by Billy Wong
"I'm sure I have since last fighting these things. But you shouldn't think it's all down to raw skill, or strength. I feel like I'm more focused and motivated than I've ever been before. We know what's at stake—the lives of thousands, potentially, in addition to our own—and that one way or another, this will be the final battle of our journey. It's like I'm fighting for some kind of championship, only instead of champion of a competition, I'm trying to be a champion of humanity. So I'm letting that fuel me and carry me to new heights. You should do that too, if you can... so we'll have a better chance to get through this."
"I don't know if I can harness the moment like you and Leroy do." The big boy had lifted up the stunned dog-lizard and now hurled it down the mountainside. It bounced a few times before coming to a stop twisted and broken on some pointed rocks. One way to crack open an armored nut. "But I'll try to ride it with you."
They trekked up, around, back down and between peaks, ever seeking the great crater at the heart of the Dynard Mountains. More monsters stood in their path and they killed them—snake headed cats with flaming spit, a flock of birds with another mouth in their chest, what looked like hopping mounds of fur with a cluster of teeth in the middle, all were cut down by the dozens by Kath, Leroy, and the Unstained. Even Zack did well, killing multiple opponents in their encounters against swarms. They fought a giant crab with steel-like armor plates; Kath poked out the eyes, Leroy and the twins pried open the shell, and they feasted on crab meat... figuratively.
A hulking ape with an extra pair of arms ending in bone blades managed to badly injure Marv before Violet bashed in its face. As his brother held him, Kath watched blood gush from the gash in his side. But he insisted he was fine, and only had Marv wrap bandages around his trunk before standing up on his own. Christopher offered him a drink, which he took. Wearing a perpetual grimace, he limped onward. Nonetheless, he wasn't so stubborn that he wouldn't hang back when they came across more monsters. The others did most of the work in subsequent battles against leaping acid snails and spike shooting mobile flowers.
They picked up wounds too. Acid marred Kath's face, Leroy got his hand cut by a fowl with multiple barbed tails, and Christopher suffered broken ribs from a bull-sized ram headbutting him against a boulder. They just bound the injuries they could and pressed on, knowing they had to be close. Finally they beheld the monumental jagged rocks between which lay the path to the crater. "This is it," Kath breathed. "I wonder what we'll find beyond here."
A deep voice spoke from behind a rock shortly before the giant ones. "You will find nothing, but death." A familiar tall black-clad figure stepped out, and Kath started.
"Gabriel?! Tell me you're here to stop this, and not..."
"I'm sorry to have to disappoint you. But that is a warning you should heed." He turned away from the group and strode towards the gap. They could have attacked, but not knowing enough only followed. Past the rocks, the crater came into view. Kath's jaw dropped, and she figured Zack and Leroy had similar reactions. Inside the incredible hole, which could have housed a small city, lay two serpentine bodies larger than castles and enveloped with glittering mystical energy.
Before the crater stood six figures. One was a slant-eyed eastern man wearing a sheathed thin, curved sword, another a muscular ebony-skinned warrior holding two thicker curved blades. A third was an older woman with wild white hair and a flail in her hands, the next a pale giant wielding a hammer with a head the size of a child's torso. Then there was a hunched over man full of scars and piercings, who was missing parts of his ears and seemed to have blades... growing? out of his forearms. Kath didn't want to think about the surgeries he must have endured. The last figure was the strangest of all. Though its shape looked like that of a human, shadow seemed to obscure it permanently, so that she couldn't even tell if it was a man or woman let alone what clothes it wore or what weapon it wielded. It appeared just as a hazy person-shaped black void, like a ghost or some malevolent spirit. Must be a gift, she concluded. She'd figure out how to deal with it when she got there.
Behind the six, Lucia lay upon a flat rock, twisting and turning in a restless sleep. So another way to rouse the serpent hadn't been found. She was still the one.
Gabriel walked past the frightful warriors and stood before Lucia. He didn't speak, as if waiting for someone else to. At last, Kath couldn't take it anymore and shouted, "So these ugly bastards are the best assassins you could hire?"
He kept his back turned to her. "You still try to emulate her bravado. Amusing."
"Where is Deidre, anyway?"
"She would not agree with what I am doing. So I parted ways with her."
"I-it doesn't make sense!" Zack stammered. "You were helping Lucia, saving her from being kidnapped. So how could you be the one behind the kidnappings? And why didn't you take me, if my gift was one you could use?"
He finally favored them with a look back. "Whatever theory these white-clad fools have gotten you to believe in is wrong. I never attempted to have you kidnapped. To the best of my understanding, the one who hired men to kidnap you and Lucia was Lord Parr. I protected Lucia in order so that she could serve my own purposes. As for you, I never knew you possessed a healing gift while we traveled together." Kath remembered they had never told of it, and avoided using it when she got injured of course.
"But you are trying to rouse the great serpent!" Leroy said. "Why, and which one?"
Kath tried to imagine he might say he wanted to restore nature to a more prominent state, or some rationale like that not completely abhorrent if perhaps mentally unsound. Instead, he replied, "I will revive Volgox the Destroyer, and with his aid tear down this corrupt government. No longer will the selfish nobility exercise their unearned privilege over the masses, as they crumble into oblivion."
"Sure there are bad things done by people in power," Kath protested, "but not all nobles are evil. You complimented us and we're nobles. Why must you kill us all?"
"Kill? I do not see a need to kill every last noble. As long as their power is stripped away, so that they can live in equality with others, it will be enough."
"Equality under what? A giant snake that'll slaughter humans just for amusement, or you?"
"The venom with which you say 'you' is disheartening. Whatever happened to our friendship?"
"You kind of threw it away when you sent Jagor to kill Zack. Or, don't tell me you didn't do that either?"
His eyes narrowed. "When I learned after the details came out that he had a gift which could raise the other serpent to stand in the way of my plans, I felt it necessary to ensure it would never happen."
She smiled ironically. "And yet, if you had left him alone we might not even be here today. So maybe that was a mistake. Also, aren't you supposed to be a guardian of world stability? How is this supposed to stabilize anything?"
"The corruption runs too deep to salvage the current system. Only after it is cast aside will true peace and stability come."
"Don't you have any shame, taking advantage of Lucia's trust in you?"
"What shame should I feel for letting her better the world?"
"You once saved her legitimately from being used like this. And now you'd..?"
"Minds change. Times change."
"What's wrong with Lucia, anyway?" Zack asked. "You'd think all this talking would wake her up with how shallow it looks like her sleep is, but..."
"She refused to cooperate. Now she has been drugged so that she turns her gift on herself, and her own nightmares stir the serpent from his dreams." But then, Kath wondered, why wasn't Vilig affected too?
"I never expected such cruelty from you," she snarled. "This probably won't be settled with words, then."
"Your words cannot sway me from this road. History's course is about to be altered. Step back and bear witness or strive against it and be swept away like dust."
"We'll stand firm like riverbanks instead," Leroy said, "and divert its course."
Kath nodded. "Good one."
> "The flood of the future will wash over you."
"Maybe, but when the flood dies down... we'll be there."
Gabriel laughed. "Do you really think so? You're weak. A bunch of kids and a few old stragglers who hadn't the sense to follow your outdated order to the grave."
"Why don't you all say anything?" Zack asked the Unstained.
Violet spat. "There is no reasoning with a one like this, who has forgotten in pursuit of his ambitions to be human. Thus we will let our arms do the talking."
"I guess there's no way around it," Kath said, raising her sword. The six opposing warriors shifted their weapons eagerly in hand. Finally Gabriel turned as if to watch.
Zack gulped. "At l-least we outnumber them, a little."
"Yeah, but we don't seem to be quite as fresh"—she wondered how they'd avoided injuries from monsters on the way here—"and..." Out of respect for him and Fred, she cut off what she had thought to say next. Not everybody could be a stud of a warrior, and that was just fine, as long as they had courage.
"Forward, then?" Leroy asked.
"For the championship!" Leading the way with her family blade, she charged.
Chapter 10
As they closed, Kath smelled a rank odor coming from the enemies. Some kind of perfume to discourage the monsters, perhaps? It seemed like she might be learning a lot for her future career, if she lived through this. The easterner dashed to meet her with a hand on the hilt of his sheathed sword. The instant he was in range, he drew it straight into a horizontal slash. He must practice the technique a lot, for it was so quick she just managed to parry. His blade slid along and off hers and he ran past. She would have spun to keep track of him, but right behind him was the pale giant. His hammer careened down like a meteor. She blocked with her sword against the haft, turned the blade to slice a shallow wound in his cheek. He roared and headbutted her, bloodying her nose and making her stumble back. Before she could retaliate, she heard movement behind her and twisted away from the easterner's cut from behind, the blade nicking her side but glancing off though it scratched the armor. Darn, why was she fighting two at once? Weren't the enemy supposed to be the ones outnumbered? Before she could question it further, Christopher attacked the giant from the side, diverting his attention from Kath. Kath thought to focus on the easterner, only to see him running away towards where Melv and Marv battled the walking shadow. So chaotic...
Violet fell in front of her, bleeding from a gash in her shoulder. Before the disfigured forearm-blade man could strike again, the dark man chopped down into her middle and she curled up around his scimitar. Kath slashed him across the ribs, backing him up. "Violet! Are you alright?" But the Unstained was coughing in agony and couldn't reply.
Kath leapt at the dark man and swung her sword down hard. He blocked with both scimitars, but was driven to one knee. She kicked him in the chest, launching him away. The forearm-blade man darted at her in a low stance. She flipped over him as he slashed at her legs, laid open his back with a midair slice. Surprisingly Violet was back up, and shattered his jaw with her mace. Maybe her scale mail had prevented the scimitar from biting too deep. He grabbed her as he fell and they rolled across the rocky ground, wrestling and kneeing at each other. The dark man swung a scimitar at Kath which she deflected and was subsequently stabbed in the thigh by Zack. Good job! He was starting to look-
The dark man's backhand with a hilt warped Zack's face, and he flew away to lie still upon the earth. Times weren't ready to change yet. Leroy knocked the old woman into the dark man, knocking him down. The giant barreled into Leroy and hurled him onto a bunch of rocks. Kath dodged a double arm strike from the forearm-blade man and slashed his hip. The easterner came out of nowhere and his sword ripped into her side. Sharp, to go through the armor... She gritted her teeth and hammered at the easterner's guard, was forced to jump back when the forearm-blade man lunged in from the right. Was Violet dead? Just as she had that thought, the woman landed in her view atop the falling giant, punching him in the face. But then where... Leroy swung his sword at the forearm-blade man, who dodged.
"Why won't anybody pick an opponent and stick with them?" Kath asked aloud. Well, except for Melv and Marv who fought the walking shadow, staying at just about the farthest distance for a melee fight and barely getting off any offense in favor of maintaining a cautious defense. There must something about the mysterious warrior, but hopefully the two could deal with him together. She looked around. Fred had fallen, whether alive or dead she couldn't know. The giant grabbed Violet by the throat and bashed her head into a nearby rock, dropping her limp on top of him. Kath ran to help. The forearm-blade man jumped in the way. She backpedaled from a flurry of jabs, pretended to stumble. He pounced. She sidestepped and cleaved away both his forearms, and he fell shrieking as blood spurted.
Christopher battled the giant now, axe to hammer, but Violet was somehow up again, dueling with the dark man. Leroy fought the easterner, power versus finesse. That left... Kath spun just in time to bat aside the head of the old woman's flail. "I'll school you, little girl," she said.
"I don't think so. This will be the first female pairing of the battle if I'm not wrong, so you should be careful not to embarrass your generation."
"Mock me, whelp? I'll bash your head in and drink your bra-" Fred, back on his feet, almost rammed his spear through the old woman's flank but just missed as she dodged. She whipped the flail into his sternum, knocking him on his back. Kath would have cleaved her chest, but the easterner parried it. She saw that Christopher didn't have a sparring partner at the moment, twisted and shoved the easterner at him. Violet saved the downed Fred by smashing her mace into the old woman's back. Before the dark man could stab her from behind in turn, Fred sat up and thrust the spear at his groin. The dark man blocked, sneered and raised the other scimitar to split Fred's skull. Kath deflected the blow, spotted Violet fighting the easterner and Christopher attacking the old woman—such chaos—and Gabriel finally stepping forth towards Leroy who'd just beheaded the giant.
"Hey Leroy!" she called. "A gift for you." She ducked a slash from the dark man, tackled him and carried him a few yards before throwing him down between Leroy and Gabriel. "You have fun with the far southerner." For however long that lasts... Kath pointed at Gabriel. "I want you."
"You wish to die first?"
She answered his question with one of her own. "It was so inefficient of you waiting this long while your people died before joining the fray. What, don't you want to win?"
"I was studying all your styles to figure out how to kill each of you most quickly. The strongest was to be first. But since you volunteer..."
"Leroy may have a little more physical power than me. But I guarantee I won't put up less of a fight."
He smirked. "You guarantee it?"
Actually, she had no idea whether she could even last through ten of his strokes if he went all out. Yet she grinned like she didn't believe she could lose. "Bring it!"
Gabriel strode at her, swinging his blade casually much like Deidre had done in their first meeting. Yet she was able to defend better than she had then, dodging and parrying steadily though the strikes still seemed intimidatingly fast and hard. He still isn't going full tilt, she reminded herself. Be careful. After leaning back from a cut, she tried to dart in with a counter. Gabriel appeared to disappear from in front of her, and pain flared through the side of her thigh. She looked down to see blood running down her leg, the armor rent. At least it seemed to have slowed down the blade a tad, for the wound didn't feel too deep.
"Do you see now that you are nowhere close?"
She didn't respond, but hobbled backwards clutching her thigh. Gabriel glided after her. She tripped, and his point streaked at her throat... Kath put a hand to the ground and pushed off it to roll sideways in mid fall, the blade nicking her neck but failing to inflict a fatal wound. Her arm came up around his sword while she thrust her own towards Gabriel's heart. He leaned so the blade only grazed his side, managed t
o pull his sword free of her hold. But the smirk disappeared from his eyes as they grew harder.
"Almost killed you and disarmed you," Kath said.
"It was not that close."
"But you realize don't you? I'm dangerous."
He touched his side, and his hand came away bloody. "Hmph. You are a reckless youth who does not accept your place in the world."
"You claim you'll free people from the nobility and say things like that?"
"I did not mean it that way." He smiled. "You are brave, unyielding—even if far outmatched you will not cower and instead fight doggedly to the end. It is admirable. But you will still die."
"Let's see about that!" She charged him, swung. He jumped back and with perfect timing, just before she would have been out of his sword range, slashed her chest. A gap appeared in the breastplate, and blood flowed out.
"How do things look?"
"Your reach advantage could be argued to be unfair," she gasped, struggling for a comeback. His weapon moreso, she realized then. The metal didn't seem to bend as much as a typical sword, yet was not brittle and sharp enough to have already put many nicks into the edge of her blade, along with breaching her armor with ease. She didn't know if it was magic or just made from an exotic material. She thought about using the sword she'd found in the castle, but decided to save her trump card for a better opportunity—assuming her first weapon lasted that long.
Gabriel seemed to turn serious. He came forward attacking fast, forcing her to turn this way and that to ward the strikes that came from every angle. She tried to concentrate on defense while waiting for a good opening to counterattack. It didn't work out well for her. Despite her efforts his blade bypassed her shield and sword and bit repeatedly into her flesh. Backing up, she neared a flat rock and hopped onto it in hopes of using the advantage of higher ground. They exchanged a few blows, then she jumped over a slice at her legs and tried to cleave his skull. He beat her to the punch, landing a high front kick to her gut that launched her from her favorable position. Her back thudded against the stony earth. He ran up the rock and leapt off trying to chop down between her legs. She rolled away just in time, but got scarcely a second's break as he resumed the assault. She screamed in pain and frustration, the return blows she threw desperately now hitting nothing but air or weapon. While the others continued to battle in the area near the entrance, he battered her back without end all around the crater. Warm wetness flowed down her limbs, her sides, her back... He was butchering her, and there was nothing she could do about it.
