Chapter 5: The darkness begins

A man hurried himself through a long and dark hallway. The man had black hair and a small beard. The clothing of the man was made of leather and he had chains around his arms. He quickly pushed open a door and saw Three men in the middle of the room. Two of them had fangs like he had while the last was very hairy and looked more like a wolf then a human being. 'You are late Ernesto' sounded a voice in the dark. The vampire that had just entered the room, walked up to a big throne and kneeled before the man that sat on it, hidden in the shadow. 'I am sorry my master, but I had to organise some things. I..' 'Silence' Nostro interrupted. 'At least you not the last. Christopher is still missing but we will not wait on him. 'Since you brought the weapon last time, how far are you with finding those ancients?' The mastervampire asked his subordinate.
The vampire started speaking, while still kneeled before his master. 'Since I saw them and brought you the weapon, I have lost those damn ancients. Only yesterday, I found them again and asked Christopher to take some zombies and take them down. He is working on it at the moment.'
After Ernesto had spoken, a silence fell. Suddenly Nostro spoke. 'You have dissapointed me before. You have said that you would had all of them charted by now and even taken care off. They are still alive and I think that you have little clue on where the other ancients are. You even need to have somebody else to take care of your mess.'
Nostro walked up to his general and lifted him up in the air with one hand. 'You listen to me. You must hope that Christopher will succeed to kill them. If he fails, I will personally rip your head off your shoulders. You understand me?' Nostro threw Ernesto against a wall and walked up to his throne again.
Everything was going well untilll those ancients appeared. Those ancient warriors did still have a greater connection with the old gods and could be able to destroy him. They were the hero's all over again.


Ramses, Pete, Thuli, Miyamoto and Aves were sitting down  in the wet grass. The storm of last night had done much damage and several of glass plates in the small house had not survived the night.
The small crew of warriors were discussing what to do and how to survive those monsters. Ramses, Thuli and Miyamoto agreed that they had to find the source of those monsters and destroy it, while Pete and Aves just wanted to leave this hellisch place.
The warriors kept talking untill late in the afternoon. Some vegetables they found in the garden served as breakfast and lunch.
During the afternoon, all the warriors agreed that they would stay in the garden for the rest of the day and night, to travel northwards the following day.

When they were done talking, everybody started to do some exercises for themselfs. Ramses and Miyamoto drew their swords and started a practise battle. Pete kept himself busy with cleaning and reloading his guns, an habit he liked to do every single day, while Thuli was training his sling skills and hitting a tree with his weapon. The last one of the group, the Spartan combined push ups with running  in full gear.
As everyone was busy, nobody noticed that a pair of eyes were observing the warriors.
Due to the fact that the man kept looking at the warriors, he never saw somebody sneaking up on him from behind and turned him around, putting a blade on his throat.
'Don't move.' A boy spoke with a female voice. He had short brown hair, full plate armour and a smoothless chin.  'What are you doing lurking here?'
The man, who was clearly old, did not answer the question. Instead he yelled. 'behind you!' The boy turned around and seconds later, he flew in the camp of the warriors.

As the boy came down on the ground, the guys reacted quick. Ramses and Musashi walked up to the intruder with their weapons held steady, while the others walked towards the place the boy came from.
'Attack' the boy murmled.
Outside of the garden, two men were fighting. One looked very old, had grey hair and was dressed similair to the zombies. In one hand, he had some sort of gun while he had an curved sword in his other. His opponent was very ugly and his face was ageless. He as bald, wore black clothing and a black cape. Behind the bald man came twenty zombies.

Each man knew instinctivly what to do and it did not take long for the fight to erupt as the five warriors plus the two strangers fought the monster they had identified als a vampire plus twenty zombies.
While Miyamoto Musashi and the Spartan warrior named Aves battled the vampire without much succes, the others were figthing the zombies. The new boy slashed several zombies across the chest without much effect and the thrusts at the heart that the pirate delivered with his cutlass did not work either.
The samurai and Spartan also had trouble fighting the subhuman. While Aves tried to block slashes that the monster delivered with his claws, the ronin tried to find an opening in the defences of the monster. Suddenly he saw a chance and moved his katana forwards aiming at the chest of the vampire. The creature jumped backwards, pushed the blade away and jumped on Musashi. Just before the beast could use its teeth, Miyamoto releashed his sword and grabbed a bo shuriken that he had been carrying. The weapon connected with the mouth of the vampire and with a icy yell, the monster jumped off the back of the samurai. Before it could do anything, the Aztec jaguar ran towards the monster to kill it.
The vampire catched the aztec knife and twisted it out of the hand of the user. It then slashed Thuli across the chest, leaving bloody trails. It finished off with a slash at the throat. The Aztec fell on the ground, trying to breath hard, the blood dripped into his lungs. 'Noo!' Ramses yelled as he pushed a zombie away to reach his new friend. Thuli died in his arms.

The dead warrior did not stop the zombies from attacking and the warriors had to wait with grieving. With a man down, the fight looked like a lost cause. The old man, the teenage boy and Pete were pushed backwards by the zombies while the trio of Ramses, Musashi and Aves were trying to kill the vampire.
The old man wanted the warriors to find out for themselfs but since they had failed to do so, he would help them. 'Attack the heads. The brains are the weakest part, hurt the brain and they will not rise again.' He yelled to the others. To prove his point, he shot two zombies in the head and both of them stayed down.
With new inspiration, the ancients got new energy and charged the zombies again.
The methode worked succesfully as the teenager used his arming sword to thrust the zombies in the head while the creatures were unable to harm him in his full suit of armour. Pete was working on a different approach and was beheading the zombies, one at a time. They found that fighting zombies was far more easy now. The same could not be said about the vampire.
The three warriors that wanted to revenge their fallen friend were able to deal blows but these did not hurt the vampire much. The vampire self also hard a hard time fighting three opponents at a time, when he attacked one, he got attacked by the other two. Aves pushed the vampire away with his shield, giving the Egyptian time to ran to Pete with an idea.
'Do you have more of those exploding balls?' He asked the pirate captain. 'Yes, I have two more' Pete spoke back. 'use them then' was the comment of the pharaoh seconds before Musashi flew past and he knew he was needed elsewhere.

As the fight went on, Pete took one of the two last grenado's he had and threw it at a group of seven zombies that were heading for the old man. The bomb exploded with a hard bang and the seven zombies fell on the ground. Three of them stayed down while the other four rose again. The fire that came free with explosion suddenly started to burn the clothing of the zombies. The monsters did not notice this and kept on attacking untill the flames had fuly swallowd them.
In the end, only four more zombies stood against the warriors and were quickly and mercyless dealed with.
With all the zombies gone, the warriors only needed to fight the greatest danger. The vampire.

Pete hurried off to grab his guns while the others surrounded the vampire. The teenage boy slashed at the vampire with his sword. The sword got blocked by the claw of the vampire and the monster lifted the armoured warrior up. It then rose in the air and threw the boy in the glass shack. The sounds of an female scream and breaking glass could clearly be heard as the other warriors concentrated on the vampire.
The old man attacked with his curved sword but his attack got blocked also. Before the vampire could lift him up, Aves thrusted his spear towards the chest of the vampire. The monster grabbed the spear and pulled it out  of the hands of the user. It proceeded to thrust at Musashi who was just going to attack the creature. The samurai avoided the blow but had to wait with the attack.
The vampire lifted himself up in the air and hovered above the heads of the warriors to land somewhere else.
The warriors started running towards the vampire to kill him off as quick as possible and Ramses was there first. The spartan spear hit him in the chest, making contact with the Egyptian scale armour. Ramses was pushed back by the power of the attack and hit Miyamoto who had arrived as second. They needed an plan and they needed it quick. Pete appeared again, he had fully loaded his weapons in the meantime and was ready to go.
'Everybody, split up' Ramses yelled. All the warriors backed down and listened to Ramses who really took charge this time. 'Miyamoto and Aves, distract.' He commanded. The two did not move for the first few moments but knew that they had little choise but to obey if they wanted to survive.
As the two were fighting the vampire, the Egyptian motioned for the old man and Pete to come closer. 'You have some sort of weapon like Pete right?' he asked the old man. The man nodded and then spoke. 'Karma has me to say that i am not very good in using this pistol and i will be unable to hit the head or heart with accuracy.' 'Can you distract?' the pharaoh asked. To this, the old man nodded. 'Pete, I want you to kill it. Throw in the grenade when the vampire is not looking and when the vampire is on the ground, shoot it in the head. Can you do that?' As Ramses stopped talking, Pete just spitted on the ground. 'Listen. I am a fucking captain of my own bloody fucking ship. Ofcourse i can do it.' Before anyone else could say anything, They hard the Japanese warrior yelling. 'Its coming' The vampire had forced him and the Spartan on the ground and was heading for the other three now. 'Places' Ramses yelled just before he slashed at the vampire.
He was quickly pushed aside, giving room for the old man to start shooting. He fired his gun, missing a lot of shots. During that time, Pete threw his last grenado in front of the feet of the vampire.
The grenado exploded and the vampire yelled out in pain before falling on the ground. Before he could stand up, Ramses jumped on him, impaling his chest with the spear of the Spartan that he had taken off the ground. The pirate followed up and put his blunderbuss directly to the face of the vampire. He then fired the weapon.

Everybody sat silently on the ground on the spot that had been a zone of war seconds before. The boy had managed to survive and escape the glass and sat with the rest, cuts and bruises all over the smooth face. Nobody said anything, all were mourning their dead friend. As on cue, someone suddenly rised from the dead. The warriors stood up with weapons ready, not shocked anymore about the rising dead. They were confused when they saw who had risen. It was Thuli. 'It cannot be.' Ramses said. 'i saw him die. Nobody escapes the trial. Nobody!' he said with a fierce face. Aves agreed with him. 'I have never heard about Hades releashing anybody.'
'Will you cheer up?' Pete spoke. 'Your friend is still alive, you should be happy' he then walked to the Aztec. The blood was still dripping out of the throat of the Jaguar and the man was very bleak. The pirate smiled and wanted to give an hand to his friend in arms but the Jaguar suddenly started to choke the pirate. Éverybody stood amazed about what happened now. Ramses acted up quick and ran to the two. He then moved his khopesh to behead his old friend. As the head flew off the body, there were some tears in the eyes of the trained warrior, while Pete just kept cursing.

'You two owe us an explanation.' Ramses spoke when all of them were sitting down in the garden.
'i am not shure what happened myself' the girlish boy spoke. I am Joa..John and we were fighting the English when i suddenly ended up here. i that old man spying on you and when I suprised him, we got attacked.' The boy said.
Now everybody was looking at the old man. 'Who are you' asked Aves.
The man smiled and started speaking. 'i cannot reveal much about myself. To be honest, i even should not have joined you in the fight. I go under several names and i can only answer clearly when the world is in order. I shall say what i can right now. I am sorry that it will not be what you want to hear. You are in the future. In this future, the vampires have succesfully taken over the world with the help of the werewols and zombies. It is your job to kill the master vampire.' 'How did we get here?' Ramses asked. 'How are we going home?' Pete came.
'I understand you have many questions but there is only one thing i can do and that is put you on the right course.' the old man spoke. Suddenly a bright light appeared and when the light dissappeared, five warriors were standing in a forest, the old man was gone.


The four warriors had finally arrived at the other end of the lake. When they wanted to leave two days ago, the Shaolin monk named Shang thought that he saw lights on the other end of the lake and after discussing for a while, the group had decided to go there.
'There has been a campfire here' Spartacus said as he noticed some ashes. 'not to long ago either'  he added.
Genghis, the great Mongolian kahn who had taken leadership of the group thought for a second. 'We will rest here for a short while and then go on and see if we can find them. After he had spoken, the warriors settled down. After a while, Genghis rose as a sign that they would continue the travel. Genghis hated the fact that he did not have a horse with him and had to walk now. As soon as he found a horse, Genghis swore that he would commandeer it.
The group took up their pace and walked for another day. During the walking, the group of Genghis, Spartacus, Shang and Ardo got more signs that another group of people had walked here earlier. They only were not shure if they were human or not.
When the night fell, the small group took refuge in a barn filled with hay.
When Genghis awoke the next morning, he suddenly heard sounds of swords clashing against each other. He opened his eyes and looked around him. Both Spartacus and Ardo were missing.
He woke up Shang and together they moved to the barndoors, weapons ready. As they kicked open the doors, they saw the templar knight and the gladiator fighting each other, each with sword and shield.  'What are you doing?' Genghis asked. 'Why are you fighting?' the small Shaolin added.
Both warriors looked suprised. 'Who said we were fighting?' Spartacus asked in return. 'We woke up early and decided to train together.' Ardo said.

After gathering some fruit and using that as breakfast, the fighters started to walk again, heading towards the strange people. During the day, the fighters arrived at a small village. As they walked through it, they saw a almost naked black man standing in front of them. Genghis yelled out to the man and as a response the man hurried into a building. Genghis, Ardo, Shang and Spartacus ran after him and stopped in front of the building that he ran into. 'Its a church' Ardo spoke as he saw the building with the big bell in a tower above it. Both of the doors were open. 'He cannot escape that' Ardo said to the others. Genghis walked in first, holding his Mongolian saber. Next came Ardo with his bastardsword and shield. Spartacus followed up with his sica and parmana and as last came Shang with his loyal staff. As the warriors walked into the building, they saw a big room with a lot of seats and a walkway in the middle. In the end of the walkway, there was a chair and a glass window. As the four warriors moved away from the door, they heard a sound. Seconds later, the black man jumped from behind some seats and was holding a dangerous looking spear. From another seat another man appeared with some sort of crossbow. The doors closed and from behind them came two other men. both armed with sword and shield and both had bronze armour. Genghis knew they were surrounded.
Before Genghis or Ardo could attack, Shang stepped forward. 'We mean no harm'  he spoke with an innocent smile. The Monk then dropped his staff and motioned for his friends to do the same. One by one, they lowered their weapons, not that willingly to drop it.
The attackers stared at each other and when one of them, a blond haired man, gave a sign, they lowered their weapons also.
'We must be carefull nowadays and when we found out that somebody was following us, we set out a trap.' The man spoke.
'yeah whatever' Genghis answered.
Everybody sat down on the seats. The warriors had put all their weapons away and started introducing themselfs. After Genghis and his group had told the others who they were, the leader of the other group started talking. 'My name is Alexander. I am king of Macedon, Hegemon of the Hellenic leage, Shahansah of Persia, pharaoh of Egypt and lord of Asia. But you can call me king Alexander. During one of my many battles, I found a stone in a cave and before I knew it, i was here.' The next to talk was another young man. 'The name is Julius Ceasar. I was fighting Celts when i suddenly ended up here.' he spoke. 'And then i met my hero Alexander. Don't know how that happened but i won't complain.' he added, forcing a smile from Alexander.
The black man was next. His only piece of clothing was some sort of skirt. He also had some ugly scars in his face. 'Mnuumu' He said. "I am a Azande warrior' he added when the others kept on looking at him. When it was obvlious that he would not say anything else, the last man started speaking. This Chinese looking man had leather armour and a bronze helmet. He also waved an impressive looking polearm. 'My name is Sun Tsu. I am both scholar and general. Before I ended up here, i was working on a book with my ideas on modern warfare. People might like it.' The man said with the flair of a gentleman.
After the introductions, almost all the warriors stayed on their seats. Only Shang and Sun tsu walked towards each other to talk.
Spartacus moved to Genghis to whisper him in the ear. 'They have a Roman with them. i would not trust them if I were you' Genghis nodded. He did not like the arrogance of the leader of that group.
After another time of silence, Shang and Sun tsu walked up to the group. 'It might be better to travel with each other. With two groups forming one, we have a better chance to survive these strange creatures.' Sun tsu  spoke. 'And we have greater chance to escape this place' Shang added.
Genghis thought about this idea when Alexander suddenly spoke. 'I accept you guys in my group'
The furious Kahn reacted quick. 'Or you join my group!' he spoke with an angry tone.
The two Chinese men saw everything go awry and tried to restore the peace. 'We just go together.' Shang said. After that, Sun Tsu added 'we were going the same way anyway.'


Somewhere else, two warriors were walking up to a hill. The two warriors that just had met yesterday were good friends already. They had decided to ignore the situation of the day ago and were happy that the two of them could go along very well.
They had discussed their own histories during their talks and knew a lot about each other already. When the warriors heard sounds, Saladin reached for his turkish axe while Cochise took out his bow and arrow.
The guys walked over the hill and saw two men fighting each other.
The first one had a bronze breastplate and was holding a falcata and small shield while the other was bigger, had a nasal helmet, chainmail and was holding a longsword and also a round shield.
It was clear that this was not a training session and that both warriors fought to win.

Swords hit each other, shields and armour. The men did not have way and yelled while trying to overpower the other using their strenghts. The smaller one tried several times to outmanouvre the other but the big brute gave little chance for any strategic fighting, using his strenght in this duel.
After both swords hit each other once again, the big man used his shield to push the opponent to the ground. The man attempted to thrust at his downed opponent but hit only grass. Before he could attack again, the spectactors intervened. The Apache shot an arrow next to the warriors to get the attention as they ran down the hill. 'We come in peace' Saladin yelled when the angry man made himself ready to fight the new opponents.
When the four guys finally met, Saladin and Cochise explained that fighting would not help and that to survive this, they had to work together. The two did not need a lot arguments to convince the other two warriors.
The big one introduced himself as Halvar. One could see red hair from under his helmet and he had a red beard 'I am a viking raider and I ended up here when my ship and crew dissapeared. I ended up here, fought those strange creatures that just will not die and when I saw him, I finally saw an opponent I could beat and i simply charged.'
The other one introduced himself as Hannibal and he had a similair story. ' I was defending Carthago from the Romans when a light hit me. When i woke up, two strange monsters were walking towards me. I managed to kill them by beheading and when i met more, i started running untill I ended up here.'
The four sat down relaxed. Two tired because of heavy fighting earlier.


His kilij lay in his hand as he stared into the red eyed of his opponent. The vampire hissed and Vlad hissed back. The two had been fighting for a few minutes now without much effect. The vampire slashed his claws again but Vlad blocked the attacks with his shield and countered with his curved sword. The damage that was done, healed itself and both fighters ended where they started.
'i have a proposition' Vlad spoke. 'What?' the vampire snarled.
Tepes smiled as he spoke the following words. 'I want to speak to your leader. I have information on mortals he might like. We can make a deal!'