Дмитрий Мансуров - Invasion

“I’m coming!” Yaroslav stepped to the wall, leaned against it, and shook his head. The surroundings stopped doubling, but the hut seemed to be immersed in a storm of some kind.

The vampires were glaring at the club furiously, ready to pounce on Babak any moment now. The prince tore the wooden chair leg from the burning vampire’s body and noted to himself that the enemies burned locally, without spreading the fire across their surroundings. Staggering, he approached Babak.

“Strong, but stupid,” he concluded.

“Agreed,” Babak said.

The vampires began to wave their arms and jumped once, twice, thrice. The surprised prince and Babak looked at each other. The last jump was the highest. The vampires didn’t fall, but instead, they hung in the air and turned into huge bats.

“Werewolves!” Babak exclaimed in surprise. “The real ones!”

“It’s my turn!” Yaroslav stepped forward. The pain left at once, leaving only a cold fury behind. The bats flapped their wings hard and flew at the prince. It was clear that they didn’t know how to fly properly. They probably had neither the place nor the time to gain experience. Yaroslav, in turn, had an abundance of combat experience.

Soon, they were standing over the dead bats. The light of rage in their eyes took long to fare after death. Yaroslav waited for them to burn as well, but the corpses remained lying in a puddle of blood. A light breeze penetrated the room through the hole in the wall, and Yaroslav heard the quiet chirping of the grasshoppers. The silence was peaceful, as if nothing had changed. Just a usual quiet night.

“What are these things?” Babak asked thoughtfully. There were too many questions and too few answers.

They heard soft sighs coming from the darkness and immediately grabbed their weapons. A gray spot appeared in the blackness. As it approached, it became more distinct, more like a man, but Yaroslav didn’t rule out the chance that this was another night guest coming for their soul, so he didn’t lower his sword.

“What have you done?” the mysterious stranger spoke in a mournful voice. “I’ve barely managed to train them how to hunt, and you ruined two months of my work.”

“And what kind of creature are you?” Babak was curious.

The man came close enough to be easily seen but not close enough for a successful sword strike. After glancing at the butchered corpses, the stranger muttered, “Yeah, yeah, they made bad bats…”

“Who are you?” Yaroslav raised his voice.

The man looked up at him with sad eyes.

“Why would you want to know? You’ll die anyway. You will all die. Everyone is going to die.”

“Do you know any other words?” Babak wondered.

“I do,” the stranger replied, and then mumbled monotonically, “Think of the death. You will die. Think of the death.”

Yaroslav turned to Babak.

“A nut case of some kind.”

Babak shook his head, keeping his eyes on the vampire.

“He’s trying to distract us. Trying to show himself as weaker than he really is. Did you hear what he said about training?”

Yaroslav nodded.

“He’s stronger than them.”

“It’s logical,” Yaroslav agreed and turned to the vampire. “I don’t advise you to appear here again.”

“It won’t work,” the vampire noted without changing his tone. “You can’t kill everyone. You will drown in your own blood. Think of the death. You’re all mortal. Think of the death. I can spare you from it. You can become vampires. You can become the eternal beings, and I will become your teacher.”

“Think of the toothache!” Yaroslav mimicked him. “You all have huge teeth! Think of the toothache! You’ll lose your teeth! Think of the toothache!” He thought for a second and added, “Oh! I can help you get rid of them. You can become toothless. You will find your rest and go into eternity… Deal?”

The vampire disagreed with such an offer.

“You’re losing your chance at eternal life,” he said. “Tomorrow, you’ll die.”

“What’s stopping us from killing you right now?” Yaroslav asked straightforwardly. Instead of answering, the vampire turned into a bat and quickly soared to an unattainable height.

“We’ll be back!” he said as a good-bye. “And you will die.”

“Fly while you can!” Yaroslav said his own good-bye. Then he looked at Babak. “What shall we do?”

“Warn the others.”

“It won’t help,” the vampire told them. Yaroslav grabbed the bow, pulled the string, and before the vampire could disappear in the darkness, he fired. A pierced bat hit the ground with a light thud.

“I’m a good shot even when nothing can be seen,” Yaroslav boasted.

“Too many of you started wandering around here flapping your wings,” Babak muttered. “Who do they think they are?”

Yaga wearily shook Ivan out of the bag, and he turned into a human even before he hit the floor. It’d be fine, but the weight of the boy was heavier than that of the goat. Ivan fell to the floor and shouted something indignantly, but then he met Yaga’s eyes and fell silent.

“That’s how it’s going to be,” Yaga began without an introduction. “I’ll speak for a while, but every word will be important, so listen to me carefully!”

Ivan blinked. During her monologue, Yaga cut three holes in the bag, turning it into a kind of shirt. When it was done, she threw it to the cowering boy. He somehow pulled the huge bag over his naked body and started resembling some primitive child version of Batman.

“I am reconstructing the ancient composition of a potion by memory alone, and you volunteered to help me in this matter! Shut up, no objections are accepted. The vampires are coming for us from the west. They drink human blood and turn their victims into the same creatures they are. When they arrive here, no people will remain. The human race will cease to exist, and the world will be doomed to extinction because of the unimaginable hordes of vampires who’ll keep spreading around! So you will drink the water I’ll give you, a new glass every day, and I’ll make a comparative analysis of data. This way, I’ll derive the exact proportions of the components in a potion used for the transformation of a human into an animal! Vampires don’t drink the blood of animals and birds. It’s poisonous to them. We need to hurry. They’ll attack your village any day now. You don’t want your sister to become a dinner for some monster, do you?”

Ivan shook his head in fright.

“You’ve made the right choice!” Yaga exclaimed, happy now. “Now drink this.”

Ivan muttered quietly, “Not like I had a choice,” but he drank the water from the glass. Only one thing pleased him at that moment, and that was the fact Yaga wasn’t going to eat him. How did she put it? ‘Dinner for some monster’? Good lord!

What were those terrible creatures if even Yaga called them monsters?

Black fog enveloped Ivan again.

Yaga marked down the time and started preparing weapons for the protection of the hut. A mechanism that functioned as a steam weapon was built into the foundation of the house. It was created a few thousand years ago by a wood goblin in cooperation with a blacksmith. The steam gathered in a special compartment and created pressure on the rods with a metal base, as well as on a sharp wooden tip of the nickel pipes. Initially, the weapon was adapted for repelling the “gifts” from evil sorcerers and wild chimeras that occasionally wandered into the areas populated by people. The largest population of the surviving monsters was hiding in the Quirky forest lakes, occasionally rising to the surface and scaring the rare fishermen. Instead of a normal fish, they pulled out a huge monster with “huuuuge fangs”!