you aren’t!”
“Have it your way,” Kaibyn sighed.
“Where are these things you think we need to destroy the Hell Hags?” Rabin demanded. “We should be back with our people.”
“In there,” Kaibyn said with a nod to the building behind Rabin.
Jumping as something blared among the speeding conveyances shooting by, Rabin turned to observe the tall building behind him. He winced for the buildings here in the past were as strange as the hard black roadways and blinking lights upon tall poles.
Made of stone but encased in glass, many of the buildings had dead people standing in its windows.
“Not dead people,” Kaibyn had corrected. “Dummies—mannequins.”
Rabin hawked a gob of phlegm to let the demon know he thought the explanation ridiculous. He knew a dead person when he saw one and even though the corpses’ eyes were wide open and staring sightlessly, they were strangely well preserved.
There was writing on the building, but Rabin could not decipher it. The letters were shaped weirdly.
“What is this place?”
“It isn’t what the building is,” Kaibyn responded. “It is what is hidden in the basement that we’re after.”
The word “basement” meant nothing to Rabin.
“Terrorists reside here,” Kaibyn said as he got to his feet. “They are planning on destroying several large buildings, killing thousands of innocent people. I will see to it they do not succeed with their cowardly plan.”
“Terrorists?” Rabin repeated. “What does that mean?”
“That’s not important,” Kaibyn answered. “When we leave, they will be leaving, too.” His devilish eyes gleamed with murderous intent. “Although not in any way they ever planned.”
Ten minutes later, Rabin was airborne, each hand gripping a strange weapon that was much heavier than it looked. His ears were still ringing from the gods-awful blast that had brought the building down around its inhabitant’s ears—crushing them beneath tons of smoldering wood, twisted metal and crumbling blocks.
“An eye for an eye,” Kaibyn said a moment before the night lit up like a bonfire.
* * * * *
“She’s here,” Tamara warned, pointing toward the south.
Evann-Sin’s flesh crawled for even from this distance he could sense the evil bitch that had almost killed him. He thought he could feel her hands on his body and he shuddered.
“Where is the demon?” King Numair queried.
“He’ll be here,” Evann-Sin said quietly.
“Aye, well you have more faith in him than I,” the Panther confessed.
“He won’t let us down if for no other reason than to save my lady’s life,” the warrior said.
Tamara slipped her hand into her lover’s and squeezed.
“They are beneath the walls,” a soldier warned.
Ringed around the eastern wall of the palace, dead-white faces stared up at the palace’s defenders. The scarlet slashes of their lips pulled back to reveal long, wicked fangs.
“By the Prophet but that is an evil sight,” the king whispered.
As the defenders watched, the first wave of Undead began scaling the walls, their fingernails scraping against the stone.
“Where are you, Kaibyn?” Evann-Sin muttered. Around him, his soldiers were throwing pitch-dipped spears at the climbers and now and again, a body would burst into flames and fall, catching another body on fire as it landed among the snapping throng at the base of the wall.
“They are too fast,” King Numair swore. “They scuttle up the stones like beetles! They will overrun us!”
Tamara held a heavy broadsword in her hands. She was ready to defend the walls of the palace by lopping the heads off its attackers. Already, she could smell the creeping decay that had risen up from the graves scattered across the plain and her stomach lurched at the scent.
Evann-Sin flexed his sword arm. In his strong grip, he held a wicked-looking battle-ax, the blade of which was razor-thin. His palms itched—as they did before every fight—and sweat glistened in his dark hair. His gaze was locked on Lilit, and even from the distance that separated them, could see her nasty smile.
Counting the advancing enemy was difficult at best, but the Panther was finally able to make out the remaining Undead. “Eighty-two,” he told Evann-Sin. He looked around them and saw only a handful of spears left and his heart sank. “Too many. Much too many.”
“The demon won’t let us down,” Evann-Sin asserted.
When the last spear was thrown, the defenders took up their swords and battle-axes, maces and scythes. A few had blazing torches that could be wielded as weapons but for now lit up the gathering darkness. The defense of the palace would come down to hand-to-hand combat and blood might soon run rivers on the battlements.
As full dark enveloped the night, the first five attackers popped their heads between the crenellations and were met with instant decapitation, but the second wave of the enemy managed to leap upon the stones to fling themselves at the defenders. One defender went down—the fangs of his slayer buried deep in his throat. He died screaming as both his head and that of the one who had killed him were severed by Tamara’s weighty sword.
Evann-Sin had taken out six of the enemy, but he and those who stood with him were slowly being backed up to the stairs. Undead after Undead poured over the battlements and with hands bent like claws and lips skinned back from wickedly glinting teeth, hissed and threw themselves at the defenders.
“Watch your back, warrior!” Tamara yelled as she chopped the head from her opponent. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw an Undead one creeping up behind Evann-Sin.
The warrior spun around and his ax sheared an ugly head from a decaying body, but another enemy jumped on his back, wrapped its legs around his waist and went for his neck. With a bellow of outrage, Evann-Sin slammed the creature into the wall beside them hard enough to hear Undead bones break. With a hiss, the thing slid off the warrior’s back and Evann-Sin made quick work of taking its head.
“Need some help?”
Evann-Sin turned around to see Kaibyn Zafeyr and Rabin standing back-to-back between him and Tamara, who was struggling with a brawny Undead warrior.
Rabin was grinning as he held two very strange weapons in his hands. He threw one to Evann-Sin and yelled for him to do as he did. He aimed the weapon at Tamara’s foe and a burst of flame shot from the end of the bulky thing, instantly incinerating the Undead. He then swung the weapon in an arc toward more advancing creatures and set them ablaze as Kaibyn handed Tamara the second weapon he carried.
“Point it at the enemy and pull the trigger like so,” Kaibyn instructed. He brought his weapon up and sprayed a group of Undead.
The strange weapons blazed arcs over the high walls of the palace and lit the night with bodies running in circles or else falling over the edge of the wall. Here and there a body burned like a funeral pyre to give light for the defenders.
Tamara stared at the weighty thing then followed suit, shocked by the power the thing emitted. She was careful not to aim it near one of their own and was stunned to see the Undead backing away, scrambling to retreat the same way they had come.
But Kaibyn followed suit, and he and Rabin aimed their weapons down the palace walls and turned the Undead into falling balls of fire that caught those below ablaze.
Evann-Sin could not get his weapon to work and finally resorted to using it like a club, swatting the fleeing Undead like wingless flies then jumping aside for Tamara to spray them with flame. He was grinning like a madman, and at one point laughed aloud as an enemy rushed him only to be brought up fast by a stream of fire that turned enemy to inferno.
King Numair had slain several enemies with his own broadsword, but was now bent over the wall, watching the attackers turning into crispy critters on the ground below. He lifted his head and stared at Queen Lilit, and felt the supernatural chill of her stare like a basin of cold water thrown over him.
Lilit was sitting on the back of her prancing black hell-steed, its red, glowing eyes rolling as its rider kept it under control and its mighty hooves struck sparks on the paving stones. The Queen of the Daughters of the Night stared back at the Akkadian king with such ferocity the look should have stricken the man dead. Her wrath knew no boundaries. Flanking her were her two most powerful lieutenants, Amenirdis and Hekat.
“Bring that traitorous little bitch to me!” Lilit commanded.
Shiny black leather wings unfolded from the backs of the two female creatures and spread wide. With a single mighty flap, the two were airborne and soaring over the walls of the palace.
“Riel!” the Panther screamed, the only one to see the oncoming danger.
Evann-Sin turned just the sound of flapping wings broke over the screeches of exploding, burning bodies. He looked to the king then snapped his head up just as one of the winged creatures flew overhead, obscuring the light of the moon. Instinctively he ducked, going to one knee and as he stared in horror, saw talons extending toward Tamara as a second creature dove for his lady.
“
No!
” the warrior bellowed, springing to his feet and reaching up as though he could snatch the bats from the air. The kerchief that had been wound around Tamara’s bloody hand fluttered to toward him and he grasped it, pulling it to his chest as though it were the most sacred of objects.
Bent over the wall, ridding the world of the last of the Undead, neither Kaibyn nor Rabin realized the danger zeroing in on Tamara. So engrossed with destroying their enemies, they did not see the winged demonesses pluck Tamara from the wall and fly away with her. Tamara’s scream of denial was lost in the mindless shrieking of the Undead’s destruction.
“
Kaibyn!
”
Hearing his name shouted in a tone that bespoke great anguish, the demon straightened up and turned to look behind him. He saw Evann-Sin standing alone amidst a quartet of burning bodies, behind the warrior was the horrific sight of Tamara dangling between two high-flying creatures, her legs kicking violently.
“
Kaibyn, do something!
”
The anguish in the warrior’s voice bordered on hysteria, but Kaibyn could not seem to move. He stood where he was, all movement frozen, watching the diminishing trio winging beyond the limited light of the pale moon. As he watched, he saw a winged stallion sailing high overhead and the taunting sound of hateful laughter drifted down to him on a current of air that reeked of brimstone.
Rabin, alone, reacted, flinging himself through time and space after the retreating creatures but they were soon out of sight. Though he sought them with his fledgling skills, neither sight nor sound nor scent came back at him and he was soon back on the battlement walls, his apologetic eyes going to the grieving warrior.
Evann-Sin was trembling from head to toe, his heart racing so thunderously in his chest he thought the organ would soon break free. He took a few steps, then collapsed, his face stamped with hopeless agony.
“No,” the warrior denied, letting his head fall back. “No!”
Chapter Twelve
Tamara was chilled to the bone with a mixture of sustained fright and frigid air that washed over her as she dangled between the two noxious creatures supporting her. Her upper arms—clamped tightly within the flexed feet of the bat-like beings—hurt with a dull ache that had spread to her shoulders and neck. So high in the atmosphere, so far beyond any source of light, the pitch-blackness of the space around her was disorienting. She had been hanging between the demonesses for what seemed like hours. The awful, interminable flapping of their wings, the ceaseless tempo of their movement, had long since dulled her mind to any chance of potential rescue. If Kaibyn followed, if he were capable of following, he would have overtaken them by now. It wasn’t until she felt the downward motion dragging against her flailing legs that she knew the horrific things were lowering her to their destination.