George opened her eyes. Relief. Gudrik lay her down and looked to the fray. The Hammer had managed to wrap his iron hard fingers around Kahn’s neck and begun to crush. Kahn’s face was turning blue, his eyes red. Gudrik snatched up the giant’s rifle which lay only a few paces away. He fired at the Hammer. A terrible shot, it kicked like a mule, launching out of Gudrik’s grasp and clattering back to the ground. The shot sailed harmlessly past its target. The noise however, distracted the Hammer. He stepped back, his monstrous boot looming over Ami’s head. Gudrik moved towards her, but before he could get there Dorian had shifted in and out with her, leaving the Sword to slice at thin air. Distracted, his grip on Kahn’s throat loosened enough for the Inscribed leader to utter a single word aloud, “Histfush.”
He collapsed back into mist and the Hammer’s fingers interlocked. The blue vapours wafted briefly about his bulbous head before a heaving snort from the giant breathed a puff in. The remainder of the blue mist surged in after it as the Hammer coughed and spluttered in protest. His eyes grew wide, his body twitched. Red gore erupted. The room was showered with warmth. The remnants of the Hammer flopped to the ground with a wet slap. Kahn was left standing in his place momentarily, but he too collapsed to the ground, weak, weary and wounded.
The Sword was gone, the distraction of his brethren’s death enough time for a hasty escape. Gudrik wasted no time. He scooped the wand from the ground and bled for all his comrades. He went to Ami and Malaki first as he triaged the injuries. All bar George were in need of his help. Dorian was now barely maintaining consciousness, four shifts and two darts in such a short amount of time was far too much for his fragile human form, it was a miracle he lived at all. Beneath the coating of bodily fluids, Kahn too was injured from the battle, fractured chunks of Hammer’s bones protruded from him. Gudrik wrenched them free as the blood healed.
The father and son recovered quickly. Kahn wiped his face and cut George’s bonds. “I saw a large room at the end of that offshoot we gave chase down,” announced Kahn with haste.
“Go, find Tabitha,” called Gudrik as Kahn helped George up. “I will follow soon, but be alert.” George ran after Kahn, Dorian too. Malaki slowly recovered and climbed to his feet, weak but grateful to be alive. He looked down at Ami who was much more severely injured than he. Gudrik was inspecting her injuries. He held his ear close to Ami’s mouth. Her breath was almost nonexistent, but it was there and that was all the blood needed. “The wounds have closed, she will be fine with rest,” rumbled Gudrik, “I only have two exit glyphs, one on the hill overlooking here and one at the safe house. There is no point sending her to the hill, and we know the safe house is all but safe now. I want you with her,” said Gudrik.
“Of course,” replied Malaki as Gudrik freshened their war masks.
“Svanjanus vindiktsus.” Malaki and Ami’s unconscious body collapsed into the low road.
Gudrik stood back up and walked over to Kyran. Despite the mutilations and protrusions, he still lived. The small measure of blood Gudrik spared had seen to that. He was obviously in inexplicable pain, but unable to vocalise anything other than a moist, gurgling hum due to the razor sharp shard of night stone bursting through his throat. Gudrik did not end this blue word. Instead he stared at the morbid, stone urchin in front of him. Gudrik pictured all whom he had lost at the hands of this man over the centuries and savoured the picture for them.
“Where is the child?” Gudrik asked. The response was nothing more than gargled splutter. “Where is the child?” he repeated. Kyran began scratching in the dirt with his left index finger. Gudrik could not read the word; it was in the modern tongue. He locked eyes with the tortured, twisted mess and reproduced his axe. Kyran’s right hand twitched free from his pocket, it was closed into a fist. In one silent swing Gudrik closed that chapter of his life and made his peace with the past.
A blue mist lifted off the trickle of blood which escaped and it faded back to red. It brought a fitting symmetry to the saga. As he passed Kyran’s tightly clasped fist fell open. The object he had grasped from his pocket rolled free. Gudrik scooped it up. He stared at the tiny trinket in the palm of his hand and a queer look of realisation washed over him, he quickly slipped it into his pocket. Distant screaming echoed through the tunnels, drawing his focus back to the present and he ran after George and the Inscribed.
The underground facility was much larger than he had originally thought, but eventually after moving through room upon room he found himself back at the stairs. The screams still echoed from the ground level above. Gudrik emerged from the hatch to see George screaming and furiously punching a grey that she had managed to slap awake. His hands were merged with the concrete, clearly Dorian’s doing. Other sleepers were beginning to stir as well.
“Pull her off,” grunted Gudrik. Dorian dragged George away kicking and screaming.
“Where’s my daughter?” she screeched repeatedly at him. “Where’s my daughter?”
“Take her outside please Dorian?” asked Gudrik. He paused a moment until George was out of earshot. Gudrik stooped down staring into the eyes of the young grey. The dust on his face was streaked with trails of blood, sweat and tears. His teeth were gritted so hard that they were on the verge of shattering. “I know your pain is great. I have experienced it myself. The fact you are still conscious demonstrates how staunch you are. For that you have my respect.” Gudrik paused and dropped his head in a bow. “As a man of battle I am sure you would never beg for your life, so I will not humiliate you by offering it. What I will offer you is a warrior’s death, rather than the mournfully slow one which lies before you.”
“I-don’t-want, ugh, anything from you,” he strained out, “The Forsaken Guardian will wipe your filth from the planet.”
“She had to choose one that actually believes in the cause,” thought Gudrik. “Your Forsaken Guardian is dead I am afraid.”
“Drake may be gone, but this is not over, as-as-long as you live others will take up the charge.” Gudrik ignored his rhetoric.
“This is the last time I will offer my bargain. Tell me what became of the girl and I shall help you in your passing.”
“She is gone, just as the rest of your twisted followers will be when the Heir--/.” Gudrik drove his left hand into the young grey’s mouth and stretched his tongue out. Using his free hand Gudrik snatched the wand from his wrist scabbard and sliced the tongue free.
“Die in silence then.”
Gudrik looked up to Kahn, the young grey still rolling on the ground beside him. “What meaning do these characters hold?” he asked, painting Kyran’s final word onto the concrete in the young grey’s blood. Kahn’s face went very pale and he looked horrifically at Gudrik.
“They say ‘dead’ Gudrik.”
“I feared as much,” he whispered breathlessly. Gudrik pulled the trinket from his pocket and showed it to Kahn. One tiny pink bow, the corner stained with one small drop of blood. A single tear rolled down the Warlock’s cheek as he returned it to his pocket. Kahn reached out to embrace him, and in a very out of character action, Gudrik accepted, if only for a second. “We had better tell George,” he said, wiping the moisture from his cheek.
Kahn walked to the doors and signalled for George to come back in. She walked up to Gudrik and he embraced her. The Warlock leaned in close and whispered into her ear. “Kyran told me what happened to Tabitha before I ended him.” George pulled back a little so she could see Gudrik’s face. A hopeful glimmer sparkled in her eyes, not the reaction he had intended to draw. What had to follow would be all the more difficult now.
“I am sorry. She’s gone,” he said quickly drawing her into his chest as she erupted with grief.
“No!” she spluttered. “No, no, no, no!” Her cries grew louder. She pushed herself away from him suddenly. She looked around erratically, finally focussing on the Warlock before her. “This is your fault!” George screamed punching him across the jaw. “You have ruined my life and cost Tabitha hers.” He stood expr
essionless, a tiny blue trickle dripping from his lip. “Look at you. You don’t even care. Mr. Immortal, a trail of grief and death at your feet, but you just stomp from life to life unaffected. We’re worthless to you. Aren’t we!?” She paused, as if waiting for a response which didn’t come. “Stay away from me!” she raged, stepping back from him again. “This blood is on your hands.” She pointed accusingly at Gudrik, her tears torrents streaming down her cheeks. “Svanjanus vindiktsus!” George yelled. As she collapsed into the void George’s eyes pierced Gudrik deeper and more painfully than any blade had in his expanse of days.
He stood sullen in the sudden silence of the warehouse. Kahn approached him. “She doesn’t mean it Gudrik, it’s the grief. She knows how much you loved Tabitha.” Groggy men began to stir around them, their eyelids fluttering.
“No she’s right, it was my fault. There’s no denying it, Tabitha is gone because I entered her life. The hatred will help to soften her grief.”
“True, but what about you Gudrik. This loss is yours too. If you continue down this path her hatred will grow and fester. You will lose George forever as well. I know how you feel towards her.”
“I cannot attach myself emotionally. For men of endless days like us it only ever leads to…,” he paused briefly, scratching his stubble and considering his words, “….difficulty. Know that I count you as a brother Kahn and I am eternally grateful for all you have done. Consider your oath fulfilled. Should you ever need anything, you need only seek me out.” Kahn simply nodded in response and put his hand on his shoulder.
“Take care of her,” the Warlock said before plunging Kahn through the void.
The distant thrum of helicopter rotors filled the air. Some of the sleepers were now climbing to their feet. Dorian walked over and placed his hand on Gudrik’s shoulder. He said nothing, but the softness of his touch spoke a thousand words. “You will make a formidable leader,” said Gudrik as he returned him home.
Gudrik walked out of the shed. He looked around at the foreign land he found himself in. The lights from a fleet of helicopters were closing in and some of the sleepers were now wandering with hazy awareness. He closed his eyes and fell into deep concentration. “Qrixtsus,” he whispered.
A deep rumble shook from below and tiny rocks danced and jittered on the fractured concrete slab as the tonnes of blood trapped within tanks became stone and buckled their supporting legs. One of the stumbling soldiers groggily raised his gun to Gudrik. The Warlock gave him a stern, stone-faced glance, sprouted his wings and took to the skies. He was a single, solitary figure soaring west, towards the arid, red heart of the land.
I am Kyran
I write the following as a declaration, as an assurance that my intentions will never be misunderstood after my sacrifice is made. I have been called many things in my time, monster, tyrant, guardian, madman and hero. I would be lying if I said that all weren’t titles I have earned. But like everyone, my life is not so simple as that. There is so much I need to say. I guess I should just start as all things do, at the beginning.
I was a sickly child, strong of mind but weak of body. My mother gave her life to bring me into the world, a level of sacrifice no man could ever dream of equalling. My father raised my brother and I, Kyranus the Blessed Dragon, a knight dedicated to protecting the innocent. Kyra meant dragon in the dialect of my father’s village. He was named after a famous beast of legend, as was I and my brother Kyrark. His beliefs were strong. “When you do god’s work even demons themselves cannot stop you,” he would say.
When I was ten, my father left on a crusade to reclaim holy lands lost for a generation to godless heathens. My brother and I travelled with him and his army, a band of knights whose honour and loyalty was iron clad. They fought battle after battle and won one victory after another. I worshipped them, believed them invincible, but our day of reckoning inevitably came. It was a day which still sends sparks of rage prickling along my spine.
On that day, I saw my father and his band of brothers decimated. Not in a glorious battle against a noble foe, no there would have been honour in that, glory. He and his army fell against a solitary man, no creature. The heathens had signed a blood pact with a Warlock, Gudrik of The Twelve. He laughed and revelled mercilessly in the barbaric slaughter. By the end he was red with the blood of my family.
I ran, my eyes streaming with tears, death filled the air. Amongst the carpet of fallen, I came upon my brother. He was eight years my senior, still only a teenager himself. He lay twisted and broken, a distorted look of anguish frozen across his face, a look so distraught that I could feel it myself.
More than anything I wished to collapse beside him. I was laden with grief, though anger also burned within me, an anger which soon took hold outweighing the sorrow. I scooped up my brother’s sword and struggled to hold it up as I charged screaming at the monster. It simply grunted and slapped me aside as if I were nothing. I tried to threaten it, abuse it, chastise it, but no sound came out. I was weak, frozen, and craven. In fact I was so pathetic the beast simply took to the skies and left me to starve on his field of slaughter.
I sat for a time beside the body of my father, broken and brooding, waiting for death, all the while terrified of it coming. After two days it had not arrived. I decided I had been spared; it must have been for a reason, perhaps a greater purpose. I took my father’s dagger; it was like a sword in my small hands. I took his tunic; it was warm, but hung ragged from my tiny frame. It bore his sigil, a crimson dragon etched onto a white field. I walked away leaving my self-pity to rot along with my family.
My hatred for the creature fuelled me for years after that, forced me to survive. I begged, stole and fought through wilderness and city alike. As I grew, my hatred grew with me. The Warlocks were a product of the old pagan gods and had no place in the new world of my father’s one almighty lord. Over time, I discovered I was not alone.
Supported by the church, people everywhere began to rise up against them and eventually the bravery of mortal men forced the creatures into hiding. I saw an opportunity. The people needed a catalyst for change, a hero to head their rebellion. The church leaders were working hard to eliminate the threat, but they were just holy men. What they needed was a warrior to lead the charge, a striking hand of god. I certainly had the ambition and my years of survival had made me hard, fast and strong, a far cry from the weak boy I left to die on the battlefield. All I lacked was the ability to kill them. So I began searching for that means, in fact it’s what I dedicated my life to.
I travelled to the bitter, white northern lands. They were long rumoured to be the birthplace of the scourge. It was late, sleep had taken me, not the warm embracing sleep that most know, but the frigid sporadic sleep which is the best one can hope for in that icy, inhospitable world. That’s when it first called to me. A maiden’s voice melodic and soulful, it echoed through my body. Its every sound resonated warmly within me, calming my raging soul.
The disembodied voice had sensed a shared hatred between us. It spoke of its own quest for vengeance, but most importantly, it offered me an option. It claimed to have the power I needed, the power I desired more than anything else. I simply had to liberate it from its resting place, a service which I provided without hesitation. Whether this mysterious voice was to be trusted or not, it was not an opportunity which could be ignored.
I guess you could say that’s when the quest which would shape my future truly began. I was sanctified by the church and given a small band of knights to aid me. It was not hard to track the Warlocks. Some were still blatantly practicing their dark craft in the open; they were the first to fall. Others were hiding, deeply entrenched amongst the people, but the amulet lived up to its promise.
I held my rage at bay. Despite my eagerness, I left Gudrik and his father until last. I would force them to come together to make him suffer in the same way I did.
Ending the life of an immortal creature is a humbling experience, one you never get used too. The power of the
amulet seemed to nullify them, make them as helpless as I had been on the day I met Gudrik. It was this power that originally sparked my suspicions. The amulet claimed to be a gift of heaven’s creation, but its words were far too sugary. It was clearly linked to The Twelve; it could scarcely contain its excitement whenever one was slain.
I first witnessed the unique properties of their blue blood while torturing Swarnat of The Twelve. A splash landed upon a gash in my hand, it closed in seconds and my flesh was as if it had never been injured. Though I am ashamed to admit it, they were properties I used to my advantage, treating wounds on myself and my men, my goal stood above my pride. Bottling it was the next logical step. Alas, any blood collected from The Twelve returned to a useless mortal red when the Warlock was killed.
By the time I had finished off ten of The Twelve I had managed to squeeze two words out of them, two of their filthy blue words. I had also formulated a plan for the future. One which would rid the world of the Warlock scourge. One which would defy the begging of whatever it was that inhabited the amulet, there was no way I was going to be used by an evil no better than the creature. A plan which would spare any others the trauma I suffered.
The moment I first entered that house and laid eyes on Gudrik, the little boy in me sprung out from the dark depths of my soul. His fear swept over me and it was as though I was back on that battle field again. It took every ounce of courage and strength I had to push him back down and do what needed to be done.
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