The Unconquered
In 16 parts, By FinalStand. Listen to the ►Podcast at Connected.
World News:, A Behind the Scenes Report
As Foreign intelligence analysts, members of the Russian Federations Defense Staff and their special advisors examined the 'Khanate' proposal, they didn't understand it. On the surface, it was insane and, at the same time, accomplished their mission directives. The military leaders were looking at the Intelligence staff, who could only shrug.
What had Russia promised for this bounty? Not a damn thing, which only made everyone all that more suspicious. Outwardly, the Khanate plan was a gamble for the Russian Army, yet, the true risk would be momentary, 36 hours max. The nod was given, the President of Russia was called. Three minutes later, he called back. Operation 'Funhouse' was a go.
In Beijing, there was one man who was terribly unhappy with this plan. His name was Andrey Ivanovich Denisov and he was 'Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the Russian Federation to the People's Republic of China'. He was also about to give his opposite number in the People's Republic of China, Foreign Minster Wang Yi, some really bad news.
Putin had spoken. Russia was coming to help China, whether it wanted the help or not. It got worse. The Russian Air Force was going to enforce a 'No Fly Zone' over Northeastern China in eight hours and they were already putting the motion before the UN Security Council's members to 'explain' their actions.
Denisov's chief military advisor had pointed out one niggling issue: the 'No Fly' Zone over Northeastern China would cover portions of Khanate controlled territory as well as the balance of the area, essentially allowing them to shift resources elsewhere while the Russian Air Force protected their territorial gains. Andrey wasn't sure how this would not be construed as an Act of War. He was even more concerned about how he'd get back to the embassy without suffering an 'unfortunate accident'.
London and Washington were coming to the same conclusion. Technically, they could simply deny they even had copies of 'Operation Funhouse'. Politically, this was manna from Heaven. Putin couldn't strong arm both the Ukraine and the PRC. His priorities had switched, so now NATO could jump into the Ukraine which would appease their democratic constituencies.
There were also larger economic/political issues to look at. Europe had constantly been threatened by Russia's interference with the oil and natural gas pipelines that first pass through Russia before crossing the Ukraine and Belarus and heading off to Central and Western Europe. A great deal of that fuel originated in what was now the Khanate.
If the Khanate survived, and viewed the US and UK favorably, the 'oil and natural gas' boot would be on the other foot. If Russia threatened the European Democracies' petrochemical supplies, the Khanate could threaten to cut off Russia as well. The old Republic of Kazakhstan never had the will to confront Russia. The Khanate was turning out to be a very different beast.
Because the world didn't need any more ominous rumblings, catastrophe and madness collided in Pyongyang, North Korea. North Korea was an energy exporter, with most of its power coming from coal-fired plants and hydro-electric facilities. The problem was you can't run armored vehicles and combat aircraft on electric power. You needed oil.
North Korea's oil came from China, Liaoning province to be precise, and Liaoning was getting hammered around the clock by the Khanate. The oil pipeline had ruptured and it would be months before it was fixed. In that situation, a sane nation would have shopped around for other avenue of imported oil. But we were talking about North Korea here.
Kim Jung-un was looking down the barrels of another famine (trucks and tractors need petrol too) as well as the far more important reduction in the Korean People's Army's readiness. He saw himself possessing the World's 4th largest military and it was in danger of running out of fuel, and Liaoning province was sitting right across the Yalu River, all helpless-like.
End World News Behind the Scenes Report
In the annals of martial history, the bloodiest, costliest battles are when elites face elites. As corny and melodramatic as it sounds, the truth is that neither has 'surrender' in their creed. They attack, defend, ambush, shoot, stab and kill one another until one side loses the capacity to carry on the struggle. It is a grapple to the death.
All of Ajax's men were hardened killers, ten year veterans of the Trojan Wars every; one of them. The ranks of the 22nd Mountain Troops Battalion were filled with numerous combat-tested soldiers of the Afghan War. These Romanians were some of the finest combatants produced by the Romanian Army. The two companies earmarked for sealing off the road as a retreat route were about to find out what the price of being elite really was.
They were fighting for their homeland, avenging their slain (technically, the slaughtered Amazons were Romanians) and had generations of their own warriors, dating back to the First World War, whose legacy of ferocity they had to maintain. Ajax had the advantage in technology and surprise. The Romanians had numbers, experience with the terrain and the advantage of multi-dimensional warfare.
The lead vehicles of the 22nd had rounded the hilly terrain to the East of the Castle of Seven Skulls when they collided with Ajax's team rolling away from those ruins. The Mountain Troops were fast, Ajax's team was faster. One soldier stepped out of his still-braking Eagle transport.
He snap-shot a Panzerfaust 3, a light anti-tank weapon, blowing up the first Romanian Piranha IIIc. Two Eagles further down the column, a second team member put another Panzerfaust into the follow-up 22nd MLVN (armored personal carrier). That was as good as it got. The third vehicle, another MLVN swung partially around its burning brethren and poured automatic fire into Ajax's lead Eagle, turning huge chunks of that 'Hummer on Steroids' transport into shrapnel.
Trading vehicle for vehicle wasn't something Ajax could afford. For the Romanians, they couldn't race past the blocked road without incurring horrendous losses themselves. Besides, by holding their ground and keeping the enemy focused on them, they were fulfilling their part of the plan. The Mountain Troops disgorged from their MLVN's, spreading out into the meadow on either side of the path and were quickly bounding forward by fire.
Ajax reacted quickly. His heavy weapons would allow him to attrition the enemy in front of him, yet he'd be a fool to think they were alone. He knew he was facing army troops, not police. That spelled serious trouble. He ordered his column to reverse course back into the wood cover. He lost his second Eagle to intensive fire.
The warriors in the main column bailed out once they reached the shelter of the trees. Machineguns came forward and established a withering cover fire. The two survivors at the first Eagle were badly wounded. With fatalistic resolve, they lashed the advancing Romanians with grenades and their assault rifles until they were both silenced. The second Eagle's demise was much harder.
Three of the four crew were alive and unharmed. Their fate was decided by 25 meters of open ground between them and their compatriots. Ajax's gunners kept firing, but the Romanians refused to be suppressed. Worse, that second MLVN was proving impossible to kill. Its driver had parked it so that barely the front of his vehicle body and turret were exposed.
Two more of Ajax's precious anti-tank rockets failed to connect, though one did knock the first destroyed IFV into that troublesome vehicle. These were Ajax's brothers-in-arms, yet he knew their situation was hopeless. He cursed that his opposition wasn't made up of raw conscripts. Despite their losses, they were not wavering. Their morale remained solid.
The Romanians had spread out to the north and south. They were leap-frogging their machineguns forward and it was clear he was facing over 200 men. The 22nds advance was relentless. Soon they'd be right on top of his trapped men. As a final ploy he dropped two smoke grenades around the endangered trio and every other grenade launcher dropped their payloads onto the aggressive Romanians.
The three men ran for it. Their enemy were nobody's fool and sprayed their retreat path with bullets. Only one made it to safety.
For the Romanian battalion's commander in his command IFV, this was its own kind of Hell. His boys were getting murdered out there. He hadn't really believed the sketchy intelligence analysis that described his expected foes as the finest trained mercenaries the world has ever seen. Now he was a believer. His opponents reacted like an organic unit. Their weapons were incredibly lethal and their discipline was chilling. Ajax's snipers picked off anyone who seemed to be in charge. One Captain fell, as did two lieutenants. One section lost all its non-commissioned officers.
Despite that, individual initiative kept the 'leaderless' men of the 22nd advancing. Their snipers came into play by targeting the opposing machineguns. One gunner went down, then the other. To get one man back, Ajax had lost five dead, or seriously wounded. Ajax ordered the remaining Eagles back to the castle. The rest of the Warband would have to make a fighting retreat.
He'd killed or wounded a third of the Romanians out there, yet they were still coming. Even as he pulled out, he got two more pieces of bad:
First, his scouts had reported hearing helicopters as they returned toward the castle; this latest enemy was somewhere behind him, to the east.
Second, two Mig-21's dropped out of the sky and raked his area with rockets and auto-cannon fire; eight more men gone.
Ajax may not have been the greatest military mind of all time, but wasn't a fool. He was being boxed in. Since it was highly unlikely the Hylonome Amazons had sacrificed themselves, this was an ad hoc plan to take him out. Instead of hunting down that male Amazon as he wanted, Ajax had let the Condottieri side-track him on this mission. Now, it was proving far too costly.
A whistle, a few traded hand signals and the Mycenaeans started sprinting back upslope toward the castle ruins. It wasn't a rout. His men maintained their élan and cohesion. Ajax was trading space for time and the Romanians wouldn't chase his men as fast as the Mycenaeans were moving because there was always the threat of ambush. Or, they wouldn't have if an An-30 Reconnaissance Aircraft hadn't been tracking his progress from high above.
Just coming on-line, it identified the heat signatures of the Greeks and let the soldiers of the 22nd know that their enemies were trying to put some distance between them. The battalion commander knew his men had been mangled, yet believed they were still more than willing carry the fight to the enemy. Right as the 'pursuit' order went out, the promised company from the 24th Mountain troops rolled up, with the 61st Brigade's 385th artillery battalion. 'Now things were really going to get hot for those bastards', he thought.
(The Seven Skulls, Cáel)
I was true to my nature. I sent off my plan, Operation Funhouse, to the Russians via their attaché (a hot looking, curvaceous blonde Major) and to the Khanate through the offices of the US and UK. Only after that was done, did I ask for my favor. I wasn't going to bargain with the fate of Temujin's people. I couldn't.
My only chip to play was that people in strange places thought well of me. I wasn't so naïve to believe that I got what I wanted because I'd forged emotional bonds that superseded personal ambitions or national loyalties. No, I was now on my own self-inflicted 'Ride of the Valkyries' because people in authority felt I could still be useful and they were willing to risk the lives a few hundred Romanian soldiers to pander to my eccentricities.
Our intelligence came from Google Maps, a woman's recollections from twenty-five years ago and the frighteningly precise memories of a battle-scarred 11 year old girl. For the 24th Mountain Troops battalion intelligence officer, it was a stunning introduction to Amazons. The girl was one year away from her Rite of Passage and she'd been raised to take in the terrain and the sounds of battle.
Several times, he tried to trick her, altering information she had provided minutes earlier, but the girl corrected him every time. Seventeen minutes and the man relayed to his battalion commander his belief that the girl's story was solid. The men and women of the 24th may not have known the specific of the valley we were going to, yet this was their backyard.
They knew the rocks, trees and bushes. They knew the ground was crinkled and what marsh soil looked like, without stepping into it. They could do this, attack a rogue mercenary band threatening their native land. They were going to do this and do it quick. Me and mine coming along was problematic. But Me being one of the first ones in, I had to play my trump card.
"I am Magyarorszag es Erdely Hercege," I proclaimed. "I have returned to my people in their hour of need. Besides, I'm the only one who can kill their leader."
"You can kill Ajax?" Riki snorted in disbelief. "Ajax from the Trojan Wars? That Ajax?"
"Don't sweat it," I put my arm around her shoulder. "I got this covered. Get me close and I can make him dead."
"You've lost your mind," Rachel muttered.
"I love you to," I grinned. To the Captain of the first company to rappel next to the ruins, "I'm your Prince. Let's do this."
"Do you have any combat experience?" he shook his head.
"There are a whole bunch of dead Chinese who think so," I assured him.
"Let him go," Sakuniyas stated regally. "He is the Scion of Alal. He is invincible in battle." Hey, I liked that. Someone believed in me.
"Do you believe that?" Pamela asked Saku.
"Of course not, but if he's about to die, he should be allowed to feel good about himself," she told Pamela. Shit, I wish I hadn't heard that part.
"Oh, in that case, I agree. Let him go," Pamela added her preference to the final decision. The real weight in that Captain's final call was the small, well-armed group of supporters who seemed rather insistent that I get a chance at Valhalla.
He took it well. The officer even announced to the entire battalion that their feudal overlord was leading them into the fight. My codename was 'Prince'. I hope I didn't turn out like the singer, I had no aspirations for being Machiavelli's 'hero', but being remember as someone like Prince Harry wouldn't be so bad.
What I did know was this was my choice of actions and I couldn't send others into the madness I had inspired. I didn't blame myself for the deaths. Those were inevitable if Ajax was going to die. I didn't blame myself for Ajax, that was the Weave of Fate being a bastardly bitch. No, I had to kill Ajax because I was an idiot, and I loved my companions, and if it wasn't me making the attempt and possibly dying, it would be one of them. Not on my watch.
Our IAR 330 Puma Helicopter lifted off into the sky. Our two companion birds, another troop carrier and an assault variant of the Puma, followed suit and soon we linked up with the rest of the company that was going to rappel into the clearing next to the ruins. Could I rappel? Sure, I lied. Hey, I'd made it to the top of the rope in gym class at the end of my senior year. That had to count for something.
I was even lucky to have the lynchpin of my master plan sitting next to me. One in sixteen, what were the odds?
"You, what's your name?" I asked the soldier barely older than me.
"Master Corporal Menner," he grinned. Maybe he sensed my insanity.
"Székely?" I asked. He nodded. "Do you believe I am your Prince?"
"Either that, or you are crazy," he kept grinning. I leaned over and after some helmet shuffling, I whispered my request in his ear. I didn't demand that he agree, only that if he didn't, he wouldn't turn me in. Our eyes met.
"Why?" he was now filled with disbelief. I had passed beyond the realm of comedian to the land where all crazy ideas go off to die.
"It is the only way. Trust me, I don't love this plan either, but it is the only way I can think of to keep as many of you alive as possible," I explained. "He's a monster."
"How will this help?" he was still confused, even if he was being swept away with my intensity.
"I don't have time to explain. All I can tell you is that I'm not crazy and I don't want to die, but this is the only thing I can think of to keep my people alive," I remained firm and confident in my beliefs.
"I will have to think about it," he conceded. At least he wasn't insisting I be forcibly committed to a mental institution. I did annoy one of the two crewmen in the back with the rest of us combatants when I stood up and looked out the side window. I glimpsed it, her, flowing through the forest beneath us. After I sat back down, the Captain flagged me.
I had forgotten to cut on my communications rig on.
"First Force (the two companies of the 22nd) has encountered the enemy before they could exit into the flatlands," he paused, somewhat shocked. "They are taking heavy casualties. It is just like you warned us. These foes are exceedingly lethal."
"Don't worry about it," I overflowed with charisma. "Just follow me and we'll be fine."
"But, I thought you said you didn't know anything about the compound?" the Captain looked at me funny.
"I don't. I'm relying on luck," I pumped my eyebrows. The Captain knew enough English to groan.
"I have a sudden desire to club a baby seal," Rachel stared at me intently. Who, me?
"Let me and my men take the point," the Captain insisted.
"Captain, either I'm diving headfirst out of our ride, or you are letting me rappel down in the first wave, either way, my boots are the first on the ground," I demanded.
"No," the Captain shook his head. "You are a civilian."
"Captain," I leaned forward. "Everyone else is fighting and dying because I made a judgment call. You can't ask me to hold back now."
That shone through. Over his battalion frequency, he could hear the confusion and chaos chiseling away at his brethren in the 22nd. He could tell by my countenance that I both knew the enemy he was going to fight and that I wasn't ruled by guilt, or a death wish. I wanted to go first because I thought I could make the difference between someone else's life and death.
"Who are the other three with you?" he stated. Four could rappel down at a time.
"Rachel, Chaz and Master Corporal Menner here," I indicated. Rachel didn't freak, the Colour Sergeant looked my way and gave his acknowledgement, as did Menner.
"I'll go down with you, Captain," Pamela spoke up.
Of my group, Delilah, Wiesława and Virginia had stayed behind to guard Odette, Riki, the Lovasz sisters and the Loma family. Two troopers of the 24th joined them to provide extra security if needed. Vincent had pulled seniority to be the sole American going. With Chaz and Delilah, there hadn't been a real discussion about it. Chaz was the professional ground-pounder.
Selena had volunteered to go even though this wasn't really her fight. She claimed the right of revenge for Ajax's attempt to kill the Vizsla, but I thought it was something else, some desire to step forward and make the point that the Black Hand were invested in this global struggle. There had been no doubt that Rachel & her team plus Sakuniyas and Pamela would be joining me.
In my estimation, we were over the target area way too fast. I hadn't thought of a good reason to talk myself out of this harebrained scheme of mine. The side doors of the Puma opened. Rachel would be going down on my side.
"Look and see what Rachel does and do the same thing," Pamela yelled to me over the roar of the engines.
"And don't lock your knees or you'll sprain your ankles," she added. It was just another day of 'on the job' training at Havenstone Commercial Investments, I rationalized. I was scared, which was also a good indicator that I was still marginally sane. Rachel made her movements slow and steady.
I went down a second later, barely remembering to avoid rope burn through my gloves and not bust my feet when I hit bottom. Rachel crouched. She was waiting for follow up troops before advancing. Me, I ran straight toward the ruins. Why? It was Alal once more. From the relayed chatter from the 22nd and whatever spy plane the Romanians had above, I 'knew' that Ajax hadn't made it back to the fortifications yet.
If we hurried, we could beat him there. Then we would be ambushing his ass for a change. It almost worked. Whatever Chaz and Menner thought of my actions, they kept it to themselves. I didn't have to be a psychic to realize Rachel wasn't a fan. I leapt over the first Amazon corpse. The second one I passed was sitting with her back to the tree, hands tied around the trunk and had been tortured before she died.
I believed that was when the momentum shifted. This was barbarism and the three following me knew it. Menner relayed our findings to his Captain even as the first helicopter was pulling away. My mind was picking up the details and processing somewhere in the back of my mind so as not to distracting me from the task of staying alive.
A pile of bodies lumped too close together, they had been executed. A small girl, three, or four, with a close-contact wound to the temple. The smell of burnt flesh, more torture. Whatever Code of Military Conduct the Mycenaeans had, it wasn't the rules we, their opponents, fought by today. We were outraged and help was coming.
We were running in from the northeast. Three meter from what had once been a doorway, I broke free of the underbrush and saw the closest Greek and the row of vehicles behind him. He was to my east, maybe ten meters away. I wasn't stopping. The terrain had funneled us down so that we weren't coming directly from the helicopter's noise.
That must have been the reason he wasn't staring at us when we appeared. I didn't stop. Chaz and Menner were right behind me. Rachel only slowed enough to fire her P-90 at full-auto at the man as she ran. She killed him. The three of us ran across the open-aired, ruined room until we found the doorway to the other side of the building. From there, we had a good view of Ajax's remaining Eagles and the eight remaining men with them.
"I'm going for higher ground," Chaz growled before he took off.
"Rachel, go back and secure the corner we came in by," I shouted. She grimaced but obeyed. Menner had his own ideas. He fired off his first rocket-propelled grenade from his AG-7 at the farthest Eagle he could clearly see, blowing it to smithereens. I added the fire from my own P-90, wounding another Greek.
As my mental patterns processed the battle, I noticed Pamela, Saku, the Captain and Rachel appear. Apparently a trooper of the 24th had taken over Rachel's position. He was providing cover fire so that the remaining eight members of this landing group could enter the ruins at less risk. The Captain was doing what Captains do, issuing orders to the rest of his upcoming company.
Pamela must have been in touch with Chaz, because she was jumping and climbing along the path the Brit had taken. Rachel tapped me at the door. I backed up and she took over my firing position. That was part of her job. Mine was to strike once the iron was hot. The Chaos of Battle took hold. Initially we had faced 9 of Ajax's men. Rachel killed one and I had wounded another.
Two had swung around to the north of our position and engaged the helicopter at the clearing. An anti-tank rocket will kill a helicopter too. Somehow, the fatally injured pilot set his bird down before he died. That had been the third transport, not the second. The second had already deposited its 16 and those soldiers were moving toward the sound of the guns. The 16 aboard the third bird engaged the sole Greek they could see.
One of the Romanian assault Pumas, guided by the Captain, began tearing up the Eagle's lager. Halfway through the process, a second Panzerfaust 3 blew it out of the sky in an impressive fireball of exploding fuel and ordinance. The smoke trail form the warrior's shot hadn't dissipated before one of our snipers took him out.
The Captain made his decision fluidly. The first squad would hold the ruins. The second team would swing south of the ruins, seizing the high ground and block any Greek retreat in that direction. Somewhere back in the woods south of us, two more companies of the 22nd were advancing through the rough terrain on horseback. Yes, fucking horseback!
Behind us, to the east, were two more companies of the 24th advancing on horseback as well. The final company of the 24th was deployed due north, also on horseback and moving in fast. The trap wasn't airtight yet, but it soon would be. Ajax had to figure which way held the greatest likelihood of egress and quickly.
The mortars of the 385th were starting to rain down hate on his men. Logic, terrain and timing dictated a breakout to the southeast. The land dipped slightly just west of the ruins. Ajax and his men could move along that natural channel to spring up on the highest parts of the ruins nearly undetected.
Once he fought through the troops there, he could slip over the ridge south of and behind the castle and let darkness be his ally. He would regroup near one of the local tourist hotels and vacation spots. From there, he could grab some cars and race off deeper into the mountains and his final evasion. That was his plan. That would have been Alal's plan as well.
With utter certainty, I relayed all of that information to the Captain. Menner and I had to move. Rachel, Charlotte and Saku would follow. Mona and a medic of the 24th were working triage and Tiger Lily stayed close by her. The third group, minus the three personnel killed at the Landing Zone, were advancing west toward the position the Captain wanted them to hold.
"We are going for Ajax," I shouted to the Captain in Romanina, just before Menner and I made our play. We had to retrace our steps to the door where we had entered the ruins, then run along the east side until we joined up with the second group of 15 plus Vincent. Those men and women were in their own world of hurt. Twelve Mycenaeans, the vanguard of Ajax's escape attempt, appeared on the far side of the ridge that Romanians were trying to secure.
A bloodbath ensued. Assault weapons, pistols, knives, feet and fists all came into play. Ajax's men were better by a few degrees. We arrived at the pivotal moment. Charlotte, Rachel and especially Saku kicked the balance back in our favor. Hard, nasty hand-to-hand blood-letting was her specialty and only Ajax could have overcome her.
Menner and I didn't stay to participate in the carnage. We had our mission. We bolted around the fighting, crested the ridge and looked down the ravine at the rearguard coming up. A bullet careened off my back ceramic plate, no light ballistic vest this time out. Menner took a bullet to the right thigh, a through and through. He was bleeding only 'somewhat', so his artery and vein remained intact.
I yanked him along with me until we reached the top of the draw. I could see it all. The final act of 'Ajax the Unconquered and his Mycenaean warriors'. To the west, two machine gunners and two infantrymen lay down suppressive fire against the still invisible (to me) men of the combined 22nd/24th 'First Force'. Those Romanians could hear the firefight ahead of them and knew the jaws of their trap were closing. They refused to let go of the rear guard this close to victory.
Ajax, 'Red', Kwen and one other Greeks ran up the slope to reinforce his beleaguered men atop the ridge at the same time his men on the far side of the battle unleashed their hounds in a last, desperate attempt to break contact. Ajax's move wasn't a personal attempt at freedom. No, he was buying time for the few unharmed men he had left and the walking-wounded comrades they were helping along.
He had to hold the ridge long enough for them to exit the ravine and vacate the firefight. His plan might have worked, except for two things, Master Corporal Menner and Cáel Wakko Ishara, who were blocking the exit at the top of said ravine. As I had morosely predicted, Ajax remained unscathed.
At that moment, I had three things working in my mind to balance my understanding of men. Alal, Timothy and Felix. I hadn't had many male friends, for obvious 'infidelity' reasons. Alal's thoughts had long been clinical, not emotional, so he wasn't of much immediate help. He'd carried me this far as a tactician, but now I needed a hero.
Felix certainly fit the Ajax mode, if you discounted his loyalty to his brethren. But no, Timothy was my guiding light at that moment. Timothy was a model of fraternity, male unity and sacrificing for your brotherhood. Few people got away with calling Timothy, or any of his friends, fags, faggots, queers, or homos.
Far fewer got away with it twice, and it was more than just Timothy's build, it was his spirit and the belief that people rallied around the appearance of strength and yearned to stride boldly forth if given the impetus. Given my own metrics, the big, gay, tattoo-artist Timothy was the manliest man I knew.
"Ajax," I screamed at the top of my lungs, in Mycenaean. "I have come to watch you die! Face me!" Over the surrounding din of battle, he spotted me. I held my P-90 overhead in my right hand, and open challenge and undisguised target. Behind me and under cover, Menner was switching out the warhead of his AG-7.
I doubted the Mounting Trooper had truly believed we'd get this far with my insane plan. No one shot me. Ajax's eyes hardened
"This is your doing!" he bellowed as he motioned the three others to continue upslope.
"Yes," I yelled. Ajax threw his H&K aside and started coming at me. Oh, he could have put twenty bullets in me and watched my macabre dance until I collapsed. What brought him on was his desire to see the architect of his destruction die as he watched the last flicker of life fade from my eyes. I endeavored to meet him half way. I even selected the tree.
Ajax drew forth a Kopis, a Greek blade from a later period. He held the blade high. The kopis was primarily a hacking weapon, though it did have a point. I drew forth two of my tomahawks. It was all part of the Wakko Plan. Now that I had his attention came the next wacky phase, I ran into Ajax, putting my shoulder into his diaphragm.
His kopis came down on my back ceramic plate, shattering it and probably cracking a few of my back-left ribs. At the same instant, I heard the whoosh of Menner's AG-7 rocket propelled grenade launching.
Even as I felt my knees giving way from the power of the Mycenaean champion's blow, the world erupted in pain and fire. Fuck that hurt, yet more hurt was coming. The result of a TBG-7V's detonation is called a thermobaric explosion. I was betting my existence on Master Corporal Menner being able to put it close enough to knock me out without turning me into a crispy critter. The kill radius was ten meters.
The rocket propelled grenade hit a tree a few meters behind Ajax and high enough not to kill us. The concussive force of the explosion tossed Ajax over my shoulder and slammed me into the ground. A dozen Succubae Rockettes in high heels were dancing on my cranium as I sat up. I forced myself back to my feet and turned to face Ajax. I realized I'd won.
"What the Hades was that?" a shaken Ajax thundered. "If that was your best shot at killing me, it was pathetic." He drew his .45 with his left hand and put four rounds into my face. At two meters he could hardly miss. The bullets brushed over my skin like puffs from a post-coitus cigar.
"What the, " Ajax muttered.
"I said I had come to watch you die, not that I planned to kill you myself," I laughed. I heard the titanic rustling through the trees. She was here. I readied my last two tomahawks. I couldn't afford to go looking for my first two. That bastard Ajax had kept his kopis, the fucker. I could see the realization dawning on him.
"What did you do?" he growled. Yeah, the sounds of battle were very distant now, muffled by the barrier between dimensions. We were not in that precise, same ravine we'd started our battle in. We had transferred over to its spiritual facsimile, my Ishara-space.
"When I realized I couldn't kill you and that the only person on this Earth who could, wouldn't (Alal), I went looking for someone who could," I taunted him.
"That makes no sense," he gruffly replied. The noise of something big moving through the trees was no longer impossible to ignore.
"Well, she isn't 'of this world' so I had to bring you to hers," I laughed. The Dragon burst forth from the overgrowth and hovered over us both.
Her head was gigantic (I had my Terrified Goggles on; I almost wished they'd been Peril Sensitive instead), her white mane whipped around in the breezes that surrounded her body and the top of her head was a snowy white. The mane flowed down her spine and along her serpentine body. As her scaled progressed downward, they darkened gradually until her underside was a thunderous gray, she was a living storm cloud.
She had no limbs, nor did she breathe fire. Her strength lay in her enormous maw, her rows of razor sharp teeth, pronounced canines more like rapiers than teeth, and in her powerful, electrically-charged coils.
"Ajax, meet the Goddess Illuyankamunus," I grinned like a fool. "Illuyankamunus, meet Ajax, the Unconquered and sworn foe of Amazons everywhere."
"You idiot," Ajax spared me a glance, "this monster will kill us both!"
"While survival was part of my plan, it was secondary to seeing you dead first," I smirked. "Right now, I'm sure she's more interested in you, I think I'll run." Illuyankamunus' mouth opened and her roar was like a thousand thunder bursts.
Her venomous saliva splashed both of us. I managed to get my forearm over my eyes, but that was it. Her toxic expectorant burned like a hundred tiny needles then the flesh went numb. Some of it had hit my forehead and lower lip. The numbness was turning to something else, something indescribable before I smelled the stench of rotting flesh.
My body was being corrupted, turning necrotic in seconds. I ran. Behind me, Ajax's war cry echoed through the ghostly spirit plane. The land was similar to the real world except the alterations of mankind weren't as evident. Lighting repeatedly cracked and more thunder staggered me. Ajax wasn't going down quietly. I heard Illuyankamunus cry out in pain.
The rot dug down to my skull, teeth and gums. The skin on parts of my right thigh and stomach was gave way and the muscle's beneath twitched in agony. Chunks of flesh on my forearm sloughed away. Dating after this was going to be a bitch. I kept up my headlong flight to nowhere. All I had to do was keeping going until my mortal body woke up. I no longer heard Ajax.
What I did hear was the sound of the titanic serpent moving through the trees once more. Bushes were trampled, branches broke yet her pace was unstoppable. When I knew the race was done, I turned around. I wasn't sure why. I wasn't really a 'Heroic Last Stand' kind of guy. The great draconic head towered above me on a serpentine neck.
"Despite being a monster, you are rather quite beautiful," I mumbled. No, even at death's door I couldn't resist hitting on the babe. Her 50 meter long body lashed out, encircling. I launched an attack with my left tomahawk. I tried to bring my right one up, but the nervous system to the hand had disintegrated and the weapon fell to the ground.
I didn't seem to hurt her. Oh well. In came the coils, binding me tightly. My remaining ribs began to crack. Her leering mouth hovered over me, letting me wonder if I was going to be squeezed like a used up tube of toothpaste, or swallowed alive. She breathed on me again. This experience was wholly different.
A cool spring shower washed over my face and began drenching my body. Things, things made sense somehow.
"My venom inspires madness, Cáel Wakko Ishara," she related, in Sumerian. "I had to bind you until my healing breath reinvigorated you, so you wouldn't hurt yourself."
Her coils loosed up enough to give me limited mobility. My flesh was not decaying after all. It had been was my torturous imagination playing tricks on me. Either I was afraid of flesh-eating bacteria, or of growing old. I'd explore that later.
"What does this mean?" I asked. She seemed confused. "Why aren't you eating me?"
"I am not devouring you because I still have need of you Cáel," she rumbled.
"I'm not sure we are on a first name basis," I coughed. Much of my pain still felt real. "Just kidding. I'm on a first name basis with every woman I meet."
"I could still devour you for your impertinence," she seethed.
"Give it a rest," I grinned. "You may be as old as creation, yet I doubt you've had more than two boyfriends, whereas I'm heading for 300 girlfriends." Her coils tightened around me once more.
"Don't be presumptuous," she threatened.
"No," I shook my head. "I've got your number now. Kill me and Pamela and Saku will kill the last of your line. After all your exertions over the past 24 hours, you can't stop them."
"You think you can bargain with me, mortal?" she hissed.
"No. You are a girl and trust me, you can never tell a girl anything she doesn't want to hear," I jibed. "I'm giving you a reality check. If you do X, then Y will happen. I have given no orders concerning your mortal family, but that won't save them from those two."
"There are other things I could do to you," she sizzled.
"Nope. Ishara will own your bacon if you try to crack my mind," I snorted. "I'll tell you what; you stop acting like a cranky deity and I'll stop acting like a jerk, Illuyankamunus."
"My name is not Illuyankamunus," she grumbled. "I am SzélAnya; Illuyankamunus was my father."
"Oh, then I apologize," I give a tip of the hat. "SzélAnya is a far more fitting name. It is both untamed and vibrant." Yes, I was sexing up a Goddess. Thanks to Ishara she couldn't read my mind. The dragon-goddess regarded me studiously before letting her coils relax. That led to my 'Eureka' inspirational insight.
"You have recreated your Father-Daughter relationship," I gasped. Mysticism was lost on me. Daddy-daughter relationships I understood. "The males of your line are your 'Father'. They give birth to the 'warriors', their female offspring, while the sons carry on the bloodline to the next generation. Your daughters are, they don't carry your divine essence?"
"How, " blink, "How did you figure all that out in the past few seconds?"
"I've got some serious Daddy, Granddaddy actually, issues as well," I sighed. "Once I looked past you being a big dragon-monster, it all fell into place. One unanswered question: who are the women masquerading as the Amazons of House Illuyankamunus?"
Her look said it all. She didn't know and she didn't want to admit that she didn't know, because she had this whole Goddess-vibe going on, I was a mere mortal and professionals a (Deity in this case) hate admitting they are in the dark about anything in their specialty.
"I don't know," she confessed. Good for her.
"I was traumatized by the death of my 'sons'. When I recovered, I was cut off from the others," she explained. The pain of that ancient event was etched upon her features. It was good to see that she gave a crap about her followers.
"I cannot hide them and give them enough protection to keep them safe, SzélAnya," I said.
"I'm asking your permission to take your children back to Havenstone where there will be thousands of Amazons around for protection," I proposed. "Havenstone is the name for the Amazon central base of operations. It is New York City," I clued her in.
"Why should I trust the Amazons, or their Goddesses now? They abandoned me and killed my children," she challenged me.
"Your options are slim. Also, I am Cáel Wakko Ishara, I speak for Yakko Ishara, first of my line and the Goddess of Oaths herself, Dot Ishara," I swore. "We will pledge my Sisters to your cause, take your grievances to the Keeper of Records and the Council. Finally, I am an Ash Man, son after son back to the Amazon Vranus Ishara who, with your Amazon, Bolu (the old warrior who accompanied Vranus), left the Amazons to safeguard the last Arinniti sons."
"That is why we resonate," her draconic head nodded. She further loosened her body's hold on me. "I still don't trust you."
"You did kill Ajax for us," I pointed out. "We owe you for that."
"I did that to save my own kin, not yours," she grumbled.
"We don't have to tell them that," I gave her a sly grin.
"You would lie to your High Priestess and your Goddess?" she scoffed.
"The High Priestess is dead and we have yet to choose another. As for me lying to Dot Ishara; why do you think I made it so she couldn't read my mind?"
"That is annoying; she must have been piqued. Why do you call Ishara 'Dot Ishara'?"
"I'm starting to feel funny," I tried to work out some mystical cramping. "Are you keeping me here?"
"Yes."
"What does that do to my body?" I worried.
"Your heartbeat is racing, your lungs move weakly, the seed of air, oxygen, is leaving your body and blood," she told me.
"Basically I'm having a heart attack and organ failure, not to mention possible brain death," I chastised her. "I don't want to die, in case you were confused about my intentions," I added.
"I, I will let you go. We will talk later," she replied. Her body uncoiled until I could collapse on the ground. There was pain, and then I woke up.
"Oh, " I groaned. I hurt. Without my soul to sustain it, my body had begun to shut down and now it was trying to kick-start things back into action. Long drawn out pain,
I felt long strands of hair drape across my neck and lips gently touch my forehead, Dot. She was guiding me home. I still hurt.
My felt a crippling pain in my heart and my lungs were leaden. I was fighting back to normality. Complicating this process was the adrenaline secreted moments before 'La La Land'. It felt like lava was trying to rev up my cramping muscles. My eyes flicked open.
"He’s Alive!" someone shouted. It sounded like my loyal Menner.
Eyes crept open. Sure enough, it was Romanian Master Corporal Menner. I didn't know his first name. Rachel was on one knee beside me and something was wrong.
"Rachel?" I croaked.
"Charlotte is dead," she stated the fact, devoid of emotion. Charlotte had been her 'family', more so than any person of similar birth. "Vincent is in a bad way. The rest are not going to die soon."
This was not the time for saying 'it was worth it', 'did she suffer', or any of that crap. No words could possibly suffice. I forced my aching muscles to push off the ground until I was on my knees. I pulled her into a tight embrace, both arms, her chin resting on my shoulder.
"Don't," she ordered softly. "There are three of them still loose." She needed to protect me.
I pushed back. We were both crying. My eyes were a mess. Rachel contained her pain, limited its expression to a small handful of tears. I looked past her to the body of Ajax. He was on his back, his eyes staring off to eternity until the worms took him. By the bloody mess of his clothing, that bastard had gone down hard and in fierce torment.
How the Romanians were going to explain his ruptured organs, shorn muscles and the toxic stew that was his bloodstream wasn't my problem. He was dead. SzélAnya, the Dragon Goddess, had slain him for her own reasons and for mine.
"Your plan worked, Hercege Nyilas," Menner congratulated me. "I'm not sure how. I didn't kill him and I didn't see you hurt him, but he's as dead as they come."
"How many?" I asked him. It took him a moment to send the question up the network and get back a reply.
"Col. Giurcă (commander of 61st Mountain Troops Brigade which was custodian of the Romanians I fought beside) wants to talk with you immediately," Menner responded.
"Casualties?" I repeated.
"So far seventy-three KIA, 63 wounded; some will not survive," he told me. That was one of the dark sides of ballistic armor mixed with high-velocity bullets and grenade launchers. With armor, you were more likely to survive getting hit; but if you were hit where the armor didn't cover, you were more likely to die. "The ridge was very bad."
The ridge, where Charlotte died. It turned that out of the fifteen Romanian Mountain Troops who swept up their side of the ridge, only four lived. The Mycenaeans had been hellishly fierce, shrugging of lethal wounds long enough to get off one more shot, fire off one more grenade. At those point blank ranges, it had been a bloody mess. Of those fifteen Greeks on the ridge, only one escaped and two were found wounded. The other twelve draped their bodies among the slain Romanians.
In the final analysis, the soldiers of the 24th Battalion, reinforced by Vincent, Saku, Rachel and Charlotte, had held that ridge and cut off the retreating enemy. The last handful of Ajax's men chose to fight it out from the ravine. Most of them died with their pride. Only three more badly wounded Greeks had been captured there.
Ajax had brought fifty-one men and one traitorous Amazon to the Castle of the Seven Skulls. Three escaped, five were wounded and the other forty-four, plus Ajax, had perished. I stood up. Menner handed me my discarded P-90. Rachel hooked my dropped tomahawks to my harness. I climbed back up the ridge, because I didn't know where else to go.
I didn't like what I, Cael, had taken from all of this. Hate would have been a better descriptor. In the entire fight, I hadn't killed a single soul. The one Greek I had wounded was killed by someone else. No, I had to feed Ajax to a Goddess to kill him. I felt, small. The troops, a mixture of the two battalions, saw me in a new light however.
From the force coming in from the west came tales of Ajax's prowess. Too many men he aimed at died while he remained unscathed, despite his repeatedly risking his person. By the force of his personality alone, he slowed the advance of a 150 men. Had I not killed him, they wondered how many more of them would have ended the day in a grave as well?
Menner had avoided notoriety and laid Ajax's corpse squarely on my shoulders. I had grappled with Ajax. The rocket fired by Menner clearly hadn't killed the man, so the soldiers hefted his demise on me. How could I tell them I fed a monster to a monster, just one they could not see? Instead of blaming me for the rows of the dead,
"Magyarorszag es Erdely Hercege," they whispered, or gave me a nod.
Their story was straight forward. Like some nobleman of old, I had led my men into battle. I wasn't seeking glory. I was seeking to save as many on my side as I could. It was tough for me to believe I'd accomplished that goal. For centuries, voivodes, boyars, knights, counts, dukes and princes had shed blood over these valleys, fields, hills and mountains for their own wealth and for the safety of their peoples.
To these people, I was first off the helicopter (though that was actually Rachel). I'd intuitively led the race to the ruins that placed those stone barriers in our hands as a fortification to fight from and denied those aged walls to our enemies (though that was mostly Grandpa and the Captain). I had led the charge to the beleaguered left flank, just in time to reverse our near loss there (though I knew I'd never swung a blow, or fired a round).
Finally, under the observation of over two dozen Romanians, I alone had slammed the door to the trap shut and then killed the enemy leader in hand-to-hand combat (though no one had actually witnessed me administering the death blow due to the fallout from the grenade Menner had launched). I knew I was a completely unworthy hero. Night was swiftly creeping upon us.
"Hercege," the Captain called out. I could see the sadness in his eyes. His men lay dead around us both. "A helicopter will take you to the Brigade HQ. You need to go now." I held up one finger. I had to do this. I found Charlotte's lifeless body. One bullet had sheared off the right side of her neck. Another had shattered her right jaw. Her corpse, so beautiful in life, was ugly in death. She was mine now, forever. My memory.
"Thank you, Sister," I whispered in Hittite, as I kissed her forehead. "Wait for me in the Halls of our Ancestors, for I know you are welcome there. Thank you for all your care for me."
"Take care of that leg, Master Corporal Menner," I directed my accomplice in murder. "Never forget that you did something very special today. Together, we killed a monster and you saved my life. I promise I won't forget it."
Menner nodded to me, I nodded to the Captain and off we went. Rachel was always close by. Chaz and Pamela appeared out of nowhere.
"Magyarorszag es Erdely Hercege," the men said as they pointed me out to each other and the new arrivals. Had they been joking, I would have been far happier. But my existence wasn't comedy to them. They were allowing me inside their fraternity, these men and women, because of things they thought I'd done, not things I'd done.
Later, Chaz would set me straight. How many men I killed was irrelevant to these Vânători de munte, Mountain Huntsmen. They were honoring my bravery, initiative and willingness to go forward without being reckless. I had a plan, I'd stuck to it and that had contributed to their victory. They were giving me respect because I mourned for their casualties in the same way I mourned for my own. Their fallen had not died in vain, because I cared for them and was wounded by their passing.
It hadn't hurt my case that I 'led' people like Chaz, Pamela, Rachel and Charlotte into battle. Saku was, different. Mona tended to their grievously wounded with the same skills she'd lavished on me. She worked side by side with her Romanian counterparts flawlessly. I had little doubt that Katrina would be proud.
"Cáel," a feeble female voice called out. It was Kwen (aka Molpadia / Kwenhamai / Death Song). I stopped by her side, but didn't kneel. She'd been shot in the left bicep, right thigh and calf. Odd were good she'd live. "Ajax?"
"Dead," I replied. "Very dead."
"Did he, restore, ?" she mumbled.
"No. He was never going to do that, and you knew better," I said.
"Kill me then and let me return to face Oblivion," she sighed, utterly hopeless.
The Captain was impatient. He could wait.
"Kwen, what you did was wrong and you will have to answer for your crimes. You betrayed us without cause. You murdered children and captives," I informed her. "There is no getting past that."
"I know," she mumbled. I was missing something.
"You let that girl escape, didn't you?" I was feeling numb all over again. Kwen didn't answer me, yet it made sense. In her heart, she knew she'd gone wrong and she knew Ajax would never pardon her mother. So she'd sent word to the one man who might grant her an Amazon warrior's death.
"The girl didn't divulge your secret," I gave off my own sigh. Why was my life so complicated? Kwen had wanted me to kill Ajax, so she sent that girl to the place I'd most likely be. Then she relied on my loyalty to the Amazons to bring me to this place with whatever forces I could muster. She'd probably expected me and a dozen Black Hand assassins, not an army.
"I will inform the Council of your actions and let them decide," I offered. I had to go. We picked up four fighters of the 24th as we jogged the 1.2 km down to the blood-soaked fields where the battle had begun. The blown up Eagles had blocked the unpaved road on our end and Combat Engineers were still sweeping the road for hastily laid booby-traps the rest of the way down.
The slaughter fields for the 22nd Mountain Troops Battalion were a chaotic mix of military medical staff and the Serviciul Mobil de Urgenţǎ, Reanimare şi Descarcerare (SMURD, the national emergency medical response unit) all over the place and it was clear they weren't enough to handle the carnage. The eyes of the living and the dead were equally disturbing.
I knew I was on a schedule and I owned the Romanian Land Forces a good explanation, but I couldn't just leave. I saw one lightly-wounded soldier, his palms resting on his forehead, sitting on the ground, bereft. I squatted beside him.
"Hang in there," I said in Romanian as I put a hand on his shoulder.
"Was it worth it?" he stared into my eyes.
"No," I responded. "I lost a friend and she'll never be replaced. I can tell you what we did today had to be done. Those men had to be stopped and we were the one's close enough to respond in time."
"Oh, " he looked back down to the trampled grass.
"Remember how you feel today," I said to him from the depth of my spirit. "You are not the first man to hold your spot in your squad and you won't be the last. Take everything from today and pass it on to the next man who may someday have to perform as you did. You carry on because we all must. Make something good out of this by not forgetting. Learn and teach," was my empty advice.
I had his gaze once more. Against my wishes, I also had the attention of several of the soldiers around me.
"You are not wounded," he noted as he touched my body armor. It was certainly beat all to hell. I didn't believe he was condemning me.
"I am Magyarorszag es Erdely Hercege," I grinned. "While my people have heart, I cannot be killed. Together, we are invincible." The insanity of that proclamation seemed to reach him. He gave a weak grin. Some of the men around us chuckled. "I have to go," I patted his shoulder. "They want to blame someone for all of this and it looks like I've won the prize."
More laughter. In that moment, we were all in this military community. I didn't have their particular Esprit de corps, their training, or their heritage, yet we'd been in the same fight and killed the same enemy. They had a different view of me than I had of myself. Who was lying to who?
An IAR 330 Puma Helicopter was waiting for me, though the four troopers waiting for me were new, and somewhat peeved. They were from the Batalionul 610 Operaţii Speciale "Vulturi" (The 'other' Eagles). They were part of the Romanian Special Forces. They'd been too far away to get to the firefight in time, which seemed to be the major reason for their unhappiness.
Playing couriers for my person didn't please then either. My cohorts from the 24th handed me over. Two patted me on the back and called me 'Prince' before taking off. They had a battlefield to clear up and three Mycenaeans to hunt down. The 'Eagles' weren't sure what to make of my other bodyguards, so I made it easy on them.
"They go where I go," I gave them a grim grin. "They keep their weapons. In case there is any confusion, this is not a matter for discussion." The Sergeant in charge responded with a curt nod. We boarded the helicopter and lifted off.
"You did well Cáel," Chaz informed me. "Given two or three years, you'll be a good soldier."
"Thanks. That's not what I wanted. I don't like killing people, or getting people killed," I replied.
"Exactly," he nodded. "I don't want a teammate who wants to kill the enemy. I want a guy who wants to keep me alive and is willing to kill others to do it," he explained in a rather paternal pattern. "There is a huge difference."
"What did you tell that young man?" Pamela asked me, in Hungarian. I retold the conversation as best I could. It took me a second to notice that two of the Special Forces guys were listening intently.
To be continued.
By FinalStand, for Literotica