Ch 2
A/N: I never really believed the power of reviews and of people reading your work before now. In the past, when I would read other author's notes and hear them go on about how excited they were to get reviews, I never really understood it. I do now! It really is motivating to write more, so if you like it, or even if you don't, please review and tell me what you liked or didn't like, what you'd like to see more of or instead, and I'll try to accomodate! Thanks!
It irked him to give any sort of control to anyone else, but Riddick reluctantly allowed Demon to lead him through the twisting caverns and tunnels to the hangar, knowing that Demon knew the way and it would be more efficient that way. If Demon felt any of the tension or the dark glares directed at his back, in Hellhound form, he gave no sign of it.
Out of practicality, they avoided the majority of the fighting, preferring to save their energy for the true fight, when they reached the ships. However, that didn't mean that they remained unscathed.
At one point, the tunnel they were running down intersected with another, and they reached the intersection at the same time as three Necromongers and one of their freakish scanning pets, the Lensors. The Lensor had just enough time to give a crackling, hoarse shriek before Demon tore its throat out, while Riddick swiftly dealt with the Necromonger soldiers.
He stepped forwards, bringing his blade up, and sliced open the lesser-protected throat of the first soldier. A wet, hot spray of blood splattered his chest and neck, making him grin savagely. The next soldier was already coming at him by then, and he ducked the swing of a battleaxe. Sliding inside of the man's swing, Riddick stabbed his blade upwards through the bottom of the man's jaw, impaling through the roof of his mouth and into the brain above. With a rough wrench, he pulled the blade free again, and glanced for the third soldier.
While Riddick was dealing with the second soldier, Demon had launched himself at the last soldier, who looked as though he were watching a movie from a comfortable couch. Vaguely, in the back of his mind, Demon recalled the wardens discussing a particular aspect of the Necromongers. They had mentioned that these soldiers, once converted from their previous lives, felt no pain.
They might not feel pain, but that shouldn't make them so fearless, Demon thought as he closed his jaws around the man's head, crunching with a wet undertone. They should be intelligent enough to fear him! He cut off his victorious train of thought before it could get any more egotistical, grinning smugly through bloody catlike jaws at Riddick.
Riddick shook his head, gestured down the hall with one shoulder, and followed when Demon took that as his cue to resume their run towards the hangar. They didn't run into any more trouble after that, the tunnels remaining clear.
They both became tense, though, upon reaching the last corner. Both could hear the sounds of many men from around the corner, of vague voices and many boots stomping and metal armor scuffing. They paused to prepare themselves briefly, before exchanging a vicious look and flinging themselves around the corner and into the open air of the surface.
They silently agreed to remain close to one another, for though they were both used to fighting solo, the benefits of someone to watch your back were undeniable. Riddick ducked and dodged, his blade never ceasing in its lethal movement. Demon was a whirlwind of motion, blood splashing from torn throats and crushed skulls. Slowly but surely they worked their way towards the ships that were both a scant fifty yards away, when a loud boom stopped the soldiers and caught the duo's attention as well.
Opportunistic as always, Riddick didn't allow the momentary distraction to stop him, and took advantage of the inattention of the soldiers to slaughter a few dozen more in rapid succession. Demon followed his example, knocking down frozen soldiers and ripping their throats out savagely.
"Enough!" The call was loud and authoritative, and Riddick warily glanced at its source, his heart sinking. A heavily armored man stood at the front, his armor bearing enough sigils and symbols for it to be obvious that he was of high rank. Standing next to him was a lesser-ranked soldier, bearing a pulse-gun. Behind the two of them were a huge wave of soldiers, at least three times as many as they had already waded through. At the very sight of them, Riddick felt exhausted. A quick glance at Demon showed him to be in a similar state. While they had sustained no serious or mortal injuries, it was impossible not to have been injured, and both were covered in a score of minor, energy-sapping cuts and slices, though Riddick was injured more so than Demon due to the armor on the Hellhound.
"Finish them," came the command. The leader of the Necromongers, who could only be the Lord Marshall as the wardens had referred to him, turned on his heel and strode away. The other officer of rank gestured sharply, and the wave of soldiers marched towards them.
Demon turned briefly to glance at the sky, noting that the sun was getting very close to their position on the ground. If they were caught in it, they would be burned instantly, and that was one way to die that he had no desire to experience. A glance at Riddick showed him to be similarly aware of their shortening timeframe to escape, and a grim look was on Riddick's face at the awareness.
They turned their attention back to the approaching soldiers, determined to at least try to fight their way to safety and escape. The fighting picked back up as they met the first few soldiers, Demon launching himself at one's chest to knock him to the ground. Only a few moments in, though, Demon screamed in agony as the tip of a spear lanced through his shoulder, driving him to the ground and pinning him there. He watched through pain-glazed eyes as Riddick looked over at the scream, eyes going wide and then narrow at the sight of him being impaled.
For the life of him, Riddick wasn't quite sure what it was about the impending death of this particular companion that made his heart stop. He had fought alongside countless men before, had watched them die, and felt nothing more than a faint regret that they had died and he had not. This time, though, he felt a red hot fury at the idea that someone would take away what he had claimed as his. Staring at the fallen Hellhound body, those molten silver eyes dimming as the life faded from them, he felt a fury unlike any he had ever felt before overtake his mind.
Riddick roared with that rage, and with his hoarse shout came a blinding pulse of power. He collapsed to his knees and then forward onto the ground, feeling his vision slip away. As the blackness crept in on him, he watched the ranking officer step over to Demon, nudge him with the toe of a boot, and then walk over to his own body and do the same.
"They're both dead," the low voice of the officer reported. "Leave them, they'll both cook in a moment anyway."
At the thought of being roasted while still alive, however narrowly, Riddick struggled with his impending fall into unconsciousness. He had the presence of mind to wait to move until the sounds of the soldiers had faded, then began to fight his body into obeying his commands to get up. Slowly, painfully, he pushed himself onto his knees, then stood, feeling as though every muscle in his body had taken a thorough beating. Shocked, he looked around at the hundreds of corpses, the soldiers who had been fighting Riddick and Demon all charred on the ground.
He shuffled over to Demon's body, determined to at least keep the Hellhound's body and bury it or burn it somewhere with more of a chance for a solemn farewell than the indignity of being burned by the sun with the soldiers. As he scooped up the body of the Hellhound, a thirst for revenge began to slowly build in the back of his throat. He looked over at the Necromonger ship, which still had its hatch left open while they prepared for takeoff, and the beginnings of a plan formed in his mind. Riddick slowly walked over to the ship, carrying his burden carefully, and advanced up the hatch ramp.
Still holding Demon's body, he turned to watch as the sun closed in on the ground, the corpses sizzling and then disintegrating into ash as he watched. When the sun began to approach the hatch, the ramp closed with the hiss of hydraulics.
Finding himself in near-darkness in the cargo hold, Riddick turned to face the bowels of the ship and crouched to gently set down his burden. As the body touched the ground, though, he caught his breath. He could have sworn that a slight twitch ran through the spiked sides of the Hellhound. As he watched, eyes carefully searching the body for any signs of movement, a ripple went down Demon's spikes.
"That's it," he coaxed in a low voice. "Don't you fuckin' die on me." A moment later, silver eyes opened slightly, and Riddick allowed himself a small grin. "You tough son of a bitch," he murmured. The Hellhound whined softly in reply, then groaned as he began the painful change back to human.
Riddick winced internally at the damage done by the spear, much more visible on nude human skin than it had been on the armored sides of the Hellhound. Demon lay panting, eyes lidded heavily with pain.
"Lemme find something to bandage you up with," Riddick told him, standing to go find some sort of material to use as bandages. A long-fingered hand slipping around his leg to grasp at his ankle made him pause and look back down at Demon.
"Don't bother," Demon said hoarsely. "Give me a minute and I can heal myself." Riddick's eyebrows rose against his will at the thought of Demon somehow being able to heal the nasty gash on his chest. It bled heavily, which was problem enough, but the gasp of pain that Demon gave after speaking accompanied with the aborted movement towards his chest gave Riddick the impression that a rib or two had likely been broken in the deep stab that the spear had done.
Demon closed his eyes, forcing himself to ignore the pain and focus his mind and will towards what he wanted to do. As a child, back in what he privately thought of as his first life, he had been a very average student, and had failed utterly to grasp the ability to heal either himself or others. But in his lifespan since then of thousands of years, the sheer necessity of healing his body had rendered him very capable of doing so, and without the wand that he had needed in his first life to be able to perform his magic. It had taken over a century of meditation within his magic's core, and a great deal of practice, but he had long since mastered the ability to use his magic through thought and will alone.
As Riddick watched, filled with envy and admiration and disbelief at what he saw before his own eyes, the bleeding stopped. The smooth edges of the wound closed, filling in without any visible scar or seam. The discoloration of the surrounding area eased back to the normal light tan of the man's skin, and the ribs straightened and healed without so much as a crack of noise. Finally, no sign remained of the mortal wound other than the copious amounts of blood that covered Demon's torso and the floor around him.
He released a gusty sigh as the pain eased and his tense muscles relaxed, and slowly pushed himself to a sitting position. Dirty boots came into his field of vision, and Demon glanced up to see Riddick standing above him, holding out a hand with a blank expression. Demon took the hand, still staring at Riddick's face, and allowed himself to be pulled to his feet. To his surprise, rather than step away as he pulled him up, Riddick stepped closer in, deliberately placing himself firmly within Demon's personal space.
Their chests brushed and Riddick closed his eyes, scenting the pungent coppery tang of Demon's blood. He re-opened his eyes to find Demon's silver eyes scant inches from his face, his few inches of additional height allowing him to look slightly down at the other man. His eyes flickered down almost against his will to rest on Demon's lips, and he took a breath and held it for several seconds before he was able to push away the desire to press his lips to those of the other man.
"Don't you ever fuckin' do that to me again," he grumbled, watching amusement fill Demon's eyes at his gruff way of showing that he cared.
"Try not to," Demon agreed lightly, stepping away. He could see that the larger man was battling against his own desires, and while he was determined to make the man his mate, he wanted Riddick to be the one to come to him. So he stepped away several paces, until they were far enough away as to not be physically distracting, and gathered his thoughts.
"How did we survive?" he asked finally, forehead wrinkling at the very valid question. Riddick paused, frowning.
"I'm not sure. I was pissed that you died, or at least I thought you did, and the next thing I knew, some bright light came out of nowhere and burned the motherfuckers to a crisp." Riddick looked slightly uncomfortable with the idea of a light killing his enemies, and Demon's eyebrows went up.
"Have you ever done anything like that before?" he asked, wondering if it was possible that this man was another strange survivor of the wizard race, or if another race of humans had somehow manifested the ability to use magic.
"No, never," Riddick answered quickly. Then he stilled, thinking back to the dreams he had had, and the feeling of a huge amount of rage that built after the appearance of a strange woman. The light was unfamiliar, but the rage right before it was not. He told Demon this, explaining his dreams about a woman named Shirah and the things that she had told him, about being the last Furyan and the rage of an entire race for being slaughtered. Demon looked thoughtful throughout the telling, and when Riddick concluded, he shrugged slightly.
"Well, so it doesn't sound as though your people had quite as developed of a magical core as mine did, but it definitely is there. Whatever it is and however it came about, for now it is rather irrelevant. It's too unreliable for now to count on it as a weapon, so until we have a chance for you to practice and experiment with it, we will just act as though it doesn't exist." He shrugged again, knowing that it was aggravating for Riddick to have to do so but determined that other things be more of a priority. Such as their location. "And where are we, anyway? I hear engines."
"The Necro ship," Riddick told him, looking grim. "I'm going to kill these bastards if it's the last thing I do." Demon nodded, eyes narrowing in fury as he thought back to his slaughtered pack. Yes, revenge was a necessity.
"I want the leader dead. The soldiers are just that: soldiers, following orders. They might have been the ones to do the dirty work, and enough of them have and will die, but the Lord Marshall is who I really want gone," he told Riddick flatly. Riddick nodded slowly, thinking.
"You should go back into your Hellhound form, then. It's always useful to have an ace up your sleeve," he said, referring to the ability to change into a human shape.
"Yes, that way no one will recognize my face if I change back," Demon mused, agreeing.
"One of these days, you are going to have to explain to me how you can do that, and where you're from," Riddick told him abruptly, eyes slightly narrowed. Demon nodded hesitantly, not looking forward to the painful rendition of his first life and the long series of events in his second life. They discussed the finer details of their invasion for a few moments longer, then Demon began the painful change back to Hellhound form, falling to his hands and knees halfway through to stand on all fours once changed.
He looked up at Riddick, who was staring down at him with an inscrutable expression. Demon wondered what was going through his mind, but pushed the curiosity away and focused on the murderous anger that the slaughter of his packmates had caused.
Demon bit back on a roar, wanting to keep the advantage of surprise for as long as possible. Instead, he nipped lightly at Riddick's wrist, then spun and leapt off through the cargo hold. On swift feet, Riddick followed, blade in hand.
Their element of surprise didn't last very long, though. The Necromongers might not have been capable of feeling much of the pain that their bodies would have been otherwise subjected to, but they did take the opportunity to cry out and raise a noisy alarm before they were slaughtered, in several cases. Demon and Riddick killed everyone they came across as they traveled up to the higher and increasingly populated areas of the ship. At first, their victims were workers and nobles, all but helpless, but as they progressed they began encountering soldiers. Riddick grinned fiercely as he danced with them, ducking and twisting beneath and around their blows and returning to nimbly slash and slice vital areas. For such a large and muscular man, he moved with an amazing sense of grace and agility, Demon thought as he watched out of the corner of his eyes. Demon was in his element, feeling an unholy glee in the amount of blood splattered across nearly his entire body.
Eventually they broke through a particularly tight knot of soldiers, and suddenly found themselves in a large open room, rather than the narrow and endless labyrinth of corridors they had previously been in. Both turned to look around at the occupants of the room. Soldiers surrounded them on all sides, forming a circle around the edges of the room. A high balcony above allowed more soldiers and many nobles to look down upon them while remaining out of the danger zone of any fighting. The glance continued to the far end, where a figure sat.
"You!" Riddick roared, hearing Demon scream loudly at the same time. Sitting on a throne at the far end of the spacious room was the Lord Marshall. He stood calmly, a small smile playing about his lips.
"You truly think you can challenge me? A breeder and a monster, both of you creatures that ought to have been put down." As he spoke, the Lord Marshall stepped down the stone steps, until he was on the floor and level with them. "Vaako, my sword," he commanded. The same ranking official from before stepped up and solemnly handed the Lord Marshall a sword in its sheath, the hilt elaborate and the sheath highly decorated. "We shall discuss later the fact that you lied to me in informing me that they were both dead," he continued. Vaako looked pale, but nodded carefully.
With a gesture, the Lord Marshall had cleared the room of the soldiers, so that they were only around the outer edges. They blocked all entrances and exits, but stayed away from the ensuing battle so as to leave the fighters plenty of space. Vaako went to one of the walls, where an array of weapons were mounted, and selected a large battleaxe. He then stood out of the way, apparently planning on monitoring the fight.
Demon looked around, noticing several nobles standing on a balcony overhead. Most looked vaguely interested but unconcerned, but one face stood out to him. An expression of desperate hope was on the face of one elegantly coifed woman, her knuckles white from how hard she gripped the post. Her eyes traveled between Vaako and the Lord Marshall, nearly ignoring Demon and Riddick, and Demon wondered who she was to have such an intense look upon her face.
Then the Lord Marshall lunged forwards, and his attention was immediately on the fight. Riddick stepped up to meet the Lord Marshall's first long thrust, parrying it impossibly with his short dagger-like blade and spinning inside of the Lord Marshall's reach while he was extended. It was the same move that had allowed Riddick to slaughter so many of the guards.
However, an instant before Riddick's blade would have made contact with the Lord Marshall's throat to tear it out, the body of the Lord Marshall blurred and wavered, then slid to appear solidly several feet away no more than a split second later. Demon narrowed his eyes, recognizing Soul Magic when he saw it. This man had evidently become imbued with it at some point, allowing him to travel on both the physical and soul planes of the universe. When he blurred, he stepped into the soul plane to move, then stepped back into the physical plane to become solid again.
Riddick had stepped to engage the Lord Marshall again, and Demon decided that cheating be damned, if the Lord Marshall was going to use Soul Magic then he, Demon, would help Riddick kill him. So it was with a snarl that he threw himself at the Lord Marshall's exposed side.
The Lord Marshall twisted out of the way of most of Demon's attack, catching Riddick's wrist as he attempted to slice at the same time. With a flick, Riddick's wrist was twisted and snapped, and the Lord Marshall ducked away from both of his attackers. Riddick shrugged, showing no sign of the pain of his broken wrist other than a small grimace, and simply switched the blade to be held in his other hand, holding it as easily as he had in the first hand.
They continued in this vein for several minutes, coming close to trapping him but failing each time to execute the moves flawlessly enough for him to be unable to escape with the use of his Soul Magic. The fight moved around the spacious room, until they were close to a wall, several feet from where Vaako stood watch.
Riddick waited while Demon lunged again at the Lord Marshall, then seeing his chance, Riddick stepped in with a swing of his blade. The Lord Marshall, predictably, slid away with his Soul Magic, and Riddick growled his frustration at the enemy that wouldn't hold still long enough to be killed properly. A Woman's cry of delight made him look up for an instant.
"Yes, Vaako! Kill him now!" It was the woman that Demon had noticed before the fight began, clinging to the post up on the balcony. The look of desperation had transformed into vivid joy, and Riddick swung his head back to look at the fight. Vaako was in mid-swing with the battleaxe, about to bring it down upon the Lord Marshall where he had slid the most recently. The Lord Marshall's face was creased in betrayal as he watched his commander bring the axe down to kill him, and Riddick saw the decision on his face an instant before it happened. Better to be killed by an outsider challenger than by a traitor. The Lord Marshall's body blurred.
Riddick brought the blade directly down just as the Lord Marshall re-appeared beneath him, stabbing deeply through the man's chest armor and puncturing vital organs, ensuring death.
"Noooo!" the woman's voice screeched. Riddick guessed she must be the wife of Vaako, the traitor commander, and had been hoping for him to kill the Lord Marshall. Tiredly, waiting for the inevitable attack from the Lord Marshall's men, Riddick stepped backwards up the throne steps and sank into the throne, cradling his broken wrist in his lap. Demon glided up the steps after him and dropped into a sitting position at his knees, rumbling a deep noise of satisfaction when Riddick dropped his hand to Demon's head and scratched gently at the base of his skull.
"Well? Aren't you going to kill him?" the woman shrieked, breaking the heavy silence that had fallen. The eyes of all of the soldiers turned to Commander Vaako, obviously waiting on his cue to decide what to do. Vaako stood with his battleaxe, an inscrutable expression on his narrow face. He looked up and made eye contact with Riddick, who merely waited to see what would happen. Maintaining eye contact, Vaako slowly sank onto one knee, then bowed his head respectfully.
"You keep what you kill." Vaako spoke it solemnly, his voice low but commanding in the oppressive silence of the hall. Slowly, the other soldiers followed Vaako's example, sinking to their knees in a deferential position to their new Lord Marshall and his Hellhound.