by Jeff Gunzel
“We have to go,” Owen said. She looked back to see the hunter and Liam mounted on his great beast. She never even heard them approach.
In a frenzy, Assirra began tugging at Thatra’s arm again, causing the warrior’s body to inch along the dirt in fits and jerks. “Help me,” she said, tears flowing down her cheeks. “Help me!!” she shrieked again just before Thatra’s hand slipped from her grasp, causing her to stumble back and fall on her backside.
“Leave her,” Liam said. She looked up in disbelief only to see the pained look in his eyes. His stinging words had not come easy. “There is nothing we can do for her, and we have to go, now.” Assirra looked beyond them for the first time, seeing all the soldiers with weapons drawn. Owen had one of his crossbows aimed in their general direction. They had seen what he was capable of and appeared reluctant to advance. “We have to go,” he repeated calmly.
After taking Liam’s offered hand, she climbed up behind him and together they lumbered towards the gate. Not wanting any part of Owen’s wrath, the soldiers waiting at the entrance lowered the gate and got out of the way. They galloped out into the desert and turned off the main road, heading up towards the forest line. Once they broke into the greenery, the drop in temperature nearly chilled them. It felt good, though. Not just the cooler air but being clear of Shadowfen altogether. They wouldn’t be coming back here anytime soon.
Without a word, Assirra jumped off the back of the slow-moving lavics and began walking away. “Where are you going?” Owen asked, bringing his beast to a halt. She said nothing as she disappeared into the brush. Within seconds she was out of sight. “Shouldn’t we go after her?”
“No,” Liam answered quietly. “She is going back to her village to be with her people. Let her go. After all she has sacrificed, for a cause not of her own, we can ask no more of her. But as for us, I’m afraid our journey has just begun.”
“Aye,” Owen grunted his agreement. “North it is, then.” No more explanation was needed than that. Liam touched his friend on the shoulder and off they went. They had been through hell but would have to lick their wounds another day. The mission had not changed. They had to find Viola.
Assirra worked her way through the brush until she came into a clearing. There, she dropped to her knees and began to cry. What started out as mild whimpering soon became heavy sobs wracking her body. She pounded her fists against the ground, wailing like a wounded animal. The trauma, the sadness, it was all just too much. Her mind could hardly accept all she had been through.
Her eyes reddened, she looked up to the sky with tear tracks running down both cheeks. Her face hardened, teeth mashed together. “You bastard,” she hissed, fists trembling. “You bastard!” she shrieked, her cries carrying through the forest. “All these years I served you faithfully. I preached your word, your wisdom, and for what? So you could let my loyal servant die in my arms?” She stood, her frosty glare cold as ice, emotionless, dead. “Know this and know it well. Never again will I serve a bastard god. Hate me if you will, but know that I hate you more.”
She walked back into the brush, moving with a sense of purpose. She knew what she needed to do. “Odao, the bastard god... You are dead to me.”
Chapter 16
Viola drifted back, her whirling form settling up on a nearby boulder. “You don’t have to listen to him!” she shouted at the rush of lerwicks closing in. “You are your own people. No one can tell you who to be or how to live your lives. He controls you only because you let him!”
She flipped back again as flesh blades crunched into stone beneath her feet. Whirling over to a second boulder, she reformed her body, flesh blades extended and readied. “Think about what you’re doing. Why fight me? We are all brothers and sisters. Don’t think me an enemy just because he says it’s so. You are better than this! It is time to make up your own minds, to walk the path of your choosing. It’s not too late to—” She intercepted a series of incoming flesh blades, the heavy crash ringing out across the mountains. A few had actually stopped their advance, possibly listening to the wisdom of her words. But most just followed orders and continued their assault.
Mounting no offense, Viola held her ground as she deflected the barrage of incoming blows. Suddenly, like a strong gust of wind, a speeding blur zipped up to the top of the boulder. Somehow she managed to duck under the sword strike and leap away. Orm’rak snarled, giving chase as he blurred past the lerwicks on the ground, following her back to the first boulder.
Barely able to see him at all, she screamed as fiery pain ripped through her side. Holding the wound, she leapt away again, spinning through the air before landing back on the ground. Blood seeped between her fingers as she clutched the gaping wound. Injured, seriously as far as she could tell, she no longer had the luxury of holding back.
With one arm she deflected flesh blades as they came at her, returning strikes whenever there was an opening. Wounded and sourly outnumbered, she was still far more skilled than any of these assailants. She blocked high, then slashed out to take a lerwick’s head clean off her body. Ducking another, she whirled her flesh blade low, taking off the legs of two more would-be attackers. She hated killing in any form, but there was no reasoning with any of them. Her own brothers and sisters had deemed her an enemy, so it was kill or be killed.
Feeling a rush of air once more, she dropped to one knee and slashed blindly in its general direction. Missing her target, Orm’rak seemed to teleport right up next to her. Two hands on his blade, he slashed with all his strength, determined to cleave her in half and end this once and for all. Catching nothing but air, his blade passed right through her body as her form of whirling birds spun in place. Using more speed than power on the back swing, he clipped two birds, sending them tumbling away in a spray of black feathers.
Whirling back up onto another boulder, the sickly funnel melted into shape. Down on one knee, Viola clutched her gashed leg. And with the wound on her side still oozing blood by the second, she knew she was in big trouble. “It’s not too late,” she called down, attempting to get back to her feet. “Search your hearts and I promise you will see the truth.” Her leg buckled, dropping her back down to one knee. Orm’rak flashed up beside her, snatching her by the collar to lift her up.
“So long have I waited for this moment,” he snarled, raising her face up close to his. She could see the madness dancing in his eyes as he raised his sword, pressing the tip against her throat. “My only regret is that I can only kill you once.” With a reflexive move, he launched himself backward as a spinning blade flashed between them. Defying gravity, it spun around like a boomerang before snapping back into a waiting hand.
Falling back down to her knees, Viola wondered if she was hallucinating from the lack of blood. Had he really tracked her across the entire realm? Was he really standing there? “Xavier?” she rasped, the word coming out as a scratchy whisper.
Xavier stood at the cliffside, blades clutched in each hand. He hammered them together over his head with a clang, once, twice, each time causing them to sprout additional blades. His cloak was ripped and ragged, his cheeks drawn in. He said nothing and was still as a statue, but his mere presence was powerful enough to make several lerwicks back away. They could sense how dangerous this human was.
“You’ve come a long way just to die,” Orm’rak said, reluctantly jumping down off the boulder. His urge to skin Viola alive bordered on lust, a burning thirst that needed to be quenched. But this new threat needed to be dealt with first. “Why would a human even bother to try to save a cursed being such as her? She means nothing to you.”
“She means everything to me,” Xavier said, his emotionless words matching his frosty glare. “And that you would even ask me why I would come so far to help a friend says all I need to know about you. In truth, I pity you.” He held his blades out wide, twirling each with the tips of his fingers. “I pity you, but that doesn’t mean I will spare you.”
Snapping both wrists, Xavier released his twirling blad
es. Several nearby Lerwicks fell back, their corpses hitting the stone with open necks and ripped-off faces. Those remaining rushed him, their arms changing into blades to slash at him from great distances. Xavier danced and ducked, the skilled warrior evading their clumsy strikes with relative ease. Whipping his hands back and forth, his spinning blades seemed to mirror their movements as they soared through air, slashing at targets from unnatural angles. Defying gravity as they ripped from one lerwick to the next, Xavier’s masterful control of weapons was on full display.
Leaping away from another series of stabbing blades, Xavier ran straight up the face of a boulder and crouched on top. Three lerwicks flashed up next to him, trying to overwhelm him with numbers and speed. Making a fist and slashing the air, one of Xavier’s blades came streaking back, taking one right across the chest before snapping into his palm. He turned to leap away, but a fiery blast of pain ripped across the back of his shoulder.
He hit the ground, stumbling forward as warm wetness ran from the back of his shoulder. He blocked another flesh blade, then another as several more ground-level lerwicks swarmed him. They knew the troublesome human was wounded. It was time to strike with everything they had. Each time he cut one down, two more took its place. Flesh blades stabbed in from multiple angles, clumsy, awkward strikes that did little more than keep him off balance. But given their numbers, it was really all they needed to do. The wounded human couldn’t fend them off forever.
A lerwick finally got in, grabbing him by the wrist to momentarily render that sword arm useless. Like a pack of bees they swarmed him, bodies grabbing and twisting until he was no longer visible beneath the mass.
“No!” Viola screamed, rolling her broken body off the top of the boulder. She hit the ground with a hard jolt. Ignoring the burning wounds, she willed herself back on her feet and began stumbling towards him. But what could she really do to help him? Her body was so broken that it was all she could do to just move, let alone fight. Still, she had to try. Seeing the twitching mass of bodies ahead, it was almost as if he were moving away from her. Like a bad dream, everything seemed to move in slow motion. Her legs wouldn’t work. She would never reach him before...
Suddenly, the mass of bodies erupted as lerwicks went flying. Xavier stood up from the pack, his primal scream like a roar from a wild animal. With his white cloak completely torn away, every sheath across his chest was now empty. Silver flashed all around him, his array of blades dancing and whirling as they shredded all those within range. His body was covered with wounds, but his steely glare was not that of a beaten man. It was the glare of a focused killer about to do what he did best.
His blades ripped and tore, slashing and carving at any lerwick foolish enough to enter his bladed dome of spinning death. Two lerwicks who had begun backing away from the obvious death trap suddenly found themselves speeding right towards it. Each hoisted up by the back of the collar, they had become living shields as Orm’rak rushed straight into the bladed dome. His arms quivered as the whirling blades quickly turned his shields into strips of meat, but they served their purpose and he managed to push through.
Xavier saw a flash of white. The stunned warrior left his feet from the blow he never saw coming. Orm’rak zipped around to his backside, kicking Xavier again before his body ever hit the ground. Stunned, only half aware of what was going on, Xavier felt as if he were being attacked by the air itself. The speed difference between himself and Orm’rak was impossible to comprehend.
Having yet to touch the ground, he felt a sickening pain rip through his leg. Finally, he hit the ground with a hard thud. No longer controlling his blades, the animated weapons clinked down all around the stone as if the sky were raining daggers. Looming over him, Orm’rak twisted the sword in his impaled leg, causing Xavier to cry out in agony.
“You are stronger than I would have thought, human,” Orm’rak said, smiling down at the helpless man. “But you are still no match for me. You should not have come here. It is her that I wanted, not you.” Xavier looked up from the ground, seeing Viola only a few feet away. Down on her knees, tears in her eyes, she was completely surrounded by lerwicks. It was over. “I will kill you first and let her watch. But don’t worry, painful as it may be, it won’t be a lasting memory. It won’t be long before she follows you into the afterlife.”
I’m so sorry, Viola mouthed, her face contorted in agony. To watch him die was more than she could bear. She had failed in her mission to stop Orm’rak, and now her friend was going to pay the price. She would take her own life this very second if that would somehow spare his.
Xavier’s hands clenched, fingernails scraping across the stone beneath his palms. His heart raced, its pulse beating through his temples like a drum. His chest ached and his head began to spin. He had failed Viola and deserved to be put to death. Look away, he silently mouthed back, unable to hold back his own tears. The pain in his chest was intensifying, as if he were having a heart attack. He clutched at his neck, suddenly finding it difficult to breathe. His heart struggled and strained, fighting to push blood through his contracting veins. “I’m...so...sorry,” he growled, the deep rumbling words rolling up from the back of his throat. His heart was a hammer.
thump...thump...
The white-hot pain amplified even further, his chest feeling like it might implode. His heart felt like a living entity, each beat another attempt to break free from his body.
thump...thump...
Flashes of red and white assaulted his vision, blinding him, distorting his reality. Confused, distorted, his mind began to flood with images, ancient memories from a time he knew nothing about. Images of creatures and landscapes he had never seen before now swirled through his mind. What was happening? Was he dying? The pain was so great, so excruciating, that he was sure his heart would burst from his chest at any moment.
thump...thump...
Distracted by the strange, guttural sounds coming from the captive at his feet, Orm’rak looked down at the fallen human. “If you wish to beg for your life, you will have to grovel louder than that,” Orm’rak said, watching the human twitch and jerk. But what he thought was just a typical frightened human whimpering turned out to be something more. “Going into shock, I see. A shame for it to end so soon. I would have rather enjoyed taking my time with—”
Xavier’s head snapped up, causing Orm’rak to take a step back. Half his face was covered in dark green scales that trailed down the side of his neck. His blond hair had turned white, and one of his eyes had turned completely black , yet the pupil was bright yellow and slitted like a lizard’s. Xavier swung back, shattering the sword in his leg with one hand. But it was not a hand at all anymore, but more like a gnarled entanglement of brown vines. Free of the blade that had his leg pinned, he lunged to his feet. With a lightning-quick backhand that even Orm’rak could not evade, he sent the laberath sliding across the stone.
Viola could only stare at Xavier, his arm strangely withered as if a tree stump had been pulled from the ground, allowing its gnarled roots to hang loosely. With his face half covered with scales, he had become unrecognizable in more ways than one. The savage look in his eyes was one she had never seen before. Brutal, barbaric, they were the eyes of a predator seeking to kill, yet not those of a thinking creature at all. In those eyes she saw instinct, savage emotion, but nothing that led her to believe that Xavier was still in there.
He glanced at her with a snarl, not once showing any signs of recognition towards his friend. Whoever he was now, it was not Xavier. At least, not the way she remembered him. Like a streak of light he spun around and whipped across the battlefield, his mutated arm lashing out like a whip made of snakes. In a tremendous show of force, he tore several lerwicks in half, their ripped torsos tumbling into the air.
Seizing the opportunity, Viola slashed the stomachs of two lerwicks to her left, their innards spilling down on the stone. By this time, those surrounding her had practically forgotten she was there. The others turned towards her only to
have their necks gashed open. Viola was not very mobile, but she still had full use of one arm.
Free for the moment, she watched as Xavier rushed towards Orm’rak. At the last second, the laberath raised his sword, blocking an onslaught of viney whips. Moving with speed that shouldn’t have been possible for a human, Xavier lashed again and again, forcing Orm’rak to streak from side to side just to evade. Ignoring her wounds, ignoring the hot pain coursing through her broken body, Viola rushed towards her most hated enemy. Each step sent fire racing up through her hip, but she didn’t care. She was going to end this just as she had promised.
Xavier whipped around as she drew near, his leathery tentacles streaking right towards Viola’s face. She froze, unable to move, unable to react. As they streaked past her face, she heard the cries of pain directly behind her. Two lerwicks she was completely unaware of dropped right at the back of her heels, their eye sockets gouged clean. Glancing back, she saw Orm’rak rush Xavier from behind, trying to take advantage of the perfect opportunity. Viola sent her flesh blade streaking in. She didn’t hit him, but instead intercepted his dropping blade with a loud clang.
Xavier dropped to one knee, driving his leathery hand right into the ground. It seemed to dig below the surface of rocks and dirt, disappearing all the way up to his shoulder. Four nearby lerwicks cried out in pain. They reached down, clutching at their legs just before they were dragged into the ground. Their bodies cracked and twisted all the way down, bent and folded with impossible force. Xavier ripped his arm up from the ground in a mist of blood that sprayed like a geyser.
