Chapter 36: Falling Apart
Perspective: Kay
The Eastern barricade was already a smoldering ruin, and the Entity was now smashing its way through friend and foe alike over there. That was without mentioning the several other manifestations which had appeared among the enemy ranks and were charging forward to meet our own. Each was an army in its own right, and there were about half-a-dozen of them.
"Can we establish contact with Destiny?" I asked aloud and in my thoughts. "Is she alright?"
"Searching," Kir strains as Tyron continues to fight valiantly. "Troops say: fell off before attack. Possibly not dead."
I raked my fingers through my auburn mane of hair.
"For mods' sake," I muttered.
My Book counselled me not to curse more extensively and to seek a solution. I agreed. Anger was not useful.
Astro stood on one side of me, and an ethereal projection of Shadow on the other. I looked to them for guidance, my heart pounding. The Prophet and his bodyguard, the other Steve, huddled together to the side. The former muttered incomprehensible fragments of frightened prophecy, the latter caressed and soothed him with an uncharacteristic tenderness. I felt a surprising admiration for this Steve, who had so long provoked nothing but irritated in me.
"Shadow, can you do anything to stop the manifestations?"
Shadow said grimly. "I don't know. But I can certainly try. If I blast enough energy at them, they'll at least have to react in some way. Might distract them from our soldiers."
"Then you think a strong enough attack might do something?" I asked.
She nodded.
An idea occurred to me and then to my Book, or to my Book and then to me. I was beginning not to care too much about the origins of such plans. I yelled down to the line of cannons.
"Line up for a singular volley! Don't bother aiming, I'll guide it there."
They did so. The sergeant, a large, moustached and grave-looking Testificate hemmed and hawed these orders. They all fired simultaneously, and We caught their burning TNT with a series of rifts. These shots emerged from portals surrounding the manifestation that had just destroyed Destiny's division.
The shots struck the being and exploded, casting a great cloud of dust and dirt and ripping through the Tower's forces and sadly some of our own. I would pray for forgiveness later, at that moment I only cared about the smoke clearing.
"Moment of truth," I said hopefully.
It cleared, and the Entity began to climb from the hole glowing but unscathed. I covered my eyes in shame.
"You tried your best," said Astro as he planted a consoling hand on my shoulder. "I think you know what I'm going to suggest."
"Yes," I nodded. "A retreat..."
"We must live to fight another day," my Book reassured me. "Astro is right."
"Quite right," I agreed with both. "Shadow, gather your mages and do what you can to slow the manifestations of our bronze friend out there. I'll confer with Kir and give the orders for retreat. Astro, stay with me."
"I should get to that then." Shadow's projection said and flickered out of existence.
I glanced at the Prophet and Steve 2. The old man looked practically feverish but struggled to his feet.
Half-hunched and trembling, he muttered: "The black light approaches."
"Strange," said Astro. "He hasn't mentioned a 'black light' before."
I reached out to Kir.
"We're retreating, spread the word," I instructed. My Book would have had me stop there, but I pressed on: "Do you have Warnado and Amanda with you?"
"Amanda, yes. Warnado, no. Lost track."
My heart froze solid and sent shocks of cold through my whole body. I felt electricity spark between my fingertips as I subconsciously willed my Book to summon it.
"Find him, or don't come back," I warned the talking sword, feeling horrendously guilty the second after.
I severed the connection and blasted the lightning through a rift. It struck an artillery piece on the far side of the battlefield and coursed through its crew, killing the four of them immediately.
"That was unwise," the Book scolded. "The child is nothing."
"The child is my responsibility and none of your concern," I snapped. Remembering the Book's importance, I relented slightly and added: "And powerful to boot. He'll be a useful ally yet."
It surged angrily, and then seemed content. My Book and I were reconciled just in time for Astro to seize my shoulder and shake me violently.
"Kay," he gestured frantically to the edge. "You have to see this."
I rushed forward, drawing Apotyre and readying to plunge her into any new threat. However, no new threat presented itself. Quite the contrary, in fact.
"Fire?!" I shouted with a half-formed emotion that hadn't quite defined itself. "What's he bloody well doing here?"
The commander we had set out to save was now sprinting up the hillside, better equipped than when he had left. He had obtained obsidian armour and it gleamed hopefully in the sunlight alongside his scales. My heart surged with joy.
"I don't know," Astro answered. "Maybe he escaped."
"Maybe? That's precisely what's happened Astro. Get down there and find out the details! This is perfect: we have a victory despite it all. Our…" I lowered my voice, so the guards and Steve 2 didn't hear me. "I'm going to pretend we had a secret side gambit. Who knows, maybe it's even true." Astro scoffed in disbelief, and I proclaimed the potential lie loudly. The guards cheered.
As Astro flew down, I concluded this was probably the work of the Lady of Dreams. I turned to the Prophet and Steve.
"Take heart, friends, your Forged Champion has proven himself more than worthy!"
Steve grimaced and nodded with uncertain hope. The Prophet closed his eyes. The bottom of my stomach felt like an ever-deepening pit.
I ran to the edge and saw Astro trying to get Fire's attention. The Mencur-Besh kept marching forward as Astro posed him question after question, frantic with hope and surprise.
"Fire? Are you listening?" he pressed. "You must tell us how you got out... I'll be honest, you don't know how glad I am you're here. Kay's waiting for you up there."
At this, our commander seemed to finally notice something he said and cast a glance upward. My eyes locked with his. A gust of despair threatened to blow me over the edge and down the Hill to my death.
His eyes were black, not red. And yet it was unmistakably his face. I knew what was happening. This was that other person within him, the one he had warned me against. This was Claw.
"Astro!" I roared. "Get back!"
I sent a blast of voidfire down at Claw, who dodged and barreled into Astro. The wizard attempted to draw his sword, but Claw had a hold of his wrist. The other hand dug into his gut. The talons extended. They emerged on the other side of my dear friend's torso, slick with blood.
"NO!" I screamed.
Claw dropped the wizard and charged off on his path. Full of fury, I lurched into a portal. I emerged on the far side and caught Claw on the shin guard with a two-handed blow. The greaves were made of obsidian, so no visible damage was done, and my arms ached from the effort, but I successfully staggered him.
He turned and I hoped to take the opportunity to say something, provoke him perhaps, but unlike me Claw wasted no time. With superhuman speed he drew a mace and swung it at my head, but this was exactly what I had been training for. I bent backwards and successfully avoided the blow. Even so, the mace came close enough for me to feel the fragmented wind carried upon its flanges.
Feeling my balance weaken, We opened a portal into which I fell face-first. I then appeared in the sky, sword pointed and plummeting down at Claw, who was still looking at the spot I had just then inhabited. I aimed precisely for the break between his pauldron and his torso. Silently soaring downwards, I would mutilate this beast. Fire would just have to fix things later on.
Just as I came within plunging distance, however, Claw whipped around. He caught me in midair and hurled me off the Hill before charging off. I braced myself and tumbled into another portal, rolling out onto the path just before the summit.
"He can sense our portals!" My Book exclaimed.
I barely had time to process this new information before Claw attacked again. I ducked underneath the blow, then brought my sword down on the mace with both hands. He wasn't disarmed, but I was able to hold the weapon in place just about.
I lifted one hand from the blade and tried to hurl an orb voidfire at his chest. Sadly, the wrinkle in my plan became evident as his other set of claws raked across my breastplate. The shot flew off target and caught him on the shoulder. The steel bindings of his shoulder guard were burned away, causing the obsidian plating to come loose. The voidfire burned through his underclothes, leaving the End-infused scales untouched. It wasn't much, but I now had something to work with. Or I would have, had Steve 2 not chosen that moment to intervene.
The Prophet's bodyguard whirled into existence just beside Claw's head and cut at the exposed shoulder. Claw's hand shot out in response, but I had occupied enough of his attention that the shimmering stone blade managed to cut beneath the first few layers of scales and draw blood. Before I could celebrate, Claw had struck him in the head with a clenched fist.
The bodyguard dropped to the ground in a daze. I rushed forward to intervene, but, with the undauntable speed and strength he had stolen from Fire, Claw lifted Steve 2 by the scruff of his turquoise shirt and hurled him at me. The bodyguard slammed into me, and we landed in a heap.
As we recovered, Claw bounded the remaining steps to the top of the Hill. My small contingent of guards formed up to oppose him and prevent him from reaching the Prophet. Claw charged forward and killed two immediately with his outstretched claws. The next three fell in successive blows of his mace. The last ran. I didn't blame him.
Claw ignored the fleeing quarry and approached the true prize. The Prophet stood and stared sadly at him.
"The black light approaches, Forged one, and the great sleep is soon upon us," he said with certainty.
Whether it was a threat, a consolation or a catharsis, I know not. Claw's mace caved in his skull right after he finished the sentence.
My heart sank. How would our rebellion go on? We had built it around the congregation, and now its preacher lay dead.
I hardly noticed as Steve 2 rose to his feet and warped off to fight Claw alone. He was screaming, rage and blood dripping from between his teeth.
It went as one would expect. Steve 2 teleported furiously around for several blows and Claw sensed every single one. I ran up to help, despondency slowing me. I blasted some lightning but hit a boulder instead. Claw swept the legs from under Steve 2. The mace came down on his ribcage, and he stopped moving.
Now, it was just me and Claw upon the hilltop. The Book urged me to leave. I refused. This beast had killed the Prophet, upon whom all our purpose was pinned; had usurped Fire, our best hope at victory; had killed Steve 2, who I should have listened to from the beginning and might have brought us to a cleaner victory; and my dear friend Astro.
All those memories flashed before me. Steve 2 surprised me once again at the waterfall. The smell of the Heavybrew from Fire and I's drinking contest returned to me. I relived the Prophet's arrival at the Shelter and heard his approval of my plan. "The Champion of Life and Death shall be freed!" he shouted again and again in my ears. And, of course, I remember Astro seeing my plans for an airship.
"Kay…you're really sure you can build this thing?... In that case, we're going to make this happen, Kay."
It was the kindest damned thing anyone had ever done for me. The Book could go hang.
I warped through and didn't even try to avoid the grab. Claw picked me up and I blasted him full in the face with voidfire, ripping apart the obsidian segments of his helmet and blinding him. He dropped me and I recalled the maneuver I had used on Fire when we first met, hooking a foot behind his ankle and sending him tumbling to the foot of the Hill.
I told the Book to open a portal and stuck my head through. I was looking into the armory. Lucy and a few demons were there, the former startled out of her wits and the latter proceeding with indifference.
"Kay?! What's happening?" Lucy yelped.
"Silver weapons, now!" I roared.
"We don't have any!"
"Then bloody well make some. You have three minutes."
Leaving her with the iciest tone I could muster, I slipped back through the portal. A look over the edge confirmed Claw was engaged with a handful of retreating archers, tearing them to shreds.
I warped through and caught him with a blast of electricity that did nothing, the bolts harmlessly dancing down his scales and into the ground. He lifted an archer. I hurled a ball of voidfire at him and that got his attention. He pirouetted nimbly out of the way and looked at me. He extended his claws and they protruded from the archer's neck. He cast the corpse aside and began to slowly walk toward me.
The remaining archers retreated past the spot where Astro had been stabbed, strengthening my resolve.
"Hello Claw," I said.
He said nothing in response but nodded in acknowledgement.
"I'm not leaving the field until you're dead, Claw, I hope you know that."
I said this for the Book's benefit as much as my opponent's.
Claw readied his mace, I drew my sword, and we engaged.
What ensued was a relentless flurry of flame and metal, every blow being met with as much force as was dealt. I stopped trying to get around the armour and abandoned all hope of saving Fire. I merely had the Book burn away the bindings of the obsidian plates coating him and hacked away at his scales, teleporting only when survival was essential. I had it strengthen my muscles, heighten my senses, and if the Book hadn't been shrieking its reluctance at me the whole time, I would have said it was the most totally we had united since our partnership had begun.
In his turn, Claw slashed away with his namesake and pounded at me with his mace. The cracks in my breastplate became more and more perilous, and I began to bleed from more and more places as the fight went on. A gash across the scalp came first, then a cut beneath the armpit, then a particularly bad blow shook my ribcage, and I knew there was more than bruising beneath my armour.
Still, I fought on, doing him, I'd like to think, a proportional amount of harm. The damned scales limited my effectiveness, but I managed to deal a notable blow on the thigh and enlarge the wound Steve had inflicted on his shoulder until it spewed forth a veritable geyser of blood.
But I was losing, and I knew it. At a certain point, I stopped even asking for teleports out of tiredness, and entrusted that duty wholly to the Book's good sense.
Then, a decisive encounter came when I finally burned away the last few scraps of steel holding together the remaining armour around his torso and stabbed in deep. Blood rose and I felt as though I'd drawn water from a desert spring. As I drew back, however, Claw caught me in the right knee with his mace, and my own armour barely held together. I hobbled back, practically hopping, and entered a portal.
Once again, I was in the armory. I was furious.
"Send me back!" I raved. "I'm not done yet!"
"Your silver weapons are ready," my Book reminded me. "It's been three minutes."
I nodded my head sheepishly. Truth be told it had felt like hours, but the mind at war is easily confused.
I looked at Lucy. She had a sack which she offered to me. My heart broke as I looked in.
"These are just coins," I choked. "What is this?"
"We - we didn't have any silver weapons," she explained with obvious wariness of my gory appearance. "The demons can't forge them this fast. They… they need more time. We don't manufacture any silver weapons, so finding this took most of the time."
"No," I panted. "No, Lucy… You've done your best. This will have to do."
I plunged my fist in and took some coins between my knuckles. I would have to jam them into an open wound. It would poison him, paralyse him.
"Kay," she asked. "Who is this for?"
I looked at her. Fire had done so much for her. She would mourn much more than I, and had a right to know.
"I'm sorry, Luc-"
I began to cough until I was on my burning knees. The taste of blood filled my mouth, and crimson speckled my hand and the floor. I just about drew myself up and steadied myself against the counter.
"Let us leave," I groaned aloud to the Book when it didn't respond immediately to my will. "Let's go, Book!"
"Kay-"
"I'm going back there one way or another, Book," I confessed, still audible to a horrified Lucy. "The Prophet is dead, the rebellion is dead." Tears filled my eyes. "Astro is gone. If Claw won't join them, I will gladly."
As I hacked up more blood, Lucy instructed one of her attendants to call for a medic. I waved in dismissal, but I don't think she paid me any mind.
"I'm not asking you to stay," the Book explained. "There is one power you have yet refused. It may work. We cannot beat his body, but we might yet beat his mind."
My mind reignited as this possibility unfolded before my mind's eye. Ambition numbed me and I straightened up, then hopped along toward where I wanted the portal to be.
"Oh Book," I cackled. "You are magnificent."
It finally acquiesced and I arrived back on the field. Claw stood surveying the destruction. Our forces were fragmenting. The TNT cannons attempted some covering fire, but it wasn't doing much good. What remained would be a shell of our former power, and a cracked one at that. But that didn't matter, not now.
"Claw!" I called. "Coo-ee!"
He saw me.
I hobbled into a defensive stance. The wound beneath my sword-arm had now become severe enough that I had to press it against my flank to stem the bleeding. I held the coins between my knuckles in my other hand like the world's most pathetic buckler.
Claw drew his mace without a word and began to slowly advance, passing under the shadow of the Hill as he did so. I tried to reshuffle my stance and pain shot through my wounded leg. I fell to one knee, but kept my sword extended. I locked gazes with him.
He stood over me and raised the mace. I grinned at him sardonically and began to see the glowing dots behind his eyes. The dots lined up, and as my mouth began to form a command, the mace came down. I would be too late. It was over.
I raised the fist full of coins and swung at the open wound on his torso.
Crack! The mace hit the ground beside me, and Claw retreated. I missed and fell forward. His arm was limp and bent at a strange angle. I craned my head around to locate my saviour and my heart nearly burst from the joy of seeing them: Astro was hobbling toward me.
He had a hand clasped to his gut to hold his insides in, but he was irrefutably alive.
Claw straightened up and whistled. An Endling appeared at his side. He pulled out a potion and began to down it.
A deep chuckle came from above me: "Not bad for a first hunt. Might have to consider bringing some 'help' of my own next time, to make it fair."
He barely even flinched as the potion began to knit his arm back together.
"Piss off, Claw," I wheezed.
Claw laughed a long, hearty laugh that was cut off when the enderman teleported him away. It hung in the air like a splinter in my thumb. I tried to rise and fell back into the dirt.
"Hey, Astro," I panted after some time. "I'm glad you're not dead."
My eyes drifted closed, but I forced them back open.
Astro laughed and came over to me and hoisted me onto his knees. I felt some healing magic begin to stabilise my ribs but give out pretty quickly.
"Glad you're not dead either," Astro conceded. "Sorry, I'd heal you up, but I'm a little drained considering…" He gestured to the half-healed wound beneath his breastplate and to the general chaos.
"Oh yeah," I muttered dreamily. "No, it's all right, mate."
I looked out and saw our final ranks break. My eyes were too blurry to make anything specific out, though.
"I can't really see, Astro, with all the blood loss and the getting hit in the head a bunch of times… and all. Tell me, does it look bad for us?"
"It certainly doesn't look amazing," he said. "We did better than most might have, though."
"Yeah," I breathed. "Though it occurs to me I couldn't have been fighting Claw - that's his name, Fire told me… for more than ten bloody minutes. And the Entity only attacked a few minutes before that."
"Which means…" Astro furrowed his eyebrows.
"We went from considerable success to utter rout... in about," I swallowed, "Fifteen minutes."
"Wow," Astro chuckled. "Well, if we had to fail at least we did it in record time."
His laughter became hysterical, and I joined him. By the time Shadow came across us, we looked so ignorant of any hardship we might have just been down the pub in Zine Craft, back before things got difficult.
