Death Blade - Part four

IV. Linwe:

They were all now splashing through a river of blood within a forest of crucified corpses. Blood constantly dripped in a dirge of echoing splashes for the departed.
The acrid taste of bile was never out her mouth or the blear of tears from her eyes. Which was good. It hid at least some of the terrible sighs from her.

She had already thrown up twice and would do so again were there anything left to throw. She shivered as if several thousand volts were passing through her body and felt as though carpets of icy pins were impaling her arms neck and spine. A shoal of restless fish swirled impatiently in her stomach and gnawed at her insides like ravenous dogs. 

She had only glimpsed the butchered lumps of meat that jutted from the walls like hideous gargoyles for several seconds, and she was sure it was enough to traumatise her for life. 

She looked down to prevent her self from seeing any more. That was almost, if not more terrible and was harder to ignore seeing as she was almost up to her waist in a writhing sea of blood. She kept trying to tell herself it was just water, but that thought could not get the bleached red stain out of her clothes. She could not help thinking that a few days ago this blood was sloshing around in the veins of living, breathing human beings.

How could they all be dead? Why were they continuing if the mission was jeopardised? The answer stuck in her brain like a shard of glass. There must have been people to nail them up… dedicated, insane people. People who have to die.
It was hard work forcing her legs through the water, (That was all it was, water) It was as if it was putting as much resistance as it could against her, physically attempting to impede her progress.

A sheet of white hot terror shot from up her body as something brushed lightly against her leg. In her mind she saw a hand, swollen grey flesh sagging from the bone, slimy chunks of skin and rotten meat bloated with water breaking away and trailing behind it.

She whimpered and tried to quicken her pace, but the water (Only water) forced her back, enjoying her distress.

She stifled a scream when a moss-coated fingernail lovingly caressed her foot and daggers of pain pushed past her ribs at the effort.

She risked a glance upwards to see where the Taui-kun were and a tide of sallow lolling faces crawling with maggots and stained with livid blood loomed down on her, skin peeled away, muscles bare and twitching in hideous unnatural life.

Linwe choked and spluttered, feeling her head pound and her vision blur and looked back down again. The Taui-kun were still all very close, Larian was only a couple of metres from her.   

It was odd, however much she told herself to hate him, she couldn’t and despite the fact she had never seen his face, there was something roguishly attractive about him.

He seemed so eternally calm, even now he was indifferent to the horrors around him and was gently stroking his rifle. Linwe didn’t know whether to admire or abhor him for that, but then again, no one else seemed to notice either. Well, they were Taui-Kun, immune to fear. They had probably seen much worse. But what could be worse than this? Linwe couldn’t think of anything. She didn’t want to.

Linwe heard something snap like a pine knot in a winters fire. Her right foot tumbled into a cavity and jagged rock, or was it broken bones? Slashed her shins. Her left leg continued trying to force its way forwards, and before she could stop her self she was tumbling forwards into the sea of blood.

It was as if someone had been playing with the colour resolution of her eyes and had turned everything off except for red. The repugnant taste of salty blood forced itself up her nostrils. She struggled, trying to free her captive foot, but all she achieved in doing was twisting it painfully and lacerating her shins further.

Something grabbed hold of her left leg. Mossy, slimy grey flesh. Five jagged fingernails stroking her. This time Linwe did scream and the last of her precious air burst from her lungs and rose as quivering red globules in front of her terrified eyes. Blood flowed into her lungs, she struggled and kicked as the world started to grow dark.     

A black torpedo exploded into the river of blood a couple of metres from her. It surged towards her and shot out a fist that crushed the hand that gripped her leg and gently eased her right foot from the empty ribcage it was caught within.

Gentle arms wrapped around Linwe and pulled her up from the depths.

Linwe spat a stream of foul blood and desperately gasped in the stale air of the cave as if she had never breathed before.

“You alright?” Larian growled, holding her in his gentle arms as if she was a child.

“Yes.” she sighed as she reached out a red stained arm to caress the sleek and hard Mòrón that encased his cheek. He pulled away from her touch.

“Commander, it was a bad idea to involve civilians in this.” Larian snarled. “Why can’t we just take her back to the ship? We don’t need her anymore.”

“There’s no time Larian. We can’t spare the men or the minutes in backtracking. Our first priority is the completion of the mission.” Casian said calmly. Was this the same man who had undergone a mad fit of rage and torn down the door earlier?

An ear-splitting bellow pierced the air, rudely punctuated by an angry burst of laser fire.

“Move!” barked Casian.

“I will have to carry you Linwe, or you won’t keep up.”

“That’s ok.” Linwe said, smiling slightly from behind the atmosphere pack. He looked at her curiously for a moment from far behind his bright red visor as if unsure what to think. He nodded slowly, almost to himself. Then, clutching her tight he sprinted off into the dark. 

V. Bio-Tech Warrior 138/AKY2K/556:
Though the primordial soup of blurry senses that had been programmed into It, Bio-Tech warrior 138/AKY2K/556 rose to Its feet and looked around. It could smell blood, the spicy aroma filling the air. To It blood was the most intoxicating scent, the most tantalising taste and the most exquisite reward. It saw the vessels in which the precious liquid was contained, although his sensors could not quite identify them. Were they human or some other creature? It could not tell, but it did not matter now.

There were two of them and It started laboriously plodding towards them. It may have been four metres tall and weighed over one thousand kilograms, but It could still be stealthy when It wanted to.

It was within ten metres of them when It dimly realised as if through a thick fog that they had laser weapons, but it was too late now as the urge to kill and drink deep of their vital fluids grew to an almost unbearable state. It could not hold back any longer and with a bestial bellow like an all-devouring storm It charged forwards careering straight into them.

The impact knocked one of them to the ground and something clearly had broken judging by the sound of the impact, It stamped on his head to make sure, it shattered like an eggshell with a delicious pop, warm brains splattered over the dry dusty ground. It longed to lap them up but there was another to kill yet. The remaining one span around, a gun in his hands, but before his finger could tighten on the trigger he had already been caught in a bear hug from the vast warrior. He fired a shot into the darkness in vain, but before he could fire again his entire right arm was torn away and flung to the ground.

To the warriors disappointment, he didn’t make a sound of discomfort other than the hissing blood pumping from the severed arteries. He struggled more trying to free himself from the grip, until his back was broken. The last thing he felt was tremendous pressure and the beast ripping open his chest.

It could feel his victims ribs snapping like so many dry twigs, making similar noises. It crooned in pleasure.

Before the mans corrupted black soul was swallowed by gaping infinity, two words bubbled passed his lips that puzzled the warrior
“Hail Orageos!” And the last thing he saw was the warrior beginning to feed with irrepressible ravenousness on his heart.

VI. Commander Casian:
As soon as they heard it, they ran, eventually out of the river of blood and away from the broken bodies, now there were just wet slimy walls of cold clammy stone and dry dusty ground. It was pitch black, though this meant nothing to the Taui-kun. 

But this almost tranquil scene was disturbed several hundred metres later by two horribly mutated corpses. Casian wasn’t even sure they were human, as their flesh was strangely mottled. One of them had had their skull crushed by what looked must have been a tremendous weight and the other had been horribly mangled. His back was broken, his ribs were splintered and cracked open and his right arm had been torn off and flung to the floor. The cold fingers still gripped a laser gun tightly, every few seconds the twitching of his fingers would fire another bolt of laser energy down the hall illuminating the dark caverns ahead. They both seemed to be covered with what appeared to be burn marks. Something else that was strange, was that even though they could only have been dead for several minutes, they seemed to be nearing the final stages of decomposition.

The strangest things about the bodies was the complete and utter lack of blood, there was none anywhere, not even a splash. The bodies were extremely pale, on closer inspection from Karrung, the medic it was shown that they had been completely drained of blood.

Casian knew this could mean only two things, a Karilion or one of their insane creations spawned from their warped and corrupted minds. Both of these meant something bad, that there was a deranged killer with an unquenchable thirst for blood roaming these caverns.

It sounded like some of the other troopers had had the same thoughts, “This looks like a Karilions work to me, or I’m a Taerran” muttered Calrung. He spoke of a diminutive dwarf like species of human that had evolved in a mining colony in the system Taerra. He was now three hundred and twenty two, although this is still young for a Taui-Kun who can live almost indefinitely. He showed no sign of ageing or of the horrors he had seen across the galaxy, apart from his eyes, which were dark and mournful, they twinkled like two glistening black heart jewels from the asteroid mines in Durrun. His face beneath the helmet was sharp and hard edged, as if it were carved from a slab of Krion tree. He was a pool of seemingly endless knowledge and had learned much in his centuries of service, but years of hardship had made him quite pessimistic. 

“Have you heard the legends about those things?” piped Larung “The texts say they were spawned from the blood of quarrelling gods at the beginning of time and were sent to plague the universe.”  Almost the complete opposite to Calrung, he was the youngest in the squad and his youthful exuberance could get on ones nerves at times. He had a smooth edged, boyish face and sparkling blue eyes.     

Casian stooped down and picked up the Laser gun, it was a large rifle to a human, but he held it like a compact pistol. He looked it over, a Domeerus MK III laser rifle, capable of discharging one hundred thousand forty millimetre laser bolts a minute. It was simple to use, and was often used in the massive, bloated conscript armies that protected worlds before Taui-kun intervention. He tossed it to Linwe like a scrap of meat to a dog, she didn’t have a weapon other than her family knife, that wouldn’t be any good if a firefight broke out.

His gaze caught the creatures face, it was missing its left eye, but it was not a recent wound, it had long since scarred over. In its bloodshot red eye he saw reflected back at him the figure of an old and weathered man, neat snowy beard well kept. He shook his head, what was happening to him?

Carved on its skull were runes, runes that made Casian retch. They leapt out of the flesh to him and flickered like flame. He looked away.
“Larung, come here, what do these runes say on his head?” Larung walked over and stared at the creatures face. But deep in the pit of his stomach, he felt the oncoming dread that told him he already knew.

“These runes…” he swallowed nervously “It cant be.” He said defiantly

“Just tell me what they say damn it!” Casian barked, not knowing what the sudden burst of anger had been for.

“They are written in Orageon… but that is just ancient mythology, why, why are they here?” he did not hesitate to tell Casian what they meant, but just as Casian feared, he already new: Hail Orageos!         

“Contacts rear!” Larian spotted them first, fifteen foul human bodies clothed in torn blood-splattered rags shambling towards them. They had no heat signatures. That was why they hadn't been spotted sooner, heat signatures were the first thing that betrayed the presence of an enemy.

The lack of bodily warmth technically meant they weren't alive, although, of course, this could be explained away were they were sheltered under some technological device.

Casian wondered at the incredible talent it must have taken to sneak so close to a squad of Taui-kun without being detected. It was almost as if they had melted out of the shadows.

For a horrified moment he thought he could sense no heartbeat, but it was there, slow erratic, yet incredibly faint. His eyes that could cut through a mans flesh like a laser only had time to watch a single sporadic pulse before his squad took action. How had they not heard this betrayal of their presence before? 

The squad immediately span one hundred and eighty degrees and fell into fire team positions. Linwe not knowing quite what she was meant to do was left standing somewhat vulnerable in plain view, trying to spot the attackers; her human eyes were next to useless. Casian had to push her roughly to the floor as the laser bolts started cracking and pinging off the rock overhead.

“Return fire!” It was one thing to fire upon massive alien dragons, but to fire at humans was completely another, the more obvious problem being that you were getting shot back at. Standard pattern Laser bolts could hardly affect a suit of Mòrón, but he didn’t want to think of the damage it could cause to a frail unprotected body like Linwes.

The squad fired five deadly accurate shots and the assailants dropped dead in plumes of vaporised flesh. All but one, Casian had shot his in the leg, not out of a weakhearted mercy, but a burning curiosity.

He pulled Linwe back to her feet and marched over to the living one. It looked like it wouldn’t last long so Casian got down to the point, he directed his rifle to its head and snarled
“What is you business creature?” it only leered up at him and coughed up a globule of congealed blood. “Speak!” Casian bellowed. It only said two harsh words:

“Hail Orageos!” then it died. For some reason when he heard that spoken word pain erupted inside his head, he began to feel dizzy and disorientated, the voice screamed inside his head:

Hail me! Hail your lord!

But just a Casian felt himself slipping into the madness once more, it seemed to be washed away by a blur of blissful oblivion. He staggered, regained his balance and turned to face the rest of the squad.

“These creatures are abominations, shoot any more you see on sight. There is some sort of a connection with this and what happened on 526, stay sharp.”

It came as quite a shock as the ghostly blade flicked up in front of Casians throat.

His translators didn’t seem to be able to translate it, but he didn’t need them to understand what had been whispered into his ear:
“Don’t move!” The whole squad pointed their weapons at the spectral assailant, even Linwe.

Casian felt peaceful numbness tingle through him, he tried to move, but he was totally paralysed. He raged and shouted inside himself, kicked and struggled, but only in his mind. It was like all of his bones had been turned to liquid, he could almost feel them sloshing back and forth inside him. It infuriated him to be so weak and defenceless, yet no matter how hard he tried he could not feel threatened by the shadowy figure that held him in this state of impotence and the knife at his throat almost seemed a friendly gesture. 

“Khaila mashina nain” it whispered, in a strange flowing tongue that seemed to resonate with ancient power and hum as if with static inside Casians head. Casian did not know what it had said, but was horrified to watch his whole squad place their weapons gently on the floor as meek as kittens, take a few steps back and sit down, cross legged, Linwe with them, a childish smile on her face. Casian tried to bellow in despair at them, his finest squad of Taui-kun, the bastions of light, fearless and selfless warriors who would slaughter the darkest foes of mankind like cattle, sitting like a bunch of toddlers at story time! It was absurd!

But then sense tapped him on the shoulder and muttered in his ear, this creature, it was toying with them, it was psychic, and this was surely one of the most powerful displays Casian had ever witnessed. It had them all on strings, it could make each one sing nursery rhymes backwards whilst sticking a gun in their own mouth if it so pleased it. But it wasn’t like that, somehow Casian knew, it almost seemed to resonate with peaceful intentions. 

“Let me look at you, let me see your minds” It whispered kindly in the common tongue like a mother crooning into the ear of her infant. Was it speaking at all, was it only in their minds?

Linwe rose giddily to her feet, but it seemed unnatural, more as if she had been pulled up by ropes wrapped around her chest. Her head lolled to the left slightly, her eyes were half closed, showing only whites and a wide, dreamy smile was wiped across her face.

Casian got a strong impression that the being was searching through her, peeling back her physical shell and scrutinising at the subconscious, a wizened old prospector checking the dormant jewels for impurities. After a few seconds, seeming content it sat her back down and picked up the man next to her, who happened to be Larian and repeated the process with him.

When it had checked everyone in the squad, it swung Casian around and for the first time he set eyes on his mysterious attacker.

“Has he taken you yet, my brother?” it mused to Casian.

Though there was little to see, Casian got a strong impression of a man in long concealing robes formed from a sea of shifting mist, the only things close to solid where its eyes, deep, glassy and dark, a pair of black pearls, blazing with spectral light from another dimension. Singing filled his ears, wonderful, carefree singing. Its beauty was the voltage that passes between the clutched hands of lovers, the firm embrace of the father reunited with the son he thought dead and the tear in the eye of the mother as she clutches her newborn child.

The singing became louder and the deep eyes seemed to grow to fill Casians vision as his soul was pulled out from his body and given a thorough security frisk.

No. Not a security frisk, more like a medical check-up. And Casians soul was not healthy. Reflected in those never-ending eyes he could see the malicious tumour at the core of his being. Then those black eyes burst like sour grapes and the face roared out at him, screaming and cursing, spitting fire and curling maggots

Come to me Casian! Come! Come to me! Surrender! Surrender your soul!

Casian felt his skin sizzle with its heat and his tongue smouldered as he opened his mouth in a soundless scream.

Then it was gone. As if a switch had been flicked, and those eyes were still searching. No. He wasn’t healthy, not at all. He had certainly failed this check up.

“No brother, you passed. It sleeps still within you. The damned one does not hold sway over you just yet.” Casian swore it was smiling as it said this, though he could see no mouth to speak of.

At last it seemed satisfied, thrusting Casian to his knees as it flung off its ghostly shroud and stood to its full height.

The next thing that they saw was firmly imprinted on their minds and souls for the rest of their days.

VII. Sniper Larian:
A sudden burst of incandescent gold light filled the chamber and half blinded Larian.

He stumbled to his feet as the glaring afterimage cleared from his stunned eyes, and there suspended dreamily on a thunderous cloud of awe a magnificent being stood, cloaked in power and blissful resonance, filling the chamber with a brilliant light. It was adorned in armour of perfect shining gold that shimmered with eternal fresh-polished beauty and around its shoulders was a sparkling deep ruby red cloak.

It wore a heavily rune encrusted helmet that seemed to hold nothing but shadow, nothing except for two floating orbs of incredible depth and shimmering beauty. And what Larian saw in those incredible eyes brought him to his knees, sobbing.

Reflected in the eyes of the creature he could see everyone he had ever known and loved that had been lost on his home world. He could see his wife Elaine laughing and smiling at him, his father, grinning roguishly, his bristly stubble and strong features just as Larian had remembered. In his head he could hear their voices echoing, snippets of his lost life:

…Then I envy you, for you will be a far better man than I…
…I love you Davan, with all my soul, please, come back to me in one piece…
…Go Davan! Leave me, I’ll deal with these…
…You’re the only thing I need…
…Don’t let ‘em catch yer…

And as each phrase bought its respective memories, the pain got worse.

“Its like a mirror Larian. A mirror on your soul.” That sweet echoing voice filled Larians ears. “A human life is such a brief ripple in the relentless river of the ages. Do not dirty yourself further on the mud of the riverbank whilst that ripple passes you by. Immerse yourself, wash the past from your body in the cleansing waters of time.”   

Larian shaded his face from the brilliant radiance of the face with his armoured arm, like one does to shade themselves from the sun on a hot summers day on the crystal beaches of the twin sunned pleasure system of Dfros and wept.

VIII. Commander Casian:
For a moment Casian was paralysed still, not by the creature, nor by its incredible, awe-inspiring presence, but by its eyes.

In them he could see reflected a faint figure. A mane of fiery red hair surrounding her bloodless, almost white face, razor green eyes and tumbling down her broad, Mòrón clad shoulders. Just like he had saw her last, that fateful day on Dalmos five. Rowenian. He almost screamed her name in absolute terror as he heard her clipped, authoritative voice echo in his mind:

Well Casian, this is it then. You must do your duty and I must do mine.

He shuddered as it started coming back again after fifty years of trying to forget. In his mind Rowenian stood tall and bold once more.


The harsh wind of Dalmos 5 whistled through blasted husks of buildings and over the churned up crater marked, blood soaked ground and Rowenians hair became a blazing comets tail as its entire length was blown to the right side of her masked, heart shaped face.


No. He would not remember anymore. He would not let any more memories of that accursed campaign come back to him. No more.

But all the same, he knew that soon enough Rowenian would be back in his dreams. For once he thought he might prefer the face.

“Remember her, brother. Don’t forget. Remember what she told you, for she spoke with more authority than you can imagine.”

“No!”  Casian yelled in his head. He would not remember it. But that was a futile gesture. It had already started to trickle back to him the moment he saw her scathing green eyes. He tried to force it back into the mist and darkness of his subconscious mind, but that only dislodged another couple of words from the netherworld to thud into his ears like lumps of cold stone.

“You will remember brother. You will need to before the end.” And Casian was sure now that these words he could hear only, it was in his mind, it was talking in to his mind.
“No!” Casian broke its gaze and looked determinedly away from its shining body.
No body moved. Had it paralysed them too? No. They were lost in their own thoughts. Larian sat with his head in his hands whilst the others gazed dejectedly at the ceiling. Casian watched several tears cut a runnel of damp down Linwes face.

“Commander! Are you alright?” muttered Malian, tapping him on the shoulder.

“Yes Malian, as always. Did you see its eyes friend?” Casian urged. Had the other men undergone similar things as him? Malian nodded slow and carefully.

“It grabbed hold of you, said something strange and then, it was as if its eyes were pools of black ice and I was falling towards them… I saw myself… and I saw…” he paused, as if unsure or unwilling to put it into words “other things.” He sighed.

The creature rode a wave of beauty and touched down beside Malian. The whole squad snapped out of their minds to watch it, except Larian, who sat stonily silent with his head in his hands.

“Its like a mirror Malian. A mirror on your soul.” It whispered. Then it leaned closer to Malian and whispered something in his ear so quiet that even Casians supernatural sharp ears could not hear it from just a metre away. Casian watched Malians shoulders slump and his head bow. What did it have to say to him? “Do you understand what I have told you Malian?”

“Yes.” Malian said slowly and with some difficulty. His gaze fixed on Casian as he spoke.

Plior skipped back into the air and took three dancing leaps to another man in the squad, Berian, and whispered something similar to him, again that stare at Casian and slumped shoulders to accompany it. Casian started to feel as if this strange being was a spiteful child, spreading rumours about him.

It visited four more people with these strange portents, Larung and Munrung; the rival pair, Viorlung, a young sniper from Larians squad, and Calrung, the wizened old trooper who had served for almost three hundred years. Then, satisfied again, it leapt away from them and stood in the air, head cocked ever so slightly, waiting for something.

“What was it Malian? What did he tell you?” Hissed Casian.
Malian was silent for what seemed an age. Casian could almost feel the seconds slipping away, they were almost tangible. Then he spoke, and the two words hit Casian like a pair of tank shells.

“Your future.”

IX. Linwe:
“Come now, sit.” The strange being said warmly and gestured to the hard rock floor in front of it. Linwe found herself, along with the Taui-kun, helpless but to obey it. They sat attentive to listen to what it had to say.

“You are all strong and pure of heart. You will be needed before the end. You are here to rid the foul stench of the damned ones corruption from the core of this long dead world. My name is Plior Sanatan. I am here to build the foundations on which the twisted tower of a destiny that was never meant to be shall be built. It will grow from three sturdy roots, they will wind together to become one as it reaches up towards a black hearted sky where only a handful of stars still shine, and at the top? Who can say? We shall all know soon enough.”

Linwe felt soothed by its words, they were strung together in such a way that they sounded like the gentle burble of a slow flowing brook over a bed of round, polished black stones. Its eyes… its eyes were strange, almost frightening. She had almost found herself drowning in their murky depths, surrounded by misted figures from her lost life, she could still hear them…

“He will come from the sky…”

“I love you Linwe, don’t you understand?”

But then there was something else, something new. Larians voice. She had found herself enjoying it. The last thing she saw before she rose for the gloomy abyss, gasping for breath, was a different pair of eyes. Slate grey. Sombre, wet with tears.
Linwe began feeling displaced and dizzy, something did not feel right. She looked down at the granite floor, bright and vibrant, dancing with the light that shone form the strange deity. It was all so surreal, the blood that had soaked her robes was caking dry now, and that was what was wrong. How could something so carefree and glorious be in a foul pit like this?

But then Linwe had to silent her own thoughts, because Plior was talking again, and she could not miss a word it said.

“I will open the way for you now, friends. It will get you to where you need to be before it is too late” There was no questioning that sweet voice and powerful aurora, Linwe nodded, along with every other person in the squad. Except Larian. He still had his head in his hands and would not look up at Plior. How could he avert his eyes from something so wondrous? What had he seen? Had Plior shown him something too? Linwe wondered if he had seen her in his vision.

Plior sprung in to the air once more and began to sing in strange words that oozed arcane energies and mystical connotations like a lump of honeycomb. They filled the whole caves as surely as his (For Linwe somehow felt that Plior was a he, despite there being no way of telling) golden light, the very rock trembled in awe of its magnificence.

“Si-Listo-si sica; sava Si-e-Si ah Plior Sanatan” shudders of electricity like arcs of white fire leapt from Pliors body as he began to dance.

His rhythmic flails and gyrations were completely hypnotic, coupled with the swell of joyous words that tumbled from his tongue they gently pulled Linwe into a trance like state. His movements blurred and smudged the air around him as if he were gliding his hands across a painting fresh from the artists brush.

A streamer of blazing sparks like tiny stars began to unwind from behind him as he leapt and spun from left to right and up and down, weaving a spiders web with a galaxy of burning dust.

The speed of the song and the dance increased to a frantic pace as the air that was Pliors dance floor became more diamond dust than air.

It was like how a spraycan slowly obscures a patch of wall with a myriad of microscopic splashes of paint.

All of a sudden, Plior stopped dead still at the centre of his creation. The silence pained Linwes ears.

“Kunara!” He bellowed in a voice that seemed as loud as the explosions of dying worlds. The pinpricks of light behind him took on a whole new splendrous lustre and a blaze of intensity. Plior became a silhouetted stick man against the ferocity of the light. Linwe tried to shield her eyes with her hands, but it was useless, it passed through her flesh as if it was as ephemeral as air.

“Come.” said Plior floating stepping into the rent. His body was washed away in a tidal wave of fierce white fire.

One by one the Taui-kun leapt into the blaze until Linwe was alone. She could not quite bring herself to do it, what if she never emerged from the blaze, and if she did, what would be waiting for her on the other side?

“Fear not Linwe” urged that sweet voice. No longer under her own compulsion, she flung herself into a waiting hoard of cold sharp claws that bit hungrily into her flesh and dragged her away.

X. Sniper Larian:
Larian travelled at right angles with time, through the gaps in the grains of space. He shot past a cross section of the universe, a mechanical drawing in lines of lurid colour that the long path of the ages wrapped itself around. The universe birthed and died ten thousand times before his eyes, growing and shrinking at such a speed that it became a blur like the wings of a hummingbird.

A red light glowed in on the horizon like inevitable doom. It grew like the headlights of an oncoming train smeared with blood.

A black dot was shifting in its centre. It became the outline of a face, a leering and terrible face. Rotted and covered in pus.

It was coming closer and the face became clearer, Larian did not want it near him, it was the fear of death, rage, hate and jealousy blazing with rancid heat. He couldn’t let it get any nearer him, he tried franticly to manoeuvre himself from it, but he was trapped within the confines of his own mind.

To the left he watched curiously as a trickle of white fabric drifted towards him. It was growing, the shoots of some great plant.

It split once, and the two ends split once more, then, without warning the waters broke and the four tips exploded into activity, growing at a phenomenal pace, splitting over and over in a whirlwind of frantic activity.

Within seconds the dawning face was completely obscured as the myriad of threads twisted and intertwined around one another to become a sheet of cloth with a weave so fine that it was like sheet metal.

The face was gone. Larian heard its infuriated scream and relaxed into a state of smooth relief. It did not last long.

He watched curiously as three minuscule threads stuck out from the edge of the fabric. They became animated in a sudden struggle with the tapestry, pulling away at it, yanking at the weave, growing and combining in their efforts. They twirled around one another as the strain became too much for the fine tapestry.

Larians eyes widened in horror as the fabric gasped in surrender and unravelled like the confused and senseless plot of a dream.

The face called out in triumph as it burst through the pathetic bundle of lost thread, Larian cried out in agony as its wretched flames of hate and envy scorched his skin raw

Larian felt the vision burst in his mind as if it were the opalescent hue on the surface of a soap bubble as he was flung out of the rift that was physically trying to get rid of him, coughing up a sliver of bone caught in its flaming throat.
Larians knees connected silently with a dirty, yellowed floor. It was a patchwork of oval shaped rocks that may once have been white.

Larian grunted, his skull felt as if it had been brutally kneaded by a pair of rough iron hands that had been resting on the white coals of hell.

His brain heaved and pounded, trying to dispel the raw insanity that had leaked in through his staring eyes.

He tried to look around, taking in these new surroundings.

The squad was gone. That strange being, Plior. He had tricked them. Casian was rising giddily to his feet a few metres away and Linwe sat not far off, visibly shaking. Then Larian saw why.

The entire room was made of human skulls. Yellowed, aged skulls, stacked on one another. The walls reached up further than Larians unnatural eyes could see, cracked and grinning maniac faces all the way.

And stood placidly on a mound of bleached jawbones was a short and incredibly ancient looking man dressed all in black robes, his back to them. His skeletal white hair reached almost to his feet. 

He spoke in a voice as dry as ice and mocking as the caw of a raven, crackling with malice and disregard.

“So, you have finally come.”