Lives of Future-Past (The Chronicles of Max Gunnarsson Book 1) (24 page)

    
     The werewolves who were once, and again would be Jennie and Max, paced in their cells, unaware of their location, or even of themselves. They were now beasts of pure instinct, and their instincts led them to choose between three very different activities – to escape, to eat the meat that hung in their cells, or to mate. They smelled each other, the mutual attraction being irresistible. Maybe it was just that they had spent so much time together, or they were actively denying the spark of romance while in lycan form, but something drove them to try and sniff each other at the edge of their shared wall, where the bars of their cells terminated the barrier, their noses not quite able to touch.
     Unable to reach each other, the beasts howled and scratched at the thick wall that separated them.
     Miles to the north of Krynos’ castle, a massive platoon of slowly rotting, black leather-clad soldiers marched in a southerly direction, with those of leadership positions astride dark, mutated horses that had glowing red eyes. Vladros took the position of leadership from the center, preferring to put his lower-caste troops out front and in all sides as cannon fodder in the event that the cantus, provided by his ally and fallen Primulus, Marnn, did not function as prescribed.
     In the beginning of his existence, Marnn was a watcher with a penchant for tinkering and helping to prop up those nascent species that only needed a little push to get up and going. As years turned to centuries, and centuries turned to millennia he tired of helping those in need, and instead formulated his own views on what was right and just in the universe.
     Of course, this created a conflict between he and his brothers, and he was banished from The Hub, mostly through the insistence of his brother Draagh. Bitter, he had been biding his time for countless centuries, waiting until he could catch his brother in a position of weakness. As Draagh had joined with his grandson Max, that moment had arrived. Marnn was certain that Draagh would willingly sacrifice anyone and anything – including himself – in order to protect the young man, and thus be less able to properly engage in a battle of ancient skills.
     Vampire king Vladros trotted along on his massive steed, as Marnn effortlessly floated next to him. Dressed in ominous-looking black robes, and sporting a black beard and hair, he appeared to almost be a negative image of his brother Draagh.
     “At last, the moment of retribution has arrived, oh great mage,” said Vladros, who was totally without the intention of honoring any of his promises to the ancient Primulus.
     Marnn was well aware of the eventual deception, and continued playing his own cruel game of deceit with the vampire king.
     “Yes, it shall be good to finally rid the universe of my brother’s plague.”
     Further up ahead, Ryder Johnson was limping along with the massive throngs of hideous, malformed vampires, and as he had garnered absolutely no respect from Vladros, he was forced to march as a first line of defense. That suited him fine, as he intended to split off from the troops once they had breached Krynos’ castle perimeter, and to go find his other-wordly enemies. He no longer desired to violate the lovely Jennifer Escalante – he only wanted to kill her slowly, while Gunnarsson watched, and then carve the scientific commander’s head off with a dull blade.
     What Johnson didn’t know until after Gunnarsson had rescued Jennie Escalante - as he was not privy to Vladros’ inner circle of information - was that the vampire king had sent the majority of his troops off to hide in caves near Korlos’ dilapidated excuse for a castle, and had done so on purpose. He was playing a strategic game of chess with his lycan enemy. After deciding to kidnap the lycan girl, he left only a small regiment of troops in the castle – just enough to put up a fight, but also enable the eventual release of his captives. Feigning defeat, and making Krynos believe that his forces were all but destroyed; he would lull the lycan leader into a false sense of security, and then attack when they were most vulnerable – during the full moon.
     “So, you say that the lycan mage is Draagh’s grandson?” Vladros asked Marnn. “That would explain his apparent ease in defeating Ladros and his counterparts.”
     Marnn floated eerily next to his ally and said, “Yes, it is rare, but we occasionally procreate. The father of the boy is Taxiarch Michael, but he has been… indisposed of for near a quarter century, so—”
     “What?” burst out Vladros with no small amount of trepidation. “His father is Michael? It is bad enough for the boy’s sire to be an archangel, but that lunatic? How are you to be sure that he does not show up in their defense?”
     Marnn smirked and looked out at the marching fleet of death before them, saying, “He cares not for the boy, nor for his father. He only cares for himself. Plus, he has been rendered virtually powerless and stranded on another world.”
     Vladros looked forward with a dull gleam in his nearly dead eyes. “Well then, that can only help us, my friend.”
     Draagh sat in his turret, watching the moon slowly rise up into the sky, as the muffled sounds of transformed werewolves came up through ventilation grates. He enjoyed the full moon while in the Rhönen Dominion, finding it to be a time where he could truly be at peace, with no one bothering him to magically repair a door or to make a love cantus. He was nearly alone, with only Krynos running up and sniffing at him occasionally. Although Krynos retained his reason during the transformation, he did love running around and sniffing things, as there was little else to do for those few hours every lunar cycle.
     The ancient Primulus decided to stand up and walk out to the pathway that connected his turret to the rest of the castle - just to make sure that none of the night guards were curled up in a ball and sleeping (as frequently happened).
     His distrust for werewolf soldiers was probably the only thing that saved the castle, as well as the entire Rhönen Dominion.
     As he walked out on the pathway and headed for the western turret he found Major Kangor at his station, gazing out intently at the flat plains and looking for any sign of disturbance.
     “My good major, how are we this evening?” asked Draagh with a great deal of enthusiasm. The fully formed werewolf looked casually to his left, where Draagh had approached from the southern turret.
     “Urrrrrm, good. No enemy,” he growled. It was possible to speak in phase 3, albeit with some difficulty. Lycans had a language of growls, barks and yelps that they used to communicate with each other while in their third state, but considered it polite to speak a language understandable to all when in mixed company. Draagh could understand and speak virtually every language he had encountered during his eons of existence, but simply enjoyed listening to werewolves struggle to form words with their lupine mouths. He found it funny, but that was Draagh – he was simply odd in that aspect.
     He watched the major simply go back to watching his post in dutiful fashion, so he turned and walked back toward his own turret, passing it for the eastern sector where Lieutenant Conan was posted. Noting that the good lieutenant was carefully scanning the horizon, and that he generally was not one to engage in small talk, Draagh moved on, circling around again, this time to the northern tower, where Krynos and Donus stood watch.
     The northern side was usually considered the most important, as that is from where danger would come. All of the vampire clans were located in the north, but the night was cold, clear, and the slight northerly breeze gave absolutely no indication of anything out of the ordinary.
     Entering into the largest of the four main turrets of the castle, Draagh greeted Krynos and Donus with a nod of his head, causing friendly growls to emanate from their throats. The old mage quietly stood there, watching out to the north with his two colleagues, occasionally reaching over and scratching Krynos behind the ear, which in turn caused the transformed lycan king to kick his leg out of pleasure, much like a domesticated dog would do. The three then relaxed and looked out over the landscape.
     On the second-to-top level of the castle, in a large chamber where the walls were lined with protective cubbyholes, lycan children were quietly passing their monthly ritual. While many children giggled and played guessing games through their walls, Liliana sat in hers, playing with Jennie’s wand (which was in the rectangular box the woman had earlier given the child), making little sparkles of light. Jennie had given the wand to the girl, as her own katana had been recently converted into a super-powered sword of mass destruction. Liliana was a quick study, learning cantuses almost immediately, and Jennie thought it would be nice to give the little lycan something to look forward to in life. She had not told Liliana that the wand was hers to keep – she wanted to inform her later, but as far as Jennie was concerned, the wand belonged to the girl.
     Imagining she was a great mage and fighting epic battles, she made light designs in her small space, when shadows on the back wall showed what appeared to be a separation in the wood grain. She ran her little fingers over the seam, and digging a fingernail into it found that it moved slightly. Pulling on the seam, a small panel opened, revealing a tiny passageway just big enough for her to fit in. As she was a child, and most children were mischievous, she crawled into the passageway and whispered a cantus.
     “
Undaincantatio lux
”

     All of the transformed werewolves were secured in their cells, making substantial noise, with most peeing all over the inside of their containment areas. One, a female, was rolling on her back in the blood and pus she had left from her change, in an effort to relieve herself of an itchy back, and only making a worse mess than was already there. As the cats that lived in the castle instinctively knew to stay away from the dungeon areas during the full moon, rats roamed freely, attracted to the human waste and bile on the floors of the cells. One such rat was brave (or stupid) enough to enter into a cell, only to become a quick meal for its occupant.
     Further down the long corridor, the young man whom Max had surprised the day he was slipping around the castle, was fully transformed in his cell, furiously attempting to hump the wall, while Max and Jennie had stopped scratching on their concrete barrier, and simply sat up to the front, whimpering and keeping their noses as close together as they possibly could.
     Overall it was an uneventful evening, and Draagh sat back, enjoying his pipe as the moon moved through the sky. He relaxed and smelled the air, trying not to think of the task that was ahead of him and his two young charges. Standing up, he returned the to northern tower, wanting to make one final check on Krynos and Donus, the two never staying in one place very long. As he rounded the castle and passed the west tower he had an odd feeling, which turned to a suspicion, which then turned to alarm. Running as fast as his ancient legs would take him (which was extremely fast), he reached the northern turret.
     “Move, my friends!” he commanded, as he set his staff on the floor, instantly creating a spyglass of sorts. It was more of a semi-transparent panel, magnifying everything in its view. Looking out over the horizon he saw what no lycan, phase 3 or otherwise, would have seen – a slight distortion in the air at near ground level. The distortion was wide, possibly half a kilometer, and went back nearly the same distance. He could not smell anything, nor could his lycan counterparts, but he knew it was there.
     They were going to be attacked. (*19*)
     Out on the open plains, Vladros and Marrn continued forward, one on horse and one floating in the air, as they trudged on toward Krynos’ castle.
     “I see our destination, my friend. Will your enhancement hide my troops if they split off and attack from all four quarters?”
     The fallen Primulus looked at Vladros, never having liked it when the vampire used the term
friend
, and shook his head. “No, they must remain together for the cantus to function properly. Although I have many abilities, they can only be spread so thin, and in order to control so much magic I must attempt to encapsulate it with a certain area.”
     “Ah, so then there are limitations to your great power?” The vampire king sneered and looked away, as if he felt himself superior to the eons-old being at his side.
     “We all suffer limitations. If I had none I would rule the universe. Only one is without limit, and he is the Alpha and the Om—”
     “Yes, yes, I know,” interrupted the rotting leader, “and it is he who we despise above all.”
     “Without Jah, you would not exist.”
     “Ah, but I do exist, and shall continue to do so for a very, very long time.”
     Marnn had an unsettling feeling, allying himself with such a despicable creature, but as always, the ends justified the means, and Marnn’s end goal was the termination of Draagh’s existence.
     The invading forces neared the castle via the open northern plains, unaware that they had been seen, as Draagh hurriedly contacted all of the sapient werewolves via their magical battle armor (as well as the normals who were provided with special medallions that facilitated communications from the mage), and informed them of the approaching forces. With their numbers so few, they would be required to use some non-conventional methods of repelling the vampires (conventional methods being swords and teeth), none of which were ever shared with those with non-sapient transformations, and most certainly not with non-lycans, such as the traitorous minor-mage, Siegfried, or even the conscripted normals who had the privilege of spending one night per lunar cycle in Krynos’ grand castle.
However, this time all needed to be informed.
    Kangor made for the defensive machinery - easily clocking in at 85 kph, and using his semi-dexterous paws, enacted the complex set of gears and weighted pullies that would lift massive wood and quadrinium machinery up and over the castle walls. Years before, Draagh had assisted them in developing this system of defense, which was created with the purpose of holding off an invading vampire army until the sun peeked over the eastern horizon, at which time all of the dungeon cell doors would have already automatically opened and released the soldiers of the Rhönen Dominion.
     As Vladros’ forces approached the castle walls, they noticed the massive machinery that peered over the edges, and split out to cover the four sectors of the castle, breaking Marnn’s cantus at the same time. It was at this moment that Kangor enacted defense number one – a wide-spanning bath of ultra-intense UV light that instantly burned roughly two-thirds of the nearby attacking forces to a crisp, annihilating the majority of Vladros’ lower-caste troops. The remaining forces attempted to shoot crossbow grappling hooks up over the castle walls in order to scale them, but the fresh-water great white sharks would not sit idly by and allow them to push planks over and break the walls down.
     Draagh needed to make a choice – either defend the castle, or go and personally protect Max and Jennie, who were stuck in their cells like sitting… lycans. He chose the former, as he was uncertain that his defenses would hold against the marauding ghouls. As there was only a handful of sapient lycans available along with their human helpers - humans who unfortunately did not possess near the strength of even a lower-caste vampire - he did have the option of shocking a few phase 3s and having them join the fight, but there was precious little time. He ran to Krynos, and instructed the lycan king to guard the children, as they were the most vulnerable. In a worst-case scenario, they could trip a lever that would instantly open the dungeon cages on a sector-by-sector basis, where meat draggers would lure the savage beasts to the main level, but Krynos would need to be above to make sure that the errant phase 3 didn’t make it to the cubbyholes that protected their precious young, and it could also put the normals at incredible risk.
     Vladros screamed out orders from behind, not willing to personally engage in battle, as he was a coward, just like most upper-caste vampires. He looked around to see smoking corpses where the majority of his troops had been only moments before, and cursed Marnn, who had already departed up and over the castle walls via a levitation cantus.
     As Krynos bounded up the stairs, Donus took care of the remaining few of the enemy that had managed to get up the wall before being picked off like hors d'oeuvres by the super-intelligent and very hungry sharks. In too much of a hurry to push their grappling hooks off, he ran from location to location at high speeds, slashing and biting anything that made it over the walls, decapitating invading soldiers with his razor-sharp claws and smashing others’ heads into the gray stone of which the structure was built. Looking out over the wall, he saw a lone vampire hanging back, as if he were waiting.
     “
Grrrrrr. Cowrrrrrd
,” he growled.

     That very vampire, Ryder Johnson, was not only a petty, evil man, he was also smart and had left formation long before they had gotten anywhere near the castle, preferring to wait until all of the cannon fodder had been eliminated, and hopefully had taken out defensive forces before expiring. As he rounded back to the south end of the structure, and saw a couple of ropes hanging from still-stable grappling hooks, he considered jumping to one, only to stop mere meters from the edge of the moat, as a six meter long great white breached and landed back into the water with a mighty crash.

     
Maybe I’ll just hang on until Captain Crustyface gets inside
, he thought to himself.
     Kangor was busy moving the defensive machinery around, and enacted the second level of defense, which consisted of various quadrinium nozzles that sprayed out concentrated garlic water. Nine climbing vampires let go of their ropes as they instinctively put their hands to their burning faces, only to become violently quick meals for the gargantuan fish in the waters below.
     Draagh ran up to Kangor and said, “Good job, my boy. Now let some more come up and release the oil.” Kangor nodded his head and looked around, making sure that nothing rotten smelling would get anywhere near the machinery in which he was entrusted.
     Krynos entered the children’s cubbyhole chambers and saw that all was well. The children knew what Krynos looked like in his death form, so they were not alarmed by him, but they were very aware that an invasion was happening, and numerous young ones whimpered in their enclosures, trying not to make a substantial amount of noise. Krynos paced from end to end, ready to protect the future of the Rhönen Dominion with his life, if necessary, but he failed to notice that one of the cubbyholes was empty.
     Liliana, the former occupant of the empty cubbyhole, crawled through the narrow access tunnel, scared out of her wits, as she had heard even more of the commotion outside than the children who remained locked up. She kept her wand in front of her, and nearly fell down a hole that led to the lower floors, but her light source cast a great shadow on the nearly unseen abyss. Approaching it cautiously, she pointed her wand down and spied a rickety ladder.
     “Jennie, please be ok. I so want to have breakfast with you and Max in the morning,” she thought out loud as she went to bravely reach out into the darkness.
     She grasped the top rung of the ladder, having it nearly disintegrate in her hand and almost causing her to drop her wand, but she slipped to the next rung and it held fast. Lowering herself, she went down a full floor and saw another access tunnel. Jumping over to it, she climbed through quickly and came upon a grate, which gave her access to the living quarters of the Dominion’s top officers. Pushing the grate with as much force as she possibly could, she found it wouldn’t budge. So, thinking hard and trying to remember everything Jennie had taught her she tried to piece together a cantus that would remove the grate.
     “Undaincantatio aestus!
i
     Nothing happened
    
“
Undaincantatio flamma!”
     Again, nothing, save for a small flame that had no effect on the iron grate.
     Thinking carefully, she then remembered.
     “Graveincantatio potentia!”
     The gravity push cantus caused the iron grate to blow off the wall, and set the little girl back a good meter, nearly making her fall back into the vertical access tunnel. She sat for a moment, breathing heavily, terrified that someone, or something, might have heard the ruckus
she had made
.
     Moving cautiously forward, she peeked her head out slowly and looked both directions down the hall. She squinted her eyes toward the end of the corridor, and with her superior night vision saw the ribbon she had placed on Jennie’s door the day prior. She had put it there as a little gift for her new friend. She thought it was pretty, and it was actually the only ribbon she owned, and as Jennie had earlier told her that her favorite color was pink (and to
NEVER
tell that to Max), Liliana wanted her new friend to have one of her only possessions.
     She bolted out of the access tunnel and made a break for Jennie’s room, quickly opening the door and shutting herself inside, her heart racing a kilometer a minute.
     By this time, dozens of middle-tier vampire troops had breached the wall, and were running around, causing all sorts of trouble for the defending werewolves. Draagh used multiple cantuses to blast attackers over the wall and down into the moat, forever returned to their places in the ecosystem via the teeth of the Dominion’s sharks. As he used his staff to split the skull of a particularly large, higher-caste vampire commander, he nearly stopped frozen in his tracks. Behind his deceased opponent stood someone he had not seen in ages.
     “Brother, I cannot say it is good to see you,” the Primulus dressed in black groaned sardonically, “however, I can say that this is the last time we shall meet.”
     He wore neither sneer nor grin – his face was completely deadpan and revealed that he was deadly serious about his statement.
     Before he could even formulate a response in his mind, Draagh only felt his body being lifted upwards and back from the force of a mighty gravicantus. Then all went dark for the ancient mage.
     Floating over, Marnn looked down on Draagh’s still form, lying on the stone floor, surveying his sworn enemy and closest relation in the universe.
     “Such a shame that you did not join me, brother. We could have had so much fun - but no, you had to go and be the righteous one.”
     Draagh murmured and attempted to sit up, but Marnn simply waved his hand at him, causing him to slam back down into the ground.
     “Do
not
attempt to stand up. Just sit there and relax. Oh, and do not fret, dear brother, I will not let that ridiculous excuse for a living corpse get anywhere near you. I have other plans. So, that being said, take me to your grandson. He has caused quite a bit of mischief, and I am afraid I must dispose of him – while you watch, of course.”
     “You shall not touch the boy,” Draagh groaned, as he laid back and tried to recoup his strength. “He shall save his world and his species, and although I know that you care not for these things, let this be between you and I, brother.”
     “Ha! You truly believe that I would do that? No, no, no. I mean to make you suffer your last moments of existence on this plane. Nothing would please me more than to see your loss – the only Primulus and lycan hybrid ever known of in the long, long history of existence.”
     Even though Max's father, Michael, was the Taxiarch, he was, for all intents and purposes, a Primulus, as his caste level was above that of standard
angels
. Draagh had created him that way for a reason.
     Concentrating, Draagh cued into the armor he had created for the Dominion. He needed assistance, and he thought of a way to get it.
     “
Donus, can you hear me? I am on the pathway between the west and north towers. A very powerful mage has taken my staff, and I need a distraction. Please, brother
.”
     Still acting more injured than he was, he faked a groan and continued, “Marnn, what happened to you? How did I wrong you so? What brought everything to this point, with you accompanying a rotting band of walking corpses?”
     The fallen dark mage looked down at his supposedly weakened brother, and after giving him a sneer, turned and looked out over the vast plains to the north.
     “Nothing happened to me. You were the problem. Let me ask you this – when was the last time
Jah
addressed you - or any of us? We are the workhorses, required to fix, create, nurture and prop up the weak and the undeserving. I simply offered you the opportunity to help make the universe a better place – to rid it of the needy and the weak, to support those of strength - those who would be the foot soldiers of our destiny!”
     Draagh felt as though he was going to puke, and that was saying a lot, as he had not vomited in roughly 1.3 million years. Staying down, and allowing his psychotic brother to ramble on, he looked around through squinted eyes. His staff was four meters away, but if he attempted to move his hand to call it Marnn would see, and then blast him over the edge of the castle wall.
     “Do you actually think that I would have joined in your plan of madness? We were created to build, improve, and to nurture. It is our purpose.”
     “Do you remember Galicon S7? Do you? I spent 2,500 years helping that pathetic society get to the point where they could split the atom! Jah decimated the planet with but a thought! All of my great works, ruined!”
     Draagh stayed in place and simply shook his head, appalled that his brother was so nearsighted.
     “Marnn, they had interplanetary rockets and were going to send nuclear bombs to an inhabited moon! Plus, the attack would have thrown the moon out of the system’s orbit and affected countless billions of lives later on. They had to be stopped.”
     Spinning around, the dark mage boomed, “Bah! It was a sign of strength, and of the natural order of things. Were we not to support the natural order? Why, you pitiful fool, you would have taken the teeth from a tiger so that it could not harm a goat; that which nature intended it to eat!”
     The fallen Primulus was so busy boasting of his victory before it happened that he almost didn’t even notice Donus flying through the air, with a direct vector on his location. At nearly the last moment, he turned and waved the lycan commander off, causing the werewolf to yelp in pain and land in a heap some meters away - but that was all the time that Draagh needed. He quickly reached out, staff flying into his hand, and was instantly on his feet, ready to battle his brother – to the death.
     The palladium-infused oil worked quite well, and had sent another fifteen vampire invaders to a watery demise. Kangor busied himself running around, dispatching various vampires with teeth and claws. He had been shot with a palladium arrow, but the salubots in his system had effectively rejected the foreign object, and after having pushed it out of the muscle in which it was embedded, continued to heal the painful wound. Two, then three, then five vampires sent to ashen graves with his platinum claw enhancers, he was definitely making progress, and he only needed to keep it up for another hour. Thanks to the gift of a particularly powerful cantus by Draagh, the cage door would automatically open for each imprisoned lycan once the inhabitant had morphed out of their death form. When all doors were open, the full, unfettered force of the Dominion would eradicate what remained of the near-dead interlopers.
     As he had already used all of the defensive measures in the mass of machinery at the castle top, he could only fight and defend. Running from one end of the castle to the other, he grabbed a leg of lamb and munched it while he moved, replenishing his reserves so that his meter wouldn’t tank out. Rounding a corner, he was saddened by seeing four normals, lying together in a pile of drained death. One or more of Vladros’ soldiers had accosted them and replenished his or their own reserves. As the law stated, the king was to personally console the families of the fallen and present them with an honorarium of gold, but it was something that the Krynos had not had to do for a very long time.
     Kangor stopped for a moment and checked to make sure that all were indeed passed on. However, he detected that one was still alive and would eventually turn into a vampire, having been infected with the half-dead subspecies’ virus. The werewolf nuzzled the man over and gazed into his eyes. There was fear in them, as the normal knew the laws. He had the honor of standing by his king in time of need, but that did not make him less afraid of what was to come to pass.
     Reaching up to the massive, sapient phase 3, the man touched its face and choked out some final words.
     “Please… have our king care for my family.”
     “Grrrrr… law. We carrrre,” Kangor growled, barely being able to form the words with his lupine mouth.
     “Very well then, my friend - release me… please.”
     Kangor tore the man’s throat out in a flash, causing him to immediately lose consciousness and slip into oblivion. The man felt no pain, nor regret.