Death Blade - Part three

II. Section 2. Blood, Corruption And A Stranger.

I. Darkness:
The short man in the black robes stood on the ridge of the canyon around the research station and surveyed the desolate scene below. Ten thousand dead blade dragons, slaughtered by only one hundred human warriors.

“That could not have gone better my lord. It is all as you wished.”

"Good… Where is he Bicarno?” High lord Bicarno, that was the mans name, but now even hearing it spoken reminded him of the disjointed time before his enlightenment, he shuddered.

“Right here lord, Genesis they named him” As he spoke a figure that seemed to be cloaked in armour made of flickering red flame stepped out of the darkness, he was more than twice as tall as Bicarno.

"Is he strong?"

“Very much so my lord. He defeated my puppet.” He took a deep breath, certain this would give his master pleasure “His only equal is Casian, but he has one advantage over even him, he needs no trigger.” He said reverently.

"That is very good."

Pleasure burst inside Bicarno like a supernova and its fires tingled through his body.

"He will follow commands?"

“Yes lord, if it weren't for him, Linwe would be dead.”

"There is just one more thing you must do to him to convert him fully."

“I know.” Bicarno stood up to his full height, but he was still dwarfed by the menacing figure. “That which was born from the flames of ignorance, gifted with a seed of the great tree that is our lord Orageos, take up your true form as his child and become cloaked in his illustrious robes of darkness. Be reborn in a christening of blood. Kneel.” He drew a glittering black knife from his robes, lifted it high up and cried to the night “Exulted Lord Orageos, greater of the twin gods and rightful ruler of Tulandier and Tutauilung and all between and after them. Embody yourself in this blade and reunite yourself with your child.” A menacing tendril of darkness snaked down from the sky like an inquisitive serpent and was absorbed into the blade. Without hesitation he held out his left arm and slit his wrist open. Blood splashed over the head of Genesis and sprayed in a dark fountain that froze instantly into ruby red jewels.
Then he plunged the blade into Genesis’ heart and stood back, his job complete.
The knife became liquid and coated the creations whole body with unimaginably black and cold darkness that seemed to devour what light and warmth there was with a ravening ferocity.
“It is done, lord” his wound already healed “He is yours”

"Good. I have great things for you Bicarno."

Bicarno shivered with pleasure at praise from his master. Then Genesis spoke in an insanely deep and warped human voice:

“What is my bidding?”

"Go to Morthiot with Bicarno and meet your brother."
 
II. Sniper Larian:
A sharp whining filled the air as the transport disappeared from this universe and into the next, the world melting into darkness before Larians eyes as his consciousness faded with the light until he was alone in the darkness. Then the visions began.


It was raining delicately, he could hear the roar of energy weapons, the crackle of lasers the eerie whine of the alien weaponry and the shrieks of dying monsters. ”Davan!” Bellowed Casian “Get up!”

Larian realised what was happening and with all his willpower tried to avert it, but he couldn’t.

He opened his eyes and saw above him a vision of hell. Thousands of sharp jagged Iratui ships flitted across the sky like clumsy fish in a sea of blood, locked in a deadly dance of death with just a few hundred elegant Taui-Kun fighters. The sky was lit with flickering energy fire and burning globules of warped space-time.

Explosions from artillery were an almost constant thunder like background noise, Davans ears throbbed from it.

Davan, that had been his name before he joined the Taui-Kun.

He stood groggily to his quivering feet, surrounded by a towering squad of Taui-Kun, they seemed kilometres above him like archaic edifices filled with the supernatural power and glory of the ancients.

“Davan, the Iratui have began to retreat, we are going to pursue them, in Earth’s name they are not allowed to live. Can you walk?” He looked down and saw the grisly wound in his leg, an alien had shot him with one of their strange weapons, a chunk of his leg and been torn into separate quarks.

“I can make it” he grimaced and gritted his teeth against the hot tide of pain that now seemed to emerge, it was as if the wound hadn't existed before he had seen it. “Where are they heading?” he struggled past his lips and gasped at the new heights of pain he was subjected to. 

“Section BF28” Davans heart sank, that was the section he lived in. Where he’d left Elaine. “Lets go!” he screamed and ran as fast as he could, his leg sending jolts of pain, he gritted his teeth and tried in vain to stay with the Taui-Kun. All around him in the street were blasted chunks of rock and the massive foundations of towering skyscrapers like the feet of giants, anchored firmly to the ground, even amidst the chaos. He leapt over a lump of masonry and his leg throbbed angrily, causing him to grunt in pain.

He saw something out of the corner of his eye, he swung around and there, leaning out a heat warped Transparisteel window was an Iratui sniper, it glared at him with glowing eye slits and pointed its rifle at him, but Davan was faster. Without dropping pace He pulled out his laser gun and shot it in its oversized circular fanged mouth. It retched purplish blood before collapsing.

“You have a good eye Davan, perhaps when all this is over you will join us” Davan seriously considered that, it would be a new life, would give him a purpose, but he knew he’d never be able to leave Elaine.

“There they are!” a squad of the creatures were a few hundred metres ahead and had dug deep into positions “Death and glory!” roared Casian in a rising cry of blood fuelled tumultation. The Taui-kun split, as if a knife had been cut through their ranks. Half drew swords and began to charge while the rest raised their energy guns and fired a barrage of shots over their shoulders to keep the aliens heads down until they reached them. Davan raised his own gun to join in but Casian sensing that he had the courage to stay with them and fight turned and called out “Davan, we’ll deal with this, go, find your girl.” The dying sun behind him gave him a magnificent ethereal air and formed a bloodstained golden halo around his head as he raised his sword to him in a godlike salute.   

He scampered away as the shots began to crackle overhead and kicked down the door to his flat. A snarling monstrosity leapt towards him, he raised his gun, but it clicked empty. The alien clubbed him around the head with its weapon and Davan fell against the wall, half-stunned. The creature ecstatically raised the gun to his face, but Davan lashed out with his foot like a striking scorpion and caught it off balance, before it could scramble back up he snatched its gun and shot it in the head in a roar of dissipating atoms.

Someone screamed. Davan ran into the next room and found to his horror an alien on top of Elaine, gnawing greedily at her neck like a suckling child. He screamed in rage and shot the creature in the gut, it rolled off of Elaine and whined as the air escaped its lungs, twitching and writhing. He ran over to Elaine, but it was too late. Blood trickled from her still lips and her eyes stared lifelessly. Davan didn’t believe what was happening; it couldn’t be true, this wasn’t real, any minute now he would wake up, with her at his side. But he didn’t.

He bent down and kissed her lips, hoping to find some life, but they were as cold as starlight. Her blood tasted thick and rotten in his mouth. 

He saw her laughing face in his mind, but it was just an elaborate death mask now. She would never laugh, never love or cry anymore.

And what had been his last words to her? Don’t be afraid, ill be back for you. And now he was back and it was too late. Her soul had been torn from her body and cast among the lost and damned and he had never said goodbye.

Perhaps if you had been a few seconds sooner…

Perhaps if you had stayed with her…

He collapsed trembling and shivering, too shocked to realise the full horror of it. The blood drained from his face and his temple pulsed. Tears began to stream freely down his face, they scorched like acid. Half formed words quaked in his throat. Then the rage over took him and he stood up sharply and shot the mewling creature on the floor again and again and again, screaming and cursing with each shot until there was only a bloody sizzling pulp left. His strength left him and he collapsed as wave after wave of grief pummelled him, washing away his heart, his mind and his soul like tiny sandcastles underneath a towering tsunami.                                               


Again the air was filled with the sharp whining as the ship decelerated and fell back to the universe as we know it the same instant it left, but at the other side of the galaxy. This coupled with a sharp jerk woke Larian back to consciousness with a sigh of relief; he was back from the terror.

He was slumped on the floor in the corner of his quarters, his helmet still on as usual, but none of the rest of his armour; it was pointless keeping all of it on.
He looked around; it was the same as usual, except he was not alone. Lying peacefully on the bed at the other side of the room was the girl, Linwe. He had agreed to keep an eye on her until they could put her safely down on Earth.

He was startled by her beauty, and moved by it like he had not been for a long time.

“What are you staring at?” she smiled at him with a sweet little smile that spread no further than her mouth. She had been watching him also, through eyes opened the tinniest crack. Her voice sounded to him like the joyous singing of a Co-cui on a dusky Hiran morning.

“You remind me of someone.”

“Who?” she asked, sounding genuinely interested
Larian paused, before deciding there was no point in keeping it from her.
“My wife.”

“Married hmm? Guess I don’t have to keep such a watchful eye on you anymore.”

“She died twenty three years ago.” he said dully. His voice was like a sheaf, covering the cold sharp steel that lay beneath, preventing it from wounding others and himself. “Don’t fear me, human. I won’t attack you. Rest, you have much to sleep off.”

“I don’t think I can ever sleep off what happened.”

“Then we have one thing in common.” She looked as if she was going to ask something else, but then she rolled over with obvious discomfort, wincing as pressure was put onto her left arm.

Larian waited until sleep held her in its irresistible clutches and crept softly over to her sleek form. He listened to the sound of her breath as her lungs fed her dreams, such a gentle and soothing rhythm. He stiffened and grimaced as if a knife had been plunged into his gut. For a moment he was back on Hiran as the first rays of morning filtered through the pollutant laden air and danced on Elaines sleeping body, her smooth arms wrapped around him, creamy breasts pressed against his naked chest, long dark hair tickling the sensitive skin of his throat. Breathing in that same dreamy way.

He had lain there with her under that heavy, itchy blanket on a bed of Co-cui feathers that clumped together into little boulders of discomfort, revelling in the way her exhaled breath played across his face, how it caressed his skin like a warm hand. He could never know it was to be the last time he would do so.

Larian twinged uncomfortably. How alike they looked. Was it just his delusioned mind playing unkind tricks on him, or could she really have passed for Elaines long lost twin? Why was it she must continue to haunt him now after all these years? Why couldn’t his yearning mind let go? He was painfully aware of a deep abrasive longing in his chest that pained each softened breath. How he wanted the touch of a womans skin once more. How he wanted to have someone to hold close and share his love with, to stoke the dying coals of his heart. He wanted the impossible however. There was no love for the Taui-kun, only the comradeship of a unit and the brothel of carnage, death and blood that the mistress of war had to offer.
 
But was it impossible? Was it even so far away now?

He reached down to Linwe, towards her velvet skin, her firm, shapely breasts centimetres from his fingertips, an electric current seemed to arc through the empty air making his hand twitch.

He thumbed on the medi-ray concealed in his palm. Stimulating rays caressed Linwes body, encouraging damaged tissue to regrow. The burns that trickled down her back like hot wax healed almost instantly. She had hidden them well, but Taui-kun see in more ways than mortal man. She had also tried to conceal the terrible gash in her left arm, but Larian had not needed god-like powers to notice how stiffly it moved, or the discharges of blood and pus that had caked the silver-white material of her clothing.

It must have taken incredible force of mind to even attempt the game she had played. But why had she done it? Was it pride? Or was it fear? Fear that the kindly medic would ask for a little something in return for the service? Something that didn’t take the shape of a handful of credit chips?         

The ship rocked as they stopped completely in some other god-forsaken edge of the galaxy, he had no idea where they were, but it didn’t matter, what did matter was his duty and he knew that was here.

His com burst to life, Larian was awoken from his half sleep. It was Casian.
“Larian, we must drop to the surface… and we must take the girl.”

“Sir.” He walked over to Linwe and reached out to shake her arm, but the moment his hand touched her creamy silk skin, she rolled over to face him, clutching a lit energy knife. Where had she come by such a weapon?

“What do you want?” she snapped

“We’re taking you to the surface.”

“Why?”

“It is not my business to know.” He growled and turned away from her, grabbing his rifle from its cradle on the wall and holstering two pistols.

Holding the gun in one hand he marched her down the elaborate corridors to the hanger bay, as he walked he set of the trigger in his mind, inside his chest his Mòróplex squirted liquid Mòrón and secreted it through the pores in his skin. Linwe stared at him in fascination and awe. Then her gaze moved to his long gleaming rifle. She shuddered.

“There’s going to be fighting, isn’t there.” She said timidly, almost to herself. “Why must I be a part of it?”

Larian twitched.


“There’s going to be more fighting, isn’t there Davan.” Whispered Elaine softly, staring blankly out onto the smog choked street. “Why must we be a part of it?”
Davan stepped up behind her and placed his hands comfortingly on her shoulders.
There were bodies in the street. They had ambushed a squad of Iratui that morning. The firefight was short and brutal; the aliens were dead before they had a chance to call for backup. Six men from the street had been killed in the attack, they lay intermingled with the carcasses of the enemy.

“We fight because we must, Elaine. Because there is nothing else.” She looked up at him with frightened eyes. He kissed her, and held her shivering body close as the sirens began to wail.


But her sweet lips turned to blood in his mouth as Larian came back to reality with a jolt.

“What's your name soldier?”

“I have no name.” He snapped. Linwe flinched back as though stung. They walked in silence the rest of the way.

When they reached the hanger, the rest of the team was already there. They stood impatiently, silent and intimidating giants, robed in demonic black.

Without a word they marched into the awaiting dropships belly. Almost instantly it shot into the atmosphere like a bullet.

“The leaders of this planet, Morthiot, have declared a rebellion against humanity. They have rounded up the entire planets civilians and threatened to put them to death if we do not meet with them. The council has ordered that we comply to their wishes.” said Casian

“Maybe we should leave them to it, they’d only be ripping their own guts out.” Remarked Larung “Why is the girl here? Isn’t involving civilians against standard procedure?”

“It may be against standard procedure to involve a civilian in an action, but it also against standard procedure to allow ten thousand men woman and children to die through strict adherence to the rules. They said we must bring her too. Earth knows how they knew we had her, or why they so want to meet us.”

Larian watched, mildly amused, as Linwe ran her hand across where just minutes before the terrible wound had lay, confusion and worry on her face, but also relief. The kindly medic had not been as lustful as either of them had thought.

“We don’t have any landing craft at this time Linwe, so we’re going to have to make a low altitude drop.” Explained Casian gently. “The fall will not last more than thirty seconds, and you will be in no danger at all.”

Linwe nodded timidly to signal that she understood. She did not look particularly well. 

A chime sounded and a pleasant female voice spoke “Drop altitude in fifteen seconds.”

Larian leant down to speak to Linwe, who looked as if she had lost several pints of blood, barely concealing the shuddering of her limbs “When we jump you must hold on to me, do not let go.”

“You expect me to cling to you like your lover?”

Larian shrugged. “Or you could just fall the whole way.” he almost smiled. The kindly medic was making his demands after all.

He thrust an atmosphere pack at her, and she strapped it on without question, she knew what was about to happen.

“Five seconds till drop altitude. Doors opening.” The doors opened in a rush of screaming air. It was breathable, but there wasn’t a lot of it; at this altitude, a human would suffocate.

He grabbed her by the arm and led her to the opening. She took one look over the edge and blanched, staggering back a few steps.

“Three” chimed the computer cheerfully.

“I can’t do it” whimpered Linwe, Larians augmented ears barely able to pick up her trembling voice over the howling wind.

“One” piped the computer.

Larian sighed in frustration, ignoring her screams he grabbed her around the waist and ran to the edge with her under the crook of his arm and took a gigantic graceful leap into nothingness.

The speed was insane, the wind howled like vengeful death, he seemed almost to be suspended on a column of air, Larian laughed at the madness of it all.

The ground below beckoned to them, a mother calling back a child that has strayed too far into the woods.

Linwe clung to him desperately, wrapped her arms tightly around him, buried her face in his chest and entwined her legs with his. Her long dark hair billowed up into Larians helmet like a cloud of ebony black twine. Larian held her there with his free hand, in his other was his long rifle.

The ground rushed up to them at an impossible speed. Larian was almost disappointed when he was caught on the soft cushion of anti gravity and lowered safely to the ground.

The instant her feet touched the ground Linwe thrust herself away from him. “Do you always manhandle women like that?” she snapped

“Old habits die hard.” Larian said, more to himself than to her. “I'm Larian, by the way.”

She stormed away, leaving Larian alone. He hadn't felt so alive in years.


III. Commander Casian:

Come and get me Casian… I'm waiting for you…Come and find me.

Casian shook the voices from his head as he hit the ground.

He had finally been spared from the drop descent; his head was still spinning, as if he had several shots of Kuputian whisky but he managed to stand up. This planet was a dull one, made completely of flat and featureless granite like rock. The occasional lump of feldspar glittered like a chunk of sunlight.

The ancient and fading sun of this system had just set, and the stars in sky were as bright as any Casian had seen from the surface, chips of diamond caught in the thick velvety black material of eternity. This far out in the galaxial spiral there were so few stars shining, and that made them seem all the brighter.

A gigantic cave entrance dominated the landscape, it was a yawning giants mouth, ten metres from lip to lip. A man in black appeared to stand at its entrance, but it was just the way the shadows played with his sight. 

He looked around and saw the girl, Linwe. It occurred to him that no-one had asked her whether she wanted to risk her life down here, though no-one had asked the inhabitants of the planet whether they would mind dying at the whim of one woman.
He touched her shoulder, and to his surprise, she span around to face him with her knife alight. He caught the hand holding the knife, switched it off and let her hand drop. He watched her pretty face contort from fearful, to embarrassed, to shameful.

“I, I, I’m sorry… I’m just feeling a bit jumpy…” she said from behind the small atmosphere pack, pin bricks of light blazing from it like golden teeth.

“Linwe, you have a right to be feeling jumpy, what happened to you in that one day was more than any human should ever have to face. Now, when we are in the tunnels, you must be within three metres of either Larian, Malian or me. We don’t know what's going to be down there and we need to keep you alive.”
 
The squad gathered around him.

“Brothers, let us enter these caves to find the traitors within! Let us root out the wretched maggots that dared to challenge the authority of the High council! We will meet with them as requested, but before this day is done we will have the head of everyone of them, they will rue the day they tried to bargain with the Taui-kun!”

“We will purge the traitors!” roared the squad in acknowledgement, punching the air with their fists.

And so they ran through the foreboding entrance of the cave, and into the unknown.

“Do you not believe you are being a little rash, commander?” asked Malian, his second.

“How so friend?” Casian inquired

“What if they are aware of the fact that we have probably come to purge them? What if they have wired the place with explosives that will go off in the event of their deaths, or worse?”

“I doubt they will be quite that forward thinking, friend. It requires a certain degree of madness to declare rebellion, even more so to threaten the death of your own civilians if demands are not met. Who would produce food? Who would trade? Who would fly the ships? Who would fight their battles? No Malian. I expect them to be little more than frothing lunatics in desperate need of putting down for the good of all. Besides, if your scenario does turn out to be true, we have Linwe with us, just in case.” Casian explained. He was a cautious man and did not often take risks; he did not see any human lives as bartering chips.
 
It was warm and dank in the cave, the heat and moisture caused by geothermal reactions deep down in the core. At least, that is what it said on Casians neuro-screen, the temperature in the suit being tailored to his individual preferable temperature and humidity.

There was no noise in the cave, even with his advanced senses he could hear nothing other than the slight footfalls of his soldiers and Linwes more obtrusive steps echoing terribly in his mind.

They turned past one snaking corridor and were immediately faced with a huge door of ornately decorated brass.

Casian blinked, how strange that his eyes could not see through it. For his vision to be blocked completely like this it would require at least a metre of lead or shielding devices.

A figure was engraved on it. A twisted and malformed face that protruded from brass to scream at him. The craftsmanship was incredibly detailed, the flakes of peeling parchment skin curled out like freshly planed wood and the maggots that reveled in its flesh almost seemed to wriggle as the light played on them.

Casians head began to throb and pound, pressure built up on his ear drums and the air became as thick as curdled blood.

Not now! He screamed at himself. As the cave, his men, everything except that brass door began to fade like unwelcome memories he felt the madness rush towards him like a cargo train, anti grav motors shrieking, air rushing and snapping like a great whip, blazing lights blinding him.

He felt his sanity slipping away as if his head had become a sieve. He yelled and pressed his hands against the sides of his head, trying to block the pain that was mounting, trying to hold himself together.

The brass door was the only thing left, carved out of the blackness that Casian tumbled through. The carved face burst into rancid flame and it tore itself from the prison of metal. It rushed towards him, desperate to sink its gleaming, broken teeth into his neck, drool flying, maggots charring, single eye blazing with livid hate that coursed through Casians body in sheets of unkempt outrage.

Casian! See what the power of Orageos has wrought! See the future of your insignificant race! Give up Casian, there is nothing more you can do. Step down of your pedestal, cast of those robes that fit you no more, come back to me! Be one with me once more! 

“Get away from me!” screamed Casian, feeling hot winds of madness rush into his lungs. “Get out of my head! Get out of my head! Get out!”

Using all his force of will he flung his arms through the soup of madness and blood that cloaked him and smashed his fist into the pulsating metal of the face. It bellowed laughter at him as he rained hate on it, tearing it apart, smashing it down.

Then it was gone.

The world came flooding back to him and Casian sucked in a deep breath of relief, panting and shaking.

He was flat on his face, resting on shards of mutilated brass.

In his madness he had completely destroyed the door. He had ripped it open as if it was paper, torn it from its hinges and beaten it with his fists until it was an unrecognizable hulk of twisted wreckage.

He pushed himself to his feet feeling his muscles burn and his bones creak. He turned towards his squad who stood still and unsure of what to think.

“I have had another vision. The high council filled me with righteous rage to tear down this work of blasphemy. There is nothing left on this world but insanity and rebellion. All who stand against us shall be purged.” A small lie, perhaps. But not that far from the truth. Still, better that than his finest men to think that he was no longer sane enough to lead them.

They didn’t say a word, no zealous cry of we will purge them! No acknowledgements or affirmative gestures. Dread sank deep into Casians stomach. How much of the interplay within his head had been broadcast? Had they seen in his actions the true extent of the things in his mind?

Malian flicked his head, motioning towards something that was behind Casian.
Sick apprehension bubbled up through Casians chest as he spun slowly around.
As the oncoming cavern filled Casians pounding head he thought that he had slipped back once more into one of his nightmares.

For a moment it was if he was looking into the gut of some monstrous behemoth, but the twitching pink flesh that caked the blood-slick walls was not from one creature alone. A patchwork of mutilated, naked carcasses clothed the underlying skeleton of stone in robes of rancid meat.

The realization was like an ice-cold knife sinking further into Casians belly with every passing second. The rage of their betrayal set his blood aflame.

Every carcass that plastered the wall had been flayed completely of its skin, peeled fresh from their bodies still streaked with yellow slithers of fat and hung to dry from the caves heights on insane, macabre washing lines.

Without the familiar and comforting layer of skin the decomposing corpses took on a new grotesque appearance. Rotting lumps of muscle slipped from reddened bone, pulped organs slithered out of shrivelled abdomens and smashed ribcages, eyeballs bulged from lidless sockets in widened terror, reddened skulls with clinging strands of stubborn tissue grinned sightlessly to the darkness.

Each body never possessed more than a single eye, nerve endings dangling from empty pits, their precious organ plucked away like ripe fruit. 

The only sound was the steady dripping of blood into the knee-high sea of roiling crimson, it writhed as if just below the surface thousands of ravenous fish were emerging to feed, sandpaper scales scratching its skin, bringing up angry boils. 
How was it that the bodies still twitched after weeks of death? Why did they still drip blood when it should all have been drained in hours?

Too late… hissed the voice. Does it not lift your spirit also? The rotting flesh, the dripping blood, the screaming souls… the food of the gods. But this is just a taste of what is to come… the end times shall drown all your petty reality in blood.

Casian roared in anger and smashed his fist against the wall, breaking a huge chunk of rock into powder.