by Mike Simmons
Hronlin smiled as he looked up to see the fleeing magic users flood across the battlefield; more targets for his aggression.
Brandon could feel the anxiety of the moment. He watched as the tides of battle shifted from one side to the other, then back again. The remnants of the Flame Legion scattered across the field, fighting hopelessly against the pursuing lizard men. The wild men spilled into the remaining groups of Blade Maidens, and now the King advanced with The Heart of the King.
In an urgent whisper, Brandon spoke to Blue. “Now, get us in those gates.”
Without a moment’s reluctance, Blue moved forward, wrapping his arms around a three-foot thick hardwood tree and with a grunt and flex of his muscled body, he uprooted the tree and carried the thirty-foot high, fully blossomed tree onto the field towards the city gates. All six of his arms gripped the tree tightly as he ran towards the gate. The sweeping of the leaves through the air muffled the loud smashing of his feet against earth. The guards at the city gates moved with urgency, lining up on the arrow walls as they shouted amongst themselves. Bows and crossbows tipped above the wall as Blue closed the distance between them.
“We would be struck down before we made it halfway there,” Brandon whispered, holding his hand back towards Jasmine.
Razor-tipped arrows and crossbow bolts let loose from the wall, spraying everything within ten feet of the charging six-armed beast. Bolts and arrows stuck into the tree he carried and into the ground but harmlessly bounced off the dense skin of the Guardian. Blue roared as he neared the gate, tipping backwards as he put momentum into the swing of his tree club. It swept through a group a helpless gate guards and then exploded into splintering bits as it crushed the right tower. The tower crumbled under its own weight, filling the air with stone and mortar. The gate guards on top of the tower fell down to the hard earth from forty feet up, and the archers on the wall fled as it too broke apart. The women screamed and Blue roared.
Blue stepped back, now free of the tree, as the entrance collapsed in front of him. A group of armed guards exited the wall from a port door on the opposite side of the damaged tower. They screamed with the rage of battle, determined to stop the monstrous threat at their gate, but before they could engage, Blue leapt into the air, bringing his clenched fists down on the middle of the group. Bodies disappeared as the ground caved underneath the tremendous weight of his smashing fists, and those not directly beneath Blue were thrown outward, some smashing into the city walls and others flying into the moat. Blue turned his attention on the port door.
“Come on, let’s move,” Brandon said.
Brandon, Jasmine, and Edward rushed towards the city gates.
Empress Aurora climbed the steps to her tower, arms held by her Lash Lords. Her legs felt weak and she was light-headed. As she neared the top, she released her arm from Princess and shooed them away from her. Princess and Flower halted, but did not leave the hallway.
Aurora closed the door and turned towards the window, but before she could take a step, the light from the room faded, sucked away by some magical force as if day had quickly faded into night. A chill in the air made the fine hair on her arms stand up and silence swept over the room.
From the corner of the room, Aurora noticed movement. Her attention focused as she stared.
“Watcher?” she whispered.
A small figure, draped in a thick black cloak that covered its head and hung past its hands, moved from the corner, dragging his over-sized cloak along he floor. He moved out of the pitch-blackness, towards Aurora.
“Where be your Guardians?” The Watcher’s voice, like an icy wind, came from nowhere and everywhere at the same time.
Aurora relaxed her posture, but never took an eye from the Watcher.
“They are guarding the south gate as Reinhold battles his way at the north. I fear moving them in case he has more forces ready.” She paused as the little man scuttled around the room, looking at the vases and other knickknacks on the tables with some unknown interest.
“We are losing this battle, Watcher.”
He turned quickly and raised a bony finger into the air from his left hand.
“You fight and fight to your dismay; you lose your sisters this bloody day. You seek the help which I provide, but your lovely elephant has broken and died. There’s something else that I would trade, something you bore, something you made.” He titled his head slightly to the right, staring at Aurora.
Aurora eyed him suspiciously. “Why must you speak in riddles, troll? Tell me what it is that you want.”
“I seek that which you do not use, once a month you rid and lose. I want something so nice and fair, what I want… is right there…” he said, pointing his finger at Aurora’s belly.
Aurora’s eyes slowly opened to full exposure, realizing what the Watcher asked. Her breath became short as she yelled at him. “Never, beast! I will never lay with you!”
“You think of such things by touch, humans think of sex too much. For what I want I’ll use my mind, you won’t know what’s left behind. In just a moment it’ll all be done, with the Kella’Dune, this war will be won. Just say the word and we’ll make the trade, just consent the egg and the deal is made.”
Aurora looked at the little man with a glare on her face. The Watcher’s head twitched and he turned and scuttled over to the dresser, where he picked up a small ornate mirror and examined it as if he had never seen one.
“No more riddles, Watcher. You want one of my eggs. Why? What would you do with it if I agreed? I do not know if I trust you enough with a part of me, and how exactly do you plan to retrieve it? I will not allow you to put your hands anywhere near me.”
The Watcher stopped turning the mirror in his hand, then briefly paused for he set it down carefully on the table. When he spoke, his words were slow and precise, like death on the wings of a raven.
“Give me the egg, and I will give you a hundred Guardians. I will withdraw it from inside of you with magic. What I do with it is not of your concern, for that is what I request if you wish to save your glory. Your enemy is moments away from clearing the battlefield of your minions, and before the sun sets beyond the hills, he will have sacked your entire city. There is no doubt about the power you hold, but your arrogance and pride have united the nations against you. You are too weak to remove this threat before it takes you. Without my help, you will fall under the power of your enemy before nightfall.”
The Watcher had his back to Aurora, but as he finished talking, he slowly turned around and faced the Empress. She gazed at him with studying eyes, the myriad of thoughts and decisions that ran through her mind were evident across her face.
“A hundred Guardians. Right now.” Although it seemed a statement, she actually questioned the Watcher.
“Yes, Empress, they will be on the field before the King takes another step towards your city.”
“My,” she paused, “egg. You will take it by magic. Will it hurt?”
“There will be some discomfort,” he said slowly, “but it will be over shortly, and you will be back on the battlefield with a hundred of the fiercest creatures to ever walk this land.”
Aurora watched the little man, unblinking and thinking.
The sandworm once again sunk into the depths underneath the ground along with the giant scorpions, and the remaining Blade Maidens and Gifted of the Flame Legion scattered and fled from the victorious forces of Lord Cedric Reinhold. The wild men of the mountains and the Horsemen of the Sand regrouped and joined with the remnants of Reinhold’s army in the center of the battlefield. Cedric’s small reserve group, about fifty men, stayed back in the tree line with the artillery and the Avatar of war, still locked up in his wagon-cage.
Reinhold reigned in his anxious mount, glancing over his shoulder to check the status of his remaining army. The lizard men and the wild men moved forward toward the gates of Orlimay, just ahead of Cedric and the rest of the Templars.
Aurora obliterated most of Cedric’s elven force, r
educing them from a hundred-thousand down to a meager six thousand, but they were ready to finish the job they started. This would be the day that the righteous brought down the evil queen; they just needed to secure the city.
“Let’s finish this,” Reinhold commanded. Janga, covered in blood splatter and dirt, moved up besides Cedric’s mount and placed his hand on the King’s leg.
“I’m still with you old friend.”
Cedric looked down at Janga with a genuine smile and then nodded. As he looked towards Orlimay, a distortion in the air appeared between him and city, ten feet off the ground. It warped the view of Orlimay like looking through a wall of moving water. From the center of the distortion, a void in light appeared, blacker than night and empty as death. It grew outward, getting bigger and bigger, in a pulsating shimmer of blackness and incandescent green light. The void spread to a hundred paces wide and twenty paces tall.
The lizard men hissed aggressively, backing away from the evil that bloomed in the air. Hronlin and his men stepped in front and watched the spectacle in wonder. As the void stabilized, an absence of sound absorbed noise across the valley. The brief moment of silence seemed to last an eternity before the first Kella’Dune Guardian dropped out of the magical darkness. The Guardian fell to the ground, landing on his feet, crushing the blood-soaked earth beneath him, followed by a second and then a third. Two more, then three and then ten more. As they continued to pour out of the portal, the Guardians already on the ground roared and charged towards the army of man.
Cedric stared at them for a split second before his eyes went wide, yelling, “Run! Run!” Out of instinct, the ringing of the Heart of the King burst free as the sword went skyward. Cedric quickly glanced down to Janga.
“Run, friend, do not die this day. We must release the Avatar.”
Janga looked solemnly at the King and nodded his head, turning and moving back towards the tree line.
Hronlin looked at the massive, six-armed monsters in full run, in wonder. His expression of awe changed to determination as he withdrew his battle-axe. Hronlin and the wild men yelled their battle cries in unison as they released their hounds and ran to embrace combat with the Guardians.
Hronlin headed for the Guardian in the lead, planting a foot in the earth to stop his advance just before reaching it, as the Guardian swung one of his giant fists towards Hronlin’s head. The swing fell short, giving Hronlin a chance to bury his axe in the chest of the beast. He twisted his hips, putting all of his momentum into the end of the axe. The axe hit hard and steady but rebounded off, not even scratching the beast. Hronlin’s confidence shattered. That hit would have buried any other of his foes. Hronlin had never mistaken the outcome of an attack. As Hronlin’s eye rose to meet the beasts, he saw the two raised fists of the monster swinging downward towards him. He saw his own death coming.
Rage smashed into the face of the Guardian, his jaws engulfing its entire head. The Guardian tipped backwards, all six arms moving to grab the hound that had its head in lockjaw. The Guardian roared out in pain as the hound of the mountain snarled and shook his bite from left to right. Blood spewed from his mouth.
As the Guardian wrapped all of its hands around the beast, it quickly squeezed the hound. Rage released its bite as it whelped out in pain, the muscular hands clenching and tightening around its body. Bones snapped and blood spurted out from the Guardian’s fingers as all of the remaining air in Rage’s lungs released in a final whelp, until the loyal hound went limp.
Hronlin screamed, tears filled the lower lids of his eyes while he watched his best friend taken by death. Hronlin jumped to his feet, unaware, as the solid hand of the Guardian behind him smashed down upon him, breaking him and crushing his body down into the earth. Hronlin’s vision went blurry and he exhaled his last breath, looking into the broken face of his hound. The roars of Guardians rang free.
The Guardians ripped through the wild men, destroying them without prejudice. They crushed their weak bones with massive fists, pounded them with endless punches, and buried them into the earth as they stepped over them to get to the next one.
Reinhold reached the first Guardian with sword drawn. The Guardian reached for him with four arms as the other two rose above him in clenched fists. With a single upward swing, the Heart of the King separated the beast’s arms from his body. The Guardian’s arms flew off to the side as Cedric whipped his sword around and slammed it straight down into the monster’s chest. With a spray of blood, the Guardian whaled out and its chest cavity separated in two, falling backwards into death.
Another Guardian leaped at the King from twenty paces off, flying through air with all fists ready to smash its target. Cedric raised the Heart of the King, pointing it at the incoming beast and with a scream, “No!”, an invisible force hit the Guardian like a battering ram against a castle door, throwing him backwards across the battlefield.
Cedric stepped backwards, avoiding the crushing blow from another Guardian. Dirt and bloody mud exploded from the impact as the Guardian’s hand crashed down into empty earth. With a twist of his body and gripping his sword with both hands, Cedric swung the sword into the mid-section of the Guardian, cleaving it cleanly in half at its waist.
Templars and wild men, man and lizard men, all fell to the giant six-armed monsters. Arrows and swords bounced off their skin like sticks on leather. Their sheer size and extra arms made them problematic to even the most trained and skilled of warriors.
Janga arrived at the wagon-cage, eyeing the man within with suspicious eyes. Bram looked at him from under his brow, obviously not caring.
“Things are getting exciting out there, aren’t they Janga,” Bram said sarcastically.
“You are the Avatar of War. You seek the thrill of advanced combat, your movements in tuned with the movements of another, with the first to fall behind in the dance becoming the one who loses everything. It’s a challenging and exciting game that you play, but I would be willing to bet that this game of yours has become dull and unexciting. No one can stand against the blades of the Avatar of War.”
Bram’s brow relaxed as a small smile grew on the side of his mouth. “I am not interested in falling for your manipulations. What is it you want, boy?”
Janga cut right to the point. “I want to make a deal.”
“I do not make deals.”
“An offer, then.” Janga proposed. “As we speak, the greatest war of this century is raging in the plains ahead of us, and you sit, here, locked up in this cage.”
“I am aware of my situation, Janga.”
“We both know, even with all of your power, you are stuck in here. I can offer you something that you want and it just so happens that you can offer me something that I want.”
“I’m listening.”
“We were winning this war until, well, look for yourself.”
Bram slowly turned his head to peer at the battlefield. The Kella’Dune Guardians washed over Reinhold’s forces like a tidal wave. The King’s forces split up, some choosing to stay in attempt to buy the others time and the others who followed the King’s order to flee.
“So here is my deal. I will make it only once and you must take it or leave it, because I am needed on the battlefield. I will offer you your freedom, escape from this cage, and release from your custody. In return, you will fight against Aurora’s monsters, only Aurora’s monsters. You must grant our forces liberty from your destruction. Once this is over, you will either be dead or you will have your freedom. Either way, I think it’s a good deal. Take it or leave it.”
“So I help you kill the Guardians and you let me leave? How do you know I won’t go against my word and destroy you all?”
“I don’t, but that is a risk I will take if you give me your word. Now, what is it?”
The Avatar of War put his hands on his blades and stood up in the small cage with a smile.
Chapter 22 - Following the Path
The Avatar of War walked from the small encampment as Reinhold’s me
n moved clear of him. Bram’s brow pointed and the small smile on his face showed a slight glimmer of his teeth. He looked out upon the action in the field ahead: giant six-armed monsters, many times larger than their enemy, smashed and crushed the small humans and elves that gave resistance. The flinging body of a Templar went airborne over the group of Guardians and smashed into a busted pike barrier. Another Templar held his ground against one of the monsters, quickly avoiding the incoming hammer fists and slashing tirelessly at the body of the Guardian, to no avail. The Guardian attacked with his upper arms causing the Templar to strafe to his left, right into the open hands of the Guardians lower arms. The monster picked him up as the Templar brought his polearm down into the Guardian’s face. In a single swift motion, the giant beast slammed his hands together, instantly crushing the elf and killing him.
Reinhold lead the attack, each swing lopping off limbs and separating thick torsos from tree-like legs. He downed the monsters left and right, but even with his small victories, this battle could not be won. Reinhold’s forces could not withstand the size and power of the Kella’Dune. Their six-armed attacks overwhelmed many of the great fighters. This battle would be over shortly.
Bram walked onto the battlefield. Crossing his arms to the opposing hips, he wrapped his fingers tightly around the grips of his two glimmering swords, withdrawing and pointing them towards the wall of incoming beasts. With a yell, he began to run.