As soon as Hunter heard the first explosion, he dove on top of Tiyana. He covered her with his massive Dahjaat frame. As the dust settled, he looked up and saw a gaping hole in the front wall and a rocket with a streamer of smoke trailing behind it heading for the throne. He looked down and covered her again. This time, the explosion hurt. He felt himself pressed to the ground. His back was pelted with shards of broken blackwood. He knew that they had to get out, but his hands were still bound.

“C’mon Tiyana, let’s move.” He said as he stood up.

He felt her lunge forward, ready to make a run for the front door, or whatever was left of it.

“Hold still!” A familiar voice behind them commanded.

In two seconds, Virgil had somehow undone Hunter’s bonds. Hunter had no idea how Virgil had gotten out of his own so quickly. Hunter then reached for Tiyana’s arms and fumbled with her chains.

“No, no, back off!” Virgil commanded again.

In an instant, Virgil had freed Tiyana.

“Let’s go!” She shouted and turned to run.

“Hold on!” Hunter cried.

He ran back towards the decimated throne, grabbed his swords and Virgil’s staff, and returned.

“Here you go buddy!” He said as he threw the staff at Virgil.

Virgil caught it and said, “Okay, good idea, now let us go.”

The trio sprinted for the hole in the front wall. Hongo saw them coming and prepared for action. He picked up the bullpup rifle and covered their exit.

Malacoda had seen the rocket coming and spread his wings. He flew up into the rafters and when the blast erupted, he broke through the roof and soared into the air. He flew in a beeline towards the forge where he rallied the yzorak. He flitted quickly from place to place within the compound, rallying everyone that he could as fast as possible. Hongo saw the red body and black wings zipping around the compound and tried to shoot him down. He was unsuccessful. As Malacoda made the rounds, Hongo noticed an immediate change in the disposition of the ghouls. Before, they had milled about the courtyard aimlessly, but now they seemed animated. They started running towards the center of the courtyard. Their numbers grew dramatically as more and more of them streamed out of the forge and into the courtyard. Hongo watched as Hunter, Tiyana, and Virgil ran into the courtyard, only to be confronted by a throbbing, impenetrable crowd of mindless ghouls.

“Bugger!” Tiyana muttered.

Hunter only said, “Here we go,” and launched himself into action.

With his swords spinning in front of him, he cut down the first line of ghouls with ease. More ghouls from behind the front line surged forward, however, and he could not keep swinging. One ghoul threw himself at Hunter, wrapping his arms around Hunter’s neck and trying to bite it. Hunter quickly dropped the sword in his right hand, grabbed the maniacal ghoul, and threw him aside. The throng quickly overwhelmed Hunter by their sheer numbers and Hunter retreated. Three ghouls who were bigger than the others, and more agile, sprung forward and tried to bury metallurgical instruments in Hunter’s body as he retreated. One stabbed with a chisel. Another jabbed with a fire iron. The third swung a mangled shard of scrap metal overhead. Just before they succeeded in their attack, Virgil’s voice erupted.

“Brand, difite!”

With the first word, tongues of fire leapt from the top of Virgil’s staff. With the second, the three tool-wielding ghouls burst into flames. They fell, harmlessly, at Hunter’s feet.

“Whoa.” Hunter said. “Impressive.”

He had little time, however, to gawk over Virgil’s tricks. The ghouls were advancing on them. Hunter thrust forward, then swung sideways, then swept low. He cut through line after line of ghouls in an effort to break free of the crowd, but no matter how many he cut down, the throng kept coming. Hunter did not know it, but while he was cutting away at the crowd from the front, Hongo was cutting at the back. Hongo had set his rifle to fully automatic mode and unleashed an unrelenting fusillade on the back end of the ghoul crowd. Meanwhile, Virgil had his eyes closed. His lips moved. He turned his head upwards. He held his staff with both hands, grounded it, and kept it pointed towards the sky. The ghouls crowded around the wizard, but none dared approach him. Tiyana wondered if they actually felt fear or if Virgil controlled them somehow. As Hunter struggled to break free of the crowd and Tiyana crouched defensively behind the wizard, Virgil opened his eyes and spoke. When his eyes opened, they were empty. His pupils and irises had faded away. An eerie white glow emanated from the blank retinas.

“Step aside Hunter.” Virgil commanded in a calm voice that boomed with unnaturally loud volume.

Hunter rolled backwards out of Virgil’s line of sight. This time Virgil said nothing; he merely raised the staff and thumped it on the ground. A barely visible shockwave hurdled across the gap between him and the line of ghouls. The blast blew through the crowd like a tornado. Bodies flew into the air and went to the right or to the left as if an enormous invisible wedge had been driven into the crowd. The blast had created a clear gap in the throbbing throng of ghouls.

“Move!” Virgil shouted.

The trio sprinted for the gap. As they ran through the open gauntlet, the ghouls surged forward and attempted to close the newly created gap. Hunter fought them off and kept them from hindering Tiyana’s exit. As Virgil ran, he periodically raised his open palm with his index finger pointed upwards and his other fingers bent in a cascading progression. As he did so, the ghouls attacking him would burst into flames and fall to the ground. Towards the end, with open space in sight, the crowd closed in around them. Hunter had to turn around and face an attack coming from his flank. Tiyana pressed forward only to be confronted by a line of ghoulish fiends. She panicked. She was about to turn and run back towards Hunter when the fiends shook spasmodically and fell to the ground. Hongo had mowed them down with a burst of 7.62 millimeter gunfire. Tiyana saw open space ahead of her and beyond that open space was the forest. In that forest, the Khan sat waiting for them.

As soon as Tiyana escaped the crowd, the gap closed. Virgil and Hunter found themselves surrounded. They kept fighting, but the ghouls continued coming. Hongo looked backwards and saw ghouls running in from the fields to the south. These ghouls wore battle armor and moved more slowly, but Hongo knew that if they arrived, then it would mean that the game was over. He saw Tiyana slip into the forest and prayed that she would bring the Khan around in time.

Tiyana sprinted through the forest. She had never run so fast in her life. Her legs were scraped by the underbrush as she barreled forward as fast as she could move. She hurdled bushes and fallen logs. She sidestepped large tree trunks. Eventually, she reached the Khan. She did not bother to close the back door that Hongo had left open. She just jumped into the driver’s seat, threw it into gear, and slammed the pedal to the floor.

Malacoda hovered over the fields to the south. He shouted out commands to the army of ghouls and roused them to action. As soon as he felt comfortable that they had gotten the message, he took off for the courtyard. He did not need to defeat Virgil and Hunter. He only needed to delay them until his army arrived.

Meanwhile, Hunter and Virgil kept the ghouls occupied while they waited for Tiyana to bring the Khan around. They had formed an uneasy standoff with the rows upon rows of snarling savages. Occasionally, a brave fiend would surge forward only to become cut down or incinerated. Hongo monitored the road leading into the courtyard with his binoculars. In a few minutes he saw the Khan emerge from the woods. It rumbled onto the dirt road and its backend whipped around behind it as it abruptly turned to come towards the compound. The Khan sped forward towards the courtyard. When it approached Hunter and Virgil, Tiyana threw it into park and got out. She carried a pistol and shot at the ghouls as she called out.

“Boys! Let’s go! Move!” She called out.

Hunter heard her and turned around. He saw her standing in front of the Khan, calling out to them. He punched Virgil in the shoulder and motioned towards the vehicle. Virgil turned around and saw Tiyana. They both started running for the Khan. Hunter then watched in abject horror as a dark, ashy cloud of smoke appeared behind his wife. The cloud contracted and solidified into a tall, pale, imposing figure. Ghaelvord stood behind Tiyana decked out in his full regalia of armor. Hunter watched with dread as Ghaelvord pulled his massive maul from the strap that held it to his back and hovered the weapon above Tiyana’s head.

“Do not move.” Ghaelvord’s voice was loud and serious, but calm.

Tiyana slowly turned around to see him towering over her. She held her pistol at her side.

“Drop your weapons now. Everyone.” Ghaelvord’s voice continued.

Hunter and Virgil immediately opened their palms and let their weapons drop to the ground. Hunter’s heart sunk into his chest. They had come so close. They had gotten so far. They had almost escaped. Then, Hunter’s heart sunk even further as he saw his wife do something that made him panic. Instead of dropping her pistol, she raised it and pointed it directly at Ghaelvord’s unprotected face.

“Tiyana, no!” Hunter screamed with all of the energy that he could muster.

A look of surprise broke out across Ghaelvord’s face, but he reacted quickly anyways. He brought his maul down hard in a vicious arc. The heavy metal weapon struck Tiyana with a force great enough to crack boulders. Everyone watching cringed in terrified anticipation, but instead of absorbing the brutal blow, Tiyana’s body merely exploded into chalky dust. Then, Hunter heard Tiyana’s voice.

She sat in the driver’s seat of the Khan with her head poked out the window. She looked at Ghaelvord, smiled slightly and shouted.

“Don’t move!”

With that, she slammed on the gas and ran over Ghaelvord’s monstrous Dahjaat body. The steel grill of the heavy vehicle struck Ghaelvord’s midsection hard. He fell forward and the grill struck him again in the head. The vehicle’s front end popped up and came down hard on Ghaelvord’s body as he slipped beneath the wheels.

Hunter and Virgil’s jaws dropped as they stared with mouths agape. Tiyana’s voice broke their trance.

“Hey! Boys! Stop staring and get in! We’ve got to move out, pronto!”

They acquiesced and ran towards the vehicle. Virgil opened the passenger door and climbed in. Hunter ran towards the back end. He would not be able to fit his large Dahjaat body in the vehicle’s cab. Before he got in, however, he stopped at the driver’s side door.

“Tiyana, Shenouda is still in there. We can’t just leave her.” He said.

“Oh bugger! Hunter, how are we going to get back in there?” She replied with exasperation in her voice.

A numerous crowd of ghouls stood between them and the main hall.

“I got this. Just drive when I start shooting.” It was Hongo’s voice.

When the vehicle had pulled up to the courtyard, Hongo had climbed down off the roof and ran for it. While their attention was on Tiyana and Ghaelvord, Hongo had climbed into the back of the Khan. He now threw open the roof panels and raised the M61 Vulcan rotary cannon up on its tripod. They heard a loud, high-pitched whine as the barrels of the massive gun began spinning. In a few seconds they heard the deafening thud, thud, thud of large metal slugs being propelled at great velocity from the rapid-fire Gatling gun. The ghouls started dropping like flies.

“Alright Hunter, get in. We’re going to go for her.” Tiyana screamed over the roar of heavy gunfire.

Hunter ran around to the back of the vehicle. He grabbed the still-open back door and ripped it from its frame. He threw the door aside and climbed into the now-open back end. He stood behind Hongo and held onto the sides of the vehicle as Tiyana threw it in gear and drove towards the crowd. They hit the group of ghouls hard. Some went under the wheels and others fell from Hongo’s gunfire. When they reached the gaping hole in the main hall, Tiyana spun the vehicle around. Hunter jumped off the back and ran inside to get Shenouda. Hongo turned the heavy weapon on its tripod and continued to strafe the crowd. Hunter came back in a flash with Shenouda’s unconscious body limp on his shoulder. He gingerly, but hastily laid Shenouda down towards the front of the bed of the vehicle. He resumed his position standing behind Hongo and holding onto the back walls. Tiyana, again, hit the gas and they sped through the crowd a second time. Hongo continued shooting and a trail of shells littered the path that they took through the courtyard to the dirt road.

“We made it! Ha ha!” Hunter shouted exuberantly as he clapped Hongo on the back. “Way to go Hongo! You absolutely saved us back there.”

Hongo turned around and smiled. Hunter then watched as Hongo’s smile turned sour. Hunter followed Hongo’s gaze and looked sideways. He saw hundreds upon hundreds of armored ghouls running towards them from the south fields. The ghouls in the front raised their arms and Hunter saw pulses of blue electric light shoot outwards. Hunter yelled at his wife.

“Tiyana! Incoming!”

She hit the brakes and a pulse shot past the front end of the vehicle. She immediately stepped on the gas again and they lurched forward. Hunter nearly lost his balance from the stop and go motion. He held on to the walls for dear life. Pulses exploded all around them, but none hit the vehicle. They saw pulses go into the forest and vaporize trees. Where the pulses hit the road, they created large potholes. Tiyana had to swerve to avoid them, and, again, Hunter gripped the sides of the vehicle for dear life. They moved much faster than the advancing ghouls and the farther away they got, the less accurate the energy pulses became. Eventually, the pulses just zipped harmlessly past them, missing them by wide margins.

“Whew. We really dodged a bullet there, eh Hongo?” Hunter said.

“Yes.” Hongo said simply.

Hongo felt uneasy. If this army had sophisticated ray guns, then Hongo wondered what other novel surprises they had up their sleeves.

In the front cab of the vehicle, Virgil turned to Tiyana.

“What was that?” He demanded.

“What was what?” Tiyana said in mock puzzlement.

“You used magic back there. Specifically, my magic.”

“I didn’t know anyone owned it.”

“Fair enough, but how?” He pressed on.

Tiyana lectured, “Virgil dear, there’s no such thing as magic. Look, I am a scientist, a very accomplished scientist actually. You cannot sneak anything by me. I ran tests on that rock, the gaiacarn, or whatever you call it. It has heavy elements in it. Heavy elements that with the right amount of heat and shock can break down into lighter ones. It can resolve itself into varying shapes and compositions. Now, I also looked at the dust.”

“The dust?” Virgil asked.

“Yes, the dust that your doppelgangers burst into when they disappeared.”

“Ah.”

“That dust is the trick isn’t it? It’s carbon and oxygen based. It has a double helix structure when you get right down to the nitty gritty of it. It’s not just chalk or sand or powder. It’s a roadmap. It’s a roadmap for the breakdown of the heavy stone.”

“I am impressed. You learned all of that in the short time that we spent in Egypt before heading to Somalia?”

Tiyana nodded her head.

“That and more, Virgil. That and much more.”

“Tell me.”

“It’s a long story. I’ll go through it with you as soon as we are well out of harm’s way.”

“Understood, but remember, this can be dangerous. It is a wide world. You have just begun to scrape the surface of what is possible.”

“Does that bother you?” Tiyana asked.

“No. It does not. You are opening a door that the Aldenduenum closed many millennia ago. I do not concern myself with the debate over the propriety of that decision. Just know that you have cracked open the lid of Pandora’s Box. Proceed with caution.”

Tiyana had felt quite proud of herself, but Virgil’s words instilled disquiet in her. She had expected surprise, but had not anticipated those unnerving words of caution.

Virgil abruptly changed the subject, “I thought I had stopped them. Frustrating.”

He shook his head.

“Stopped what?” Tiyana asked.

“Those weapons. The energy-based ones that we were just now attacked with. They present a unique danger. They vaporize matter on contact. They will change the landscape of warfare if they get out.”

“So, Ghaelvord kept them from the Aldenduenum. What can you do about it?”

“I know, it is only that I thought that this problem would die with Tesla.”

“Tesla?” Tiyana asked.

“Are you familiar with Nicola Tesla?” Virgil asked.

“Of course, the pioneer of alternating currents and other electrical innovations.” Tiyana responded.

“Have you heard of his later work with charged particle beams?”

Tiyana giggled, “You mean the ‘death ray?’”

The look that Virgil gave her made her stop laughing. Tiyana could not believe that he was serious.

“You can’t be serious.” She said.

“You have no idea what lengths I went to in order to persuade him to scrap those plans.” Virgil said. “He was a stubborn man, rest his soul.”

“So, the death ray was a real invention?” Tiyana asked.

“Very. When he wrote that it would send concentrated beams of particles with enough energy to bring down a fleet of 10,000 enemy airplanes at a distance of 200 miles from a defending nation’s border, he may have exaggerated a bit, but not much. He, of course, envisioned one enormous gun. It would be many years before the smaller, hand-held versions that Ghaelvord possesses would be invented.”

“And you talked him out of it?” Tiyana asked skeptically.

“Talked, bribed, threatened… as I said, he was stubborn.” Virgil said.

“So, if you stopped that weapon, then why stop there? Why didn’t you stop us from inventing atomic bombs?”

Virgil shot her a critical look.

“You can probably guess the answer. Splitting an atom or fusing two atoms is too simple. I could not hide that forever. Someone would try it at some point. Also, that knowledge is necessary as a stepping stone for other knowledge. Think about it. If I stopped Heisenberg, then Bohr would have invented it, if I stopped Bohr, then it would be Maxwell, and so on and so on. I would have to commit genocide against physicists across the world in order to stop the march of nucleics.”

“No one could replicate Tesla’s work?” Tiyana asked, genuinely intrigued.

“He was unique. There have been those who probably could, but they have not. It took years of dedication. Human lifespans are currently relatively short.” Virgil shrugged his shoulders.

“Virgil, if Ghaelvord gets nukes…” Tiyana trailed off.

“I know. I wonder if I should have tried. I did not expect any of this.” Virgil mused.

“This is all our fault. If only we hadn’t stuck our nose into those catacombs. I guess it’s true what they say about cats and curiosity.” Tiyana said.

“Do not blame yourself. You could not have known.” Virgil reassured her.