Battle of the Star Swords
By
Dale Broda Jr
This is a work of fiction. All characters, names, places and events are from the author’s mind. Any resemblance to any actual person, location or event is coincidental.
Copyright © 2008, Dale Broda Jr
Cover illustration © 2010 Christine
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This eBook is licensed for your enjoyment. This eBook may not be re-sold. You didn’t buy it right? If you would like to share this book with another person, or many people, please do so while pointing them to the author.
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About this Edition.
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Author’s Note
I wrote this at the end of last year. So, take that for what you will. I’m not really sure what I write is ever better than anything else I write. To me, they are all just stories I’m allowed to see and share to the best of my abilities. If you enjoy it as well… cool beans.
Shall we begin?
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The blow landed with a heavy thud. She staggered backwards but as I thrust forward, her blade pushed mine aside. Pushed me aside. It was luck alone that kept me on my feet. My feet felt so heavy as I turned to follow her. My eyes burned. Sweat. Blood. Mud. Lack of sleep. A combination of the four. How much longer could it last? As long as it did I guess. I couldn’t lose, too much depended on it.
It was nearly dawn now. The wind was as dead as my friends, my allies. So many dead. I raised Nightstar to block the incoming blow. The impact thundered through me. My legs buckled. My head hurt. The sky seemed so peaceful when I looked up at it. Why did it have to come to this? Another blow. Another dull clang as I blocked it out of hand. My eyes drifted down to the body I had stumbled over.
Selene. She had been the last to die. Fighting at my side till the end. Her bight green eyes were dull now. Glazed. Even the burning glow of Nightstar cast but a bare glimmer over her. She had been so faithful. So strong. We had planned this from the start. When things had gone the way we feared, we acted. We brought the army forth, we rallied the men and women. Promised them victory. Here they had met death.
All of them.
I barely registered the blow to my shoulder that sent me tumbling over Selene’s bloodied remains. I rolled and brought up Nightstar to ward off the slashing blow. Knocking the strike aside, I growled as I swept my leg out, trying to take down my opponent. She fell back with a slight grunt. Coming to her feet much quicker than I, she lunged. I was able to dodge the blow, but again, I tumbled over yet another body. Coming quickly to my knees, I was ready for the blade to come hacking down at me in a powerful stroke.
It did not. She stepped aside, watching. I narrowed my eyes at her.
She remained motionless, watching me. Just watching. After a few moments of holding Nightstar in a defense position, my arms began to give way to the fatigue that was making all my limbs feel like lead. So I stabbed the sword into the ground, using its intricately carved pummel as a resting post. My body was pain and ache and numbness all at the same time. I felt everything. I felt nothing. Days had passed. Days and days it seemed. Yet here we were, still fighting. Our armies dead. Our swords, brother and sister of death.
“Just give in to me… Andorian.” Her voice was still smoldering with a pure sensuality that was not human. Even after all this slaughter and constant fighting is sounded so alluring. Yet, it was not the same. No. Not the same voice I had come to know so well. I had heard it for so many years, I could hear the strain in it that others would most likely miss. I found myself looking at Selene again. Her crumpled form.
There had been only two things I loved in this world. Selene and my sister. Now, Selene was gone. Now, I only had one love in this world and I must win to make sure she had a good life. A life she chose. Selene. Poor, poor Selene. To my complete sadness, to my despair, it had been a one sided love. I loved her. Gods I did. But she had been hurt by men as a child. Many more men as a teen. Until she had learned to fight.
Until she had grown cold.
Until I had come into her life.
She had loved me, as much as she could. I was sure of that. A confused kind of love I think. As a brother? A father? I’ll never know. My sister and she had shared many years together in my little efforts to take back the brother sword, Daystar, and make them complete. I don’t think all their time together was well spent. I knew this, but I would not bring it up if they did not. Let the women be women.
My sister pitied me. She never said it, but I could see it. She had brought many beautiful women to me. A few would have truly loved me I believe. My sister did that with no joy. I could see it in her eyes. And when they left, when I turned them away? She seemed happy. Why bring them to me if she was only happy to see them go? I never understood her. I love her, I just don’t understand her. That’s normal I suppose, of family, of friends, of men and women.
Yes, I had saved Selene from the life she had been in. Had spared her life when it had been about to end. Had saved it more than once since then. Had made sure nothing could be done to her against her will. Trained her even more, in case I could not be there. But it seems I was never able to save her cold, broken heart. Could not change her sad outlook on life. She was happy enough, as happy as you can be given her life, but I could never bring the joy to her I had wanted to.
Shame, that.
As close as she was to me, as much as we touched or trained or shared meals, I could never get into her heart as deeply as I had wanted. I yearned for those rare occasions she would allow me to touch her, to treat a wound. To run my hand though her hair to shake out the remains of a nasty battle or just the bits of grass after a particularly hard lesson. She would treat my wounds in return. Her touch, warm and soft and trembling was a great blessing. It had taken her so many years to finally work up the courage to touch my bare flesh.
I’d like to think, had we been given more time, I could have healed her completely and she would have loved me as much as I loved her. A broken dream now. A lost hope.
“Your army is dead. Everyone is dead.” That voice was already regaining some of its confidence. I looked at her, standing there amongst the dead. Glowing with life. Filled with the swirling energy of the sword she held. I wondered how I looked to her? “You should have just joined me when–” A small line of blood dribbled out the side of her mouth. Her ember eyes widened. She quickly wiped it away, hoping I had not seen. I had. I smiled at her.
“Even you… are not as immortal as you’d like others to believe.” And she was wrong about one thing. Not everyone was dead. My beloved sister. She had remained behind due to my intervention. Sadly, it looked like I would not be able to keep my promise to her. I could still see her luminous hazel eyes filled with tears as she held me close. Her head pillowed on my naked and wounded chest. She had told me then to stop this. To end it. To save lives and to just give in. She was my family after all, I should listen to her she had repeated. Again and again. The look in her eyes when they met mine. I’ll never forget it.
I had been shocked by that. And after looking at her more closely, I realized she must have had a vision. I cupped her face in my battle scared hand. I felt bad about that. My hand was so rough, on such soft skin as hers. It didn’t seem right. I had told her even her predictions were never completely accurate. With that, I had kissed her lightly on the forehead and drifted off to my last night of sleep, holding her close. Brother and sister we were, and we were all the family we had ever known. I think she murmured something to me. I wish I had heard her clearly. I’ll never know what she had said.
“You may be right about that.” Her laugh was warm, c
omforting in its way. She had always been like this to me. “But I am not like your kind. Not like any kind. I am the Goddess of peace.” I snorted at that. “And I will end this war. Even if I have to kill every living thing to do it.” I wanted to laugh at the irony in that. I was just too tired. Her goals were noble, give her that much, it was her methods that did not sit well with me. Her thoughts on what a peaceful world should be. They were brutal. Behave and adapt and serve and life would be filled with pleasure and riches and peace.
The cost? The loss of your free will to do as you please. The right to choose your spouse. The right to take on a job you enjoyed. The right to live and work and walk and love and do what any free creatures would choose to do… all that would be given up in exchange for her so called peace.
I could not accept that. Freedom was all we had really. In the end.
A peaceful world would be a wonderful thing, true enough and it was tempting enough, yet a peaceful world filled with obedient slaves bothered me. You did as you were told or you would be taken to the castle and
The Last Battle Of The Star Swords Page 1
