Rashnir called his blade to hand again. They had fallen between the two armies, on the deep floor of the quarry. Both armies watched as the lone Christian was left to square off against the Dragon Impervious, unassisted.
The beast reared to its feet with incredible speed and tensed to attack; furious at the stinging wound it had received it hissed with spine-tingling ferocity. It thrust at Rashnir who dove and rolled past the dragon’s claws. He slashed as he went and sundered the beast’s foreleg.
Screeching in pain it splashed hot blood across the impact crater and shot acerbic fire in a wide swath which dwindled as the reptile’s reserves dissipated. Rashnir dove beneath the hot and deadly spray.
Wounded twice now by this man, the bewildered animal frenzied. It pawed at the sky like a rearing horse. The creature had never been vulnerable to blades—not even those wielded by demons. Never before had it been susceptible to pain and damage; in mere moments it had suffered multiple wounds.
“Impervious you are not,” Rashnir taunted as he faced down the rearing dragon.
Both armies stared in wonder as Rashnir charged towards the underside of the behemoth and slashed a wide gash in the creature’s belly. The Dragon Impervious shrieked again and lashed out at its enemy with the speed and action of a viper.
Rashnir ducked under the blow and the dragon recoiled, putting some distance between itself and the flaming, dangerous and sharp thing. The monster limped on its three remaining good legs; its iridescent dragon scales shimmered in the flames of the nearby pyres.
The Dragon Impervious struck again, snapping outward like a snake. Its head turned sideways, jaws open to clamp shut on the warrior. It was an attack meant to kill any normal opponent instantly.
Rashnir stepped towards the attack rather than away, and rolled outward. His hips brushed dangerously across the outside scales of the dragon’s bottom jaw. As he finished the spin, he thrust his flaming sword upward, cleaving the lower mandible of the vicious animal.
Rearing in pain, the Dragon Impervious screamed in agonies it had never before known. The dragon’s long, forked tongue writhed in the air as it shrieked; it remained attached only at the back of the creature’s throat near its flame glands. The gashed organ that was responsible for spewing flames leaked burning chemicals everywhere as the drake flailed its head in every direction, igniting molten, chemical fires all around in puddles of intense, white flame.
The warrior charged again upon the Dragon Impervious. His blade flashed and spun, glowing blue. Sheathed in supernatural flames, Rashnir hacked and slashed and dropped the dragon whose defenses proved useless against the attack. Triumphantly, Rashnir brought his blade crashing down upon the beast’s neck and severed its head.
For a moment, the rhythmic clanging and beating of war drums entirely ceased. They could only watch in shock.
The allied armies looked on, enraged at the spectacle before them. Rashnir locked eyes with several of the soldiers on his enemies’ lines; a righteous anger burned in his eyes warning the adversaries away from this battle. He confidently turned his back to his enemies and walked back toward his friends, only a little worse for wear as a result of the Dragon Impervious’s attack.
Wailing, the Luciferian army erupted in an odd cacophony of noises. Many of the men and ekthro uttered the incredulous sounds of shock and disbelief, others shouted curses, and still others stood completely silenced. Then, amidst that disharmony, arose the supernaturally enhanced voice of Absinthium.
“Armies loyal to our god Lucifer, prepare for battle! Loose the catapults! Charge! Kill them all! Kill them! Kill them! Kill them!”
The monks behind the army’s first wave released the latches on the giant war machines. Catapults and trebuchets flung giant boulders into the sky. They spun wide arcs, destined to crash upon their enemies; the stone rain would bring incredible, deadly attrition and no flaming blades could stun the sky-flung ammunition.
As the giant stones propelled aloft, battle cries rose up from the Luciferian armies. From all sides, they poured down the banks of the quarry at full charge, like a tidal wave of fallen humanity and ekthro. Weapons brandished, they trailed behind the skyward masses of rock. Men screamed and cursed; the ekthroic allies shrieked gutturally defiant cries.
Rashnir hastened back towards his allies’ battle line where his friends prayed intensely. Things looked suddenly bleak indeed. Would the Christians’ prayers reach the ears of their Savior? Would it matter?
***
Kyrius descended in a gentle glide. Still carrying Shinna, he set both feet upon the ground as if he were lighter than a feather. The two had landed in darkness near the prison. They looked around the small villa outside of the Luciferian monastery on the outlying lands north of Grinden. They’d been undiscovered thus far.
Shinna put her feet on the dirt, glad for the security that the ground provided. She embraced her angel friend and looked into his eyes.
His fair features looked suddenly sad at having to part with her. Both knew that they would not meet again on this side of life. Had the angel been capable of shedding tears, he would have.
The prison rose before them like an ominous monument to confinement. Its stones had faded gray over the years. Few windows, placed at seemingly random intervals, punctuated the brick walls; wrought iron bars spanned the openings in the brick. There was only one door. It marked the front of the building. Several guards stood there, and many more could be assumed to have been posted inside. No sane person would want to enter that gate; it was a place with no means of return.
“Do not be sad, Kyrius,” she said. “I am following the Lord’s will.”
“I know that you are, but you will be missed,” the angel said.
Shinna laid her head on his chest and hugged him tight. “Thank you for doing this for me,” she said. “I know that it must be hard.”
She stepped away and walked toward the prison building.
“I’m going to meet with my children,” she said in a motherly tone, “and finally lead them to the Lord. Goodbye my friend. Thank you for everything; watch over the young ones for me when you return.”
“Go to your sons and daughters,” Kyrius whispered behind her as she walked gracefully to the prison. “I pray you find your children, Shinna.”
The angel watched from the shadowy distance as she stealthily approached the detention center and tested her willowy form against the width of the bars meant to confine a girthier sort of individual. Without much struggle Shinna slipped her frail body between the iron bars that spanned across the lowest window. She slid inside and was gone.
A few seconds later, Kyrius again took flight. There was still a battle to be won and his Christian allies would need him.
Chapter 11
Kevin paced back and forth on the hill’s summit. He prayed aloud, Spirit-filled and speaking in heavenly tongues.
He raised his eyes to the falling stones that, in moments, would crush his people. He gazed downward at the swarming masses that converged towards their position on the hillock. Under the anointing of the Holy Spirit, he flipped open his Bible to Joshua chapter ten. The book opened directly to the page and passage which he read from.
“‘Yahweh cast down great stones from the sky on them to Azekah, and they died. There were more who died from the hailstones than who the children of Israel killed with the sword.’”
As the preacher read, giant stones streaked through the sky, trailing fire and smoke. Each burning stone that fell outweighed any stone flung by the Luciferian war machines by at least three times as much. The meteoric bullets intercepted every stone cast by the enemy equipment and struck them from the sky. Heavenly ballistic missiles continued plummeting to the ground safely away from God’s people.
The sight of heavenly intervention proved too powerful for some. As the giant stones fell, Dyule panicked and fled his post with the militiamen. “Protect me! We must return to Grinden at once!” He ordered his personal bod
yguard, Pinchôt, to accompany him.
The leader of the Narsh Barbarians scoffed at him. “I will not flee in the face of battle. I am here to lead my men into combat and so I shall. Flee if you want, coward.”
“If there is krist-chin magik afoot, someone of authority must remain in the city in case the worst comes to pass.” The steward shrugged off the comment about cowardice and ran away.
As soon as he’d taken flight, the first of the stones impacted dirtside. A house-sized meteor landed twenty feet from Pinchôt and flattened the militiamen nearby into a smear of flesh that stuck to the hot, rolling boulder; its momentum carried it over onto others. Pinchôt howled in defiance and led the militiamen as they charged down the slope and into the quarry. They were unrestrained from battle now that Dyule had routed.
The numbers of falling stones multiplied and continued falling onto the combined armies that opposed the Christians. Rocks crashed to the ground and smashed the charging masses that threatened the hill.
Great stones embedded themselves in rock and ground. Each one took lives with it as they came to a stop or tumbled forward and crushed others.
The charging group of acolytes, with kamas brandished, halted their charge under the shadows of the falling stones. The remaining eleven of their number dropped to one knee and quickly performed a protection ritual.
Glowing with a blue aura, the protection spell they cast amplified with their proximity to each other, operating synergistically. They held hands and walked through the battlefield as stones and fragments of rock landed around them or ricocheted off of their forcefield. The acolytes scoffed at their enemy’s god and mocked the name of Yahweh.
A massive boulder flew from the heavens with the velocity of a slingshot; it was a bullet, prepared just for them. The impact obliterated the circle of assassins as they walked and derided the name of the Lord. All but three of them were instantly smashed to particles. Three of their numbers were flung wide across the meteor-scarred quarry where they landed limp and broken.
The giant, fiery hail rained down upon the war machines as the Luciferian monks dove for cover. Flaming boulders shredded the powerful devices; nothing remained but broken splinters and kindling. Most of the monks scrambled to their feet and fled.
Jandul redirected several of his fleeing charges back towards the battle, joining the charge himself. They dashed down into the pit, prepared to join the fray with the rest.
Not a single stone struck the mount where the Christians waited to build their defense. As the comets stopped falling, the armies arrayed against them cursed even more bitterly. Their sudden losses further hardened their hearts which coursed with defiance and bitterness.
The meteor shower wiped out over half of the men that had assembled against them. Stones had crushed nearly every goblin on the surface and the cavalry was severely diminished.
Breaches opened on the south side of the quarry wall. The ground fell away and goblins poured from the hole like angry hornets in a disturbed nest. They flooded the quarry floor, filling in the gaps left by others. Their underground shelter had protected them from the brunt of the celestial assault.
The enemies gained more detail of appearance as they neared the burning pyres en masse; flames illuminated their features. They closed the distance that separated the forces and the offensive armies rushed towards the Christians as one cohesive unit.
Shouts and screams rose as the two armies met in a violent clash. Flashes of light erupted as the flaming blades of the Christians and the cursed weapons of their opposition collided.
Just as the gap closed, the Say-awr’ shifted into their lupine forms and pounced upon their unaware enemies. The maneuver surprised the attacking front lines and they faltered. The werewolves beat back the enemies’ charging line and allowed their Christian brethren to descend further down the slope and press against their surprised enemies.
The Narsh Barbarians charged in from the eastern front, led by their leader, Pinchôt. Massive men screamed their own curses of defiance but were caught unawares as the bestial werewolves set upon them with tooth and fang. Barbarians were accustomed to retaining the upper hand in size, raw strength, and skill; the situation reversed on them with the presence of the giant beasts. The white wolves razed the unprepared mercenary group, shredding through most of them within seconds.
Werthen and Zeh-Ahbe’ fought alongside their friend, Rashnir. Their enemies could not penetrate their combined defensive maneuvers and the stunning offense they put together. They countered and thrust as a cohesive unit. Goblins, soldiers, and militiamen all came at them and were met with unyielding and deadly force.
Gans and Thim attacked from atop horses. They made little headway, but backed each other up and provided assistance to their allies, guarding their flanks. Bomarr fought alongside of Rah’-be and Sil-tarn, accompanying them and leading a small contingent of warriors. Rashnir wanted to give him trustworthy backup. While the young man had come in with Jaker’s group, he was not really a part of their faction of former rangers. He had found them as the armies mustered and tagged along at the last minute, seeing no other way to breach the battle lines before the conflict erupted. The massive warrior, a younger physical reflection of his father, was nearly the size of his werewolf counterparts in his own right; together, they smashed through the oncoming goblin wave as it crashed relentlessly upon them.
Jaker’s rogues and rangers held their own well enough, though they suffered losses almost immediately. The attrition seemed insurmountable; they fought with valor, but those who had not joined the ranks of their believers seemed to lack the same zealous prowess that their friends possessed.
Minstra and his friend Leethan dodged and moved with skill and grace taught to them in combat classes provided by their one-time master, Jandul. Leethan wielded a spiritual sword as most Christians did, but Minstra, the undecided monk, wielded a nunchaku he’d made from a pair of broken flails.
The monks’ style utilized agility and speed. They dodged any attacks aimed at them and counter-attacked in unexpected ways—much like Rashnir in that regard. Most of their offensives brought down enemies who never even knew they were present as they juked in and out of conflicts like mongooses battling vipers.
Christians fell along with Luciferians and ekthro as the battle pitched and stirred. Nowhere was the action more one-sided, though, than on the fronts where Rashnir and his kin fought, where the mercenaries surrounded Rutheir, and wherever Jorge’s holy blade could reach.
***
Absinthium stood at the slope’s edge. He watched the battle while perched high above the quarry. The Dragon Impervious had been a dismal failure! In the grand histories of the realm, nothing had been found that could ever penetrate the creature’s armor; nothing was known, until now. Their trump was overruled. Their war machines lay in ruins. Truly, his master was right to prepare so many contingencies.
He stared at the forces below. Rashnir’s small band of fighters made strong headway through the opposition and headed directly for King Rutheir and his guards; the two strongest forces plotted a collision course for each other. He spotted the angel, elsewhere—one of a pair. Absinthium knew that only the dark power coursing through him would be enough to deal with the supernatural gladiator.
Black goblin hordes gibbered loudly and continued pouring from their holes. They waved falchions above their heads that still dripped with the alchemical protection serum. The zealous ekthro were so eager to enter the skirmish that all rational thoughts were clouded out by battle-lust; far too many died upon their enemies’ swords well before they should have.
Neither man nor ekthro could stand against Jorge and the arch-mage knew that it was time to cast a powerful, prepared enchantment, as per his master’s command. The words of his spell echoed through the quarry like thunder as he began the chant; the magic in them was so powerful that every nearby creature could feel tiny vibrations within: a crawling feeling that made their skin prickle. Even
the stars in the sky seemed to dim as the black words formed wicked sentences of invocation.
The mage’s attention turned inward. He had to concentrate on the channel spell. Absinthium did not need to watch his armies to know how they floundered under the stiff resistance. They had the sheer numbers to win, but the skills of the defenders had been honed more finely than expected.
After completing the incantation the arch-mage staggered and doubled over. He clutched his gut with one hand; the other firmly grasped his gnarled toqeph, his staff of wizardry. Absinthium screamed like a pained woman in labor and glowing wings sprouted from the flesh of his back. As he howled, a yellowed supernatural mist spewed from his mouth with an other-worldly hiss.
The mists enveloped his body and connected to the wings. The astral material solidified over him and took the partially translucent form of the terrifying demon lord, beh’-tsah. The monstrosity easily stood twice Absinthium’s height as he channeled the evil spirit whose form he wore like ethereal armor. While not truly present in his full power, the demon remained a formidable juggernaut fully capable of terrorizing the battlefield.
beh’-tsah raised his weapon and howled, pointing the red, burning sword at Jorge, the angel who slaughtered his opposition with such ease. The demon-lord launched into the sky on outspread wings, pursuing the object of his despise. Clapping his broad wings over the field of death, the demon sailed over the battle. His raging turned to glee as he took flight, fully intent on slaughtering a member of the host of heaven. He burned with the urge to murder, to break the body of a supernatural opponent who’d resisted those same temptations of falling which he’d succumbed to eons ago.
***
Shinna stalked through the hallways of the dark prison. As she tiptoed through the dank corridor, her tingling senses kept her acutely aware of her situation, but she also remained in prayer over the plight of her friends.
The Kakos Realm Collection Page 51