Howl of the Heavens ch.31

    Rhuen and Versa upon the ridge turn to their offspring telling them, “Go play with the humans our children.”

 

    Rish and Riska took off like a bolt of lightning, repeatedly slamming into the sides of the church as their parents watched.

 

    Inside the church they feel another hit which seems to have come in through the wall below them on the first floor. An explosion of wood coming out the door to the bedroom suddenly took them by surprise. They look in side and see a huge hole in the floor, through the bed splitting it in two, and up through the ceiling. Peter turns just in time to see a black wolf like creature (whose name unbeknownst to Peter is Rish) come down from out side in front of the window from above. Peter realizes had Nick still been in that room he would now be dead.

 

    Peter tells the others, “That must have been one of the two smaller ones that rancher spotted before. There is still one more small one and two giant ones out there. We need to leave and NOW!”

 

    Even as they all make their way down the stairs they can see debris flying everyone and dust filling the air because of the two young Dire ramming through the walls.

 

    As Peter and Nick first come out the church and head to the truck the explosion sounds suddenly stop for a moment then one of the wolf life creatures rams through the wall before them and faces them growling. This creature has a white spot on its chest amidst the black fur; a creature that unknown to them is named Riska. Peter quickly helps Nick into the truck as Mike comes out sword drawn and Paul with his six shooter at the ready. The second one (Rish) rams through the wall and Paul takes a shot at it. He missed as Rish jumped high above and landed on the church roof growling back down at Paul.

 

    Peter gets into the truck, starts it up and yells out, “Hurry up!”

 

    but as Paul and Mike start their way to the truck Rish jumps back down next to his sibling and then lunges at them. He is deflected by the electric barrier of Mike’s sword just as Samantha had been before. Rather than being thrown a great distance Rish is only pushed back to his sibling’s side by the barrier.

 

    Mike yells at Peter, “Just hurry up and get out of here, and bring reinforcements or something that can help us!”

 

    Just as Mike is screaming Paul takes another shot which like the one before missed its intended target as Riska quickly moved to the side.

 

   Peter clinches his hands on the wheel and rushes down the rain soaked back road into Pine Ridge thinking, “The weather is too bad, I won’t be able to get to Brooksville and back in time, I hope a posse of the locals coming down the road is enough to convince these creatures to retreat for fear of exposing themselves to the public at large.”

 

    Paul aims and fires at Rish who rather than dodging the silver bullet swats it with his paw sending it back at Paul with such force as to shatter Paul’s  kneecap and sends him to the ground on his right leg grimacing in pain. Rish then lunges at Mike who swings the silver sword at him sending out a great bolt of lightning that sends Rish flying down the ridge towards the trading post. Mike notices that the other one still remaining has a surprised look on her face as she looks down at her sibling, with this boost of confidence  he raises his sword and taunts Riska, “Come on you little bitch you want some of this too?”

 

    His confidence is short lived as an expression of great fear comes over his face and he lowers his sword slightly at the sight of a great grey figure rising from the ridge in the distance and over the street as though it were jumping a small pot hole, as it stretched in its jump it looked far bigger to Mike then when he had seen with the binoculars.

 

    Mike barely had time to utter, “Holy mother of God.” In a trembling voice before Versa landed right in front of him shaking the ground beneath his feet.

 

    Versa had landed with Riska between her legs and her muzzle not two feet from Mike’s face. Truly a terrifying sight with her hot breath evaporating the rain before him and making him sweat in the front as the cold rain hits his back. He raises his sword which sends streaks of electricity across Versa’s face but to Mike’s surprise she doesn’t seem to be bothered by this, in fact she even smiling a big toothy smile at him. The sight of this scares Paul so greatly that despite his injuries he tries to run. His shattered knee cap however causes him to collapse falling over the side of the ridge and rolling down to the back of the gas station, passing out from the intense pain.  

 

    Peter has driven into Pine Ridge on the main road where the local bar is still open.

 

    Peter pulls up to the bar and says to Nick, “Stay here.”

 

   Peter thinks to himself as he gets out, “They would never believe the truth, but these guys all know my dad, and they’ll believe the truth when they see it.”

 

    Peter enters the bar and yells out, “We need help! The Church and the trading post are under attack! Some maniacs came out of no where! They killed my father and my grandfather! I can’t reach the station for back up in time and the radio can’t get through all this rain and my brother and one other are still back there!”

 

    The locals in the bar in this small town had grown up with Jeff Jones and had known Peter since he was a baby, so with out question they headed out to their trucks which oddly enough most if not all had gun racks in them with rifles or had hand guns in the glove compartments. With this posse in tow Peter heads back to the trading post as that many trucks would never fit next to the church.

 

    Mike stands face to face with Versa when a second figure, the great black shadowy form of Rhuen came flying over the way even higher than Versa and comes crashing down the side of the church with such force and speed as to bend the boards sending them flying upon breaking in all directions as though a grenade had been set off. Some of the debris lands on top of Paul covering him up. Rish, down by the trading post wakes up and shakes off the paralysis he had been experiencing. Rish quickly glances at the mostly covered form of Paul then runs back up the ridge joining his sister between their mother’s legs.

 

    Mike manages to build up enough courage to pull back the sword and lunge forward with it. As quick as a flash Versa had opened her jaw and snapped her jaw shut on the blade. Mike looks on first noticing that the blade had stopped sending out sparks of electricity and as he lowers his hands sees the blade broken as it slips past her mouth down to his feet and drops it there. Versa opens her mouth and lets the broken tip of the sword drop out to the ground at Mike’s feet joining the first half there. Mike’s face turns white with fear as he becomes more terrified than he had ever been, not only had Versa bitten through the blade, but he saw when she opened her mouth that the blasts from the sword had done nothing to the inside of her mouth not a single scorch mark or even a cut from the sword.

 

    All Mike sees next is Rhuen turning his head to him and a sudden blinding flash of light then blackness. Mike is in someplace dark, darkness as far as he can see save for a ring on the floor of blue glowing runes forming a circle around him and waves of blue light coming up from them. Mike walks over and tries to put his hand through the light only to find he is trapped in the circle.

 

    He calls out, “Hello! Any one there!” no answer.

 

    He is trapped, trapped in this small circle in what appears to be perpetual darkness and nothing else.

 

    On the ridge next to the (now ruined) church Rhuen and Versa stand over a charred corpse next to the two broken halves of a silver sword. Rhuen turns to Versa and says, “My spirit bolt has done its job, but now it seems this game is over with no more players to play with.”

 

    Rhuen, Versa, Rish, and Riska turn and leave even as the sounds of vehicles can be heard behind them.

 

    Peter and the trail of trucks behind his own arrive just in time for Peter to get a glimpse of the four Dire leaping over the ridges into the forest. He looks around he doesn’t believe any one else in the other trucks saw them through the rain as they didn’t know what to look for. They all pull over just as the rain stops. Peter directs some of the men to search the wreckage while he and some others hike up the ridge to the church to look for survivors.

 

    They find Paul under some wreckage; one of the men calls out to Peter, “We found Paul he looks pretty beat up but he’s still breathing.”

 

   Peter calls back, “That’s great, get him into the back of my truck. I’ll take him to the hospital in Brooksville as soon as we find Mike.”

 

    They call back, “Who?”

 

    Peter says, “The other guy that was here.”

 

    While Peter is talking some others up on the ridge with him say, “We found a charred up body here and what looks like a broken up sword or something.”

 

    Peter says, “That was Mike. Leave the body for the homicide team and let’s get Paul to the hospital it looks like the attackers left.”