Larry Correia - Monster Hunter Vendetta

Deprived of his prize, the Dread Overlord let out a terrible wail.

I rolled to my feet and swung the giant knife through Hood. He grimaced as the steel parted his robes and whatever served as his flesh. The sunlight from Alabama was enough to allow me to damage him.

Hood sensed that as well. He leapt back through the air, away from my blade. "Destroy that portal!" he ordered as he levitated out of my reach. "Kill the light!"

The cemetery plunged into utter pandemonium. Monsters were everywhere, throwing themselves at the flaming circle of Hunters. The pillar of sunlight was our only hope. MHI had formed a perimeter around it, hunkering down behind broken tombstones, piles of earthquake dirt, and collapsed mausoleums, lancing bullets outward, cutting down targets with every burst.

Hood was retreating toward the Tree, trying to marshal his forces. I started after him. "Owen!" I jerked my head toward the sound. Julie and a squad of Hunters had fought their way to me. She had Trip, Holly, Sam, her brother Nate, Cooper, and a couple of Newbies I recognized as the Haight brothers. They immediately surrounded me, crouched down, and started firing their weapons at the approaching automatons. "You're alive!"

Holly must have thought I didn't look very alive. She stuck the muzzle of her. 308 close enough to my face that I could feel the heat rising from the metal. "Say something!"

Smiling made my face hurt. "Took you guys long enough." I sheathed my knife. The Hunters exchanged glances. There was no way that I should still be moving, unless I was undead.

"But… how?" Holly asked.

"I'm the Chosen One, remember?"

"I told you there were such things as miracles," Trip shouted over the chattering bolt of his subgun. He glanced over into the still-open chasm to the Old Ones. "Is that… Hell?" All of the Hunters looked in, then looked away just as quickly. You didn't stop to gawk at that kind of thing.

"Close enough. Come on, Hood went that way." I pointed toward the Tree. We had to get him before they could kill the sunlight.

Julie was surely glad to see that I was still alive but right now was not the time to celebrate. She got on her radio. "Skippy, this is Command. My team's heading for the big… tower thing. Cover us." She didn't have to wait long. Within seconds the Hind dipped from its position over the pillar of light and headed right over us, expending hundreds of pounds of munitions in the process. Dirt rained down as rockets blasted through the cemetery. "Go!"

I led the way, firing Abomination, lumbering forward through the clouds of smoke. An automaton rose before us, probably something that had been a troll once, but was now covered in spikes. I pumped several rounds into it before I had to duck under the swing of one arm. Cooper stepped past me and slammed the steel butt-plate of his rifle into the off-balance body, taking it down. The Haights were on it in a split second, jamming their weapons through the unarmored joints and hammering it to bits.

One of the brothers shouted in pain as something struck him in the back. There was a noise like angry bees buzzing through the air. "Down! Down!" I shouted as the bullets zipped past us.

"Son of a bitch shot me!" the Newbie bellowed as he slid behind some rubble. Nate picked out the muzzle flash and returned fire.

There was a line of cultists moving through the dust ahead of us, covering Hood's retreat. There had to be dozens of them and judging from the volume of fire coming our way, they were heavily armed. Our squad of Hunters took cover behind whatever was available. Bullets ripped through the dirt between us.

"Surrender, Hunters!" one of the Condition ordered as the gunfire tapered off. "You're outnumbered."

Sam Haven bellowed back from behind the safety of a marble headstone. "How many of you fucking lunatics do we have to kill before you get out of our way?"

The same cultists responded. "The Exalted Order stands as one! Even in death, we shall live to fight. We-"

Sam cut him off. "Well, you could have just saved some time and said all of y'all." He lowered his voice and spoke into his radio, "Skippy, targets at the base of the tower, twenty yards ahead of our position. Waste 'em."

Almost instantly there was the thunder of an airborne minigun as Skippy tore the bad guys to pieces. Tracers zipped back and forth ahead of us until nothing could possibly live. Julie stood. "Keep going." The Hunters were up and running in seconds.

Something strange was happening. There was chanting, growing in intensity. I immediately recognized Hood's amplified voice, speaking in an incomprehensible language. The alien limbs overhead began to twitch, clicking in their unnatural joints. The Arbmunep emitted a keening rattle, like a swarm of cicadas, as it began to move. "Tell Skippy to watch out!"

But it was too late. One of the segmented branches crashed downward. Somehow Skippy saw it coming and jerked the chopper out of the way, narrowly missing the rotor. The branch creaked in protest and rose back into place, moving with a lumbering ferocity. One of the Apaches wasn't as lucky, and a limb slammed through its rotor. The chopper spun wildly through the air, billowing smoke, and crashed onto its side near the portal. The blades snapped off and flew through the army of monsters.

"What the hell's that?" Sam shouted.

Before I could answer, the ground beneath our feet surged, hoisting all of us into the air. Some of us went tumbling down, others managed to hold on. I was in the center where it was relatively flat, and was barely hanging on when the hill started to move. Julie was next to me, and went tumbling over the edge as the ground disappeared. I grabbed her wrist and held on for dear life. I was twenty feet over the ground, the other Hunters being knocked away, before I realized what was happening. The Arbmunep was moving.

The entire world was spinning, shaking, and there was a vast tearing noise. Trenches and hills were exploding up through the dirt all around us. Nate Shackleford disappeared into the ground as a crevasse opened up beneath his feet. Julie screamed something incoherent. The hill we were on lurched forward twenty feet, screeched to a halt, almost dislodging me, then surged again.

Roots. The giant tree was mobile. And it was heading right for the portal and the Hunters who were defending it. I pulled until Julie scrambled up beside me.

The other Apache was torn in half in a cascading gout of fire as a limb crashed through it. Skippy was staying just ahead of the shockingly fast branches, zipping about in a way that was surely impossible for the bulky chopper, clouds of ancient dirt falling with every swing. Explosions ripped across the trunk with no effect. He should have gotten the hell out from under it, but he was still firing, trying to provide cover for the humans on the ground.

"Skip, get out of here! Fall back!" Julie ordered. Another branch struck, and Skippy barely avoided it. The next sparked against his tail rotor, blowing it to bits. The Hind began to rotate violently, puking smoke, and it sank out of view into the cemetery. "No!" There was a terrible crashing noise.

I was barely hanging on. The root we were on top of would rise quickly into the air, then slam back down seconds later. There were dozens of these appendages, all driving the Tree onward, each movement surely shaking the earth for miles. As it neared the portal, whichever Hunter was in charge was smart enough to order everyone to retreat back toward the mortuary. The dirt we were hanging onto dislodged and Julie and I tumbled to the ground.

"Move!" I shouted as we hit, still holding onto her wrist, trying to stay ahead of the giant flailing appendages. Each root was as big around as a car, and they slammed around us with terrible impacts. Both of us were knocked on our faces as another root landed behind us.