Chapter Twelve
Kain tried to break the barrier that the guards had formed of themselves to separate him from his suffering re-incarnation, but to his dismay this only seemed to help them keep him back, as it kept him concentrated in the same position and direction; easier to deal with.
The edge of the Hylden's Reaver sank deeper into her stomach, almost deep enough for the sliced skin to heal back over the top.
That was what Caucahn wanted; he wanted the blade of the Reaver to be embedded in her body so that he could rip it out again…he chuckled at the thought. The pet was his property and he could do what he damn well liked with it. He always had done so in the past so there was nothing to stop him now.
Khila's gut flared with searing pain as the blade continued to bury itself within her, guided by Caucahn's hand. She wanted to scream, if not for defence then just for the comfort of being able to control a single part of herself.
Caucahn had her crushed disgustingly close against him. She could feel his sick warm breath on the back of her neck; each one arriving faster than the last as her torment excited him.
The pain occupied her thoughts…she though that she might have heard something…a voice…calling through the sharp agony that refused to abate…the words spoken echoed inside her head…'Use your Gifts!'…she wanted to call back, to tell the voice…to tell Kain…that she just couldn't; that she didn't know how…and she wanted to apologise for not being able to honour her promise to him and keep herself safe.
Strained with pain and effort Caucahn heard her gasp. "Just kill me…please just kill me!"
"But that would do nothing for me." He replied almost conversationally. "It's been so long since we last had fun."
"No…NO!" A warmth began to grow inside her at the edges of the blade, spreading from the wound and reaching out to all parts of her body. The warmth spread to her fading thoughts, filling her mind with an almost flu-like fuzziness, deep, thick and hot. She slipped into unconsciousness and the heat haze flared out, the burning heat from inside of her was caught by the metal of the blade and by Caucahn's armour. The Hylden flung her away, yelling out as the heat began to burn his skin. Luckily for him as soon as he was out of her area of influence the heat seemed to be sucked back out of the metal, leaving him only mildly scorched in places rather than cremated.
"What have you done to my pet, Kain?" Caucahn demanded as Khila struck the floor hard.
"She has Dark Gifts now, Hylden coward. Come here and face me!"
"What and disappoint these good, proud soldiers who have looked so forward to testing their skills against one such as you? I think not." Caucahn replied, poking Khila's unresponsive form with his Reaver as though testing if it was safe yet to be near her. Judging by the way he flinched and withdrew and the way the heat haze seemed even stronger than before, it was safe to say that she could not yet be touched.
Another instinct reaction. Kain thought to himself. When this is over I will teach you control.
The Hylden slayers advanced once more, striking out with calculated efficiency to wear him down. They were not trying to kill him; that honour was to be left to their Lord as he had requested. Their duty was to exhaust him with their swift blows and dodges.
Though they did not posses the same level of physical strength as Kain, nor were able to match his vampiric speed they knew how to expect and judge his moves and were able to position themselves accordingly to gain the advantage.
Kain would never have believed it possible that the Soul Reaver could be matched without the use of magic or greater power…Maddrell was right – a weapon is only as good as the man that wields it. This infuriated Kain even more for the blade had been made for him and he did know how to use it.
And through it all Caucahn watched stood back and watched in amusement, waiting for his special guards to bring the vampire lord to his knees and praying for mercy, and the grave he had dared to have the audacity to crawl out of.
The Hylden were working as one. However, they were not acting as a team as one might think; they were working as though their thoughts were the same and as though all four of them shared the same mind. They never had less than two of them attacking at the same time and when all four decided to press forwards it was only his vampiric ability that kept Kain alive. They were relentless with thier attacks. Though small, any slashes they made were gradually adding up…chipping away at his energy. Already he was beginning to tire and make mistakes, mistakes that if not properly and swiftly rectified could cost him everything.
Khila was still dead to the world; her heat haze, glaringly obvious, burned fiercely while her stomach healed.
One slayer took a chance, leapt and kicked Kain hard in the side. While off balance a second struck his hands with a heavy downwards blow. Kain's unfortunate and unwilling reaction to this was reflex – his claws snapped open and he dropped the Reaver.
Now disarmed his power was decreased. The sword was kicked away and it was up to him to keep himself on top of things as best he could using hand-to-hand combat alone.
He had never really bothered to learn anything that even resembled a form of martial arts, he hadn't seen the point. He was a vampire emperor, master of the Soul Reaver and Scion of Balance with the force of magic and armies behind him…this was completely unexpected, it had never even been contemplated, let alone planned for.
He used what little he knew and did what he was capable of. He began to rely on blocking tactics and randomly placed, fast strikes whilst trying to manoeuvre the location of the battle to a place from which he could reach the Reaver.
Whenever he managed to successfully place an attack the claw slashes he left behind were largely ignored. The clean cuts would bleed little and were not as debilitating as the bone crushing force of a heavy blade or blunt object…
….that thought gave him an idea…
Ducking another Hylden arm blade he dodged behind and lashed out again. The Hylden in question was half way through turning as Kain closed his claws into a fist mid-strike and landed a solid blow on his back.
The Hylden was instantly winded to the point of near suffocation and was the proud owner of a cracked spine. He tumbled forwards against one of his fellows and the two of them fell like stones.
That left Kain, for now, with the more manageable number of two present adversaries.
Punches and kicks proved ten times more effective. Blades merely cut and slashed and clean sword wounds could be survived but the force behind a blow from a fist could do greater, unseen, internal damage and could easily push the light frames of the Hylden in every direction available.
Caucahn's face dropped as he saw his slayers go flying through the air and come crashing into the floors and walls of his upper hall.
Kain was happier than he had been in a long while, employing moves more likely to be viewed in backstreet brawls. There was nothing quite as satisfying as feeling and hearing knuckles breaking bones and neither was there a sound quite as sickeningly good as that of fists slamming into another body and hearing things inside burst and crack.
Yet even though the Hylden flopped about him like badly made rag dolls he seemed to be able to get no closer to either of his targets; the Reaver and Caucahn.
The Hylden continued to be battered, pummelled, kicked and generally caused severe harm to the accompanying cries of "Vae Victis!" and other such phrases that Kain thought sounded appropriate at the time. Yet another Hylden rolled across the floor after a well placed and impressive roundhouse kick, leaving a path to the Reaver and Caucahn finally open.
He grinned and charged forwards towards them both, intending to snatch up the sword en route to Caucahn just beyond who was still poking tentatively at Khila.
Unfortunately his hastily executed plan backfired quite spectacularly. One of his downed foes lying near to the path he was fast treading was able to grab a foot as he shot past. With a jerk and grunt of surprise Kain found his feet slipping out from under him. He managed to throw his hands forwards just in time so that at least his head did not hit the floor like the rest of him did.
It was at that point that all four Hylden slayers decided that they had had just about enough. They picked themselves up and piled in on top of him, dragging on his arms, leaning him over his own knees folded under him and putting weight on his back to stop him from getting up again.
Weakened from blood loss and drained of energy there was little that he could do to stop them from beating him into a state of mind so dazed he could barely think straight.
The Soul Reaver was meters away, not that it made any difference where it was as he would still not have been able to reach it.
Caucahn stepped forward with a smile plastered across his face and the second Soul Reaver in his hands.
"Just as before you shall die and this time you will not return. I know not how you managed it this time around but it shall not happen again. My good soldiers, hold him steady; I want no mistakes. Kain, you will die as you did before when you were defeated upon our release."
Kain knew what this meant; just as his self-to-be was killed in this time line, he would be beheaded with the Reaver.
In one swift gesture Caucahn flicked aside Kain's hair and then rested the blade against the back of his neck to take aim. He then raised the Reaver high above his head, ready to strike.
Kain heard the blade whistle as it plunged downwards but refused to close his eyes. Strangely, he did not feel the Reaver bite into his flesh; instead he heard the familiar clang of blade on blade as something got in the Reaver's way.
Caucahn roared in rage, the Hylden warriors gasped and Kain looked up to see Khila with his Soul Reaver held firmly in both claws, blocking the strike. Her face was a mask of determination and he could see that she intended to fight, to hell with the consequences. But Kain knew that she hadn't enough fighting experience and she had not yet mastered the Dark Gifts she had acquired from him. "Khila, it's suicide." He tried to dissuade her.
"No." he had never heard a voice so firm before. She locked eyes with Caucahn. "This is where it ends; right now."
They un-locked their Reavers and took two steps away from each other. "You fool, pet. You dare to think that you can challenge me and live?" Caucahn laughed. For now he was not angry, merely amused at her sad little rebellion.
"I don't care which of us lives or dies anymore." She told him. "I just want to prove my point."
"What point?"
"That I am not a pet; I am a Vampire and I am proud to be one."
"Put that sword down, pet, you don't even know how to wield it properly. You're just guessing."
"It is better then just standing idly aside and accepting this tyranny."
"Tyranny! Have you read the legends of pre-history? The time of our expulsion? How can you call our rule any worse than the rule of the vampires throughout the ages? The first vampires banished us only because of a religious belief; how is that fair? How is it fair that he," he pointed at Kain, "could do what he did to the humans of his time? How are you any different from us? How dare you claim to be any better when the history of your ancestors and sires is far more stained than ours ever was!"
"I'm not talking about the past!" Khila exploded. "I care only about now, about my suffering and suffering of my kind now. I couldn't care less about what he did or what you did centuries ago. I studied the legends because I wanted to know about the man…the vampire…that I resembled; the reason for my greater punishments, merely because I look like him. But I never allowed the events of the past to distort my views of the present. I dreamed that one day he might return not because I thought that he should rule again but because he was one of the few that have ever been known to fight you and succeed…well…until you executed him. So far as I am concerned there is no such thing as destiny; your future is what you make of it, and if you constantly live in the past you will never truly learn to live."
"Was that speech supposed to impress me or bore me? Because you'll find that it was the latter that I experienced."
"Try to imagine how much I care." The Reaver was unwavering in her grip.
"You have become a nuisance, pet. You four take him aside so that there is space enough for this wretched leech to show us what it can do; if anything."
Kain was dragged unceremoniously into a corner, struggling all the way, and held against the wall so that he too could watch, still too half dazed and weak to do anything about it.
Caucahn was the first to attack; he gave no warning and lashed out giving Khila barely enough time to raise her Reaver to defend herself. It was all she could do to keep herself alive and dodge the blows. He was faster and had a lifetimes worth of experience whilst she was running on pure instinct and luck, blocking what strikes she was able to but could never get in an attack of her own because he never gave her the chance.
Kain, when he could, would shout out hints, tips and warnings to her and received punches and kicks from his captors for doing so, but at one point he did manage to severely bite one of them which brightened his mood somewhat, not to mention very slightly improving his health.
Khila ducked under another attack but Caucahn recognised her move and brought the blade down in mid-strike. The blade sank into her side but did not slice her in two; she pulled herself away and gritted her teeth against the pain while Caucahn laughed wildly.
She knew she couldn't win; she was already tiring and was finding it increasingly hard to avoid the Hylden's blade. He lashed out once more and this time she was thrown across the room and into the wall beside Kain. The wall cracked and splintered leaving a shattered indent in the stone after she had dropped down. She looked up at Caucahn as he advanced towards her. "I won't give up." She gripped the Reaver even tighter and with grunts of effort stood up one more. "I never have done and I never will do, I cant let-" she suddenly stopped in the middle of her sentence, sighed and closed her eyes. Her whole body seemed to shudder and when she opened her eyes again they burned with the same bright blue flame that also filled the sockets of the skull upon the Reaver she held.
She dropped into a fighter's crouch that Kain recognised. "Surrender, Hylden." She demanded.
Caucahn watched this change with interest. "What have you done, pet?" he asked her.
Khila grinned. "You'll never know."
The fight continued but this time Khila began to gain the upper hand; she suddenly knew how to use the Soul Reaver's full potential, she knew the spells and was able to use her vampiric abilities far more effectively. Her movements were fluid and every attack she made ran seamlessly into the next as though she had been fighting for years. The Reaver was not just the weapon she bore, it was almost as though it was an extension of her body and it responded to her actions.
Caucahn didn't know what to do…she was beating him; this pathetic pet girl was actually winning. He yelled out in frustration and let out a flurry of fast strikes in one go. Khila blocked all but for the last, which she ducked under with a rolling dodge, from this position she swung the Reaver upwards, catching him off guard and throwing him up into the air. She jumped to follow him and while he was helpless thrust the blade down into his chest, driving him into the floor and impaling him.
He screamed out, blood bubbling out of his mouth, and limbs twitching as he died.
After a moment he lay still and Khila pulled the Soul Reaver out before turning to the Hylden slayers. She didn't have to say anything, she just opened her arms as though to invite them and they all attacked at once.
Kain left her to it, the fight was short and bloody and she was the victor four times over. They died beside their lord, their souls wrenched out of their bodies.
Kain looked Khila over critically. Her posture was that of a person unfamiliar with their own body…but Kain knew full well that the mind behind those flaming blue eyes were not hers.
"Where is she, Raziel, where did you put her so that you could take over?" Kain asked.
Raziel, in Khila's body, using Khila's voice replied. "Where she does not belong." With Khila's hand he held up the Soul Reaver. What Kain saw shocked him; the blade was tarnishing, the brown stain was working its way from the hilt to the tip. It had already hungrily coated a sixth of the blade, and the hilt itself, the fang toothed and horned skull was cracking; thin fractures were snaking their way from the eye sockets outwards. "She cannot stay there or it will not just be the Reaver that breaks, it will be our souls as well."
"You swapped places with her? You switched souls? But I though that you could never…that you were…"
"Trapped? Bound eternally? So did I. But there is something profoundly wrong with this world, Kain…there is something eating at Nosgoth and it is far more than just the loss of the Pillars. This disease runs deeper than the corruption of the Pillars ever has or will do and it is affecting everyone and everything. Bonds are loose here; that is why I was able to switch places with her…neither we nor her are truly meant to be here."
"How is Khila not meant to be here? She was born here."
"I don't understand it myself…I have nothing solid to base it on." Raziel told him. "It is just a feeling, a strong feeling…"
"Is it still the Elder God?"
"No. The one thing that I can be certain of is that it is not the Elder God in any way shape or form. It is something…oh, I cannot explain it. The thing is…even though it feels rotten and dead, it also feels as though this Nosgoth is supposed to be that way, like there is a greater purpose, as though Nosgoth has a destiny of sorts that revolves around this decay. I fear we have already played a bigger part in things than it seems."
"Usually it is I explaining things to you. The roles feel strange reversed." He paused a moment to gather some breath back; he was still weak. "What am I supposed to be doing though? What is it that I have already done?"
"I don't know. I wish I could say something of use. All I know is that this Nosgoth is far beyond the rot of ours and there is a needed reason for it to be this way." Already now, nearly half of the Reaver was tarnished. "There is a function for our being here; we just can't see it yet."
"I have spent most of my life blind in that case. There is always someone with unwritten plans for me, why should now be any different."
Raziel shrugged apologetically. "I sincerely wish that there was something more I could do or say, but there isn't. You'll just have to take each day as it comes for once. At least now there will be no more interfering with timelines...and no Moebius." He added.
"Yes, I suppose that is something to be thankful for." Kain sighed.
The tarnishing of the Reaver was gradually increasing in speed.
"I have to go back." Raziel said. "She is not meant to be there."
"Raziel…"
"Yes?"
"…Thank you."
Raziel nodded with a smile. "I have waited a long time to hear you say that."
"Hnh, well don't you dare think for a second that you will be possessing me any time soon, Raziel, it would be in your best interests not to forget that. It's bad enough that your inside Khila…and she is a woman…it's almost perverted."
"Well, I didn't exactly have a choice of hosts." he huffed. "Regardless of that, before I go there is some advice that I would like you to heed if possible."
"And what might that be?"
"Find someone to eat; you look terrible."
Kain raised an eyebrow.
Raziel cocked Khila's head in though all of a sudden. "There are two Reavers in this room but nothing seems to be happening…every other time we have been able to feel the paradox, but not now…"
Kain realised that Raziel was right. The vertigo or displacement like feel that had always been present before was absent from the scene.
"Perhaps this world is so twisted such things mean nothing."
Raziel nodded an agreement. "Most likely." he sighed. Then, with conversation and time exhausted, Raziel returned to the confines of the Soul Reaver. Again he displaced Khila's soul with his own, Khila shuddered again and the blue flames were extinguished.
To be continued…Author's Note – And there we have it, the penultimate chapter is done. Oh, the end is nigh! Ooh, and everyone should go to Smoke's homepage at deviantART and check out her pics.
Meh…what else can I say? Ugh, it's all hot over here right now, bloody weather. Excuse me while I melt.
Foo – Control thy temper. The cliffhanger is over. Hope you enjoyed.
Urd Goddess and Demoness – Thank you very much. I only hope you find any future fics I produce as enjoyable.
gryps incedio – No, not the Nexus Stone. The Nexus Stone cancelled out the Reaver's power. These are just random Hylden-made magic imbued artefacts that cancel out Dark Gifts. You are not dumb, just a bit confused. Maybe I should have explained it better. I'm glad you like long chapters, as I seem incapable of writing short ones.
Lunatic Pandora 1 – Kain isn't omnipotent and though he sometimes likes to think otherwise, he is not a god. He's just a guy. Admittedly he is uber strong, fast, un-dead, has magic and the coolest sword in the history of fantasy but in the end I consider him to be as fallible as the next man. I'm trying to convey that without making him a total wimp. I guess, buy the sound of your last review, that I have failed.
Biohazard – Haydn, sorry I haven't contacted you since the last e-mail you sent but, as you know, A-levels are doing me no favours either. I'll be in contact by the end of the week, I promise. Hope you liked Raz's return. Personally I'm not overly pleased with it, but hey-ho it filled the gap.
Jmartinz – Thank you. Hope you like this one too. Glad you got the reference.
greenlady247 – Hooray! And thank you. I have fans! (Does a little dance)
Smoke – Gah! (Bangs head on table) Sorry about the typos, when I have the time, I shall fix them. That line was supposed to say 'so there may be people around'. Umm…guess I don't explain things very well, huh? The pickled vamps were the average enemy vampires encountered in SR1 (Dumahim, Rahabim e.c.t). The next and last (sans any bonus bits I do later) instalment will complete the explanation of the skeleton…and just about everything else, I hope. Well…Khila survived, sorry if it's a bit of a disappointment but she was a bit needed. Caucahn's real evilness may be fully explored in a bonus chapter after the main storyline.
Manus Dei – Well…Caucahn's dead. Did that count as suffering? I've…uh…kinda run out of places to do another Vader scene, but if I can I'll try to squeeze one into the last chapter.