Round-eyed in disbelief, or grinning in fright: these were the faces of the parade soldiers who did not expect to be thrown into battle. Even worse was that this was against an enemy that looked human from a distance—until their approach revealed their bizarre appearances. Patchwork creatures with features taken from various animals, with compacted hair that served as their defense and large dagger-like claws, their business ends. Their guttural growling and fast, uneven steps unnerved many of the Imperial troops present; those unable to move out of fright were given raw gashes that left them lying in a pool of their own blood.

  There were the steely-nerved ones who broke free of their paralysis and found out that these otherworldly organisms were not immune to bullet holes and bayonet stabs. Though scattered, the formation regained composure and began subduing the monster horde with a hail of bullets. Machine-guns were let loose, mowing down massed gatherings of the nether beasts, reducing them into gore and scattered body parts.

  Survival, retreat—fear itself—meant nothing to them. They hurled their bodies forward not as beasts defending territory, but as offerings. Watching them die without hesitation chilled Rinvar more than their claws ever could.

  Rinvar watched the violence from an elevation overlooking the battlefield; even the night sky could not hide the ruddy web of blood and broken bodies. These would smell the morning after, he thought while gritting his teeth in disgust. Wounded soldiers were pulled out of the fighting after the monsters were reduced to a small fraction of what came out of the forested area. Machine-gun fire echoed in rapid, often short, bursts.

  That horde, savage and relentless they were, was a prelude to bigger trouble ahead.

  A creature much larger than the rest let out a guttural roar; the crackling of flames inside its mouth interrupted the release of sound and smoke. It ambled cautiously, approaching the body of wide-eyed soldiers; a slight cracking of the earth revealed claws almost the size of swords. A proud call to battle, followed by the circling of a fiery whirlwind. The monster leaped several meters in the air, landing on all fours, resulting in a mild tremor. A lion for a head, and its tail was the neck and head of a serpent-like creature. It poised like a cat ready to pounce; the emergence of a goat’s head on its back added another source of fire that both outlined and shadowed its monstrous size.

  Most of the surrounding troops were quick to realize what was about to happen and dispersed to the nearest cover they could find. Those who failed to jump out of the fire’s way screamed to a painful end; human pyres stood for moments and dropped lifeless to the ground. There were no charred remains; a weak gust of wind scattered what little ash remained of the unfortunate ones.

  Rinvar stopped to witness soldiers scrambling into positions in hopes of getting a good shot at the gargantuan intruder. Much of the field around the creature was covered in smoke. The monstrous intruder was welcomed with a flourish of several rifles. Their bullets did not stop the monster’s advance, much to their surprise, forcing most to fall back to safer positions. Rinvar peered through an officer’s pair of binoculars to spot the entity. He had seen massive elephants from the Dark West, but this creature stood almost twice their height. The one at the front resembled that of a large cat; the size of its mane was enough to protect its head from the soldiers’ weapons. An evil fusion of creatures; each head looked out for enemies. They were not to be treated as prey, but as targets that had to be destroyed.

  Elena left the safety of the command vehicle to watch the monster terrorize Imperial troops. One of the smaller field guns turned to face the creature, firing a shell and striking it on the shoulder. That high explosive shell was brought to bear just in time. The shell struck the creature in a cloud of smoke, loud exclamation from some of the gun crews.

  The smoke cleared. The giant still stood.

  Elena’s gaze turned to Rinvar, standing next to her. She knew that look of defeat in his eyes, at least one that was beginning to set in. The guns of the Empire spoke, yet they failed to make the monster listen. She ran to him, holding him by the arm before saying:

  “No. This can’t be…” She gaped at the sight of the growing clarity of the monster’s outline. “This thing. It shouldn’t exist.”

  Rinvar turned to her, and the fear in her eyes unsettled him more than the crackle of burning foliage and debris.

  “What do you mean?”

  “The Luminberg Terror,” she said. “It was never slain. It was sealed.”

  Elena caught her breath again, though she was hardly less tense than before the first wave of monsters descended upon them. Her grip on the captain’s arms was tighter than before. She continued:

  “The library. The beast in the mural, in the flesh…?” Her voice was almost carried away by the crackle of flames and the bursts of gunfire. “The one that tried to break through the Wall.”

  “It sure is looking like it’s trying to protect it.” Rinvar held her closer. “Monsters shifting allegiances. I may appreciate the history lesson later, but… anything written in those books that will help us defeat it?”

  Farin was beside them all along, listening. She interrupted them with:

  “The mobile field guns had some punch that rocked the monster.”

  “Knights of legend.” Elena squeezed out words before closing her mouth in horror. “They had slain fell beasts by striking their maws.”

  Elena witnessed another wave of furious heat unleashed on the struggling soldiers. She closed her eyes and tightened her hold on Rinvar. She looked at both officers and came up with:

  “There is maybe one way,” Elena said, and immediately regretted speaking. “An ice charm—forced into its mouth.”

  Rinvar heard the hesitation she tried to hide. This was not a spell meant for something like that. In confusion, he asked:

  “What do you mean, Love?”

  “Maybe… maybe, we can use one of these guns to shoot it into the creature’s mouth. ”

  “This tracked gun carrier behind us can do.” Farin looked at the machine with a creased forehead.

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  “I’ll get the colonel and have the crew ready for it.” Rinvar followed Farin’s gaze. “Uh, Director, maybe you can lend your expertise behind the wheel so that we can distract the beast while my beloved readies her craft.”

  He looked at Elena, embracing her and pecking her lips in an attempt to calm her, or was it so he could be calmer? Rinvar said:

  “Do what you have to do, and if things become more dangerous, flee with the soldiers until the rest of the Empire arrives to better contain this… thing.”

  “Come back to me, Rinvar.”

  “I won’t allow this cat monster to get the best of me.”

  He looked at Farin, who started the engine of one of the empty armored cars. The director found another Bureau officer in the chaos. An exchange of words only she and the operative heard amidst confused orders and rattling guns. Rinvar watched their conversation end with a salute and the unknown man taking the driver’s seat. Farin returned to Rinvar and spoke:

  “You know Heinrich, right?”

  Farin jerked her hands to shield herself from a distant explosion. While they were too far from the center of the violence, the tremor of the stomping monster and the field guns trained to silence it reached where they stood. She continued:

  “He should be able to drive you around better. I’ll take Elena to that gun tractor.”

  “You know how to drive that thing?”

  “Not exactly, but I can work on that gun from a distance better than your dear wife.” Farin somehow picked up confidence in the chaos. It was little wonder she outranked the Melvich scion. “Besides, I figured you’ll be a little less nervous if both Elena and I are doing this from a safer place. She puts this idea of hers into action, while I bring it to the creature’s mouth to… how do those children say it, make it cold as frost.”

  Rinvar nodded and watched Farin climb aboard the box-shaped fighting vehicle with two other men. He held Elena and said:

  “I’ll come back.”

  He held Elena tight before turning away and hopping aboard the armored car. It was what she needed to hear. He didn’t know how a magical trinket could subdue a colossal killer the Army was having trouble handling, but there was no reason not to trust the idea. The truth stayed locked behind his teeth. Rinvar climbed into the fighting compartment, thinking that if he failed in this task, this monster would come after everyone else. He shook the image of Elena perishing in the flames away as he tried the gun.

  “Damn it! What is that thing?”

  “Bandages! We need more bandages.”

  “Our bullets aren’t going through?”

  “Get the bigger guns here!”

  Attempts to surround the monster with armored cars began; arcs of machine-gun fire flew, missing the creature most of the time. The beast leapt out of most of the bullets’ paths; the little ordnance that managed to connect was lodged between layers of fur, with some falling off the beast after losing inertia.

  Founts of earth popped as machine-gunners guided their weapons towards the monster that seemingly evaded them in well-timed leaps that caused the ground to shake. An armored car attempted to sneak in a shot from behind while the creature was midair. The monster’s “tail” saw it ahead and opened its maw to unleash a stream of fire at the vehicle. Men who were operating the machine leapt out right before the fire tore through the front engine; the resulting explosion reduced the vehicle to a bent and burnt hulk.

  “You doing good there, Sergeant?” Rinvar watched as more of the Imperial Army soldiers responded in an attempt to prevent the creature from going deeper through the encampment.

  “I can’t say I feel good about this.” The driver replied, “That monster melting our cars is far from comforting.”

  “This monster’s instinct knows what we’re throwing at it.” Rinvar loaded a belt into the armored car’s machine-gun turret. “We’ll drive around it, keep its eyes on us, and hope the others take it down.”

  “That doesn’t make it sound less difficult, Captain.”

  More soldiers rushed in an attempt to contain the beast; a cacophony of machine-gun and rifle fire raked the earth and struck its body. The goat head caught sight of the firing line and opened its mouth to gather a grand fireball lobbed onto the barricades. The crackle of incinerated wood and burning earth stood in place of a line of soldiers that scattered to flee from the attack.

  The monster managed to reach the first artillery position that recently let off another salvo at the still-intact Wizards’ Wall. Streams and balls of fire were loosed on the gun crews; most of the soldiers manning the artillery pieces ran to escape the chain of explosions that followed.

  “This is why magic is both fascinating and feared.”

  ????

  Rubber treads clapped against the earth as the boxy war machines prepared to engage the fire-mouthed enemy. Though they were meant to move inside Luminberg like parade floats, the Melvich army did not bother unloading the machine’s ammunition stowage. A breach of Imperial regulation, but this was a welcome find, given the strange situation that all of them hoped would never happen again. If they had the time to change the tracks into ‘road-safe rubber’ then removing the shells would have been an easier task. At least this fighting compartment was roomier compared to the turrets Farin had grown familiar with.

  The nobility’s ‘logic’ must have crept into the minds of its territorial armies.

  Farin peered through the armored vehicle’s periscope. The look of the outside was both distorted and discolored; the beast’s ravaging gave the view in shades of red so strong the night sky could not conceal it. Rinvar’s machine was weaving through a maze of wrecks, fire, and the dead. The monster was hunting down the scattered elements of the first artillery position, long compromised as bent metal tubes. The smell of spent explosives and an assortment of charred objects crept into the fighting vehicle’s air supply. She looked at Elena, who was closing her eyes and holding two crystals in each hand.

  Farin was about to open her mouth to ask, but she knew better than to disturb Luminbergers from their craft. Was she channeling magical energy into those quartz-looking rods? Perhaps she would have understood this process better had she finished reading Sister Mia’s recommendations. That would have taken her weeks to understand, and probably more than a year to grasp how they worked in practice.

  The attempt to lure the fire-breathing beast out of the rest of the artillery positions began. Rinvar let loose a burst of rounds at the creature’s ‘tail’. It jolted out of the bullets’ path after some of the shots almost hit its right eye. The sound of a ghastly mix of braying and roaring came from all three of the monster’s heads. Rinvar’s move was returned in kind as two streams of flames that drew two black lines on the ground. A violent swerve rattled the fighting compartment: that would have reset the captain’s aim before attracting the beast’s attention again.

  Fire that bore the hue of darkening red gathered inside the beast’s mouths. This exposed the creature’s side to those in the armored boxes. The commander of the second gun carriage let loose a round that struck squarely on the creature’s shoulder. Though unhurt, the force was enough to knock it off-balance.

  Meanwhile, Farin checked on Elena, who sat down and leaned on the back area of the fighting compartment. The Silbern lady said:

  “It’s done. I need something we can combine with the charm.”

  Farin pointed Elena to some solid steel darts on the ammunition containers, and the latter wasted no time combining the ice charms into the shells’ tips. There was a touch, followed by a soft blue glow, and the tip of the steel dart showed a bluish gray discoloration.

  “That’s it?”

  “That’s it, Director Farin.” Elena huffed slowly and chose not to stand. “You’ll have up to three tries. I pray that you’ll make all of them count.”

  ????

  At last, the beast was contained by House Melvich’s soldiers; the struggle was about to come to a hopeful conclusion. Smoke clung to the periscope as moisture, making aiming a challenge.

  “Adjust to…”

  “Director, we have it aligned…”

  “Now there, perfect. Fire!”

  The monster looked its way, letting out a defiant roar before the cannon unleashed its shell. Farin stepped aside as the gun recoiled almost to the other end of the compartment. Elena gripped the ground while everything else inside shook. It took moments before the vehicle stopped shaking.

  The dart flew past, missing the target by a few degrees. The larger field artillery aimed at the Wizards’ Wall was used on the creature, blasting it on both its sides. Irritated by the loss of its stance, the creature remained open-mouthed while it figured out which group of humans should pay for provoking it. It meant the armored carriage could fire again.

  This time, it struck home.

  Hacking, coughing at the speedy missile that entered its mouth, the monster could not move from where it stood. Another shell from the same vehicle was plugged into its maw. Cracks of glowing blue appeared as bulging veins. Robbed of its roar, the lion's head flailed its claws around, unfamiliar with the feeling of a creeping cold that was choking it. Bluish light glowed on the mouths of the other heads; the only sound it made was its body collapsing onto the earth, its form wilting into black dust.

  The rampage was finally stopped. Soldiers rubbed their eyes. A bad dream carried by the wind, perhaps. Everything stopped: the circling of armored cars, Imperial troops aiming guns at space, yet the fires of the battle remained standing.

  The Wizards’ Wall was still intact, and the new Evening of the Defense was yet to be concluded.