The Heir of Ænæria

by Thom L Matthews

  “Do not address me, filth. I put up with your little leaders because they make my job easier. Acting as your god makes my time on this broken planet less dull. Only this half-breed here has any right to speak with me since he shares some blood with me.”

  Ben’s heart skipped. His breath was still, and his belly lurched with gross anticipation. “You’re an Enochian.” He should have put it together sooner. He lived inside the Vault and called Ben a half-breed. His inhuman appearance had thrown Ben off. Enochians looked nearly human. Could they change shape? Was his mother really one of these things?

  His friends gasped. Skalle looked at Ben with shock.

  “Of course, I am. And you’re a half-breed. Your kind should not exist. I do not know how Erma-Jinn spawned you. Alas, that is not my place. The Na Oiad are dealing with her. Just as I will succeed where Dol-F’raa has so often failed. This will be over quickly.” Tatanka flew from his platform and landed on the floor just a few feet from Ben and his friends.

  Ben clenched his fist and gritted his teeth. His vision went from scarlet to blood red. At his top speed, Ben zipped ahead to intercept the Enochian. A kick in the leg, a punch in the chest, a headbutt to the jaw. Move in quick and then run back out. That was the plan. As soon as he was close enough to sweep his leg, the Enochian jumped out of the way and disappeared.

  A sudden sharp back in his lower back. The Enochian was behind him. Wham! Whack! Two more strikes to his back. He flew forward, crashing into the wall.

  Tatanka jerked back and flashed to the outside of the chamber and slammed a bony fist at Skalle, throwing him back against the ground and breaking the nearby tables and electronic contraptions.

  Darius slashed Legate’s Bane at Tatanka. The bright orange blade scrapped right off the Enochian’s skeletal frame.

  Mandi fired off the pistol—perfect shots right to Tatanka’s forehead with deafening blasts in the enclosed chamber—but the bullets flattened and clattered to the ground.

  Liv ignited the tips of her arrows from Darius’s burning sword. She volleyed off arrow after arrow, failing even more spectacularly than Mandi’s bullets. The first two bounced off his chest and the third he caught and snapped in half with echoing laughter.

  Draka and scouts stood as if frozen. Gus stood behind with Liv and Mandi with his sword raised to defend them.

  “Get in there and help!” Gus yelled to the scouts.

  “He is Tatanka,” Draka said with a nervous tremble to her voice. “Wrong to do such a thing.”

  “Didn’t you see what he just did to Skalle?” There was bitter anger in Gus’s voice.

  Within an instant, Tatanka was back and grabbed Ben by the neck. The Enochian’s hands felt like icy steel. He wouldn’t try to choke Ben. This monster was stronger than any force Ben had ever known. It would snap his neck with as much ease as the arrow he’d caught. Ben still had two good legs. This is what they had healed for.

  He forced all his power into his right leg and kicked with all his might. A resounding boom, and the Enochian shot across the room like a bullet. Ben’s knee buckled as he tried to stand back up. Crackling pain clambered up his leg and into his hips.

  Away, go away! Ben urged the pain to disappear. His vision blurred redder and darker. No time to worry about control. All was lost if he didn’t act now.

  Tatanka recovered from the crash unscathed. He retrieved something from his side, something that looked like a gun with a needle and a translucent bulb at the top that seemed to bubble.

  He zoomed over to his nearest target, Skalle, who had still been recovering from being thrown across the room. Skalle swung his broadsword across, shattering the blade the moment it made contact with Tatanka’s body. The Enochian swatted the broken sword out of Skalle’s hand and reached for his neck. Skalle uttered silent screams as Tatanka’s iron grip clenched at his throat. Then Tatanka lifted the device and stuck its needle into Skalle’s heart. He let go and Skalle dropped to the floor motionless.

  Mandi shot off another few rounds of her pistol, each one firing true and landing as uselessly as the first. Gus sprinted forward and slid across the floor, sweeping the Enochian’s legs out from under him with his sword. Tatanka tumbled backward. Sierra lunged at him in midair, clenching her jaws around his head.

  The Enochian yelled, his furious scream ringing throughout the entire Vault. He clapped his hands forward as if trying to catch himself from falling. They grasped right onto Sierra’s head. Ben screamed with fury at the sight of her skull being smashed to pieces by the angry Enochian’s grip.

  The fragments of her head and body lay motionless against the ground. Ben had watched his companion survive flurries of bullets and storms of arrows, coming away from each unscathed. He’d taken her for granted since learning the truth of the wolf, but he never truly believed Mimir when he’d told Ben she was not alive. Sierra had a personality, loyalty too. She had been with Ben through all the trials and tribulations, growing right alongside him.

  And Tatanka had killed her.

  Ben bolted ahead and slammed into Tatanka. As their bodies hit, Ben saw cracks in the Enochian’s face where Sierra had bitten him. Cracks that went deep and fissured in disorganized zigzags. Blood didn’t pour forth from them. That didn’t make sense. Ben knew for a fact that Enochians bled. They had to in order to get into Vaults.

  Fighting the Enochian was far more difficult than his training had let on. Those holograms had needed weapons to pose any challenge to Ben. This Enochian was different. He didn’t look like his mother or the hologram with the red Voidsweeper. He also didn’t need weapons more powerful than his fists to unleash devastation.

  Liv screamed with horror. Ben glanced over as he saw Skalle get back to his feet. His eyes were all black, pupils dilated with blood lust. Just like with the ferals. Ben thought back to what Skalle had told Ben about Gal when Tatanka had changed him. Whatever had been in the syringe had called upon the same change in Skalle, awakening the dormant madness inside the Orks.

  Skalle wasn’t like the other ferals, and his change was far quicker than Gal’s, which had taken years. The other ferals were gaunt and skinny ghoulish creatures. Skalle was an impressive seven-foot tall beast with massive arms. He didn’t pick up a weapon and instead lunged at Liv. Her hands trembled as she tried to grab her next arrow to fire at Skalle.

  Darius yelled for Skalle’s attention, not realizing the change he’d undergone. Skalle shifted his attention to Darius and pushed Liv out of his way. Darius cursed and slashed Legate’s Bane forth at Skalle.

  There was a loud and guttural yell. Draka fired her rifle at the Enochian, and the other scouts rushed forward with their swords and spears. The change in Skalle must have been enough for them to realize that Tatanka was indeed their enemy. A few bullets landed against Tatanka’s chest and flattened much the same as Mandi’s bullets. Another landed against the skeletal face near Mandi’s shots. The Enochian jolted back as if stunned and brought his dark, bony hand to his head to inspect the damage.

  Darius and the scouts slashed and stabbed at the stunned foe, focusing on the damaged points caused by Sierra and Ben’s attacks.

  Tatanka let out a horrid scream. The others all paused and covered their ears. The enemy clapped his hands together and blew back Darius, Draka, and the scouts.

  The Enochian leapt off the ground and landed on one of the scouts’ chest. The scout’s last breath was an eruption of blood through his lips.

  Tatanka lifted the dead man’s spear and threw it through the air like a shooting arrow that sprouted through the back of another scout’s neck.

  Ben pressed his legs hard against the floor and vaulted across the chamber, landing next to the enemy. Ben slammed an energized fist against the Enochian’s flank. Tatanka countered with a slam to the gut. They continued trading blows, leaping up and down throughout the chamber room. He punched Ben in the chest, knocking all the wind from his lungs. Ben landed on his back onto the hard ground next to Gus who had been helping Liv off her feet
while Mandi and Darius defended them from Skalle.

  Mandi’s final bullets landed in Skalle’s chest. He wailed in agony but still hadn’t slowed. Skalle pressed forward at her, and his arms extended outward to grab her. Darius swept down and severed his right hand. Skalle screamed and landed a heavy punch into Darius’s gut.

  Tatanka landed next to Ben and kicked him in the flank, launching him across the room and through the sliding glass door into the corridor. Ben slid against the hard, tiled floor. He groaned and writhed around as the agony overtook him. He demanded his body to fight off the pain, at least just enough to get him off the floor. As he did so, his vision went almost completely red.

  It became harder and harder to control his thoughts. His reasons for being here started to slip away.

  Protect them. Keep them safe. He focused on those words, repeating them again and again in his mind.

  To his right, something glowed and caught his eye. The color had been faded through the lens of Ben’s vision, but he knew it to be a deep blue. The healing bath they’d passed on the way into the Vault. Ben pushed against the door, accidentally fracturing the frame with the strength flowing through his body. The water beckoned him like a beacon of raw energy. There were wounds all over his body that needed healing. Torn ligaments and muscles, fractures large and small, lacerations aplenty. He didn’t think about healing himself, hardly even focused on the toll these fights had placed on his body. Protect them. Keep them safe. He thought only about defeating Tatanka. About victory. He drew the dormant Voidsweeper from his side and dipped it into the glowing blue water. Suddenly the bath bubbled to a boil and steam billowed out, filling the room. He drew the sword from the water, and it shined once again with the shape of a fully formed blade and fiery aura. The bath went dim, the glow seemingly boiled out of the water.

  He returned to the middle chamber and found Skalle’s still body belly up on the ground. Ben saw no breaths, and with his heightened senses, he heard no heartbeat. Mandi sat on the floor, leaning against a wall, holding her leg and moaning. Bone protruded from the lower extremity, and blood spilled like a river down her shin. Gus sat by her side, trying to stabilize the wound. Blood splashed all across his hands and chest, and his hands shook as he worked. Above both of them, Liv and a scout stood, holding a spear and sword in a futile hope to protect themselves.

  Draka and the remaining Orks all lay scattered throughout the chamber, sprawled out and still. Ben thought he saw one of them move a little, but it could have been an after-death reflex as easily as weakened signs of life.

  Ben shifted his gaze to Tatanka, who was walking up to Darius. A few arrows had actually managed to stick out from the Enochian’s red and black skeletal body. His ribs were cracked and splintered.

  Darius slashed Legate’s Bane at Tatanka, trying to keep him away from the others still standing. There was hardly any glow left to the sword. He parried a blow from the Enochian and squeezed out the remaining fire from his sword. The Enochian’s face backed away from the fire just a hair. Just as the sword’s last flashes of light dissipated, Tatanka closed in and grabbed the sword mid-strike and broke the blade in half.

  Darius already had a look of terror in his eyes from the moment he confronted the Enochian. It melted to shock and confusion as Tatanka palmed the broken blade and thrust it into Darius’s chest. Darius coughed, blood bursting from his lips as he fell to the ground.

  Ben wailed like a howling wolf and rushed across the floor to meet Tatanka. The Enochian held up a hand to block Ben’s punch but found the shining might of the Voidsweeper. Ben slashed upwards at his enemy’s hand and a deafening blast filled the room. The Enochian’s bony hand burst into pieces, debris cluttering to the ground.

  Except he still had a hand. One that was covered in golden flesh. Ben looked up again at the fissures in the Enochian’s face and realized it wasn’t his face at all. No wonder Tatanka hadn’t bled. This wasn’t his body. It was just armor.

  He slashed horizontally, aiming for the Enochian’s unguarded belly. Tatanka jumped out of the way but was instead met with an arc of fiery energy flying from the swing of Ben’s sword.

  Tatanka tumbled backward. He didn’t recover as quickly as before when Ben had thrown him across the room. In that time, Ben paused and looked at Darius. His powers were so overwhelming that he could hardly concentrate enough to speak to his friend. More rage bellowed within Ben as he chided himself for not being able to act as any lasting comfort to his dying friend.

  Movement across the chamber. Ben looked up and saw that Tatanka had moved. The Enochian had noticed Ben’s pause at watching his friend die. Another low laugh echoed through the Enochian’s helm. He zipped along the walls toward Liv. She yelled with fury as she raised a sword to defend herself. He effortlessly dodged the swing and slid from behind her. He kicked her in the small of the back, sending her tumbling across the chamber and landing into another pile of broken debris.

  A scout hollered and thrust his spear forward. Tatanka groaned and backhanded the weapon out of the way and slammed his skeletal helm against the man’s head. The scout dropped to the ground and lay motionless.

  Ben ran forward after Tatanka but wasn’t fast enough. Gus pulled a dagger from Mandi’s side and thrust it forward, jamming it right where one of the arrows had stuck into the armor. Tatanka screamed and it felt as though the whole chamber shook. As he had with Liv, the Enochian thrust Gus away and launched him into the far wall. Ben was only feet away when Tatanka picked Mandi up by the throat. She kicked at him even with the open fracture in her left leg, the ferocity within her never leaving until her last moments as Tatanka placed his wounded hand on top of her heard and twisted her neck with a snap.

  She landed next to the fallen scout and lay just as still.

  Scraps of black and red metal flung this way and that in a cloud of debris. The Enochian’s chest plate of armored ribs and muscle shattered with a smashing blow from Ben’s left fist. His vision was coated in blood, and everything was tainted with a red hue. Mind numb, Ben didn’t mourn the deaths of Mandi and Darius. He felt nothing but rage boiling in his blood and exploding with each blow to the Enochian’s armored skeletal body.

  Tatanka threw a left hook and landed it on Ben’s empty eye socket. Despite the lack of pain, Ben could still feel the crushing bone where his right eye once resided. He returned the blow with a feigned roundhouse kick. Tatanka swatted away the attack like a petty gnat, falling for the bait.

  While midair, Ben spun around and slashed the Voidsweeper at Tatanka’s skull helm. It shattered with the impact of the weapon’s strike. Shards splattered from the hit and flung about in each direction, many finding their way into Ben’s hand and arm like shrapnel from an explosion.

  Steaming scarlet speckles dotted the hard floor. Ben’s eye hovered back to Tatanka’s face and saw a weeping gash stretching down his brow to his chin. There was that Enochian blood.

  Half of the helmet had broken off, the remaining covering from ear to nose and ending in a jagged schism. The mask of his helmet had fragmented, revealing parts of his true face. Square jaw and high prominent cheekbones. His bright golden skin was blemished with quickly healing bruises and lacerations; only the gash from the Voidsweeper remained unchanged. His scintillating eyes were such a dark shade of blue that they appeared almost purple and glowed with the luminescence of the Vault’s mandala.

  The Enochian’s expression was almost neutral, but a twitch of the eyelid betrayed his hidden frustration. He drew his hands together in a thunderclap that must’ve been a hundred times more powerful than Ben’s own.

  In an instant, Ben held up the Voidsweeper which glowed brighter than ever as it parted through the shockwave like a blade through water. Even still, it was like a hurricane blasting against Ben, pushing him back by the sheer force.

  When the blast was through, Ben wasted no time. At full speed, snapping bones and ligaments in his knees and feet, he launched himself forward with the blinding light of the Voidsweeper
. He moved faster than ever before, sending a blast of wind in his wake nearly as powerful as Tatanka’s thunderclap.

  Tatanka did the same, catching up to Ben’s speed at a far quicker rate. He was at Ben in an instant, and his fist landed in Ben’s side, shattering bone after bone. And at that same time, the Voidsweeper, burning hot and bright, sunk deep into Tatanka’s exposed chest. The Enochian shrieked like a banshee, so loud that all the glass in the chamber shattered. Ben squeezed the Voidsweeper, feeling the shape of the coiled snake hilt press deep into his palm. The green aura grew harsher and harsher until suddenly shifting to a blue, cold like Tatanka’s eyes. At last, it turned a deep violet before the aura became nearly imperceptible.

  Suddenly, Ben and Tatanka both fell to the floor. All the red in his vision had gone away, and the pain of a dozen fractures and a score of other injuries flooded his body.

  A wave of emotions swept over him—the despair of losing Darius and Mandi. It couldn’t be real. Not after all they’d been through, all they had yet to do. He hadn’t had a chance to really say sorry. No time to help Darius find his family. He’d been like a brother to Ben, quickly becoming his closest friend. And Mandi, who had been like distant family through her relation to Kabedge, reunited after a lifetime. She never had the chance to grieve for her father’s death in Jordysc. Ben never had a chance to take her back to Sun Reach and help her achieve her dream of one day rebuilding it.

  The boiling rage had simmered but was not yet extinguished. He pressed on against the pain throughout his body. Everything hurt, like nails had been hammered into every pore over his body. He dragged himself over to Tatanka, elbow over elbow, knee sliding slowly one after the other. By the Enochian’s side, he found the Voidsweeper. Or what was left of it. The broken blade that had journeyed across the world with him was no more. All that remained of the Voidsweeper was the hilt, that silver snake with golden wings and crown. The emerald eyes and rubies inlaid in the crown were gone too, shattered to dust along the floor.