by Jeff Gunzel
“Stay out of sight and wait for my signal,” Jarlen said, eyeing the surprisingly well-preserved buildings. It was odd being surrounded by such evidence of a complete slaughter, yet the city’s structures remained largely intact. It was a stark reminder of just how dominant the victory had been for the ghatins. No battle had taken place here. It was an execution.
After years of fighting in the pit, Jarlen’s senses had become highly refined. Although his eyes revealed nothing out of the ordinary, he could feel their gazes as he walked down the barren street. Abandoned buildings, eerie shells of structures that once housed tens of thousands of humans, appeared to give off their own ghostly energy. There was no detectable movement, no signs of life, yet Jarlen knew that nothing could be farther from the truth.
“Come down and show yourselves,” Jarlen growled, his deep voice rumbling through the empty streets. He could feel them stirring, shifting about like a restless wind behind the walls. Then, like vaporous apparitions, the white beings filtered down into the street. Although it was only Jarlen standing alone, they moved towards him with caution. This was no harmless human standing before them, but a dangerous, deadly being. They had seen what the lerwicks could do to their kind. And despite having this one surrounded and outnumbered, there was still plenty of cause for concern.
“A fine job,” Jarlen said, a sweeping hand gesturing across the bodies lying on the street. “I should thank you for saving me the trouble of having to rid the city of this infestation myself.”
“What do you want?” one of the ghatins hissed, his body swaying in unison with the others. This lerwick’s unwavering confidence in the presence of so many ghatins was rather unnerving.
“What do I want?” Jarlen threw his head back and laughed. “I’ve come to praise you for a job well done, as well as to offer you an opportunity.”
“Do play coy with us, lerwick. Be gone from here from while we still allow you to leave. Our dispute is with the humans, not with your kind.”
“As is ours,” Jarlen said, raising a hand in the air. From behind, his lerwicks came out of hiding and started filing in behind him. Now that he had some idea of their numbers, he wasn’t afraid to show his own. “And because you have done us the favor of purging those wretched beings from this city, I am willing to make you an offer. But be warned, I will only make it once. We are here to claim the city back to its rightful owners.” A rippling stir radiated through the ranks of ghatins, as if a stiff breezed was moving them like sheets on a wire. “Go now and I will allow you to leave with your lives. You have my word.”
“The word of a lerwick is no better than that of a human,” said a different ghatin, his voice like whistling wind.
“Believe what you wish,” Jarlen said, waving off the insult. “My dwindling offer is on the table.” His eyes narrowed. “But not for much longer.”
“You dare to threaten us!” said the first ghatin, his pink eyes flaring with rage. The others moved in closer, taking up various positions around the lerwicks. But even though they had the superior numbers, they still showed caution while circling slowly.
Jarlen turned his back on them. “Make your choice but do it quickly,” he said, giving his men a subtle nod. He kicked a corpse near his feet, sending the rotten arm of an old woman tumbling away. “It seems we have a lot of cleaning up to do, so it’s best you creatures were on your way. I’m sure you will have no trouble taking another city just as easily as you took this one.”
“That is not the point, is it?” came the same hissing voice from just behind his ear. Jarlen could actually feel his breath on the back of his neck. “This realm and everything in it belongs to the ghatins, including this city. We don’t answer to the likes of you. We answer to no one!”
“I see,” Jarlen replied, having yet to turn around. “So your pride means more to you than your lives. Foolish indeed.” He spun back, his flesh blade impaling two ghatins right through their chests. “Very well, then. Die with your damn honor!” Both ghatins shrieked, their eyes bulging with shock. Black smoke coiled up as rings of charring flesh began to swell and consume their bodies. Screeching like whistles, their bodies burst in a flash of roaring blue flame. Engulfing their quickly blackening bodies, the flame consumed them in a matter of seconds.
Jarlen’s flesh blades flashed left and right, striking down three more with the same result. Following his lead, his lerwicks sprang into action, their blades slashing and stabbing wildly. They were nowhere near as skilled as Jarlen, but their special bodies still provided them with a distinct advantage. Whether slashing open a throat or barely nicking a shoulder, the results were always the same. Highly toxic to the ghatins, their blades might as well have been pumping acid directly into the wounds.
Ghatins scattered, a mass of white whirling in full retreat. They didn’t dare fight the lerwicks in these close quarters, but they too had advantages of their own. Scurrying up the walls like a swarm of white crabs, they looked down from the rooftops. Like a storm, their white flesh blades came raining down from multiple angles. Unlike the lerwicks, the ghatins’ blood was pure. Their blades were thick and long, significantly longer than those of the enemy. As long as they kept at a safe distance, they could maintain a constant reach advantage.
Impaled lerwicks dropped to their knees, innards and blood emptying into their own hands as they clutched the gaping wounds. Ghatins shrieked like blown whistles, their bodies erupting in blue flame while flesh blades carved into buildings, causing walls to crack and roofs to cave in. Back and forth the battle raged. This was nothing like the assassination of helpless humans that took place before this. The lerwicks were more than formidable, and the ghatins would have to fight hard to fend them off.
* * *
The formation of ravens soared through the air. Shielding her eyes from the icy winds, Viola scanned the countryside while trying to assess the dire situation. And dire it was. Towns burned, villages reduced to rubble in the wake of the ghatins’ endless march. But the ghatins’ numbers were not infinite, and spread as thin as they were, it would take years if not centuries to lay waste to the realm as was their plan. Still, they seemed to be off to a good start.
“Not all is lost,” Salina said, calling back to Viola as they rode. “Many villages are still untouched. We still have time.” It was true, many appeared to still be intact. At least that brought Viola a small measure of relief. Although the humans had yet to prove they could resist the ghatins in any way, crushing every city and village was not going to happen overnight.
“Look at ‘em,” Owen shouted over the wind from his seat behind another spiritist. He was speaking to Liam riding nearby, but the mystic wasn’t paying any attention. Instead, Liam had his eyes closed, clinging for dear life from the back of his mount. The spiritist in front of him just rolled her eyes, constantly slapping at his too-tight grip around her waist. “All of ‘em homeless, forced to leave everything behind. At least they escaped with their lives.”
Liam’s eyes cracked open just a hair as he dared to take a peek at what Owen was talking about. The roads below were packed with folks fleeing from their homes. Women carrying frightened children shuffled along, their husbands out in front with everything they could carry loaded into wheelbarrows. Elderly couples sat on the side of the road, exhausted and unable to push on. Crying in each other’s arms, all they could do was hope that some kind soul would make room for them in a wagon or on horseback. But in all likelihood, they knew they were probably sitting on their own graves.
As far as the eye could see, the scene was all the same. Word of the ghatins’ march had spread like wildfire, and nearly every town had been evacuated. At least if the humans scattered themselves across the countryside, it would take that much longer for the ghatins to get them all. Truly a desperate plan based on a desperate reality.
“Has it really come to this?” Liam muttered to himself, forgetting all about his fear of heights as he gazed down from the sky. “How can this be? Have we really lost the r
ealm to these demons?” He wiped a tear from his eye, balling his fist as he clung even tighter to the spiritist in front of him. No. No, I refuse to believe we have lost already. If the ghatins want to wipe us out, then we shall make them work for it. We will fight to the last man, I swear it.
“We are almost there,” Salina said, reaching back to nudge Viola. It was odd that Viola could be this close to her home city and still not recognize the area. Even after living there her whole life, she had never been allowed to venture outside the city limits. In a way she was a stranger to these parts, but still could not deny her reservations about seeing her old city again.
“I never thought I would return to this place,” Viola said. “It was a dark time in my life, and I don’t really wish to remember any of it.”
“I understand, but it won’t take long,” Salina assured her. “We just need to make a pass or two over Redwater to assess the situation. But from what we have seen so far, I see no reason to doubt that the rumors are true. The city is probably lost. The ghatins’ reach has been more widespread than we—” Salina went stiff, her eyes going vacant. Viola knew that look and considered reaching around her to grab the straps. The spirits were speaking to her, and the transfer of information could be distracting at times. The timing felt pretty bad considering they were flying hundreds of feet in the air.
“Viola!” she shouted, her eyes snapping back into focus after only a few seconds. “It’s your brother!”
“What? What about him?”
“The rumors are true, Redwater has been seized. The spirits have just confirmed as much to me. But the ghatins who occupy the city are also under siege. Your brother and his band of lerwicks have gone on the offensive. They are attacking the ghatins as we speak!”
How could that be? Jarlen would never do anything to help the humans, would he? But the spirits had confirmed that he was doing just that. There was only one way to be certain. “We must hurry!” Viola ordered, signaling to the others to follow closely. She could practically hear Hamas’s voice in the back of her head. You either face them now as a united force, or end up on the wrong side of a widespread witch-hunt. But face them you will. Had Jarlen come to the same conclusion? No matter what her brother had done in the past, if he had made the choice to fight the ghatins then she was obligated to help. After all, it was their destiny.
* * *
The lerwick’s face contorted in agony as the white blade erupted through the front of his chest, his trembling mouth hanging wide open but unable to make a sound. Mercifully, his eyes glazed over as several more shredded his body, spraying the ground in a gush of red. He was dead long before he ever hit the dirt. The ghatins’ range was nearly double that of the lerwicks, and they were using their advantage with frightening efficiency.
After watching yet another of his men fall, Jarlen looked up to the rooftops where most of the damage was coming from. Snarling, he took off running, reaching his top speed after only a few steps. Ducking and weaving, flesh blades impaling the ground all around him, he leapt into the air and began to twirl upward. His whirling funnel of screeching black birds cried out, their angry war cry echoing through the streets.
Landing on the rooftop, Jarlen’s whirling form began to melt into shape just as an opportunistic ghatin struck at his shapeless mass. His fluid form split in half, effectively dodging the white blade as it streaked straight through. Snapping back together like parted water, Jarlen’s true form took shape with both hands wrapped around the blade. The ghatin’s pink eyes widened with horror as he realized his tactical error. Even in that shapeless form between man and birds, Jarlen was still plenty functional and dangerous.
Jarlen hammered his fist down on the blade, snapping it in two. Then with a twitch, his own blade slashed across the ghatin’s neck. With the fatal wound already beginning to smolder with black smoke, Jarlen shouldered past the shrieking ghatin and charged across the rooftop. Already starting to abandon their positions, the white men slashed wildly, a desperate effort to try and keep the rushing warrior at bay. Or at least buy a few more seconds so they could escape. They were able to hold their own just fine from a distance, but this close-quarter fighting was the last thing they wanted. Barely a nick from these toxic lerwicks could kill.
His heart racing as the bloodlust took hold, Jarlen felt something inside of him snap. Streaking after these ghatins, his rage had suddenly reached a boiling point. Forgetting himself, forgetting his immediate task, he was no longer on the rooftops of Redwater. As his surroundings seemed to fade away, he found himself back in the pit, fighting for his life to entertain the humans. He could hear their laughter raining down from the seats above, hear their taunts, their groans of disappointment each time he cheated death by the skin of his teeth.
Lost in a sea of resurfaced hate, Jarlen’s survival instincts began to take over. Primal, animalistic, the hunter’s need to kill was the only thing driving his actions. He could no longer remember why he was attacking the ghatins, only that they needed to die. No longer could he see their faces, only the foggy outlines of strange beings who were in the wrong place at the wrong time. They were nothing more than targets that needed to be cut down so he could earn the right to live another day. This was the life he had always known. How could he be so foolish as to believe he could become something else? This was who he was, who he would always be. Animals never reason with danger, they react to it in the only way they know how.
Ducking and dodging, the ghatins’ attacks appeared slow to his heightened vision. Highly tuned reflexes from years of battle had little trouble avoiding the stabbing blades. Streaking between two ghatins, Jarlen easily slashed open their bellies as if they were standing still. Ignoring their whistle-like cries, knowing they were already dead whether they realized it or not, he leapt over to the next roof and kept on running. They ghatins were everywhere, but he could not see them as individuals. Faceless they were, white featureless enemies that existed only to perish by his own hands.
Hammering his fists straight down, two more incoming flesh blades shattered beneath the force. Three. Four. Leaping into the air, his body burst into a spin. Savage birds mirroring his own bloodlust screeched and cawed. The whirling black funnel spun right across three more ghatins as birds pecked and tore, devouring white flesh as it burned and blackened beneath their beaks. All the ghatins in this area leapt down off the rooftops, wanting nothing more to do with this crazed lerwick. He alone seemed to be causing more damage than all the others combined.
Suddenly, ghatins and lerwicks alike looked up as a number of frosty white spheres came raining down from the sky. Smashing against the ground, they released a misty white vapor that rose up like steam. More spirit bombs came crashing down, shattering as if made of glass before their whirling mist suddenly came to life. White tornadoes blazed around, their spinning bodies made of ghostly faces seeking out enemies as they spun through the streets. Tearing into the fleeing ghatins, they ripped through their bodies, causing them to dissipate like water vapor. Even through the lerwicks were holding their own just fine, the additional assistance from the sky was a welcome sight.
“Set me down!” Viola ordered, pointing to a nearby rooftop.
“Why?” Salina questioned, not understanding her reasoning. “We are safer up here.” She pointed to the white funnels ripping through the city. “The spiritists are more efficient from the sky. We can do far more damage from up here.” She felt a shifting at her back and glanced over her shoulder. “Hey, what are you—”
“All you’re doing is disrupting them for a minute or two. You can’t really kill them. But I can.” Viola stood up in the saddle, one hand still on Salina’s shoulder for balance. “Keep doing what you’re doing, but stay up here where it’s safe. Do not follow me!”
“Viola, don’t you dare! We have our orders. We are not supposed to—” Ignoring Salina’s warning, Viola jumped from the saddle. Her body exploded in midair. Black birds whirled about as her tornado form drifted downward.
<
br /> “Viola!” Owen shouted, knowing it was already too late to stop her. As always it seemed, she was disobeying yet another direct order. And this one was from the Moon Mistress herself. Still, Owen couldn’t help but grin. “But that’s what I like about you,” he muttered to himself. He looked at Liam riding across the way as their ravens circled the battle below. Liam threw his hands in the air, irritated by her usual defiance. But he had grown quite used to it by now. If she got out of this in one piece, he was sure to put her over his knee when they got back to the tower.
“We must protect her!” Owen shouted. Like it or not, she had committed to the battle, and now it was their job to offer support any way they could. Liam nodded, knowing there would be plenty of time to be mad at her later. But for now Owen was right. They needed to protect her.
Viola rushed down the street, her flesh blades slashing left and right as she carved her way through. The lerwicks were holding their own, but nothing like the destruction Jarlen had unleashed in such a short time. And now this new lerwick who had dropped from the sky was showing a similar skill set, tearing through the white beings with relative ease. Ghatins shrieked, their bodies combusting in blue flame. Even those with minimal wounds were as good as dead before they hit the ground. Not unlike her brother, she moved through the city with a deadly grace while leaving behind a path of flaming ghatins and charred ash.
Turning a corner, she came to a sudden halt before nearly running straight into a waiting wall of white. Viola braced, mentally gauging how many she could take out before needing to retreat. She felt as if she could beat any of them one-on-one, even three-on-one for that matter. But to rush headlong into this many was foolhardy at best.
