The Unwanted Winter - Volume One of the Saga of the Twelves (109 page)

Before him, the man-beast
reared back and bit him again, same side, deep into his
shoulder.

Garfield suppressed
another scream. His eyes tearing, his jaws clamped shut.

There was a popping sound
and the acidic goo of the slug clinging to his hind-quarters spread
even further.

Garfield roared this time.
He couldn’t hold it in, white-hot fury seared through his body. He
whipped his tail up and over him, embedding the spiny, bone-like
appendage at its’ end into the Isig-Pjäs, where its’ neck met its’
back. Instinctively, the fell creature released its’ grip on the
great cats’ flesh. It was all he needed. With tremendous effort, he
placed a foot between him and the evil dog-man and shoved with all
of his might. The Isig-Pjäs flew backward, momentarily free of the
melee, reeling back on all four of its’ heels.

Mugzy was there an instant
later, claws extended, jaws flung wide, bellowing with the war-cry
that had been festering within him for more years than he could
remember.

The cunning Isig-Pjäs
crouched, snarling savagely, drenching the floor with wide swaths
of spittle.

Mugzy side-stepped, using
the natural curvature of the cave to cordon-off the dog-man from
its ‘allies.

Seeing he was being
deliberately cornered, it slashed out with a vicious swipe at
Mugzy’s knee.

The man-dog slip-stepped
out of the way, his longer arm shooting forward, grabbing the other
beast above its’ paw. The one-time Brussels-Griffon wasted no time.
With a thundering howl, he squeezed. Through the racked, Garfield
heard bones breaking.

He had no more time to
recover or see what happened next.

Another dog-like creature
attacked him from the front, squarely. He could only manage to get
his forelegs about the beast as they tumbled backward even further
into the cave, closer to the Guardians. Intentionally, Garfield
rolled and rolled, tangling the Hël-Hünd within the grasp of his
legs as they went across the cave floor. Since he outweighed the
creature by four hundred pounds, he manhandled it
easily.

At once, the cave went
dark for a second time, then a third, a fourth, a fifth time - over
and over, in rapid succession.

By the time, Garfield
regain his feet, the dog from hell pinned beneath him, acrid ozone
permeated the entire space. He ignored it. Without as much as a
growl, he took the Hël-Hünd by the neck and ripped out its’ throat.
It was dead before he leaped away.

He turned back toward the
fray, his powerful eyes quickly assessing the situation before they
bulged at the sight of Elena. She was walking gracefully on the
tips of her toes through a veritable throng of the lumpy slugs, her
finger dancing as if she were conducting an orchestra. Whenever and
wherever she pointed, she called forth fire. What she left behind
was nothing more than smoldering ash.

Impressive
, he surmised as he turned
and saw the bear-dogs facing more than half a dozen of the fell
beasts, seconds from attacking.
Now, the
Fist will show you a thing or two regarding
death
.

Despite the terrible pain
on his lower back, he was gone as if he’d never been.

*****

Mugzy, squeezed, and then
turn his wrist. His mighty hand flexed. It was wondrous to felt the
enemy’s bones snap underneath the sheer power he held within his
palm.

The Isig-Pjäs squealed
like a pig, trying desperately to yank itself free from the
man-dog’s vice-like grip.

Mugzy held on furiously,
pulling the beast closer to him. “I will teach you a lesson in
combat, foul dog!” promised the one-time Brussels-Griffon as he
reared back and clouted the dog with the human-like skull hard,
just below the socket of its’ left eye.

With a sickening
crack!
the Isig-Pjäs’
head snapped backward. It would’ve fallen to the ground, if Mugzy
wasn’t supporting the creature with other hand.

“
You want to hurt my
Little Flower and her friends?” It was a question, though it was
delivered with a harsh rasp.

The dog-man’s eyes rolled
in its’ head, tongue lolling.

Mugzy struck it again,
harder. The bones in its’ face crumbling before his huge knuckles.
“You will learn the price of your folly!” Mugzy’s eyes were glazed
with rage, salvia gathered at the corners of his mouth, slathering
through his mighty teeth. “They
are my
family!”
he yelled, striking the beast
again and again, a feral shriek building inside of his
chest.

The man-dog would’ve slain
the fell canine in his grasp. The Isig-Pjäs itself knew this. His
end was near…

…
If it hadn’t been for
their relative isolation from the rest of the fray, Mugzy would’ve
taken its’ life with the next few blows. But, being apart from the
others with Mugzy’s back to the entrance of the cave left the group
as a whole vulnerable on the right side of their line. When Mr.
Patas chose to help the bear-dogs, along with Garfield, the way
opened and five Hël-Hünds fill the gap within seconds.

As Mugzy bellowed the
death cry of the Isig-Pjäs, his fist hurtling down, he was struck,
unawares, by two of the Hël-Hünds – one high, the other low. In
half a second, he was ripped free of his enemy, landing hard on the
rock of cave floor, his head smacking cruelly upon its’ unyielding
surface. He was instantly dazed, unable to protect
himself.

The Hël-Hünd that had
pummeled him about the chest, bounded off, following those that
hadn’t hammered into the man-dog. Those four made an unerring
beeline for Joaquin, who was still on the far side of the cave,
away from the rest of the Guardians.

The other stepped up
slowly, its’ seeping tongue dripping hot, noxious blood onto the
helpless form of Mugzy. Its’ glowing eyes already focused on the
arteries of his neck. It would dine upon the exquisite flesh of a
Fistian this morning.

*****

The Kring-Hël knew the
weakness in their defenses develop two full seconds before it
happened. There was little he could do about it. He stepped forward
a few strides, his mind ablaze with possibilities. As fast as his
neurons could fire, he made a decision, just as Mugzy was
flattened, his head thwacking into solid stone. Absently, Anthony
hoped his skull hadn’t fractured.

“
Joaquin, run!” he
hollered, knowing four of the five evil canines were going to go
after him.

The big teen shared a
furtive glance with Anthony, but no more than that, redoubling his
efforts to get to the far side of the fire pit.

“
Elena, help Mugzy!
Mikalah, help Joaquin!” said the Kring-Hël within
moments.

“
How, Tony?” asked his
youngest sister.

Elena nodded, turning from
her task of annihilating the slugs flexing grotesquely across the
ground. Her eyes found the Hël-Hünd looming over her Poochers.
“Noooo!” she yelled, her heart in her throat.

“
Think of a meteor hitting
the ground, Mikalah. Speed! Speed! Speed! Now, go!” he said
forcefully, not even bothering to look at her.

His command was like law
from on high. She was gone before she knew she had left.

Anthony didn’t notice.
“Jason!” he called. “Are you ready?”

“
Ready for what?” asked
the frightening Asian teen.

Anthony’s eyes hardened.
“To do your thing.”

“
What thing -?” he
tried.

“
Go!” was all he said and
Jason was gone.

Anthony half-turned,
peering back for no more than a blink of an eye, “Andrew, keep
Louis safe!” Then he tore his gaze from them, his mind demanding
his attention elsewhere.

His orbs locked on Kodiak
and Kenai, both of them faced off with at least three Hël-Hünds
each. He felt himself smile as Mr. Patas slammed hard into their
unsuspecting flank just as the two bear-dogs charged. In seconds,
he could see nothing more than gigantic bodies twirling and
spinning, huge jaws gaping, biting. The noise was
tremendous.

Garfield came of out
nowhere, leaping high over the entire scrum, his massive claws and
wicked tail poised to strike.

Anthony never saw what
happened after, though. A great red mist out of the corner of his
eye confused him for a heartbeat before he realized Mikalah had
figured out what he’d meant seconds before. She had struck one of
the Hël-Hünds with a piece of wood she’d been holding with both
hands. If she had been a typical eight-year-old girl and she had
hit a beast as strong and solid as a Hël-Hünd, her blow would’ve
gone completely ignored. Yet, Mikalah wasn’t your normal third
grader. She was a Guardian of Man and… she had come at the beast at
over three hundred miles per hour. The blow she inflicted upon the
creature was nothing short of catastrophic. It’s whole left, front
quadrant was reduced to mush, the flesh pulverized so thoroughly,
it was reduced to no more than a mist, ten, twenty times finer than
any like precipitation falling from the sky.

Then, the cave went
dark.

Anthony had less than a
second to see a deadly web of flame, much like those that had made
quick work of the slugs, streak across the cave. Only this one was
much bigger, four times as lethal. It engulfed the Hël-Hünd looming
over Mugzy, making the creature careen off the man-dog, wailing in
agony. A blink later, it was burnt to a crisp.

Good job,
Elena
, thought the teen, his eyes sweeping
left. He saw Joaquin, no longer limping, running headlong toward
the back end of the fire pit a tight knot of Hël-Hünds racing after
him, gaining ground, huge chunks at a time.

“
Jason, use you freakin’
Gift!” he bellowed at the boy who had only moved twenty feet away,
still confused.

Jason was frowning,
uncertain, trotting toward Joaquin now, a wooden log in his right
hand, not really sure what he should be doing.

A strange “popping” drew
Anthony attention. He turned to see one of Kenai’s giant paws
flatten the skull of a Hël-Hünd, while her mother – within an
instant – stood upon the chest of another, ripping out its’ throat
in one swift bite, nearly decapitating the fell beast.

He heard laughter then,
hissing, menacing. His mind exploded with possibilities. He felt
his heart sink as something within his brain told him, he’d
miscalculated. His startled orbs moved yet again, centering on the
origin of this newfound dread.

It was the Isig-Pjäs,
gazing at him thirty yards away, an impossible grin etched across
its’ nightmarish face. It was laughing. “You are mine, Kring-Hël,”
it said and charged.

*****

Jason, use your freakin’
Gift!
It was still echoing within his
head, reverberating within the inner boundary of his skull when
Joaquin yelled.

“
Heeeeelp me, god
dammit!”

Stunned, Jason made
himself comprehend what he was seeing. His friend was running
frantically from three Hël-Hünds, one nipping at his heels. His
face was stretched in a rictus of sheer terror.

The massive jaws of his
assailant were overflowing with saliva at the prospect of consuming
such succulent flesh, so young, so –
human.

Time slowed.

What Gift? What was
Anthony talking about? My Gift hasn’t manifested yet? Why would he
think -?

It was a flash of memory,
a burst of fleeting remembrance. It was a voice - Joaquin’s voice
asking a question, deadly serious, spoken no more than a week
ago.

“
You taking ‘roids,
dude?”

He’d been lifting weights.
It was something he had hardly done in the past and yet, the final
week he’d been in the World of Man…

…
His eyes found his friend
again…

…“
Where
do you think it came from?”
It had been
Joaquin talking.

“
Where
what came from?”
he had
asked.

“
All this energy, this
itch to want to lift and stuff.”

“
I don’t know actually.
Lately, I’ve been waking up wanting to do more than just sit still
or go through the motions of my day. It’s like I have something
bottled up inside of me that’s going to explode out of me if I
don’t do something about it. Exercising seems to quench it for a
while, but, after more down time, it kinda… well, it just creeps
back into me and I have to do something else.”

“
How long does it take to
build back up?”

“
I don’t know about a day
I guess.”

“
You taking ‘roids,
dude?”

The Hël-Hünd was inches
away now. Its’ tongue was lolling out of the side of its’ mouth,
trailing thick, lumpy spittle.

Jason could feel himself
moving, could see everything within the cave begin to blur, though
his eyes never left the snout, the jaw, the teeth of the
Hël-Hünd.

“
You taking ‘roids,
dude?”