Дмитрий Мансуров - Invasion

“You will meet them soon,” his father said. “Come on, we’ll show you your new home.”

Yaroslav and Artem were shooting from their hiding place. The vampires were in flames, burning, but there were so many of them and the supply of the arrows came to an end disappointingly quickly.

The village flared up. The wind was blowing the flames away from the burning house of the bearded man, fanning the sparks. The neighboring and more remote houses were all going ablaze. The surviving vampires were finishing off the rest of people, and the princes rushed into the attack with mini-spears.

Hunter was running like mad, brutally biting the vampires. The enraged vampires gathered into a decent crowd and were chasing him, but as they couldn’t catch him, they grew more and more crazed.

The princes flew at the vampires who had killed the bearded man from both sides and began to furiously stab them, adding more fire to the raging flames around them. Hunter-the-fierce-biter followed. The vampires howled. One way or another, they were more afraid of dogs than of people because the latter didn’t bite as painfully.

The crowd of Hunter’s bitten victims returned a second later, forming a bunch of swearing vampires. The princes barely managed to fight back and destroy the enemies. The remaining crumbs of the vampire squad broke and retreated. They turned into poorly flying bats and disappeared in the low clouds.

There was silence.

“Victory!” the brothers shouted happily. The voices of the surviving peasants echoed the call, and Hunter barked happily at the moon.

Kashchey was sitting on a chair of from a later Paleolithic period. Storing things for an unthinkable number of years was foolish at best. But it was a pity to throw them away. After all, they were rare. On the floor next to him, an age indicator was lying nearby.

“How do we find the Central console if all the doors are open now?” he asked, puzzled.

“How was I supposed to know this would happen?” Maria tried to defend herself. “I’m here for the first time.”

“And for the last one!” Kashchey added. “Don’t expect me to kidnap you every summer. What else have you found?”

“Different boxes,” Maria said. “I don’t know what they’re for.”

“Give them to me!” Kashchey demanded, holding out his hand. Maria passed him the matte black rectangle. He examined it and pressed some red button. The box dimly lit and flashed. Kashchey put the box on a chair and moved away. “Let’s see what it’ll do.”

There was a click. The box stuck to the chair and then flew up with it to the ceiling. The chair hit it and shattered into pieces while the box broke through the ceiling and flew to the next floor. Then it rammed into the remaining ceilings in the castle and flew into the vast depths of space. Kashchey waited until the dust settled and looked at the holes the box had left.

“What do you know,” he said calmly. “It’s raining!”

“Really? How do you know?” the princess asked in surprise. She went to the hole, looked up, and barely had time to jump back when a drop of water slipped out from there. “Oh! You could have told me about it from the start!”

“I didn’t ask you to repeat after me,” Kashchey shrugged. “I’m immortal, after all.”

“Don’t brag!” Maria advised.

A flashing hemisphere entered the room, drove over the ceiling, rolled up to the hole and covered it. When it retreated, the ceiling was intact. Not even a hint of the hole was left. Staring after the hemisphere, Kashchey shook his head.

“The kind of things my castle has!”

“What a pity it doesn’t have any order,” the princess replied. She took a hat off the shelf and put it on her head. “A cap. A warm one.”

“We don’t need hats yet,” Kashchey said, turning to face her. Then he blinked. “What.”

The princess wasn’t here.

“Maria!” he exclaimed. “Where are you?!”

“What are you doing?!” the box on the fourth shelf from the top asked in a frightened voice. “Want to make me into a stutterer? Why are you looking at me like this?”

“I can’t see you!” Kashchey said hoarsely.

“Stop joking around!”

“I honestly can’t see you! Come on, appear like you disappeared!” he ordered.

He had a reason to panic. If the savior prince came, how would he explain to him that the talking air was his beloved who he had been searching for?

Maria appeared on the chair in a rapidly thickening mist. She had the hat in her hand. The box was standing at the level of her head, which caused Kashchey to think God knew something. When he came up with different tricks, it was acceptable. But when his followers did the same? It was too much.

“What’s wrong?” Maria was confused. “Are you sick?”

“When I feel sick,” Kashchey said smugly, “I will express it in other words.” He went to a short cupboard and leaned against it. “You’ve just found an invisibility hat. And I’ve already started considering transmutations and transformations of black matter…”

“What are you even… er… discussing with yourself?” Maria was confused. “Are you feeling sick, after all? Are you cursing or are these spells of some kind?”

“These are… scientific terms,” Kashchey muttered, turning off a scientific dictionary and hiding it away. When he’d leaned against the cupboard, he inadvertently activated this miraculous book. “You know what, I’m going to take a break.”

“Why?”

“This evil box has filled me with profoundly clever words.”

“Say them!” Maria asked. “It sounds interesting.”

“You’ll just think that I’m swearing again,” Kashchey refused. “If you need anything, I’m going to be in the room with the TV. The one in the form of the plate… Until I feel fine again.”

…an empty office. A table. Ten plates with a bunch of buttons. A feeling of great delight and danger…

Kashchey shook his head and a strange image faded, disappearing in the abyss of his subconscious. Staring at the plate, he shrugged. Whatever he’d just seen, it didn’t explain anything and didn’t need to be remembered.

The wonderful city of Slavnograd wasn’t anything special. The same quiet panic as before except that now, there was also some impatience among people. They were waiting for the princes’ arrival. Kashchey didn’t tell Maria that he could watch what others were doing. He didn’t want her to stare at them for days on end. What if her nerves failed or something else happened? Why sit through extra tantrums?

Kashchey tuned in to see the adventures of the princes, and with great surprise, he realized that they were still stuck in a rundown village, in no hurry to fulfill their obligations. Spending one day there was acceptable, considering the peasants who were eager to hear what happened where and when. But being there on the second day? That was too much. A good storyteller could tell a story quickly and vividly. Especially when in a hurry.

The princes didn’t intend to sleep either. They were settled on a tree comfortably, and apparently, they were preparing for a battle.

“What the hell is this?” Kashchey protested angrily. “Testing new weapons before fighting me? At night? On village lunatics? Personally, I prefer to fight during the daytime. It’s easier to dodge the arrows of the enemy then. Night snipers consider themselves unsurpassed professionals and are ready to turn any target into their personal hedgehog. Ripping out the arrows with their metal tips is extremely exhausting.” The latter was particularly tiresome due to the specifics of their extraction.

Some strange chimeras were marching on the village. After taking one look at them, Kashchey reached for his legendary sword involuntarily. The carnage that followed plunged him into deep thoughts. Whoever the new monsters were, it wouldn’t end well.