The Dark Cycle 3: The Stick and the Stone
Chapter Four: The Siege of the Scholomance
"Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more!" (William Shakespeare – Henry V)
"Climb every mountain," Hermione was singing to herself, "ford every stream..."
"Didn't think you liked Celestina Warbeck that much." Neville remarked from beside her.
"It's actually from a muggle film called The Sound of Music." Hermione told him. "Julie Andrews sang it first. Celestina covered it. She covers a lot of muggle songs, you know."
"Muggles have all the good music." Neville remarked. Then he hauled his long body, apparently effortlessly, over the beetling rim of the next ledge before reaching down to help Hermione up and over.
Just below them, Wolverine and Captain America shared an amused glance.
"Gotta love Brits." Logan murmured. "Halfway up a mountain in enemy territory. All Hell liable to break loose any time, and they'll chat about movie songs, the weather, their kids, a soccer match or a soap opera. Then when it starts, they don't say a word till it's done!"
"And then," Cap concluded, "all they'll say is, 'tea, anyone?'"
They were not the first to arrive at this ledge. A young couple, warmly dressed, were sitting snuggled together in the lee of a boulder, sharing a flask of soup. They stood up as Ron approached them.
"Hi!" The woman said. "Are you the people the Doctor told us to wait for?" She had a distinct Scots accent, and her hair was almost as red as Rons'. "I'm Amy, this is Rory."
"I know." Ron told her. "The Girl Who Waited and the Last Centurion. The Doctor told UNIT you'd be here."
"You're from UNIT, then?" Rory asked.
"Some of us are." Ron admitted. "But we're sort of a special group. C'mon, I'll introduce you. Any of that soup left?"
"Quite a bit." Rory said, passing the flask over. "But I wouldn't recommend it. It's called plomik soup or something, and it's not from Earth."
It was one of the highlights of the trip, Hermione would say afterwards, to see Ron Weasley finally discover something edible or drinkable that he'd rather not have!
Introductions over, Ron addressed the group.
"Now, according to Brigadier Bambera, this is where things get dodgy. The HYDRA base is on a plateau on the other side of this mountain, as we know. Originally, it was tunnelled and burrowed into the mountains all around here, but after the war it was abandoned for a while and now the Scholomance are only using the main part.
"But our source in the Scholomance has told us there's an abandoned tunnel further up this mountain that we can use to infiltrate the main base. He reckons it's guarded, but that he can take care of that."
"Can we trust this source?" Logan wanted to know.
Ron shrugged. "The intel came via Sanctuary, and Dr Magnus says this bloke has his own agenda but that 'he's never let us down in the end'. For what that's worth."
"So we watch our asses." Wolverine noted.
"And each others'" Ginny added.
"Hey, Red, I'd pay money to watch your ass!" Dante told her.
"Oh, I don't charge." Ginny replied. "Not for watching, anyway!"
"Hate to introduce a sour note," Monroe put in. "but there's something up on that ridge above us. Something big, that I never smelled before." He lifted his face to the wind that came down from the peak and woged, causing a few gasps and some raised eyebrows. "Definitely something." He said after a moment. "Still not sure what."
"Scent's familiar." Wolverine added. "I just can't remember what it is or where I smelled it before! Some kind of big lizard, I think."
Ron thought fast. He arranged himself, Ginny, Barton and Monroe as close to the edge as was safe. He had his rifle, Ginny her crossbow, Barton his longbow and Monroe had brought along a heavy, three-barrelled elephant gun. Then Iron Man activated his new Stealth modification, based on the technology used to conceal SHIELD heli-carriers, and flew up toward the ridge.
"What's going on?" Amy asked Hermione.
"Tony – Iron Man – will see what's up there." Hermione explained. "If it's safe, no problem. If it's not, then he'll attack it with the weapons in his suit. The others are positioned so that if the thing can fly, or sticks its head over the edge, they can take a few pot-shots, or defend our position here."
A moment later, Tonys' voice crackled in their communicators. "All safe, I'll send down some ropes."
The climb was relatively easy, and when Hermione got to the top, she saw Ron – who had been first up – along with Tony, examining a large, hulking shape that lay in front of a cave mouth.
"What is it?" She asked.
"Dragon." Ron told her. "Norwegian Ridgeback."
"Oh." She said. "What's the matter with it?"
"I'll tell you what's the matter with it, missus." Ron replied, "It's dead is what's the matter with it!"
"It could be resting." Neville remarked.
"Look, matey," said Tony, "I know a dead dragon when I see one, and I'm looking at one right now."
"Remarkable animals, Norwegian Ridegebacks." Luna noted. "Beautiful scale-patterns."
"The scale-patterns don't enter into it." Hermione told her. "It's stone dead."
"Maybe it's pining for the fjords?" Rory hazarded.
"It's not pining! It's passed on!" Amy told him.
"This dragon is no more!" Duncan stated.
"He has ceased to be!" Barton allowed.
"He's expired and gone to meet his maker!" Nick commented.
"He's a stiff!" Logan noted.
"Bereft of life, he rests in peace!" Cap intoned solemnly.
"His metabolic processes are now history!" Dante announced.
"He's off the twig!" Ginny averred.
"He's kicked the bucket, he's shuffled off his mortal coil, run down the curtain and joined the choir invisible!" Monroe agreed.
"This is an ex-dragon!" Kratos stated with finality.
Then everyone fell about laughing, except for Luna and Bill, who exchanged a puzzled look.
Growing serious, Tony pointed out the mostly-stripped remains of a goat carcass that lay nearby.
"Last meal, looks like." He said.
"Strange we didn't smell that." Monroe said to Logan, who shook his head.
"Not really, pal. Dragon-stink masked it." He explained.
"What is odd," Hermione noted, "is that you don't normally feed watch-dragons that much. Like most reptiles, if they eat a good meal, they get very sleepy. Usually, one would only be fed as it was coming off-shift, as it were."
"But they're always hungry." Luna noted. "Like Ronald. Put food in front of them, and they'll eat it."
"This carcass," said Tony, who'd been scanning it with his suits' sensors, "was laced with what appears to be a fast-acting neurotoxin. Enough to kill several herds of elephants."
"Poor bugger must've thought it was his birthday!" Ron sighed, with a sympathetic look toward the dragon. "But it looks like our contact was as good as his word. This isn't a cave, it's a tunnel!"
"Our entrance?" Cap asked.
Logan and Monroe moved to the entrance, both scenting the air.
"Only two recent scents." Monroe announced. "One is dead goat, the other I don't recognise."
"Smells a lot like a Black Court Vampire." Logan noted. "Only not dead. How does that work?"
"Because it's a Source Vampire, of course!" Luna told him in a tone of mild surprise. "A naturally-occurring evolutionary offshoot of humanity. They're supposed to be extinct."
"So are dinosaurs," Steve said wryly, "but here I am!"
"Give over!" Ginny told him. "You're not a dinosaur! You don't teach at Hogwarts!"
"If our contact inside is a Source Vampire," Ron noted, "it explains why he contacted Sanctuary first. All kinds of waifs and strays end up there, and they all know Dr Magnus can be trusted.
"Right, we'll leave the climbing gear and the heavy coats out here. We won't need it inside, and we shouldn't carry more than we need. Stack it all up so we can grab it if we come out this way."
This was soon done, and Hermione concealed the pile of gear with a Disillusionment Charm. They all got into the cave out of the wind. The tunnel seemed to have been designed as an emergency exit. Yellow arrows were painted on the walls at intervals, pointing to the way out, and there were, thankfully, lights in the smoothed-rock ceiling. Not overly bright, and widely-spaced, but adequate.
"OK," Ron said, "Monroe and Logan take point. Tony and Bill behind them: Tony, scan for alarms and sensors; Bill, look out for Warning spells and magical traps.
"Kratos and Dante, cover the rear. Agents Romanov and Barton and Neville, you stick with Amy and Rory – whatever happens.
"Everyone, stay loose and ready. No unnecessary talk, Ginny."
"Not a superfluous syllable shall pass my lips, o mighty one!" Ginny told him.
"That'll be a bloody miracle in itself!" Ron replied. "Move out!"
"What I don't understand," Harry was saying, "is why you worked against Voldemort so hard. Surely his plans were right up your street?"
"Don't pretend to be dense, Harry!" Dumbledore chided. "You're not as good at it as Mr Weasley, and he never fooled me, either.
"The late Tom Riddle wanted an elite composed entirely of Pureblood wizards, yes? Now, you and I know, Harry, just how mistaken that ideal was, for two reasons.
"In the first place, the stock of many Pureblood families was exhausted. They were producing offspring of severely limited intelligence, like the Crabbes and Goyles, or of markedly psychotic tendencies, such as the Blacks. Families such as the Weasleys and the Longbottoms, by occasionally marrying Halfbloods, had managed to avoid the worst of this. But if Riddle had had his way, such 'diluting' pairings would have been banned. I am no expert in what muggles call 'genetics', but I do know the deleterious effects of inbreeding, as do you.
"In the second place – but even more vital – was the proposed wastage of so many superior individuals. Some of the best and most powerful wizards have been, and are, muggle-born. Your sister-in-law, for instance. Or closer to home, your mother. Both muggle-born, both exceptional. Under Voldemorts' proposed regime, neither would ever have entered our world."
"So why not just kill Voldemort yourself?" Harry asked. "You had the Elder Wand, and you were the only wizard in Britain close to matching him in power. I mean, you used to say you had scruples about using the Dark Arts that would allow him to beat you, but know I know you're HYDRA, obviously that was a load of crap!"
"Again, Harry, you miss a vital point of our philosophy!" Dumbledore replied. "Yes, I could have sought out Voldemort, and proceeded to, as our friend Dante once put it, 'bust a cap in his ass'. The fact that his horcruxes would have preserved him was, at that time, unknown to me. But I did not wish to destroy him, not immediately.
"It is a key point of HYDRA philosophy that war improves the race, Harry. It brings out the bravest, the brightest and the best. It pushes the frontiers of knowledge in a way peace never can. Most importantly, it shows the treacherous, the cowardly, the venial, in their true colours.
"The war – both wars – against Voldemort brought us some marvellous recruits. Sadly, it cost us others. Your parents, and their friend Sirius Black, were high on my list. The time was almost right to recruit them, when Fate and Voldemort stepped in and they were lost; your parents to death and Sirius to Azkaban.
"But they left you, Harry, and your potential was greater than any of them. I knew it when first I saw you at the Sorting Ceremony. Gryffindor was always the prime recruiting ground for HYDRA, for that House draws on the best in humanity. Sadly, Voldemort returned sooner than I had anticipated, and my plans for his final defeat – including my own necessary demise – took precedence."
"That's crap, too." Harry snorted. "You were setting me up to die -the last horcrux. You had no way of knowing I'd survive Voldemort's curse, no way of knowing I'd defeat Draco and master the Wand."
"Indeed not, Harry." Dumbledore allowed. "As I said, I had suborned my larger plans for you to the necessity of defeating Riddle. When I discovered that you had a part of his soul, it was a bitter blow to my long-term plans, but nobody, Harry, is indispensable. Certainly I knew that should you ever confront Draco, there could be only one victor – he was never a match for you. But, as you say, I could not know when, or even if, such a duel would occur.
"What I did know was that the Malfoys were in mental revolt against Voldemort. Especially Narcissa, whose influence on her son was waxing even as Lucius' waned. Eventually -sooner rather than later – I knew that Voldemort would attempt to strike Draco down with the Elder Wand. With his protection gone, the result would have been the same as it was when he struck at you that day."
It was at that point that every alarm in the place went off.
"That's my cue!" Harry announced. "Sorry to break off our little chat, Albus, but my people have arrived and it's time for us to hand the Scholomance their collective arses!"
Dumbledore laughed. "You cannot leave this room without a wand, Harry. Your other one was taken and destroyed. You must take up the Elder Wand, and when you do, you are HYDRAs'.
"My wand?" Harry said. "You mean the ten-inch hawthorn with the unicorn hair core? That was Draco's old wand, I use it for a spare." He reached inside his shirt and drew out the moleskin pouch Hagrid had given him all those years ago. "Useful bit of kit, this!" He said. "You can hide anything in it!" He drew out his own wand, then picked up the box with the Elder Wand in it. "I will take this, though! Bye for now!"
"You were always my best student, Harry!" Dumbledore commented wryly. "Go, defeat Johann, and take his place!"
"I know," Harry muttered as he left the room, "unleash my hatred and gain the power of the Dark Side. Bollocks to that, mate!"
He reached into the pouch again and pulled out a number of small objects, putting them on the table. A gesture of his wand, and they expanded into a SHIELD battlesuit. Harry changed quickly, then considered the door. Sturdy oak panels on this side, probably steel on the other. Almost certainly a guard-room beyond. No time for subtlety.
Harry blew the door off its hinges and into the guard-room. The heavy object slammed into two of the four HYDRA guards there, taking them out at once. The other two went down from Harry's Killing Curses before they could react. He searched the bodies, 'liberating' a handgun and several clips of ammunition. The pistol was a 9mm Heckler & Koch USP, rather than the Glock he was familiar with, but it would do. There was also a long combat knife, balanced for throwing, which Harry appropriated, along with a key-card.
Time to go and find his friends. Harry grinned. It had been far too long since he was in a good scrap!
The corridor grew perceptibly dimmer as the party proceeded down it. They found a couple of the sealed-unit lights lying on the floor, smashed.
"Doesn't look good." Ron remarked.
Iron Man took a careful 'look' around, then spoke quietly. "This whole area is unstable. Must've happened since it was built. Be careful -especially with guns. Too loud or sharp a noise could bring the whole place down!"
They advanced further, then suddenly Wolverine held up a hand to signal halt.
"You getting that, too?" Monroe asked him.
Logan nodded. "Hundjager." He growled.
Monroe glanced at him. "You're Kehrseite-Schlich-Kennen?" He asked. "Of course, you'd have to be with those senses! Kinda hard to hide it from you."
"Don't Hundjager usually work for the Verrat?" Nick asked.
"It's possible," Hermione speculated, "that a faction within the Verrat went over to HYDRA, just as some Nazis did."
"Worse," Monroe added, "HYDRA may have infiltrated the Royal Families." He shook his head, then. "I think these guys are hiding in some side passages up ahead."
"They're not expecting anything." Wolverine clarified. "Just stationed there in case."
"Probably to stop people sneaking out rather than in." Ron guessed. "We'll just have to Disillusion them, people."
Given a sufficiency of wizards, one can hide almost anything. Under Hermiones' direction, Ron, Luna, Neville, Ginny and Bill cast a set of overlapping Disillusionment Charms that covered the whole party. Hermione herself then cast a Cloaking charm to protect against magical detection, while Iron Man activated his suit's ECM package to evade technological alarms.
This got them past the side openings and a fair distance until the corridor debouched into a long, narrow chamber, more brightly lit than the others. They advanced cautiously, but as they reached the middle of the room, there was a sudden crack of thunder, and all the charms were broken! At the same moment, Iron Man yelped as a surge of feedback shot through his suit. Fortunately, automatic cut-outs prevented any damage.
"Damn, damn, oh damn!" Hermione raged. "Passive Reveal! Some wizard here is clever."
"Passive EM projector as well." Iron Man noted. "Undetectable."
Then klaxons and alarms were going off everywhere. Monroe turned to face the way they'd come. "We've got company!" He yelled.
"Well, we rang the bloody doorbell, didn't we!" Ron replied.
Dust drifted down from the ceiling. "Dammit!" Dante swore. "We still can't use guns! Look, Duncan, Kratos and I can hold this bunch off. The rest of you get going! We'll catch up!"
"Go!" Ron barked, and they went, fast, down the corridor and into a room full of surprised HYDRA troopers who never knew what hit them.
"Right!" Ron said. "We all know what to do. Amy and Rory have to find the Defence Control Core – Barton, Natasha and Neville, go with them. The rest of us split up. Two priorities: link up with Harry and take down the Scholomance. Good luck, everyone! 'Mione, you're with me!"
"Always!" She told him. They took off.
Monroe had been casting around, now he turned to Nick. "I'm getting more wesen scents. They seem to be coming from that direction. Coming?"
"Damn straight!" Nick replied.
"I'll come along, too." Luna decided.
Wolverine had simply gone off without a word, and was surprised to find Bill and Ginny following him.
"You two sure you can keep up?" He asked.
By way of answer, both of them apparated to nearby vantage points. "Good enough." Logan allowed. "Let's do this!"
Cap and Tony shared a glance. "Like old times!" Tony remarked.
"Let's see if we've still got it!" Cap replied.
The hundjager came in a surging mob, fully woged and fight ready. If they expected their bestial appearance to frighten their opponents, they were sadly mistaken. Dante held one side with his Hell-forged broadsword, Rebellion, slicing through flesh and bone as easily as air. On the other side, Duncan wielded his katana with grace and precision. In the centre, Kratos used the knives Luna had given him, flickering and flashing through the fray, setting alight whatever they touched.
The first few minutes were fairly energetic, and the three were forced a few yards back by sheer weight of numbers. Then the pressure eased, as their opponents learned caution.
It is a sad fact that hundjager are bullies. Ruthless, dangerous bullies, but bullies nonetheless. Like the dogs they resemble, they can be cowed by a stronger, more dangerous antagonist. Unfortunately, this works two ways, and when pushed forward by something they fear even more, they become very savage.
For a moment, the three defenders thought they had the edge, then suddenly the attacks renewed. But this time, they came in waves, more disciplined, but fiercer. Slowly the three fighters were driven back, until they were against the exit.
But all three were veterans, and had been taking due note of everything.
"The one in the back corner." Kratos said between cuts. "He's different from the others, and he's giving orders!"
"Lowen." Dante told the others. "Nick told me about them. Lion-types. Tough, hard, born leaders. While he's in charge, the others daren't back down."
"Then we need to take him out." Duncan decided. "I might be able to get to him."
At that point, another creature entered the room. It was preceded by a choking stench, a bulky, muscular figure with a long, sharp nose, pointed teeth and large ears.
"Oh, crap!" Dante said. "A siegbarste! Those guys are tough! All due respect, you two, but you'd better leave him to me! A human wouldn't stand a chance!"
The hundjager drew back as the ogre advanced. Dante moved to meet him. Kratos spoke low and fast to Duncan.
"You've got a space. Go, take the lowen!"
"What about the door?" Duncan asked.
Kratos set his brawny frame squarely across the exit. "I'm a Spartan, Highlander. I could hold this door forever against these scum!"
At that moment, Dante and the ogre joined battle. It was a ferocious, brutal fight that drew the attention of everyone in the room. Seeing his opportunity, Duncan slipped along the wall and was almost on top of the lowen before it spotted him. Not close enough, however, as the wesen jumped back and roared an order. The sounds of battle rose again and Duncan knew, without looking, that the hundjager had resumed their attack on Kratos.
But now he was committed to his own fight. The lowen also had a sword, an old-style German cavalry sabre, long and heavy, which he wielded with more than a little skill. Normally, Duncan would have taken a savage joy in such a fight. His opponent was fearless, skilful and cunning. But the Highlander had other priorities now. He needed to get back to Kratos and help hold the door – the Spartan was only one man, however formidable.
But the lowen was also aware of this, and was making every effort to draw out the fight, parrying, evading, pulling Duncan further away from the door. The Highlander, however, had one tactic to fall back on that his foe could not begin to suspect. Without warning, he charged directly at his opponent. Shocked, the lowen raised his blade and Duncan simply ran onto it, impaling himself along the full length of the sword. For a moment, the lion-man was defenceless, and in that moment, Duncan removed his head in a single cut. As his erstwhile opponent fell, Duncan heaved the sabre out of his chest and collapsed to the floor, dead.
A moment later, the Immortal revived and pulled himself to his feet in time to see Dante dispatch the siegbarste.
For his part, Dante had been having a merry time of it. The ogre had no way of knowing that his opponent was not human, and was shocked to discover that Dantes' strength and resilience matched his own. A further surprise was the ease with which Rebellion sliced through the siegbarstes' tough skin. That said, ogres feel little or no pain, and are irritable at best, so even the wounds Dante inflicted did little more than anger the creature. But Dante had fewer problems with pain than a full human, and was known to be a trifle tetchy himself.
The result was a brawl, long and brutal. No holds were barred, no quarter given. Both combatants were bloodied and battered to an extent that would have killed anyone else. But in the end, having been on the receiving end of quite enough crushing blows, Dante decided to change the game. Brute strength to brute strength, it was a stalemate, but Dante doubted if this beast could match his agility. He suddenly leapt, somersaulting clean over the ogre, and as he did so, he stabbed down with Rebellion.
Siegbarste bones are thick and dense, especially the skull, but Rebellion was no ordinary blade. With Dantes' demonic power behind it, the point crunched though the top of the ogres' head to emerge under its' chin. As Dante continued the arc of his leap, he held onto the sword and it followed him, turning and literally slicing the head in two.
As the ogre sank to the floor, there was a sudden silence. Both Dante and Duncan looked over to the door. Kratos was leaning, as if casually, against the doorframe. In front of and around him were heaped the corpses of hundjager. Bloodied, charred, dismembered and in some cases still smouldering, they covered the floor around the Spartan. Not one had escaped him, he had killed them all.
As they made their way over to him, Kratos slid slowly down the frame to a sitting position. The other two dashed over to him.
"You OK, pal?" Dante asked.
"Never better." Kratos told him, and died.
"Ah, shit!" Dante said. "He was one of the good guys, and I hardly got to know him!"
"He died as a Spartan should, in battle." Duncan told him. "He's also been alive longer than I have, but he slept through a lot of it. This wasn't his world any more, he told me on the flight here, and he was tired."
"Whatever." Dante said. "Time to remember him later. Right now, our live friends need us, Highlander!"
Kratos recognised the warm sun, the grassy plain, the olive grove nearby, the scent of smoke in the air that told of a village. He was wearing his old kilt and buskins, clean and whole, his skin was no longer ash-white, but bronzed by the sun, and he was unarmed.
He looked about him, spotting a tall figure in black staring into the distance. Old suspicions came back.
"Lord Hades." Kratos growled. "Is this the prelude to some unusually inventive torment?"
The figure turned and grinned at him. Not deliberately, but because the face was a skull and couldn't help grinning.
"Not in the least, Ghost of Sparta. I'm not Hades, for one thing. By the way, thank you for dealing with him. He was getting irritating."
"So, you're actually Death?" Kratos asked.
"The original and best." Death replied.
"So, what happens now?" Kratos wanted to know.
Death sighed. "They always ask that. As if I'm supposed to know. It's up to you what happens next, Kratos. Though I suspect they will have something to say about it. They've been waiting long enough."
He pointed to something behind Kratos. The Spartan turned to see two figures emerging from the olive grove. A tall, beautiful woman and a little girl. The woman stopped in her tracks and beamed. The girl gave an excited squeal and began running madly across the grass toward him.