Chapter 32: The Battle in the Dark Forest

“Alright ... looks like we teleported about four-fifths the way to the village,” Ayida-Weddo commented to Lilith after they gained hold of their bearings at the area that they just teleported to.

“I can see the village through the dense forest,” Lilith said as she looked forward. Her eyes lit the low lit area to her, allowing her to see everything with precision. She turned to the left to see the edge of the dirt road through the foliage.

“Let’s move forward,” Lilith said carefully observing everything.

They began to walk forward as they would cross and pass tree after tree walking through the heavy plant life with no difficulty.

“So tell me, Ayida,” Lilith asked her quietly to prevent anybody from hearing them. “Do you think we will be done after this raid?”

“I am hoping so. It sounds like Taylor has fled, and a cease-fire will remain in place. We might see an end to this whole war. We are just cleaning up the stragglers now. In some ways, I don’t mind it at all.”

“Going after these men?”

“Stopping these men and going after this mythic warlord. One last round of glory for all of us before we get to relax.”

“You might get to relax with that new human mate you found,” Lilith commented as she stepped over a big fallen log. “But with me, there is still more for me to do. I will need to talk to my son after this just to catch up with him. I hate being the mother to someone I keep getting separated from.”

“Helsing will be just fine, Lilith. You raised him to take care of himself.”

“Yeah ... he is all I got left from ... him. I do miss Danek.”

“The curse of immortality is something we all have to deal with, my vampire friend. The best way to combat it is to just move on and find a new human to play with or find a mythic to take up as a mate.”

“Heh ... since you speak of that, there is somebody I will have to check up on after all this.”

They stopped as they reached a series of trees. Lilith could see better than Ayida as she scanned everything in front of her.

“What do you see?”

“We are less than a quarter of a mile from the village now,” Lilith remarked. “I see small campfires from the thick foliage. I do smell them. I would say we can get a little bit more closer to about hearing range and watch from the forest into the village. They don’t look like they are in any alert. The forest itself is so thick and filled with wildlife they wouldn’t even know we are coming.”

“Except possibly the warlord mythic ... this ‘General Thunder Clap’ might pick us up depending on who he is.”

Lilith shrugged. “What can I do? Mythic vs. mythic, we all just cancel each other out.”

“We are doing everything possible. Nothing else matters.”

“Let me ask you something, Ayida. How did you feel when the Dahomey Kingdom fell when you were not there to be with them?”

Ayida herself shook her head. “There was nothing we could do. I was already part of the Coalition of Deities, even I would have had my hands tied behind my back. I simply had to live it. Besides, I was already with a human mate that I was taking care of till his dying days. Those two prevented me from being a part of the process.”

“Do you feel that you let them down?”

She shrugged as she stepped past a tree, “Yeah, but my loyalties are not always here to Benin. Now it is Haiti.”

Lilith shook her head. “Forget I asked.”

“I always think of the past and what actions I could have done differently. The fact is, if I did act and tried to stop the French from conquering the kingdom, I could have turned into this warlord we are seeking out now. I would be a rogue mythic that would have been hunted by others. I accept my past, and that is that.”

The vampire nodded her head. “Yeah, that is good. If only I could forgive my past that way too.”

“Your past is what makes you who you are now. Don’t hate yourself for it. When you go back far enough in their thousands to eons of life span, I guarantee everyone in the Coalition has done some bad shit. That’s why the Coalition was created in the first place, to move on.”

Lilith nodded as she stopped and unholstered her powerful revolver. She continued forward.

“That gun is powerful but not practical against the humans,” Ayida commented upon seeing her gun.

“Well yeah...” she said. “I was supposed to go against mythics and vampires, not swarms of men. Besides, you still use that Kp ... Kpinga of yours. You literally brought a knife to a gunfight.”

“I have magic, and you don’t,” Ayida snapped at her. “And no, teleporting does not count. Can you throw fireballs? No. Can you throw ice bolts? No. Can you make pretty little rainbows? No ... so shut up.”

There was a mischievous smile that appeared on Lilith’s face. “I knew that there was a way if I can keep sticking you that I can make you squirm a little bit. You know now that I think of it ... that man Thomas. I wouldn’t mind having dinner with him. Or maybe having him for dinner.”

“Hmmm...” Ayida responded as she gritted her teeth.

Lilith started to chuckle a little bit. “I am just poking fun of you. You know how serious I am all the time. You have a tendency to get serious too much too. You need to hang out with Xuanwu a little bit more.”

“Ugh...”

Lilith stopped again as she smelled the air. Her emotions quickly shifted as she studied what she was picking up.

“What is it?”

“The smell that I am getting ahead is ... unusual. I smell the blood of something, but I am not completely familiar with it. Could be the mythic. Is that magic of yours ready to be used for this battle?”

“I had a chance to be in my normal form long enough to recharge. I should be alright. It is good, though, that you and Xuanwu are with me. Even Thomas can help provide cover.”

They stepped behind another set of trees. They were getting close to the village.

“You know that he is vulnerable more than ever,” Lilith commented to her. “Forty ... fifty men ... not all of them will be concentrated on us. They will try to shoot him down.”

“I know, I know. He has made it this far, though, right? Thank you, by the way, in lending one of your revolvers to him. He at least has a fighting chance by himself if he gets separated.”

“We are close enough now,” Lilith whispered. “We can get behind the trees and observe the village now.”

They reached near the edge of the village as they hid behind some trees. The quietness of their bare feet on the grass made them virtually silent as they used the darkness and trees to hide. There were men on watch, but it was in a haphazard state where men were easily distracted by one another. They were too close inside the village where the other men would talk to them, and they would look away repeatedly.

Kahnla was not exactly a big village. It consisted of at least ten huts and make-shift built homes in a deep forest that connected to Guinea’s border. Essentially it was the most northern last stop before leaving Liberia altogether. In the center was a group of several men, at least twenty that Lilith counted. There were at least five sets of campfires that helped illuminate the area. Ayida-Weddo noted that there were at least three trucks that the men used to drive themselves in. One truck was armed with a machine gun mount on the back, but no one was manning it. Compared to the rest of the location, Kahnla was a brightly lit spot in the middle of nowhere.

“I can count at least twenty so far ... make that twenty-two now,” Lilith whispered. “Some are armed with the typical AK rifles that are on watch. Nothing we should worry about. I am keeping an eye for our warlord.”

Ayida did her best to scan the area as well in the darkness. She was more or less just keeping an eye on her surroundings rather than the village itself. She looked at the dirt road that connected to the dirt road itself.

Lilith’s eyes befell something that caught her eye in the distance. In the far corner of her eye was a mass grave where dead corpses were being buried. She noted that at least ten bodies of various age and gender were piled into it with a man shoveling dirt.

“Hmmm...” she whispered. “Mass grave spotted. I can see the bodies were mutilated, stripped bare with chests cut open. Looks like they have been feasting. That was what I smelled, or at least partly.”

“No different than what we have seen in the past,” Ayida whispered back. “We need that warlord. We have a good layout of the area now.”

Suddenly almost as if on cue, a yellow-dressed African male stepped out of the largest hut. He sported an odd case of sunglasses that he wore in the darkness that he did not need to wear. He wore some sort of yellow hat on his head that covered his hair. Lilith could see the aura around him. They noted his appearance was clean-shaven and almost prim and proper.

“I found him...” Lilith whispered as her fingers dug into the tree. “Shit, that Zoe was correct. The damn warlord is a mythic. We have everything we need now. We can indeed confirm that the leader is indeed someone hiding himself as human and taken charge of this army.”

“Alright, I am sending the signal to Xuanwu and Thomas to drive in. The way these men wouldn’t even notice the jeep pulling in, they are barely keeping an eye on the damn road.”

Ayida pulled out a small crystal in her hand as she tapped it with her fingernail. The crystal lit up as she began to call out to Xuanwu.

Meanwhile, the jeep was moving forward with its lights off on the dirt road far from their location. The darkness made things difficult.

“Damn it, it so hard to fucking see!” Thomas said as he drove the jeep. “I can see the far distant campfire lights, but I can barely see the damn road.”

“You are doing fine, Thomas,” Xuanwu told him, also keeping an eye on the road.

“Try driving at night with no lights, and you would understand.”

“Try flying a magical air carpet at night ... heh,” she fired back. “I can barely fly anymore since you humans have claimed the sky now. I can only fly at night, which sucks, and even that is in certain areas.”

The jeep smacked a hole in the dirt road as it bounced while it kept going forward. He was trying to be careful driving at least five to ten miles an hour while trying his best to see everything. The stars and the moonlight at least provided a little bit of illumination to the road but just barely.

“Yeah, I can imagine the headline news when they see a flying tortoise sitting on a carpet of air hovering around,” he remarked.

“Someday, I want to fly by an airplane and wave to people on the plane just to get a laugh...” She commented. She then shook her head. “Yeah, I know it will never happen.”

The jeep smacked something as it went up and down hard like she drove over something. There was a slight change and sound of something being pulled behind the vehicle as well.

“What the fuck,” Thomas said as he pulled over. “We hit something or drove over it. I couldn’t see what it was. I think we are dragging it behind us now like it got snagged.”

“Let me go and check it out,” Xuanwu said. She opened the jeep door, and Thomas fished out a flashlight to hand to her.

“Ah ... thank you,” she commented as her shoes walked on the soft grass and dirt. She turned on the flashlight and began to scan the underside of the jeep. She found what was being pulled.

“Oh ... oh ... that is ... eh...” she commented.

“What? What is it?”

She flipped the light back behind the jeep to see a couple of dead corpses on the ground. They were half-eaten. She was unsure if they were victims of the invading warlord or not, but she wasn’t going to check it any more than she had to.

“We are dragging ... half a torso of a woman. The entrails snagged onto the bottom of the jeep, and we were ... pulling it.”

“Eh ... you think you can pull it out?” he asked her.

“Yeah...” She said as she carefully grabbed the arms and began to pull. “Ewww ... I forgotten how bad war and shit like this happens. I hate doing this.”

“Trust me. You don’t see me doing it.”

Xuanwu pulled the corpse as the bottom entrails unhooked from the bottom of the jeep. She went and pulled it over the side of the road, where she deposited it for the wildlife to keep feasting until a proper burial could be secured for the dead.

She turned around as her flashlight went back to the corpses. She wiped her hands on her clothes as something began to bother her again.

“Odd...” she said out loud. “These corpses look eaten like something got a hold of them and killed them. I don’t see any signs of bullet wounds or hacks from a machete. I wonder...”

There was a loud sign of breathing as she turned around and was struck by something hard. It bit into her shoulder as she yelped.

“Xuanwu,” Thomas reacted as he grabbed his Beretta from the dashboard. He opened the door and jumped out of the jeep to see what was going on.

She had dropped the flashlight when he saw what was attacking her. It was half the torso of the woman. He could see the entrails dropping from the top of the torso as the half-woman was biting down on Xuanwu. This ... whatever this thing was, was determined to bite and kill the tall woman.

Even in the darkness, the flashlight at least gave some light to what he saw. He took aim at the creature, but Xuanwu waved him off.

“Don’t fire at it! It ... will only alert ... It won’t kill it anyway...” she struggled as she tried to reach around her trying to grab the arm of the floating torso of the woman. “I got this ... I got this.”

He lowered his gun as she successfully grabbed the arm of the creature and ripped it off of her. Blood dripped from her shoulder and, with one heavy heave, threw the floating woman of a beast into the grass and dirt. The creature hissed and huffed as its mouth was bloody. Xuanwu pressed her shoe and foot to its chest as she lifted her shoe high and slammed it hard into it. The creature was still alive as she did it again, this time aimed for the head. With one bash, the beast fell silent as its brain and skull caved in. The creature was no more leaving a mutilated upper torso of a West African woman. Xuanwu backed up a little bit as she picked up the flashlight and looked at it.

“What the fuck was that?” Thomas said, looking at the destroyed creature.

“Remember what I said about back alleys like this in the world where war inflicts? It attracts creatures like this and more. There are a couple of creatures like this in your folklore. Even Lilith spotted them over time and cataloged them. This one is similar to a Krasue or a Penanggalan. Terrifying things. It would explain the dead bodies here. These things look like human women, but the upper portion of the torso detaches from the main body and physically attacks nearby humans or animals, biting with ferocity until it kills its victim and consumes it.”

“What the hell?” he said, looking at the destroyed creature. “Those things exist?”

“Yeah ... thankfully, they are very rare. Odd to see one around these areas of Africa. Perhaps they travel, I don’t know. In the Philippines, some people are so afraid of these things they are known to tie barbed wire at the bottom entrances of the home, hoping that if one of them flew in, their entrails would get caught up in the wire just like this one getting caught in the jeep. They are mostly ambush predators. The innocent people walked past this corpse, thinking none of it till it attacked them from behind. To be honest, I don’t want to think about it.”

He shook his head as she cradled her shoulder and went back to the jeep. They climbed in, and he looked at her shoulder.

“You are bleeding...” He told her.

“Yeah...” She said as she winced. “It will heal. I have been bitten by worse, trust me.”

“Aren’t you a tortoise in disguise, though? How did it hurt you?”

“Well, we can still be hurt by mythical creatures. That was a mythic Thomas. A mindless mythic but still one nonetheless. Besides, it bit me near the top of part of my shoulder where even my shell would not protect. It is alright. I will recover.”

She took her hand that had blood on it, and wiped it on her shirt. Thomas sighed as he shook his head. He put the pistol back on the dashboard.

“Anything else before we reach this village? Already having to fight darkness as it is.”

“Come on,” She said as she shook her head. “I was the one that was attacked, not you. Why are you complaining?”

Suddenly, there was a light that emitted from her pocket as she pulled out a small crystal. She looked at it and tapped it to activate it. The crystal lit up.

“Xuanwu, can you hear me?” a familiar voice came up. Thomas already knew that it was Ayida-Weddo on the other end.

“Yes, I can. Go ahead.”

“The village has around the men indicated. The warlord General Thunder Clap is here. He is currently in human form but matches the wearing and description of what Zoe told us. Most are unarmed, but some sport assault rifles. Most are not even looking around them. You could practically drive up to them from the road, and they might not even notice. They have three trucks, one-armed but no one manning it. Go ahead and head into the village. We plan on confronting the warlord right now.”

“Understood,” she replied as the crystal shut off. She put it into her pocket and motioned him to take the vehicle in.

He shifted gears of the jeep and took a deep breath, knowing what was about to come.

They still watched the warlord as Ayida-Weddo watched General Thunder Clap. He was busy talking with a cluster of two men. The two men then walked to a nearby hut as he got to the center. He then raised his hand, trying to address all the men.

“Attention, all good warriors,” the warlord spoke with a thick African accent. He called out as the men around them gathered. Even the ones on watch turned to look at him. “I wanted to summon all of you to tell you how happy I am that we have spread our influence into Liberia. As we continue to grow in strength, we will then head south and start to gain more men. Eventually, we will reach the heart of Liberia itself, the dear capital of Monrovia. This village is the beginning of this journey.”

The men around him cheered him on.

“Many of you new warriors ask me, ‘General, Why we are doing this? Why conquer Liberia?’ Because we can. This nation is weak! This nation has destroyed itself! This nation is run by people that don’t care about us! This nation ignores the tribes and focuses on the Americo Liberians! This nation is corrupt! When I found you ... you had nothing. No food, starving, why? Because the government has nothing for you! All we have is each other!”

He lifted up his hand and smiled. “When I found you ... I knew that we can do great things. We marched to this village and took it. Why? Because the land is weak. This village will be our stepping stone as we move southwest. The people of this village ... did not want to be a part of our cause ... in the end, we fed well.”

There was cheering from the men as they lifted up their hands in cheer. The warlord then held his hand up and gesturing them all to quiet down without saying a word. Eventually, all of them quieted down to listen to what he had more to say.

“But we have problems ... a woman escaped here ... a woman who was trained to fight alongside with us. She murdered one of our men before she made her escape. She fled south to New Bapa!” there was a long pause as he let that sink into his men. “Four men were sent to track her down ... they reported back that she was shot dead. All lies ... All lies!”

He gestured with his hand as one of the men was dragged out of the hut, beaten already. It was obvious that the hut was used as a makeshift prison of some sort. Blood trickled from his face as two men dragged him near the center by the campfire where the general was at. There was a general booing coming from the other men as they looked at the beaten man. One even spat on him.

“Four men, all lies ... this I cannot accept. One of my scouts spotted her in New Bapa, and a team was sent in to take her. These men that went to chase her, in the beginning, claimed they shot and killed her ... all lies. I will not accept this! I will not tolerate betrayal!”

The warlord took a knee as he took his finger and pressed it against the beaten man. It was the truck driver that tried to drive the men in the beginning in pursue of Zoe.

“You know what I do with liars, lying man when we are short of food? Hmm ... answer me!”

The beaten man struggled to say words but could not answer. The General himself even brought his ear down to listen to the man but tapped him on the forehead. He stood back and looked at the other men.

“Can anyone answer me? Anyone...”

“Eat him! Take his power! Take his strength! Add it to our own!” yelled a random man in the group.

The warlord smiled. “Yes ... that is what we do,” he held out his hand when a man handed him a machete. “I want my cup ... give me my cup!”

Another man from the group ran up and handed him a cup in which the warlord took graciously. He then took a knee and placed the cup next to him. The beaten man was crying as he knew what was going to happen next, the same thing that happened to all the villagers when they came in. The warlord grabbed his head and hair and lifted it from the ground. He then slit the man’s throat in front of all the others to see. The man’s death was quick as the warlord took his cup and drained the blood into the cup.

There was cheering from the men. Ayida-Weddo and Lilith watched with no remorse from anything as they waited for Xuanwu and Thomas to arrive. They had been used to seeing such things before. Lilith herself especially noted the scene and the warlord’s behavior.

“Have this, liar cut up and distributed amongst the men,” the General called out as the two men grabbed the corpse and hauled it off to a nearby table. The warlord then took the cup and drank the blood in it before throwing the cup aside.

“This warlord ... this mythic,” Lilith whispered to Ayida-Weddo. “Is a vampire or at least close to one. There was satisfaction in him drinking the blood. His smell ... that odd smell was coming from him too. It is a very unique smell, almost...”

“How much longer is Xuanwu and Thomas going to take?” Ayida asked herself out loud but quietly.

“If I can have your attention one last time before I let all of you feast,” the warlord continued. “It is time that I reward someone that has been a very loyal supporter of mine since the beginning when I got started. As many of you already know who I truly am, some of you are like family to me. This man I befriended was my closest ally.”

He held out a hand as a random man that he knew walked up to him. He was a shorter man with a mole on his right cheek. He stood beside as all the men nodded.

“I have respect for Keyon. He led the attack on this village and took it for our use. He is a good man to me. I reward good men. If you can serve me and our group well ... then I reward you. I give you my power. I give you ... my strength. I give you eternity.”

He motioned a man to hand him what looked like something he had choreographed well. This random man had a vial of black liquid that he gave to the warlord.

The general held out his hand and showed the men. “This here ... this vial of liquid is key to living forever. It is the key to eternity. It is a reward for doing your best in serving me and all of us.”

He handed the vial of liquid to Keyon, his right-hand man, as he looked at the vial and uncorked it.

“Drink, my friend, and you will live like me ... forever...”

Without hesitation, Keyon took the vial to his mouth and drank the foul-looking liquid. He swallowed it as the warlord smiled. Lilith observed the scene with curiosity as to what was happening.

“We need to see this,” Lilith whispered to Ayida-Weddo. “I have some deep concerns with what I just saw here. It is good that Xuanwu and Thomas are a little bit delayed.”

Keyon began to choke as he fell to the ground. He looked like he was in pain as the men watched everything that happened. The man’s dark complexion got darker. His size began to grow. He was a six-foot man that was increasing to about eight to nine feet in height. A small set of horns grew from the man’s forehead and stopped. A set of bottom lower fangs grew out of his mouth. His nose began to reshape into that of a pig snout. His eyes even began to reform into that of a boar’s eyes. Everything else remained the same with him.

“He turned him into an ogre,” Ayida-Weddo remarked. “How is that possible?”

Keyon, now an ogre, snorted from his nose as the men stood in shock with the scene before him. His muscles were that of the strongest man on Earth. He looked like he could rip trees in half with his bare strength alone. Even Lilith and Ayida-Weddo had a thinner frame than this man had.

“Power!” Keyon yelled in a distorted pig-like voice. “Victory!” His fists were in the air. “For General Thunder Clap!”

The men seemed to recollect themselves as a few started to cheer as well. Eventually, the other men began to cheer as well.

“Oh, shit...” Lilith remarked. “This is a problem. He turned one of his own men into a mythic. I can even see the aura around him. He has all the strengths and abilities as one. This sort of ... power is rare. That vial ... I need a sample of that vial.”

“And...” the General continued. “I plan on spreading this power to all of you for your good service. In fact ... I already have it set in the water table in the nearby abandoned mine. Everyone will get to enjoy this power. With it, our army will grow under my guidance. You will live forever, you will conquer Liberia, you will make this nation strong again.”

There was more cheering from the men as the lights grew from the dirt road. The jeep pulled up as one of the men yelled out.

Ayida-Weddo had seen enough. A mythic like this needed to be stopped. Whatever he was, he needed to be put down. It was the only way to ensure that Liberia finally saw at least some semblance of peace before these men would continue forward, pressing more terror in an area already battered to pieces.

Xuanwu and Thomas had arrived. He went and grabbed both the Beretta and Taurus Revolver from the dashboard as Xuanwu hopped out of the jeep. One of the men on watch held his rifle, aiming it at the tall woman, but Thomas had his pistol aimed at him.

“Intruders ... invaders come to the village!” yelled the man on watch, taken practically by surprise.

Ayida-Weddo and Lilith decided to step out of the forest simultaneously to come out all at once. All the men in the village turned their heads to the four people as they stepped forward looking at the men. Only a few had their assault rifles at the ready as the General stepped forward calmly with his fist up in the air to calm everyone. There was a haunting calm in the man’s face as Keyon, the now ogre, snorted but kept his calm. Thomas had his Beretta at the ready with the Taurus in his left hand pointing downward, ready to use it.

“Well ... what do we have here?” the warlord commented, seeing the four gather together to form a standoff. The other men in the village gave angry looks as they remained in place as the warlord himself calmly walked forward and looked at the four.

“It appears ... we do have guests. I can already tell the three of the four are ... deities of some sort ... no one is not ... the other is a vampire. No matter ... you come to my village. Do you wish to be a part of it? Do you wish to make Liberia a better place for all to live?”

“Who are you?” Ayida-Weddo called out first.

“Who am I? Why ... I am General Thunder Clap ... that is my name.”

“No, that is not your name. Identify yourself of what you are to us.”

“It is my name. It is my new name,” The warlord said as he began to pace back and forth, comfortably watching the four intently. “A small team of various human-looking individuals only mean one thing to me, woman. You are from the Coalition of Deities here to do what? ... arrest me ... kill me ... subdue me perhaps?”

“Yes,” Ayida-Weddo replied. “Under the Coalition of Deities, we place you under arrest. Submit peacefully, and no one gets hurt.”

General Thunder Clap took his finger and twitched back forth. “Tsk ... tsk, my dear. I would not be here if I gave up so quickly. I learned to keep my magic low to ensure you ... Coalition dogs stay off of me. I do suppose the war coming to an end has not helped my situation any, but in the end, I must carry it out. It happened far quicker than expected.”

“Are you a vampire?” Lilith called out to him.

“You can say that, miss ... then again, many of the people here are vampires in a certain point of view. Consuming the body parts of individuals. Blood has such a beautiful taste to it that even I cannot deny it.”

“You have no hope in winning this, General!” Xuanwu called out to him. “Surrender now, and this will end peacefully!”

“Liars ... liars ... liars...” he whispered. “All of you are liars! You came to kill me or take me in. My men will be forfeit. All will be dead when I give up. How about all of you turn around and walk away before you die!”