by Jeff Gunzel
Hearing a loud clacking sound, she spared a quick glance up to the sky. A massive spray of orange projectiles came raining down, washing over the ghatins like a wave of lava. The wall of white disintegrated, instantly turning into a powdery cloud of dust that settled along the ground.
Knowing the ghatins were completely helpless in this state of limbo, Viola wasted no time in making short of work of the crippled beings. There were no screams as she dragged her flesh blade across them, no signs at all that this white dust was somehow alive. But like a burning torch raking across dry hay, the powder burst into flame at even her slightest touch.
Sensing danger, she whirled around to see another ghatin charging straight at her. With barely a split second to react, she threw her arms up and braced for the impending hit. But the expected impact never came. Instead, his body crumbled in mid-strike as burning black flakes fluttered over her like a sprinkle of dry leaves. Shielding her eyes as she looked through the lingering erosion of blue flame and black ash, she saw her brother standing ten feet away.
“What are you doing here?” he snarled, retracting his flesh blade.
“Helping you do the right thing for once in your life,” Viola snarled back, brushing away the black ash. “Is it so hard to believe I would side with you instead of siding with the ghatins once you finally decided whose side you were on?”
His brief look of confusion slowly changed to one of amusement as he began to understand what was going on here. “Not particularly,” he admitted. “That is who you are, after all. Who you have always been. I know that your need to always do the right thing drives nearly every decision you make. No, what I find hard to believe is your endless stupidity.” With a snicker, he glanced up at the rooftops where ghatins were fleeing. There were plenty of other cities guarded only by humans. Too many of their kind had already fallen this day. Forfeiting one city was a small price to pay to just cut their losses and move on.
“Is that the ‘side’ you are talking about?” Jarlen asked, pointing to the streaking gush of white fleeing from the city. “You are mistaken as always. I have chosen no side. They were just in the wrong place at the wrong time. My attack on the city was nothing personal. They had taken something from the humans. Something I wanted. So I am simply here to take it back.”
“The city?” Viola gasped.
“Correction... My city.”
Viola didn’t think she could be any more sickened by the actions of her brother. She was wrong. “Thousands and thousands of people died here and you don’t even care? They were innocent, yet the ghatins killed them in cold blood.”
“And for that I thank them.” The easiness in his tone when talking about the deaths of women and children chilled her to the core. She had heard a theory once stating that the lerwicks didn’t even have souls. If anything, he was living proof that this might be true. “I find that the ghatins are less of a threat to our kind. We handled them easily enough.” He looked down at his arm, rotating the half-extended blade. “The humans, on the other hand, can be quite troublesome at times.”
“That is because we are designed to kill them,” Viola said, refusing to wipe the tears from her eyes. Her tears were not for him, but for the innocent humans who lost their lives here. She would never cry for him. “It was our destiny. You and I, Jarlen. We were the first to be brought back. That’s why we are here. We were supposed to...”
Taking a deep breath, Viola finally did wipe her sleeve across her teary eyes. She knew she was babbling and must not be making any sense, but she couldn’t help herself. A part of her wanted to sit down with her brother, to explain everything she had learned about their past. Maybe then he would understand at last. Maybe he wasn’t too far gone yet. “Don’t you see? We were supposed to save mankind, not destroy it.”
“You really believe that, don’t you?” he asked, amused. Finally taking his eyes off his bladed hand, he looked over at his sister. There she stood, teary-eyed, emotional...pathetic. “I don’t know who has been feeding you these lies, but perhaps it is time for you to join the real world, dear sister.” Spreading his hands out wide, he smiled. “The humans are gone.” He glanced left and right. “And now thanks to you, the ghatins are gone as well. The city now belongs to me.” He raised an eyebrow. “Of course, it could belong to us if you so wish.”
He took a step closer to Viola, extending his hand. “Give up this foolish exploit and join me. You believe these lies because you think they give you purpose. Dear sister, your mind has been twisted by the humans, manipulated into seeing what they wanted you to see. Don’t you understand? There is no purpose in being the humans’ dog. The ghatins fear us. The humans hate us. Your fate is already sealed, and your loyalty misplaced. Just what sort of future do you think you have if not here with me?”
“A future with you?” Viola hissed, her white-hot glare ready to set his clothes on fire. “You offer me a curse disguised as a gift. Who would ever accept such a tainted offer?” His eyes narrowed dangerously. “And just what am I supposed to envision in this future of yours? You hunt those who gave you life, and even those you deem to be inconvenient.” With the ghatins gone, Jarlen’s lerwicks had begun gathering around them in the street.
“Anyone who doesn’t fit into your selfish plans becomes expendable. How long before it is him, or him, or her,” Viola said, pointing to random lerwicks watching nearby. “Oh, I imagine you will keep them around as long they serve your needs. As long as they remain your dogs! And then what? You’re driven by the perception of enemies, both real and imagined, simply because you hate the world. No matter which path you take, it will always lead you to the same place. Alone...”
She swept a hand across the gathered crowd. “You can lie to them, Jarlen, but you can’t lie to yourself. When there is little left of the world other than fire and ashes, do you plan to be king of nothing? I do not claim to know where my path will lead, but it is certainly not here with you. All that awaits you and your band is emptiness. All you will ever know is hate, and then you will die. I imagine most would prefer death to the sorry fate that awaits you.”
“Still your tongue!” Jarlen roared.
“Or what? You will order your trained pets here to tear me apart like the coward you are?”
Jarlen grabbed one of the nearby lerwicks by the collar and grunted something in her ear. She glanced up to the sky briefly, then moved quickly to spread word of his instructions. “No,” Jarlen said flatly, answering his sister’s taunt. “But you’re only half wrong. Your death will come. But it will come by my hands, not theirs.”
The lerwicks moved in closer, forming a rather large circle around the two of them. One of them jumped, his whirling form spinning from one side of the circle to the other. His action was immediately followed by another, then another. Soon, black funnels were whirling back and forth overhead. Each time they landed, they immediately spun back the other way.
Viola looked past them, her eyes on her friends overhead as she began to understand what they were doing. Not only had they surrounded her on the ground so she could not escape, but the lerwicks spinning back and forth overhead had formed a sort of living shield. Her friends could not fire into this circle without hitting one of the lerwicks.
“Your friends are as weak as you are,” Jarlen said, his arms slowly extending into blades. “They wouldn’t harm an innocent lerwick even to save your life. There is no escape. You are trapped in here with me.”
“So, it seems that we actually agree for once.” Viola’s arms began to extend, her lip twitching up in a mocking grin. “True, my friends will not harm any of your dogs, because unlike you they value life. But I must correct you on one small detail. I am not trapped in here with you.” Her blades snapped up to cross her face. “It is you who are trapped here with me!”
She charged, closing the distance between them in a fraction of a second. Flinching more than ducking, Jarlen barely moved out of the way of her stabbing blade just as it scraped his cheek. Barely missing i
ts target, her arm crashed through the crumbling wall behind him, nearly taking down the house in the process.
Shaken from the close call, Jarlen quickly managed to regain his composure. Perhaps he had grown complacent and needed a little reminder of who he was facing. His battle skills had been honed for so many years that he rarely thought about them anymore. Pure instinct and reflex had always been more than enough to defeat any foe the humans could throw at him. But Viola was different. Never had he faced someone with her speed, a fact he had just been reminded of. She was not to be taken lightly.
Ripping her arm free from the wall, Viola ducked an incoming punch. He wasn’t using his blade that time, but that meant little given the force behind his strike. Crashing a second hole right next to the first, the already badly damaged wall caved in. Diving forward to avoid the falling rubble, Viola drove her shoulder into his knee. The damage was minimal, but it was enough to throw him off balance, buying enough time to scramble back to her feet.
* * *
“She is not ready for this!” Liam shouted, his raven and rider circling overhead along with the others. “Take him out before he kills her!”
“I can’t get a clean shot,” Owen shouted back, struggling to steady his crossbows. It would have been hard anyway given the constant motion of the raven. But his weapons were designed for mass destruction over widespread areas, not precision kills from a distance. There was no way he could kill Jarlen without taking out several of the lerwicks, or possibly even Viola given their close-quarter fighting. “There is nothing I can do. She is going to have to beat him on her own.”
“Take me down!” Liam ordered.
“But the Moon Mistress said—” his rider began.
“I don’t care what she said!” Liam shouted back. Rarely did the mystic display such a lack of composure, but the situation had grown desperate. “We are past that now. Viola has committed herself whether we like it or not. I will accept full responsibility for my actions, and you will not be held liable. Now take me down!”
* * *
All four of their blades hammered together, foreheads nearly touching as the warriors pushed against each other. Being the stronger of the two, Jarlen began to march forward as Viola’s feet slid back, her heels digging trenches across the sandy ground. “Give up now and I will make it quick and painless,” he growled in her face.
“I could say the same,” Viola snarled back just as her heels bumped up against something solid. Her body leaning back, she found herself flat up against a wall.
“A pity you’re so incapable of seeing reason,” Jarlen whispered, his every word washing over her face in a puff of warm air. “How do you always find yourself drawn to the losing side? It is as if you have a death wish.”
“I fight for what I believe in.”
“And that shall be your downfall!” He pressed harder. She wheezed, her ribcage contracting while being pressed between his chest and the wall. “You actually think you stand for something? You think your death will have meaning? I’ll let you in on a little secret, a fact that someone should have told you long ago. When you die, no one shall be buried along with you. You will be all alone, just as you’ve always been through every step of your life. That is your future, as well as it is mine. But I’ve already accepted that everything I do in life is for me and nobody else.
“In the end, we all end up alone, Viola. That is fact. Love? Friendship? These concepts are just deceptions, temporary illusions to help make the journey feel as if it has purpose. But there is no purpose, only a lifetime of sacrifice before it all comes to a crashing halt. And your willingness to sacrifice yourself for a cause that never existed in the first place is the fastest way to see for yourself that I speak the truth. No one would ever make such a sacrifice for you. Kindness only leads to death.” He grinned, slipping his hand up under her chin, ready to end her suffering once and for all. “Don’t believe I am telling the truth? Just ask your teacher, Thatra. I hear she loved you, yet her sacrifice was for nothing.”
“Ahh!” Thrusting forward with all her strength, Viola smashed her forehead against his nose. The pressure on her chest finally eased as he stumbled back, dazed from the unexpected blow. He blocked the incoming elbow with his forearm, but got clipped with a follow-up left that drove him back another few steps. All this time Viola had been fighting passive, trying not to lose rather than fighting to win. She knew how dangerous her brother was, but now that little voice of reason in the back of her mind had fallen silent. With caution thrown to the wind, she pressed with a fury she didn’t know she possessed.
Arms snapping back into blades, she unleashed a full offensive flurry with everything she had. Blocking and ducking, Jarlen continued to stumble back, his eyes going wide at the feel of such an onslaught. His blades worked feverishly, barely able to deflect each strike at the last second.
To the warriors’ trained eyes, the blows were pinpoint and concise, each barely missing its mark. But to the watching lerwicks, the battle was a chaotic frenzy of movement, their eyes hardly even able to measure the blur of violence. A shrill ringing rang out with no beginning and no end, like a thousand bells all being shattered by hammers. The violence was shocking, the sound deafening, and still their leader had not yet fallen. From what they could see, that alone was nothing short of a miracle.
With the taunt of her dead teacher driving her rage, Viola continued to unleash, the flurry of stabbing blades coming at him like a tornado of steel. She could see Thatra’s smiling face, could still hear her words of inspiration in the back of her mind. Thatra believed in her. Her death seemed senseless, but she could not reverse time to change any of it. The pain Viola didn’t even realize she was carrying had come out in a rush, all of it feeding her blades and their sudden need for blood.
Viola’s heart raced, lungs wheezing as she pressed the violent assault. But her arms began to go numb, her pace slowing as the animalistic flurry slowly played itself out. Sweat drenched her body as her blades’ strikes fumbled in at awkward angles, lobbed from the strength of her shoulders because she could no longer feel her arms.
Gasping, hair slick as it clung down over her face, Viola’s bladed arms dropped to her sides. She no longer had the strength to lift them. Blinded by hatred only a minute ago, her fuzzy vision began to clear. No one should have been able to defend such a long, sustained, violent flurry such as that. Yet Jarlen still stood before her, battered and worn but still on his feet. Multiple cuts and spots of blood proved that she had nicked him many times, but the skilled warrior had managed to minimize the heavy assault. He had certainly been hit many times, but nothing ever landed flush.
His hair slick with blood and sweat, Jarlen’s eyes flashed with hatred.
“You cannot defeat me!” he roared, leaping high into the air. Her blades rose at the last second, deflecting the blow that should have ended her life. Both exhausted, Jarlen’s next strike was little more than a pushed blade driven by his stumbling momentum. Viola rolled her head, allowing it to sail wide as he limped to her left. Sending out a probing kick, his boot caught Viola right in the chest. Her energy already long spent, the modest blow sent her limp body rolling along the ground.
Jarlen marched towards her on unsteady legs, his many wounds darkening spots on his clothes with seeping blood. “How you have survived this long is a wonder.” He kicked her again, sending her tumbling several more feet. “I used to wish you dead simply because you always seem to get in my way. Now, I just view it as a mercy killing. Consider it a favor.”
Yet another kick rolled her further. She wheezed, certain that her ribs were broken. Each labored breath sent waves of pain and nausea rattling through her broken body. Wincing in torment, she rolled to her back only to see Jarlen straddled over her like a waiting vulture. Broken and bloodied himself, it didn’t seem like he should even be able to stand. But he was still in better shape than she was.
“There is no shame, dear sister,” Jarlen rasped, raising both blades above his he
ad. “Many a warrior has died at my hand, but none have ever fought as valiantly as you.” Unable to move, unable to breathe, in that frozen moment in time Viola saw a look in Jarlen’s eyes she had never seen before. So foreign it was that he looked like a different person. He hesitated, reluctant to drop the finishing blow. What was he waiting for?
Suddenly, a wave of power washed over them like a windstorm. Lerwicks went flying as if being carried away by an unseen ocean wave. Covering his eyes from the blowing sand, trying to anchor his feet as they slid, Jarlen squinted enough to see the outline of a man standing nearby.
“Touch her again and this day shall be your last,” Liam shouted, his enhanced voice rumbling on the winds. “Back away, Jarlen. I will not hesitate to kill you or anyone else who tries to harm her.”
“Oh, I don’t think you will, old man,” Jarlen said, standing only a few feet from Viola. “Not unlike this delicate little flower here, you have too much compassion for your own good. You’ll hesitate as your kind always does, and then you’ll die.” A split second was all he needed to close the distance between them. At close range, Liam stood no chance against this killer.
“Do not test me!” Liam warned, picking the end of his staff off the ground and twirling it once over his head. “I spare life when I can because I feel that some measure of good can be found in all living things. You, however, are beyond hope and cannot be saved. You have not earned my mercy. I would be doing the world a favor by ridding it of one such as you. You have the city. You have won, now let that be the end of it.” He raised his staff higher, his eyes beginning to glow. “Let her go!”
Feeling Viola’s stony glare, Jarlen looked down at her and scoffed. “Go,” he grunted. “Run off and join your precious humans. But this isn’t over. Just remember, the humans won’t always be there to save you.”
