Revolt
Disclaimer: See Chapter One.
A\N: To save on a major headache, English and the common human language of Alagaësia are going to be the same. To do otherwise would mean much dicking around involving translators and a host of other miscellany.
To also cover my ass for being lazy, I've got a legitimate excuse to hide behind: However, due to the fact it is spoilerific, (As well as the fact a lot of people who've read Inheritance know all about the reason behind all those 'random occurrences' will probably guess my excuse anyway…) I'll keep it to myself until the appropriate point in the story.
A trickle of cold water running down his throat caused Xethos to gag and sit bolt upright. His sudden return to consciousness also caused the human girl who'd been wringing a water soaked rag near his mouth to recoil in shock.
Immediately, Xethos's mind began taking in details: It was dark, with a waxing crescent moon in the sky as well as a cloud layer; There was rough rope bound around his wrists, meaning he'd been taken as a captive for reasons unknown; The girl was dressed in a dirty skirt with a torn hem and looked as if she'd been beaten recently, judging by the half-healed bruising on her tanned face and apprehensive expression;There were also rough, boisterous voices not too far distant, along with firelight; The ground was grassy and the air was clean, which, to Xethos bespoke that he was no longer near any of Earth's major cities.
Of course he wasn't. He should be dead. He'd glanced back behind the squad at Lieutenant Drezani's warning, and he'd seen the Blackstar launcher in the marauder's hands. Further speculation was dispelled however, by a tentative enquiry from the girl.
'Who-who are you?' She asked apprehensively. Her accent wasn't readily identifiable to Xethos, though that wasn't saying much. He could speak several major languages of several different species with varying degrees of fluency, but he wasn't as good at pinning down accents or other peculiarities of speech.
'Xethos Harran.' He replied quietly. 'Where am I?' He asked.
'What are you?' The girl asked, equally as quietly.
'I am a drell; Now, answer my question.' He replied shortly.
'You're nearly a week's ride south west of Leona Lake.' The girl replied.
'And where, is that?' Xethos asked patiently.
'In the heart of the Empire?' The girl tried.
'Can you be a bit more general?' Xethos tried again.
'You're in the land of Alagaësia.' The girl replied.
Xethos nodded distractedly as he combed his memory. He came up blank. Wherever he was, it wasn't a human world he was familiar with. Actually, the cut of the girl's dress was archaic and the cloth wasn't even to the same quality as a two-credit store in the lower wards of the Citadel. Filing the information away as a mystery, Xethos decided to move onto something more pressing.
'Why am I bound? And where are my weapons?' He asked, though he could still feel the weight of a pair of small switchblades hidden in the cuffs of his sleeves. 'You've been taken prisoner to be sold as a slave like me.' The girl answered with a distinct note of trepidation.
That certainly answered his question. It also gave him a few complementary goals: Retrieve his weapons and kill the slavers. And escape, but that would more than likely end up being 'walk away from a pile of dead bodies.'
He was on the verge of activating his biotics when he saw a figure detach itself from the group of men by the fire.
Though he had had his eyes treated to be able to see the full range of bioluminescence that the hanar used to communicate, which meant his night vision was also better than average, Xethos wasn't able to make out much detail beyond some obvious observations: The figure was bulky and was carrying a spear. As he drew closer, Xethos was able to make out more detail: He was wearing a dirty scale mail hauberk, was unkempt and smiling lecherously, showcasing a gap-toothed grin, with several more teeth going rotten.
'Talkin' with ya new friend, ya little tramp?' Drawled the man. The girl shrank back, and as the man loomed closer, Xethos spied his Raptor sniper rifle hooked to the man's belt. 'You 'n' I are gonna have some fun tonight, and ya gonna cooperate this time or you'll regret it.' The slaver threatened dangerously, dragging the girl to her feet. 'As fer you, ugly, the boss wants to know-hyugh!' The man broke off in a strangled gasp as one of Xethos's switchblades embedded itself in his larynx.
Xethos nimbly rose to his feet and used the other switchblade to cut the man's throat, before soundlessly lowering him to the ground and cutting his bonds, then appropriating his Raptor and unfolding it to its full size.
'Wha-?' The girl gasped, but a slashing gesture from Xethos silenced her. He raised the sniper rifle to his shoulder as he kneeled down, the enhanced scope allowing him to pick out the remaining fourteen slavers, the majority of whom were drinking and boisterously carousing, many of them were looking at each other across a campfire.
A dangerous smile played across his lips as he saw his Valkyrie assault rifle next to one slaver. He now had a plan.
'Stay here, keep low.' Xethos ordered, before edging away into the gloom.
A few minutes of quiet manoeuvring later saw him in a small dip in the land with a view of the slaver's camp.
He aimed down the scope and lined up the sentry with the ease of long practice.
The report shattered the night quiet and the explosion of blood and brain from the sentry's head had the slavers scrambling for their weapons, but before they'd got too far, the one who'd taken Xethos's Valkyrie also fell to a headshot.
Phase One: Complete; time for Phase Two.
Calling on his biotics, Xethos hurled a warp at the campfire.
Though it was of nowhere near the same potency as the thermite gel in most incendiary weapons, the campfire had a ready supply of easily crumbled, flammable fuel that was currently burning at several hundred degrees. When the warp field struck the campfire, it shredded the coals of the fire into fine, burning dust and the rapidly shifting field both dispersed the burning particles and caused the fire to flare from the rapid influx of oxygen. The result was an explosion with the approximate power of a grenade, causing superficial burns and more importantly, blinding the slavers with the sudden change in light levels.
Rising from his hiding place, Xethos started towards the slavers picking them off with precise, deadly sniper fire, before shouldering the sniper rifle and putting a pull field into a cluster of three slavers who'd blundered into one another, before hitting them with a reave field. The resultant biotic explosion tore the slavers apart, and floored another two, who quickly found their windpipes crushed by Xethos's boot heel.
This left five more, and Xethos had just retrieved his Valkyrie and M-11 Suppressor.
Firing an assault rifle with any accuracy one-handed was a difficult feat, particularly when trying to hit a separate target with a second gun, but improvisation was what the situation called for and Xethos was nothing if not adaptable. He snap fired both weapons at separate slavers, before dropping the Valkyrie in favour of getting in close to another slaver and breaking his neck with a sharp twist of his head. His comrade, who was standing only a metre distant heard the crack, but caught a spinning kick to the face, followed by a neck-stamp to the windpipe when he turned to investigate.
'Found you!' Roared a slaver, which Xethos briefly recognised as the slaver he'd fired his pistol on, before he caught a buckler rim in the abdomen. He doubled over and sank to one knee as his breath was knocked out of him, before he sucked in a quick gulp of air and extended his arm upwards, wrapped in biotic energy. He caught the expected descending weapon in his palm, before effortlessly pushing it away, then slammed the sphere of biotic energy into the slaver's chest, the impact of the mass increasing field caving it in as effectively as if he'd been punched by an Atlas mech and sending the man flying.
This left two more slavers: The first, Xethos saw heading his way and sent a warp field at him, before, sidestepping a charging man with a spear, before elbowing him in the chest, causing him to stagger back, before punching him once in the face, before delivering an uppercut under his chin then driving his elbow into the man's exposed windpipe.
As he retrieved his weapons, the rustling of the grass alerted him to the presence of another.
When he turned around, the girl was standing there.
'You…killed them…' She said her eyes round with fear and awe.
'Would you have let them live?' Xethos questioned as he located a bucket and a water skin.
'We could've just slipped away.' The girl pointed out.
'And they would've been on us before we'd made it a hundred metres.' Xethos replied as he ejected the partially spent heat sinks into the water in a cloud of steam before reloading his weapons. 'Besides, since when was there a 'we'?' He asked.
'I know the towns here and you don't and you can fight. We can help each other.' The girl replied uncertainly.
Xethos pondered her statement for a moment. He needed information and while the girl probably knew very little she still knew more than he did.
'Makes sense.' Xethos replied. 'So, where do we head for?' He asked.
In the faint light, the girl looked taken off guard by Xethos's sudden reversal, but to her credit she answered quickly.
'There's a village a few hours' walk from here, that would be the best place to go for now, after that…' The girl shrugged.
'We shall see.' Xethos completed briefly. 'Let us be off then.' He said immediately afterward.
The girl looked as if she wanted to protest, but merely shrugged and fell into step beside Xethos and tugged him in a different direction to the one he'd started in.
'It's this way.' She said. 'And how're we meant to see anything in the dark?' She asked.
'I can see fine, hold my hand if you fear losing your way, but your eyes should adjust to the darkness shortly.' He replied. They were silent for a while, Xethos struggling with his curiosity. Finally submitting to it, he voiced the question that had been plaguing him.
'What is your name?' He asked.
'Adrian Swiftdotyr.' She replied briefly and rather uncertainly. 'How did you wind up here?' She asked. 'And what did you do back there? And what are those things the slavers took from you?'
'It's a long story.' Xethos replied. 'One I'm not certain I should share at present.' He added.
'Why not?' Adrian asked.
'You wouldn't believe me, for a start.' Xethos answered with a chuckle.
Oh, god.
He hadn't felt this bad since the day after gaining his N7 designation.
With an effort, Lieutenant Jacob Johnson sat up and opened his eyes. What he beheld was a slew of error reports from his T5-V battle suit, forcing him to initiate a hard reboot of all systems to clear. When that was complete several minutes later, Johnson scanned his surroundings and came up with zip hostiles. Plenty of wildlife though: deer, rabbits, foxes, assorted birds.
When the fuck did I get deployed into the Forest of Dean? He asked himself. Then he remembered the Blackstar. So, this is heaven, huh? He thought. Well, where's the bar then?
Switching his optics to thermal revealed a large cluster of warmish structures not half a kilometre east of his position. He stood, picked up his Piranha shotgun and Phalanx pistol, then began forging his way out of the thicket he'd appeared in, stepping out onto a dirt track, which was more like a rarely-used road.
Judging by the horseshoe prints and lack of roadside litter, he was in the low-tech part of heaven. With a shrug, Johnson popped his visor and folded it back away from his head, letting the sun shine onto his buzz-cut black hair and dark skin. Probably shouldn't spook the locals too much.
A solid ten minutes walking down the side of the road and saw the settlement.
It really wasn't much to look at: Wooden buildings, set out in ordered rows, radiating out from a central square with the road cutting through it like an arrow, the sort of idyllic little town one would expect in the opening stages of an epic fantasy RPG.
That was where the similarity ended however, because currently the town's populace were being put into a chain gang.
Johnson resealed his helmet, expecting trouble, and the enhanced optics showed him he was only partially correct: The young and old were being shoved to the side, while most everyone else, including a fair proportion of the women,-who looked like they had absolutely no business being in a chain gang,-were being added to the line. The ones doing the chaining,-men dressed in chain mail and plate armour, with a red surcoat emblazoned with a twisting gold flame,-were definitely soldiers, and judging by the weapons, they probably didn't know what gunpowder was.
One of them spied, him, and motioned to a pair of his comrades, who made their way towards Johnson, meeting him just at the entrance to the town.
'Stop right there.' Said the de facto leader with self-important authority, though Johnson chose to comply, popping his visor into the bargain.
'What can I do for you, son?' Johnson questioned in an affected drawl.
'You can come along quietly and get in line with the others. You're hereby conscripted into the service of His Majesty, Galbatorix to meet the growing rebel threat.' Replied the soldier.
'And I take it the ladies are conscripted as well?' Johnson asked.
'There are many ways to serve His armies.' Stated the soldier, with dignity.
'Is that so?' Johnson asked dangerously, pulling out his Piranha, pumping the weapon to cycle the drum. 'How about this: you let these folks go, you go fight your little war yourselves, and get the fuck out of my sight before I turn you all into mince meat.'
To his credit, the soldier didn't budge, but instead gave the order: 'Sieze him.'
That was when he died.
The Piranha shotgun was not a subtle weapon: It was designed to be a fast-firing crowd-control weapon. Johnson fired, and the first soldier's head simply ceased to exist, turning into a chunky red mist, and the soldier's two comrades didn't last much longer before they to fell in the dirt with meaty slaps.
The commotion had attracted the attention of the rest of the soldiers, a couple of whom were mounted.
'Alright, let's try that again,' Johnson said loudly, engaging his visor once again. 'You can either let the townsfolk go and leave peacefully, or we can do this the hard way. Here's a hint: The hard way isn't much fun.' The other twelve soldiers charged, drawing weapons as they came.
Johnson selected the two mounted soldiers and warmed up his hawk missile launcher and fired a hydra missile, the two rockets slamming into the designated targets and blowing them apart in twin explosions of gore, leaving them intact from the waist down and spooking the horses into a frenzy, sending them running as they tried to escape the smell of death and the sting of shrapnel wounds.
The other ten men were still coming, but they were nothing but sitting targets for Johnson: He emptied the Piranha, dropping another three, before switching to his sidearm, a Phalanx pistol and using it to drop the remaining seven.
He popped his visor again, acutely aware of the town's populace staring at him and the bloody ruin he'd made of the soldiers. In less than two minutes.
'I hope I didn't scare y'all none.' Johnson called walking up. 'Saw this town, figured I'd call in for a drink and hear the news. Sorry 'bout the mess.'
I'll post more next week.
Remember to review.
No One-liners, thanks.
