by Rhys Thomas
Except as I slid across the ground, intending to try and cut at his legs or carve through his waist. A thick grey club-sized foot slammed into my chest and knocked all the air out of me. The blow so forceful and powerful that I only really came too, when my back slammed into the arena’s wall.
I wasn’t sure what cracked, me or the wall, but it was loud as shit and jarring with the music. The wind rushed out of me in a wheeze as I tried to bring myself up to a crouch.
My throat felt restricted and pain blossomed every time as I gasped for breath, I felt around trying to find my great sword.
But I must’ve dropped it in my flight.
A high pitch squeal interrupted the music and it sounded like someone being torn apart in my mind. I clutched at my head and bit back my own scream as my teeth ground together. I tried desperately to reach out to Marisa, but it was as if she wasn’t there anymore. There was no bond, no connection, just vapour. Pushing off against wall as a jolt vibrated through the ground and up my legs to shake my bladder.
Then something banged into me and I found myself weightless once again as I was thrown several yards across the arena to smack into the ground face first.
A distinct crack sounded in my chest as something snapped and crunched. Now I screamed a short cry as I rolled to ease the pressure.
“Fub!” I wheezed out a curse painfully as I rolled onto my side. My sight was fading and blurring, I couldn’t reach Marisa nor my delve. The music still hounding my mind and the weakness dulling my strength and stamina.
I braced to my feet and stood with a sway, casting a constant shifting glance around me. I needed a weapon, “fuba!” I cursed again and coughed on the ground in a wretch. I half fell and crawled around as I dodged half-hearted attempts by Hilnow to kill me.
Just as I reached my own exit door and saw my gladius just lying there. The ground boomed as Hilnow exploded next to me and as he landed, I lunged, my hand just clipping the gladius’s hilt as a stunning backhand bounced into my face and twisted my whole body off the ground as he dropped me in a single blow.
My head and vision swam as the world rippled before me like drops in a still pond. But the weight in my hand comforted me, I had somehow managed to grab my weapon.
“Hap! Fuba bu,” I gasp out and couldn’t understand why my words were so jumbled. I’m pretty sure I was saying, ‘hah! Fuck you,’ not that I could really hear much with the music playing. It was a constant war drum with a faint melody behind it.
Damn, I would take vuvuzela’s over this, I shook my head, which didn’t do me any favours as everything turned upside down for an instant.
Then the swimming world was blotted with grey, “agh!’ I screamed as my leg was seized in a crushing grip and I struck out weakly with the gladius out of reflex. I felt the blade slice through and dig in as it cut the grey form with a shlick!
A roared deafened me and I dropped the weapon to cling at my head, as thousands of drums beat the inside of my skull in one after another. Then I was dropped to smacked sideways into ground which knock the air out of poor old me.
More roars echoed, cries of agony; some my own and the growling of a murderous rage. “WHERE ARE YOU PINK FLESH?” Hilnow howled. Whimpering from my pain, I stuffed my hand over my mouth. Something told me to shut up and I realised it was my logical thinking brain telling my pain racked dumb idiot brain.
The logical side of me coldly evaluated my situation and them informed my dumbass in a manner of expressive thoughts that I should probably rescind back the pain and plant it a construct inside of my dimensional plane.
Good idea, I told him and received a huff of annoyance in return. Then I tried my best to clear my thoughts through the agony and staccato of drums.
The miserable weakness I was feeling didn’t help matters and the sounds of Hilnow’ frantic searching for me, even blinded was worse.
I took a deep breath through my fingers and breathed in the dust coating my palms, I resisted the dumb urge to cough as it tickled my throat and shoved my consciousness down.
I didn’t connect with my delve exactly, but the very process of attempting to connect was usually soothing and helped to focus my thoughts. I quickly slammed my mind into the aspect of the space I owned and felt everything fall away from me, but the music was still ever present.
My astral present for which it was I knew distantly, was aglow in the jade and gold pulse of my aether and alighted the dark plane in a cascade of delicate light and warmth. Yet I didn’t have the time to question the why or what of what was happening.
A loud high pitch screeching noise like nail’s gliding over a chalkboard erupted from directly beneath me. I looked down and watched as a long thin tendril made of purple flesh licked it’s bladed edge along my floor scarring it and the music.
The deep obsidian glass scarring from where it dragged, and I froze as what seemed like the occurrence of my nightmares was about to play out before me.
Drawing a pointlessly shuddering breath, I commanded my plane to form three vessels and almost collapsed to my astral knees.
They oozed out of floor slowly, like a dripping, swirling black chocolate sculpted imitation of myself. The void flexed out all around me, as if it was compressing and I quickly summed all of my pain and the helplessness it brought me and dumped it all in the first vessel.
Then on a whim, like I would in my delve, I formed two bonds. Connecting them, leading from the back of the first and out to the chests of those two behind.
When the first shatters, it’ll then pass the pain onto the two vessels afterwards.
A Sharp Chink! sound filled the plane as the obsidian glass began to crack and I spun to watch as thin knife pierced through my floor by a few inches. But it just enough to see the tip of the bladed tentacle jutting through. I closed my eyes and practically wished myself away from my dark plane.
I shot my eyes wide-open, feeling vulnerable at the chilly thought of having escaped whatever that could’ve turned into. But as my head cleared and the pain I felt flee completely, I looked up just in time to see Hilnow swing his mighty fist down towards to my gasping form. I rolled to my left and sprung to my feet, except I staggered.
“Right,” I muttered numbly. “I don’t feel the pain, but my body knows I shouldn’t be moving as well as I want to.”
“GET BACK HERE!” Hilnow bellowed angrily and sprinted in my general direction. Where the fuck was my gladius? I thought as I scanned the immediate area. Not seeing it; I looked back to Hilnow as he rushed me, and I knew I needed to finish this fast.
I noticed the deep diagonal line slicing through Hilnows big eye and wondered how I’d manage to deal a considerable wound to the ogre. Yet the bastard still was coming at me swinging, I ducked left under his blow and shot my foot out to connect with the side of his right knee, I had expected the attack to connect, except all that I happened was I fell off balance as the my injured leg took all my weight.
I crashed to the ground with a grunt and roll left again when a backhand swept over my head ruffling my hair. A hissing groan escaped Hilnow and I heard the massive ogre wheeze in a tortured breath, I glanced his way to see him gently probing the area around his eyelid.
Each prodding touch elicited a grunt from Hilnow, and I looked down and through Hilnows’ legs and saw that behind him by about 6 yards was my gladius. Stabbed into the arena ground, right at the edge of the pit where Ellina was chained. It was as I had seen Excalibur itself when I looked upon that sword, a new fountain of hope washed over me and yet I couldn’t help the grimace that settled my features.
There was no time to waste.
I hopped to my feet and shuffled around Hilnow as the ogre started to push the two halves of his separated eye together with a muffled growl of agony. Then the crowd began to call out to the ogre and my stomach sank to my feet. “Maybe I should’ve burned you all?” I muttered under my breath and picked up my pace. They called and cheered Hilnow, shouting direction’s for the massive ogre to follow. I grimaced
as I half stumbled and ran for my sword, I quickly covered 2-yards before Hilnow movements caused the ground to thunder beneath my boots, in fact everything shook, and I skidded trying not to fall.
The music picked up its insistent tempo and droned on in my skull ominously.
Then the first of my vessel shattered from within my plane and I cried out as the pain returned momentarily, I collapsed to my knees and shook with a brief spasm. Then I gasped with relief when my secondary vessels kicked in and absorbed the bleed out from the first. I rolled, hopped forward on my hands and knees and the ground vibrated so violently I thought the ceiling of the above the city would fall.
Hilnows foot smashed down mere inches from my shuffling form, scattering up sand and grit. Then a hand snagged my tunic and I flailed a step before being dragged backwards. I didn’t even think or consider it. I simply turned and bit down into Hilnow arm, still attached to my clothing. In an animalistic frenzy, I chomp and scraped at his arm. Feeling my teeth sink into his flesh as my mouth flooded with thick amounts of his blood.
I shook like a ferocious dog and hit the ground as Hilnow dropped me with a growl of surprise and anger. I spat out small globe of his flesh, that I had torn away from his arm. His foot flicked about and slammed into my side, careening me across the ground in a tumbling sliding roll. Coughing out the grit and slithering forward on my belly I grab the handle of my gladius that was just before me.
Catching the eye of Ellina, the ogress princess and a stunning beauty. Her dark grey eyebrow shot up in surprise when she saw me, then her icy blue eyes went wild and afraid and she shouted something at me that I couldn’t hear over the damned music.
But got the message anyway. I rolled right as Hilnow stomped the spot; just missing me. I looked up after rolling yet again, narrowly avoiding his crunching blow and saw that his eyeball was healing. Thin fleshy lines of nerves were strung across the gap and were slowly fixing the eye and pulling it back together.
I had kind of forgotten ogre’s could heal. “It…” I wheezed out breathing hard, “it seems like you’re having a bad day.”
“You’ll see soon, human,” Hilnow growled menacingly. His slowly repairing eye shifting oddly to glance at my sword and I wondered if his sight was fractured and distorted. I climbed to my feet releasing a slow breath as I shuffled forward and aimed my gladius, extended at him chest centre mass as I moved. Hilnow took a step back and titled his head upwards slightly and then downwards after.
Then he too moved forward, a smirk playing across his lips. I thought of Ellina’s wild and frightened eyes. I thought of my own women and imagined the thought of any of them looking at me with that same hate-filled gaze.
How I would do anything I possibly could to be the person they saw me as. I would burn this whole fucking world to the ground, if it meant pleasing those who were mine.
And Loryn, her sisters and Ellina would be mine.
In a lopping run I met and ducked beneath Hilnows erratic swings as his arms passed overhead. I darted my blade out and sliced it along his inner thigh and then darted back as he tried to bound me into the dirt with his double fists and a roar.
Then I jerked right and fell flat to my belly, as he thrust his foot at me. I rolled away to my left and swept my blade out under his lowering leg cutting across the ankle of his right. I wasn’t doing much damage, and I couldn’t possibly do death by a thousand cuts.
Then I had a completely stupid idea and I was reminded of my dying fight with the fodraca back on Earth. I sprang forward, darting past Hilnows fists and wild kicks as I stabbed my swords point into his junk, he screamed a terrific roar. Which was followed by the distinct splatter of his severed dick and balls hitting the ground. But his fists curled around my neck and I was lifted bodily into the air.
There was a wrenching in my back and shoulders, as everything below my neck was no longer supported. I tried to swiped with my sword, but he caught my arm as it came overhead.
“YOU WILL FUCKING DIE, HU-” A deafening sound drowned out everything and all around us quakes shook the very fabric of our small world. I dropped my gladius, caught it in my opposite hand below and rammed it up beneath his chin and out the top of his skull. “You got jebaited, you incestual fuck!” My voice filling the air like a crack of thunder as it blew through the arena. Just as the ceiling above Banes Horren exploded into a shower of falling debris.
Then the music ceased and everything aetheric came spinning back into me like a strike of lightning. My strength returned as rays of daylight shone down through the now open ceiling. All around me people were screaming as bits and pieces of rocks crushed them or landed nearby.
I looked up and caught sight of shapes, scurrying, crawling, slithering and lumbering into the breached ceiling to fall on Banes Horren.
“It’s the Shi’en!” Someone called, following by a splat and guttural screams of panic. There was a thump as something impacted the ground behind me and I twisted as an amalgamation of a gorilla and a snake beat its massive fists against the ground as it hissed at me.
“SHADE!” I shouted and a second before the strange hybrid was upon me, reassurance shot through the bond and a black swelling portal split the fabric above my head as my primordial dread wolf growled as he shot out to tackle the beast.
I got to my feet and sped for the pit where Loryns daughter was still chained. off to my left another creature landed and trumpeted someone akin to an elephants call as it smashed bodily into the stands. I slid over the edge and down into the pit before I knew what I was doing. Landing feet first, I rolled and fell into Ellina, her delicate and beautiful features twisted as she saw me, but there relief there also.
“We got to move!” I shouted to her and cast a quick look around. Over the edge of the rock she was chained to, was a literal endless abyss that made me stomach churn.
“What is happening?” Ellina asked me frantically. I noted that her voice was smooth and sweet, her words almost dancing along after one another.
“Well princess, your city is under attack, now shut up and close your eyes,” I wasn’t particularly sure why I told her to close her eyes, but well you work with what comes out of your mouth.
And that was just as my pain-filled constructs inside my plane, shattered and broke into millions of tiny scattering pieces. Each renewed spike of pain seemed to be punctuated by the booming sounds orchestrated above and the terrible music started up once again.
Interlude: Sal’re’al
I hummed lightly as I walked into my brother’s sanctum, blood still dripping down my arms from having release my child. I just hoped my son would find a way to balance Leathanria in my absence. I could hear the distant music Ra’al was playing as he forced his constructs to pleasure him.
I would certainly help him find his release, after all, I was here to repay him for stealing my father away from me. I had taken Rokkaia’s essence all that long ago to hide and nurture. But somehow, Ra’al had snatched him out of my clutches with his greedily little hands. Not knowing or understanding the piece he held. The peace I had.
I was always fathers favourite, everything I did or ever done was in the hopes that someday I could show him, and he would be proud of me. I smeared some of the blood on my face as I wiped away a tear as I remembered him calling me little one like he used to so long ago.
He was so different now, more mortal than before, so fleeting and bumbling about; trying to find himself. I knew he had Maylith with him, but I dared not face mother’s wrath for spoiling her plans.
I simply wanted my father back, for things to be how they were, how they could be. I thought of Rhys Trent, my champion and I felt a swell of longing and pride for him burn in my chest.
I wanted father to be proud. In the mean time I would separate the wheat from the chaff with my bloody knife, and through me will father once again gain enough power to face his dreaded brother.
“Speaking of brother’s,” I flicked my wrist, causing blood to paint the white walls as the door slid
open. “Dear brother!” I called out in a sing song voice.
“Sa-Sal?” Ra’al squawked as I walked in on him bent over one of his lifeless constructs. A dryad I realised with utter distaste. They were of mine and Rokkaia’s making, to use one, even a lesser one like this… “You’re back?” He asked surprised, grinning his stupid shark-like teeth sheepishly at me.
“Yes… I’ve come to teach you about playing with others belonging,” I said sweetly, brandishing my bloody knife. With my equally bloody hand as I closed the door silently behind me.
End of book 1.
Author’s Note
Thank you for reading The Rokkaia Chronicles. I just want you to know that you’re absolutely, positively delightful. I wrote this book for the enjoyment of writing. It’s been a challenge coming through this and I’m still learning. That said, if you enjoyed this book please consider leaving a review, you’ve no idea how much a simple “This is completely fantastic and deserves a review!” goes to make my day.
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