by M. J Kreyzer
They hit the ground at the same time, some ending up on their feet, most of them ending up stretched across the pavement. Morlo hit hard and wasn’t able to roll, landing on his back and breaking Pitt’s fall with a painful crack. He yelled. Some of them were hurt, bruised. The shock of the landing reverberated through their legs. Time for recuperation, though, wasn’t a luxury that they could afford.
“Get clear, move!” Hendrick shouted. Some of them limped, especially Morlo, as they fled from the collapsing building.
The street at the hotel’s front was a wasteland. Dead, charred piles of armor lay strewn and they heavy, pungent scent of death hung heavy. But the airstrike had drawn more attention than before, and even now nearly a dozen Battlecraft had been ordered to set down at their position and were zipping towards them. Behind them, thick brown dust spread from the imploding building. They kept their pace.
“Into the alley!” Hendrick shouted, snatching a rifle from the ground and giving what little covering fire he could.
At the edges of the buildings in the alleyways and out of the shops, white figures were reemerging. Every Legionnaire that was a part of that main force hadn’t been in the street when the strike hit. The surrounding buildings had given them all the cover they needed.
Their legs aching, joints stinging, Rush and the Ditrinity ran faster.
“Pontious! Check it!” Hendrick said of the alley.
Immediately he obeyed, sprinting ahead with his gun raised, checking the corners and ushering them onward. With Legionnaires bearing down on the alley, Hendrick picked up another rifle and fire in all directions, shouting taunts and curses as he did. After backing into the alley, Hendrick emptied the clips of each rifle and tossed. Time for his escape.
Around the corner, half of the group had already disappeared into a large manhole, even big enough for Morlo to fold his shoulders in and squeeze through. Morlo held the cover open for them, waving them all through as one by one they disappeared into the ground. Morlo and Hendrick were the last ones on the surface.
“Hurry up!” Morlo said, looking down the alley where the voices of thousands of infuriated Legionnaires were echoing.
Hendrick adjusted his Blazers, sheathed his knife and declined. “No, big guy, get to the ship.”
“The hell you-“
“I need to find Sable and Seraphine. You have to get to the ship. If they knew which rooms we were in they sure as hell know we’ve got a cruiser waiting for us. Help the others.”
Morlo knew there was no time to argue. Morlo gave a grim smile and nodded, looking at Hendrick like he’d look at a brother. “Thanks, man.”
Hendrick gave Morlo a casual salute. After that, Morlo jumped into the hole with his arms crossed across his chest and disappeared into the hole. Hendrick replaced the manhole cover and immediately went under fire.
The Legionnaires were hot on him. Hendrick yelled taunts as he led them on, sprinting as fast as he could through the winding alleys. The Legionnaires followed and went right over the manhole, oblivious to the fact that the others had escaped through there.
Step one was over with. Now Hendrick had to wade through the tens of thousands of Legionnaires and find Seraphine and Sable. Excitement charged through his gut as he ran with bullets ricocheting all around him.
There was a Chainlance in the distance. The Legionnaires would only be using that kind of force with other members of Rush and the Ditrinity. The noise was his best bet, and Hendrick broke into a sprint. It’d be one hell of a fight.
Seraphine ran as fast as she could, wheezing with every breath as tears cut through the dirt and blood caked on her face.
They hadn’t seen it coming. That Monolith came out of nowhere. They just heard the powerful roar of a Chainlance and Seraphine felt warm, thick liquid spraying across her face.
Through her screaming, Sable told her to run. So she did. She turned and sprinted away, the last thing she saw of Sable was a Monolith with a Chainlance cutting through her armor and burying into her side. Even with the three inch teeth of the Chainlance chewing away at her side, Sable fought back, pressing vainly against the roaring Chainlance as her blood spurted across the concrete. Sable had killed a few Legionnaires, but by the time Seraphine had made the next corner the Chainlance went quiet and Sable had ceased to scream.
Seraphine was on the verge of hysterics. It took every ounce of mental strength she possessed from crawling into a corner and bawling. She wanted to go home. She wanted to be with her mother again.
But they needed her. The Ditrinity, the Darks, and if what they had said was right, the world. But She was only fifteen. She kept telling herself that. It’s okay to stop. They’d have to understand and it’s unfair of them to put that kind of pressure on her.
She fought the thoughts. She had to keep going. Seraphine didn’t quite understand the world, the Commune, war, even Relias. All she knew was that the Ditrinity and Rush were fighting and dying just for a chance to get her to Pyre and she wouldn’t let their sacrifices be in vain.
Howls echoed through the streets behind her, the howls of Nightwolves. And in the ominous quiet she heard their paws hitting the ground and their claws scratching against the rough pavement.
Her stomach got tight. The wolves scared her. They weren’t like the regular Legionnaires. It was like they weren’t even remotely human. They wouldn’t stop at killing her. They felt the insatiable drive to tear their victims to pieces.
Seraphine imagined the Nightwolves, their razor sharp teeth borne, licking their lips and frothing around their gums, circling around her before going in for the kill, tearing away at her flesh and devouring her bit by bit.
She shuddered and ran faster. She had to get to the shipyard. She heard the fighting in the distance and knew it was the others. She knew how worried they were about her and Sable. It’d break their hearts when Seraphine told them.
A knot built up in Seraphine’s throat and she shook as she almost lost control of her emotions. Poor Sable…
There were more howls, closer this time. With the echo it was impossible to tell where they were coming from. But Seraphine pressed herself to go faster. Her legs, chest and head hurt but she ran faster. Even if she was the only one who made it to the cruiser she’d get to Pyre and get to the amplifier.
Then the Commune would die. She’d kill them. She’d kill them all.
There was another howl and this one she was able to zone in on.
It was right behind her.
Seraphine spun around and, at the end of the street, she saw a short silvery figure set against the darkness. He stood there, it’s shoulders rising and falling with each savage breath. Seraphine froze. She tried to move but she couldn’t.
The wolf stood there for a moment longer, looking at her. Then it broke into a sprint.
Seraphine watched as the wolf bore down on her, closer and closer, until she could hear its teeth grinding hungrily.
Her feet wouldn’t move. She couldn’t breathe, speak, or even think. All she saw was the silvery monster sprinting towards her.
MOVE! She screamed at herself in her mind. Her body wouldn’t respond. PLEASE, MOVE!
It was like lifting an incredible weight that was just barely light enough to be lifted. Seraphine peeled her feet from where they stood, starting slowly at first.
The wolf was just behind her.
Her legs gained momentum as she remembered how to use them. Soon she was running at full speed, scrambling madly for some sort of cover.
There were yells down the street. Not howls, but yells. Seraphine chanced a glance behind the wolf.
There were more Legionnaires down the street. One of them, a Monolith, stood at their front and wielded a bloody Chainlance.
Seraphine stifled a scream. The wolf no longer scared her.
There was a glint of light in the gutter ahead. A glass bottle.
That’s all she had. She looked around through the street hoping to find something else, a bat or maybe a knife, but fat
chance of finding either of those. No, the bottle was her only choice. But as close as she had to be to use it… Seraphine closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and-
The wolf nipped at her heel. It caught the back of her boot and knocked it behind the other. Seraphine went sprawling and landed face first on the ground.
The wolf bounded on top of her and went for her throat.
Seraphine screamed and instinctively kicked out at it. Her heel caught it in the face, infuriating it even more. She tried to kick it again, but this time it caught her boot in its mouth and sunk its teeth in.
She was finished. She only had one last chance. Without a weapon she was dead.
Seraphine reached a hand desperately towards the glass bottle, the nail of her pointer finger just millimeters from scraping the top of the bottle.
The Nightwolf jerked her. Her hand fell further away from the bottle.
Teeth were starting to press against the skin of Seraphine’s ankle as the Nightwolf tore more and more furiously away at her leg.
Seraphine moaned hopelessly, her arm burning as she stretched with all her strength to reach the bottle. Her fingernails, breaking and cracking, ground bloody against the rough cobblestone as she clawed frantically towards the bottle.
Her fingertips grazed the bottleneck. She tried to stick a finger and bring it towards her.
Another jerk. Seraphine was further still.
The teeth were breaking skin and Seraphine let loose a shrill, airsplitting scream. With her free foot she kicked outwards as hard as she could, catching the Nightwolf in the snout.
It yelped and released the boot. It became mindless and bloodthirsty. Its red eyes were on Seraphine’s neck. Without hesitation it darted at her and lunged at her neck.
It was Seraphine’s chance. She clambered towards the bottle and gripped the neck firmly in hand.
The wolf was in midair with his mouth agape. Its mouthful of sharp, yellowed teeth obscured her entire vision. Seraphine broke the bottle against the curb and plunged the broken side outward.
The wolf stopped. In shock, sobbing quietly to herself, Seraphine watched as blood dripped down the bottle as it slowly slid deeper into the wolf’s chest, making wet squishing noises as she twisted the bottle subconsciously.
Tears ran down Seraphine’s face. She whimpered quietly as she waited for the wolf to die.
Its body quivered. Its warm damp breath blew across her face, smelling putrid and rotten. But each progressive breath became shallower until they stopped entirely. Its eyes glazed over and its body went limp. Seraphine let go and the wolf collapsed to one side.
Seraphine shook uncontrollably. She put a hand on the gutter and tried to stand.
She couldn’t. Her eyes wouldn’t focus and her legs wouldn’t work. But slowly she pulled herself away from the dead Nightwolf, her eyes horrifically riveted on the expanding pool of red beneath its chest.
Then, as her mind returned, Seraphine cried. The tears that ran down her face became a steady stream. They were going to die. All of them. Sable was dead, the Ditrinity was dying, and Seraphine wouldn’t make it anywhere.
“Hey fellas, look at this!” It was a deep, booming voice. Rough, intimidating, frightening. Seraphine’s entire body tensed and her eyes went wide. “Look at what this lil’ bitch did to Arty!”
There was laughter. The Monolith kicked the corpse to the side.
With her big, green eyes bursting with tears, Seraphine looked up at the Monolith, holding the Chainlance in folded arms across his chest. Then, from behind him, more Legionnaires appeared. Their armor was clean, untouched. None of them had even fought yet. Skirmishers, Knights, Berserkers, Nightwolves, they’d brought everybody. There were at least seven soldiers. They formed a semi-circle around Seraphine and watched with unfettered mirth as the Monolith toyed with her.
“What you say? You say we put the slut down?”
There was a resounding ‘yeah’. Seraphine shook her head pleadingly.
“No, no, no, no, please… I-“
“You what, you little whore. You what?”
“I just…” Seraphine shook her head slowly, looking the Monolith in the black glossy visor that concealed his face, hoping that he’d understand. “I just want to go home! PLEASE! I just want to go home!”
The Monolith pulled his helmet off and tossed it. He grinned from ear to ear, his white teeth shining through the dark. “You hear that!” He said to the others.
Laughter once more. It was like a good joke at her expense. The Monolith’s laugh overpowered them all. Once he’d expended his share of laughs, he looked back Seraphine and shrugged.
“Well, you just killed a Legionnaire. That’s a federal offense and this is martial law. You know what that means?”
Seraphine knew where things were going. Her sobbing got harder. “P-please don’t… I… I want to see my mom again… I… she’s all that-”
The Monolith mimicked a sad face and stuck out his bottom lip. “Uh-uh-uh I don’t give a shit!”
He pressed a button on the handle of his Chainlance and it roared to life. The hundreds of three inch teeth became a blur. The Monolith stepped towards Seraphine with that same smile, one of complete pleasure, spreading from ear to ear.
“PLEASE!” Seraphine screamed. Her screams, drown roughly beneath the grating roar of the Chainlance, echoed shrilly through the empty streets.
Chapter 28
Frenz paced the control board as workers scurried all around him, giving the general a full picture of the battle at hand. Standing in front of a wall of video monitors, Frenz watched the chaotic events in and around Leramato unfold.
He couldn’t believe what he was seeing, but the sheer anarchy that drowned the city put a smile on his face. He had to give it to the Ditrinity. Calling in that airstrike on the hotel and repelling down the side of the building as it was collapsing was a stroke of genius. But then there was Rafferty, pathetic excuse for a commander. When he got back Frenz would be bashing his head in himself. But as much as Frenz loved seeing this kind of destruction, the nagging, frustrating failures were starting to mount in the back of his mind. There were over twenty five thousand Legionnaire soldiers in the vicinity and the only reported death was that of the Monolith Muldoon.
Frenz had known that the Darks were trying something big. Ever since his insider passed along information in regards to a high-priority, confidential mission just days after Praemon fell, Frenz had had a nearly insatiable appetite for the death of the Ditrinity. And Rush, Frenz kept laughing at the name. It was pathetic. And to think that they thought they’d be able to make it to Pyre even without the mole was just another joke in the heap. But they weren’t making it any further. Even though many of them had somehow managed to make it to the cruiser, with the Battlecruiser armadas that were moving in from every major city in the region, their laughable, long obsolete Mysto wasn’t going to make it a quarter mile.
But what really bugged Frenz was why they hadn’t heard anything about Luke. A report came in earlier about his daughter which called out a slew of questions regarding Luke’s motives. If Frenz was right, and typically he was, Luke was still being driven by revenge and the fact that he wasn’t with the Ditrinity proved that he wasn’t as large a threat as he used to be. And the disappearances of nearly five hundred Legionnaires the night before furthered this theory. Frenz was more than willing to accept the deaths of thousands, even hundreds of thousands of Legionnaires if it meant keeping Luke from attacking the Counts, the Commanders, the people who actually mattered, in a governing sense, of course. Firsts would die, but in the long run the lives of those dead soldiers would be an investment in the success and prosperity of the Commune.
“Status report.” Frenz ordered, keeping his eyes on the dozens of screens that gave him a multi-faceted view of the smoking city of Leramato. All across the screens there were flashes, explosions, and flames. The four screens concentrating on the shipyard, though, were so filled with violent flashes and rattling explosi
ons that it made the images nearly indistinguishable from a blank white screen. What little he could see, though, showed that the Ditrinity’s battlecruiser had its shields angled towards the sky, absorbing fire from Helios and Blackshredders while soldiers in the docking bays fended off boarding parties.
“Only three centers of activity being reported. We have confirmed locations on eight of the eleven insurgents.”
Frenz didn’t take his eyes away from the screen. “Those locations being…”
The operator pulled up a list on his screen and read the names from the lists. “On the cruiser we have the confirmed presences of Vyvyr Syvyr, Pontious Granlow, Morlo Greyhorn, Serenity Blake, Warren Pitt, and Trennen van Kristik.”
Frenz shook his head. “Disgusting traitor…”
“We have the confirmed death of Draken Muldoon while Nathan Hendrick and Tess Semprys are unaccounted for. The female member Sable has been reported KIA and we have a squad engaging the younger member, Seraphine Leyen.”
“And that was the last thing you mentioned?” Frenz nearly shouted. “Throw it up onscreen.”
The video feed was onscreen before Frenz could finish the command. The video was coming from the helmet camera of the Monolith. His vitals indicated an accelerated heart rate. He was about to end it; it was moments like this that were some of the countless perks that made Frenz love his job.
Chapter 29
Seraphine scrambled away on her back, kicking and clawing against the ground as the Monolith bore down on her. The twelve other Legionnaires lined up behind the Monolith pointed and laughed, the scene at hand providing them entertainment that they seldom enjoyed.
She had quit begging and could only scream. Lines streaked her face where the blood and dirt had been washed away by tears. She had seen movies, TV shows where people were brave, laughing at death, she’d watched the Ditrinity fighting off waves of Legionnaires without begging for their lives. But she was only fifteen. She was too young to die. She didn’t want to die.
