Bodies swung slowly from the tree in front of me, as a wind passed through the village. Each with a wooden placard that spelled out a crime.
“Traitor.”
“Murderer”
“Communist”
I was frozen in fear, as the scent of death wafted into my nose, an acute awareness of more bodies besides the ones I was staring at. I had known these people, grew up around them, spoken to them. But now, they were gone.
It took everything I had in me to look away, towards the rest of the town, the village I’d grown up in.
Buildings were littered with damage, some from bullets, some from having their doors kicked in. The signs of life I could still see were people cowering, deep within their homes, sticking together in the darkness.
In the distance, I could hear people laughing, moving about in large groups. Large group, more accurately, because I knew exactly who it was. If I could, I would run, bolt, either towards or away, but I remained at a slow and dejected shuffle.
The sound of a low cough rang out through the area, which set of a symphony of several more. The people forced to cower in their homes were sick too. I couldn’t forget that. Water and food littered with taint the crowd ahead had brought me.
I shouted something, there in the street. Names. Mom. Dad. Gloria.
No one responded, but the loud noise had stopped ever slightly. They would come towards me, I knew, and even as my younger self, maybe thirteen, I realized the folly of trying to call for help. I hurried into a nearby house, and regretted it.
The small of death was even stronger in here. I shut the door behind myself all the same, leaning up against it in a sitting position to stay out of sight of the windows, as I heard the sound of apart of the group moving down the street, maybe four or five. One of them cast a shadow in the window for the briefest moment, and it felt like my heart stopped.
Eventually, though, they moved on. Down the street. Towards the tree. Past it, after a moment, they seemed to linger just beyond it. Far enough away that I felt comfortable to move, I crawled under the window. One of the wretched smells I was able to take in was the rotten food on the table, left out for a meal that was never finished.
It took me a moment, looking around the house, to remember who had once lived here. I stood up once I had crawled into a side room, a bedroom. I recognized a few of the pieces of artwork, and the general style of decoration. This was the home of some of my neighbors. One of them was hanging from the tree now, under the title “Murderer”. Gloria had said they had broken in the door, and grabbed both him and his wife. He had managed to shoot one of the soldiers dead. They beat him senseless, kept him for days, then when they had gotten the other two, hung him from the tree. His wife was taken off somewhere else. Wherever they took the others they captured.
A horrible realization came through me, then and now. That they had an baby, just a few months ago. That realization, combined with where the smell was coming from, caused me to retch onto the floor. I could feel tears coming to my eyes, as I silently and precariously sobbed, staggering back to lean against the wall again, the smell and sensation being sickening to all of my senses. I felt delirious, but not enough to miss the speech being shouted outside the house.
Spanish, loud and almost guttural. I knew most of it, from the people who were from outside of the town.
“We have rebels moving in soon, too many for our group to handle. We’re moving out, and making sure they can’t use anything here. Grab some flares, we’re burning the place.”
Sounds of confirmation from the group near the tree, as they hurried back the way they came. I peaked out the window. I could already see the flames licking the top of some of the outskirts buildings, and my heart sank even further, the delirium growing greater, when I realized that was the area where I had lived.
I burst out the front door, causing the soldiers at the end of the streets to turn. A crack of a gunshot that went over my head, as I ran across the street, around the bend, and began sprinting towards the flames. I had been looking for Gloria, ever since the soldiers had occupied the part of town where she was. Gloria had done the same, and my parents had also split off to look for her. If they had found her, and gone home-
I knew the route to take, to get there quickly. I simply hoped I wasn’t too late. Around the side of the town, the opposite of the one I’d used to get there. Outside of the confines of the streets, where the soldiers surely wouldn’t go, through apart of the thicket where I knew I could hide and move on my arms and legs.
I stopped dead in the street, when I saw the sight. I skidded to a stop, to avoid an obstacle that most certainly hadn’t been there before, but fifty feet from the edges of the town.
A massive pit had been dug, and recently too, given the shovels abandoned and stuck into the earth nearby. It was half filled in, dirt piled amongst it’s other occupants. Within it, was a nauseating sight. Bodies, piled high, at least twenty or thirty, haphazardly strewn on top of each other. The smell of death further filled my nostrils, along with blood, fecal matter, and mud. For the second time in an hour, I vomited. I was lucky that whoever had been digging this pit had gone off to burn the town.
I stared, seeing faces I recognized. Including one that made me go completely cold.
I knew my father’s eyes anywhere. Only the right side of his face was visible, buried under someone whose head looked like it had been bashed in. His eye was still open, and a pair of bloody holes were ripped in his shoulder and cheek.
I don’t know how long I stood there screaming, crying, shaking, sobbing. But I saw them coming not long after, shouting something towards me which I wasn’t possibly able to hear.
I bolted. Ran as fast as my legs could carry me, crying until I didn’t have any more tears to shed.
I woke up sleeping on cold stone, not that it bothered me anymore. A familiar nightmare shook from my head, as I sat up, the faint phantom of a headache in the back of my mind as I did. Getting to my feet, I stretched-my entire body simply feeling better then it normally did. I normally awoke feeling vaguely sick, but today, I was at the top of the world. I felt stronger, in more ways then one.
Last night, we’d spoken to Julian about the god’s offer, and his intentions. It had taken some convincing, but after giving him a demonstration of the bit of power I’d already gained as champion, and proposing what we knew about the necklace, he agreed to at least give it a try. Last night, everyone besides us, including him, had taken a drink from the urn. Those who didn’t agree, got ordered to. We’d need everyone with this kind of power for the fight ahead. The blood from the urn wouldn’t do much, but it would let someone take a bullet and keep going, which wasn’t something we were going to lose out on.
We’d also taken the night to split off, and work on what we’d been given. The remaining necklace squares had been split up. Dominic, Armadillo, Colel, Crocodile, Gala, Parrot, Andreas, Snake. They’d each gone off to do their first transformations, while Bianca and Otto moved to try and use them a bit more-with some guidance from our godly friend before they went.
Myself and him, for our part, studied through the night. He taught me how to reach for different powers. Flight, like it was nothing, a dozen spells in Chʼorti that I was only half sure how to use, and how to control my own strength. Things that felt like they should have taken years to learn, mastered in a single night. Not that I was complaining. The god was a good teacher, it seemed.
It hadn’t even left me tired, only getting about four hours of sleep. I looked to the sky, and saw that the sun had likely just risen. Shaking my head slowly, I moved to look out at the camp at large. The urn was being passed around, for second doses. To hopefully layer in the blood for a better effect, according to our benefactor.
But I wasn’t worried about that. Julian had described it as not being even bad tasting, so I was sure they would be fine…at least for the time being.
Besides, if the man who took me in trusted this plan, I could do the same. If he had said no to all of this, I probably would have listened.
For now, though, I needed to check in on the other six. I looked up, and saw the god floating above the camp, about fifty feet. Remembering I could do that too, I kicked off the ground a few inches. It was a freeing feeling, not being burdened by the ground-or anything else for that matter. I moved forward, at about the speed of a slight jog, towards the first of my now powerful friends.
First, was Dominic. I found him out of the camp a little ways, but ever since he and the others fully used his square, I’d found that I could pretty easily find them just by thinking about them-it was like a rope between us, that I could follow. Everyone else who’d consumed the blood was like it too, just to a lesser extent.
I found Dominic within a small segment of brush and stone, which seemed to have been at least in part, trampled or damaged, by something fairly large. There were also a variety of different footprints-ones smaller then him, his size, slightly bigger then his size, and much bigger then his size. He was currently sitting on top of a rock, sharpening a knife. I landed next to him, and he gave me a nod.
“How’d it go? I didn’t get a chance to check in, last night, when I was…” I was speaking Chʼorti, which Dominic thankfully seemed to understand, now.
“Fine. Experimented a little, even if I’m not sure it’ll matter, all considered.” He looked at the blade, as he responded in the language he didn’t know yesterday. He seemed satisfied with the state of it, and sheathed it.
“What did you find out?” I was curious, mostly because it didn’t seem like Otto had experimented much.
“I have three…stages, of transforming. One of them is just a normal Armadillo. Pretty standard stuff, except I’m an Armadillo that can think like a human. Would be good for an escape, though. The second one is bigger then me, basically half Armadillo, half human. Good armor, can move pretty fast, and I could life pretty heavy stuff. Finally, I could get…really big. Building size, but mostly animal at that point. I can still think, but it’s fuzzy.” He described each pretty simply, but I could tell he had more thoughts.
“That all sounds useful in some way. Is the last one small enough to fit down a city street?” I asked curiously. Dominic noted affirmatively, standing up to be in front of me now.
“…What if we used you as cover, when we launch the attack?” I proposed, the gears in my head already starting to turn.
Dominic seemed to ponder for a moment.
“I think that would work. It wouldn’t be too dangerous, I doubt a bullet could do much to me when I’m that big. The only issue is I’d need to time the transformation…and be mindful of this.” He raised up his arms, and I noticed something I hadn’t before. Each of them was covered in a leathery brown material, almost like the skin of an Armadillo. “It happened the first time I got big. It might get worse if I do it again.”
I looked at it…it didn’t seem to be hurting him, at least. And wasn’t all that bad, visually.
“Are you…ok with that? Because the big form might be the most useful.” I spoke slowly. Dominic, however, didn’t seem offended. He was a tough guy. He nodded.
“I think I can stomach it, if it means taking back the city. I used to live there, when I was born. We only moved to the countryside when my dad lost his job. They thought the city was dangerous anyways.”
I gave a solemn nod. I knew what had happened to them, he had told me. Another pair of bodies thrown in a pit.
“Then we’ll make sure you’re properly reintroduced.” I said with a resolute expression.
Dominic smiled a bit, and turned to walk back towards the camp.
“I’m going to go get some food. You do the rest of your rounds.”
He walked off, and so did I.
The next two I moved towards were Otto and Bianca. Whatever sense I had for them it told me the two were close together. And sure enough, moving towards one of the inclines surrounding the camp, I found the pair of them looking at the horizon, chatting idly in Chʼorti. I approached on foot this time, clearing my throat, and causing them to look over towards me. Bianca smiled wide, and Otto waved. I spoke first.
“You’re both doing alright?” I said, looking over them. I couldn’t help but notice the fangs in Bianca’s smile, or the black fur which cropped up around Otto’s collar. It had been there before, but it was a lot more prevalent now.
“Excellent, thank you-your tutelage went alright, Kinil?” Bianca said, taking a step towards me.
“It did. I think I know how to use most of what I’ve been given, now. Or at least I would hope. If not, I’ll learn it by using it.” I was trying to confident, but apparently I either sounded too confident, or not enough, because Otto let out a laugh.
“That’s exactly what I would expect you to try and do. You haven’t changed a bit without me around.” He chuckled, walking forward, and clapping me on the shoulder. He liked to take advantage of the fact that he’d ended up half a foot taller then me.
“Well, it’s hard to show much happier I was, since you’re back here now-“ I said, though also laughing. We both got a good laugh at each other for a moment, before settling back to business. Of course, in reality, I’d worried about him and Bianca the entire time they were gone. But it was better now, thankfully.
“We were discussing plans, by the way. For taking the city tomorrow.” The other thing we’d resolved, in our talk with Julian, was to attack soon. The sooner the better. We’d settled on the day after tomorrow, or, now, tomorrow. Less of a chance of the army learning about our new advantage and asking for more severe help. They’d surely come looking for whatever led to Ramiro Soto’s death, after all.
“Come up with any good ideas?” I said, asking curiously. I wanted to get impressions from all six of them, ideally.
“Our forms, while they can be larger, are best when they’re a little bigger then us currently. Maybe twice our size most, still capable of walking or running on two legs.” Bianca said, waving a hand to punctuate. “We think that we can clear alleyways and smaller streets pretty easily, with our speed. The idea hopefully being that we’ll clear out any ambushes before they can get sprung.”
“Plus” Otto added “I can shout loud enough to shatter glass. I can use that to potentially let you know where enemies are, from a pretty far distance.”
I nodded. All sound plans.
“If you get into trouble, though, you’ll probably be on your own.” I said, with a bit of worry clearly evident. Even more then the others, who were my comrades, these two were my friends. And with Gloria gone…they were probably the people I knew best.
“Don’t worry, we can handle ourselves. We’re mostly bulletproof.”
I gave him a look. Bianca lightly struck him on the arm. He sighed.
“Fine, fine, we’re bulletproof. All it does is sting, trust me. We can handle ourselves, here.” Otto reassured me, with confidence in his voice.
“Alright. Don’t die on me, though. We all need to talk some sense into Gloria, when all of this is done.”
“Agreed.” Said Bianca, to Otto’s nod.
“I’m going to go check on more of the others. I’ll see you two later, though.” I said, moving past them.
“Good luck-“ Said Bianca.
“Later-“ Said Otto.
Bianca’s farewell was slightly foreboding, as I headed to find Gala.
I found her on the other side of the camp. And unlike the others, she wasn’t human at the moment. She’d gone to the other side of the camp entirely, and had seemingly fully transformed, a few of our comrades nearby seemingly marveling at her.
She was easily the size of a building, green and white scales which seem to glisten gold in the sun dotting her entire body. She had four clawed limbs, and a mighty ridged tail, along with a relatively narrow snout, that had visible lower teeth even with the snout closed. Her eyes were closed, and she was seemingly basking in the sunlight calmly.
It was a bit terrifying, seeing a crocodile that big.
But the connection led me here, so it was definitely her. So I called out.
“Gala! Can we talk a little?”
Her eyes opened, looking over at me for a moment…before starting to shift back.
It was an odd thing, to see a creature twist and fold in on itself, and yet here I was, seeing it. With a grotesque crush of bone and scale, the creature rapidly reduced in size, soon forming into the familiar shape of Gala, clothing from before her transformation still intact. Atop her head, was the one change, a head ridge in the similar style to a crocodile. I elected not to point it out. The few spectator’s made themselves scarce at the first crunch, so it was just me and her alone, here.
Her hair was as frazzled as always, and her eye patch was hung slightly loose-though she seemingly felt it, and quickly moved to tighten it, her arm brushing over the ridge in the process. Pausing, before feeling up her head…
“…That’s new.” She commented in Spanish.
I shook my head slightly, before responding in the tongue she’d learned yesterday.
“Does it feel alright?” I said, avoiding sounding worried. None of the others had seem poorly effected by their changes.
“It doesn’t feel…bad. It just feels different.” She said, taking some pauses in between her words. Lowering her arms after a few moments.
“How’d your transformations go? Well, I hope? Did you work yourself up to turning that big, or did you do it right away?”
“Our friend said to start small, so I did. Though, small was about twice my size. I didn’t turn back after that, instead just focused on getting as big as I could. I eventually got about there before I couldn’t push any further. And it just felt so good to lay there…with two eyes.”
She sounded almost mesmerized by the thought, and I supposed I couldn’t blame her.
“…That’s good.”
“I thought it would be back when I turned back human. The anticipation was apart of why I stayed there…but I guess I can’t be that lucky.” A sad sounding laugh escaped her lips. I shook my head.
“I’m sorry to hear. Do you think you’ll be ready for tomorrow, when the time comes? And do you have any ideas about how your form could help?” I tried to steer back to business, because I was bad at this comfort stuff.
“Oh…I’m going to be honest, I don’t really have anything. Sorry.” She put a hand to the back of her head, awkwardly.
“No, it’s fine. Is it hard to think when you’re that big?” I said, going back to what Dominic had told me earlier.
She nodded.
“Right. So I think I might go with one of my other ideas, for you. Dominic’s form also gets that big. We were thinking about using you two as cover, down the bigger streets, so we don’t get ripped to shreds by bigger weapons.”
The inspiration passed through her in real time. She nodded!
“I can move a lot of stuff, like that. I could push some kind of wall forward, give us some real cover.”
That was…an interesting idea. “We’d just need to make the wall. But that could work.”
“Let me know if I can help…I think I need to go sit down though. I’m feeling a bit dizzy. Coming back to one eye is…odd.”
“Go do that, I need to go check on Andreas and Colel anyways.”
She waved, and went to go sit down. I took flight again, following the slightly distant trace of Colel.
I found her flying the skies. Her form was more of a hybrid, humanoid features mixed in with large talons, a massive colorful wingspan, feathers dotting her body, and clawed fingers. She had a sharp beak on her face, and it was hard to believe she was a parrot, as opposed to a particularly colorful owl.
She was mostly swirling through the sky, when I flew up to her. I made myself visible, and she flew around to be closer to me. She was able to speak through her beak.
“Do you need me for something?” She spoke curtly, and the slightly off tone of her hybrid form didn’t help.
“…No, I just wanted to check on you. You were pretty far from camp.”
“Well, I’m fine. How did you find me, anyways? I thought I left a pretty clean trail.”
I didn’t know how else to explain it, so I gave a simple answer.
“Intuition, I guess.”
“Right. Well, I’m fine, so, if you wouldn’t mind-” She gestured with one winged arm, with a pretty massive wingspan, keeping herself aloft, but doing a bit of an unintended twirl through the air via the gesture.
“…Before I do, I wanted to talk a bit of tactics. For tomorrow. What do you think you’ll be able to do?” It was a bit awkward, but I did want to know. Colel was a bit of a mystery to me anyways, so I wanted to see how’d she think.
“I can claw a man’s eyes out. Pick someone up, drop them. Bit of air support, all around.” She said this all flatly, like it was obvious.
“Right. You’ve…mastered flying, then?” I said, curiously.
“You managed it.” Was her unhelpful response.
“I-” I stopped myself from pushing further. “Come back to the camp in a few hours, I want to have a group meeting.” Was all I said, before turning to leave. I almost pushed further, tried to pry more…but I’d have plenty of time for that later. For now, it seemed she wanted to be alone. I headed to my final compatriot.
Andreas was in the brush a little ways, sitting by himself with his shirt off, lounging in a bit of sunlight which trickled through the leaves.
He heard my footsteps after I landed, though, and turned over to look at me with a smile on his face.
“Hey! You doing ok? Our divine friend not working you too hard?” He said, getting to his feet, reaching to pull his shirt back on.
I shook my head. “No, thankfully. But I’ve got a decent handle on being champion now. How about you? Snake form treating you ok?”
“Yeah, for the most part. Stopped messing with it after I started getting scales-“ He said, turning around, showing off indeed, scales, which led up most of his lower back, and dotted his neck. “Turning into a big snake is like that, I guess. Could also turn into a smaller one.”
“…Not hurting you, right?” I said, brow furrowed in concern.
“No, but I took that as a sign to lay off. Relax a bit. A lot less worried about getting jumped by a jaguar now, at least.”
…Fair enough, I supposed. “You going to be ready for tomorrow? Do you have any idea what sort of role you think you could do, with these?”
He nodded, putting a hand to his chin in thought.
“I could get behind enemies, in the smaller form, then turn big, and rip them apart. Or poison them, my fangs carry that too. Honestly, I could just stay in the smaller form, and wreck havoc that way.”
That was…a pretty good idea, actually.
“That could definitely help. We have Bianca and Otto scouting for ambushes, Gala and Dominic as our version of tanks, and Colel in the sky. Someone behind their lines would definitely be really useful. Good idea.” I said, giving him a nod and a smile.
“I try my best-” He said with a smirk. “Now you want to show me the way back? Pretty sure I’m lost.”
I sighed, but still smiling, turned to lead the way back.
We spent the rest of the day continuing to prepare, all grouping up later in the afternoon. Me, Julian, and the other six gathered near the center of the camp, as people passed around the urn for one final dose of blood. We were discussing plans, each going through what we had to offer.
We were starting to wrap things up, when we all saw the brilliant flash of light in our peripheral vision. Each turning around, and getting on guard to a peculiar sight.
Four people. One of them held a massive white gold hammer, with unnatural orange hair. She wore a casual outfit, and looked pretty nonchalant, though still somewhat serious. Another, brown hair, well tended to facial hair, with a massive pair of feathered wings jutting from his back. In his hand was a flaming silver sword, which was lowered.
The third was a woman in a wheelchair, with a resemblance to the one with the hammer. She had grey hair, relatively nice cloths and jewelry, and no weapons. A stern expression on her face.
The first three had pale to tan white skin, and looked incredibly out of place as they looked around-save for the one in the wheelchair, who seemed composed. Either way, they reeked of being outsiders. Americans or Europeans, no doubt. I scowled, as people around the camp scrambled to get weapons ready, and each of my six companions went on guard. Julian went for his gun.
That’s, however, when I saw the fourth.
Gloria glared at me, and I glared right back at my sister, speaking to her.
“Look who came crawling back. You sold out to the enemy, trying to get away from the big scary monsters?”
Gloria scowled, practically shouting her reply.
“No, I’m here to put a stop to the madness! You turned more of our friends into monsters, Kinil? Do you have any idea what you’re doing?”
I was about to retort, when the woman in the wheelchair spoke up. To my shock, she spoke perfect Chʼorti, which put me off guard slightly. It still held a European accent, of course, but the proficiency was shocking.
“Kinil Miranda, it’s a pleasure to meet you. My name is Ruby Horne, and I come in peace.”
She spoke in a measured, and calming tone. I’d been starting to get a spell ready in my head, but that preparation ceased. The others around me seemed to lower their guards slightly as well.
“As much as I’d like to walk over there and punch you” Gloria said, barely above a hiss.
“Are you really this mad? Over what, finally getting some payback? Or are these people like Soto, taking you hostage? To try and stop us?” I said, mostly towards Gloria, but still shooting a glare towards the others here. Crossing my arms. I was offended by her coming back here, showing her face with some strangers.
“I assure you, your sister is not my hostage. If I had it my way, she would have stayed home. But she wanted to see you. Talk some sense in to you. You know this isn’t right”
I squinted at her.
“Isn’t right? What do you know about what isn’t right for me and mine? For this country, for that matter? You’re just afraid of us finally having power. Everyone always is. It’s what started all of this, and unless we finally stop all of this suffering, it’s what will always happen here.”
The woman in the wheelchair seemed to give me a sympathetic look. And it wasn’t condescending, either. She seemed…sad. Under normal circumstances, it would have infuriated me.
“I know, desperate times call for these things. But surely you’ve had enough supernatural favors? You don’t even know why the forest bends to you, and you already beseech such things even further? I worry that you’ll destroy more then just your enemies with these abilities.”
“You’ve already turned them, and you’ve already tied yourself to something else. Don’t do more damage. I want to win just as much as you do, but if we slaughter them, how are we any better?” Gloria added, after her.
“I don’t care about being better. I-we won’t hurt anyone who doesn’t deserve it.”
Even still, her words did land. I didn’t really know what the god was…through all this. I really didn’t want to see anyone else close to me, or anyone else like me, suffer. A flicker of doubt went through me, as Bianca stepped forward, giving a fanged smile.
“Kinil, they don’t seem to be much harm. Let’s speak with them in the shelter, see if we can’t figure some things out.”
I nodded. Following her gaze to the shelter…when the shadow of the god began to lower.
He was right next to me, when he spoke, and pointed.
“You have been deceived.”
Was his simple words, as springing from his fingertip, a bolt of his black lightning.
It soared forward, into the brush, where it struck three creatures, which were once flying, where they could not be seen. Falling to the ground, struck dead by the god’s will.
And from then, the army of monsters appeared around our camp. I turned to the three stranger and Gloria, furious, shouting out, as I swiped my arm through the air.
“It’s a trap! Defend the camp!”
The strangers raised their weapons, people went for guns. But none moved faster then the one who we didn’t see.
A man in a nice suit, brandishing a knife, sliced Dominic’s throat before he could move, then stabbed through Gala’s chest. Both seemed to fall in slow motion, as I sprung forward. He turned his attention to me, moving forward.
Gunshot rang out, dozens of them, as the battle began in full.
The woman with the hammer charged forward, through the area where the man in the suit had just been, but she wasn’t able to reach me before Bianca lunged forward, already having assumed her full hybrid form, intercepting the hammer wielder. I took to the sky, following after the god, who had taken to overlooking the entire battlefield. I left the sounds of battle behind, faintly aware of the other six assuming their forms, and Gloria moving for cover, just after another flash of light occurred. Gloria was shooting at what were comrades a few days ago. They were lucky for the blood. It seemed to be working, the rest of the force was stronger, faster, and tougher.
I joined the god in the sky, looking to him.
“What’s going on? Who are they? What are they?” I asked my questions, rapid fire. I noted I was speaking no language in particular. Words were just flowing forth, and being understood. I wasn’t even sure they were leaving my mouth.
“I do not know who. But they are arcanites. They wield magic. The army is controlled by him.”
The god pointed down, towards a distant man on the back of a glowing horse. He was weaving through the fray, unimpeded. I was also able to get a decent look at some of the other creatures here. A mix between horse and eagle, wrecking havoc on the highest slope, a winged scaled creature which breathed fire, abominations of limbs, metal, and strange people who seemed slightly off.
It was disorienting, so I turned my gaze back to the god.
“I do not know how they masked their approach. I barely caught it in time. We must kill the leader, if we are to survive.”
I nodded, and began casting one of the spells he’d given me-a destructive one, which would rain fire down. He held a hand to stop me.
“No. Not yet. He is protected. None of your people’s weapons have harmed him yet.”
That was a good catch. He was riding on a glowing horse, and he hadn’t been shot yet? Something odd was at play.
I noted another figure on horseback, though. A little ways away from the other, his head seemed to just be a skull. He didn’t seem to be doing anything but observing, however before I could watch him more, I heard Otto scream. Looking over, I saw the winged man go careening towards Colel. The hammer user was still facing Bianca, with Andreas and Gala on the way. Things were going well, there.
That was, however, when I saw the object go flying through the air, pale and white, flung from seemingly the grasp of the man with the skull. It flew through the air…and struck Gala. Seemingly to little effect, however, that was when I heard the voice.
Loud, catching over the sounds of battle. Coming from the other man on horseback, the one the god had called the leader.
I recognized English, but couldn’t speak much of it like Gloria could. He was chanting, though. A severed arm hovered in the air near him, held a golden scroll, with symbols I recognized from art pieces in my village on it. In his hand, he held a long wooden stick, and in the other, a metal cube.
I was about to lunge, do something, when a swarm of those severed limbs appeared around me and the god, pinning us down a moment too long, as the chant continued.
The fight was desperate. The swarm reached, tried to choke, claw, kick, punch, and a few things like mouths even tried to bite. I swiped, and would crush some with my incredible strength, only for two more to take their place. I looked over towards the god, sometimes, through the fray. The limbs had left him alone. As he was floating, completely still, looking in the direction of the chant I still heard.
It was in the middle of all of this, however, that I felt something that brought a long gone pain back into me.
I felt my awareness of Colel completely vanish. I had been hearing the muted sounds of something moving around, big, and crushing things, but I’d assumed it was Dominic moving through the enemy.
Panic built in me within an instant, as I quickly began swiping, kicking, ripping through the swarm with renewed fervor, trying not to let myself jump to any conclusions. Maybe one of the arcanites had messed with our connection, maybe-
I heard the chant cease, just as I burst through the swarm, looking around frantically. The god was in motion, moving towards a scene.
Gala was in the middle of devouring two of our allies, with primal fury. Otto was going tumbling down the mountainside, barely catching himself. Andreas was fighting just below the cliff with the strange feathered horse, trying to crush it. Bianca was engaged with the well dressed man, and had sustained a dozen or more cuts. Dominic was moving, quickly, to try and move over to Gala.
And Colel…
I saw the traces of her feathers. And the blood and flesh stain she’d left on the rocks. Pulverized. It had to have been Gala. But…why? The fury roared through me. They did something to her. And they were going to pay. Just like everyone else.
The god was moving to intercept. I trusted he’d handle it. He had to handle it.
I turned my attention down, instead, and saw why the chant had stopped. The man who’d been sustaining it was no longer on horseback, and had been sent sprawling along the rocks. He was bleeding heavily, and the things he’d been holding were scattered. A bit more shadow then there should be lingered, there.
The winged man and the hammer wielder were advancing on him. Betrayal in their ranks? I could use that, I reasoned, through my fury. They were flanked by a pair of strange stone statues, massive, animate, with emerald eyes.
I didn’t contemplate for a moment longer. I’d deal with the people standing first. I dove, manifesting a spell I’d been taught with a brief chant, forming a pair of weapons in my hand. A hefty wooden club with obsidian blades, and a shorter obsidian blade. In my off hand, I summoned forth a burst of deathly lightning from the weapon point, firing it towards the hammer user, who deflected it off her weapon. I landed in front of her, and lunged, being blocked with my secondary weapon, allowing me to connect with my second. The maneuver, tactically and skillfully brilliant, came to me as if I’d practiced my whole life. And it left her with a bloody cheek, and an angry expression. The winged man moved for me, slicing forward with his own blade, only for me to parry easily, and move into a lunge, which he dodged, and had the other woman follow up. Her blow connected, and I skidded back a step…but barely budged. It should have dealt a lot more damage, but I was still standing.
Undeterred, the two statues leaped for me. I used another spell, striking both weapons together in a shower of sparks. A column of orange crimson flame roared outwards, forcing the statues, and the two warriors back, and vaporizing about a dozen of the monster army in the way. I punctuated, swinging and crushing the leg of one statue, and lunging with my shortblade towards the hammer user, getting her in the shoulder. The wounds I was inflicting were bleeding a lot more then they should, and she was staggered. Using my momentum, I swung my club around, but the other statue tripped me up with a lunge.
As I was recovering, the hammer user backed off, and the winged one dove, striking me in the face with a kick.
I blinked, and just saw white. A faint gold in my peripheral. For several long seconds, I just saw nothing but those two things, and faint shapes moving just out of sight. I was about to panic again, when I reappeared. The hammer user looked better, as she held a hand to her chest, wounds mending by the second. The injured statue had stuck it’s leg back on, and both stood waiting to trip me up as I got my bearings again. Giving the winged one an opening to grab me by the shirt, and pull me into the air.
I wasn’t the only one. I looked over, and saw the god having lifted Gala’s massive form into the air. For a moment, it looked as if he was just holding her back. When I saw her starting to bleed from the eyes, and between the scales. What-
The blow to the head forced me to turn back. The winged one bashed me in the skull with his sword hilt. I, frustrated, dropped both my weapons, and headbutted him, sending him off of me.
He righted himself, as I channeled another bit of magic, green tendrils of light weaving through the air, as I lowered myself closer to the ground, intent on using some of it on the hammer user.
…Who was running away? And the winged one, though still on guard, was backing off, shouting something at me in Spanish.
“Behind you!”
I hadn’t noticed that the area around me had gotten darker. And in the same way, I didn’t feel the silver blade pierce my chest.
Kindling And Miscellany 