Slayers Fan Fiction ❯ Shards of Chaos ❯ War and Pieces: A Cautionary Tale ( Chapter 19 )
[ T - Teen: Not suitable for readers under 13 ]
By: dusttraveller 
Anime/Manga: Slayers Fan Fiction | Genre(s): Action / Adventure / Comedy / Fantasy / Romance | Type: Continuation | Uploaded On: 09.25.2003 | Pages: 6 | Words: 7.1K | Visits: 292 | Status: Completed
Anime/Manga: Slayers Fan Fiction | Genre(s): Action / Adventure / Comedy / Fantasy / Romance | Type: Continuation | Uploaded On: 09.25.2003 | Pages: 6 | Words: 7.1K | Visits: 292 | Status: Completed
"Hello me, it's me again. You can subdue but never tame. Gives me a migraine headache, sinkin' down to your level. Yeah just keep on thinkin' it's my fault, and stay an inch or two out of kicking distance! Mankind has got ta know.. it's limitations." Megadeth, Sweating Bullets
Arashi once again found himself in the presence of his God. He supposed this was because he was the greatest of his people's warriors, but it was more likely due to his having been less affected by his people's curse than the others.. ironically the very features which made him acceptable to be in his God's presence often caused him to be scorned by his people. Fair of face and relatively fair of body save for his wings and birdlike legs, he reminded his people too much of what they had once been. Talon had taught them that they were being punished for the times before the Scarring.. why should one of their number be less scarred than the rest?
Even Arashi had to admit it wasn't fair that he should be less fully Scarred than his brothers. He accepted his aloofness with quiet strength and dignity, and though he was mistrusted for his differences, none could argue his competence and battle prowess. He led the elite Striking Talons division. The group of fearsome flying warriors and scouts was second only to the Bloodguard. The nineteen Bloodguard, each with one of their original eyes replaced by a blood red ruby, waited impassively in the huge expanse of Talon's pavilion. Arashi looked at them and inwardly shivered. He'd known a few of the men before they'd become Bloodguards and when each one had gouged out their eye for the honor of serving their God and master personally, it had been as though they'd gouged out their very souls for him as well. Though they were immensely powerful, and completely invulnerable (Arashi had seen one stand up after losing his head and re-attach the severed body part without a single change of facial expression) Arashi preferred his admittedly rather limited freedom over the fanatical servitude they lived.
Not that he'd ever admit this to anyone other than himself. He wasn't a fool.
He entered into Talon's presence and knelt. His master was hunched over a board marked with checkered white and black squares upon which numerous small figurines were placed at seemingly random intervals. Arashi stared at it in curious confusion. He'd seen his God staring at this same board many times, though he'd never divined it's purpose. Talon apparently noticed his gaze and looked up.
"You have something to report?" he asked, his tone bespeaking boredom.
"My lord, the Striking Talons are in position, and I have received similar reports from all other divisions. The enemy appears to be content to allow us to make the first move... we have had no reports of any attempts from them to make any offensive maneuvers."
Talon smiled. "Of course not. Queen Sailoon has turned her army into a glorified police force. They aren't taught anything other than how to defend their positions." He frowned. "Still... they are vastly outnumbered though admittedly in a highly defensible position... It is a wonder that they haven't fled in the face of such vastly unfavorable odds. One wonders what sort of commander Sentinel has drawn that he has garnered such loyalty." He closed his eyes and concentrated. Arashi waited patiently. He was used to his God's eccentricities.
Talon opened his eyes and smiled. "Ah I see... how very interesting. The commander is a Shard. How unfortunate for her."
He rested his elbow on the board and looked deep in thought. "We will allow them to get complacent, tired and exhausted from waiting for the inevitable blow all night... while we rest from our long march. At dawn.... first light... We attack."
Arashi nodded. "As you wish my Lord... will that be all?"
His eyes snapped to the still kneeling Arashi. "Oh do get up. It strains my neck trying to look at you like that.... Arashi was it?"
Arashi stood and nodded. "Arashi it is, my Lord..."
Talon's grin grew sly. "You seem interested in my Chessboard. Have a few... questions for your God do you?"
Arashi paled. "No... my Lord I would never presume-"
Talon waved his hand. "Of course you would. Everyone does. You just wouldn't out loud. How very loyal of you. Sit down. I'm feeling... generous today. I will answer any questions you might have." he smiled. Talon enjoyed playing with his pawns... rather like a cat would playing with a mouse.
Hesitantly, Arashi seated himself opposite his God. Sitting in a chair not designed for his frame was far more painful than kneeling, but he dared not show discomfort in his God's presence.
Talon tapped his chin gently, then waved his hand. "Go ahead, noble Arashi. Ask your... questions."
Arashi frowned, then seemed to resolve himself. If he were going to die today for his impertinence, then so it would be. "Lord... Why did you maneuver the Axeman to fight the Soul of Fury? Regardless of who wins the conflict, the victor would become a greater threat-"
"Greater than me, Arashi?" Talon asked mildly.
Arashi shook his head. "Never... still... I cannot divine the meaning behind it... Lord."
Talon smiled. "Very well... this board," he gestured at the checkered square before him, "is the explanation."
Arashi blinked. "I don't..."
"Of course not. You couldn't. Not yet anyway... possibly not ever. I will try to explain it however. In the game of chess, each piece has a very specific form of movement. The object of the game is to maneuver these pieces about the board, capture your opponent's pieces, and finally... force your opponent's king..." he gestured at one of the figurines... an older man with a crown and a sword. "Into a position from which he cannot escape."
Arashi frowned.
"This game mimics life. The best way to defeat someone is to know which way he will move... given a stimulus." Talon's grin became a sneer. "This is what I have done. Dnarc is my piece... my knight if you will. I know how he will move, no matter what forces are arrayed against him. He is a very simple creature... he is motivated by simple instincts. No matter how powerful he should become, should he defeat The Soul of Fury, though I highly doubt it, he will always be what he is... A Knight... nothing more. He cannot defeat me."
Arashi widened his eyes. "But what if the Soul of Fury wins?"
"Ah... there in lies the masterstroke of my plan. Remember, a piece can only be planned for if one knows how it will move." He gestured at a figurine of a woman with a crown and a wand. "This is a queen. Tell me, how would you capture it?"
"I could not....." Arashi blinked.
"... Because you don't know how it moves." Talon finished. "This is how the Soul of Fury is now... unpredictable... human and mazoku... but more human than mazoku. Humans, as we all know, are unpredictable... it is only due to their limited power that they are prevented from ruling over both Gods and Mazoku alike. As a human with the immense power of a mazoku, the Soul of Fury is nearly unbeatable." he grinned. "Now... suppose he destroys Dnarc. He claims the power Dnarc once held... suddenly the Soul of Fury is no more. He becomes Gaav, the Demon Dragon King. In short, he returns to his former self... still thinking in mazoku terms... motivated by mazoku needs... wants... fears.... he becomes a mazoku with the frailties of a human, one who discounts a human's strengths as weaknesses. His moves become predictable." He tipped the queen over. It fell on its side and rolled back and forth along the axis of its base.
"In short he becomes just another piece on the board... Gaav was defeated before, by a combination of underestimating his various opponents, and refusing to back off once he realized that he was beaten. He can be defeated again. Regardless of how powerful he might become."
"Everything can be determined this way... even Xellos, cunning trickster and mazoku that he is, can be planned for... he will always be motivated by self interest , and because of this, he assumes everyone else is motivated by the same." Talon gestured at the board, and more importantly, at the black king. "I show him a man bent on conquering Sailoon with the intent of ruling over all... and that is what he sees, because it is what he WANTS and expects to see."
Arashi snapped his fingers. "He cannot see that you intend to destroy Sailoon and return it to it's rightful people..." His face was full of admiration, respect, and enlightenment.
Talon smiled, trying to keep from laughing in the ignorant savage's face. Save it for barbarians? If Arashi knew his true motivations... the REAL reason why Talon had uprooted the monstrous clan... he chuckled. "Just so... just so."
Arashi's eyes widened. "All of this can be determined from a simple game?"
Talon shrugged. "The basic rules are the same in any conflict... what is a game but conflict?"
"Would you teach me this game... Lord?" he asked hesitantly.
Talon seemed to think about this for a moment, then he smiled. "Very well. I grow tired of endlessly playing against myself. Perhaps you will prove... amusing."
The night moved on...
***
Red snarled at the ironclad giant taking up the entirety of their way out. Pushing Mina to the side, he drew his monstrous two handed sword and grinned mockingly at Dnarc. "Damn - I was hoping your little bath might improve your looks a bit. I see that was a lost cause."
Dnarc's eyes glittered. "Heh. Perhaps, but then, looks aren't everything. I see no "gravity" to save you this time, Pretty Boy."
Zelgadis whispered something to Pix. She listened with wide eyes, then nodded determinedly and braced herself.
Mina drew her own longsword and growled. "I am getting so tired of this blustering crap! I get enough of it from him." She jerked a finger at Red.
"Hey!" He glared at her.
"Enough of this. You DIE!" Dnarc roared.
Zelgadis took a deep breath, and in a perfect pitcher's stance, threw a fast ball (namely, Pix) at the metal monster before them. With the added momentum provided by Zelgadis' not inconsiderable strength, Pix made a whizzing beeline; straight past Dnarc. He startled involuntarily, then looked at the grinning chimera as though noticing him for the first time.
"What the hell was..."
"Mina, Red... hold him off for a second!" Zelgadis bellowed as he began to advance, muttering beneath his breath.
Red, who was already in motion, grinned in response. "Whatever!" He struck the slightly distracted abomination with his shoulder and drove him back out of the cave entrance. Mina sighed.
"Here we go again..." she shrugged and followed him out.
***
Tess drank black coffee, crouched on the wall underneath a cloak to ward off the night's chill. Once the initial panic of seeing such a huge army arrayed against them had worn itself to death, the guards of Sentinel had reacted admirably; following their Captain's hastily barked orders with great efficiency. The first order of business had been to get the noncombatants out of the city, and the noncombatants in question, mostly merchants, women, children, and the elderly, had been more than happy to oblige. Despite the mass exodus of city dwellers, (not unlike that of rats fleeing a sinking ship) a surprising number of men and women chose not to leave, and these were either given weapons and sent to man the walls, or if they had any healer training whatsoever, were sent to the medical tents to assist with the casualties that would be coming in. Tess's grip on her bastard sword tightened when she considered how many casualties they would undoubtedly take...
All in all the beleagered forces of Sentinel city numbered some five thousand, five hundred souls, barely four thousand of which could be considered professional. The early estimates of the army arranged against them, if one took into account that the actual number could not be divined since a large majority of it extended beyond the horizon, numbered somewhere in the hundreds of thousands, if not millions...
-Where in the hell did an army this size appear from? Why have there been no reports of troop buildups in our neighboring kingdoms? Where the HELL is Queen Amelia?-
These questions boiled over in her mind and she could make no sense of it. She'd finally set it aside as trivial... something to puzzle over if they survived. Though the odds were highly stacked against them, Sentinel was the most heavily fortified city in all of Sailoon, and they had a few tricks up their sleeves that she was betting these barbarians had never encountered before. She grinned evily... too bad for them. She gazed along the wall where other troopers held whispered conversations and huddled together with their weapons and what little food they could prepare. The barbarian horde seemed to be content to wait for the moment, and she'd ordered her troops to sleep in four hour shifts, catching as much rest as they could before the coming battle. She had a feeling... they would need it.
As she finished her coffee a great roaring cry could be heard from outside the gates... as the first rays of sunlight struck the South Wall, the barbarian horde began to move.
A few of the troops around her muttered curses. She grinned. "Well boys... looks like they don't have enough manners to wait until after breakfast."
A few uneasy chuckles greeted her admittedly poor jest. Her gaze hardened. "Let's teach them what civilization is all about."
"MAN THE CANNONS!"
***
Dnarc finally managed to throw Red back from him, charging immediately after the off-balance bandit with a vicious two handed blow of his axe. Red continued his backwards stumble, throwing himself out of the axe's whistling path and coming to a crouching halt a short distance away. Several micro-meteors struck the behemoth as Mina unleashed a Burst Rondo at him. Growling, Dnarc shrugged the attack and brought his ax down on Red as though he were attempting to chop firewood. The Bandit King met his attack with a two handed upwards parry, standing as he did so.
"RAAA TILT!" Zelgadis shouted, throwing a screaming ball of astral energy in Dnarc's direction. The ball tore up the ground on it's path toward the monster. Passing the straining axeman by a hair, it flared on harmlessly. Dnarc grinned.
"Ha! You missed!"
Zelgadis stony face cracked into a grim smile. "Did I now?"
Red forced Dnarc back a bit and backed up several feet, an incredulous look on his face. Dnarc grinned. "Finally learning your lesson, Pretty Boy?"
Red grinned. "You might want to turn around, big guy."
Dnarc narrowed his eyes. " HEH! I'm not falling for..." He trailed off when he suddenly noticed that his shadow had been thrown in stark relief... too stark for the early morning. He turned slightly. His eyes widened at what he saw...
Pix, now the center of a much larger ball of raging blue astral flame, pointed, winked, and smiled at the stunned Shard. The now several times multiplied Ra Tilt shrieked forward, catching Dnarc square in the chest. For the second time in his life (the first being his fight with Talon) Dnarc felt his soul being rent asunder.
He shrieked high and loud, his wings coming out at full extension.
Red did a double take. "Holy shit! You scream like a girl!!"
Dnarc clutched his head in agony, then began lurching around smashing anything in his path. The pain and fear hitting him in equal measure, he reacted as any large animal would when backed into a corner.
He went berserk.
***
"FIRE!!"
The sound of Sentinel City's Battlecannon being fired in anger rattled down the pass for the first time since their construction.
Sentinel was the most important chokepoint for entrance into Sailoon from the south. Amelia might have been peace-loving, but she was not a fool. Ten years had given Sailoon plenty of time to develop (With the aid of Outland imports) workable cannons. The Battlecannon, of which there were four, were loaded with large canisters filled to the brim with thousands of tiny one inch diameter lead balls and were designed to explode almost immediately after being fired, creating a deadly cone of flying metal. The end result being that when the first cannon sounded the front rank of Talon's army simply disintegrated into a red cloud of gristle and gore. The next rank charged over the shredded bodies of their comrades, religious fervor glinting like madness in their eyes. The next cannon sounded shortly afterward, turning the charging rank into a bleeding mound fifty yards from the City gates. Still they kept coming.. The next cannon fired, again they were decimated, and again the army continued it's inexorable approach. Several troops on the city's walls turned away in disgust, losing what little food they had managed to wolf down in the process. Even Tess paled a bit.
"Gods... such slaughter. Who could be leading them like this?" she asked in horrified wonder.
" ' Ware above!!!" A startled shriek cut through the din of the cannon fire. She glanced upward, blinking in surprise as a cloud of closely formationed soldiers with wings passed overhead. In pairs they circled high above the battlements, each pair carrying what appeared to be a loaded down blanket...
Her eyes widened in sudden realization. "SHIELDS!!!"
The defenders raised their shields suddenly as each pair of flying warriors flipped their blanket over with a snap...
Raining hundreds of yard long steel fletchettes weighted so that the point would fall first. A whistling, thunderous rain of metal struck shields... and the occasional body. Soldiers screamed and clutched horrible wounds, blood pulsing out to feed the ever-widening pools, making the walkways dangerously slippery. One of the two cannons mounted on the upper deck exploded in a double blast of concussive fury as its crew, unable to take shelter in time, were horribly pinioned to the deck around their cannon. Their suffering was short-lived, as a lit torch dropped from a nerveless hand lit a powder keg. Black smoke poured from the ruined cannon and it's mounting, blowing out over the battlefield and playing hell with visibility. Tess gritted her teeth.
"Archers! Take aim!! Fire!" A thousand bow strings sang, and arrows arced up into the air...
A scant fifty flying warriors dropped from the sky with startled shrieks, spinning helplessly out of control in their agonies. The troops were flying far too high for the arrows to have more than a marginal effect.
"Damn!" she swore as the rest of the flying group turned sedately and headed back towards their lines... presumably to retrieve more ammunition.
Valgaav narrowed his eyes and picked up his favored weapon, a long pike.
"Captain... leave this to me."
Without giving her time to argue, Valgaav's wings sprouted and with a enraged cry he flew up...
To face impossible odds...
***
The first blow from the blazing, shrieking juggernaut tossed Red casually off of his feet and into the side of the mountain with bone-jarring force. Standing woozily, he was fetched another resounding blow that forced him onto his back, straining with his great sword to keep the cruel serrated edge of the ax from his sweating face. Girlishly screaming or no, Dnarc was unstoppable.
Zelgadis shouted a quick Astral Vine and charged to the Bandit King's aid, only to be tossed aside with a maddened backhanded swipe of the creature's melon sized gauntlet. Landing hard, he picked himself up and spit out blood.
"Damn! What the hell is this guy?!"
"Really... pissed... off..." Red muttered, the serrated edge coming inexorably closer to his face. Then he saw something that nearly made his heart stop...
Mina shrieked a warcry and charged forward, leaping high into the air. Red's eyes widened.
"YAAAAAAAAAAHHHAAAAAAAAAOOOOOHHHHSHIIIIIIIIIIITTTTTT!"
Mina began to realize that charging a burning mountain of metal was not the most intelligent thing she'd ever done. Unfortunately, the reawakening of her common sense (which had been slapped silly by seeing Red being batted around like a spoiled brat's toy) came approximately halfway through her downward plunge.
At that point, it was too late to do anything but follow through.
Landing heavily, sword first onto Dnarc's back, she shoved her sword into the join between his wing and his shoulder where there was a necessary gap in the creature's armored shell. The monstrosity immediately dropped his ax and staggered around in a circle, releasing that same pitiable high-pitched shriek again. Mina twisted the sword back and forth, gritting her teeth. Black blood spouted up at her, and one of Dnarc's wings went limp. Growling in pain-filled hatred, the juggernaut reached behind him and caught hold of Mina's leg. Ripping her cruelly from her precarious perch, he wrenched her from his back. Her longsword remained stuck in the giant's back, and when she refused to release the hilt it snapped with a high pitched whine, as though the weapon were screaming a deathcry. She was left with a hilt and less than a foot of blade.
Screaming incoherently into her face, Dnarc turned and threw her full force into the mountainside. Surprisingly, as she flew, her thoughts were of her sword.
-My dad gave me this sword... this was my...- anything else she might have thought was lost when she impacted with the mountainside. She slid down heavily and collapsed into a heap.
Then she didn't move.
***
Arashi heard a sudden rush of air and several startled cries cut brutally short. Glancing backward, he was startled to see four of his troops spiraling down towards the earth...
In eight separate pieces.
He barked an order and the ninety remaining Striking Talons scattered and drew close combat weapons, the deadly double-headed pike of the desert people. Floating several yards above them, a strangely calm green-haired man hovered with only a blood covered pike, his hair hiding his eyes.
"Who the hell are you?!" Arashi wondered out loud, his own pike in front of him.
The man smiled. "Lieutenant Valgaav, Her Majesty's First Airborne Division." He joked quietly.
Arashi blinked.
***
Tess forced herself to ignore her lover's struggle in the sky, which was much too far away and full of confused movement to follow anyway. When he got back, she'd either have to promote him or kill him... depending on her mood.
She had much more pressing problems at hand. The horde had gotten to the city's walls over the thousands of its dead, despite the best efforts of her two remaining cannons. The barrel to her third cannon, on the lower deck, had split. The gun crew, while trying their frantic best to replace it, would probably be out of the rest of the conflict.
Whichever way it went.
The ladders and arrows began to fly upward, and Tess and her squad began the brutal task of pushing said ladders back over, sending shrieking barbarians down to land with bone-crushing impact on their fellows. The guard also began tossing down rocks, furniture, arrows, spears, livestock, their own dead... anything that had any heft to it in an attempt to kill as many of the barbarians as possible.
The body count grew...
The battle raged on.
***
Seeing Mina's limp body strike the mountainside, Red's eyes widened. He stood up with a roar.
"NOOOOOOOOOO!!" He charged forward, bellowing, his sword raised high. Dnarc, stumbling backwards, trying in vain to reach the broken blade in his back, threw up a hand to ward off Red's shrieking blade.
The hand dropped to the ground, twitching feebly as Red's blade sheared through it completely and scraped down the front of the monster's iron breastplate, showering the Bandit King with sparks.
"AHHRHHAHHRGGG!" Dnarc articulated as he stumbled backwards. He flailed his useless stump at the enraged bandit as though this might entice him to stop hammering him with blows.
Red would have none of it. The monster's breastplate dented and deformed under Red's fury, driving the juggernaut to his knees.
Switching targets, he now focused his attacks on the creature's armored head, battering it over and over again in his blind fury.
The first blow sheared off a horn.
The second left a huge dent in the left cheekguard. Black fluid pattered down the front of the creature's breastplate.
The third shattered the helmet completely. Dnarc gurgled and fell heavily onto his back, his breath coming in shuddering gasps.
Red laid his sword point on the creature's battered chest and snarled downward...
Then gasped in surprise and disgust.
Revealed before him was a twisted mockery of human and reptilian features, one pupil-less eye staring at him in burning red hatred, the other shattered and dead... leaking black blood. Breath burbled through a throat deformed by huge interlocking scales with odd bristling hairs sprouting between them. The left side of the face was horribly shattered, but most of the damage had been done by nature.
It smiled.
"Ouch..." a weak voice sounded behind Red.
He whipped his head around to watch Mina stagger up from her previous location (namely, prone on the ground) and limp towards him.
"Mina... you... you're alive..?!"
"Yeah... something broke my fall... I think it was my spleen." She winced, taking hold of Red's shoulder to straighten herself. "It was me." an irritated voice sounded from the depression she'd left in the rock. She blinked and looked wearily at it.
Zelgadis stumbled out of the hole and brushed dust from his clothing, looking irritable but none the worse for wear.
"Oh... thanks." she grinned woozily.
"Please don't mention it." He muttered sarcastically as he walked up and looked over Red's shoulder.
"Yuck... someone beat him within an inch of his life with the ugly stick."
Pix landed on his shoulder and nodded.
"Did I do well, master?"
"Perfectly well Pix - all that training paid off. You redirected that Ra Tilt like a pro."
She clapped her hands and blushed. "Yay!" She did a little aerial victory dance. "I shot the bad guy, I shot the bad guy! Thank you master!" she kissed his cheek.
"Er.... you're welcome Pix." He had the grace to look embarrassed.
Mina grinned. Red frowned.
"Well... at least now we know why this guy calls me "Pretty Boy"..." Red stared curiously at the abomination lying prone before them. Dnarc coughed wetly.
"Damn you.... how? How did... you beat me?"
Red grinned. "By myself, I don't think I could have taken you. You're quite the juggernaut... but you made one error."
Red threw his arm around Mina and Zelgadis, who looked stunned as he drew them into a hug.
"My friends here watched my back and beat the livin' hell out of you, distracted you enough to make you careless. Well, that and you pissed me off... no one beats on Mina and gets away with it."
Mina blushed. Zelgadis rolled his eyes. "Thanks... I think."
Red released them and grinned nastily down the length of his blade at Dnarc. "You lost because you're a coward, big guy. You hide yourself in that mountain of metal, bullying those weaker than you - the defenseless - it made you careless and slow, but I can't say I blame you.. I'd probably hide myself too if I looked like the ass end of a dragon."
Dnarc spat out blood and several fanged teeth and chuckled wetly. "So you think it's as easy as that? You may have defeated me, but we'll be meeting in Hell soon enough, Pretty Boy... If THIS is your best, Talon will make short work of you.... he's twenty times worse than me... he's GLRRURRRK!"
Dnarc was suddenly cut off as Red casually leaned on his blade hard enough to shove it into the mortally wounded Axeman's breastplate. The blade slid slowly in, then crunched through the expiring creature and into the ground. Dnarc shuddered convulsively, then gasped out one last groaning sigh.
"Sorry... I never was one for long-winded death speeches." Red replied pleasantly, withdrawing his sword from the creature's chest.
Mina blinked and gulped but did not argue. One does not argue with someone who just pushed a yard of steel through someone else's chest - particularly if that chest happened to be covered in a half-inch of Stygian iron.
"So what now?" Zelgadis asked, completely nonchalant about Dnarc's rather casual murder. Pix, for her part, had winced and turned a bit green.
As if in answer, Dnarc's body shuddered suddenly, then turned to dust. A strange red light flickered around it for a moment, then struck Red like lightning. His eyes jerked impossibly wide and he arched his back, dropping his sword and roaring as a blast of fire rocketed for the heavens. A huge form appeared behind him... a twisting, three-headed dragon, all three heads shrieking triumphantly to the sky.
As Mina and Zelgadis watched, stunned, the roar became a growling laugh of victory.
"HA! HAHAHAHAHAHA! I... AM.... REBORN!!!"
The Chaos Dragon had returned.
***
Tess shoved her bastard sword prefunctorily through another faceless barbarian and kicked its twitching body back off of the walls. Her arms were two leaden weights, and her world was casual slaughter, and meaningless death...
She looked blearily around for another target and was surprised to find that there were none. Standing up straight, she took stock.
Of the fifteen hundred men she'd started with on her side of the wall, barely five hundred straightened to mirror her. They looked out with haunted and stunned eyes at the horde remaining, which had pulled back just out of range of the city's cannons and waited.
Not that it mattered... they'd lost their last cannon only a few hours into the fray. Tess stumbled a bit, clasped a hand over a sluggishly bleeding wound in her left shoulder, then raised her bastard sword and howled.
"YEEEEESSSSS!!!"
Her troops, tired, battered and barely conscious, mirrored her. It was a pitiful sound, barely heard over the dying and the clash of arms still raging in the sky.
It sounded like victory.
She stopped suddenly when she saw a small unit of troops, maybe fifteen or twenty, approaching the gates. They clustered around what appeared to be a figure clad completely in a maroon colored cloak. She narrowed her eyes.
"Talgus... have your archers give that impertinent group of barbarians a little something to worry about."
Talgus grinned coldly and signaled his archers to attack. Arrows lept immediately down upon the small group...
The front rank took several arrows, the shafts thunking solidly into the barbarians bodies...
They didn't even flinch. They just kept coming.
Her eyes widened. "What the hell...?"
***
Talon threw back his hood and grinned up at the massed defenders. They had forced back his troops admirably, dashing any hopes he might have had of getting through Sentinel without revealing himself. Ah well... one could hardly expect barbarians to do the work of a God.
Grinning up at the wary defenders, he pitched his voice outward.
"Surrender.... or die!" He called out cheerfully, the black holes of his eyes flaring as he said "die".
He was met with laughter. A few arrows. He caught one easily and crushed it in his gloved fist.
"I'll give them something to laugh about." he chuckled, then his face grew deadly serious.
The Bloodguard around him obeyed his silent signal and stepped back. He removed his gloves. His hands, pale and unmarred, were twisted into claws. Pressing them against the air as though he were carrying a ball, he concentrated, his eyes flaring into two stygian pits of darkness.
Nothingness grew between them, and he was outlined in a hideous black aura of anti-light. Souls became visible around him, the dead of both the barbarians and Sailoon crying out in terror as they were pulled inexorably into the ball of darkness growing between his palms. A wind kicked up, shrieking inward, as though a hole in the universe had opened between his hands.
This was exactly what it was. Stretching his arms out wide, he tossed the impenetrably dark sphere shrieking towards the gate, which gained size as it made its approach.
The defenders directly above the gate screamed, some of them tossing themselves off of the wall and to their deaths rather than face the impossiblity barreling towards them. Private Garret, stationed directly over the gate during the conflict, widened his eyes and dropped his spear when he witnessed his death approaching.
"Oh... dear Cephied..."
The ball struck the gates.... settled.... widened a bit..... engulfing one fourth of the wall...
Then vanished in a flash of light and a howl of displaced air.
The battlefield settled.
A hole had appeared in Sentinel's walls. It was perfectly spherical, cutting into the bedrock as well. The gates.... the walls around them... and the men who had been perched on them, including Private Garret, had simply ceased to be.
A single sound echoed across the battlefield. Talon's cruel, mocking laughter became a death knell for the spirit of the Sailoonian defenders. He shook his head at the futility of their plight.
Then he smiled. "Kill them all."
The horde rushed forward, shrieking in joy. Their God had delivered Sentinel unto them! At last! Vengeance!!!
A voice cut through the din. It was a tired female voice, high on the wall. Everyone looked upward.
"Whoever you are... you miserable son of a bitch! I CHALLENGE YOU!"
Talon watched in amusement as a scuffle broke out on the wall... trying desperately to save their captain, the remaining troops had dog-piled her. She slipped out from underneath them, punched Talgus out, and grabbed a nearby ladder, sliding all the way to the ground. Landing heavily, she stalked forward, murder in her eyes. When she reached the front lines of the barbarian horde rushing forward, she brutally smashed any of the unfortunate wretches who happened to cross her path to the ground. The horde stopped and stared at her in morbid fascination... did she have a deathwish? Her answer seemed to be...
Did they?
Talon chuckled and gestured them to cease their attack.
"What can you possibly hope to accomplish with this... pitiful show of resistence? You've lost!"
She stalked up to ten feet from him. The Bloodguard watched her silently, but she got the feeling that if she came any closer, they'd fall upon her like rabid wolves. Some of them still had arrows protruding from them.
"We haven't lost yet! The field isn't lost until one army or the other has retreated, surrendered or is destroyed... but after the way you just threw your peoples lives away for nothing, I hardly expect you to know elementary tactics.
Talon gave no outward sign of annoyance... save that his eyes flared into two black flames. "My... how noble of you to think of MY people. This ought to be good for a laugh... what are your terms?"
"If I kick your ass... this whole horde turns around and heads back home... and none of you ever show your face here again. If you win.... you let my army head back to Sailoon.... and you get Sentinel."
"My...how generous of you." Talon remarked dryly.
"That's not all, asshole... you wait for exactly one week before you advance on Sailoon."
"I hardly think you're in a position to negotiate." Talon grinned, admiring her.
"Whatsa matter.... afraid?"
"Hardly." He shrugged, removing his cloak and tossing it aside. "Very well... I-"
"NOOOO!" The voice cut in from above as Valgaav dropped down between them.
"TESS.... I won't let you! He'll kill you!"
"STAND DOWN, SOLDIER!" she snapped. "YOU ARE THE NEXT IN COMMAND. IF I LOSE... YOU HAVE TO GET WORD TO THE QUEEN. YOU HAVE TO GET THESE MEN BACK HOME." Her voice became tired but proud and she glanced up at where they crouched, tired, battered, but still full of fight. "God knows they've earned it."
"What about you?" he pleaded, unconvinced.
She closed her eyes. "What about me? One person for a kingdom?" she grinned. "I'll take that price."
"WELL I WOULDN'T!!" he gestured angrily back at the city. "You've done enough!!"
She opened her eyes and they were full of calm confidence and love. "We both know that isn't true. I gave my oath to Queen Amelia to defend Sailoon with my life. I may not always agree with her, but she is my Queen, and she IS Sailoon. That's something worth dying for, Valgaav. Besides... I don't plan on losing. Got too much to live for."
"Tess-" He started. She narrowed her eyes.
"Don't make me force you to have them take you back in chains, Valgaav. Please." She sighed.
He crossed his arms. "I'd like to see them try."
Talon rolled his eyes, or at least he might have. It's sometimes hard to tell when a person doesn't have anything that could truly be called eyes.
"This is all very touching, but if it's alright with you, I'd like to get on with more important matters."
Tess nodded shortly. "Valgaav.... go. That's an order."
He gritted his teeth but saluted, clenching his fist over his chest.
"Yes... sir."
She returned his salute. "I'll see you later."
Valgaav took off and headed towards the city. She sighed and removed her breastplate, tossing it to the ground. She had a feeling it wouldn't help much.
"Well do you accept?" she stared at him, hard eyed. The barbarian army surrounded the two of them.
"Oh... is it alright if I do now? Is the melodrama over with or are there any more impudent underlings waiting in the wings?" Talon smirked sarcastically. "Certainly my dear. I accept your terms."
Tess smiled. Whether she won or lost, Valgaav would get her people home, and sooner or later they'd bring this monster down. She took a deep breath...
Time to face destiny.
***
Arashi once again found himself in the presence of his God. He supposed this was because he was the greatest of his people's warriors, but it was more likely due to his having been less affected by his people's curse than the others.. ironically the very features which made him acceptable to be in his God's presence often caused him to be scorned by his people. Fair of face and relatively fair of body save for his wings and birdlike legs, he reminded his people too much of what they had once been. Talon had taught them that they were being punished for the times before the Scarring.. why should one of their number be less scarred than the rest?
Even Arashi had to admit it wasn't fair that he should be less fully Scarred than his brothers. He accepted his aloofness with quiet strength and dignity, and though he was mistrusted for his differences, none could argue his competence and battle prowess. He led the elite Striking Talons division. The group of fearsome flying warriors and scouts was second only to the Bloodguard. The nineteen Bloodguard, each with one of their original eyes replaced by a blood red ruby, waited impassively in the huge expanse of Talon's pavilion. Arashi looked at them and inwardly shivered. He'd known a few of the men before they'd become Bloodguards and when each one had gouged out their eye for the honor of serving their God and master personally, it had been as though they'd gouged out their very souls for him as well. Though they were immensely powerful, and completely invulnerable (Arashi had seen one stand up after losing his head and re-attach the severed body part without a single change of facial expression) Arashi preferred his admittedly rather limited freedom over the fanatical servitude they lived.
Not that he'd ever admit this to anyone other than himself. He wasn't a fool.
He entered into Talon's presence and knelt. His master was hunched over a board marked with checkered white and black squares upon which numerous small figurines were placed at seemingly random intervals. Arashi stared at it in curious confusion. He'd seen his God staring at this same board many times, though he'd never divined it's purpose. Talon apparently noticed his gaze and looked up.
"You have something to report?" he asked, his tone bespeaking boredom.
"My lord, the Striking Talons are in position, and I have received similar reports from all other divisions. The enemy appears to be content to allow us to make the first move... we have had no reports of any attempts from them to make any offensive maneuvers."
Talon smiled. "Of course not. Queen Sailoon has turned her army into a glorified police force. They aren't taught anything other than how to defend their positions." He frowned. "Still... they are vastly outnumbered though admittedly in a highly defensible position... It is a wonder that they haven't fled in the face of such vastly unfavorable odds. One wonders what sort of commander Sentinel has drawn that he has garnered such loyalty." He closed his eyes and concentrated. Arashi waited patiently. He was used to his God's eccentricities.
Talon opened his eyes and smiled. "Ah I see... how very interesting. The commander is a Shard. How unfortunate for her."
He rested his elbow on the board and looked deep in thought. "We will allow them to get complacent, tired and exhausted from waiting for the inevitable blow all night... while we rest from our long march. At dawn.... first light... We attack."
Arashi nodded. "As you wish my Lord... will that be all?"
His eyes snapped to the still kneeling Arashi. "Oh do get up. It strains my neck trying to look at you like that.... Arashi was it?"
Arashi stood and nodded. "Arashi it is, my Lord..."
Talon's grin grew sly. "You seem interested in my Chessboard. Have a few... questions for your God do you?"
Arashi paled. "No... my Lord I would never presume-"
Talon waved his hand. "Of course you would. Everyone does. You just wouldn't out loud. How very loyal of you. Sit down. I'm feeling... generous today. I will answer any questions you might have." he smiled. Talon enjoyed playing with his pawns... rather like a cat would playing with a mouse.
Hesitantly, Arashi seated himself opposite his God. Sitting in a chair not designed for his frame was far more painful than kneeling, but he dared not show discomfort in his God's presence.
Talon tapped his chin gently, then waved his hand. "Go ahead, noble Arashi. Ask your... questions."
Arashi frowned, then seemed to resolve himself. If he were going to die today for his impertinence, then so it would be. "Lord... Why did you maneuver the Axeman to fight the Soul of Fury? Regardless of who wins the conflict, the victor would become a greater threat-"
"Greater than me, Arashi?" Talon asked mildly.
Arashi shook his head. "Never... still... I cannot divine the meaning behind it... Lord."
Talon smiled. "Very well... this board," he gestured at the checkered square before him, "is the explanation."
Arashi blinked. "I don't..."
"Of course not. You couldn't. Not yet anyway... possibly not ever. I will try to explain it however. In the game of chess, each piece has a very specific form of movement. The object of the game is to maneuver these pieces about the board, capture your opponent's pieces, and finally... force your opponent's king..." he gestured at one of the figurines... an older man with a crown and a sword. "Into a position from which he cannot escape."
Arashi frowned.
"This game mimics life. The best way to defeat someone is to know which way he will move... given a stimulus." Talon's grin became a sneer. "This is what I have done. Dnarc is my piece... my knight if you will. I know how he will move, no matter what forces are arrayed against him. He is a very simple creature... he is motivated by simple instincts. No matter how powerful he should become, should he defeat The Soul of Fury, though I highly doubt it, he will always be what he is... A Knight... nothing more. He cannot defeat me."
Arashi widened his eyes. "But what if the Soul of Fury wins?"
"Ah... there in lies the masterstroke of my plan. Remember, a piece can only be planned for if one knows how it will move." He gestured at a figurine of a woman with a crown and a wand. "This is a queen. Tell me, how would you capture it?"
"I could not....." Arashi blinked.
"... Because you don't know how it moves." Talon finished. "This is how the Soul of Fury is now... unpredictable... human and mazoku... but more human than mazoku. Humans, as we all know, are unpredictable... it is only due to their limited power that they are prevented from ruling over both Gods and Mazoku alike. As a human with the immense power of a mazoku, the Soul of Fury is nearly unbeatable." he grinned. "Now... suppose he destroys Dnarc. He claims the power Dnarc once held... suddenly the Soul of Fury is no more. He becomes Gaav, the Demon Dragon King. In short, he returns to his former self... still thinking in mazoku terms... motivated by mazoku needs... wants... fears.... he becomes a mazoku with the frailties of a human, one who discounts a human's strengths as weaknesses. His moves become predictable." He tipped the queen over. It fell on its side and rolled back and forth along the axis of its base.
"In short he becomes just another piece on the board... Gaav was defeated before, by a combination of underestimating his various opponents, and refusing to back off once he realized that he was beaten. He can be defeated again. Regardless of how powerful he might become."
"Everything can be determined this way... even Xellos, cunning trickster and mazoku that he is, can be planned for... he will always be motivated by self interest , and because of this, he assumes everyone else is motivated by the same." Talon gestured at the board, and more importantly, at the black king. "I show him a man bent on conquering Sailoon with the intent of ruling over all... and that is what he sees, because it is what he WANTS and expects to see."
Arashi snapped his fingers. "He cannot see that you intend to destroy Sailoon and return it to it's rightful people..." His face was full of admiration, respect, and enlightenment.
Talon smiled, trying to keep from laughing in the ignorant savage's face. Save it for barbarians? If Arashi knew his true motivations... the REAL reason why Talon had uprooted the monstrous clan... he chuckled. "Just so... just so."
Arashi's eyes widened. "All of this can be determined from a simple game?"
Talon shrugged. "The basic rules are the same in any conflict... what is a game but conflict?"
"Would you teach me this game... Lord?" he asked hesitantly.
Talon seemed to think about this for a moment, then he smiled. "Very well. I grow tired of endlessly playing against myself. Perhaps you will prove... amusing."
The night moved on...
***
Red snarled at the ironclad giant taking up the entirety of their way out. Pushing Mina to the side, he drew his monstrous two handed sword and grinned mockingly at Dnarc. "Damn - I was hoping your little bath might improve your looks a bit. I see that was a lost cause."
Dnarc's eyes glittered. "Heh. Perhaps, but then, looks aren't everything. I see no "gravity" to save you this time, Pretty Boy."
Zelgadis whispered something to Pix. She listened with wide eyes, then nodded determinedly and braced herself.
Mina drew her own longsword and growled. "I am getting so tired of this blustering crap! I get enough of it from him." She jerked a finger at Red.
"Hey!" He glared at her.
"Enough of this. You DIE!" Dnarc roared.
Zelgadis took a deep breath, and in a perfect pitcher's stance, threw a fast ball (namely, Pix) at the metal monster before them. With the added momentum provided by Zelgadis' not inconsiderable strength, Pix made a whizzing beeline; straight past Dnarc. He startled involuntarily, then looked at the grinning chimera as though noticing him for the first time.
"What the hell was..."
"Mina, Red... hold him off for a second!" Zelgadis bellowed as he began to advance, muttering beneath his breath.
Red, who was already in motion, grinned in response. "Whatever!" He struck the slightly distracted abomination with his shoulder and drove him back out of the cave entrance. Mina sighed.
"Here we go again..." she shrugged and followed him out.
***
Tess drank black coffee, crouched on the wall underneath a cloak to ward off the night's chill. Once the initial panic of seeing such a huge army arrayed against them had worn itself to death, the guards of Sentinel had reacted admirably; following their Captain's hastily barked orders with great efficiency. The first order of business had been to get the noncombatants out of the city, and the noncombatants in question, mostly merchants, women, children, and the elderly, had been more than happy to oblige. Despite the mass exodus of city dwellers, (not unlike that of rats fleeing a sinking ship) a surprising number of men and women chose not to leave, and these were either given weapons and sent to man the walls, or if they had any healer training whatsoever, were sent to the medical tents to assist with the casualties that would be coming in. Tess's grip on her bastard sword tightened when she considered how many casualties they would undoubtedly take...
All in all the beleagered forces of Sentinel city numbered some five thousand, five hundred souls, barely four thousand of which could be considered professional. The early estimates of the army arranged against them, if one took into account that the actual number could not be divined since a large majority of it extended beyond the horizon, numbered somewhere in the hundreds of thousands, if not millions...
-Where in the hell did an army this size appear from? Why have there been no reports of troop buildups in our neighboring kingdoms? Where the HELL is Queen Amelia?-
These questions boiled over in her mind and she could make no sense of it. She'd finally set it aside as trivial... something to puzzle over if they survived. Though the odds were highly stacked against them, Sentinel was the most heavily fortified city in all of Sailoon, and they had a few tricks up their sleeves that she was betting these barbarians had never encountered before. She grinned evily... too bad for them. She gazed along the wall where other troopers held whispered conversations and huddled together with their weapons and what little food they could prepare. The barbarian horde seemed to be content to wait for the moment, and she'd ordered her troops to sleep in four hour shifts, catching as much rest as they could before the coming battle. She had a feeling... they would need it.
As she finished her coffee a great roaring cry could be heard from outside the gates... as the first rays of sunlight struck the South Wall, the barbarian horde began to move.
A few of the troops around her muttered curses. She grinned. "Well boys... looks like they don't have enough manners to wait until after breakfast."
A few uneasy chuckles greeted her admittedly poor jest. Her gaze hardened. "Let's teach them what civilization is all about."
"MAN THE CANNONS!"
***
Dnarc finally managed to throw Red back from him, charging immediately after the off-balance bandit with a vicious two handed blow of his axe. Red continued his backwards stumble, throwing himself out of the axe's whistling path and coming to a crouching halt a short distance away. Several micro-meteors struck the behemoth as Mina unleashed a Burst Rondo at him. Growling, Dnarc shrugged the attack and brought his ax down on Red as though he were attempting to chop firewood. The Bandit King met his attack with a two handed upwards parry, standing as he did so.
"RAAA TILT!" Zelgadis shouted, throwing a screaming ball of astral energy in Dnarc's direction. The ball tore up the ground on it's path toward the monster. Passing the straining axeman by a hair, it flared on harmlessly. Dnarc grinned.
"Ha! You missed!"
Zelgadis stony face cracked into a grim smile. "Did I now?"
Red forced Dnarc back a bit and backed up several feet, an incredulous look on his face. Dnarc grinned. "Finally learning your lesson, Pretty Boy?"
Red grinned. "You might want to turn around, big guy."
Dnarc narrowed his eyes. " HEH! I'm not falling for..." He trailed off when he suddenly noticed that his shadow had been thrown in stark relief... too stark for the early morning. He turned slightly. His eyes widened at what he saw...
Pix, now the center of a much larger ball of raging blue astral flame, pointed, winked, and smiled at the stunned Shard. The now several times multiplied Ra Tilt shrieked forward, catching Dnarc square in the chest. For the second time in his life (the first being his fight with Talon) Dnarc felt his soul being rent asunder.
He shrieked high and loud, his wings coming out at full extension.
Red did a double take. "Holy shit! You scream like a girl!!"
Dnarc clutched his head in agony, then began lurching around smashing anything in his path. The pain and fear hitting him in equal measure, he reacted as any large animal would when backed into a corner.
He went berserk.
***
"FIRE!!"
The sound of Sentinel City's Battlecannon being fired in anger rattled down the pass for the first time since their construction.
Sentinel was the most important chokepoint for entrance into Sailoon from the south. Amelia might have been peace-loving, but she was not a fool. Ten years had given Sailoon plenty of time to develop (With the aid of Outland imports) workable cannons. The Battlecannon, of which there were four, were loaded with large canisters filled to the brim with thousands of tiny one inch diameter lead balls and were designed to explode almost immediately after being fired, creating a deadly cone of flying metal. The end result being that when the first cannon sounded the front rank of Talon's army simply disintegrated into a red cloud of gristle and gore. The next rank charged over the shredded bodies of their comrades, religious fervor glinting like madness in their eyes. The next cannon sounded shortly afterward, turning the charging rank into a bleeding mound fifty yards from the City gates. Still they kept coming.. The next cannon fired, again they were decimated, and again the army continued it's inexorable approach. Several troops on the city's walls turned away in disgust, losing what little food they had managed to wolf down in the process. Even Tess paled a bit.
"Gods... such slaughter. Who could be leading them like this?" she asked in horrified wonder.
" ' Ware above!!!" A startled shriek cut through the din of the cannon fire. She glanced upward, blinking in surprise as a cloud of closely formationed soldiers with wings passed overhead. In pairs they circled high above the battlements, each pair carrying what appeared to be a loaded down blanket...
Her eyes widened in sudden realization. "SHIELDS!!!"
The defenders raised their shields suddenly as each pair of flying warriors flipped their blanket over with a snap...
Raining hundreds of yard long steel fletchettes weighted so that the point would fall first. A whistling, thunderous rain of metal struck shields... and the occasional body. Soldiers screamed and clutched horrible wounds, blood pulsing out to feed the ever-widening pools, making the walkways dangerously slippery. One of the two cannons mounted on the upper deck exploded in a double blast of concussive fury as its crew, unable to take shelter in time, were horribly pinioned to the deck around their cannon. Their suffering was short-lived, as a lit torch dropped from a nerveless hand lit a powder keg. Black smoke poured from the ruined cannon and it's mounting, blowing out over the battlefield and playing hell with visibility. Tess gritted her teeth.
"Archers! Take aim!! Fire!" A thousand bow strings sang, and arrows arced up into the air...
A scant fifty flying warriors dropped from the sky with startled shrieks, spinning helplessly out of control in their agonies. The troops were flying far too high for the arrows to have more than a marginal effect.
"Damn!" she swore as the rest of the flying group turned sedately and headed back towards their lines... presumably to retrieve more ammunition.
Valgaav narrowed his eyes and picked up his favored weapon, a long pike.
"Captain... leave this to me."
Without giving her time to argue, Valgaav's wings sprouted and with a enraged cry he flew up...
To face impossible odds...
***
The first blow from the blazing, shrieking juggernaut tossed Red casually off of his feet and into the side of the mountain with bone-jarring force. Standing woozily, he was fetched another resounding blow that forced him onto his back, straining with his great sword to keep the cruel serrated edge of the ax from his sweating face. Girlishly screaming or no, Dnarc was unstoppable.
Zelgadis shouted a quick Astral Vine and charged to the Bandit King's aid, only to be tossed aside with a maddened backhanded swipe of the creature's melon sized gauntlet. Landing hard, he picked himself up and spit out blood.
"Damn! What the hell is this guy?!"
"Really... pissed... off..." Red muttered, the serrated edge coming inexorably closer to his face. Then he saw something that nearly made his heart stop...
Mina shrieked a warcry and charged forward, leaping high into the air. Red's eyes widened.
"YAAAAAAAAAAHHHAAAAAAAAAOOOOOHHHHSHIIIIIIIIIIITTTTTT!"
Mina began to realize that charging a burning mountain of metal was not the most intelligent thing she'd ever done. Unfortunately, the reawakening of her common sense (which had been slapped silly by seeing Red being batted around like a spoiled brat's toy) came approximately halfway through her downward plunge.
At that point, it was too late to do anything but follow through.
Landing heavily, sword first onto Dnarc's back, she shoved her sword into the join between his wing and his shoulder where there was a necessary gap in the creature's armored shell. The monstrosity immediately dropped his ax and staggered around in a circle, releasing that same pitiable high-pitched shriek again. Mina twisted the sword back and forth, gritting her teeth. Black blood spouted up at her, and one of Dnarc's wings went limp. Growling in pain-filled hatred, the juggernaut reached behind him and caught hold of Mina's leg. Ripping her cruelly from her precarious perch, he wrenched her from his back. Her longsword remained stuck in the giant's back, and when she refused to release the hilt it snapped with a high pitched whine, as though the weapon were screaming a deathcry. She was left with a hilt and less than a foot of blade.
Screaming incoherently into her face, Dnarc turned and threw her full force into the mountainside. Surprisingly, as she flew, her thoughts were of her sword.
-My dad gave me this sword... this was my...- anything else she might have thought was lost when she impacted with the mountainside. She slid down heavily and collapsed into a heap.
Then she didn't move.
***
Arashi heard a sudden rush of air and several startled cries cut brutally short. Glancing backward, he was startled to see four of his troops spiraling down towards the earth...
In eight separate pieces.
He barked an order and the ninety remaining Striking Talons scattered and drew close combat weapons, the deadly double-headed pike of the desert people. Floating several yards above them, a strangely calm green-haired man hovered with only a blood covered pike, his hair hiding his eyes.
"Who the hell are you?!" Arashi wondered out loud, his own pike in front of him.
The man smiled. "Lieutenant Valgaav, Her Majesty's First Airborne Division." He joked quietly.
Arashi blinked.
***
Tess forced herself to ignore her lover's struggle in the sky, which was much too far away and full of confused movement to follow anyway. When he got back, she'd either have to promote him or kill him... depending on her mood.
She had much more pressing problems at hand. The horde had gotten to the city's walls over the thousands of its dead, despite the best efforts of her two remaining cannons. The barrel to her third cannon, on the lower deck, had split. The gun crew, while trying their frantic best to replace it, would probably be out of the rest of the conflict.
Whichever way it went.
The ladders and arrows began to fly upward, and Tess and her squad began the brutal task of pushing said ladders back over, sending shrieking barbarians down to land with bone-crushing impact on their fellows. The guard also began tossing down rocks, furniture, arrows, spears, livestock, their own dead... anything that had any heft to it in an attempt to kill as many of the barbarians as possible.
The body count grew...
The battle raged on.
***
Seeing Mina's limp body strike the mountainside, Red's eyes widened. He stood up with a roar.
"NOOOOOOOOOO!!" He charged forward, bellowing, his sword raised high. Dnarc, stumbling backwards, trying in vain to reach the broken blade in his back, threw up a hand to ward off Red's shrieking blade.
The hand dropped to the ground, twitching feebly as Red's blade sheared through it completely and scraped down the front of the monster's iron breastplate, showering the Bandit King with sparks.
"AHHRHHAHHRGGG!" Dnarc articulated as he stumbled backwards. He flailed his useless stump at the enraged bandit as though this might entice him to stop hammering him with blows.
Red would have none of it. The monster's breastplate dented and deformed under Red's fury, driving the juggernaut to his knees.
Switching targets, he now focused his attacks on the creature's armored head, battering it over and over again in his blind fury.
The first blow sheared off a horn.
The second left a huge dent in the left cheekguard. Black fluid pattered down the front of the creature's breastplate.
The third shattered the helmet completely. Dnarc gurgled and fell heavily onto his back, his breath coming in shuddering gasps.
Red laid his sword point on the creature's battered chest and snarled downward...
Then gasped in surprise and disgust.
Revealed before him was a twisted mockery of human and reptilian features, one pupil-less eye staring at him in burning red hatred, the other shattered and dead... leaking black blood. Breath burbled through a throat deformed by huge interlocking scales with odd bristling hairs sprouting between them. The left side of the face was horribly shattered, but most of the damage had been done by nature.
It smiled.
"Ouch..." a weak voice sounded behind Red.
He whipped his head around to watch Mina stagger up from her previous location (namely, prone on the ground) and limp towards him.
"Mina... you... you're alive..?!"
"Yeah... something broke my fall... I think it was my spleen." She winced, taking hold of Red's shoulder to straighten herself. "It was me." an irritated voice sounded from the depression she'd left in the rock. She blinked and looked wearily at it.
Zelgadis stumbled out of the hole and brushed dust from his clothing, looking irritable but none the worse for wear.
"Oh... thanks." she grinned woozily.
"Please don't mention it." He muttered sarcastically as he walked up and looked over Red's shoulder.
"Yuck... someone beat him within an inch of his life with the ugly stick."
Pix landed on his shoulder and nodded.
"Did I do well, master?"
"Perfectly well Pix - all that training paid off. You redirected that Ra Tilt like a pro."
She clapped her hands and blushed. "Yay!" She did a little aerial victory dance. "I shot the bad guy, I shot the bad guy! Thank you master!" she kissed his cheek.
"Er.... you're welcome Pix." He had the grace to look embarrassed.
Mina grinned. Red frowned.
"Well... at least now we know why this guy calls me "Pretty Boy"..." Red stared curiously at the abomination lying prone before them. Dnarc coughed wetly.
"Damn you.... how? How did... you beat me?"
Red grinned. "By myself, I don't think I could have taken you. You're quite the juggernaut... but you made one error."
Red threw his arm around Mina and Zelgadis, who looked stunned as he drew them into a hug.
"My friends here watched my back and beat the livin' hell out of you, distracted you enough to make you careless. Well, that and you pissed me off... no one beats on Mina and gets away with it."
Mina blushed. Zelgadis rolled his eyes. "Thanks... I think."
Red released them and grinned nastily down the length of his blade at Dnarc. "You lost because you're a coward, big guy. You hide yourself in that mountain of metal, bullying those weaker than you - the defenseless - it made you careless and slow, but I can't say I blame you.. I'd probably hide myself too if I looked like the ass end of a dragon."
Dnarc spat out blood and several fanged teeth and chuckled wetly. "So you think it's as easy as that? You may have defeated me, but we'll be meeting in Hell soon enough, Pretty Boy... If THIS is your best, Talon will make short work of you.... he's twenty times worse than me... he's GLRRURRRK!"
Dnarc was suddenly cut off as Red casually leaned on his blade hard enough to shove it into the mortally wounded Axeman's breastplate. The blade slid slowly in, then crunched through the expiring creature and into the ground. Dnarc shuddered convulsively, then gasped out one last groaning sigh.
"Sorry... I never was one for long-winded death speeches." Red replied pleasantly, withdrawing his sword from the creature's chest.
Mina blinked and gulped but did not argue. One does not argue with someone who just pushed a yard of steel through someone else's chest - particularly if that chest happened to be covered in a half-inch of Stygian iron.
"So what now?" Zelgadis asked, completely nonchalant about Dnarc's rather casual murder. Pix, for her part, had winced and turned a bit green.
As if in answer, Dnarc's body shuddered suddenly, then turned to dust. A strange red light flickered around it for a moment, then struck Red like lightning. His eyes jerked impossibly wide and he arched his back, dropping his sword and roaring as a blast of fire rocketed for the heavens. A huge form appeared behind him... a twisting, three-headed dragon, all three heads shrieking triumphantly to the sky.
As Mina and Zelgadis watched, stunned, the roar became a growling laugh of victory.
"HA! HAHAHAHAHAHA! I... AM.... REBORN!!!"
The Chaos Dragon had returned.
***
Tess shoved her bastard sword prefunctorily through another faceless barbarian and kicked its twitching body back off of the walls. Her arms were two leaden weights, and her world was casual slaughter, and meaningless death...
She looked blearily around for another target and was surprised to find that there were none. Standing up straight, she took stock.
Of the fifteen hundred men she'd started with on her side of the wall, barely five hundred straightened to mirror her. They looked out with haunted and stunned eyes at the horde remaining, which had pulled back just out of range of the city's cannons and waited.
Not that it mattered... they'd lost their last cannon only a few hours into the fray. Tess stumbled a bit, clasped a hand over a sluggishly bleeding wound in her left shoulder, then raised her bastard sword and howled.
"YEEEEESSSSS!!!"
Her troops, tired, battered and barely conscious, mirrored her. It was a pitiful sound, barely heard over the dying and the clash of arms still raging in the sky.
It sounded like victory.
She stopped suddenly when she saw a small unit of troops, maybe fifteen or twenty, approaching the gates. They clustered around what appeared to be a figure clad completely in a maroon colored cloak. She narrowed her eyes.
"Talgus... have your archers give that impertinent group of barbarians a little something to worry about."
Talgus grinned coldly and signaled his archers to attack. Arrows lept immediately down upon the small group...
The front rank took several arrows, the shafts thunking solidly into the barbarians bodies...
They didn't even flinch. They just kept coming.
Her eyes widened. "What the hell...?"
***
Talon threw back his hood and grinned up at the massed defenders. They had forced back his troops admirably, dashing any hopes he might have had of getting through Sentinel without revealing himself. Ah well... one could hardly expect barbarians to do the work of a God.
Grinning up at the wary defenders, he pitched his voice outward.
"Surrender.... or die!" He called out cheerfully, the black holes of his eyes flaring as he said "die".
He was met with laughter. A few arrows. He caught one easily and crushed it in his gloved fist.
"I'll give them something to laugh about." he chuckled, then his face grew deadly serious.
The Bloodguard around him obeyed his silent signal and stepped back. He removed his gloves. His hands, pale and unmarred, were twisted into claws. Pressing them against the air as though he were carrying a ball, he concentrated, his eyes flaring into two stygian pits of darkness.
Nothingness grew between them, and he was outlined in a hideous black aura of anti-light. Souls became visible around him, the dead of both the barbarians and Sailoon crying out in terror as they were pulled inexorably into the ball of darkness growing between his palms. A wind kicked up, shrieking inward, as though a hole in the universe had opened between his hands.
This was exactly what it was. Stretching his arms out wide, he tossed the impenetrably dark sphere shrieking towards the gate, which gained size as it made its approach.
The defenders directly above the gate screamed, some of them tossing themselves off of the wall and to their deaths rather than face the impossiblity barreling towards them. Private Garret, stationed directly over the gate during the conflict, widened his eyes and dropped his spear when he witnessed his death approaching.
"Oh... dear Cephied..."
The ball struck the gates.... settled.... widened a bit..... engulfing one fourth of the wall...
Then vanished in a flash of light and a howl of displaced air.
The battlefield settled.
A hole had appeared in Sentinel's walls. It was perfectly spherical, cutting into the bedrock as well. The gates.... the walls around them... and the men who had been perched on them, including Private Garret, had simply ceased to be.
A single sound echoed across the battlefield. Talon's cruel, mocking laughter became a death knell for the spirit of the Sailoonian defenders. He shook his head at the futility of their plight.
Then he smiled. "Kill them all."
The horde rushed forward, shrieking in joy. Their God had delivered Sentinel unto them! At last! Vengeance!!!
A voice cut through the din. It was a tired female voice, high on the wall. Everyone looked upward.
"Whoever you are... you miserable son of a bitch! I CHALLENGE YOU!"
Talon watched in amusement as a scuffle broke out on the wall... trying desperately to save their captain, the remaining troops had dog-piled her. She slipped out from underneath them, punched Talgus out, and grabbed a nearby ladder, sliding all the way to the ground. Landing heavily, she stalked forward, murder in her eyes. When she reached the front lines of the barbarian horde rushing forward, she brutally smashed any of the unfortunate wretches who happened to cross her path to the ground. The horde stopped and stared at her in morbid fascination... did she have a deathwish? Her answer seemed to be...
Did they?
Talon chuckled and gestured them to cease their attack.
"What can you possibly hope to accomplish with this... pitiful show of resistence? You've lost!"
She stalked up to ten feet from him. The Bloodguard watched her silently, but she got the feeling that if she came any closer, they'd fall upon her like rabid wolves. Some of them still had arrows protruding from them.
"We haven't lost yet! The field isn't lost until one army or the other has retreated, surrendered or is destroyed... but after the way you just threw your peoples lives away for nothing, I hardly expect you to know elementary tactics.
Talon gave no outward sign of annoyance... save that his eyes flared into two black flames. "My... how noble of you to think of MY people. This ought to be good for a laugh... what are your terms?"
"If I kick your ass... this whole horde turns around and heads back home... and none of you ever show your face here again. If you win.... you let my army head back to Sailoon.... and you get Sentinel."
"My...how generous of you." Talon remarked dryly.
"That's not all, asshole... you wait for exactly one week before you advance on Sailoon."
"I hardly think you're in a position to negotiate." Talon grinned, admiring her.
"Whatsa matter.... afraid?"
"Hardly." He shrugged, removing his cloak and tossing it aside. "Very well... I-"
"NOOOO!" The voice cut in from above as Valgaav dropped down between them.
"TESS.... I won't let you! He'll kill you!"
"STAND DOWN, SOLDIER!" she snapped. "YOU ARE THE NEXT IN COMMAND. IF I LOSE... YOU HAVE TO GET WORD TO THE QUEEN. YOU HAVE TO GET THESE MEN BACK HOME." Her voice became tired but proud and she glanced up at where they crouched, tired, battered, but still full of fight. "God knows they've earned it."
"What about you?" he pleaded, unconvinced.
She closed her eyes. "What about me? One person for a kingdom?" she grinned. "I'll take that price."
"WELL I WOULDN'T!!" he gestured angrily back at the city. "You've done enough!!"
She opened her eyes and they were full of calm confidence and love. "We both know that isn't true. I gave my oath to Queen Amelia to defend Sailoon with my life. I may not always agree with her, but she is my Queen, and she IS Sailoon. That's something worth dying for, Valgaav. Besides... I don't plan on losing. Got too much to live for."
"Tess-" He started. She narrowed her eyes.
"Don't make me force you to have them take you back in chains, Valgaav. Please." She sighed.
He crossed his arms. "I'd like to see them try."
Talon rolled his eyes, or at least he might have. It's sometimes hard to tell when a person doesn't have anything that could truly be called eyes.
"This is all very touching, but if it's alright with you, I'd like to get on with more important matters."
Tess nodded shortly. "Valgaav.... go. That's an order."
He gritted his teeth but saluted, clenching his fist over his chest.
"Yes... sir."
She returned his salute. "I'll see you later."
Valgaav took off and headed towards the city. She sighed and removed her breastplate, tossing it to the ground. She had a feeling it wouldn't help much.
"Well do you accept?" she stared at him, hard eyed. The barbarian army surrounded the two of them.
"Oh... is it alright if I do now? Is the melodrama over with or are there any more impudent underlings waiting in the wings?" Talon smirked sarcastically. "Certainly my dear. I accept your terms."
Tess smiled. Whether she won or lost, Valgaav would get her people home, and sooner or later they'd bring this monster down. She took a deep breath...
Time to face destiny.
***