Cal and his gnoll were between Seth and the trailer; Lelani’s battle was to his side. Seth found himself weaponless with Rosencrantz at his back. He leaned against the tree for support. The bark was warm as flesh. He became a conduit for the tree’s energy. Heat traveled through Seth’s body, tingling, giving him a boost.
The wounded gnoll lunged at him. Seth put his hands up and soon gripped fur. A gentle heat traveled through him, and where Seth touched the gnoll with his hand the thing’s flesh melted into slag. The thing let out an inhuman howl of pain, nearly shattering Seth’s eardrum. Not questioning how, Seth seized the gnoll at its throat and again the flesh melted at his touch. The energy from Rosencrantz flowed from his hand on the trunk and through his body. He held his grip, pushing farther back, like a hot poker driven into butter. The dripping sludge of muscle and bone could no longer hold the creature’s head to its body. The gnoll’s head rolled off its shoulders, frozen in its shocked expression as it hit the ground. Seth pushed the thing’s hairy headless corpse away.
He looked around.
The giant gnoll had pinned Cal down. The cop jabbed it with his hunting knife, but the beast used his feral claws to rip apart Cal’s body armor. A shot rang out in the night. The big gnoll howled in pain. He bled from the neck. Cat leaned against the trailer door, a smoking hunting rifle in hand. Helen came up right beside her holding a shotgun. The gnoll abandoned the cop and lunged at the women, but Cat stood her ground and fired again.
The beast fell on its face and skidded to their feet from sheer momentum. Helen fired once more into the back of its head for good measure. “That’s for Ben, you son of a bitch,” she said.
Seth relinquished his grip on the tree. The winter chill enveloped him, like exiting a Jacuzzi on a cool day. He ran toward Cal, picking up another thick branch en route. His hand was sticky with melted flesh and cooked blood. Cal rose and examined himself for wounds. Cat hobbled to him on her air cast and crutch, while Helen guarded the trailer door.
“Oh God!” Cat exclaimed. “Cal, are you…”
“Fine,” said the cop. “My vest took the brunt of it.”
The last remaining gnoll in the party, realizing he was outnumbered, backed into the darkness around them.
“Where’d that fucker go?” Seth asked.
“He’s out there,” Cal said. “We need to get after it.”
“Not a good idea, dude,” Seth said. “I think the little one got a call off to his buddies. He had a horn.”
They heard a horn, emanating from the direction of the gnoll that had just left. The sound echoed through the night and sent a shiver of dread down Seth’s back. “It sounded a lot like that,” he added.
“Great! Good work, porn star.”
Seth resisted the urge to tell Cal to go fuck himself. They heard a crunch to their left and raised their weapons.
“It’s just me,” said Lelani, coming out of the darkness.
Under the starry light, Seth glimpsed the silhouette of her equestrian half; her human legs were translucent. The image looked like movie projections superimposed. Her illusion was stronger in the day because it utilized light, and in its absence it waned. It was odd to Seth that he understood that… a law of magic that he recognized, the way a science student accepts planetary mass. It was starting to come back-cracks in the dam that concealed his earlier life.
“Lelani,” Cal said, “we’ve got to brighten this area up before reinforcements arrive. We’re dead in the dark.”
Ben came out of the trailer with three more lanterns and two gallons of kerosene. His injured leg was bound with a tourniquet. Helen covered him as he hobbled about placing lights around the trailer.
“Ben, what are you doing out here, you old coot,” his wife said.
“Stop nagging. I’m the same age as you are.”
“Well I’m too old for this malarkey, too, but I wasn’t shot in the leg with an arrow,” she responded.
“That’s not going to be enough,” Cal said to them. “We need to really light this area up.”
“What about Rosencrantz?” Seth asked. “He just helped me out.” Seth held out his sludge-marked hands.
“Yes!” Lelani agreed. “Rosencrantz is an experienced mage, but he needs a conduit to cause effects in real time.” She went to the tree and placed both hands on its trunk. Lelani closed her eyes and began to commune with the great wizard. Seth couldn’t explain how, but he could see the tree’s life energy flow through the centaur, and he was sure the others could not. Even from a few feet away, Seth felt heat radiate from her, the same sensation he experienced earlier. Lelani was wrapped in a warm glow; a rosiness filled her cheeks, similar to what you’d see on an expecting mother. Seth had a bunch of tree-hugging friends that had often talked about the health benefits of communing with nature. He always thought they were cool in their own odd, crunchy way, but he never thought in a million years they’d ever be proven right.
“They are close,” Lelani said. “A large party approaches from the south, about three hundred yards. A mix of humans and gnolls. They have a sorcerer!”
Three whips of strong wind hit the lanterns and shattered them.
“Seth!” barked the cop.
What now? Seth thought.
“Grab an armful of magazines from the trailer and start building piles about fifteen feet apart to the south of us. Douse them with kerosene.”
“Gee whiz, is that really necessary?” Ben whined.
“Ben!” Helen, scolded.
“What about the human dudes?” Seth asked. “Fire’s just going to help them see us.”
Helen was already in and out the trailer door with the first batch of magazines. “You always said these things would come in handy one day, Ben. Time to put them to good use, or we won’t be around to read anything no more.”
Ben picked up Helen’s shotgun and helped Cat cover her as she piled magazines.
Seth stood his ground. “Look, we should go back to the cabana in Puerto Rico and shut the door behind us. Cut off the conduit. No death, no mayhem… easy breezy.”
Cal grabbed the photographer by his collar and lifted him to within an inch of his face. “How do we get back then? Do we let them set up camp right beside Rosencrantz? What if they douse the tree with kerosene for helping us.” He threw Seth to the ground in disgust. “You going to let that old woman do all the work?”
Seth fumed. It wasn’t fair. He had risked his skin to help Ben get to safety. He had used a tree branch to fight these crossbow-wielding monsters while the cop was armed with pistols and wearing Kevlar.
“That’s right!” Seth shouted back at the cop. “She’s an old lady and he’s an old man with a hole in his fucking leg! You’re a dad with a kid in the Bronx and a wife with a busted ankle that’s scared out of her wits! How am I the fucking bad guy for saying we get the hell out of here?”
Cal was about to respond, but Seth yelled first, “Go fuck yourself.” He walked off muttering and took an armful of magazines from Helen for the fire.
Seth built up the pile that was farthest out from the trailer. He knew the bad guys were gathering out there in the dark, but he wanted to get it at least three feet high. As he stacked and rolled the magazines, his hand fell across a copy of Action Comics number one, the first appearance of Superman. The artist in him was awestruck. It was one of the most iconic images ever created. In the picture, Superman lifted a car over his head and smashed it into a rock. There were a few others, too. Whiz Comics, Detective Comics… Seth wrapped them around his shins and snapped his tube socks over them, securing them to his legs. He realized what an optimistic gesture that was in light of what was coming toward them. Then again, if he survived, he’d never forgive himself for passing up the opportunity. A few less magazines isn’t going to make any difference in the end.