FIC: Chosen Twelve (9/?)
"Have I mentioned that I have a very bad feeling about this?" Xander muttered, solitary eye fixed on the mob charging towards them, the sun gleaming off their many weapons.
"Don't worry," Faith winked at her man. "I won't let anything happen to my boytoy."
"Well that's reassuring." Xander nodded towards the rampaging force. "Are you going to tell them that?"
"Planning to." Faith looked around. Illyria had torn up a practical forest of trees and impaled them in the area at the bottom of the incline, creating a sort of barricade that should at least slow their enemy's advance. The elves were behind them with bows at the ready, along with Red ready to do her Sabrina thing. The rest of them were in the front line, awaiting the rush.
Faith's eyes narrowed as she noticed perhaps four dozen of the Clear-Bloods splitting off to try and out-flank them to their right. "Fang you see it?"
"I see it," her stoic idol replied.
"Ken, Ron, Vi, join me and Angel on the right. X," Faith winked at her man, "see ya in a few."
Turning her attention back to the matter in hand, she pulled on her horse's reins, guiding it down the hill at the head of her fellow Slayers and Angel. Every gallop of her steed thundered through her. The last thing she saw was her enemies' wide eyes and then she crashed into them.
"Faith-," Xander's voice trailed off as his wife rode off.
"Ach, laddie," he glanced behind to see Bellator, a wry smile on the weathered warrior's face. "Don't worry. That wee lass is too feisty to allow an insignificance like a small army to stop her from coming back to you." The battle-worn mercenary's smile disappeared. "You'd be best concerning yourself with the enemy heading towards us."
Xander nodded before returning his gaze to the front. By now the elves had begun firing arrow after arrow into their charging attackers. Although the elves unleashed their barrage at a blur, each arrow downing a Clear-Blood, the racists plunged on, only slowing when they reached Illyria's hastily created obstacle course. Sweat began to drip down his forehead. "Steady lad," Bellator muttered in his ear, barely audible over the din. "Not long now." Xander shifted uncomfortably in his saddle, watching, waiting.
The moment the opposing faces exited the barricades, Connor, Groo, and Illyira charged to meet them, Bellator, Xander, Wood, and Giles staying to guard Willow and the elves. And what carnage did Willow create. Trees from the barricade uprooted and flew into riders, taking five, six down at a time. Illusory apparitions appeared, spooking horses, causing them to throw their riders. Underground roots flew out from beneath, grabbing a hold of horses' legs, causing them to buckle.
Those who escaped Willow's magics ran into Connor and the others. The skill of Groo, Illyria's awesome rage, and the vampire son's blinding agility. Between them they took down dozens. But still they came, sheer weight of numbers meaning this battle could only end one way.
Kennedy's heart pounded in tandem with her horse as she and the others charged head-long at the advancing Clear-Bloods. As a child she'd spent many an idyllic afternoon riding. But never, she smiled reluctantly, riding into battle.
"Yes!" An unbidden scream erupted from her lips as she reached the Clear-Bloods. The first Clear-Blood attempted to skewer her with a sword-thrust that she easily blocked before swing kicking the fanatic's weapon away. She briefly saw the thug's eyes widen with surprise and then her fist was crunching into his face.
Kennedy didn't bother to watch the renegade's collapse. Twisting at the waist, she parried a lunge at her before replying with a back-handed slash, her blade cutting deep into the man's side.
Ignoring both the blood spewing out of the man's side and the bile that rose in her throat at the sight of it, Kennedy geed her horse forward, deeper into the melee. "No!" Her eyes widened in horror when a Clear-Blood thrust his blade deep into her horse's neck.
The horse threw back its head and neighed its distress, blood vomiting out of its mouth. Kennedy caught sight of the beast's despairing eyes as it collapsed, pitching head-first to the ground. Kennedy flung herself free, hitting the churned up grass on her shoulder. Kennedy began to roll up to her feet.
And then a horse's hoof crashed into her forehead and she was plunged into unconsciousness.
"By the abyss!" Torvas shook his head as he looked through his one-handed telescope and to the on going battle some eight hundred metres to their left. All this work, all the searching and it would all come to naught. He looked to his left and the dandy beside him. "What are you doing?"
His companion did not deign to look towards him, continuing to check his stirrups. "Getting ready to help them."
"I always knew you Fleet Swords had heads as thick as tree trunks, but this!" Torvas shook his head. "There's hundreds of them!"
Tachy shot him a gleaming smile. "We were set a mission," the former cavalry officer pointed out. "And the way they're cutting through the Clear-Bloods we'll be facing dozens rather than hundreds."
"Oh that's alright then." Torvas threw his head back and laughed. "To the void with common sense. Never let it said a Watching Steel would turn away from a Fleet Sword's challenge!"
Diokete Xulon stared down at the raging battle going on before her. Despite the cover offered by the trees concealing her and her followers, terror twisted her insides as her mind travelled through the corridors of the past.
As a child she'd lived a blissfully happy life in a simple southern village. And then a troop of Clear-Bloods had fallen upon their village, murdering elves and dwarves who'd lived there harmoniously for decades and 'purified' the humans for committing the heinous crime of living with other species. Her father had died that day trying to protect her and since then she'd trailed relentlessly to ensure that no-one would ever have to die protecting her again.
"Are you alright?"
Diokete turned towards her brother to her left, heart catching as it always did at the man's rasp. It had been caused by a Clear-Blood's slash to her brother's throat when he'd attempted to protect her, as was the jagged vertical scar beneath his left eye and his missing left little finger.
Yet despite his infirmities, Elipzo was still a formidable figure. Short with black unflinching eyes and a pointed goatee that matched his eyes, her brother's thickly-muscled physique was clothed in loose-fitting woollen black breeches, a fur jerkin over a chain-mail shirt, and a brass skullcap over his bald pate. A short sword and a trio of throwing knives hung from the leather belt around his portly waist.
"I'm fine," Diokete smiled wanly before returning her gaze to the skirmish. "Their defiance stirs my blood."
"We have a mission to complete!"
Diokete turned to the speaker, eyes narrowing. "It can wait!"
"Dys Andros is not a man to be kept waiting," the speaker pressed.
Diokete's lips thinned as she struggled to keep a hold of her patience. After their village's decimation, Elipzo had decided that they should join with Dys Andros, the Empire's most notorious bandit and probably the only person the Clear-Bloods feared.
Until now. Diokete shook her head as she came to a terrifying decision. "We're no going," she replied. "They need our help."
"We have our orders!" squeaked the protestor.
"Then go," she shot her companions a challenging look. "I have greater concerns than robbing a trade caravan."
" Andros will hear about this!"
Diokete was dismayed when fourteen of her twenty-six strong group joined the protestor in riding off. Clearly their fear of Andros was more compelling than their loyalty to her. Swallowing her disappointment, Diokete drew her sword before looking towards her brother and the others who'd remained behind. "Let's ride!"
Faith smirked as she used the back of her hand to wipe the sweat off her brow. The fighting had been frenzied, but she'd come through it in one piece, the enemy routed. Crouching down, she wiped her blade clean on the grass.
Looking around, she saw her hubby, their companions, and a bunch of strangers who'd come out of nowhere to help them. Faith opened her mouth to yell a greeting to her man. "Kennedy?" her eyes snapped to a drawn-looking Willow. "Where's Kennedy?"
"Ah hell," Faith whispered as she cast a worried look around, heart tightening as she tried and failed to find any sight of her fellow raven-haired Slayer. The first woman who'd offered to be her friend.
"Oh bollocks," Giles took over. "Angel, can you or Connor smell Kennedy?"
The vampire shook his head. "Too many people, too much death."
"Bugger," the Watcher scowled. "Then we had best split up."
"Xan, Bellator with me," Faith instructed. Her eyes narrowed as she remembered somewhere close to the ten of the raiders breaking away before the end of the battle. Maybe they'd grabbed Ken on the way out.
Their losses had been terrible, but it would all be worth it. Oduim sneered at the restrained beauty, her hands and feet chained as she'd been flung unconscious across the back of a horse. "You might have broken my nose my pretty. But I'll see to it that every bone in your body is broken." His sneer widened as the girl's eyes flicked open to glare at him. "Oh those eyes! I'll have to see about plucking -."
"Clear-Bloods! Cowards! Murderers! Scum!"
Oduim's blood chilled as he looked up to see his heckler. The man was an ebony-skinned giant with a battle-worn warrior's face, long braids resting on his broad shoulders. He brandished a broadsword that any normal man would need two hands to lift in his right hand and a giant battle-axe in his left, the war stallion beneath him seemingly controlled by sheer will alone.
Oduim swallowed, something shrivelling inside him at the cold gleam in the Shem's eyes. Oduim glanced left and right. Fortified by his companions' presence, he let out a ragged yell. "Charge him!"
All seven of his troops charged forward, their steeds' hooves thumping on the ground. A barbaric war-cry erupted from the Shem's mouth and then he bounded forward. The warrior's sword slashed to his right, taking a Clear-Blood's head off, blood showering everywhere. At the same time he blocked a sword thrust on his left with his axe before thrusting across his body, sword sliding through his would-be attacker's ribs.
And then the giant was past the remaining five Clear-Bloods. The man-mountain turned his horse in an impossibly tight half-circle before crashing his axe into the back of the head of the nearest Clear-Blood, viscera erupting from the calamitous wound as the attacker yanked his weapon loose. One of the remaining quartet turned to face the warrior. The Clear-Blood's lips bared in a desperate snarl as he blocked a back-handed broadsword slash and then howled in pain when the Shem followed up with an axe across his body, ripping into the Clear-Blood's stomach.
One of the last surviving Clear-Bloods crashed into the Shem's war stallion only for his lighter pony to stagger back. The Clear-Blood raised his shield to parry an axe-swing. Such was the force of the attack that the shield was knocked aside, the weapon continuing on route to its target, the victim's face disappearing in a crimson spray.
Oduim's mouth opened in an out-raged bellow when his last two followers turned tail and fled. His shout turned to a croak when the Shem's deathly gaze dropped on him. Oduim glanced at his captive, trying to decide whether to dump her and run or take her with him.
By the time he'd decided, it was already too late. He was falling from his horse, head cleaved almost in two from a downward axe-swing.
"Wow," Xander stared in disbelief at the giant black they'd just seen decimate the fleeing Clear-Bloods they'd been tracking as the man freed a dazed-looking Kennedy.
"He's like Teal'c with braids."
"We could leave the two of you alone if you'd like a homo-erotic moment together," Faith smirked.
Xander glowered at his wife. "Remind me why I married you?"
Faith's smirk turned to a leer. "I think we both know the answer to that." Faith sobered. "Let's grab Ken and get back to the others."
Areos Lex smiled as his guest was escorted into his dark, featureless office. His square-faced guest had thin cruel lips and bitter brown eyes, his face pock-marked from some illness or other and his straggly hair prematurely grey. His unprepossessing appearance was only added to by his paunch and stale, drinker's breath. "Hello, Vistro." Lex nodded at one of the finest tools at his disposal. "Please take a seat."
"Sir," the bounty hunter rasped before sitting. "I understand you have an assignment."
"Oh yes," Lex nodded. To his way of thinking these dimensional interlopers presented an opportunity. For whatever reason they worried the emperor and therefore whoever dealt with them would gain much favour. And Vistro would be his instrument to accomplish this. As the leader of the Gut-Eaters, the empire's most ruthlessly efficient bounty-hunters, a band of multi-national cut-throats who if not for their licence, would be foremost amongst the hunted. "An assignment that could make you very wealthy."
He passed the documents over the rough-hewn table. The room was almost completely silent for the next few minutes but for the crinkle of paper as Vistro read through the information on the strangers with a furrowed brow. Finally the bounty-hunter looked up, a calculating gleam in his eyes. "These strangers sound tough. I'll have to hire more men, maybe even the Blood-Trackers and the Killing-Shadows."
Lex smiled at the mention of the empire's other leading bounty-hunters. All money-hungry scum, but that was a large part of what made them so dangerous. "Hire who you need. I'll make sure it'll be more than worth your while."
