Believing and Bugger
Again; I awoke from my slumber and left the temple. Although gods do not need sleep, I find it helps me focus and contain all my energy, so that I am ready for the battles to come. The belief of my followers is enough to power my miracles but not quite enough to sustain my fatigue. However; I awoke this one morning feeling very energetic. For a moment I pondered as to why, but then I remembered my Tibetan followers; the mystical humans would greatly help the war effort. I decided to check on my capital, before the day's attacks, and left the mighty temple. My capital, as I had mentioned in my previous chapter, was getting quite big. I smiled as I saw the children running around their crèche; they were the future of the village. They would be the next lot of colonists when I discovered new lands. They looked so innocent in their little fur tunics and coats that it saddened me to think of the bloodshed and death they would experience in just a few years time. Let them play, I thought, they deserve to be ignorant of this war for a while longer. Moving on from the little schoolhouse and playground, I passed the food store and half a dozen houses, before I came to a strange building. It was like a large miracle dispenser, but had a house built into it. There was a balcony just below the rim of the bowl shaped top, and the tripod legs had windows and doors built into it.
"Hello…" I muttered. This hadn't been there the day before. I shimmered into my human form (usually I sleep in my symbolic form, as it provides more comfort. It is not visible to most humans, however) and gazed up at it, ignoring the four villagers who dropped what they were doing and fell to their knees around me.
The door on the balcony above me creaked open and a very old man emerged. I quickly transformed back into my symbol form (my symbol, a sort of Star Shape, surrounded by blue light) and hovered to above the height of the miracle dispenser/house, but to my surprise, the man's eyes followed me as though I was clear as day.
"Do not be alarmed, holy one, I am an ally." He croaked, suddenly. His voice sounded like a sword being scraped against metal.
"Who are you, to come into my village and set up your house (not that it's a bad house, I rather like it) overnight!?" I asked, menacingly, transforming into my human form yet again. The man just chuckled and said:
"I am here to give you a miracle. What miracle I do grant you with will be decided depending on your behaviour. I have two available."
I sighed.
"Very well, you may live here. Please call me when you are ready."
I had decided to be nice to this man. If he could see me, and had the guts to stand up to me, then there was something strange that set him apart from the other villagers. I wanted to figure him out; I didn't like things that I could not understand but I liked puzzles and this was a puzzle. I left the grey-fur clad man and flew over the remainder of the town in my human form. There was one last building that caught my interest and I swooped low. It was a low, stone building. It looked like a house merged with some kind of exercise gym. In the yard outside it was a small archery range. Two or three men and one woman were firing arrows at the yellow and red targets. As I landed, the group turned and bowed, except for the woman. She marched up to me and gave a military-style salute.
"Welcome, Holy one! This is the Barracks of your capital. I hope everything is to your liking. I am General Alexandra."
I nodded respectfully, but I couldn't help a childish grin breaking out across my face. Finally! I could train troops to take on the enemy directly!
"How many soldiers are trained currently?"
She considered for a moment.
"We only opened a few days ago, so we only have two six-man squads of hoplites and a squad of archers."
I saluted and she suddenly fell to her knees.
"What is the matter, woman? We are both beings of war, so I can respect you in a way that I cannot the other villagers." I laughed "Stand up. I want to move out the soldiers available right away."
I liked my hoplites. Even though they were beginning to look slightly Norse, my village still remembered its Greek routes.
In a few minutes, there were two small phalanxes of hoplites standing before me, round shields in their left hand, long spears in their right. Behind them was a thin line of men and women in baggy leather armour and carrying short, curved bows. I noticed that all of my troops, though still wearing Greek-style armour, had adopted the fur cloaks that my villagers seemed to like.
"You are few in number" I said "yet you worship the true god; Blitz!"
The soldiers all cheered, some raised their weapons.
"Follow me to victory. We shall remove the false god, Knylus!"
Another cheer; this one sounded more enthusiastic. I arranged the troops into a column and ordered six villagers to follow in, too. The General stayed behind, and agreed to train more troops to boulster my numbers. As I lead the army from my capital, towards my farming town, I suddenly felt a surge of power; a powerful miracle had just been used…
Leaving
my troops to trudge on through the fields of corn, I flew up to get a
birds-eye view of what was happening. I swallowed as I saw what was
happening:
Knylus was hovering in mid air, like me, and below,
little more than 500 metres from the farming town, was a graveyard.
As I watched, Knylus raised a fist; and several corpses, bleached
bone showing through pale flesh, burst through the gates of the
little burial ground. I had seen this miracle used before. Knylus was
a clever git. He liked to summon corpses and wild animals to fight
until my forces were weakened enough, and then send in his real army.
The zombies were small in number (no more than fifteen) but I knew
what would happen when they attacked.
"No you don't!" I growled. I raised my arms and sent a Megablast tumbling down towards the shuffling rabble. The explosion wiped them out, but alerted Knylus to my presence. I saw him hurl his own Megablast at me, and I could barely dodge it. As it was, the miracle clipped my shoulder and smashed me to the ground. I rose and threw a massive fireball at him, but he just laughed and destroyed it with a second Megablast. He seemed to have a lot of energy, suddenly. I didn't know how, but he had fully recovered from the recent battle, and was using powerful miracles consecutively. I noticed that my armour on the left side was scorched and, in places, torn. This was worrying. The armour was like the equivalent of casting the most powerful shield I could muster around myself. If it was damaged, then that had been a very powerful miracle indeed.
"Come down here and fight!" I shouted. My arch-nemesis simply laughed again.
"There will be fighting abound in a moment." He hissed. I watched as three house-sized bubbles, which resembled miracle-seeds, hovered around him the surfaces were opaque, but they descended to the ground nearby and dissipated; revealing a large number of red-clad samurai (Knylus' specialist troops). Out of each bubble marched nine samurai warriors. Knylus landed next to the soldiers.
"Destroy him!" was his order, as he gestured towards me. The first nine drew katanas and sprinted at me, screaming battle cries. Battered though I was, I focused my energies and channelled them out in an 'extreme lightning'. This was like the lightning bolts I cast normally but bigger, better and more helpful because if it hit something, it would jump to anything else nearby. I watched as the first 'squad' crumpled, crackling with energy and screaming death screams as a contrast to their battle cries five seconds ago. I laughed: Humans were no match for me and I found their little attack quite humorous.
"Got anything else for me to kill?" I asked sarcastically. I suddenly saw what Knylus had been doing whilst I was killing samurai; He had been preparing something big. Knylus was on one knee, drawing a symbol in the air with a forefinger. I began to cast a Megablast, but he had already finished his miracle. He had chosen the location of this battle well. Directly behind his men and him was a thick pine forest. As he raised his arms to the void (or the heavens as the mortals call it), there was a rustling, panting, crashing and snapping, and wolves burst from the treeline: Thirty great, shaggy beasts with glowing green eyes and frantic snapping jaws. At the same time, a fourth 'transport bubble' teleported in behind the god, and around the same number of zombies staggered out. At that moment, as if things couldn't get worse, the remaining two squads of samurai drew katanas and charged.
And so, I did look on at the charging force of Japanese warriors, beasts and un-dead and I did say unto myself;
"Bugger."
Well that was chapter four. I hope you enjoyed it. Please, Please, Please review it! I live for reviews!