Hello again, everyone. Life… has been a pain, once more. All the problems I have been having before have been magnified of late. The good news is that it's paying off. My grades are improving and my GPA rising. The bad news, as you can see, is that it has made time necessary to improve and tweak my writings hard to come by. Coupled with the fact that I struggled with this chapter and rewrote it more than once, and well, I'm still not satisfied with the end product.
Again, I apologize. I hope that I was able to respond to everyone's review. If I missed one of you, let me know, please, and I'll endeavor to correct that problem.
I thank you all for your patience, and hope that this is good enough to make up for the months that its been since I managed an update.
Also, musical influences for this chapter included (in addition to one mentioned in chapter), from the new Star Trek movie "Nero Fiddles, Nerada Burns" and from the brillant musical mind of Hans Zimmer, "Psychological Recovery-Six Months" from the new Sherlock Holmes movie.
That said, let's get this over with.
&
Chapter Twenty- Bringing Light to Darkness
The Pelican dropship streaked away from the Forward Unto Dawn, followed closely by its sister ship. This was the final load. All of the munitions, power packs, troops, and medical supplies had been loaded and dropped off in a series of rapid fire trips to and from the staging area of the assault. From where he stood, the Master Chief looked out throughout the loading bay. Bruenor, Drizzt, Neeshka, Wulfgar, and even Bruenor's adopted daughter, Cattie-Brie, sat. Sergeant Johnson, Orna, and a number of other soldiers from Neverwinter, Clan Battle Hammer, and even a few plainsmen were there as well.
Johnson kept tapping his foot up and down as the ship streaked through the air. The Spartan could see that the sergeant was tense. They were heading into an unknown, against a race they had only once observed in battle. He had a right to be. However, John suspected that that wasn't the only thing that was making the shocktrooper act as such. There was something else, something that went a little deeper. Perhaps the Drow's actions at that village? It was possible that it had drudged up bad memories.
He entertained the thought of remote accessing the Sergeant Major's Combat Service Vitae, but he decided against it. There would be things enough to worry about on the mission ahead. It didn't need the distraction.
"Commander, feeling a little on edge here, you mind if I put on some music?" Johnson suddenly asked.
"We've got ten minutes until we arrive. Go ahead. Just, try not to freak out our allies. I've a feeling that our musical tastes are somewhat different from theirs." Keyes responded.
"Don't worry, got something relatively tame in mind." He looked up at the Master Chief.
John was tempted to roll his eyes, but his lips twitched upward in a faint, hidden smile as the Helljumper uploaded a file from his UNSC issue neural lace and pumped it through his external speakers.
Bruenor and the others looked over towards the ODST as the music came on. It started with a low thrumming, some instrument he'd never heard before, follow by a chanting that reminded him of some human monks he'd once met. The strange instrument picked up again, giving a high pitched wail that caused him to raise his eyebrow. A set of strange, almost tribal sounding drums joined in with the instrument, creating a strange, harmonic dissonance as the primary instrument began to repeat a series of short notes, and followed into a loud, highly fluctuating chorus of sorts. There and now, the strange, chanting like voices would return.
There was something strange about the melody, something that caused the Dwarf's adrenaline to start flowing. Was this something that the humans of this culture used to prepare themselves for battle? Orcs and Goblinoids were well known for having drummers along that would pump their troops up and alleviate the fear before a battle, so that their troops would fight harder.
"What is this?" He asked the Sergeant Major.
"Song's called Mjolnir," he said with a chuckle.
"Something that he never let's me forget," the Master Chief growled.
"Eh?" Bruenor seemed somewhat confused.
"Mjolnir is the name of the warhammer of Thor, one of the gods of Norse mythology," the Spartan said. "It's also the name of my armor system," he thumped his forefinger against the chestplate of the power armor.
"Ah," Bruenor said, before trailing off into a deep fit of laughter. "It's strange, but I like it!" He got control of himself for a moment, and wiped his brow. "I've been meaning to ask you, what's in those crates we've been bringing with us?"
"These?" John asked, pointing to the ones in the overhead storage compartments. When he got an affirmative nod from the Dwarf, he reached up into one of them and pulled out a small, cylindrical object. "Multi-charge C.L.N.G., stands for Chemical Luminescence and Noise Grenade. We call them flash-bangs. They're typically used to subdue unarmored opponents, or to sow chaos before a rapid entry into a room where a large number of hostiles are known to be."
"You planning on taking many Drow prisoners?" Neeshka spoke up, cocking her head at him.
The Spartan shook his head. "The grenade has six charges, each one gives off five million candela and about two hundred and twenty decibels of raw noise. It's about like having a small sun dropped in front of you and sticking your unprotected ear next to the engine of this drop ship," he snapped his fingers, "instant perforation of the eardrum. In the case of the Drow it should cause permanent blindness, as well."
The Tiefling shuddered for a moment. A device like that would render a Dark Elf completely helpless before the assault of these soldiers. There was one question, though, that bothered her.
"How do you stop it from affecting you?" she asked.
"Simple," Johnson said. "We've brought polarizing glasses for everyone to wear, along with a computerized set of earphones. They'll sense the light and noise increase, and adapt to block it out. They'll also tag you so our Friend-or-Foe indicators will decipher you easier on our motion sensors."
She said nothing, simply nodded.
It took them only minutes to go the distance and arrive at their destination. The Neo-Covenant were in position, along with most of the Dwarves of Clan Battle Hammer. There was a murderous gleam to their eyes, tempered by righteous fury. They were ready to take back their home.
A series of hologram emitters were set up, each one displaying the many levels and floor plans of the Hall. Commander Keyes looked around to King Bruenor, and waited for his permission. The red bearded dwarf nodded, his hands upon Ragnarok, ready to cleave Dark Elven skulls open.
"Okay, people, our objective is simple," she gestured to the primary holo-emitter, "retake the entirety of Mithril Hall from the hands of the Dark Elves. Enemy force projections indicate there may be as many as two thousand soldiers stationed here, with an unknown number of Kobold, Goblin, and Orc slaves. Estimates put them at a maximum of twenty thousand." She pulled out a remote and pressed a button on it. "Master Chief, you and Sergeant Major Johnson are going to be the personal escorts of King Bruenor and his group." She nodded towards the two armored soldiers. "His safety is paramount. Protect him with your lives if you have to."
"Understood ma'am," the Master Chief and Johnson both said, saluting their superior.
"Orna, you and Commander Tarkimee will be splitting your forces up to take the lower levels," these were highlighted by another push of her remote. "The corridors will be narrow, and so Lotar and Denos may be of limited use to you. If you find an area where they cannot enter. Send them to the nearest area that needs clearing out where they will fit. Also, try to avoid collateral damage here as much as possible. Rely on your flashbangs, and then mow down the opposition with precision shots. Use grenades and FRCs only if you have a large group of enemies that are not near anything vital or vulnerable, we're going to need this place taken intact. Targeting priorities are Drow first, everything else second."
"Understood," the chanting response echoed.
"Prepare to move out," Keyes said with a cold snarl.
It seemed that vengeance was on everyone's mind tonight.
The Master Chief crawled up over the hill in front of him. He held an Oracle in his hands as he slithered upwards like a snake. Over the rise, eh could see the massive, imposing doors of the ancestral home of Clan Battle Hammer. His cloaking device was off. It would be counterproductive towards his goals here. The Drow naturally saw heat, and while the Mjolnir armor suit masked most of his emissions, the optical cloaking device heated up the generator beyond the standard level. He'd make himself a glowing bullseye for no gain.
He leveled the sniper rifle, zooming in until he could make out the individual runes on each of the doors. There were small slits in each side, and he could see the heat effects of two Drow warriors at each of them, standing watch. The smart link scoped factored in bullet drop, wind shear, distance, and all of that. However, The Master Chief reran the figures through his head, trying to make certain that the machine matched up with his own.
Three seconds later, he was ready. He fired the rifle twice in rapid succession, switched to the other side, and emptied the magazine.
The Drow at the gates didn't even have time to figure out what was going on. They never saw Death come, never heard him. Their headless corpses flew backwards as the SABOT round pinged and ricocheted around inside of the main entrance hall, sending other Dark Elves scurrying for cover.
Lotar and Denos moved up next to the Spartan, and leveled their massive assault cannons. The fuel rods glowed a hellish green as they activated, and a plasma charge streaked across the distance between the entrance. A solitary Drow soldier that had managed to get up where the sentries were had the blinding agony of a small sun manifested to his vision, before the two charges struck the doors and sent them flying. They landed as half slagged messes.
"Charge!" Keyes ordered.
The Spartan let the sniper rifle go, reaching up and drawing his ASG before sprinting down the hill. Two Specters came roaring up behind him. Between the three of them, they crossed the two kilometer distance in less than a minute. The two light assault craft breeched the gap first, and the Sangheili manning the plasma cannons on the back threw down a combination of suppression fire and precision targeting. The Drow, who had been forming up to try and deal with a conventional assault, were completely unprepared for what came bursting through.
Orbs of darkness settled over the attacking craft, but the Elites fired on regardless. Their motion sensors told them where their prey was.
Charging in behind them, the Master Chief saw a bolt take a Drow warrior and punch through his chainmail. The soldier was ripped in half, and fell to the ground. No scream escaped his lips. Screaming required lungs. His had been blown to ash.
The Spartan lobbed a flash-bang. The small object bounced along the floor before rolling to a stop in front of the larger concentrations of soldiers.
Night became noon, and then brighter, far brighter than any natural source of light that had ever graced the depths of Mithril Hall, while the incredibly powerful shockwave, muted due to his armor and hearing receptors, shook the whole place. Drow soldiers fell screaming in agony, clawing at their eyes and thrashing about while blood poured from their ears. They were utterly helpless, fodder for the Sangheili and their cybernetic ally. For the remaining few moments of their lives, the Drow soldiers that were involved with the initial defense of the gate learned of the fear they had so long instilled in others.
"Entrance hall secure, waiting on back up," the Master Chief reported, staring around with his infrared vision turned on. There were a few survivors of the assault, missing arms and legs, or with half their body reduced to shredded or half vaporized messes. It was obvious that they would not survive the next few minutes. He left them where they lay. No need to waste ammunition on them.
The Spartan walked over towards one of them, missing both of his legs and lower portion of one of his arms where an ASG shell had removed them. The Spartan looked down upon the blind and deafened alien, studying the physiology of his enemy. They were built much like Drizzt, though they seemed to prefer heavier armor. Nimble looking fingers, high, very pronounced cheekbones, and long white hair. The crippled Dark Elf seemed to sense that he was near, and turned to face him. The pupils didn't dilate or focus. The required nerves and muscles had been burned out by the flash of light from the grenade. A weak hand moved towards a fallen arming sword, but the Master Chief stopped it. The Dark Elf howled as his wrist was shattered under the force of the half ton soldier placing his weight upon it. The Spartan stooped down and studied the weapon. It was predominately straight, but slightly curved at the end, an unusual design, he noted, while the back half was serrated.
Very odd. Such implementation would make the weapon virtually useless for slicing with that end, at least, against anyone wearing armor, but perhaps that was not its job. Drizzt mentioned that his people were fond of torture and other unpleasantries that made a deep, almost feral part of the Master Chief's mind pulse with rage. This was meant to double as a torture instrument, something to slice a person up like a hunk of meat.
He took a moment to study the rings of the armor. Analysis indicated a similarity to the armor of Lord Nasher's elite guard, Adamantine, if he remembered right. But there were key differences. Chemical compounds and alloys that would rapidly oxidize if exposed to sunlight. A critical weakness to anything on the surface, but in the lightless abyss of the so-called Underdark, not such a problem. The sword was made of a similar material, and was nearly as sharp as one of his combat knives. He had to admit that he was impressed with the workmanship.
"Bruenor's moving up with the others. Get ready to move further in," Cortana said to him.
"Roger, retrieving flash bang," the Spartan said, leaving the dying Elf where he lay, and heading over to where his charge had bounced.
A few moments later, the Dwarven King charged in through the front door, and smiled wickedly as he stared around at the carnage.
"Don't suppose you saved any for us?" he asked as he walked up to the Master Chief.
"Plenty more deeper inside where our Specters can't go, your majesty," he said.
"It'll be fun to fight alongside you again," Bruenor said with a nod. "Almost as much fun as showing these dogs why you don't mess with the Battle Hammers!" His grin faded slightly as he looked over to Drizzt, who had both of his scimitars out. "Present company excepted of course."
"You've been around me long enough to know that I am not my people, old friend," Drizzt gave a somber grin in return, his violet eyes hidden behind the polarizing visor, "let us finish this."
"Tell us which way to go," Johnson said.
"Right door leads to the throne room," Bruenor said. "Expect a mess of Goblinoids to come through, though."
"Not an issue," Keyes said over the comlink. "Chief, you and the others get those doors open, and let the plasma cannons and the Hunters go to work."
"Understood, ma'am," the Spartan nodded his head, and dashed over. Between him and the Elites, it wasn't hard to muscle open the large double doors that led into the depths of Mithril Hall.
As sure as Bruenor warned, the Dark Elves unleashed their slaves. However, as the goblins, kobolds, and even a few minotaurs poured down the hallways, they caught sight of one of two things. Some saw a strange craft that floated upon the air like the chariot of a Dark Elf matron. Others saw a hulking demon in black armor. In either case, they met a swift death as the medium plasma cannon unleashed dozens of bolts of superheated energy into their midst, or they were blasted to ash by the fury of the Lek'golo's assault cannons. Within moments, the hallways were clear.
"Press the attack!" Bruenor shouted.
The command group consisted of the Dwarf King, a number of his body guards, Drizzt, Wulfgar, Neeshka, and Cattie-Brie, with the Master Chief and Johnson taking up point escort. The Spartan felt a pang of sympathy for anything that happened across them. The Dwarves were out for blood, and it would be a while before they were sated. This was holy ground to them, and the Drow had desecrated it with their very presence, and had slaughtered the Dwarven defenders here to boot. From what he'd been able to research, nothing made the Dwarves more dangerous than when those conditions applied.
He moved forward with Johnson at his side. Their boots squished beneath their feet as they trod through the remains of the still cooling piles of meat that had once been living beings.
The corridor opened into a narrow pathway lined with pillars and display stands. John resumed this must have once been a display area for great works of Dwarven craft. Whatever had been here, it had long sense been looted. His heat vision picked up movement at the far end of the chamber. A Dark Elf leveled a crossbow while Orcs and other goblinoid slaves rushed out to assault the team. The Spartan blurred, leveling the shotgun he carried and firing two shots down range. The Dark Elf archer flew apart under the fury of the assault, while Johnson reached down to the grenades across his chest.
"Banging clear!" he shouted, hurling one of the objects down range.
A miniature sun formed and a shockwave pulsed through the Spartan's bones. In truth, he'd been worried about the possibility of cave ins through using the flash-bangs, but Bruenor had assured him that Dwarven construction was designed to withstand fully fledged earthquakes, and that the Hall had weathered such events before. Still, he kept an eye out for falling debris as the group pressed forward towards the blinded defenders.
Some of the Minotaurs were still on their feet, albeit howling in pain, with blood trails visible in their ears. Nonetheless, they charged. The Master Chief and Johnson opened fired simultaneously ripping the creatures open. They heard a cry of 'Tempos!' behind them, followed by a large warhammer spinning by. Wulfgar's strike caved the head of one of the brute's in, while blasting it off its feet. Bruenor's bodyguard charged forward to deal with the rest of the assault, while his daughter stayed back, leveling a large bow and firing off silver arrows at the stragglers to the rear.
True to his predictions, the Master Chief watched the Dwarves rush towards the deafened Minotaurs, and absolutely butcher the creatures. Worse still, for the black hearted defenders, were that they faced no ordinary Dwarves. These were Battle Ragers. Clad in spiked armor and armed with wickedly sharp axes, they plunged into the melee and fought in a strange combination of weapon play and hand to hand combat. Their spiked gauntlets ripped through the crude leather armor of the walking cows and cut deep into their legs. The Minotaurs responded by trying to crush the Dwarves beneath the fury of their maces and morning stars.
The Master Chief leveled his shotgun at a target, and fired. The Minotaur's head and shoulders were taken off by the blast. He caught one of the brutes trying to throw an axe at him, and twisted to the side as it came hurtling through the air. Cobra quick, his arm snaked out, grabbed the weapon, and hurled it back. The creature went down to its knees, its eyes crossing in an attempt to spend its dying moments staring at its own weapon, now buried in its muzzle.
Johnson's ASG-60 punched a basketball sized hole in the chest of another, before flying into a trio of Orcs that had been trying to get up at the far end of the corridor and ripping them open. The final Minotaur dropped as Drizzt blurred forward, evaded its comparably clumsy attacks, and leapt up to slice its throat open. The Master Chief could help but smile. The technique was flashier than he'd prefer, but it did get the job done.
He and Johnson resumed point, not bothering to step over the bodies of those who were dead, and those not quite dead. They'd leave them to be sorted out by the soldiers behind them. The motion sensor alerted them to more hostiles up ahead, and sure enough, another wave of Goblinoids came crashing in.
Two flashbangs later, and they were on their knees and backs, squealing in their various tongues.
The Master Chief wondered what it was that drove these creatures onward in the face of such opposition. He and the sergeant, to say nothing of the Elites, would butcher any one of them. Their fear of the Dark Elves must have been great indeed. Still, if they would rather die than face the horrors of their masters, the Spartan would be happy to oblige.
As the corridor opened up into a multi leveled facility, the Spartan could hear com chatter indicating that Fulsamee and his comrades had managed a breakthrough in the other regions. The Spartan nodded, and then took stock assessment of the situation. His motion scanner was alive with movement on all the stories of this huge chasm. Metal forges, probably processing the mithril ore of this place, lit it up and glowed brightly in his infrared scanners. Goblins, Orcs, Dark Elf overseers, and the like, were everywhere.
He pulled out his battle rifle, and started shooting. The Dark Elves went first, their heads burst open like ripe melons before the fury of the high caliber rounds. He caught movement out of the corner of his eye, and saw a Dark Elf female, two scimitar like blades held in her hands. She began to whip them back and forth in a somewhat stunning display. Drizzt began to move forward, but Johnson beat him to the punch.
The Sergeant Major calmly drew his sidearm, and fired. The female was hit directly in the center of her chest by the heavy slug. It exploded a moment later, leaving her with a enormous cavity where most of her innards used to be. He returned the pistol to its holster as she slumped to the ground, before drawing an MA5B assault rifle and letting go a flurry of tightly placed shots that wreaked havoc and chaos on those down below.
"Too many of the damn little fodder ones," he barked. "We're going to need more bullets to get the job done, or we stand a real chance of the bastards running us out of ammunition!"
The Master Chief agreed with the statement. The area below them crawled, as if the ground itself was living. There must have been thousands of fodder slaves, waiting to rush forward and die for their masters.
There had to be another way. Something else, something they wouldn't expect, he thought, as he primed a grenade and hurled it downwards. He barely heard the concussion of the fragmentary device, so muffled was it by the bodies that erupted amongst. Then it hit him. The collateral damage might be an issue, but if things went according to plan, then maybe he wouldn't have to shoot for long.
"Johnson, hold the line with them, I'll be back ASAP," he ordered his comrade. "Commander, requesting that you move one of the Pelicans in close."
"Chief, what are you—" Johnson began.
"I need the thirty on the back," the Spartan finished.
"Jesus, Mary, and Joseph," The ODST shook his head. "Just err on overkill why don't you!"
The Master Chief was already dashing back around the point, heading for the entrance.
"Question," Neeshka said, as she and Cattie-Brie kept firing their bows into the writhing mass below, a mass that was steadily stomping up towards them, rushing over catwalks and metal walkways, "what's a thirty?"
"You remember that gun that Orna used back when we first ran into each other?" Johnson said, "the big one that he took from the dropship? That's a thirty."
The Tiefling said nothing, but Bruenor gave him a strange look, while Drizzt seemed uncomfortable. The Drow's facial expressions became unreadable a moment later, when he slipped back into the depths of his cloak and nocked his bow again. Three archers, though, could not make a dent in the numbers that lay before them. Three hundred couldn't have pushed them back. The horde drew ever nearer. They were less than three levels down, now. It would take them only another minute or so to get up, even with them having to trample over the bodies of their comrades. Johnson dropped a frag grenade, but knew that it would be the last one he could hurl at the front. They would be too close after that, he might hurt one of the natives.
Bruenor growled, and readied his axe. He didn't like these odds, but if they had to fall back, then so be it. There were reinforcements further out.
"Excuse me, your majesty, how much weight can your catwalks hold?" The voice belonged to the Spartan, and it echoed in his ear. He wondered why the Spartan asked such a question.
"There's a horde of a couple thousand goblinoids trampling up it right now, and it ain't shaking loose. Dwarven construction's built to last, me good man," he let a note of pride slip into his voice.
"Just what I wanted to know," the Master Chief said.
Bruenor heard a loud thumping behind him, and turned to see the Spartan reemerge. True to his word, the massive, multi-tube weapon was held in his hands, while a large backpack hung by metal reinforced straps. There was a trail of the weapons ammunition that ran between it and a large cylinder that Bruenor suspected was a secondary storage unit. His eyes bulged slightly as he stared at it though. Last time, he hadn't gotten a good look at the 'bullets' that this monster used. They were as big around as his fist, nearly as long as his forearm.
The Spartan looked over the edge of the catwalk that they were upon, and leapt off. He landed heavily, about a hundred feet away from the pressing horde. A number had already may their way up the stairs to the level above, and would be bearing down on Bruenor and the others. Nothing he could do about them. Here, however, there wouldn't be an issue of friendly fire.
He had about six hundred rounds between both ammo storage units. He needed to make them count. He leveled the weapon, and gently tapped the firing stud. A single thirty millimeter round shot out of the cannon and streaked through the lines of the enemy. A second followed, and then a third, as the catwalk turned into a meat grinder.
"Fire, pause, fire, pause," the Spartan whispered to himself.
The area in front of him cleared for the moment, and he could hear the sound of screaming from the area above him. None of the screams sounded like his allies, and if Bruenor's jubilant voice was anything to go by, they were doing just fine. He needed to press forward, keep the enemy off balance. It would be the last thing they were expecting. He raised the autocannon up higher, even with his shoulder, and kept the belt out of the muck and gore as he stomped across the catwalk. His motion sensor was still one red blur, and beneath him was a mass of slaves and fodder, waiting for their turn to fight and die.
How did the Drow gather so many into a single location? Mithril Hall had fallen to them less than a month ago. If this chamber was any indication, there could be tens of thousands of troops stationed here. How did the Drow keep them all supplied? How far were they from the nearest Dark Elf logistics base? Questions for survivors, he thought to himself.
"Moving down to third level, ammo supplies at ninety five percent," he echoed into the comm system.
"Roger that, Sierra, marking your position," Cortana said. "Hope you know what you're doing. Things could get ugly in there really fast."
"Clear for the moment," the Spartan said.
John looked down below him. Another wave was stomping up, but it would take them some time to reach his position. He scanned his way across the forge area beneath him, and spotted a clustering of Drow troopers. He angled the thirty as he needed, and lined up. The crosshairs on his HUD flashed red, and he depressed the firing stud. Two rounds leapt out of the barrels, and the group seemed to erupt into a mass of body parts. He caught sight of a single Dark Elf bolting around a corner, and forced himself to check his fire. The autocannon round would punch through the rock like it wasn't even there. One target, however, was a waste of his limited ammo supplies. He was curious about who the individual might have been though. He wasn't aware of any Drow ranks that included the use of wide brimmed hats with what looked like some kind of feather sticking out of them.
Fifty feet above his head, Bruenor locked axes with a rather heavily built Orc warrior. The creature's face was twisted, marred by scars and pitted by what looked to be fang marks. For once in his life, Bruenor actually felt a bit of sympathy for the wretch on the other end of his weapons. He could remember Drizzt's tales quite well, and knew the fate that usually befell slaves. There's was not an envious lot in life. He was doing these things a favor by killing them.
The creature brought its axe down as if it were trying to cleave the helm from his head. Bruenor let the weapon fall. It smashed into the helmet, but bounced off the well crafted mithril without leaving so much as a dent. His rock hard skull took care of the rest of things, and he grinned as the impact threw the Orc off balance. Ragnarok flashed once, burying itself up into the groin of the creature, before the Dwarf King reached back and took another chunk out of his adversary's side. A pair of Kobolds rushed over the fallen body of their comrade, but there was little they could do against the Dwarven juggernaut that stood before him. The blood in the King's veins began to boil, and his axe began to become on unstopping engine of destruction.
At his sides, two Battle Ragers lunged forward, deflecting blows with their axes before grabbing their adversaries in a bear hug. They went into a series of convulsions, and their spiked and bladed armor reduced their foes to shredded messes. Gobliniod ichor dripping off their armor and their half covered faces, they gave great shouts before plunging further into the group.
Bruenor took stock, there were less than a score of troops left before them. There was a blur of darkness over his head: Drizzt. The Dark Elf was like a specter of the reaper itself. He plunged both of his scimitars home into a single foe as he leapt through the air, riding the body to the ground. In a single blurred motion, both Icingdeath and Twinkle were back out, and hacking away. The enemies around him seemed to fall apart, and the remaining troops seemed to waver as they finally realized that there was a Drow among this group. Instinctive submission welled up for a moment, and Drizzt didn't hesitate. Before they understood what was going on, the slaves were groping at slit throats, opened bellies, and a number of other wounds.
They slumped to the ground, and Drizzt flourished his weapons, before starting to head down the staircase in front of them.
"Ascetic, Tarkimee, status report?" Keyes asked.
"Sangheili troops have forgone plasma weaponry in favor of swords. Too many of the vermin for us to squash with ranged weaponry without running out of ammo. Casualties nonexistent thus far," Orna responded.
On the other side of that line, Orna Fulsamee led his brothers once again. The Sangheili's twin plasma blades dove downwards and slashed to and fro, biting into Orc and Goblin flesh, while the smaller Kobolds were simply stampeded over like they were not even there. Behind them, the Grunts busied themselves with finishing off the stragglers that had managed to survive.
They exited the corridor that they were in, and like Bruenor and his compatriots found themselves in a large forge. The Ascetic marveled at the wondrous construction that surrounded him. To create such a great work with only the tools afforded them, it was a masterpiece, an architectural work of art that almost distracted him. A barrage of arrows and small bolts descended from the upper levels. Orna spread his mandibles behind his helmet. Time to show the warmongers was battle was about, starting with a little psychological warfare.
The Sangheili line formed up into a wedge shape, each one of the enormous aliens locking themselves into a set position. They raised their blades as more arrows bounced harmlessly off their shields. Goblinoids charged towards them in a barely organized line.
The Ascetic and his compatriots kept pace, moving forward methodically, their faces hidden behind the emotionless fronts of their helmets. Still the slaves charged. They slammed against the front row of the Elite line, and almost instantly disintegrated. The Neo-Covenant forces erupted into action, becoming multi-colored blurs as they slashed, chopped, and stabbed with their energy blades. Armor melted, weapons burst into flame and became bubbling pools of slag before them, and before long, the Goblinoids were torn between fear of their masters, and fear of the mysterious foes in front of them.
Jarlaxle panted softly, before reaching up underneath his feathered cap. The Dark Elf pulled out a whistle and blew a series of harsh notes on it. He prayed that the magic was still effective despite the troubles with the Weave. With luck, it would alert his fellows deeper back in the mines, and let them know to get the hell out of this place. The mercenary leader shuddered and for one of the few times in his life, felt genuine terror.
He had seen something up in the higher alcoves of the mines, nearly invisible to his heat based vision. A hulking monster, carrying a massive device that couldn't be anything other than a weapon. The others that had been with him, they were all dead, he knew it. It was only by the skin of his teeth that he had managed to get out of this mess alive.
His memory flashed back to the battle that Matron Baenre had had him and his fellows scope out. The dead Orcs, the dead Luskans, the shattered, shredded, and mutilated bodies, he knew what had done it now. Why had the Matrons kept this hidden from him and the others? They had to know that something like this was on Faerun. A creature of that nature could not remain hidden for long, someone with the proper arcane attunement would have noticed, and it wasn't as if the Luskans wouldn't be curious as to what wiped their forces out.
Anger began to simmer in his blood as he contemplated what that meant. Either the Luskans had foolishly chosen to keep that information to themselves—unlikely, given that even the Arcmagi were afraid of Matron Baenre—or that the Matrons knew, but decided that he, his mercenaries, and the other soldiers here simply were not important enough to be notified.
The anger turned into a full blown rage that made his only visible eye glow. He struggled to resist the urge to lash out, to deny the anger and bloodlust that seemed his birthright. First, he had to get as many of the men and women under his command out of here as possible, before they were slaughtered like Roth before a bunch of Hook Horrors.
He blew on the whistle again as he descended into the depths of the mines. Shortly, he found his playing was paying off, a group of six Drow shifted out of a tunnel to his left. He recognized them as his own, and they saw his relieved grin and returned it.
What's going on? asked one of the males in silent code, one of his sergeants, by the name of Dilafay.
Trouble up above. Bruenor and his friends, Jarlaxle responded with a few flicks of his right hand. They have with them some manner of creature I've never seen before. I believe it's the one that wreaked such havoc among the surface forces we were sent to investigate.
Is this why you order the retreat? a female inquired.
Indeed.
"It is wise that he does," someone dared to whisper. Another group had emerged from the darkness, their faces colored bright by the heat of their blood. They were out of breath. Jarlaxle recognized Dinin Do'Urden. "There are demons loose in the lower chambers, creatures I have never before born witness to. Hundreds of them."
Jarlaxle's eyes narrowed dangerously. The Heavens and the Hells may have been in disarray, but there was no excuse for this. To not see an event of this nature coming, with as much arcane training as the vaunted Matrons possessed was sloppiness and ineptitude that the mercenary leader would have never believed possible in his lifetime. It was the kind of sloppiness that got someone killed, or their house destroyed.
He shook his head and motioned for the others to follow. That crone might give him hell for what he was doing, but he was not going to throw away the lives of the men and women who were loyal to him in some showing of fanatical loyalty to the Spider Queen. This day was lost, and so, he suspected was this cause.
"Come," he whispered, "we move. Bruenor will be content with the halls, he will not follow… and I doubt that any who stand their ground will survive to see us flee."
Unknown to the mercenary leader was that someone watching him. Helm nodded sagely as he stood before the Celestial Staircase. His shook those thoughts from his head, though, as he sensed something nearing. He looked out across the area before him and saw someone approaching, hidden within the depths of a midnight blue cowl. He knew who it was though, and his eyes narrowed behind his cowled armet.
"Mystra…" he said, as she drew near. "Again you return, and you still do not have your sacred tablets. You know the rules laid down by Ao. Turn back now, lest I be forced to scar your face once again."
"Ever the lapdog," the woman before him hissed. "I have had enough of this. The people languish without us. They cry out for our aid, and we cannot—"
"Spare me the theatrics, I've heard them before." Helm shook his head, while drawing a large bastard sword. "Maybe this will teach you and the others to spend less time plotting amongst yourselves, and more time worrying about the mortals we are pledged to guide and protect." He paused for a moment. "And I see through your tales of woe, Mystra. Bane pleaded as well, before I sent him back, sent him to his death. Lathander, Tiamat, all of them. I see the same thing in their eyes," his unseen lip turned upwards in disgust. "I see fear. You fear what you have become. You know what it is to be weak, to be vulnerable. You must feel like a statue made of glass, milady, worried that the slightest misstep will cause you to shatter."
"Simply because you have known the bitterness of mortality before you became a God does not give you the right to pass judgment on us like this," she snarled.
"The bitterness of mortality?" Helm chuckled. "Poor deluded woman, you've spent too much time lording over a bunch of magi and ordering around people with sharp sticks. You have not the slightest inkling of what those 'bitter mortals' are capable of. I do. But enough of this. Turn back now."
"Never! Never again! I will not be bound to this wretched form any longer!" the Avatar screeched. She summoned a bolt of raw power, a spell strong enough to leave a Baalor stretched out dead before her, and hurled it at the God before her.
Helm made no move. The spell crashed into his chestplate, and harmlessly dissipated. The glowing eyes narrowed and faster than a man could have blinked, he slashed his sword through the air. There was a crash of thunder, and a blast of energy, of raw cosmic power, streaked off the pointed end of the blade and hit the former Goddess of Magic square in the chest. She screamed in agony, before another sharp pain erupted through her spine. Looking down, she saw the tip of Helm's sword protruding from between her breasts. He coughed, and more blood spattered onto the sacred ground before them. Slowly, she looked over her shoulder, back up into the hidden face of the other God who now stood behind her. Her mouth opened in a gasp of surprise, as if she were unable to believe that Helm had actually gone through with his threat.
"I warned you, milady, I warned you. You authored your end with your own hand… not mine. " Helm said. His voice was calm now, devoid of all emotion. Then he twisted the blade and ripped it out of her, cleaning its edge upon her cloak. "Your body will lie here until the Troubles are ended, and perhaps you may yet save some lives in that respect. A dead body, after all, makes a much more effective deterrent to others that would break the High Father's command than my mere words."
She took a last, gasping breath, and then went silent. Helm shook his head. Such a waste. Still, he had warned her. Once with words, the second time with a scar. That she had not learned, and though her burden too great to bear, such that it merited trying to storm the gates of the Heavens themselves, was her problem.
Helm's eyes narrowed once again. The loss of divine power. He was tempted to snort in disdain. Half these gods knew nothing of what true loss was. Mortals were puppets to them, all of reality their plaything, with lives sold and wasted in their schemes for power among their fellows. Bane had exemplified that more than anything when he started this whole mess.
It was time for a reality check. A check that would soon be coming, in more ways than one.
&
Weeeeelllll…. like I said, probably not my best work. I struggled on this one, and I only hope that the ones in the future aren't so bad.
I thank you all once again for the time and effort you have made to read this story, and for your patience in putting up with my ever increasing delays, and possible insanity (though I'm told feeling like you're losing your mind is a common side effect of going through Law School).
Until next time, everyone please stay safe, and live life to the fullest.
Red Mage 04, signing off for now.