by Billy Wong
The supporting characters were all out of commission or indisposed, she thought crazily. She supposed that made her the hero.
She took a deep breath to calm her pounding heart and told herself her next attack would do more than scratch Deathend. He didn't realize she was here, and surely Thorn could penetrate a weak point in his armor. She held the broadsword high, aiming for the joint of his neck guard and helm. Silently, she lunged, struck... As her point approached the base of his skull, he spun, avoiding it by less than an inch, and turned into a whooshing punch to the face like nothing she'd ever felt from a human being. The hit sent her flying eight feet away and left her seeing stars.
"How dare you try to sneak up on me, mortal? What do you take me for?"
"Dead," she replied stubbornly. She wiped blood from her mouth and came at him again. He reacted with the usual shocking speed, his fist a blur streaking towards her gut. But she was ready this time, and accepted the hit with a grunt while she took a hard twisting slash at his neck. The impact still lifted her a foot into the air to drop back down on her face, gasping for breath. Yet as that happened, Thorn had crashed into the armor surrounding his neck and broken through, drawing blood—but not deeply enough to kill or even seriously wound him. He touched his neck bemusedly before bending forward to grab Rose by the hair with an enormous hand.
He pulled her to her feet, glee in his eyes. As she came up she punched him hard over the shallow cut on his neck, making him let go when the blow pushed the sharp edges of his rent armor into his skin. Deathend took a step back grabbing his neck, and Rose stabbed up at the underside of his chin. He threw his head sideways to avoid the attack and slammed an elbow into her temple. Her eyes watered while pain engulfed her head, and he followed up with an uppercut to her throat that nearly crushed her windpipe. For a moment she couldn't breath, and she sagged against her enemy, barely able to stay standing. But as he laughed and raised his hand for another blow, she recovered and smashed her hilt against his helm over his ear, turning the laughter into a yell of pain.
Seeing her chance, Rose cast the spell she'd used to roast Deathend's face before and threw the tiny fireball at his visor slit. But the same trick wouldn't work twice, for he intercepted it with a gauntleted hand. It exploded on contact, closer to her head than his own, and momentarily blinded her as it singed her face. She cried out just before a massive fist slammed into her jaw, spinning her away. She fell against the parapet and Deathend kicked her hard in the back of the head, smashing her face against the hard stone.
Grabbing desperately at the top of the short wall, she dragged herself up and felt his fist zooming at her neck from behind. This time she was able to move so the punch glanced off, though it still stung, and turned to kick Deathend in the gut hard enough to make him hunch slightly. The axe kick that followed to his head actually drove him to his hands and knees, but he shoved himself back up in a heartbeat.
"It's fitting you're from Kayland," Deathend said while he shook his head. "Maybe the reason you do so well against me is because you're descended from her."
Glad for the reprieve from the difficult fight even if her opponent would get the same rest, Rose asked, "Her? Who?"
He seemed at once nostalgic and slightly worried as he replied, "Kayla. The woman your country was named after, and who thwarted me in the end. But don't expect to win. Even she had help, and I don't see any for you—poor girl."
Kayland was named after a woman? An inspiring thing to know, when Rose had always thought the kingdom named after a body of water. But Deathend was wrong. "Nice try at excusing your inability to beat down a mortal girl like myself, but my family didn't come to Kayland until my great-grandparents' generation. I'm not a descendant of this Kayla."
"No? You are just that strong?"
"My strength is what you see. So are you really a god, then?"
He surprised her a bit with his answer. "No, I am 'only' a human like yourself."
"As I thought," Rose spat. Though, she hadn't expected him to answer so honestly...
In response, Deathend roared, "Not just any man, but the greatest of men, of heroes, of kings! I might as well be considered a deity, compared to the sorry lot of humanity. I mean, I've killed so called gods! Not even death could keep me from my empire. For centuries I wandered the spirit realms as a shade searching for the means to return, and now I have finally found it. Once again my empire will rise above all other, and no one will stand against its rebirth!"
"How'd you do it? Come back, that is. And why, when you'd already achieved your eternal glory?"
He guffawed. "I grew bored of being dead. As for how... hmph! Even if I told you, it's far beyond your mortal understanding. Suffice to say I made a connection with one of my living descendants, and through it drew myself back here in his body."
"Was he so tall as you?"
"No. I altered his form to be as large as I had been."
Rose grinned then. "I guess now that you've answered my questions... there's no reason not to send you back, is there?"
"Send me back?"
"To the afterlife where you belong, monster."
"I admire your courage. You're to your contemporaries as I was to mine. But it won't save you." A line of flame extended slowly from the bladeless hilt he held in the loose shape of a sword, then drew itself inward to solidify into a straight, glowing red blade. "Volcano, my sword of hardened flame. Even you can't stand against it."
Rose raised her own precious sword, that her beloved Finn had made for her, and hoped he couldn't see her knees shake. With his magic blade now formed, Deathend wasted no time attacking her. He streaked forward with terrifying speed, barely allowing her to track his movement. Volcano, which she noted shared the name of her favorite spirits, swept at her face, and she threw herself backwards to avoid it. She fell onto her back, and he stalked confidently after her. But it was part of her plan, and she planted both feet into his crotch and tossed him over herself off the roof.
She didn't expect the fall to kill him—it hadn't killed her and Finn, either—but at least it would hurt him, and give her time to cast the spell she wanted. But when she looked, she spotted him not on the ground below, but floating in the air about ten feet below her. "Wings of air," he explained happily while she glared incredulous at the sight. "Such a trick could never work against me. My magic is far too advanced for you to stand a chance against, even if you are impressive physically." Indeed, his ability was great if he could complete a spell while falling! "Give it up."
"And die?! No way." She took a step up onto the parapet then, and surprising Deathend in turn leapt off the roof at him. Of course Rose couldn't fly, but she didn't mean to. Instead she gripped Thorn in both hands, raised it high over her head, and aided by gravity as she fell, brought it down harder than she remembered ever doing. The heavy broadsword connected with the front of Deathend's helm, one of its strongest parts, with a deafening impact that numbed Rose's arms up to the shoulders. Stunned, the giant fell from the sky alongside a newly hopeful Rose.
She landed in a tangle of limbs with her gargantuan opponent, in the same courtyard she and Finn had been cast down into before. Recovering first, she saw that while she still hadn't managed to penetrate his helmet, her attack had inflicted considerable damage. A great dent adorned the metal, which she knew must be pressing brutally into his face. Rose was too close to attack effectively with Thorn's blade, so she smashed her hilt into the dent she'd made again and again. She noticed blood ooze out from under Deathend's helm, a definite good sign for her. Panting, he shoved her away with one arm, but that only gave her a better shot at him with her sword. Still on the ground, Rose chopped at the breach in his neck armor.
This time she would have cut through an artery and surely killed him, except that he moved at the last instant, and Thorn rang against the bottom of his helm and glanced off. Deathend stumbled to his feet and Rose followed him up, slashing again at his neck. She had to hit that exposed flesh, that pulsing vein... But
then she realized he was nearly blind, his helm so bent by her blow it hindered his vision. He tore it off as he had before, giving her a much bigger target to aim for.
Now she finally got a good look at his face, which had healed remarkably from the burns she'd given him. Though marred by a crushed nose and terrible bruise down the middle of his forehead, she easily recognized it. "Regis?"
"Yes, this was his body," Deathend confirmed. "Ironic isn't it, that a man who didn't believe in me would be the doorway for my return. He was too foolishly conceited to believe any outside will could undermine his, and so never acknowledged, or fought, my spirit as I got my foothold in his own. I planned to take him over bit by bit, but it proved unnecessary. When he died and his soul left his flesh, it grew wide open for my taking. My power brought the dead shell back to life and healed it, even made it larger and stronger. How can you possibly hope to finish me?"
Rose shrugged. "Like my husband said, I'll just have to tear your body apart to the point where you can't repair it."
"Try, then," he said, and she accepted his challenge. Being injured, his speed and power had diminished to become slightly more manageable—but only slightly. Rose found herself still on the losing end of the fight, backing away frantically under an unending storm of blows as he regained his rhythm. Thorn grew hotter and hotter with each parry of his fiery blade, its heat radiating out to make the air around them resemble that inside an oven. Rose's hand soon started to blister from holding onto her hilt, but there was nothing to do but hold on—hold on, or die. And then, she learned what it was like to be hit by the dreadful Volcano.
It should have been nothing to her, a mere nick to her left hand, but the touch of the magic blade was like dipping her hand into molten lava, and she screamed in agony as skin blackened and flesh steamed. In her pain, she let her shield dip, and Deathend took full advantage with his next slash intended to cleave her head in two. She dodged to the right enough to save herself from being killed outright, but could not save herself completely from Volcano's second, far more devastating bite.
It came down on her left shoulder, and though her pauldron was among the thickest parts of her armor, it did little to help. The flame in solid form seared through the layers of steel and leather to bisect her collarbone and begin to descend into her torso. An inferno blazing inside her body, its heat set her undershirt on fire, and literally boiled her blood inside her. Somehow, she kept herself from being split in half by catching Volcano on Thorn. She pushed it back up out of her wound with her own sword, even as her right hand sizzled from the heat spreading into its hilt.
While the blade hadn't gone too deep, only cutting into her upper chest, there was now a huge open rift in her body. She bled less than she might have normally since the heat had cauterized the wound, yet the horrible burns inside her hurt so much she almost wished to be dead. Her left arm hung useless at her side, and shock weakened her to the point it was hard to even raise her sword to continue the fight.
Deathend smiled. "You have no hope of winning like this. Let me put you out of your misery." And he brought his blade down to finish it.
She backpedaled, avoiding the blow, but moaned in agony with each step. Deathend followed, grinning with complete confidence. Was she doomed after all? Somehow she could, with all her will, withstand the pain of the terrible wound, but there was no changing the fact she had only one arm with which to fight now. What could she do? She had to think of something. Rose raised her arm so high her sword hung down behind her, and Deathend laughed. Of course, any blow she attempted from that stance would be so telegraphed it'd be a matter of course to avoid it. But she never meant to try and strike him from such a position. Instead, she'd stabbed through her own thick cloak, and when she brought her sword back down, it whipped the cloak off herself and onto her opponent.
Throwing the cloak aside with ease, he only remained distracted for a moment, but it was enough. As Deathend freed himself, Rose finished the last words of the spell she'd begun chanting. Thorn turned colder than a glacier in her hand, though her destroyed skin barely noticed the change as she chopped hard at the hastily raised Volcano. She would only have been able to maintain the spell for seconds, unlike him; yet when they collided, their blades were charged with equal but opposite elemental power. Both swords shattered with a bang into deadly shrapnel which tore into their wielders, knocking them to the ground in spasms of screaming anguish. The torture of a half dozen molten daggers and a half dozen frozen ones deep inside her body almost snuffed out Rose's life then and there. But hope filled her weakening heart as she saw many holes in Deathend's armor and knew he'd suffered the same massive damage she had. Not so encouragingly, he was already moving.
She couldn't even get up at the moment, but rolled to her belly and threw herself on top of the rising Deathend with a desperate heave. Dark blood dripped from her gasping mouth onto him. She wrapped her one functional arm around his head, pinning it to her side, and squeezed. She usually could've crushed a man's skull in this manner, but right now she was greatly weakened, and his skull much larger and thicker than average. So she adjusted her tactic, twisting in an attempt to break his neck. The muscles there were like iron bands, and he fought her gamely, tightening them to stave off the fatal break. His hands reached up to grasp her forearm and burst into flame.
Rose screamed at the burning touch and Deathend began to pull on her arm, causing her tremendous agony as he desperately tried to free himself. In the instants before she could react, she was badly burned, and knew she'd bear more nasty scars if she survived. But she called down a bolt of lightning onto both of them—an easier spell than one that shaped the energy, which she could handle. It hurt her as badly as it did her opponent, but she was not unused to being electrocuted, and only tightened her hold while he convulsed in her grasp and his flames flickered out.
Recovering his senses more quickly than she'd hoped, Deathend summoned all his willpower to stand, pulling Rose up with him. He made to lift her into the air, surely intending to slam her and break the hold. But though he was stronger, Rose knew how she could stop the move. She threw her weight forward so that he was taken off his feet and flipped over to land on his back beneath her, her upper body pressing down on his.
Now Rose had all the leverage in the world, and wondered if her enemy knew he was finished. She felt the cartilage in his neck begin to pop and give, though he still fought her in a losing battle. But then she felt incredible heat flare up nearby, and looked at his hand to see it ablaze, this time with white flame as it streaked towards her chest. Even his gauntlet looked to be softening with that unimaginable heat. There was no way she could dodge in this position, and his burning fist, like a falling comet, crashed through her ribcage into her chest cavity. Rose wailed at the top of what was left of her lungs, blind with pain as scorching fingers dug into her most vital muscle. Oh gods, he was going to rip out her heart! Even Rose had to admit it now—she was done, and after all the things she'd survived that no one should have, she'd finally die.
But Deathend's hand didn't exit her chest tearing her heart out with it, or come out at all for that matter. The hottest flame she'd ever felt died down inside her breast, and Rose realized Deathend had fallen limp in her grasp, his neck twisted at an unnatural angle. Somehow, she'd done the impossible. The god of war, the greatest warrior of his age... was dead.
Rose's vision swam, and she struggled to keep breathing as every inhalation caused her unbearable agony. She could hardly imagine how much damage had been dealt to her innards by the explosion of swords, or Deathend's final punch into her body. She should have been dead, even more so than the other times she'd been horribly injured. But she didn't want to die, she had to raise her children and see them grow up... She willed her heart to continue beating, though it was as wounded as the rest of her. Her consciousness tried to slip away, and she slapped her cheek to keep herself awake. No! After already winning the fight, she couldn't, and wouldn't, let it end this way.
> For a while, Rose could only lie there, doing her best just to cling to fading life. She thought of Finn and grew worried for him. Where was he? Was he all right? She needed him. At last, she couldn't bear just waiting any longer. In spite of the unbelievable hurt any movement caused, she sawed off Deathend's hand using a jagged shard of Thorn she pulled from her side. She began to raise herself up on one working arm, trying to somehow stand and search for her husband. But she couldn't do it, too weak even to get her knees below her, and sank back down closing her eyes with the pain. Sucking in a deep breath though her lungs screamed in protest, she steeled herself and resumed the struggle to rise, her destroyed body quivering with the strain. Though it seemed impossible, she refused to stop trying. She had to get up, had to find Finn...
Her fears for him were alleviated when he emerged from the palace doors, and with widening eyes ran to aid her. Several spears and crossbow bolts protruded from his armor, but Rose could tell from the speed and steadiness of his steps that he was probably going to be okay. She collapsed to the ground in relief.
"R-Rose? You killed him! You... okay? Is that his hand stuck inside your chest?!"
Letting her head loll sideways to see him better, she groaned. "Yes, it is. It really hurts."
Finn did the best he could to patch her up, using lengths of sturdy cloth to hold the disgusting cut she'd taken through her shoulder together and cover the gaping hole in her chest after Deathend's hand was removed. He also bandaged the worst of her other wounds. Stitches, and the fishing out of numerous metal shards embedded inside her body, would have to wait until later.
"That better?" he asked, a bit meekly as he knew how fatal her injuries would be for any normal person.
She nodded, but said, "Set my broken nose too. It's hard enough to breath with shredded lungs."
Wrenching the cartilage back into place, he looked around at the remains of Thorn scattered about them. "Rose, you broke my gift?"
