46
Stopping
Grendel might be a little harder than I had initially expected.
To
start off, there’s the issue of finding out where the hell he’s gone to. Given
he has the whole of Earth’s history to hide in, I can’t really narrow things
down much. I’d hoped that I could trace him based on the distortions he left in
time, but the timelines are naturally so knotty and screwed up that finding a
single distortion amongst them’s near impossible.
Did
my best to find one, though. Ended up chasing a helluva lot of dead ends before
I finally stumbled on something in 11th century Ireland.
When
I first arrived, I assumed this was another goose chase. There weren’t any
signs of people living in the area, and the only distinguishing features seemed
to be hills, grass, and trees. Not the sort of place I’d be expecting anything
important to happen in. Saw some really dark storm clouds coming in fast, so I
figured I’d only look around quickly before leaving.
Walked
to the top of the hill, and saw a stone circle hidden amongst the trees. Kinda
like a mini Stonehenge, only overgrown and with Grendel drawing symbols on the
stones out of blood. He didn’t so much as glance away from his symbols when he
started speaking. “Hello dear. How can I help you?”
“I’m
here to stop you from…” Um. What was he doing? “Completing your… plans!” I
finished lamely.
This
time he did look toward me. “Oh. The young you. And to think, for a moment I
was preparing myself for excitement.” He snapped his fingers, and smoke began
to pour out of a sharp edge on a stone. Out of that smoke, a monster emerged:
take a bat, cross it with a zombie dog, cover the whole thing with smoke, and
you’ve got an idea of what it looked like. It leaped out of the stone toward
me, jaws open to rows of sharp teeth. I rolled to the side and drew a pistol,
but when I looked to where it should have been, there was nothing there.
Heard
a growl, and jumped aside right as the monster lunged at me from a different
direction. I tried aiming at it again, but it leapt at another stone, and
vanished in a cloud of smoke when it hit.
Heard
another attack from behind, and when I looked back, I saw two of the monsters
leaping toward me. Without any time to move out of the way, I warped out of the
way. Tried shooting both of them, but again they vanished in smoke.
“The
Hounds of Tindalos.” Grendel said, as the two dog monsters appeared at his side.
“Creatures that exist within the angles of time. They can enter the physical
world through any angles.” He waved a hand, and a glowing orb appeared. With
the orb, he began to walk toward the center of the stone circle, where a circle
had been made in blood. “With them here, I doubt there’s much you can do to
interfere with me.” A single bird drifted down from the sky, and landed between
Grendel and the star. He stopped, and stared at the bird. “You, on the other
hand….”
I
could hear a dull roar approaching, coming from the rain clouds I had seen in
the distance. At first I thought it was the sound of rain, but when I looked
again, I realized they couldn’t be clouds. Clouds don’t affect time like that.
It was the opposite of Grendel: where he drew the timelines toward him, this
repulsed them, as though they were being pushed away. Soon they were close
enough for me to see what it really was: not clouds, but thousands of birds,
flying in unison. The Convocation.
Grendel
started to run toward the star, but the Convocation attacked first, hundreds of
birds swarming down from the sky and completely covering him. The Hounds looked
as though they were preparing to jump to his aid. Using that opening, I warped
in front of one and shot through its head at point blank. It died just like
anything else.
The
other Hound started to turn toward me, but the Convocation was on it in a
moment, tearing it apart before it could attack or run. I thought, for a
moment, that the fight was over then. Only for the birds attacking Grendel to
be torn to shreds. Grendel lashed violently around, his hands ending in black
claws and shadowy tentacles coming from his back, killing any bird that came
near. He walked to the center of the circle and placed the orb down. The sky
turned dark and the lines of blood began to glow. An unseen force threw the
Convocation and I back, away from the stone circle. I felt a hole opening in
space, not visible in the physical world, but still present, and growing outward
from the orb.
“I’ll
leave you two to handle this.” Grendel said, just before he retreated into the
timelines. I charged at the center of the circle, only to be thrown back again.
The Convocation flew toward the circle, and it slammed into that force. The
strength of the Convocation’s swarm kept it from being thrown back, but it
couldn’t fly forward. Then the birds started to drop dead, until there weren’t
enough to maintain the strength and it was thrown aside.
The
Convocation regrouped its swarm, and flew at the circle again. It kept trying
to break through, only to be thrown back every time. Its efforts couldn’t be
sustained forever, as every failure killed more of the birds in its swarm. From
the original horde that had been so numerous as to resemble clouds, its numbers
were dropping rapidly, from thousands to hundreds, and from then to only
dozens.
When
the Convocation launched its next attack, I felt the shifting of time from the
two forces colliding. At the point where the Convocation and this force met…
Yes! I leapt down the timelines, coming out in the center of the circle.
It
was like standing in a hurricane. The forces tore at me, ripping gashes into my
skin and threatening to flay the muscle from my bone. Struggling against the
resistance, I aimed my pistol at the glowing orb, and fired. A chunk of the orb
was broken off, and instantly, the force exploded outward, destroying the stone
circle. But when the explosion subsided, everything had ceased. The orb and the
lines of blood no longer glowed, the sky was bright once more, and I no longer
felt the hole growing in space.
With
that finally dealt with, I collapsed onto the ground. Probably would need to
deal with all those bleeding cuts across my entire body, but for now, rest.
There were only six Convocation birds left from the original horde. One landed
near me, and, well… while I can’t say I’m comfortable with this thing,
especially after it killed Lucy… I felt it deserved at least a grudging nod of approval.
We’d stopped Grendel. From whatever it was he was doing.
….
....
….
I
really should try to figure out what it is he’s doing before I blindly run into
this sort of situation again, shouldn’t I.
I-330
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