Dahlia: A Novel of Dark Desire

by Viola Calvary

  Dahlia turned as the two clashed again, deflecting a psychic shot intended for her into another soldier. In the direction the shot had come from she saw a man focusing intently on her. The energy around him was unusually neutral so he must have been skilled at shielding. The shot he’d lobbed at her had been nothing to sneeze at. He wasn’t on Mayuera’s level but he wasn’t going to roll over for her either. She grinned at him, stepped her weight back, then shot herself forward directly towards him.

  His eyes widened as he hesitated for a crucial second, deciding whether to ready his weapon or throw another strike at her. Four soldiers around him moved to engage her. One of the puppets close by caught one of the men off guard and her ax swept through his throat. Dahlia dodged the next and heard a grunt as her puppet moved to engage him. She used her momentum to spin into a low kick that connected to one man’s ankle with a satisfying crunch while she caught the other man’s sword with the head of an ax. The man she’d kicked flailed his sword down at her and she twisted so he was between her and the other man. Then she swept an ax down through his wrist. He screamed and she planted a foot into his wounded stomach, knocking him into the other man.

  The psychic soldier had dodged backwards, trying to put distance between them as the other men had defended him. She laughed as she knocked aside another hastily thrown psychic shot and charged him head on.

  “Guess you forgot, I don’t need to play mind games to kill you,” she taunted him as she brought one ax towards his face. She saw fear flash in his eyes.

  He tried to parry her with his short, broad blade but she just brought her second ax through and it sliced deep into his side. She shoved hard with the ax he’d parried and he stumbled back, off balance. She finished him with a sweep through his throat. His blood covered her arm and she felt a dark thrill run through her body.

  She grinned at the dead man, “Should have practiced more with that sword.”

  The rest of Dahlia’s puppets had made their way towards her and had engaged any soldier trying to get to the captain so the area around her was clear for the moment. She looked back to Fidelity and sensed the woman’s irritation. Her attacker was keeping her occupied long enough for his fellow soldiers to edge across the braces. Dahlia hit him with a blast of psychic energy hard enough to disorient him and Fidelity brought her hammer down on his skull. This was nothing like the love taps she’d given her fellow barrack members during training. The man’s skull split and his body fell as blood splashed across Fidelity’s front.

  Fidelity turned back to the connection and continued slamming her hammer into it as the soldiers hesitated. Without the first man it was obvious that Fidelity’s comfort fighting on the thin braces would see that the next man to reach her died quickly.

  An arrow whistled towards her neck and buried itself in her arm as she brought her hammer up again. She screamed in rage at the new distraction and threw herself back across the braces towards the archer.

  “Destroy the structure, Fidelity. I’ve got him,” Dahlia yelled to her and shot a blast towards the man. With the one soldier with psychic abilities out of the way the rest of the men were extremely vulnerable to her.

  Her blast caught him hard and he screamed and dropped to his hands and knees. Dahlia grinned. His shield must have been especially weak.

  The braces suddenly shook as Sabir and one of the other men began tearing into it. Sabir was using his ability to pull out chunks of the metal. The other man had pulled out a monstrous machete that seemed to be able to handle hacking into the solid metal brace. The metal rung loudly under the blows. Ravin was holding the area as more soldiers rushed towards their group. The other members leapt to the second platform to meet more enemy soldiers there.

  Fidelity leapt to another brace as the few men who hadn’t fallen off during the first blows of the assault on the braces crouched down and held on for dear life. She vaulted up above the connector and Dahlia felt an immense surge of energy as Fidelity pulled every ounce of strength she could concentrate into the blow. Then she dropped and swung her hammer, making contact with the metal piece. The connector bent in half, unable to withstand the continued beating, and jolted out of it’s socket. The beam careened drunkenly to one side but caught on a brace and stayed connected to the spring on the other platform.

  “Damn!” Fidelity howled.

  Sabir and the soldier that had been hacking at the brace jumped to the other side as Fidelity climbed to the second connection. Dahlia stayed where she was as the noise from the breaking structure brought more enemy soldiers pouring in. Her group would have to hold the other side by themselves. Ravin was holding their current side for the moment but one man, no matter how strong, couldn’t stop a tide alone. She focused for a moment, manipulating the energy she pulled to her, and six more puppets appeared. They quickly joined the puppets remaining from the first six she’d manifested. They focused on holding back the soldiers attempting to circumvent the entrance Ravin was guarding by climbing up the side and into the structure.

  She heard Fidelity roar again in rage as soldiers broke past her allies and started climbing the braces to reach her. Dahlia fired a quick shot at the soldier getting closest to her officer. She saw Sabir, covered in blood now, start to climb the braces, pulling the enemy soldiers off. Each time he reached a soldier he took hits that slowly started to decorate his tough skin but every time the soldier was quickly thrown screaming into the darkness below. Behind him Sabir’s fellow soldiers held off their attackers and ripped into the more vulnerable joints that held the braces to the structure.

  Dahlia saw her group start to get in over their heads. As the numbers were threatening to overwhelm Ravin, the barrack members blocking the enemy on the other platform started to drown in the influx of enemy soldiers. Two members went down and their bodies were pulled back and defended by the men who had been damaging the structure. Those men were immediately set upon as well and were unable to concentrate on the structure any further. Only Fidelity was left hammering at the metal structure and the soldiers on the braces were getting closer to her. If they managed to stop her from knocking out the second connector it would be all over. Her group would be stuck fighting increasingly overwhelming odds with no chance of success disabling the structure.

  “Damn,” Ravin growled. “DeMorra, buy me thirty seconds.”

  Dahlia pulled her puppets back towards her. Seven of the twelve remained. “Ok, do it,” she called back to him.

  Ravin moved faster than her eyes could follow. He vanished from in front of the entrance and slammed into the brace close to Fidelity, hauling himself towards her.

  Dahlia took a gamble and dropped enough of her shield to let her amplify and project the bloodlust she’d felt coursing through her body from the fight with the other psychic. Then she pushed a compulsion out from her for the men to back away. It wasn’t strong, with her spreading it so wide and thin. Combined with the amplification though she felt as it caused the soldiers around her to hesitate just enough. Rather than charging, they waited for a few braver souls to attack her first.

  The ten that moved first she let close in then hit them with a shot through her scattering band. They looked disoriented long enough for all of them to be struck down by her and her puppets without offering much resistance.

  She leaned her ax, dripping with one man’s blood, onto her shoulder and placed one foot on his chest, giving the soldiers around her a mad grin. The waves of fear intensified as the soldiers forced themselves forward. A handful of men on the outskirts actually took steps back. Dahlia knew she couldn’t play mind games with them for much longer, but she could hold them back long enough.

  She felt a small spear of energy smash into her loosened shield and her concentration wavered. She felt herself lose her hold on the men. They shook off the compulsion and lost their hesitation, quickly closing in on her. Fuck, she hadn’t even sensed the soldier that had thrown that at her. She raised her shield again and held it firmly. If she couldn’t see him the
n she would just have to take whatever he threw, she didn’t have time to hunt for him.

  Out of the corner of her eye she saw Ravin had reached Fidelity and had placed a hand on her hammer. “Let me borrow that,” she heard above the sounds of the battle.

  Another bolt crashed into her out of nowhere. She shrugged it off as distracting but not deadly. Then she felt it starting to crawl over her, looking for a hold. It felt like mold spreading far too quickly. Disgust washed over her and she instinctively stopped and vaporized it. A sword strike came in while she was distracted and she narrowly dodged, taking a nasty slash in her arm before she countered and slashed through the soldier’s midsection.

  Two more puppets had fallen and she was very close to being drowned in the tide of soldiers. With the skilled psychic attacker distracting her she couldn’t hope to hold much longer.

  A deafening gong rang out as she and everyone around her flinched at the noise. The beam of the structure crashed through the wood of the platform so close she could have jumped through the hole it left. One unlucky soldier didn’t get out of the way in time and was dragged through under the weight. She heard cracks as the spiked ball scraped through the other platform. The whole thing shook as the sudden removal of the platform’s integrity threatened it with collapse.

  Recovering from the shock, Dahlia swept her ax through her nearest attacker who didn’t move quite fast enough to block her. The remaining five puppets, not wholly physical and thus less affected by the piercing noise, had taken out the soldiers nearest them and bought her a little more breathing room.

  “Go now,” she heard Ravin roar at his team and he landed behind her. He grabbed her by the waist as two soldiers rushed in at them and launched himself towards the top of the structure. Her remaining puppets vanished behind them. Dahlia saw the rest of their soldiers copying Ravin’s exit, pursued by the fastest and strongest of the enemy soldiers. Some of her team carried their injured comrades.

  Ravin threw himself to the top where Fidelity landed near to him. “Give me a boost,” she yelled over the sounds of battle and the collapse of the structure.

  Ravin let Dahlia drop to her feet, crouched down, and held his hands together. Fidelity took a few running steps, hopped onto his hands, and then catapulted herself up as he heaved. She made it to the top of the wall, grabbing on with both hands and vaulting over.

  A few other soldiers followed. Sabir slammed into the wall and dug his weapons--transformed into spiked hooks--into it so he could haul himself up.

  Dahlia swung onto Ravin’s back as a few enemy soldiers made it to the ledge they were on. He leapt towards the wall and grabbed a rope Soa must have dropped over for their return. He swarmed up it as more of their soldiers grabbed on below. Now that she could focus her attention, Dahlia sensed another of the psychic bolts when it was just far enough to still counter. She deflected in up, not having time to return it to the source or aim it towards an enemy soldier.

  Then they were up over the wall. The smog had mostly cleared and there were a few men covering their retreat, firing arrows at enemy targets. As a precaution, Dahlia held her breath until they were inside Soa’s barrier and she dropped from Ravin’s back. She didn’t need to risk poisoning on top of the other damage she’d taken. Then she gathered her focus and started creating a shield around the edge of the wall to protect the archers from one of the enemy’s psychic hits.

  Fidelity was crouched down, catching her breath. She didn’t look tired so she must still have been running off her abilities. She tore a strip from her shirt and held it out to her captain. Dahlia realized how much blood she must have been losing. She held the shield as she attempted to staunch the bleeding. With Fidelity’s help she wrapped the strip down her arm then tore some of her own tunic and layered the makeshift bandage.

  Ravin went back out to the wall and reached down to pulled Sabir over. Then he dropped down over the edge. A few other men who had managed to climb the wall began to pull themselves over then turned to join Sabir who had begun hauling up the rope. The men who had carried injured soldiers and clung to the rope were helped over the wall as they were pulled up to the edge.

  The last over was the man with the machete who was bleeding profusely from a strike that had taken off his ear. Ravin reappeared over the wall a second after and joined the group around Soa.

  “We’ll head back down to the gate. If you’re injured go to the infirmary, otherwise help push the enemy back so we can reinforce the broken area,” he told them.

  “There was a soldier with higher level psychic abilities back there. He was able to mask his attacks until they were almost too close to counter,” Dahlia said “I need to stay here until someone else can hold a barrier around the archers.”

  “Damn. Ok. Sabir, Soa, and Fidelity can stay with you and I’ll send someone to relieve you as soon as I can. Everyone else, try not to inhale too deeply ‘til we’re out of the area,” Ravin instructed.

  He took off with the group, leaving Dahlia with her barrack members and his lieutenant.

  “Let me see if I can stop your arm from bleeding,” Sabir said gently and Dahlia held out her arm as he pulled off his own tunic and started ripping it into strips. He bound it tighter and the spreading red stain slowed down. Dahlia felt weariness start to creep through her, cutting through the pounding adrenaline. She isolated the feeling and suppressed it. Until she had the opportunity to rest it was not serving her.

  “Let’s move over to the archers so we can shield them from any damage the smog is causing,” she suggested.

  “Oh, yeah, that makes sense,” Soa said, a little flustered he hadn’t thought of it himself.

  She winked at him, “Thinking under pressure, that’s why they made me a captain.”

  He laughed as they moved over towards the edge, “And here I thought it was because they were worried you’d beat them up.”

  Dahlia gave him a smile then resumed her focus on rooting the shield in place so she could free herself up in case something happened.

  Minutes went by and she felt herself growing anxious as nothing hit the shield. Had the soldier gone through the gate? She hadn’t sensed any psychic energy from that direction but there was so much going on down there that she wouldn’t have been surprised if she’d missed it. She told herself that other members of her force could handle it but it didn’t ease the feeling she had.

  Finally the smog lifted completely and Soa could comfortably drop his barrier. A group of soldiers appeared coming up the stairs.

  “Captain DeMorra,” the front one said, inclining his head to her. “Captain Ravin sent us to relieve you. Apologies for the delay, we had to wait for the poison to lift completely as no one was available to escort us.”

  “All calm up here. The man I encountered outside the gate is able to mask his attacks exceptionally well. Even watching for them I wasn’t able to sense them until they were almost too close to counter. I suggest keeping a shield up or establishing a barrier as a precaution. Has there been any report of psychic attacks at the bottom of the gate?”

  “Nothing unusual, Captain. We sensed some minor strikes but nothing exceptional. We’ll remain here until a relief is sent. Captain Ravin said he would arrange for it once the gate had been secured.”

  “Excellent. Lieutenants, Fidelity, let’s go,” and she began to descend into the fight below.

  Chapter Thirty Five

  Organized chaos reigned before the gate. With the removal of the smog her forces had been able to start pushing the enemy back and archers had been able to get above the gate to fire down. With the destruction of the tool they’d intended to destroy the gate with, the enemy forces had begun to widen the breach in the gate with hand axes and weapons. It was slow going but gradually they’d been able to fit more soldiers through at once.

  Ravin and Adenji had held the pincer and were gaining ground but casualties were making a steady stream off the field. Dahlia saw explosions of ice and fire where soldiers with elemental abilit
ies clashed. She sensed Arreal leading her barrack, holding the center as she’d instructed.

  Dahlia felt energy coursing through her as she stalked into the midst of the fight. She released some of it in a sharp blast to the first enemy she encountered. He went down and a soldier from Dahlia’s force ran him through. Fidelity, Sabir, and Soa spread out beside her and they began moving towards the front line of the battle. Dahlia caught another sword strike between her axes, threw it down to one side and kicked out the soldier’s knee. Off balance and broken, he fell in front of her and she swept her ax under his chin before stalking her next opponent.

  This one seemed more skilled than the majority and he tried to circle her. She felt a rumble as the ground started to roll beneath her feet. She laughed at him, leapt, and sent one of her axes shooting out, the chain wrapped tight around her wrist. He dodged to one side and she caught him with a blast from her focusing band as she landed and whipped the ax back into her hand. He stumbled and the ground stopped moving. She closed the distance between them and brought a blade down through his skull.

  To her right she saw Soa’s blade flash as he smoothly opened a soldier’s stomach with his sword, catching the opponent’s strike on a barrier he held like an invisible shield. He shifted seamlessly to catch the next opponent’s strike and stab through the man’s leather vest.

  As she moved forward with the three soldiers and grew closer to the front she saw the enemy being pushed back. Near Arreal’s she could sense Ravin’s presence front and center, the predatory exhilaration she was so familiar with radiated from him. She could feel herself drawn towards it.