Outside, the battle raged on.
Hour by hour, the shock advantage of the Mazgar attack was blunted. There were too few of them and the fortress was too large. Cultist forces rallied and a large force gathered at the far end of the fortress. The approaches to it where held by disciplined troops backed by Runa spearmen. Slingers and archers swarmed buildings to rain down on the light-armored Mazgar. Roads were blocked with masonry and barricades set alight, ending the free movement of Mong and Fogrim’s cavalry. Where riders had tried to navigate the debris, they had been trapped, pulled from their horses, and killed.
Only the mammoths moved with impunity, none daring to stand in their way, but Mong held them back - narrow, city streets, ruined or otherwise, were not where you used creatures and riders trained for battle on open ground.
The Mazgar were unprepared for the sheer number of refugees. Some took their surrender, and quickly realized the bigger problem was what to do with them. Others slaughtered them, creating stampedes or survivors who fought to the death. A man with rock is dangerous. A hundred men with a hundred rocks, packed into a street and now listening to angry priest, is an army. In the end, Mong ordered they be allowed to pass - if they went towards the enemy. Those who tried escaping in other directions were herded back.
Akingin’s scouts had done considerable damage, however. Through the morning and into the afternoon, the scorpion guns fired flaming bolt after bolt into enemy-held parts. Several times they set the black corn granary alight - tying up masses of cultists trying to save their alien crop. As they protected the food of their masters, other fires burned unchecked. By late afternoon, the fires had created new routes into the enemy holdings.
By those routes, we would win the day or lose everything.
***
Day 2: Late Afternoon, Temple of Tsathoggua
“Juskar?”
I was in the open plaza around the temple of Tsathoggua. The blood of the cultist troops who had guarded it, now pooled across its steps. Their bodies had been stripped of weapons and armor, and piled in a heap. Impaled on a pike in the center was the white-cloaked commander. He had - thank the Gods - finally stopped moving. Sitting cross-legged alongside the heap of dead men, heads down and with their wrists and ankles bound, were captured soldiers. Four Mazgar spearmen stood guard over them.
“Juskar!” I waved to the man in the distance. He did not turn.
Mazgar spear and axemen stood in neat blocks in front of banner bearers. Some blocks were now smaller than others. Tired officers in sabertooth pelts barked at their men, a din of similar commands and similar voices. They competed with an incessant blowing of horns, one fighting to be heard over the other. One officer started yelling at another. The other shook his head and punched him in the face. Their men swarmed forward to pull them apart, their blocks broken. Annoyed horn blowers ran at them and brayed. One brayed in a man’s face. He turned and knocked the horn out of the blower’s hands. Another fight started.
Smoke filled the air, and a miserable, cold rain of all things had begun. My boots squelched in grey mud mixed with black char. Ash blew through the air, like dirty snow. The world itself smelled burned.
There was a immense roaring and I clutched at my ears, wincing. From down a nearby road, Mazgar came running. One dropped his spear - he slowed and looked back, thought better of it, and turned and kept running. Two chitin-armored lancers galloped past them, they patted their horses and tried to calm them, even as they they stared back down the road.
Pounding up the road came Obsidian Black.
If you have ever stood close to a large, Asian elephant, you know quite how immense and terrifying they are. A large African elephant dwarfs the Asian. But the African is nothing compared to a mammoth - a true monster. They are like moving buildings that can run fast as cars. If they had lived to the 21st century, we’d have put tank cannons and anti-aircraft guns on their backs.
The chainmail skirt over its head was torn. It danced as the mammoth ran. The iron barbs on the ends of its tusks were red with blood. The howdah had fewer men atop it than when I’d seen it last. One of the censors hanging off the side had blown out.
Obsidian Black brushed against a small building and collapsed it. The men it the howdah were jolted off their feet, one falling off the other side. A line around his foot went taut and his fellows hauled him back in. There was cheering from the howdah as the man staggered to his feet.
“Oh, Jesus. What the fuck is going on?”
A block of axemen stood square in the path of the Mammoth. Their officer, an oddly portly man with a headress of black and yellow feathers, carrying and a bone club studded with iron, shook his head and barked at them.
The axemen looked back at the approaching beast, and then back at their officer. He repeated himself, glaring at the mammoth, unimpressed.
Obsidian Black brayed again; I winced in pain.
The axemen block crumbled and men fled. Horn blowers scolded them but the feathered officer most of all. The howdah crew began yelling and waving at him. He looked up - changed his perspective, and ran. His headdress came loose and rolled in the mud.
Obsidian Black entered the plaza and stopped. It scraped mud off the ground with its trunk, and slathered it over its head; dripping mud over its mahout and the howdah crew. The mud bath calmed the creature - it helped itself to more. Someone picked up the crushed, muddied, feather headress off the howdah floor, and threw it back down. The officer did not collect it.
“What kind of crazy ass people want those things anywhere near them?!”
The whining cadence of a 21st century man - so out of place in this world - got Juskar’s attention. He pushed through a group of men and ran over.
“Gerard!” he smiled through a face covered in grime and blood spatter, “It is good to see you!”
“And you. Where the fuck is Fogrim?”
“On Mong’s orders, he has taken his lancers to probe the new pathways into the enemy fastness,” he pointed beyond the No-Man’s-Land of rubble and smoking fires. “We will advance through them, shortly.”
“We’re going to the enemy?”
“We can go right past their forces holding those crossroads,” he pointed East and West. “And hit the main force before they are ready to counter attack. If we can catch and kill the Mi-Go, then this is finished!”
New horns sounded. Up two roads came Mazgar cavalry, their iron-tipped lances held high. From behind them came the braying of the other two mammoths. My head split as Obsidian Black answered them.
“Mong comes!” said a voice behind us. It was Ammad. The white ash around his eyes had run and his grey beard was stained with blood. Three officers walked with him, spear and axemen around them, bodyguards. “My thanks to you, Gerard of Stone. Your reports of this city have helped us no end today.”
“Thank you Ammad, but this is far from over - and it’s getting towards evening.”
“The battle will be done before the morning.”
“It’s the creatures that attack at night that I’m worried about.”
“The men have been told,” he replied. “None will look upon the winged beasts when they arrive.”
“Have you told that to the mammoths?”
We all turned and looked at Obsidian Black.
Ammad turned to the other officers and spoke in Mazgar. They nodded and two yelled over to some men, and walked over to the prisoners.
“We will make our own offerings to them,” Ammad said. “At the other end of the city. With luck, the beasts will avoid the battle for easy, offered prey.”
I watched as the prisoners were pulled to their feet and dragged away.
There were more horns, but they played a sharp, staccato beat. Archer nocked arrows and blocks of spearmen formed wicker shield walls.
“Something comes!” said Juskar, looking out to No-Man’s-Land. “Be ready!”
Out of the smoke came Fogrim and Gorol leading the Darfuri militia lancers. The Mazgar stood down and the Darfuri rode right up to us.
“There are three ways in, as yet unguarded!” said Fogrim, staying on his horse. “Where is Mong?”
Down the road, the Albino White Mammonth came into view and trumpeted. The giant skin drum sounded for the howdah’s lower deck. I could see Mong standing at the edge of the second tier. The slave display cages hanging from it had been emptied.
“Go and tell him!” Ammad waved him on. Fogrim nodded to me and Juskar, then bolted off, men jumping out of his way.
“We march!” Ammad cried. He yelled orders in Mazgar, and all those around him cheered. A new note was played by the hornblowers and men began cheering. A whole army! It was a sound I will never forget.
Albino White and Clay Red took their place alongside Obsidian Black, and the legion began its march across No-Man’s-Land for the final battle.
***
It was as Fogrim had promised. The legion crossed through the No-Man’s-Land in three columns, a mammoth at the front of each. Riding ahead of the columns were the Darfuri militia - token in strength, but a powerful symbol.
We were almost all the way across before the enemy realized and by then it was too late to cut us off. We poured into a giant, open field that abutted the fortress hill walls. Just that morning, teams of slave girls had been clearing it, for planting. Abandoned girl-plows and broken yokes lay in the half-tilled dirt. A cold wind tugged at the open flaps of a few, scattered overseer tents. A pair of rickety offering towers overlooked the fields. In the chaos, no one had thought to chain girls to them.
Across the field was the enemy army.
“What the hell? They don’t look ragged and panicked at all!”
A human wall of two thousand cultists ordered into ranks and files stood blocking us. My heart sank: They were four times our number. At the front were unarmored missile troops - slingers and javelin throwers. The were in loose formation and would fall back if we attacked. If we didn’t, they would pelt us. Beside me was a one-eyed Mazgar with a large shield. He held it up over the both of us, without a word.
Arranged behind the missile troops, bunched in tight order carrying huge shields, were heavy armored spearmen. At their center were three hundred Runa, their white shields and armor now dirtied with mud and dust. The Runa spears were the elite troops: they would be body guarding the Mi-Go.
Guarding the army’s flanks on either side, were mobs of fanatics. They howled and chanted, some waving burning brands. They were armed with whatever they could find - sticks, chains, farm tools. Some stripped naked and ran out in front, howling at us. On started cutting a dagger across his chest. Another cut off his own ear and threw it at us. If they felt pain they showed no sign.
“Gerard, how did this happen?” cried Juskar. Rain began to fall again. It would turn the tilled field into a giant, muddy, bog. “We killed so many!”
“We killed arrow fodder. This is why all their soldiers were coming this way. They weren’t fleeing. They were taking up position.”
“A position on the far end of their own fortress?”
“It cost us hours to cross it. And it cost us blood.” I turned and looked back at the rows of eyes all staring ahead. Not one man was smiling.
“We have destroyed this place!”
“You think the Mi-Go cares?”
All this time we had been betting against a human enemy. I wondered how dearly that would cost us.
Then, the nonhumans appeared.
The missile troops in front of the central, Runa, spear block, parted. Roaring and bellowing, 50 mutant giants came forward in five rows of ten. Each looked unique. I was drawn in particular to one that was tall and bald, with bone-white skin. It swung a chunk of masonry on a chain and cackled. Another that stood out had darker skinned and was covered in black spines. It grunted and thumped at the ground with giant, claw-like hand. Runa handlers drove them forward, yelling commands and cracking whips. The giants halted at the front of the army and roared at us. It was a single, powerful, terrifying sound.
All around me, the Mazgar roared back.
The one-eyed man beside me started jumping up and down, clashing his spear against his shield. A young brave next to Juskar bared his teeth and snapped, making a loud click! of teeth striking teeth. In front of us, a muscled giant as large as Akingin made the unmistakable hand motions of I will kill you and eat you.
Horns sounded behind us. Men turned and looked back, their expressions surprised. Officers in saber-tooth pelts barked at them to look back at the enemy. One boy kept staring behind - an officer walked up and punched him in the face.
Mammoths brayed behind us and I felt the vibration of their giant, thumping feet.
“Fuck this,” I said to no one and everyone, and looked back.
The mammoths had turned and were leaving. The Mazgar cavalry lancers made space for them, then turned and followed after, down the path they had come through No-Man’s-Land. The Darfuri riders, Fogrim at their head, went with them.
“Where the fuck are they going?”
A large block of Mazgar spearmen reformed in front of the path - and blocked it.
“What the fuck is going on?”
“Look to the front!” hissed Juskar. “You will create panic!”
“That fat bastard Mong is leaving! They’re leaving us all behind to cover them-”
“Gerard, we are part of army, now. Fall to command or someone will kill you.”
I became very aware of a great many frowning eyes on me.
“Fuck this,” I muttered and looked to the front.
One-Eye lifted his shield back over our heads and grinned at me.
“Your asshole commander is leaving us to die here,” I said in English.
He kept grinning.
“My asshole friend took off with him!”
There was a loud crack and the shield dipped, a stone glancing off it. All around was the thump and clack of rocks raining down on us. Every so often, a man cried out. I saw a man go down a few ranks ahead of me. Then another. Then another.
Horns sounded from the cultist army. Peering between gaps in the roof of shields, I could see blocks of spearmen on the march, some going left, others right. Their lines thinned but then they reached the cluttered rubble and ruins of No-Man’s-Land. There they stopped and turned, facing us.
Just like that, we were flanked on the left and right.
Could I run? No, the Mazgar would kill me in seconds. I could cut my way through them, steel against iron. I’d still die in seconds.
Why weren’t they running? Couldn’t they see what was going on? Did they think their precious Yog was going to save us?
“Yog is fucking cunt,” I said (in English) to One-Eye.
“Yog!” he said back to me, blinking away rain water that dripped on him through his wicker shield.
The pelting of rocks stopped.
“Holy shit! Thank you, Yog!”
Across the field, the mutant giants roared and charged.
The front rows braced, spears aimed forward. Officers called out and shields were lowered. Soldiers rushed forward to join the front line, there was a clattering as a shield wall was formed.
The giants bellowed, thumping and tearing across the mud field.
“Haran Mazgar!” a man shouted at the front - it was Ammad.
“Haran Yog!” the men thundered back.
“Haran Mazgar!” yelled Ammad.
“Haran Yog!” we all yelled.
The giants struck.
Men were tossed into the air like thrown sand. A green hued beast with a darting, forked tongue picked up a screaming, kicking man and bashed him down, breaking his legs. A giant with grey, thick hide plates over its head and back, tore a man in two and bit off his head. The bone white one cackled and swung his chain, smashing men aside and stepping on them.
The Mazgar held. They pressed forward, spears trying to do the work of pikes. I found my feet trying to keep still. A hand pushed me forward - not a shove, an urging. I moved forward. I moved forward again.
The giants drew closer. The black spined one was in front of us - it snorted and thumped the ground, bloodied bodies in its claw-like hands. Just three, thin, so very thin ranks of men stood between me and it.
A horn brayed.
Groups of Mazgar raced forward - flanking the giants - then surrounding them! They charged the mutants from all sides. Green Snake Tongue howled and fell, spearmen clambering over it and stabbing down, again and again. It disappeared under the mass of warriors. A Runa handler screamed as a Mazgar spear tore into his belly. He cried out again as it was ripped out, the notched blade tearing out his entrails. I heard the fit! fit! of blowdarts and Grey Hide Plate bellowed and clawed at it’s face. It coughed, choked, and then fell like tree. Blood ran from its blinded eyes.
I rushed up, seized by the moment, and found myself face to face with Black Spines. I saw terror in its all too human eyes, the terror of a lost child or abandoned dog who does not understand - but has just very much realized - that the world couldn’t care less if it lived or died.
I hesitated. Another man struck, a two-handed bone club crushing the beast’s skull like an egg.
Only Bone White was left. It wasn’t cackling anymore, but it kept the spearmen at bay with its chain. Dead men lay all around it - they had tried to rush in and finish him.
Bone White pitched back suddenly, a javelin in its shoulder. It dropped its chain and tore the javelin out. Another one struck it in the chest, where a real human would have had a heart.
Shoving past spearmen came Akingin. He made a deep snarl like a large-bodied predator and rushed up behind Bone White. The monster plucked out the second javelin and tried to stab Akingin with it. Akingin dodged, and with a bone sword tipped in razorsharp, armored fish teeth, he slashed the tendon in Bone White’s ankle. It screamed and fell, blood spraying. Akingin dropped his sword, grabbed its giant head with both arms, and snapped its neck. The sound of the bones breaking was like a wooden table being broken in half.
The Mazgar erupted in cheers. Akingin picked up his sword and hacked off the Bone White’s head. He flung it at the enemy; it bounced and rolled in the field. The heads of the other giants followed. Someone mounted a Runa head on a spear and held it up for all to see.
Across the field, horns blew. The missile troops fell back, exposing the heavy spearmen. They began marching across the field. Guarding their flanks, the fanatics came. They rang bells and played drums, chanting and taunting.
“At least the fucking non-humans are gone, huh buddy?” I said to One-Eye.
There was a crack and a bolt of lightning arced out from the center of the elite Runa spears, and struck the earth in front of our lines. Dirt fountained, glowing hot. Men cried out, consternation swept through them in a wave. They knew what this was, every child in Hyperborea was raised on tales of it.
There was a second bolt - it struck a group of spearmen and punched them into the air. They landed dead, charred and smoking.
Emerging and towering over its Runa protectors, the Mi-Go appeared with its lightning gun.
Officers yelled and cursed their men, but you could already taste the panic. Panic is infectious. Panic has won more battles than any other weapon.
“Pull yourselves together, it’s one gun! It can’t even shoot straight!”
“It’s lightning!” Juskar was trembling. Brave Juskar who had spent weeks on his own infiltrating this place, was trembling. I smelled urine - more than one man had just pissed himself.
“Yes, it’s just lightning!”
It’s just lightning.
“Yog is a cunt!” I yelled, and pushed my way to the front. I had to do, and fast, what only a person from a time of light switches would do.
I pushed through the front line shield bearers, shaking off the hands that tried to hold me back. I was suddenly in the open field, mud squelching under my boots. Ahead of me was the advancing army. Directly in my path were the elite spearmen, and the Mi-Go.
“Sorry about your lab, Motherfucker!” I yelled in Low Hyperborean. I hoped it would understand.
Lightning arced out and struck thirty feet from me. The shockwave of hot air and ozone burned at me, but I kept my balance.
“Sorry about your black corn, too! And your whole fucking failed invasion!”
Lighting shot over me. My ears popped and started ringing. All I could see were afterimages. My other senses sharpened and suddenly I could hear screeches from the sky. The winged monsters had come, and not for slave girls on offering towers. Had the Mi-Go summoned them; reinforcements coming to strike us from the air?
“My name is Gerard Stone and I’m from the future! I want you to know that we’re the ones who win this war, and your species loses! This planet is ours and today we take it back!”
“Haran Mazgar!” I heard behind me.
“Haran Yog!” the men thundered. Horns blared behind me and men cheered - and charged. They rushed up to past me, a wild mass of jeering, waving spears, and bloodlust.
The enemy army halted - they’d not expected this. The Mi-Go’s lightning gun fired again, but the Mazgar kept charging. Moments later, I was alone; I watched as the thin but fearless Mazgar line crashed into the cultist masses.
Above me, the air was filled with screeches - the winged, hunting monsters had become excited. I forced myself to look down. What if they came for me? I was out here, all alone. I was a dead man.
I was a dead man.
And yet … why was I still breathing? Why weren’t the monstrous flyers attacking?
The spear lines pushed against each other, but the greater mass of the cultists did not budge. The fanatic mobs moved around, closing on the Mazgar flanks. Why? What had we done to deserve this! Juskar. Akingin. We had come so far.
We’d come so far.
Beyond the battle lines, where the ruins of No-Man’s-Land met the hills, there was a huge crashing as ancient pillars came tumbling down. They smashed and bounced, sending cultist missile infantry, running. There was an unmistakable and terrifying braying as Obsidian Black climbed its way out over the fallen masonry. Clay Red and Albino White followed, kicking aside boulders, picking up masonry chunks, and throwing them into the air. Riding after them came the Mazgar lancers, the Darfuri militia at their head.
The screams of thousands of people rose up from the refugees. The unprotected missile troops starting running. Horns and standard bearers tried to rally them, but panic is infectious.
The mammoths began trumpeting, and charged after them.
It was like watching fat children running through puddles. They smashed through the slingers, tossing them aside and pounding them into the soft dirt. Pikemen leaned over howdahs and skewered men as they ran. Archers fired at those beyond reach, each arrow finding its mark. Obsidian Black picked up a horse and rider and threw them across the battlefield. Clay Red herded a group of javelinmen into a ditch and crushed them. All three mammoths, the lancers on their flanks, thundered into the rear of the cultist spear formation.
There is no fighting an elephant, much less a mammoth. Pikes, spears, they are useless against a creature that will pluck them off you, snap them like twigs, and use you as a club.
The cultist spears broke and ran.
The fanatic mobs broke and ran.
The elite Runa spear block broke and ran.
The Mazgar lancers chased then down. The last I saw of the Mi-Go, it was firing its lightning gun point blank at Albino White. With it’s howdah on fire and covered in burns, Albino White picked up the Mi-Go and bashed it against the ground till its crab arms and roach legs tore off. Then, it trampled what was left.
Only then did the flying monsters act. As is freed from a spell, they swooped down like striking hawks and snatched away Runa. They carried them off, screaming. Once they’d taken all the living ones, they took all the dead. Even the mammoths kept clear of them. Men tried to look away, those who didn’t ran screaming, threw up, or pissed themselves.
And then, just like that, they were gone. I dared to look up - and there was nothing. No dots leaving on the horizon. No monsters tearing into bodies up in the hills. Not a thing. Had they disappeared back to where they’d been summoned from, in the Outer Dark?
Wherever they’d taken the Runa, I couldn’t help but think it was deserved.