“I cannot be sure, Commander” he answered regretfully.
“Why not?” Olympus immediately snapped. “Your eyes weren’t closed when you were flying again, were they?”
Tiars glared at him, biting his tongue before spitting out the tempting remark he had always kept stored for the sub-commander. He shook his head slowly, tired of the reference to the time when he was knocked unconscious during a deployment a very, very long time ago. He made the point of speaking to the captain and commander only, purposefully ignoring his baiter.
“There was no way to see, Sires. Even with my ship’s lightcasters on full beam, the path was ill illuminated. It felt as though the very planet drank all the light into its thirsty darkness”. He then turned to Olympus, a boldness in his voice that surprised them all. “I was flying through sonar and instinct – that’s how I managed to keep the Apostles alive” he explained.
The captain seemed genuinely impressed, while the commander simply looked thankful. “We have your skill to be grateful for their safe deployment, then” Orion told him, slapping a hand on Tiars’ left shoulder. Olympus grunted his reluctant assent.
Sabre, on the other hand, could read the expression on the pilot’s face and knew he had something more to say.
“What is it, Tiars? The Apostles did reach the surface safely, did they not?” he asked.
Tiars opened his mouth ready to speak, closed it, and opened it again like a child scared to tell the truth. “I cannot say…” he confessed. “The Lion, Sire…he made the others disembark from a great height. It could have killed them”.
The others looked at him expectantly, waiting for a further explanation of the insanity they had just heard.
Tiars wasn’t sure who to look at when he talked, so he just spoke to them each in equal turn. “It was the only way they could land. There were three Gore Princes hunting us and they had no trouble seeing us, I assure you of that”.
Olympus practically spun on his heel and cursed. Sabre frowned at the sub-commander’s reaction and placed a hand on his friend’s shoulder to placate his frustration.
“Our Lord knows what he’s doing, Olympus. We have campaigned with him for ten years – you should trust he knows what is best by now…”
Orion had been sitting in his throne seemingly ambivalent to the tale. He had seen a lot of battles in his time, mainly the chaos of space warfare, and had witnessed far too many stunts to be surprised by anything anymore.
“How will they contact us?” he asked suddenly, breaking the silence that had only just settled on the bridge. He had three pairs of eyes on him and he realised his question sounded like casual curiosity rather than genuine concern. He sat up to give a more appropriate weight to his voice. “When they defeat the enemy on the ground, I mean. How will we know?”
“The Apostle Valkyrie, I presume” Tiars answered.
Before the others could suggest anything else, a loud, howling klaxon sounded throughout the ship. The legionnaires recognised it immediately as a proximity warning, but there was nothing close enough to them to provoke it.
“Incoming vessel!” a disciplined voice announced. It was one of the officers operating the various consoles around the front of the bridge. Zeno, Tiars thought was his name. He’d only been on the bridge a handful of times, so it was hard to remember everyone. There were thousands of legionnaires in the 617th, them being one of the largest legions left.
“I need more than that, Zeno!” Orion returned, confirming Tiars’ guess.
“Its signature is massive, bigger than any in the fleet here…” Zeno began. “I’m receiving ID codes now…it’s one of ours” the officer said, looking back to the captain for orders.
“We’re not expecting anyone…” Orion said to no-one in particular.
“Perhaps another legion has found us” Sabre suggested, hearing the confusion in Orion’s voice.
“Possibly, but what combat legion still alive has ships bigger than ours?” Olympus replied.
By the time Zeno gasped in shock of the identity of the incoming ship, it burst into orbit around the planet, perilously close to the Luminon. The proximity warning had been eerily ominous and accurate.
“Who said it had to be a combat legion?” Tiars muttered as he beheld the sight of the armoured leviathan.
Even without the ID codes it was clear who the vessel belonged to. It wasn’t a missing legion come to find them at all; yet, it wasn’t one any of them should have expected to see.
“The Heaven’s Lament…” Orion whispered.
Unlike the captain, it wasn’t the presence of the hulking medical ship that took Sabre by surprise. It was the state in which the craft had arrived that he couldn’t explain. Taking a steady step towards the expansive view screen that was now filled with the form of the Heaven’s Lament, as if it would make the details any clearer, the commander was dismayed by what he saw.
“That makes no sense…” he said aloud, taking in all the newly earned craters and plasma scorches along the length of its hull. In places, there were fires that stretched along for kilometres at a time and various breached decks vented precious oxygen into the cold void of space. The commander turned to Orion, as if the captain could provide all the answers. “How the hell did this happen?”
For all the things Orion had seen in space during his lifetime, he could find no explanation for what he saw now.
DOWN ON NOIRAN, Lupus had no idea how to make the kill. All he knew was that if he could distract the Blood King for long enough, perhaps the others could recover for a co-ordinated effort. The Phantom was a giant compared to all of them, but he had to find a way of confronting it.
Launching himself into a run, he watched undaunted as the enemy swung its lively halberd in an arc towards him. He jumped over the blade as it threatened to bat him away and dove between the thing’s legs. Confused and surprised, the Blood King slowly turned to find its prey.
Lupus was too fast for it, already circling around to a higher level of the valley basin where fallen rocks and slate formed a rising slope. Using it as a platform for his attack, Lupus sprung from the rocks towards the Phantom’s side. Sailing through the air, he reached out with his claws to strike at the foe’s face. It all happened in seconds, but the blow connected sluggishly to him and his hooked nails dug into the Blood King’s flesh slowly, gouging four deep grooves into its head.
The concentration Lupus had to use for the strike deprived him of focus for his landing and as the Phantom raged in pain and insult, he crashed to the floor awkwardly and rolled clear of his enemy. As he regained his footing, an irresistible weight forced him back down. Straining his eyes to see what was flattening him to the floor, he growled in defiance and indignation. The Blood King had turned its weapon and used the blunt edge of the halberd as a tool to pin him in place.
Lupus tried to wrestle free, but there was precious little room to move. The Phantom possessed an enormous strength and had the perfect position to keep him where he was. In his struggle he saw the others were beginning to regain their energy and manage the pain of their wounds. With the Blood King’s attention fixed on Lupus, they were able to recover and heal.
It doesn’t have a shield, Lupus thought. In retrospect, he realised his attack on the creature’s head had been a foolish risk. Had it been protected in the same way that the Gore Princes were, he would have failed to do any harm and more than likely would have been stunned by its retaliation, leaving his vulnerable kin to be finished off.
I can feel its arrogance permeate from its very body…it thinks nothing can slay it, he said to the others. The fact that the Blood King didn’t bellow in response to his psychic voice told him that even its powers were limited. Lupus could talk freely to his brothers and sisters, the Phantom unable to hear him.
Kicking out with his legs and twisting his body to the side provided enough of a distraction for Lupus to whip his sharp tail out at the Blood King’s oversized hands. The sudden crack against its flesh startled the cr
eature and it loosened its grip on the halberd, allowing Lupus a vital moment to scramble free.
Snapping his neck around, he gorged on the Phantom’s right hand, feeling several of its bones break between his teeth. Wrenching side to side with his jaws, he felt the dark ichor of his foe’s blood run thick over its deformed features. With a bellow of disdain, the Blood King dropped its halberd to the floor, opting to use its left fist in place of the weapon to batter Lupus away.
The force of the blow was so immense that Lupus was sent flying back into the valley sides, smashing against the perilous landscape. Luckily, his body was impervious, the presence and brotherhood of his fellow Apostles giving him the strength that Vermillion always promised they would. His connection to Calla, more than anyone else, imbued his heart with a ferocious drive and the conviction he needed for his physical invulnerability.
Yet for all his bodily toughness, his mind was still vulnerable inside. Smart enough as Lupus feared it would be, the Blood King understood this about him and unleashed another psychic strike, its intensity fuelled by the wounds he had dealt it.
“WORTHLESS WEAKLING!” It yelled. The voice that escaped its maw was old, terribly old and rasped with hatred so vast it had ruined the sound of its speech.
On the floor, despite his pain, Lupus couldn’t help but laugh in his mind at the irony of such a claim.
YOU, APOSTLE OF A GODDESS, YOU ARE NOTHING TO BEHOLD. YOUR WORLDS WILL BURN AND YOUR PEOPLES WILL SCREAM WITH PAIN AND FEAR AT OUR SLAUGHTER OF THEIR CHILDREN, it promised him as it switched back to its inner voice.
Lupus tried to ignore the Blood King’s words, but the sheer power of them forced him to imagine their possibility. Yet, hope was not lost. Out the corner of his eye, he saw Phoenix had retaken her form and the others were steadily doing the same.
Holding his gaze on the enemy and growling in defiance to keep its attention fixed on him, Lupus replied with his own opinion filled with pride and conviction. We are more than you. We are stronger. You are an insignificant stain on this world and we will rid you from it because together, within us, Vermillion lives.
The Blood King cackled at him. Each phoneme was like a sonic boom, drowning the valley in noise loud enough to cloud all other sounds. It was this very interference that the Apostles were waiting for and one by one, they unleashed their retaliation undetected until it was too late for the Phantom to save itself.
A boiling ball of fire the size of a boulder flew from Phoenix’s hands into the Phantom’s face. Its sturdy skin was enough to withstand the heat, but the chunks that Lupus had taken out of its cheek left that side of its face weaker than the rest. There the flesh slowly melted under the exacting temperature of the Apostle’s blow.
Before the Blood King could pick up its halberd and fight back single-handedly, vines ruptured from the valley floor with explosive force and wrapped themselves around its bulky arms. Gaia grimaced in pain, one hand clutched to her sides to tend her broken ribs as she focussed all her power on maintaining her vice-like grip on the Phantom.
The Phantom rumbled out its fury in a cacophonous series of grunts and began to channel its energy into another psychic strike, unable to use its physical superiority against them. Before it could, Valkyrie used her own prowess to create a barrier inside its mind. Restrained in every way, the Blood King was now more vulnerable that it dared to realise.
Shafts of flame speared into its midriff, this time sent from Samael who had bitten back his pain and re-joined the fight alongside his brothers and sisters. Then, as if appearing from thin air, Nightingale materialised at the creature’s side and brought her sword crashing down through its left hand. The blade was forged from an unbreakable metal, its origins a secret to all but the Apostles who claimed one for use and the Phantom’s fingers and palm fell to the floor leaving a bloody stump behind.
Bellowing like an infant about to lose their favourite game, the Blood King tried to break free from the trap that Gaia had placed it in. As it tried to use all its strength to snap the vines and roots enveloping its body, Solitaire and Waterfox ran to each of its legs. Wielding their own swords, the latter’s made from ice, they slashed at the weaker armour joints protecting the backs of its knees. Like hot knives through butter, the swords severed the nerve bundles of its lower limbs and it howled in torture as it was brought down to the ground with a deafening boom.
Cerberus took the opportunity to bring his massive form back into the fight. The clash of his body upon the Blood King’s pushed it flat against the ground, its useless legs curled underneath its back. He stood over the beast, pinioning it victoriously with his broad legs the way it had done to Lupus, snapping at it with his multiple heads and daring it to give him further reason to kill it himself. In truth, he believed the kill did not belong to him, but to Lupus.
Calla was the only one left to punish it, but the Blood King was more than ready for its death. She retained her human form, choosing to go to Lupus’ side instead of battling any longer. By the time she reached him he was already standing once more. He had delighted in watching the others release their fury on the Blood King, but now he sought his own vengeance.
On all fours, Lupus was far taller than Calla was. She smiled at him and his eyes, kind for her, returned the gesture in place of his inhuman mouth. “They wait for you” she told him, looking back at the others who, together, were keeping the Phantom down.
With your faith, this would not have been possible, he said, bowing his head in both respect and affection before joining the rest of them. The Blood King was writhing vehemently under its restraints, but its efforts were futile.
When it saw Lupus approach, it let loose its dreadful voice on them all. ARE YOU REALLY DELUDED ENOUGH TO CONVINCE YOURSELVES THAT YOU STAND EVEN THE SMALLEST CHANCE OF WINNING THE WAR? IT TOOK TEN OF YOU TO KILL ME, AND I AM NOTHING BUT AN ECHO OF MY MASTER’S SHADOW. MY LIFE IS NOTHING BUT A DROP IN AN OCEAN FILLED WITH MY KIN!
“I dread to think how many of you are in my anatomy then” Oz grimaced, his expression betraying his morbid humour.
Phoenix glowed brightly next to him. “Trust me, filth, fire has a way of burning everything when it’s hot enough”.
Lupus came to the Phantom’s side as it started to laugh at their words. Cerberus kept it pinned, unwilling to allow it any freedom of movement despite its inability to ever walk again. When it ceased all attempts to struggle free, they knew it was finding them genuinely funny.
YOU HAVE NO TIME LEFT, APOSTLES. FLAME IS NO USE TO YOU NOW; YOU HAVE ALREADY FAILED, it grinned at them, baring its nightmarish teeth in what passed for its gruesome smile.
With perfect timing, Valkyrie sensed the truth of its words before the others had any chance to deny them.
“The Heaven’s Lament has returned from the Frontier…” she announced, her eyes closed and her mind focussed on the ship’s arrival in orbit far above them. “The very energy of the fleet has changed in response. Something is wrong…very wrong”.
“The Heaven’s Lament is here? What kind of omen is that?” Cerberus pondered. The harsh noises that passed for happiness stemmed ceaselessly from the Blood King’s throat and he pushed down on its chest firmly to prevent it.
IT HAS ALREADY BEGUN. YOU ARE TOO LATE, it spat out through bouts of choking.
Valkyrie ignored the wretch completely. “The ship is damaged. It has seen battle, but not from the Empire’s old enemies…There are signatures of Phantom weapons-fire all across the hull” she told them.
Explain this, beast, and I will end your life sooner, Lupus promised the Blood King. Knowing its own end to by nigh, it chose willingly to give the answers that the Apostles sought, but only because it took great pleasure in doing so.
MY MASTER HAS BREACHED THE DEVICE DESIGNED TO ENCAGE HIM. THE PLAN YOUR PATHETIC GODDESS DREAMED UP HAS BEEN UNDONE. ONLY FEAR AND PAIN WILL FOLLOW BEFORE WE DROWN THIS DIMENSION IN MISERY AND DEATH. WE WILL SMEAR THE PRECIOUS HUMAN EMPIRE IN ITS OWN BLOOD.
“This cannot be…” Sama
el muttered after landing and fading back to his human self as the pain of the news struck home. “The time-lock was supposed to last another two decades!”
The Blood King was hysterical now with hedonistic sadism, its voice broken and disturbing with obnoxious excitement. Try as he could to deny the words and reject the Phantom’s answer, Lupus knew in his heart that it was the only explanation for the Heaven’s Lament to find them prematurely and in such damage. Through the ten years of the Purge Crusades, the mighty medical vessel had brought health and medicine to all of the Empire’s worlds. Now, as it had reached the Frontier, the planets nearest that of the Great Enemy’s, its noble mission had been abolished ahead of schedule.
Lupus demanded more information from the Blood King, but the Phantom had already entertained itself enough with their shock and horror. Unwilling to let its amusement continue any longer, he gripped his jaws around its thick neck and ended its life in a series of gory bites. Its life essence flowed in thick streams all over its body, a final bathing in blood that, alive, it would have adored.
A silence settled over them like a hazy mist. With their enemy dead and Noiran cleansed, they should have been joyous in victory. Yet, for all they had achieved, life and reality had their own ideas.
Oz was the first to speak. “It cannot be true…” he insisted, his shadow cast against the rocks by the light from Phoenix next to him.
Lupus was too angry to change back to human form like many of his brothers and sisters already had. With a stern tone he answered his brother nonetheless. You know that it is…
Oz sunk his head in sad acceptance. They all knew the Blood King wasn’t lying. Althea, the commander of the 237th legion in charge of the Heaven’s Lament, would not have ordered the ship to find them without due reason. The battle damage vindicated the Blood King’s story beyond any doubt.
“What do we do? We aren’t ready for this…” Gaia asked no-one in particular. The way she held her sides, blood seeping out onto her green skin, seemed to reinforce her every word.
The Deian War: Vermillion's Apostles Page 30