Mea wasn’t sure what came over her next—rage, passion, love? She didn’t know, but she was suddenly reinvigorated, brought back to life. Her swords leapt up and back into her hands, and she rose to her feet. Her white, satin cloak flapped around behind her before it split open and transformed back into her two glorious, show-white, angel wings. Her eyes were set ablaze, replaced by two fireballs of thrashing white flames. She remembered a chill filling the air and the rain drops turning to hail as they dripped over and around her. She let out a warm breath into the cold air and saw the fog rising before her flaming eyes. After that, she wouldn’t remember very much more. He killed my brother. He’s going to kill the rest of my family. He’s going to wipe out the world. Mea didn’t even realize it, but she was strangling the leather grips of her swords and charging forward. Now engulfed in a cold blue aura, her eyes were even wilder blue-white flames that now covered half her face.
She was now charging directly towards the middle of Malick’s swarming creatures, charging directly towards the lake. And then… with a flash of light, she was gone.
A muted splash was heard, and a rather large ripple was now spreading across the lake’s surface, momentarily sweeping away the smaller ripples from the raindrops. Puzzled, Malick’s creatures halted their assault and hovered above the reservoir, looking lost and confused. More creatures, the late arrivers, came to join the swarm, but as they saw the confusion, they swooped down and settled on the far bank of the reservoir, bouncing to a stop. Then with the same confused look and chattering teeth as the others, they began looking just as lost as the rest of them.
The beasts shared baffled looks at the water and at each other as each passing second crept on into an eternity. Tick… tick… tick…
The water made a cracking sound and attracted more of the beasts’ curiosity, and their eyes focused even more intently at the lake’s crust. Another ripple, another cracking sound. More cracking sounds followed, and Malick’s creatures hovered even closer to the lake, to get a better look. Then the black water cracked again. Then it glistened. And then it turned cold.
Soon the reservoir’s water was covered by Malick’s creatures. Hovering just above its surface, the giant creatures leaned as close to the water as they could, as close as their crocodile-like muzzles would allow them too, gazing into the water with their yellow reptilian eyes just as hard as they could. Blinking, they tried to decipher what they were seeing. Rocks? Steel? Ice? Cracked Ice? Spears?
From somewhere deep within the water, bubbled crept upwards, and ice followed the bubbles, consuming the water as it froze and fed on the liquid; the ice growing larger with each falling degree. Finally breaking the surface, the ice spread out, creating an island of polished ice—an ice rink—within the reservoir. Then thousands of rods—ice icicles, spears—followed, shooting out of the frozen lake, they exploded into the beasts and through their curious, yellow, blinking, reptilian eyes. Plumes of black smoke appeared like splattered paint.
The island of polished ice grew suddenly, stretching across the reservoir like a massive snake. In its wake, it left behind a mess of shooting ice spears, puffs of black smoke, and a trail of polished ice. Finally reaching the store, the ice snake erupted out of the water in a long arching lunge. At the front of it, where its head should have been, Mea was standing. Covered in a frozen blue haze and hoarfrost, she leapt off the ice and continued through the swarm, charging Malick. Behind her, the ice serpent she created shattered and shot out more shards of ice.
Mea charged through whatever beasts were still in her way and still alive. Finally approaching Malick—roughly twenty yards out–she slowed her pace to a trot that quickly became an even slower, determined strut. Malick’s creatures were still filtering in and charging her in groups. Strangely enough Mea seemed like she could have cared less. Her eyes were locked on Malick, Malick and his grinning, smoke-covered face.
Meanwhile another batch of Malick creatures had just cleared the burning forest and was galloping hard at her. Another batch was flying, circling a few hundred feet above her and gathering their ranks. They too were attacking, coming out of their grotesque circle and nosediving towards her. They would have little success. The charging beasts lashed out at her with their snapping jaws; others whipped their tails at her. Neither one fared better than the other. As their jagged jaws snapped down at an arm or a leg, a strange coldness came over them and their teeth shattered as they bit into Mea’s armor.
The ones behind her had different ideas. Charging at her back, they leapt at her resting angels wings, pouncing at her like leopards, expecting to slice through her with their claws. But as they came shooting in and entered the sapphire haze that was surrounding Mea, the cold bit into them, splashed over their bodies, and froze them almost instantly. Their momentum carried through the haze and into Mea, and they ended up slamming into and shattering against her flared-out angel wings.
Others tried to use their tails, whipping them at Mea, they hoped to stick her with the poisoned barbed that covered them. That didn’t work either. Entering Mea’s frozen aura, they could hear the sound of cracking ice as the cold bit into their tails and hoarfrost crept up them, instantaneously freezing the venom that ran through them, leaving their tails looking like frosted tree limbs, frozen and brittle. And when the barbed tips of finally made their way through Mea’s frozen aura and hit her armor (or wings), they shattered like glass. She was pissed.
Staring at Malick’s smoke-covered face and his flaming eyes as his minions shattered against her, a memory flashed through Mea’s thoughts. The Bull of Heaven. Taurus. He was Apis to the Egyptian… a false god. Mea continued walking towards her enemy, and the flaming void of Malick’s face seemed to morph into a bull’s head. She soon couldn’t tell if she was still looking at the same armored god she was approaching or the giant, fire-breathing bull from before. In truth he seemed to be both at the same time. “You’re going to die,” she warned him.
Malick tilted his head back and chuckled, his giant shield bouncing at his side as he did so. “Kill me?” he said mockingly. “That’s fine. I’ll just find a new vessel. My blood runs through the veins of my creatures, all of my creatures. And as long as they live, so do I. As for you—you and your bleeding kid-brother over there, you two can spend the next ten-twenty years gestating in the void—or wherever gods are reborn—until some new iteration of yourselves emerges… and in the meanwhile, I’ll go about my business, burning down the world… and creating a new one.”
Mea looked around for Malick’s creatures—to see if any were left, wondering if Malick was telling the truth. If he was, she’d have to kill all of them too—after killing Malick of course, and there were a lot more of them.
They were all around but they weren’t attacking, for some reason or another. His creatures were gathering around the two of them—lurking, stalking them. And Mea could see what was happening; they were surrounding her—creating a savage circle of onlookers. Anna! Mea thought, suddenly looking around for the wounded storm dragon. It was nowhere to be seen, and Mea thought that she had once again lost her best friend.
Then she saw it. With a flash of lightning, the storm dragon suddenly appeared in the sky, blotting out a patch of stars. Surprising Mea more than Malick, it shot through a black cloud. Covered in a web of lightning, it came in like a meteor, feet first. Its hind legs were wound tightly to its body and its claws were wide-open. Closing, opening, and then doing both again, its dragon claws were bear traps made of bastard swords, descended on Malick like an eagle hunting a rabbit.
“Huh,” Malick said, grinning at the incoming projectile. He stepped right and swung his shield to the side. The storm dragon, suddenly much smaller than it was before—met Malick’s shield with a hard crack, crumbled against the golden bull head encrusted on it, then bounced off it. The once-mighty dragon skittered across the war-torn meadow until it finally tumbled into a lifeless stop.
Seeing Mea’s look of shock, Malick chuckled. “Friend of yours?
” Turning towards Asher, he added, “Perhaps you should refocus your efforts.” Asher let out a yelp as he slid further down Malick’s golden spear and bounced off the barb that was below the one that was currently stuck in his chest. “And you should probably hurry. He’s making quite the mess down there.”
He was right. Beneath Asher was a pool of thick black syrup; a combination of blood, rain, and mud.
“This is different than last time,” said Malick. “Last time you died trying to save him, before he died. Huh, guess it’s his turn to go first… of course, that was before you were gods, but… eh.”
Everything happened at once. Looking like a frozen blue flame, Mea charged Malick. Looking like a burst of red-hot flames, Malick charged her. As they met, the ground froze solid, and a geyser of flames shot into the sky. Then they did it again. Then again. Switching places, Malick now stood where Mea had been, and he now had two sharp silver blades sticking out of the back of his head. His golden tail was gone too, severed and left flopping between them like an angry, gold-plated python. Covered in golden scales, they flared out as the tail thrashed around, seemingly to still have some life remaining in it.
Me gave it a glance then looked past it, at Malick as his oversized shield fell from his limp arm. “Huh,” she said, “guess it won’t be like last time.” Though she said the words, she truly didn’t remember last time and was only going off what Malick had said. Yet as she was about to go help Asher off the golden spear that was still impaling him, and before she could enjoy her victory, she noticed that her side was wet. Looking down, she watched as a spot of red paint appeared on her stomach and drew a thick red line along the side of her silver armor, around her waist, and ending somewhere near the middle of her back. The cut was deep and had nearly cut her in half, and a split-second before the pain kicked it, Mea clutched at her wound—trying to hold in whatever might spill out of her. When the pain finally came, Mea crumbled to the ground. onto a bent knee.
At least I killed him, she thought. At least he’ll die with me. Pushing herself onto a bent knee, she watched Malick, to see what he’d do, to see him die. Instead she watched him pull out the two swords stuck in his smoke-covered head. “Well fought,” he said, turning around and flinging the blades aside. “Now what shall we do next, wait and see who bleeds out first?” His floating mouth of jagged teeth stretched into a smile.
“Or…” he said, letting the word dangle before finishing his sentence. Shrugging, he finished with: “I guess I can just finish you off.” He shook his head, shaking away the flames and black smoke, and once again he looked human—dark skinned with a five o’ clock shadow. Still his eyes were odd, glinting orange and black, once again looking like tiger’s eye. “Oh,” he said, tilting his head to the side, “you still got one sword left.” Watching Mea stand up and pull the large sword strapped down her back, the one Daikon had given her, he said, “There you go.” He spun his golden spear around him theatrically. He slammed the butt of his spear against ground and watched as more barbs sprouted from the shaft of his spear, nearly covering the entire weapon. “Well,” he said, bouncing his eyebrows and grinning, “shall we begin?”
Mea didn’t waste any time with words or worrying about consequences and was already rushing Malick, reckless and enraged. Charging, the silver-bladed sword hung from one side while blood spilled from her one. Seeing the Malick’s golden tail still squirming on the ground, she grabbed it. Its pulsing scales stabbed into her hand as she spun around and flung the tail at Malick. Then she grabbed onto her sword with both hands, and followed the golden tail whipping towards Malick. As the golden wrapped around Malick’s neck, she swung the gleaming silver sword upwards with whatever strength she had left. The blade swept across Malick’s chest—from hip to shoulder, Mea once again found her blade lodged in him—slicing through his torso and getting stuck just beneath his shoulder blade. Something hit her, and everything momentarily when black. Next thing she knew everything was blurry, and she was spinning around and falling.
Gaining her senses, she saw that something was lodged in her as well, in her thigh. A golden spear. Caught somewhere between the spear’s numerous barbs, Mea howled it pain as she pushed it the rest of the way through her thigh. As painful as it was, she stood up and looked at Malick. At the moment, he was oddly quiet and was instead grasping at the golden strap that was wrapped around his neck.
Malick unwound the tail from his neck, snapped it in two, and angrily tossed it aside. With a loud hissing, sizzling sound; the two golden tail-pieces spontaneously ignited and burst into flames. After a few strained gasped, Malick finally looked down at the sword stuck in his shoulder, at the slash across and through his chest. Puzzled, he didn’t see any blood, not at first. Then it came, black sludge began seeping out of the diagonal cut on his chest. Like melted wax it began slowing spilling out, then it stopped. Stranger still, the black sludge Malick called blood began dripping upwards, towards his wound, towards the sword lodged in his shoulder. The silver blade gleamed as Malick’s blood soaked into it. “Fancy trick,” he said. “You should try it.” He pulled out the blade and tossed it at Mea’s feet. “You should… try it,” he repeated, half-dying.
Mea could hear a sizzling sound coming from Malick. Thin, gray smoke rose from his neck, from his wound. Flames followed. “I guess this is it, at least for Malick it is. Flames engulfed his hands and started kindling his feet. “Told you, as long as my creatures live, I live. As for you, well… good luck fighting them and good luck not bleeding out.”
Lilly rubbed her thumb under her other four fingers then stuck it up, revealing a long black stinger, like one from a scorpion. Smiling, she jabbed it into Daikon’s thigh. “Wake up!”
Laying on the ground, Daikon snapped up into a sitting position. Beyond disoriented, his head swiveled around, trying to figure out where he was—a tree, a hill, forest fire down below… Lilly?
Lilly pushed him towards the tree and examined his back. The black veins were gone and his color had returned. She slapped his back then jabbed her stinger-thumb into his thigh again. “All better,” she said, smiled, and patted his cheek. “Now put on a shirt.” Lilly scooted over the ground, she laid down and rested her head on Daikon’s leg. “You’re going to miss the show.”
Still confused, Daikon looked down at his bare chest; he rubbed the scar on his face. A shirt, he needed a shirt. Looking at his hands, Daikon thought about it, and a crimson collared shirt dripped down over his shoulders, down his ribs, and then down to his waist. His trench coat did the same. Mea, he remembered, looking down at the chaos below.
As he tried to stand up, Lilly could feel her makeshift pillow shifting, and she didn’t like it. Her red ribbons snuck behind Daikon, and one yanked down on his waist while the other one secured his wrist. “Don’t even think about it,” she warned. “You’re too weak to help… because you’re early,” she added, the last part said mockingly, mimicking what Blackwell had once told her, right before she killed him.
“Wha,” said Daikon. “What’s happening? She’s going to die. We… we need to—”
Again Lilly jabbed him with her stinger-thumbnail, this time in the calf. “She’ll be fine. Look. Actually, she’s kinda killing it right now.”
Daikon blinked away his confusion and looked below. The fading storm dragon. Asher was impaled and barely moving. He saw as Malick’s golden tail whipped around his neck as Mea sliced through him. From Daikon’s angle, it looked like a shooting star slicing through him. And Daikon watched as Malick caught fire and was turning to smoke. The circle of Malick’s creatures, there were hundreds of them, surrounding Mea from the shores of the reservoir to the edge of the burnt down forest. The space between them and Mea was shrinking as crept up behind Mea, who was still gasping and grasping at her wounds. “Lilly,” he grunted weakly. “We have to help her.”
“It’s okay,” she said, curtly.
“Lilly, please.”
“No, it’s fine.”
“Lill—”
Jabbing her thumbnail into Daikon’s calf again, she jumped to her feet. “Oh my god,” she said. “You’re so annoying. I said: it’s fine. I said: it’s okay.” She huffed and shook her head. Then glaring down at him, she huffed and shook her head again before raising a closed fist up to her lips.
Mea crawled over to her sword and grabbed it. Staring at the ground, she could feel Malick’s creatures creeping up to her; she could hear the chattering of their teeth speeding up, growing louder. She looked past Malick, at Asher. He was twitching, then as he slid down Malick’s spear, onto another one of its barbs, he silently winced in pain, too weak to even speak. Damn it, she thought, there’s no time. I have to kill Malick and save Asher… right now. Using the sword as a walking stick, she tried to push herself onto her feet but stopped to grasp at her wounded waist. Pain shot through her side and through the gaping wound in her thigh, and she feel her warm blood rushing between her fingers.
She saw Malick. His legs were on fire, and the rising flames were washing over him. His face was covered in a veil of black smoke, and Malick grinned—a victorious, arrogant grin. “I’ll see you soon, kiddo, that is… if you survive through the night.”
The strangest thing happened, something so strange that no one knew what it was or what it meant. A trumpet blast. Another one sounded, and as a thick white fog began seeping out of the ground, Malick’s grin disappeared. The white fog grew thicker, swallowing up his circle of on looking creatures, slowly creeping upwards and drowning the beast legs, up to their necks. “What was that sound?” he asked, suddenly afraid. “What is this fog?” Flicking his hands out to the side and flicking his wrists, a golden sword in each hand. He felt something coming and was suddenly swiveling around, looking for it, whatever it was. “Lion,” he said. “Is this some trick of yours? Are you—”
Malick never finished his sentence, suddenly focused on the new sounds that seemed to be surrounding him. A whisper, a growl, a snarl, a howl, the wind. More growling came from the fog-covered earth, from the darkness beneath it, seemingly from all directions. He saw a shadow—a shadow swimming in the fog. Malick glanced at Mea, expecting her to explain what was happening, but after hearing another growl, he went back to focusing on what was hiding in the fog. The wind whistled again, this time swirling around him. Hearing a snarl, Malick spun around to face his enemy. But as he then heard an angry bark, he spun back around. Suddenly more shadows were swimming in the fog, through it, swaying back and forth, like sharks, circling him. “Lion!” Malick suddenly sounded very panicked. “Lion, Mea… stop this. Whatever this is, stop it. Stop it right now. ” By now Malick was spinning around as he stared down as the swimming shadows, wondering what was coming.
The Awakening of the Gods (Forgotten Ones) Page 43