Unity, Chapter 19

*copyrighted material*

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    They touched the ground blindly, once. Voltage running through Thunder’s joints. Soil gave in behind the weight of his legs on the next, skidding backward to one of many pit holes. His opaque eyes froze staring at what the shadows of the pines tricked to be more abyss ahead, but his instincts knew better. He leaped and pushed himself out just in time. One of the two riders left fell into it, completely swallowed into nothingness. The ground vanished below them, trap after trap. Sometimes close to the edge, sometimes bouncing from the fake earth patches to safe terrain. Calvin and Mickey sat tight through it guiding him, hills rolling behind them. Mt. Mowaki and its white pinnacles were vaguely lit by the rock satellite and star collections that left no blank space in the sky. Bomb eruptions fissured the land, and heavy artillery ruptured the usual quietness of the mountain as the stallion zigzagged to Calvin’s command. Finally, the last horseback rider succumbed to the depths of yet a new pitfall in his path trying to stir away from the mined field. Calvin then changed the course, exiting the marked area defined by another piece of glowing bubble gum. 

    With adrenaline still pumping in her veins, Mickey hopped off and instructed him to gather as much fresh snow as he could to compress her wound. The bitter cold cleansed and stopped the

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crimson gush. She patched the vivid flesh to her best capacity with cotton twill and the boy bandaged her arm with a tight bow as a finishing touch to keep some pressure on. He fed Thunder green apple bits and stood quiet, petting the mammal while they took a small break. All of a sudden, vicious dry smoke contrasted with the falling snowflakes, and the turbid clouds indisputably came from Fort Yggdrasill with red-hot remnants. They exchanged glances when a visibly unsettled reindeer sprinted off some brambles and ran errant in the opposite direction. The Rootstocks’ leader checked the barrel of her gun with heedful senses, just in case something else was lurking by. But no ally or foe showed up and it was time to return to the battlefield, wounded or not.

    By the time Thunder reached Fort Yggdrasill part of the outer structure was being devoured by flames. The surrounding area was deserted, corpses with suppurating eyes set to the sky. However, there was still commotion indoors. Calvin shepherded Thunder to the direction of the main gate but they crossed paths with Cobra—still on his mount—before getting any farther. A female piebald horse with silver eyelashes.

    “Where the hell is everyone?” Mickey questioned.

    “Doctor, on the left side of Yggdrasill, follow me. There’s something you both got to see . . . ”

    Both charges galloped side by side as Cobra informed the Rootstocks’ leader of what he estimated would be the total casualties, with those still inside not included. Furthermore, the Londoner had been able to evacuate the Rootstocks forces completely from the structure. The Renou, however, had refused to do so even under his leadership between clamors that fed their unrest and roars of battle. Their eyes, full of life, had also set upon the sky but with faith in their mouths. Tootling and humming. Mickey did not understand why the Renou people ignored their ally’s orders amid a high-risk situation. A gamble, to her eyes. But she would soon see—with her

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men gathered at the fronts of the left wall of Fort Yggdrasill—that their behavior was simply them, gravitating firmly towards an evocative figure.

     They stopped. The black man pointed at something up high past the burning partitions, what looked like a tiny creepy crawler climbing up a fixed object set out in moist dirt that was not that small. Dr. Mulhouse picked up her binoculars and observed incredulously. Uttering no words she passed on the field glasses to Calvin. And before he could focus the lenses on whatever she had seen, Mickey had already set Thunder back in motion taking the strings.

    “Oh, hey! Wait up!” The boy nearly fell off his seat as they accelerated. Despite this, he found what had triggered her so badly. The silhouette of a man with glowing horns rose to the top of the inner ward’s wall leaving a trail of flames. He moved steadily, but carefully. “It can’t be . . . Is that Wyatt? Was this what the trial was about?”

    “I told you he’d come back a better man.” His mounting partner snorted, as they pulled away from the structure to a nearby wooded hill to have a better look, with Cobra tailing them closely. 

    Being high enough granted them a full view and analysis of the matters at hand. The left side of the outer walls would soon start to crumble behind Wyatt. If those walls fell inland, he’d be crushed by the Renou forces that still fought inside to obtain control of the entire facility. The inner ward’s adamantine door was suffering little to no damage, to say the least, and there were another four doors to target, yet spreading the forces that way had been considered in their original plan as very counterproductive and it was still so. But as things were the clock was ticking, either everyone got evacuated or maybe, a final push in the risk of everything. 

    Before even remotely close to stricter calculations, a long-drawn-out blaze away of buckshot ammunition cut the wind in the form of strokes of light. Heavy to the ears even from a distance. Mickey looked through the glasses again, realizing a bulky machine gun—with the skeleton of

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some sort of anti-aircraft gun and an incorporated seat—had been partially installed at a drum tower of an untouched outer wall by the Visitors. Certainly, there were no aircraft to attack and that part of the structure was farther behind, which their allies could not reach just yet. Calvin did not need binoculars to know what its target was, the semi-automatic pod machine had twisted around and pointed upwards, he wheezed at the sight of those projectiles crashing towards Wyatt’s radiating barrier with the notion he would not resist for too long. The shrill of crystals being penetrated by rocks came out of his luminescent shield.

    The kid threw himself from the mount and scrambled to his feet to rummage through Cobra’s utility bag, still strapped to his horse.

   “Calvin? What are you up to?” Dr. Mulhouse demanded.

    “We need more of these!” He answered. A rusted hand grenade between his slender flesh sticks. The single one was left in the leather saddlebag.

    “Boy! Put that back in the bag!” Cobra snatched his arm.

    “No, Killgore. Let him go.” Mickey frowned, “Why would we need more?”

    “I think we could blast that thing down with enough of them. Maybe tied to an arrow or something. These grenades are quite old, so that might give us some time to shoot and blow them up in their faces.”

    “That’s the deadliest machine ever made yet by the enemy. What you see up there is entirely new to our knowledge. That type of technology isn’t . . . It’s probably a prototype.” Cobra refuted.

    “It’s their last resort if you think about it, it took them just a couple of minutes to put it together while being surrounded. Probably not assembled well either and if it is a prototype,

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then even better, it means it’s flawed. They’ve yet to know what could hit them hard.” The kid responded holding the black man’s gaze, who looked away presumably at the machinery, then back at him.

    Without warning an azure mist surrounded them from the forest behind them. Lights of blue with intense notes came from one single figure approaching, it was Krishanu’s twin sister Marut in gleaming splendor in hopes to speak to Calvin. The black soldier understood what this meant.

    “Dr. Mulhouse will be responsible for your actions. For now . . . ” Cobra said, patting him harshly on the head before hopping up his horse. “I will return to Yggdrasill now to gather what I can find, our Rootstock forces may carry more explosives. I’ll see you there.” With that, he was gone.

    Marut, with her properness, came forward with a large block of marble in her hands. Winds blades cut through the piece until shaped into two objects, a perfectly white arrow with crow feathers and its bow. Ordinary, to some extent. “Calvin, young one. Take this.” She said. “We, Defenders of Shine, have heard you, this is our final assistance for the battle. My brother and your brother are now one and will combat this opponent of ours until the very end. One representative from each side.” Marut then looked at the doctor, “Mickey, you shall put the end to this with a single shot. It’s all we, Defenders, can do. Our powers are limited.”

    “Got it!” Dr. Mulhouse nodded.

    “Now, hurry up! Krishanu can’t hold on for long!”

    They mounted Thunder for the fourth time and chased on. Dashing in a blur of mixes of dull and jolly green leaves that brushed against their shoulders and ankles, falling milky spots and

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equally milklike, frosty carpets with sunken horse footprints. The boy turned right to see the crack of dawn unfold beneath the Northern lights. Sunbeams colored the firmament and Mt. Mowaki’s domains as well with a slow sweep. A playground for daredevils, not exactly him being one.

     They encountered ruckus once at Fort Yggdrasill’s backyard, stray bullets, tickers, heavy artillery, and the cavalry again. All courtesy of Jesse Mcallister’s best equipment—probably sent from the airport hangars—and the Visitors’ extraordinary monowheels included. Both sides clashed, demolished each other. It was like snaking erratically inside a tornado with no way out. Too much chaos to even pick foes and allies from one another as their bodies flew in backgrounds of bombastic orange and red. Mickey led the horse around all passing obstacles that seemed to appear and disappear in all corners in a blood bath. She kept her head low, one hand on the leash and the other on her weapon, a stiff chin to push the boy’s head down, protecting him in some sort of body cocoon while he held on to the Defender’s special bow and arrow. But a passing rider reached out to them and grabbed him by the collar ripping the boy out of her arms.

    “CALVIN!” She called out. But he vanished out of her view and rolled headfirst on the snow after the man lost his grip on him. He had just a few seconds to scan his surroundings before sprinting out towards where the bow and arrow had landed, cushioned by bloody red frost safe and intact. The gentle breeze and harmless snowflakes slowly turned into a blizzard. He moved without a plan around those fallen and those still fighting. A wounded serviceman pulled a knife at him from the ground but Carol emerged from the darkness and clutched his throat tearing it in a single motion. Her snout was painted red.

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    “Close call! I’m so glad you are back!” He breathed. “Come on, we need to find help now! Wyatt needs us!” The kid and his fox navigated the battlefield steadily but carefully. A labyrinth on its own with the amount of deceased and nearly stomped by those on mounts unaware. After ten minutes of wandering in the warzone, crawling, and covering his head, Calvin captured a glimpse of Cobra’s horse galloping past them. The youngest Elsner brother jumped to his feet and let out a powerful whistle to call the black man’s attention. And it worked.

   “Boy? What are you doing? Quick, hop on!” The horse approached. “Where is Dr.Mulhouse?”

    “Still mounting Thunder, I was brought down while trying to locate you. Did you get the explosives?”

    “Enough of them in my bag now. What’s the plan?”

    “Mickey will bring that machine down with this.” Calvin looked down at the weapons he held and continued to explain in search of the doctor. Carol followed up close and once more they scouted through with gushes of uncontrollable wind blowing upon their faces, ice biting on their skin. Putting on their hoods, the boy took a moment to pat the man’s arm and thank him for saving his life back at the riverbed.

    To which Cobra chuckled, spitting snow from his mouth. “You do know this is not the proper time, eh, Calvin?”

   “I don’t think I’d ever find the right time. I’ve been fooling death for a couple of months now. Which seems too good to be true.”

    “Same.” The Londoner nodded with a white smile. “Don’t mention it! Come on, get those bombs ready, I got some cord in the saddlebag now. Hurry up!”

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    The youngest Elsner brother got to it, tying grenades like pork sausages one after another. Each one was secured by the explosive’s neck. Between gusts and fire blasts, the British soldier distinguished Thunder’s coal-black bum further away, the horse striding in the same direction they were. He made an effort to catch up, suddenly realizing two monowheels were tailing Dr. Mulhouse, running over whatever crossed their path. Cobra opened fire with his shotgun, taking them by surprise. 

    Mickey jumped startled but looked back at them with relief. “I’m out of bullets, ” She groaned, while Wylda—the piebald horse—tried catching up with Thunder. But the enemy made an effort to keep them apart, rolling at full speed. It turned into a brutal fight to gain control of the situation, who had a better aim and who could move faster. Carol was left behind pretty fast, and at some point, they all ran out of slugs. Then the kid shouted something into the black soldier’s ear, and whatever it was, he approved it. Wylda sidetracked from their current direction, and Calvin gestured to Dr. Mulhouse to follow them. Taking her farther away from the burning walls but still on the field. The rapidness of their actions left the monowheels three steps behind when part of a wall collapsed, raining on them and blocking the path. It granted the boy the chance to throw the white bow and stacked arrow at her. She caught them in a heartbeat.

    She quickly realized the semi-automatic pod machine was above them, with the storm blurring her vision. Yet, she took all safety pins from the bombs, locked the target—partially visible with the rising sun—and shot into the unknown. The arrow flew and lighted the sky with gold, the thunderous cry of an eagle following it.

    Wyatt followed the dazzling arrow with an astounded gaze, the arrowhead marked a diagonal line in mid-air. Something close to a missile. Broke open the pod machine and blew it to bits,

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disintegrating its whole body and reaching the upper side of the inner wall. It landed five meters above where he was climbing, directly over the inner wall’s rampart. The partitions shook, but that was it. 

    The ex-cabbie took a chance and swarmed up. He was met by a Visitor at the top, who had no trouble blocking his kicks and punches, even as he spat fire with every move. He jabbed once, twice, and another three times but to no avail and made a fool with the black antlers still on him. He kept hearing Krishanu’s warning in his head, yet paid no mind. He did make the faceless soldier skip back a couple of times. But wasn’t prepared for the decisive comeback. The Visitor grabbed him by the shoulders and headbutted him in the face. Breaking his mystic barrier with a single blow that shook his brain. It all became a blur as he tried to stand tall. But his body could do no more, he misstepped and fell off as Krishanu forced him back to sleep.

END OF CHAPTER #19