The frozen Zzrt shuddered, then pieces of the ice began to chip away. A moment later, the demon burst into thousands of shards of ice that rained down around them. Mira started to smile, but saw that Iel was chanting and drawing energy into himself again.
“What are you doing?” she asked, just as the shards around her feet began to slide toward each other, reconnecting. Several heartbeats later, the shards evaporated into a green mist, then dissipated.
“You fought well,” Iel said. “But that was a Zzrt. They are the toughest of the lower Quentranzi, and that was a weaker one.” He started toward the field.
“Weak one?” Mira called after him.
Iel had not walked far before he caught sight of three of the four warriors fighting desperately to divert the monstrous titan that stalked unwaveringly toward the tower. A glowing white staff appeared in his right hand, and he whirled it faster and faster till it was a blur in his hands. He began to chant an incantation, and with every word, his voice echoed louder and louder until it filled the air. Finally, he thrust the staff above his head, then pointed it at the abysmal titan. A silver stream of light spiraled from the staff, and gradually formed into an enormous glowing beast of equal size to the giant Quentranzi.
It earth shook under its landing, and it straightened before the massive demon. The giant fiend screeched, and the air hummed with negative energy.
In response, the huge magical creature bellowed and fell upon its enemy. The two monstrous creatures exchanged blows, punching and clawing, and then the magical beast slapped the demon across the head with an open hand and sent it crashing to the earth with a mighty quake.
* * *
Kenjiro tumbled to the ground, finally released from the tightly grasping hair. Ironically, the only thing that saved him from a deathly fall was the very hair in which he’d been entangled.
He opened his eyes and looked at his sword, still tight in his grasp. He rose to one knee and looked over his shoulder at the massive beast lying on its back behind him. The ground shook again, drawing the samurai’s attention to another equally large monstrosity stalking toward him. Kenjiro closed his eyes, then took a deep breath and opened them again. This was where he would die.
He climbed to his feet and readied himself, bringing his sword before him in a two-handed grip. The giant monster looked past him at the demon behind, just now climbing back to its feet. Kenjiro kept his eyes on the giant while he trotted aside. To his relief, the beast continued past, and to a titanic struggle with the screeching minion of the abyss.
* * *
The magical defender lifted its foot to stomp its enemy, but the Quentranzi caught the massive foot in its clawed hands, just before it crashed into its chest. It heaved the magical beast backward, and when it stumbled, the Quentranzi was on it.
The defender was the quicker, however. It clasped its hands together and brought them up in a double ax-handle blow underneath the chin of the huge demon, sending it stumbling backward.
The Quentranzi retaliated with a slash across the magical creature’s midsection, then a solid punch landing on the side of its head. The punch sent the defender off its feet, and when it hit the ground, it burst into thousands of silver sparks. The monstrous demon threw its head back and screeched in triumph.
Kenjiro had already started toward the monster, but was forced to deal with two smaller fiends. He could feel the power radiating off them, and knew that he would have had an easier time battling four pit demons than these two. They worked as a team, complementing the other’s movements, the samurai was hard-pressed to keep them at bay. One stabbed forward, and as soon as Kenjiro attempted to deflect it, the demon withdrew and the other would jump in with an arcing strike.
Though he held them off at the moment, it was only a matter of time before one of them found an opening. Kenjiro redoubled his efforts, trying to gain just an instant to formulate a strategy to turn the tide in his favor. He received that split second that he needed when one of the creatures went to strike and hesitated, stumbling forward. After beheading the creature, Kenjiro focused on the remaining enemy. From the corner of his eye, over the diminishing body, he saw the figure of Kenyatta running toward the titan.
Kenyatta felt an inexplicable building of energy inside his body as he sprinted up behind the giant. He reversed his grip on the sword in his left hand, and held it tightly to his side while holding the blade in his right hand in a forward grip.
With a growl, he leapt, positioning his left blade behind him facing downward, and his right blade in front of him facing up.
Kita fell back on his heels at the sight of his friend, impossibly high into the air and tucked into a tight ball. He spun like a wheel fitted with blades, cutting his way up the back of the beast’s leg. He angled diagonally to the right and just as he passed over the hip, he opened and he cut the beast down the leg during his descent. This happened faster than the monster could react, and the deep cuts in the back of its left leg and the front of its right bled freely.
It was an effective strike, but the sheer mass of the demon made it possible to sustain the wound without falling. Kenyatta dove aside to avoid the stomping foot, only to roll into the midst of yet another group of twisted monsters.
* * *
Shinobu danced a deadly dance with the fiend before him. He’d never fought an opponent that could match his every move so effectively. Neither had gained an advantage, but the strider was hard-pressed to keep up with the small dark creature’s movements. He had received several minor injuries from its whipping tail, and every time he attempted to sever it, the demon would flick it away at the last second. He would not be able to accept many more of these stinging injuries, but he couldn’t find an opening in its defense. Blood dripped from his brow into his left eye, and his right leg was beginning to go numb from the four lashes he had received.
* * *
Kita had been attacked by two Quentranzi that descended upon him shortly after Kenyatta’s amazing maneuver on the big one. He was able to handle them well enough with his staff, keeping them at bay from both sides while he worked them into a favorable position. Finally, he defeated one, banishing it back to the dark world, and batted the other aside to buy him enough time to twist the shaft and release the whip-chain.
* * *
After defeating two more Quentranzi using her telekinetic abilities, Mira leaned against the wall of the tower, trying to catch her breath. All about the field, Quentranzi stepped through red and orange portals. All hope left the young woman as she looked in every direction at the mass of the most powerful race of demons ever to walk the earth appearing everywhere. “How many of the damned things did the Drek summon?” she muttered.
No matter how powerful an assault Iel hurled at the massive fiend, it continued its unerring path toward the tower. He fell into concentration, chanting another incantation that would summon another magical creature, but this one he had reserved as a last effort. Carzan magic was extremely powerful but difficult to control. Mira stood frozen in alarm when she realized what her teacher was doing. She knew that if a beast summoned by way of Carza defeated the Quentranzi too easily, it would turn on its summoner.
Her breath caught in her throat when a bolt of light shot out of the tower and went streaking by. “What in the name of the Daunyans?” A figure glowing with yellow light energy glided across the fields, past the battling enemies and defenders, and straight toward the gigantic, and seemingly unstoppable Quentranzi. The light shot past Iel, and the Ilanyan stopped in the middle of his casting.
The four embattled warriors also saw the light, as well as the human figure within.
It stopped at the titan demon’s feet and shot straight into the air. As it glided ever upward, the light melted away to reveal Akemi, her body glowing from the inside with that yellow light. In one graceful movement, she drew Sekimaru from its sheath, and cut a burning path up the demon’s leg, up its waist and abdomen and to its chest. With an ease that should have been impossible, she whipped the
sword up and through the demon, and as her body turned in the air, she reversed her grip on her sword, and thrust backward at her side, driving the blade to the hilt in the middle its chest.
Suspended in the air by an invisible force, her back to an enemy so large, she looked like a fly, Akemi closed her eyes and the power that filled her body drained away and flooded through the abysmal monster. Like veins carrying lifeblood, the yellow light energy of the Daunyans snaked through the gigantic demon’s body until started to glow from the inside out.
As the demon was being infused with the deadly heavenly energy, Sekimaru drained it of its dark essence. Helplessly suspended during this struggle, Akemi held on as her anxiety grew. Sekimaru was growing more powerful and more hungry with each of her nervous heartbeats. Then, of its own accord, the sword began siphoning the light energy out of the demon.
The sword glowed with Daunyanic light that shone so bright Akemi thought she would be blinded, and the sword destroyed. As if with a mind of its own, Sekimaru thrust both light and dark energy back into the fiend in one burst. Its mouth agape in a silent cry of agony, the monstrous Quentranzi’s body shuddered as the tiny sword ripped its very existence from its body, only to propel it and the deadly god power back in.
Kenjiro stood mesmerized by the sight of his younger sister and that huge titan, engulfed in that searing light.
Kenyatta still fought several of the smaller human sized Quentranzi, but still managed to take in the sight before him. The fight gradually became easier though, for the surrounding fiends seemed to be weakened by the power that radiated from the sword of the ninja demon huntress.
Kita had dispatched his two enemies and was now hesitantly moving toward the spectacle, unsure of whether or not he might be needed when this ended.
Though he had taken several injuries, Shinobu also had dispatched his remaining adversary, and now stood transfixed, hardly believing what he saw. “My kinda woman,” he thought aloud trotting—and grimacing with every step—to catch up with Kita.
Kenjiro looked around the field. Other Quentranzi, smaller ones, were appearing everywhere. Smaller they might be, but he could feel power radiating from the creatures, and it made the first horde seem insignificant.
***
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Red dimensional holes appeared in the air all over the battlefield, and out of them came the most hideous and powerful fiends that any of the defenders had seen. Every one of the abysmal creatures turned toward the four warriors, and Kenjiro, Kenyatta, Shinobu and Kita put their backs to each other and formed a tight square.
“A challenge is good, but not when the odds are impossible,” Kita remarked.
“Then we die in battle with honor,” the samurai declared.
Kenyatta frowned over his shoulder. “I made no plans to die today, so save the ‘death in battle’ talk for another time.”
Shinobu sniggered.
Kenjiro surprised the islander with a smirk, then raised his sword.
Demons littered the field, and an overwhelming sense of despair and hopelessness filled the air. The dark monsters circled the four humans, closing the distance.
“Prevail or perish,” Kita said. “Though I feel the latter is more likely, I regret.”
“I already tell you,” Kenyatta snapped, fighting off the effects of the demonic incursion. “I don’t plan to check out today! Dem wan war wit us, we bring it to em!”
Kenjiro glanced at Kita, and it seemed to him that for the first time, the samurai actually understood the Jamaican’s heavily accented western tongue. With a nod to his companions, Kita snapped his weapon together into its blade-ended staff form. Kenyatta crossed his swords downward, then slowly raised them while sliding them across from each other. When they were eye-level, he flipped his wrists, spinning the blades in his hands, then snapped them downward at his sides.
With one long, slow breath, Kenjiro slid his sword along the side of its scabbard, and when the tip of the sword reached the end of the scabbard, he replaced it in its home, sliding it ceremoniously within the sheath with a click when the hilt rested flat against it. With his hand resting on the hilt of his sword, he bowed, not to the malignant creatures before him, but to the ancestors that stood with him now, those who would guide his body in the greatest battle of his life.
Shinobu lowered his stance, fingering the hilt of his weapon his right shoulder. “I’m ready for a vacation,” he said.
“And you will have that vacation no matter the outcome,” Kita answered. “The length of your vacation, however, will depend on who wins the fight.”
“All are one in the same to me,” the strider replied. “Perish now or perish later, it makes little difference.”
“Then remember the purpose of this fight and perish another day,” Kita said.
“So solemn,” Shinobu replied.
The four warriors stood in the midst of a small army of Quentranzi demons, many of which were closing in on them, while others made their way toward the tower. To Kenyatta, they looked like an army of demented berserkers, clawing and hacking everything in their paths.
“Primal bloodlust!” Shinobu said dryly. “My favorite kind of foe.”
“Then I’ll leave more of them for you to deal with,” Kita said. “We should try to stay together as long as possible,” he added. “We’ll know who’s at our back.”
“Good theory,” Shinobu replied. “But I don’t think we’ll be able to hold this position much longer.”
The other three warriors followed Shinobu’s gaze above their heads to see one of the fiends descending on them. They held their position, and as soon as the demon’s first foot touched the ground, all four of the warriors spun, cut it to pieces, and returned to their original positions. In the middle of their formation, the demon evaporated to a sickly mist that descended back to the abyss.
And then the battle began anew, the four warriors along with the guardian, his pupil, and the few remaining magical defenders, battling the fiercest enemies they ever knew existed. Iel and his student were severely outnumbered, but managed to keep an efficient defensive position.
After what seemed like days, the defenders managed to gain the advantage, cutting through the demon forces and gradually pushing them back. Such progress was not without cost, however. Kenyatta had sustained a nasty rip at his shoulder, which bled freely and slowed the use of his right arm. Kenjiro ignored the pain of a gash he sustained from a narrowly avoided stab at his heart. Kita managed to defeat two of his enemies, only to be attacked by another, while the strider—who fared the best of all at the moment—cut through his enemies with that otherworldly sword of his.
“After this is done, I would really like to know why you’re so good at this,” Kita remarked between breaths.
No response was forthcoming, however, as Shinobu had been forced away from the group by a bigger threat. Two red dimensional gates appeared in front of the strider, causing him to dive to the side. He was quick to his feet, and spun to face two Zzrt hissing and growling as they slowly crept toward him, tongues waving and red eyes glowing. “You guys look a little tougher than the others,” Shinobu said as he backed away from the hulking creatures.
More dimensional doors continued to appear, and Quentranzi demons of all types covered the battleground. “There are too many,” Iel said. “We must retreat within the tower, now!”
Mira skittered backwards and narrowly avoided a slashing claw that would have cut her in half. She threw a handful of pebbles at the beast, focusing on the harmless missiles until they elongated into spears. They struck home in the demon’s chest, and she channeled energy from the Takashaniel that sent the fiend writhing and crashing into the wall of the tower. It shrieked in sudden agony as the pureness of Takashaniel ripped the life force from it, and sent it screaming back to the abyss.
The pupil spun in the direction of a bellow that sounded like a war cry. She looked to eastern hills and saw a large figure, half horse, half humanoid, standing on its h
ind legs and holding a huge war hammer with a spike on each end, high above its head. It raced down the hill, and behind it came raced a force of howling half-horse, half-men, holding their weapons aloft. A pained smile of relief crept across Mira’s face. “Master Iel!” she cried. “The centaurs have come. The real centaurs!”
“Not just them,” Iel said, still battling the last of a group of demons that had ventured their way. Mira turned to the charging figures once more. After studying them closer, she noticed that they bore passengers. Small passengers.
“The brunts!” she exclaimed. “They’ve brought the brunts with them!”
“Indeed,” Iel said, moving beside her after dispatching the lesser demons back to the abyss. “Let’s hope it will be enough.
* * *
The mighty centaurs and their unlikely passengers flew down the hill and across the battlefield, hooting and roaring as they closed the distance between themselves and their prey. On Grimhammer’s back rode Grit, the leader of the brunts.
“Now this is a fight, eh horse-man?” Grit shouted.
“Don’t call me ‘horse-man,’” Grimhammer snapped.
“Err yer never did have a humor about yer did yer, horse-ma … uh, centaur,” Grit teased. “Now, yer get me close enough to one a them err stinkin’ quen-thingies and I’ll be doin’ me stuff!”
The centaurs and their eager riders cut straight demonic mass. As they passed, the brunts launched themselves from the backs of their carriers and hacked into the demon forces with the same bloodlust as their enemies. Now relieved of their riders, the centaurs sped through the battle and out of the other side. Grimhammer led a group to circle to the left, while Warsong led a group to the right. Once on opposite sides of the horde, they began working their way back in, hacking and slashing every fiend in their path.
“This is not going to work,” Warsong yelled. “They do not fall to our weapons!”
“Without the right weapons to fight these things, we cannot win!” another centaur yelled. True enough, a strong blow managed to stagger some of the smaller demons, but had little effect on the larger ones. A pained grunt drew Warsong’s attention, and he turned to see that one of the smaller centaurs had been lashed by the whip of a green-skinned demon.
Echoes of a Shattered Age Page 35