NFTF: Conflagration

Brothers Oswald and Johannes sit, pale and unmoving, breath shallow as each clutches an open wound in the shadow of a big red barn in which Oak and Bay saplings have begun to grow into full-fledged trees. They can feel the roots pushing down into the earth around them, they can hear the timbers protesting as the branches push out, seeking release. Each monk knows it is only a matter of time.

Focused thus on time, they have each gone inward so that, following the roots of the new and powerful trees springing up around them, they may sense and understand that which is occurring everywhere else in this battle. Their hope is that, by leaving their mark upon the energy of the trees, others in their brotherhood will be able to see, and by seeing, know. Sensing change, sensing the approach of a powerful force, they push their awareness down into the network of roots and allow it to ripple out, like a stone of inquiry in the still pool of existence. What comes to them, in responding ripples, is a picture painted in grim, dark colors.

On a ridge above, behind and to their left, three people fight the same beasts which have torn holes in Oswald and Johannes. The beasts pour from the forest to the North of the ridge where a man and woman trip a lethal fandango of gunfire, a dance certain to end in moments. Behind them, on the ground, an old man struggles against his own tide.

The branch is just beyond Talmadge's reach. His elbow slips and he feels the beastling's teeth tear into his tricep. He cries out (Oswald and Johannes echo his sound, faintly, their blood soaking the ground and feeding the roots beneath them), his pain and fear spurring his reach and grasping, hefting and swinging of the branch, ignoring the pain in his arm and legs abdomen where they're biting into his muscle, bellowing one phrase as he sweeps the branch in a great clubbing arc; his words are not planned, they are his last desperate cry before his life ends, the final thought before he is overcome:

"I am the Steward of the R.M.S. Ruritania!" the sharp broken twigs of the branch slice and pierce the creatures as they are thrown back into the ranks of their advancing fellows. He struggles onto one knee, impaling the creature feasting on his left arm, seeing his own bloody flesh and the wool of his shirt in its mouth. "Long has it traveled! Lost in lagoons and wand'ring in waterways!" Talmadge swings the branch back against another onslaught, amazed at his sudden strength as the creatures are thrown like rag dolls. He has a moment of rest, an instant to breathe.

Bracing himself against the branch, in that instant Talmadge hears two things: the galloping crash of a much larger creature approaching from behind, and the telltale click of an empty firearm; he sees the husband switch the shotgun in his hands, crying out as his fingers burn on the hot metal, clubbing the beasts as they surround the couple. The wife has one handgun and a machete, now; a gash in her brow bleeds, obscuring her vision. All this in a glance as he stands, bracing the branch under his right arm, staggering forward and bellowing his rage to the night, ready to die with these words on his lips:

"Protected by passengers, I call on its Captain! Ruritania! Stands! Defiant!"

Johannes and Oswald, their blood nourishing the roots of the network into which they currently delve, sense two things; the first is that the Rancher's words have triggered a fissure, an opening -- not in the earth, as has been the case in so much of this region of late, but in the fabric of time and space. There is something, something large, beginning to nose its way through that fissure. As they sense this, they realize that there are other such fissures -- they are in fact surrounded by these cracks and holes: the 1913 soldiers and nurses, the creatures that have attacked them ... all of these things are here because of holes that have opened . From where, and how, and how to close the holes, they do not yet know. As they sense and understand these things, they also understand that they are not likely to live long enough to tell Father Michael directly. 

In that moment they are distracted by the second thing: the whatever it is that approaches from behind the Rancher. Seeing it now through the perception of the trees from amongst which it launches itself at the Rancher's back, they are shocked. This thing is impossible. It cannot be. And even as it leaps toward the Rancher, even as he senses it and turns his head, their attention is drawn to

A lone soldier, Petherbridge, silhouetted against a wall of fire, wielding an old pitchfork with the skill of a Master of the Quarterstaff, whips it to the right, flinging a dead wolfling to land in the flames which tear their way into the field from the hillside behind him. This is the three-hundredth monster he's dispatched, and none of those burned can fuel the growth of their fellows. He dashes forward, forking and pitching three wolflings one after the other, flinging each into the fire as he spins -- or so he thinks. The first lands screaming in the fire, the other two are thrown wide of the mark, each impaled in the branches of the monstrous tree woman as she crouches over a screaming Nurse -- is that Elfie?! --, their blood and shit smearing her horrific branches.

The beastlings behind her, smelling and seeing their fleshly ambrosia, fling themselves into her branches, pulling her head up and back with the weight of the first ten of them. She screams, the sound of straining timbers and wanton cruelty frustrated, turning away from Nurse Elfie, who scrambles back and runs as the tree woman shakes her head, impaling those creatures who have leapt into her branches to feast.

Petherbridge darts to his right, noting but not heeding the sound of something massive approaching from the South, forking and pitching as many wolflings as he can into her branches. One lands in her deadly ladymouth. She tries to spit it out, her leathery, birdlike tongue tearing on her myriad splintry teeth. She screams, stomping toward him, crushing hundreds of the creatures who swarm around her in their craving to be the biggest. Petherbridge trips over a dead comrade, slipping in the other soldier's entrails, landing on his back amid shit and torn flesh, the pitchfork slipping from his grasp as the oak lady towers above him, her branches and face running red and black with blood and shit, spreading her legs to open her creaking, groaning, hissing sex which gleams with the sap dripping from its walls, a deep and malevolent green light pulsating within to light the struggles of still-living soldiers pierced and screaming by the barnacle-like spikes chewing into their faces, their genitals, their eye sockets.

Oswald and Johannes are startled nearly to waking by what approaches from the South. How can that be?, they want to ask aloud. In that same moment, in those billionths of seconds which have passed, their attention is drawn now to a place with no living trees inside of it, a place surrounded by saplings and soldiers from another time, a place which gleams in the perception of the trees with the hot, red, screaming light of cruelty, torture and despair.

A woman is trapped in a living mirror box in that place, as countless others are abused and assaulted in a ritual focused on raising a massive amount of negative energy, and Johannes and Oswald understand even as their minds' eyes are burned by the heat of the light of such pain. They understand and they cry out as the woman inside opens her mouth to a warm spoonful of brains, and the commander of the soldiers from another time who cannot get in to help the spellbound woman cries out, hearing a great beast now attacking from the South.

"Petherbridge! Where is Petherbridge?!" Lady Henrietta shouts. She sees the beast top the hill behind the dairy barn, this rickety old building she's been hacking at, screaming at, assaulting with every weapon and strength available to her at this time -- to no avail. Firelight reflects in its great dark eyes and it howls, the roots of the howl so deep in its chest that she feels her bones vibrate. They cannot fight this creature. She suspects that they are done -- she dies here, tonight, and all her history will end. No great journey, no escape to the New World, no secret compound in the golden hills of California. She accepts this, setting her stance and ready to attack.

Then a second howl, to the West. She turns in time to see, on the ridge above and to their right, a great black shape leaping firelit toward -- the back of an old man?

A third howl, overlapping with the first two, draws her attention to the burning field behind them to the East as

Brother Oswald and Brother Johannes see it all, perceiving the unfolding of this moment in simultaneous awareness through the network of roots connecting all trees, sensing its movement through the roots of the world, knowing now that all trees share all experience simultaneously with all other living, growing plant life.

Even the burning brown grasses of the field tell them of where a great black dog lands unsinged in the fire itself, its howl overlapping with the first two and echoing among the hills around them, its eyes reflecting the purifying flames, its body lithe and powerful as it raises up on its hind legs, towering above Petherbridge, its black claws gleaming in the light of this fire that does not burn it, ready to slam down and crush anything beneath. The monks sense this even as they sense

Leaves of Bay and Oak, falling from broken branches as another gigantic black dog leaps toward the back of the old Rancher fighting for his life, the Rancher's eyes widening as he turns -- and the black dog sails over his head to land, skidding, turning, deadly and precise, among the wolflings, facing the old man as

Saplings around the dairy barn and fully-grown trees on the hill above it shudder at the impact of each massive paw as this giant black dog throws itself down the hill, tongue lolling wild and pink from the left side of its foaming jaw. It will be upon the dairy barn in three great leaping strides. Roots beneath the dairy barn sense the blood spilled above, but unlike the blood of Brothers Johannes and Oswald which soaks down to nourish this network of awareness, the blood in the barn is held, it is separate and that which holds it from soaking into the earth is also that which is driving the women and girls in the barn to scream and scream and scream, inarticulate terror that stains the earth around it, causing the roots below to shrink back, the branches above to lean away. Even the dry brown grass around the barn in this moment loses its substance and puffs to dust as the women and girls trapped in that barn see something they should never have seen and the woman trapped in the living mirror box tilts the spoon up into her mouth, tears streaking her face to rinse just a little of the spattered blood away. The roots sense and absorb and transmit these images from the minds of the women in the barn just as their horror reaches a peak, exploding outward in a sudden and scalding supernova of pain, hatred, suffering, horror, terror and dread. It expands to encompass all the pain and fear and death in this little vale, from the dairy barn to the dead and dying creatures on the ridge above, to the soldiers and nurses in the field, to the creatures in the branches of the oak monster lady and the soldiers and nurses she's stuffed into her trunk through either hole.

The great black dog on the hill smells the figure it intends to attack and kill, aiming its final leap so that it can crash through the back wall of the dairy barn, ready to tear the throat from the figure in the spot to its left.

The massive black dog on the ridge attacks those nearest, tearing and throwing and snarling and breaking.

The immense black dog in the fire, red sparks swirling up around him like the blessing of an ancient lady in mountains two continents away, brings his front paws down to crush, and kill, the wolflings surrounding Lieutenant Petherbridge, who sees the terror in the eyes of the Oaken lady as the giant black dog lunges out of the fire, snatching her into his mouth and throwing her in the air like a bone, snapping her in half and tossing her into the inferno behind him, then bounding into the field to destroy every wolfling, every darkling spawn now fleeing in terror.

Petherbridge leaps to his feet, pitchfork in hand, shouting the only words he can think in that moment, "Good boy!" For he has heard the stories, the whispered words, the half-hoped-for tales of the trusty companion, the mythic savior, the noble and powerful beast who came to his Alpha's aid when all was thought lost.

His words are echoed by the Rancher on the ridge as the massive black dog tears into the wolflings, rending and scattering them before they can devour the dead, this giant powerful dog leaping up to bring his front paws down exactly like the Boxer of which he is half, piercing and crushing evil creatures by the score, barking his great deep barks to scatter them like cockroaches. The old man laughs and calls his praise as he, too strikes at the creatures, emboldening and empowering this astounding dog with these two ancient words, "Good boy!"

The woman and her husband see the scattering beastlings. They turn. They see the giant dog and the woman cries out, "Oh my God! What the fuck is that?! Wait, is that -- ? It is! It's Max! Good boy, Maxwell! Kill those little shitfucking evil motherfuckers! Kill! Kill! Kill them all!" Brandishing her machete, she sprints into their midst, followed by her laughing husband, his own machete drawn now, the couple joining the old man and the giant black dog as they chase the creatures to the North, into the trees and back down the hill toward the burning field, destroying as many as they can.

Brothers Johannes and Oswald gasp as the back wall of the dairy barn explodes open, the great black dog shattering the wall and the dark enchantments which have ensorceled the building against any other attack. He lands, skidding a little in the bloody straw, his jaws open even as he finds his footing, turning to his left. The monks see the interior more clearly, now: crazed women stand supporting six large, heavy, wood-framed mirrors, their bodies covered in cuts and gashes, bleeding freely. These women are whispering, screaming, laughing, lost in pain and madness, penetrated by the monstrous full-grown wolfbeasts that grind behind them, holding their hands in place on the mirrors or tearing into their flesh with razor-sharp claws and teeth already caked in blood and chunks. Beneath each wolfbeast and woman is a sizzling, smoking puddle of blood and other fluids. Distracted by the arrival of the gigantic black dog, the women and the wolfbeasts turn, even as the dog is turning and launching himself toward them, jaws wide, powerful muscles flexing.

In that instant, the supernova of pain and dread, expanding to just beyond the little vale in which all of this has come to pass, reaches its breaking point. 

The man toward which the black dog leaps, the man whose cruelty and madness have shaped this pit of torment for these innocent women and girls, sees the leaping dog -- a dog many times larger than it was the last time it leapt at him -- and opens his shattered mouth to scream. Not a scream of fear or pain. No. A scream of triumph: the mirrors, the pain he's created in these whores and harlots, all of this serves his victorious purpose, and as he feels the great globe of torment collapsing back in on him, he is screaming in delight, in Holy Rapture, ecstatic that he'll kill the dog, too, as he stretches his left arm out, reaching for the woman he's trapped with him in this mirror box.

Oswald and Johannes understand, now: the mirrors are meant to reflect, magnify and multiply all that happens within them. It's an infinity box. They gasp, sitting up, eyes open, all pain faded as they realize what he's done. Leaping to their feet, the monks do their best to run to the dairy barn before Torvald Walter Mayberry, former pastor of Three Square Christian Church and Missionary Bible School in Castro Valley, can succeed in his dark task. 

All of this is happening in the same instant that Max the Wonderdog is leaping to tear out Torvald Walter Mayberry's throat, and as Mayberry himself is reaching for Veronica's hand.

For what delight, Mayberry is thinking. What delight to take her with me, to tear her from this world as she tore me from my flock? To hold her down and treat with her as a whore should be dealt? The pain, the fear, the fluids, the whores, the brains, the mirrors --

His scream of triumph catches in his throat. The mirrors! 

"Nerrrr! Terrrrhhnng!" he bellows.

The mirrors are all angled toward him. He looks for the whore.

The monks have taken three steps.

The commander of the forces outside has raised her sword.

The myth-imbued dog is mid-air.

The woman has thrown herself to the floor.

The mirrors reflect only Torvald Walter Mayberry.

The supernova of anguish snaps back --

-- collapsing --

-- to its center --

even as Mayberry tries to smudge a sigil off the closest mirror, the Mana he has tapped slams into him and every dark working he has crafted ignites with the power of the agony of his victims. The mirrors explode with crackling heat and red-black energy -- blasting into him as a swirling counter-clockwise vortex opens behind him.

Max the Wonderdog tries to change his trajectory in mid-leap, latching onto an old rope hanging from the rafters with his teeth.

The vortex expands to envelop the broken, bellowing, terrified man trying to escape it. His eyes fix on an object on the floor as the superheated shards of mirror glass slice through his flesh and into his soul: the plastic spoon, a scoop of brains still in it. The last thought in his head is, She never ate the brains! Then the vortex sucks him in, ripping him in half as the mirrors and the now mostly dead women and rutting wolfbeasts are pulled in after, all clogging the vortex for a moment like too much shit in a toilet. Max the Wonderdog struggles to maintain his hold on the rope, his jaws aching as the vortex pulls at him, pulls at the barn and all people and things in and around the barn. Even the hillsides begin to lean in toward the barn until, with a wet, splashing thud, the pile of dead flesh and the gigantic mandoline smash into the vortex and shove everything through.

Max the Wonderdog yelps as his back left dewclaw is torn from his leg, the last thing to hit the swirling maeslstrom of energy.

The vortex snaps shut.

Max the Wonderdog falls to the floor of the dairy barn.

Every beam of the barn, every tree, every speck of dirt and every living and unliving thing relaxes back, the pressure of the vortex released.

For a time, there is only silence. The world is breathing, taking stock of its injuries.