by Kaden Reed
Within seconds I had my new core destroyer, which seemed to hold his core in place as I slammed it home. I gave a quick bark of laughter as I felt it pierce his core and he exploded.
Soaring through the room, I impacted the wall with a resounding crack and slid to the floor. Looking on in grim satisfaction, I couldn’t see Marty anywhere. You can’t have him you Aku bastards.
The damage caused by the explosion was minimal. Several Aku had met a similar fate as mine, including, I was pleased to note, the man with the large sword that I was taunting earlier. However, I dismayed at the state of the defenders.
Shino was bleeding from several wounds, but somehow was still managing to keep his attackers at bay. Even occasionally striking out and scoring several hits. Dhurin was favoring a leg that I could see had a slash that ran from his hip to knee. His attacks were noticeably slowing, but the dozens of corpses at his feet were a testament to his prowess.
Amani lay on the floor, his hands around the haft of an arrow that had pierced his chest. Red frothy bubbles oozing from around the wound. As I watched, I realized he was pushing past his injuries and was still going through the motions of a spell.
When my eyes landed on the still forms of Bog and Jax against the side of the bear, the lust for combat seemed to drain away as a wave of shame overcame me. I had allowed myself to get caught in my unexplainable hatred of the Aku and I hadn’t followed through with my task of protecting them.
A weak and tired Harper was trying to fend off a pair of attackers that had closed on her with a dagger she had pulled from her belt. As I watched, one darted past her and slashed downward with his sword to ham string her. As she lay on the ground, the second stomped on her hands until they were broken ruins, her dagger falling to clatter to the floor.
The two men congratulated themselves and bending down, hefted her in their arms and started making their way to the portal.
“No, no, no…,” I shook my head, desperately trying to clear the fog in my mind. I knew I had to do something, or they were going to take her through the portal.
Grunting in pain as I tried to push myself onto my knees and all I managed to do was fall back on my side. Crawling towards the quickly retreating Aku, I tried to yell to the Trinity to let them know what was happening, but all that came out was a barely audible whisper.
The group passed in front of the man in all black and exchanged a few words with him. Nodding, he waved them onward to the portal.
I tried to rack my brain, furiously trying to find a way to stop what I was seeing. Cursing myself for a fool, I kept crawling towards them. This is all your fault. If you hadn’t ruptured that core you could have done something.
“Raven!” a voice thundered from off to my left.
Looking around my heart soared in triumph as I saw Thorn, resplendent in her black and red plate armor, her black hair gathered into a bun behind her head which was framed with laughing skulls that adorned her shoulders. She was wielding a giant serrated two-handed sword, that she swung through the air with ease.
Everyone in the room went still at the force of the challenge. As if faced with a supreme predator, all of us lesser beasts instinctively held our collective breath. Hoping that by being as unobtrusive as possible, the gaze of this alpha would pass us by and mark another for doom.
Only the man dressed in all black leather seemed to not react in instinctual fear. Instead he casually turned to face her saying cordially as if he was at lunch, “Thorn.”
That was Raven? He seemed so - normal. Even unobtrusive. His armor was muted black leather with two simple unadorned short swords on his waist. I expected grandeur or at least for power to emanate off him like it does Thorn. Although, thinking back to when I first saw him walking through the portal, I had thought him to be someone in command. He held himself with a surety of purpose that I had only seen in the woman challenging him.
So enraptured at what was happening between these two legends, I almost failed to notice when Eli and his Hand followed Thorn into the room.
“I will say this only once,” Thorn commanded, “take your lackeys and leave.”
Smiling slightly, “and what if I refuse?”
“Then we fight,” Thorn’s voice was calm, “and you will die.”
Shaking his head sadly, “I’ve seen the future Thorn. It isn’t me that is going to die.”
“Your Dungeon has filled you with lies!” Thorn spat with palpable venom in her voice.
Sighing Raven said, “I have seen how this will end - Ignotia will burn. The only chance at salvation will be with Cainan.” He held his arms out to encompass those at his sides, “and we are his Chosen.”
“No!” the single defiant word reverberated throughout the room, “Cainan has done nothing other than destroy us! The only hope the world has is if you and your Dungeon are destroyed.”
“The old argument. I don’t know how to make you understand,” Raven shook his head sadly, “we will fight if we must.”
Thorn raised her sword, grinning wickedly, “I hoped you would say that,” and she charged Raven.
Chapter Fifteen
Harbinger
“They fight and die by the hundreds, all to keep their thousands distracted with trinkets in ignorance. Yet they have the nerve to call us evil.”
- Excerpt from Raven’s speech to the Chosen
As if teleported, Thorn crossed the room in the blink of an eye and reappeared slamming her giant sword down on Raven. Somehow, Raven managed to draw his daggers and caught the sword in an upwards cross guard. Straining against each other’s weapon, both of them grunted in suppressed fury as each struggled to overpower the other.
“You can still join the Chosen,” Raven said, a hint of strain in his voice the only evidence of the titanic struggle.
“I will never join you,” Thorn spat in his face, “you and your damnable Dungeon killed everything that I have ever loved!”
Breaking apart, they circled each other like stray dogs in a back alley. Everyone in the room backed away from the fight, not wanting to interfere.
Eli quietly came to stand next to me as I lay on the floor and handed me a small bottle full of a red liquid, “drink this.”
Opening the stopper, I hastily downed the sweet concoction. As it went to work on my extensive injuries, I gestured at Harper who was still held by the two Aku. I was pleased to see that the pathway to the portal was now blocked by the two most powerful beings in the known world. The Aku holding Harper wouldn’t be departing with her anytime soon, unless they were fine with risking being casually torn apart.
Eli followed my pointing arm and nodded his understanding, “I see her.”
He gestured for his team and passed some instructions. The three of them fanning out along the side of the room the Aku holding Harper were on.
I grunted in frustration as I tried to push myself off the floor only to collapse back onto it a moment later. The healing potion had begun working, but it had a long way to go before I would be able to stand. The comparison between Marty’s magic and the potion couldn’t be more poignant. The potion was achingly slow, and I could still feel all of my injuries. Sure, Marty’s magic doesn’t instantly heal someone, but at least the pain is gone and without that constant signal to my brain, I was able to push through almost any wound to keep fighting.
“They will take care of it,” Eli stood next to me watching the fight.
“Why aren’t you going too?” I asked.
“Thorn said we should protect you,” Eli responded distractedly, “something about you being our key to victory.”
“Protect me?” Confused by the statement, I couldn’t imagine myself being the key to anything, “I’m a Khanri. We don’t need anyone’s protection.”
“Right you are Kit,” Eli glanced down with a wry smile, “personally, if it was up to me, I’d just kill your wounded ass. No one can capture the dead.” He chuckled at his own joke.
I just stared at him, not finding the idea of my d
eath very funny.
He sighed, “give it a few years of this and you will see the humor in death too.”
“You don’t get it do you?” Thorn’s enraged voice echoed through the room, pulling my focus from Eli back to the two arguing legends that stood facing each other breathing heavily. I noticed gashes on their armor that I hadn’t seen before I was distracted.
“Get what?” Raven spoke in a calm dismissive tone.
“Why I hate you so much!” She shrieked at him, brandishing her weapon again.
“Do tell,” he retorted offhandedly.
She charged at him, “we had everything!” Swinging her sword down, he smoothly stepped to the side.
“We were about to start a life together!” She swung at him again, which he deflected enough with his short swords to pass him by.
“Then you got yourself killed,” swinging again, he stepped to the side.
“I cried for weeks over you,” swinging again, he leapt and rolled out of reach.
Striding after him, “for weeks I tormented myself!” She caught up to him and resumed her tirade of blows.
“Knowing it was all my fault,” raining blows on him that he barely managed to block or dodge in time, “for goading you into exploring that damn Dungeon!”
She stopped, her sword held upraised in a white-knuckled grip, “you don’t get it. This,” she gestured at all the Khanri and Aku standing watching the battle, then strode over and kicked a corpse to emphasize her point, “this!” She hung her head in dismay, a strand of her black hair pulling free from her bun to sway in time with her shaking head, “this is all my fault,” each word said in evident scorn.
“If I stopped you,” she grimaced before continuing, “or better yet, if I had been the one to die,” she locked gazes with Raven, fury in her eyes, “it would have been bad. But at least this never would have happened.”
Shaking his head, “if you had seen the visions I have you wouldn’t say that.”
As if she didn’t hear what he said, “did you have to kill our village?”
“I didn’t kill them,” Raven said with calm surety, “I saved them. Cainan is the only way to survive what is coming.”
Looking on Raven with evident disgust, she clasped both of her hands around the grip of her two-handed sword, “I don’t know what I ever saw in you. The man I knew would have found a way to save the village. Clay died that day long ago to save me and I have mourned that loss, my greatest mistake, every single day since.” Her sword erupted in a violent glowing red as she swung it to point at him, “whatever this is, whatever Cainan made you become - you are not my Clay.”
“Briar, I-” he began to say.
“You don’t get to say that name!” She bellowed furiously and leapt towards him, sword arcing downward.
Caught off guard by the sudden assault, Raven raised both of his swords above to catch her sword in a repeat of the same cross guard he executed earlier in the fight. As the blades came together, the red glow on her sword seemed to rapidly spread to envelope his blades. Within moments the short blades seemed to break apart, crumbling to dust where they were touched by her spell. His eyes wide in shock, the sword, no longer impeded by his blades, finished its trajectory and bit deeply into his right shoulder.
Crying out with pain, Raven backpedaled away from her. Scowling he drew another short sword from his hip, his right arm hanging limply at his side.
Curious to see what sort of magic was being thrown around and what rank Raven was, I blinked into mana sight, but quickly blinked back out. The glare from the density of their power making my eyes water and my brain start to throb at my temples.
His short sword suddenly enveloped with a green glow, Raven took a step and appeared to blink behind Thorn. In a smooth practiced motion, he shoved his blade upwards. Angled to get around her armor, it sank up its hilt into her side as it went for her heart.
“No!” I shouted reflexively, trying to stand up, but falling back to the ground, my legs still unable to bear my weight.
Ripping the blade out, thin streams of blood flew through the air to spatter on the ground. “How many times do we have to kill each other?” Raven said in a sad voice.
Laboring in obvious pain, she gasped without turning around, “I will never rest as long as you draw breath.”
“I still love you - you know?” He sounded sad, maybe even kind, as he drew his dagger across her throat, “I hope before it is too late that you will see that I made the right choice.”
Letting her body gently slide to the ground, he stood staring at her still form for a long time. The entire room silent, witnessing this macabre spectacle with a hushed reverence, afraid to disturb this quiet predator lest he turn his gaze upon you next.
My mouth opening and closing in stunned shock. Even though I had witnessed people being killed, and even had been killed myself on multiple occasions, a part of me still struggled to think of death as anything other than permanent. Perhaps irrationally for a Khanri, whose life revolves around death, I held life as something sacred. Seeing someone I admired greatly casually murdered in front of me, well that pissed me off something fierce.
“Hey!” I yelled, “hey asshole!”
Raven turned to look at me. Seeing me propped up against the wall, he raised an eyebrow in a mocking question to my outburst.
“Yeah, you!” All sense of rational thought had slipped from my mind as I looked into his cold dead eyes, “what the fuck is your problem man? You say that you loved her and then you just kill her like that? That’s only something a psychopath would do!”
From beside me Eli nervously whispered, “shut the fuck up Afton.”
I ignored Eli’s comment, “you know what I think?” I continued without waiting for a response, “I think that this Cainan Dungeon fucked with your head something awful. I think that if Thorn was ever in love with you, like it seems she was, you were probably a pretty decent guy once.”
“And what would you know about it?” Raven’s tone grew darker, more menacing, than it was while he was fiercely fighting Thorn.
“I think she was right,” I proclaimed, “I don’t even know the full story and I don’t care to either. I’ve seen enough to see that you and your Chosen,” I spat the word, “care for nothing other than killing everything they see.”
Shaking his head, he looked at everyone standing in the room, “all of the Chosen have seen the same vision that I have, and we fight to save the world from the terrible coming.”
“And what is this terrible coming?” I asked, “go on,” I gestured at the room, “we are all listening.”
Raven gave a quick bark of laughter, “I like you.” He paused for a few moments, “alright. I’ll tell you.”
“In the future, Dungeon Bound like us will come,” he circled the room, addressing everyone present, “except they won’t be like us. We Khanri serve the Dungeon. They will be slaves to the Dungeons. They will come by the thousands and roll over the land like a tidal wave,” he swung his arms in front of him as if he was sweeping everything away in emphasis, “all will fall before them. Everything you hold dear. Your families, your friends,” he chuckled, “even your pets. All will be made to serve their Dungeons.”
Although I wouldn’t say it aloud, I had to admit that the story made me a little afraid, “and when is this supposed to happen exactly?”
Raven shrugged, “I don’t know. It could be tomorrow, or it could be a thousand years from now.”
The healing potion finally restored the use of my legs so that I was able to struggle back to my feet, “so are we supposed to just hop on board your psycho train until then?” I asked flippantly as I started limping towards him.
Scowling at me, “Cainan is the only Dungeon that has a plan to fight them. We all must serve him if we plan to survive what is coming.”
“Nah,” I bluffed, “Akashi does too.” Or at least he will once I tell him about this possibility.
Scoffing in disbelief, “who do you think to fo
ol?”
I waved away his comment as if it was an annoying fly. When I neared him, I pushed both of my mana blades to their fullest extension and blinked into mana sight. Squinting against the staggeringly bright glare I pinpointed his core as a radiant S5 popped into existence, “you apparently,” and I summoned all of my enhanced speed and leapt the remaining distance with my blades held out in front of me.
Raven, showing the agility that the name of his class Shadowdancer implied, twisted like a dervish to avoid my attack. My blades buried up to my knuckles into his chest, missed his core by a fraction of an inch.
Cursing myself, I quickly withdrew my blades, intending to strike again when he lashed out. Backhanding me with enough force to send me crashing to the ground in a heap of broken bones several feet away.
Groaning in shock at the sudden pain, I heard him bark a command to his Chosen, “kill all of them!”
The sounds of fighting erupted all over the room. I let my head roll to the side so I could see what was going on.
Grunting in satisfaction, I saw that the three members of Eli’s Hand were engaged in combat with a handful enemies, two corpses already laying at their feet.
Jacob following on the heels of Jordan who was roaring like a lion and Adam shouting “woo!” They broke through the Aku and reached Harper’s struggling form.
Sinking his spear into her as she lay helpless on the floor, she smiled up at Jacob in thanks for saving her from being dragged into the portal. In fury, Jacob turned to the nearest Aku with a wild look in his eyes and yelled, “this one is in the bag!”