A faint whistle registered in my ears through the cries of panic around us. “ABOVE!” I screamed, grabbing Challa by the rim of her breastplate. I hurled her into the empty space ahead of us as I spun my shield into the air above my head, instinctually moving to block the attack I knew was coming. My eyes caught a glimpse of torchlight reflecting off of a deadly crescent blade above me as I reached my free arm up to brace against the incoming blow. Every joint in my body popped as the weight hit me, and a roar of pain escaped my lips as the inside of my shield smashed against my face and shoulders. The weight knocked me down to one knee, but I maintained enough control to dump the beast to the ground away from my soldiers behind me.
A flurry of motion surrounded me on both sides as I knelt, momentarily stunned. Soldiers swarmed around me and assaulted the beast I had deflected as it writhed on the ground in pain and shock. Instinct took sudden control of my body, and I threw myself up to my feet to reassess the situation. “Bryce!” I shouted, spinning towards our right flank. “Regroup the vanguard and circle to the outs—” My breath caught in my throat as my eyes met Bryce’s. He was suspended two feet above the ground by a glistening scythe through the center of his chest, his yellow eyes dim and lifeless as blood poured down his chest.
The entire world seemed to freeze as Bryce’s body slid from the blade and crumpled to the ground. Not like this. My stomach lurched as a fresh wave of adrenaline jolted through me, and I shook away the panic grasping at my mind. I scanned the cave with sharpened vision, finding another round of three Serathids skittering along the cavern ceiling towards us. The remaining six on the ground pressed forward at a more cautious pace, seemingly waiting to observe the outcome of their surprise attack.
When my attention turned to the remainder of my forces, it was clear that their resolve had broken. A small contingent of fighters had held together in each formation and taken their revenge upon our surprise assailants, but a majority of the soldiers had fled towards the relative safety of the exit tunnel. No. Not soldiers, I reminded myself. Civilians. They were not prepared for this. Yet, I brought them here, regardless. I dashed over the slain Serathid at my feet and pulled the small warhorn from Challa’s belt as she stumbled to her feet, then put it to my lips and let out three short blasts. “Retreat!” I shouted, pointing my shield to the cave entrance. “Fortify the barricades! Block the tunnel!”
The fighters around me were more than willing to flee from the advancing beasts. I grabbed Challa by the shoulder and ran back through the fortifications, weaving back and forth between the spiked barricades that surrounded the tunnel in three offset rows. The cave rang with clattering metal, heavy footfalls, and panicked gasps as my army retreated around me, forming up with their backs to the exit tunnel until we were packed shoulder to shoulder. “Spears up! Shields up!” I commanded the frightened group. “Keep your eyes on the ceiling!”
Following my own advice, I looked up and found the advancing beasts had stopped. They hung like bats up in the darkness, their taloned feet firmly lodged in the stone ceiling and their scythes swaying gently back and forth beneath them. Likewise, their ground forces lingered in the shadowy center of the room, slinking back and forth as they watched our desperate formation. They know. They know we cannot leave the entrance unprotected, and they will wait for reinforcements until they can crush us in a single charge. Movement at the back of the cavern confirmed my theory; another pair of Serathids emerged from a mining tunnel and clacked their way forward to join the rest of the eager pack.
We cannot wait; they will overwhelm us. We cannot retreat; they will slaughter us in the tunnels. We cannot charge; they will route our mining crews and surround us. Dread gripped my heart and tightened my chest, causing my breath to come harder and harder with each gasp. I failed them. I led them to their deaths in the name of my selfish quest for redemption. I failed Kaldan. I failed.
My hand clenched the grip of my shield until my knuckles popped. Lux. Lia. I failed you, too. Please forgive me. Regret grew like a gaping pit in my stomach as I watched the memories of my mission to Attetsia in my head, as I had every night since my betrayal. You would have fixed this. If not for me, you would have been here. You would have… A sudden memory sparked to life in my brain. No matter the cost. You sacrificed yourself to ensure we would succeed.
I straightened my posture and planted my shield in the ground at my feet, then bowed my head and closed my eyes. “O Prime of Light, divine above all,” I began, chanting the words with a well-practiced rhythm, “bless me with the strength to carry on through all trials and wounds, that I may protect the innocent and cleanse darkness from the world.” The patterned face of my shield shone with a brief burst of radiant white light, and I felt an electric pulse rush up my arms and down to my core. I can buy them enough time to collapse the mine. We will not fail, no matter the cost.
I turned to Challa with a renewed sense of purpose and placed a firm hand on her shoulder. “We will not fail,” I stated. “When you hear the signal, lead our forces back through the tunnel and collapse the mine. Until then, not a single Serathid breaks through our ranks. Can you promise me this?”
She blinked at me with a vacant stare. “Commander?” she asked.
“I am giving you command, Challa. You must keep our soldiers safe, and lead them to safety. Promise me that you will.”
“Commander!” she repeated, flustered. “I can’t! Why, when you’re...I can’t do—”
“We will not fail!” I shouted, both to her and the remainder of my army. “Say it, Challa. Promise me. No matter what happens, no matter the cost, we will not fail.”
“Why me, Commander? Why would you—”
“Say it!” I gripped her shoulder more tightly. “We will not fail!” Nearby soldiers took up the chant and filled the cavern with the echoing words.
She bit her lip as her face grew red, and she scrunched her eyes shut. “We will not fail!” she cried out, knocking loose the tears at the corner of her eyes as she shook her head back and forth. “We will not fail!”
“Thank you,” I said quietly, entirely drowned out by the surrounding chant. “Primes watch over you.” Finally satisfied, I turned back towards our gathering enemies and assessed my odds. A wide smile spread across my face as I put a hand on the barricade before me. Eight of them at the least, with more on the way. I vaulted the spiked reinforcement and dashed forward, leaving Challa and the rest of my forces behind. I do not need to win. I need only to survive long enough to allow the others to succeed.
I felt a massive weight lifting from my chest as I sprinted across the shadowy expanse towards my certain end. The din of the cavern faded away and left me in silence apart from my fluttering heartbeat and pounding feet. This is the night I repay my debts. This is how I regain my honor. My fingers wrapped excitedly around the levers on my shield’s grip as I approached my foes, all of which had turned their bladed arms in my direction. Should we fail here tonight, stories of our sacrifice will find them. They will come to finish what I could not. I know they will. The tightness in my chest released all at once in the form of a gleeful laugh as I raised my shield arm in preparation for my final battle. My death will ensure my victory.
Three Serathids lunged forward in unison as I reached their formation, all dropping their scythes in a simultaneous hail of bladed death. With a flick of my wrist, I rotated my shield onto its horizontal axis and rested it across my shoulders as I slid forward on both knees. The stabs glanced off the glowing stained glass and pulled me farther into the center beast’s reach, and I ended my slide only a few inches from its downturned face. I thrust myself back into a handstand and wrapped my legs around the joint just above its bladed forearm. Momentarily guarded from my surrounding foes by the beast’s own arm, I jammed my shield into the joint as I twisted my legs violently. The thinly armored limb shattered and detached under the dual assault, and the beast tipped forward, dumping me onto the ground.
I spun like a cat and landed in a low crouch ben
eath the Serathid’s midsection, having already prepared myself for the following moves in my gambit. In one swift motion, I snatched up the detached scythe in my free hand and lunged out to my left, darting from the cover of one bulbous carapace to the next. My brain took a single moment to admire the curved weapon in my offhand: impossibly light for such a large blade, and impossibly thin for the structural integrity I knew it held. In the next moment, the blade flashed out in front of me, cutting through both back ankles of the next monster with little resistance.
The surrounding beasts had grown wise to my strategy by the time I rolled out from beneath the flailing, footless Serathid, and I flipped backwards over the thrashing monster to avoid another pair of overhead stabs. Three more enemies awaited me as I landed; I caught two blows against my shield and barely deflected a third with my improvised greatsword. Without any sort of proper handle by which to hold the blade, I had gripped it near the tip at its thinnest point, and the serrated edge sliced at my palm through my heavy gauntlet. Rivulets of crimson blood forked along the blade as I lashed out at my closest foe and caught it full force in the face, leaving a glistening purple gash in the pale orange chitin.
Three ahead. Three circling. Two wounded at my back. Push in further, lead them away. Second switch, reverse, fourth lever, spin, slash, duck, fourth lever, strike, dodge, strike. The plans all screamed through my head at once as I performed a new batch of battle calculus in every changing instant. My shield rocketed ahead and slammed against the wounded Serathid, further fissuring the bloody gash in its armor. I pirouetted as the shield reversed course down its geared track, using my body’s angular momentum to rotate the aegis into place to block two more horizontal strikes. Parallel lines of heat flashed across my back as one of the flanking beasts raked me with its talons, but the pain of the cuts failed to register. Faster.
The Serathid’s raking kick knocked me sideways towards one of its swarming allies, and I narrowly dipped beneath a blade destined for my throat. Three ahead. Two left. Two right, one wounded. Slide forward, third switch, leap to—
A massive weight caught my shoulder and slammed me into the floor face-first. Swirling lights filled my vision as I scrambled away from the threat on pure instinct. Dropping from above. Though my eyes refused to completely clear, a momentary dimming of the firelight clued me in to the location of my nearest enemy. I rolled onto my back and brought my scythe up in a crescent slash that bisected the Serathid that stood above me. A wave of steaming viscera covered my face and further obscured my vision, and the beast’s corpse collapsed onto my chest. My impromptu sword bounced away as the breath was knocked from my lungs.
Primes preserve me now. Until my soldiers are safe. Give me strength to fight. Primes, give me strength. A burst of pain rushed up through my shield arm, burning its way through my shoulder and into my spine before it bolted down into my core like lightning. Energy crashed through every inch of my body in a sudden, overwhelming surge, and I knew my prayers had been answered. I rose to my feet and hurled the hulking Serathid corpse forward, knocking two beasts onto their backs with the unexpected projectile. Slamming my shield into the ground before me, I let out a defiant roar. “NOT YET!”
I took an ungainly step forward as my body struggled to calibrate to the pulsing energy in my limbs. My second step came with newfound confidence, and I scanned the ring of Serathids around me with a calm, collected eye. My third step shattered the stone beneath my feet and sent me hurtling towards the closest beast, my shield drawn back with more power than I had ever felt in my entire life. This is how they moved in the throne room. This is how Lia fought against me so easily. Her actions were blessed by the Primevals themselves.
The sudden dash placed me inside the nearest Serathid’s guard, and I bashed in its face with an earth-shattering uppercut. The beast sailed up into the shadows above us and landed thirty feet away with a hard crunch. Its companions immediately converged on me, but I was already spinning away to ready my next attack. I felt like a passenger within my own body as the fight continued; my actions appeared to be predetermined, with each parry, dodge, and strike prepared and launched before I could consciously follow the line of battle through cause and effect. The Primes themselves are acting through me. They may have me, for as long as I remain alive.
Contented to spectate my own fight, I let the battle play out before me. My shield snapped from side to side to parry a flurry of blows while I shifted and slid around the Serathids in a graceful dance. Blood coated a majority of my armor from my wounded hand, back, and face, but I felt no pain. Each successful strike propelled me faster towards my next target, and each grazing cut and jarring parry I received in turn further strengthened my resolve. Despite the dire circumstances and the inevitable end to come, I felt more alive than I had in months.
There are more of them now than when the fight began. My final stand had successfully drawn the beasts away from the exit tunnel, but it had also called up a large pack of reinforcements from farther down in the mine. Beyond the immediate seven Serathids surrounding me, another half-dozen approached from the winding, shadowy tunnels, with even more scuttling towards me along the ceiling. As I watched the oncoming wave of death, a dissonant chorus of horns blasted out from the entrance and echoed throughout the cavern. The mining signal. They have completed the preparations. I...succeeded.
I looked on in amazement as my forces rushed to evacuate back into the entrance tunnel. “Go!” I shouted with a beaming smile, parrying another pair of Serathids simultaneously. “Seal the tunnel! Go!” The smile stayed on my face as I returned my focus to my final battle. My foes seemed entirely uninterested in the echoing horns or the commotion at the cave entrance; every beast in the cavern had turned its attention towards me and swarmed in my direction. “Come and get me!” I laughed, rolling under a pair of horizontal blades. “Our fates are sealed together!” I felt the blessed energy fading from my limbs with every movement as my army retreated. My duty is complete. I have served my purpose.
The tide of the battle shifted in seconds; without the blessings of the Primevals, I was forced to act entirely in defense to avoid being immediately overwhelmed by the teeming swarm of Serathids. My shield whirled and clacked as I parried strike after strike, each movement just a bit slower than the last. I felt oddly at peace as the circle of beasts closed in on me. I have made my amends. Pain blossomed in my left shoulder, and my arm instantly fell to my side, limp and unfeeling. Despite my failings, I will die knowing my last action was truly just. My knees buckled as I blocked an overhead blow, and I fell to the floor beneath the weight of the attacking beast. Perhaps it can serve as my absolution.
The world froze around me as a deafening crack rang in my ears, and my right arm screamed in pain. After all this time, it has finally broken. I let my arm fall, and my shield landed across my lap, marred by a massive fissure across the stained glass face. A fitting end for the King’s Shield. I closed my eyes as a shadow covered my face, and my chest tensed in preparation for the inevitable falling scythes.
My ears registered the sound of blood splattering across the floor, but I felt no pain. Death is more kind than I imagined. As I waited for the agony to come, I heard the sound again to my right, this time paired with a light scuffing of leather against stone. Before I could open my eyes to find the source, it came again from my left, then right, then left again. A burst of hot ichor splashed across my face, and a tremor shook the floor beneath me. My eyes stung with a mix of human and beast blood as I wiped my face and attempted to scan my surroundings.
When my vision returned, I found myself face to face with a dead Serathid. The beasts were slain in a perfect circle around me, all shattered, limbless, and eviscerated. I stared at the corpses in uncomprehending awe. Impossible. My eyes followed the line of slain beasts farther into the cavern, and I caught a faint blur of movement in a shadowed tunnel that led into the mines.
The buzz at the base of my skull sparked to life, and I heard a familiar voice in m
y head. Get out of here before they seal you in, you damned fool.
“Lux!” I cried out, lunging to my feet. “Wait, please!” I stumbled across the cavern in pursuit of the fleeting shade. I felt a faint pop in my neck, and his presence at the back of my mind began to fade. “No!” My legs burned as I lunged into the darkness, and I quickly collapsed as my shins connected with a Serathid corpse. I bounced off of the tunnel floor, rolled to my knees, and immediately began my chase again. “Come back, pl—”
I tripped over a second slain Serathid and crashed into the ground face-first. Pain erupted throughout my body as my injuries from the previous battle flared up; my faded adrenaline and Primal blessings no longer protected me from the agony, and I clenched my jaw to keep from screaming. “Please,” I begged pitifully, reaching out into the darkness, “do not leave me here.”
A faint light appeared on the tunnel wall ahead, and I fought to stay conscious as it grew brighter. From around a bend in the passage, a vibrantly glowing blue sword appeared from the darkness, followed soon after by a matching pair of radiant golden blades. Pure joy filled my chest as I watched the glowing weapons approach. “Lux, Lia,” I choked out as tears filled my eyes. “You came.”
***
21. THE DARK BELOW
“You came.” Val’s voice wavered as she stared up at us from the floor, her face a bloody, broken mess.
“Of course we came,” I muttered. “These damn beasts are invading Lybesa; we can’t just sit around while Kaldan ruins our home. Again.”
Restart Again: Volume 3 Page 47
