Part two of my Halloween story.

If you have questions, read Part 1

If you have critisms, please tell me

If you have complements, definitely please tell me.

If you have none of the above.... bother.

​

In the woodland at the very bottom of the slope, where the four bobbing lights had been earlier in the evening, a low, blue glow was pulsing, casting an ethereal light up the slope towards them. Silhouetted on the edge of the trees stood four human figures, their long trench coats flapping in an incorporeal wind, their bowler hats somehow secured to their heads as four pairs of silvery glowing spectacles glowered malevolently at the manor. Between the figures and the militia, a darkened mass was forming. The formerly smooth grassy slope of the hill broken as mounds of earth began to form, figures clawing their way from the soil and sod, ancient weapons raising with nothing holding them, falling into formation.

The three women could only watch in horrified fascination as a solid mass of ranks grew before them. As the last figure joined the ranks, Dortnas slowly lifted her hand to zoom her helmet view in on the figures, jerking back with a horrified gasp as the image came into focus. Where she might have expected human resistance fighters, or even on a wilder guess, the bones and rotting flesh of the undead (if the human films they watched in barracks were anything to go by), instead there was only empty rusted armour, rotted uniforms standing in formation with nothing to hold them up. Weapons floating in mid-air as if held by trained soldiers.

Fingers scrambling for her mic she felt the click of it switching on.

“Th-This is Corporal Dortnas, w-we have a large force of intruders on the lower field! Repeat! Large for of intruders! Request reinforcements and alarm sounded!!”

As the last syllable left her lips, the four figures on the edge of the wood stepped forward in perfect unison, the four suddenly dropping as one down onto one knee. The instant their knees touched the grass, the blue glow emanating from behind them snuffed out, before exploding across the grass, slashing across the fields in all directions like a spiders web, surging over the wall and beneath the boots of the militiamen, sweeping over the walls of the manor and beyond, as far as the eye could see, the light flaring like a searchlight into the sky, blasting towards the atmosphere, blinding Dortnas despite her helmets anti-flare technology.

As the light slowly faded from her vision and she struggled back to her feet, Dortnas struggled to comprehend what she was seeing. The solid mass of figures was slowly and deliberately marching up the hill towards the three stumbling marines, the mind-numbing, paralyzing silence slowly being driven back by the sound of marching boots, the rattle of rusted and corroded armour.

The figures were moving steadily, the moonlight slowly revealing more details which froze Dortnas to the spot, her fingers still on the button of her microphone as the moonlight revealed no bodies within the tattered clothes and armour. Empty eye holes and gaping spaces where remains should be.

Shaking in fear, Dortnas tore her eyes away from the mass of figures already halfway up the hill, grabbing Thaklia by the collar of her suit, dragging her back towards the house. Just as she was starting to reach for her microphone again, a muffled yet distinctly male scream ripped through the air, the cry cutting off as abruptly as it began.

The windows of the manor began to light up, the main coms channel exploding in frantic demands for information, barked orders from Interior and marines interspersed with shrieks.

Wincing in pain, Dortnas struggled to turn down the volume before a single exclamation caused her blood to run cold.

Through all the cacophony over the coms, a single, petrified woman's voice cut through, “What? You! In the armour! H-halt! S-show your identification… g-goddess! N-no! stay back! Sta…!”

As her words cut out another muffled scream emanated from the upstairs of the manor.

Dragging a slowly recovering Thaklia, Dortnas reached the corner of the manor and turned to keep track of K’lthaia, spotting the woman still standing by the wall, glaring down the hill, her rifle in her hand as she fired frantically into the on-coming mass.

As Dortnas opened their personal coms, opening her mouth to order the stupid bitch to follow them, the words died in her throat, a suit of armour swinging over the wall with an enormous hammer, the weapon catching K’lthaia right in the eyepiece of her helmet, sending the woman toppling back. Before she could recover, the hammer was brought down with stunning force, smashing through the front of her helmet and killing her instantly.

Barely managing to avoid bringing up her rations, Dortnas immediately turned, dragging Thaklia with her towards the main door of the mansion.

Two panicky looking marines stood on either side of the doors, weapons raised and pointed squarely at her as she came round the corner.

“I-Identify yourself!” screeched one, her voice high and clearly on the edge of pulling the trigger.

“Corporal Dortnas and Private Thaklia! 3005th Militia regiment!”

“What's going on? Where’s the third of your pod?”

“K-Killed! There are intruders attacking our side of the building!”

“What? B-but there's already some inside!”

“How?”

“I-I…” the poor marine sounded like she was on the verge of tears as her friend took over.

“Unknown for now, how many intruders are there?”

As she hurried towards them, Dortnas felt Thaklia starting to recover, her feet starting to carry her own weight as the woman started to become more responsive.

“Th-There's at least two hundred! F-Four of them seem more dangerous than the rest! They-they started this!”

“huh?”

Just as she reached the bottom of the steps, Dortnas’ heart leapt into her mouth as she heard the sound of armoured footsteps crunching onto the drive behind them, turning to see the first suit of armour emerge around the corner, that massive, bloodied war hammer in its grasp as it plodded towards them, its helmet staring at them as the marines panicked, opening fire on it immediately.

Thaklia staggered, finally stumbling to her feet as the two women turned to watch the armour stride forward, seemingly unconcerned with the holes melting through its thin, rusted plate steel.

Gathering their wits, and grateful the marines were taking up the attention of more and more of the creatures as they emerged around the corner of the building.

Scrambling across the gravel driveway towards the stable/barracks, they burst through the door, finding the building abandoned apart from a single pod of militia they recognised as their relief.

“Wha-oh thank the goddess it's you!” gasped their pod leader. “What the fucks going on?”

“Monsters, ancient human uniforms and armour killing everything!” gasped a winded Dortnas.

“Oh shit”

“What?”

“There were reports from barracks… th-they said they thought it was some intimidation thing! They haven’t responded since!”

“Has anyone got word out?”

“We couldn’t before due to lighting interference. But the Garrisons at York and London have been alerted, they said interior forces are being sent from London!”

“Shit!”

Just as she spoke, there came a pair of pained screeches from the front of the manor, following by a rendering crash of the heavy oak doors being simply smashed inwards.

“How strong are those things?!”

“Stronger than any Shil or human I’ve ever seen!”

“Empress help us! What do we do?”

Dortnas stopped short at that question. Clearly, their weapons were useless, these monsters seemingly unstoppable by conventional arms. By the same token, with her ladyship and her family still theoretically in one piece inside the building, their lives wouldn’t be worth shit if they fled.

“Fuck! We have to try and…”

Her words were cut short as the small masculine form of her ladyships first husband was hurled with a pained squeal clean through the leaded glass windows of the first floor, his broken body landing with the sickening crack of multiple bones breaking, his sobbing wails echoing around the buildings as the broken window made the bellows and cries of the rapidly decreasing family and guards inside all the more audible.

The male's cries slowly decreased in volume as the militia looked at each other, Dortnas struggling to hide her own instinctive distress at the sounds of a male in pain. Silently, the five militiawomen chose flight over fight.

Quietly opening the only door of the building, they were just stepping onto the drive, the male's body clearly visible only a short distance away when all five stopped dead in their tracks.

Where before there was only the softly sobbing, broken man, there was now a single human figure looming over him. The lights of the house silhouetting him as he slowly and deliberately pushed the tip of his umbrella through the male's eye, silencing him with a single shove and twist of the wrist.

As if sensing their gaze the figure looked up at them, round thick spectacles almost seeming to glow beneath a midnight black bowler hat.

The Human straightened, yanking its umbrella from the Shil male beneath his feet as she sauntered towards them, its free hand disappearing inside its trench coat, only to re-emerge holding an enormous antique-looking service revolver. Despite herself, Dortnas couldn’t help a sigh of relief, at least some antique rock thrower couldn’t punch through Shil armour.

Her relief, however, was short-lived as the human casually raised his gun and fired, the gunshot blasting through the air as the last sounds of slaughter inside the manor finally ceased.

Fully expecting to hear the bullet simply bounce off someone's armour, Dortnas was aghast to hear a crack followed by a choked off cry.

Spinning to look at the other corporal, the woman was choking, blood spurting from her throat as she collapsed to her knees, the blood pouring through a neat, yet tiny hole in the neck guard of her armour.

“Goddess!” someone gasped as the human spoke up, its voice bearing the same, innocuous English accent as the woman, “If regular rounds don’t work, incendiary-sabot rounds will!”

The smile on the man's face was grim, his lips pressed tightly together as a neat burned hole appeared in the front of his trench coat, Thaklia’s weapon raised and pointed squarely at him as he glanced down at the wound.

“Tch, Mr Smythe will be most unhappy” he mused, turning his pistol towards her only to stop, peering at her, those opaque spectacles hiding his eyes from view. “Well, this simply won't do.” He sighed again. “Where is your protection child?”

“Protection?”

Dortnas froze, her own fingers closing around the stick she’d been given earlier that night, wedged in her webbing harness.

“You mean that twig?” spat Thaklia, “As if that would protect me?”

Even as she spoke, her free hand was frantically patting her pockets, seemingly trying to find it.

“Considering you and your friends are the only Shil left alive in the county” retorted the man. “But no matter, we only need one of you after all.”

The pistol fired again and Thaklia’s faceplate cracked as a hole appeared. What followed next was the most agonised, pain-filled screaming Dortnas had ever heard, a sound which haunted her dreams and thoughts for the rest of her life as Thaklia dropped to her knees, fingers scrabbling at her helmet, the sounds of bubbling, melting flesh filling the headphones of the rest of their little group as empty bloodstained uniforms slowly marched out of the manor, two striding up to flank the strange human.

One uniform was a bright crimson, the tall black helmet with its brass spike and crest on the front making it look ridiculously formal as it seemed to heft a rifle, tipped with a wickedly long bayonet which dripped slowly congealing globs of blue blood.

The other uniform was a dark khaki, the puttees around its lower legs and the flat, wide-brimmed helmet making it clear this was more recent. What was most disturbing about it, however, was the torn mask over where its face should be. The tears in the cloth revealing the nothingness behind it as it too hefted a rifle, a hose snaking like a worm from its "mouth" down to a tattered canvas bag on its chest.

Before any of the shocked Shil could react, the two uniforms rushed forward, their bayonets easily finding the joints in the two militia privates armour, their bodies jerking as the bayonets drove through their flesh, only to be twisted and yanked back out, the two women crumpling.

As she realised the true nature of this horror she now found herself in, Dortnas hefted her own pistol, pointing it squarely at the human, only to stare in confusion as he shook his head and slipped his revolver back into his coat.

“Now now corporal” he admonished, sounding like a disappointed father.

“You were gifted protection, and unlike your sisters, you respected it. The Temple respects the gift of ancient oak.”

As she hefted her pistol and took aim at his head, the man snapped his fingers, and inky blackness consumed her.

“You expect me to believe a word of that drivel!” the Interior captain slammed her hand on the desk.

“You're telling me that a human man dressed in formal clothes, with his magical uniforms, is the reason why every single garrison in the North of England, along with several high priority members of the aristocracy, were all wiped out in a single night? And not only that, the only reason why you survived was because you were carrying this fucking twig?”

the woman was apocalyptic with rage, her chest heaving as she slammed the offending stick onto the desk.

Restrained in a prisoner’s jumpsuit in the chair opposite, former corporal Dortnas could only nod mutely, knowing exactly how insane she sounded.

“Great, fucking great! Do you realise how difficult it's going to be to keep the humans from finding out we just lost the entire north of this fucking country? And the only witness we have is some titless militia cunt who insists it was fucking ghosts and empty human uniforms?”

The woman raised her hand as if to strike her and Dortnas flinched back, memories of the beating she’d already received when she had arrived at Interior headquarters in London earlier that morning making her feel like less than an animal in the sight of the woman looming over her.

Suddenly, the door of the interrogation room burst open, the captain whirling to face the door as a militia woman, her face a mask of utter unadulterated, soul-shattering terror, tears streaming down her cheeks, her chest heaving in sobbing gasps stared at the two women.

“C-Captain! Th-They just keep coming! N-Nothing’s stopping them!”

“What?! What are you talking about?”

“Th-The armour! The clothes! The-There's… there's no people! No bodies! Th-They’re killing everyone!”

The woman suddenly convulses, regurgitating the unrecognisable remains of whatever her last meal was.

“N-Nothings stopping them!”

Now that the door was open the sounds of rifle and pistol fire were distinctly audible, the sounds of shrieks of terror and agony steadily growing louder and louder.

Clearly realising the ever-increasing proximity of the sounds, the militiawoman let out a frantic sob, her gaze flashing around the room wildly, “There's got to be a way out! Where is the way out!!??”

Drawing her pistol the Captain simply pointed it at the woman, the hum of a fully charged power pack purring through the room. “The only way out is back the way you came soldier!” she barked.

The militia woman, far from looking cowed in the face of the pistol, simply shook her head and bolted from the room, the crash of a door being kicked in echoing down the hallway as the captain bolted into the doorway and aimed after the fleeing private, firing twice before turning to face the other way, only to be nearly bowled over by one of the males from the analyst's office, his form-fitting tunic splattered with blue blood as he stumbled, screaming in pain and fear as he sprawled in the doorway.

Even though she knew in her heart what was happening, the implacable tread of boots on the hard floor of the corridor, coupled with the gasp of horror from the captain and the pathetic mewling sobs of the male as he attempted to struggle to his feet was all the confirmation Dortnas needed.

Slumping back in her seat she squeezed her eyes shut, listening to the sound of the captain’s pistol firing, the woman’s commands morphing into rage-filled screams before devolving into frantic pleading before, with a sickening punching sound, her cries were reduced to choked gurgling, the males frantic sobbing begging cutting off in a pain-filled wail of heart-stopping fear, the sound of flesh and sinew tearing from bone filling her ears.

In the distance the firing was slowly petering out, the muffled screams cutting off abruptly one by one, the low mournful wailing of the district-wide emergency alarm blaring outside. All this, however, was mere background noise as Dortnas’ squeezed her eyes shut, unable to block out the steady thud of a single pair of boots entering the room, the rattle of chainmail and the clinking sound of armour stopping in front of her.

Resigning herself to her fate without her talisman, she slowly cracked open one eye.

Sure enough, before her stood that familiar suit of armour, its once burnished metal now splattered thickly with rapidly congealing blue blood, the empty holes of its helm considering her as its gauntleted hands held the severed head of the captain, her eyes and mouth wide in a look of unspeakable horror and fear, its other gauntlet loosely holding that dreaded hammer over its shoulder a warhammer she recognised all too well.

What caused her to gasp, however, was the four grim-faced men flanking the armour. Their thick glass spectacles hiding their eyes, their faces in shadow from the overhead lights due to their bowler hats, their black suits and simple striped ties covered by plain tan trench coats. Despite the carnage and blood, these men didn’t have a single drop of dirt or dust on them.

In that moment, Dortnas held no fear for the armour, for the fate of her fellows, her instincts knew, down to her bones, that these men were to be feared more than anything in the void of the universe, that these four… things… had organised this, they controlled what was happening, and they had no qualms about who was slaughtered, no matter how innocent.

“Corporal Dortnas P’kortha” purred the man on the far right. The only thing that identified him as different from the others being the two ancient-looking keys hanging on a chain around his neck and the small black pencil moustache.

“You were issued a gift of protection as an acknowledgement of your integrity, and because the Temple has use for you.” The creature’s (for this was no human) expression never changed as it offered her the now-familiar ribbon-wrapped stick of oak from the desk. “Are you familiar with creation stories corporal? Nearly every culture has one, and most of them start the same, one male and one female” the restraints of her chair clicked open as those glinting spectacles remained fixed upon her. “And in nearly every one of those stories, there is an entity or entities observing them, to make sure they make good of their opportunity.”

The figure then abruptly turned to the side, gesturing towards the open door and the blood pooling in the hallway, a clear invitation for her to leave.

Gathering her courage the Dortnas swallowed, shakily getting to her feet as she dared not take her eyes off the figure. “B-but our fleets! Our empire! They’ll come back! They’ll crush you all!”

Of all reactions that could have happened, a small smile wasn’t one, especially one that looked so terrifyingly human.

“We’re glad you still have fire in you corporal, You will need it in the years ahead. Unfortunately for your former empire, we got here first, and we haven’t protected these islands and claimed most of this planet in last 500 years, just for some purple children to stroll in and abuse our hosts!”

The smile, however slight it was, faded into its traditional disapproving expression.

“By the time you board a ship and return home, Humanity will be the only space-faring species with a population above two left in this section of the galaxy. We did not desire this end result, but the Temple serves the Crow and the Crown. The Crown shall light the way for humanity, and the Temple will guard the shadow of its cloak.”

As she watched, the suit of armour turned, striding out the door, the sound of its disturbingly wet footsteps disappearing down the hallway as the four figures nodded to her, turning and fading into the four corners of the room until only she remained.

“Make sure your descendants remember” the cold voice hummed in her head, the sensation of five bony fingers closing around her brain inside her skull. “You may be the new cradle of Shil, but no goddess watches over you. The Crow and its Temple will ensure you do not waste your last blessing”

Trembling in terror Dortnas tentatively stepped into the hallway, stopping dead in her tracks. Stretching down the hallway to the stairs leading out of the cells, multiple uniforms lined the walls, from every period of warfare of these islands, even some she recognised as having been from the “liberation”. All were armed, bayonets, swords, pikes and rifle butts broken, bent and caked in blood. Every helmet and cap was turned in her direction, thin air where flesh should be as they lined the walls, forcing her to edge between them as she bit her lip.

About halfway down the hall, her last ingrained resolve finally broke, a sob bubbling through her lips as her shuffling footsteps broke into a panic-stricken run, bolting for the stairs and up into the main interior complex, fleeing past the broken bodies of agents, analysts and specialists, some still clutching weapons or coms, aristocratic gold-clad bodies piled in amongst the others, their bodies broken and torn, some limb from limb while others were simply bayoneted or bludgeoned, dying slowly as they watched her run past. Bursting into the main foyer of the building, overlooking the building known as “Admiralty Arch” she stopped in her tracks. Standing with its back to her stood a single trench-coated figure, identical to the ones in the interrogation room, and the manor.

Turning to her it made no sound, simply gesturing behind it to the vidscreen on the wall which suddenly switched on, revealing the fearful faces of the main presenters for imperial wide media broadcasts, a male and female Shil staring at the camera from behind their desk as images started to play across the screen, the streets of Shil flowing with blood, the imperial palace smouldering as soldiers, interior, militia and civilians alike frantically fled through the streets, empty human uniforms and disembodied weapons marched implacably through withering fire to slaughter all they found. As the emergency broadcast system blared through the screen, footage upon footage piled in, anywhere the aristocracy was, anywhere some noblewoman who wanted to follow the trend had brought human military artefacts, even on the greatest warships of the fleet, the Shil species, their client species and anyone found by these creatures, was wiped from existence, like an unstoppable shadow across the empire.

The creature before nodded sagely, “We used this island and its people to create an empire across this planet once before, the Crow expresses its thanks you have provided us the means to ensure our chosen hosts will secure an entire universe.”

As the figure began to fade, its head tilted to the side, its hand lifting in facsimile of a cheery wave

“Ttfn, tata for now.”