Chapter 6

He had been following him for a while, jumping from roof to roof and gliding across the gaps in the streets. But he forgot how hard it was following the fastest person of your race. He was chuffed to find that somebody else had survived from the destruction of Brilbane. He knew Voldan was off-world, but as he was escaping he saw Voldan's ship travelling down to Brilbane, and he knew there were still Necros on the planet, and he also knew what Voldan was like when he was attacked or even when he was angry.

He didn't know where he was going on this world, but he did see where his gaze was fixed; the head of the procession off to the left. He guessed that it was the Necromonger Lord Marshal that he saw out in front, and no doubt Voldan was seeking to take him out to 'settle the score', though with Voldan, the score is never truly settled.

He nearly burst out laughing when he saw Voldan fall off the roof; his expression was phenomenal, so strong was the shock. Voldan never made mistakes like that, he always took care to see where he was placing his feet, but his mind was probably so inundated by hate and anger that he didn't take any notice of the street ahead. But, although it was hilarious, he took care not to laugh aloud; he knew how Voldan would react: angrily – possibly murderously – then ecstatically when he realised that he wasn't the only one left from his home planet.

He ran to the edge expecting to see him sprawled on the floor or standing up brushing himself off, mortified, which probably would make him laugh out loud. But his smile soon left him when he saw where he had fallen. He had fallen in the midst of a Necromonger battalion, which, obviously, was not good, especially with his reputation of losing his cool at the slightest knock. But he was surprised at how he was keeping his temper under control. Under normal circumstances he would have 'blown his top' as they say, and killed most of the soldiers surrounding him, then possibly gotten himself killed, or seriously injured.

He was watching from the roof, expecting to see Voldan's temper boiling over at any moment, and as he knew him too well he could tell that he was getting angrier, just doing a Hell of a good job in keeping calm. He was even more surprised at how he was keeping calm when he was hit in the back and in the back of his knees. There was a flash in his eyes, but that was it. But then he was muzzle-whipped in the face. That would be the best thing to do to Voldan if you were intent on making him angry, but these soldiers didn't know Voldan when he was racked by anger. He saw the blood trickling towards his mouth, and once he tasted his blood, he exploded. There was no build up of anger like there usually was, and unlike usual, the electric field present wasn't as strong. The Necros backed off, startled by this sudden surge of power, which they couldn't contend with.

"Yeah, you had better bloody back off," he said under his breath. But he knew he had to step in before the most famous man of his race was destroyed. Enough Brilbanian blood had been spilt on their account. That's when he shouted down, partly to attract the Necro's attention but also to calm Voldan down, knowing how fast he can alternate from anger to calmness at the slightest thing.

He wasn't afraid of the soldiers, so he wasn't put off helping his friend and was glad when he saw said friend escape by jumping on a roof. He picked up the swordstaff, took a couple of steps back then, with the aid of a run-up, leaped across the roof. It wasn't that far, but he could only jump as far as the average human, unlike the soldier ahead of him. Voldan was only jogging slowly, allowing him to catch up. He saw him turn round and, with a smile, eyed the swordstaff suspiciously.

"You lose this?" he shouted, though Voldan didn't reply, just grinned wider then embraced him.

"How are you Voldan?" he asked, "I'm glad to see there is another who is still alive. I thought I was the last."

"I'm fine, especially now," Voldan's smile was only growing wider. "How are you Alzan? How did you escape from that planet?"

Alzan noticed how he called it 'that planet' instead if its proper name; Brilbane.

"I took my ship; I knew we weren't going to win that war, so I left." He paused. "Well, actually, I was forced. Zhyandress basically pushed into the cockpit telling me to go. Otherwise I would have stayed."

"I wish I had been there." Voldan said.

"It would have still been the same even if you had. Only you would have probably been killed."

"I would have died with honour."

"That may be so, but what about your family? They would need you."

"Alas, they have either been killed or taken by that scum." His eyes flashed but dimmed immediately.

"How do you know they have been killed or taken? Have you checked Orantrar Dechtri di Gastrio, the Last Refuge?"

"No, but did any actually escape to there? I mean look at this planet, if these have a refuge to go to, they didn't have the time to get there."

"True, but still it doesn't hurt to look. And besides, you were saying they might have been taken. How would you retrieve them or see them safe if you are dead?"

"Well, it is a waste of time going to them now, you know what it is they do, kill or convert, and you know as well as I do, there is no going back once converted."

"That doesn't mean you should give up hope. You should always hope."

"Even if that means you are hoping in vain?"

"Yes, what else does a person have to believe in? Not everyone is religious."

"But why believe when you know a situation is hopeless?"

"Now you surely do not think this situation is hopeless. If you did, you wouldn't be here."

"I am here for revenge." Voldan said coldly.

"Yes, but that is only some of the reason. I know you Voldan, you came here to find your family, if indeed they did take them. You still hope that you can save them."

Voldan shrugged, and then changed the subject.

"Enough about me and all my woefulness," he said, "tell me your story, what happened while I was away? Where did you go and do after you escaped? How many commanders are left?"

The two had a long conversation as they walked, and Voldan had temporarily forgotten about Riddick while listening to Alzan's tale. He heard of the battle of Abdul di'Zintriach, of some things that warmed his heart and others that broke it. He told him of the battles of the outer defences, and of how they had been pushed back to the second defences.

"The Mortal soldiers," which are what the elite and the Commanders call the normal soldiers, "had held up a valiant defence at Glastric Bedonahagh. I and my air brigade had kept most of the Necros at bay; we were winning. Though they had strength in numbers, their pilots were nowhere near as skilled as ours, and their ships can't match the speed and power of ours."

"Aye we did a good job on them, didn't we?" Voldan said. He and Alzan were people who designed the ships and oversaw their construction.

"Yes we had. They were possibly our best work, other than the training of your brigade."

"And your pilots. It was you that had trained them."

"Yes, we have both done well with our men. But back to what I was saying. We were winning but eventually, and inevitably, the greater numbers prevailed and they broke through our air defences, destroying Il-alazad Vectriae-Teldrion on their way down with those large cruisers they have. The hammer-stroke fell heaviest on Abdul di'Zintriach, and our soldiers in the outer defences were put hard to it to defend their fortresses. The Necros attacked with force and greatly outnumbered Hermione's brigade at the outer fort. The soldiers there retreated to the second stronghold of Glastric Fulismheagh, where as you will have guessed, they joined..."

"Avriole's first brigade," Voldan interrupted.

"Yes, don't interrupt! But you are right, but still the Necromongers overwhelmed them, and so much so that Zhyandress called the reserve airmen, armed them and told them to go and reinforce the soldiers. But even then there weren't enough, it only succeeded in weakening our air force. There was only one thing they could do; pull back to Rolar Gastric Decstrion."

"The last defence? But there is no way out from there, save via the hangar, but that is not nearly big enough to hold the large cruisers."

"There was nothing else to do; The Necromongers were swarming over them like ants over a carcass. Then, what remained of the two brigades had joined with the first brigade of the palace guard, your brigade and Hermione's second brigade. A 3 deep line was created and long it was. The Necros thought they could beat us there, but they were pushed back. However, they returned not long after with reinforcements, and attacked in two columns with twice the number of the last. There were hard put to it again, but our forces did push them back again, though we did suffer significant losses."

"I wish I had been there," Voldan said again.

"As I said before there was nothing even you could have done, their numbers were too great." Alzan paused. "There was a break in which we replenished our ranks, closing up the gaps created and lengthening the line with another brigade, Avriole's second. But again the Necromongers attacked with twice the numbers. They noticed how we nearly broke on their previous assault but were encouraged to fight by the sight of your brigade. They were fighting valiantly, valorously and vigorously. Fighting with determination that would encourage all allies to fight and encouraged a surging hope that even I felt. The Necromongers sent most of their force to attack the Nelrarnah brigade. They are good soldiers, but with such a heavy weight on them even they could not stand against it."

"You're telling me they broke?" Voldan asked.

"No, they didn't break, but they would have if Zhyandress himself didn't step in. They Necromongers could not stand-up against the strength of him or of the skill in which he wielded his great sword."

"What? Tachleánagh? 1 Aye he does wield that with some skill like, doesn't he? I wouldn't like to be caught in the way of one of his swings." Voldan laughed.

"Neither would I," replied Alzan. "But even with Zhyandress there, the numbers were still too great, and the others were occupied with other columns that were attacking them. It was only when Davrun stepped up that they fled, since he blasted out a massive wave of fire which incinerated the first few ranks completely, fatally burned the next few behind and burned, seriously or not, the ranks behind them. The Necros were frightened by that and turned tail and ran. It was then that Zhyandress collected all the forces in the area, your second brigade of Nelrarnah, my Field Guards, and other reserve brigades, lengthening the line and thickening with another 2 ranks. But the next time they attacked, they attacked with so many columns that they all merged into one to create one massive battering ram, aimed straight towards our line.

"We knew that this was the Necros at their full strength basically and that we didn't have a chance, even with your feared Nelrarnah brigades. When they attacked, they attacked hard, not one soldier in our line was unoccupied. Zhyandress placed us at the front so that we could help defend our soldiers. We were taking heavy casualties, we knew we were hurting them, I mean with a bloody big target like that you can't miss can you?" Alzan laughed then his face turned grim, "We were hurting them, but it didn't look like it. Every man we put down another immediately took his place, so there was no change, the same as in the air, in the later stages there were something like ten ships to our every one."

"That is bad." Voldan said grimly.

"But there is worse. We were losing soldiers quickly and everywhere along the line large gaps emerged that we didn't have the numbers to fill. Our soldiers were losing confidence with every minute and I could see they were tempted to started edging back, the only thing that prevented them from doing so was the fact that we were up front. But even that turned ill. We did lose a couple of Commanders to that assault. You're not going to like this, but Hermione was the first one to die. A Necromonger sergeant stabbed her through her heart with a spear."

A look of anguish spread over Voldan's face, his eyes glowed with a light that Alzan had never seen before, it was not like it was when he was angry, this light was brighter, but cloudy, and tears ran down his face. Alzan had never seen Voldan upset before, but he had every right to be. Hermione was like a sister to him, so close were they in personality and everything else that some people even made the mistake of calling them twins. But Alzan had more news to tell that he knew would rip Voldan apart, and he knew he had to find the right words otherwise, in his anger, and anguish, he may end up doing something he would regret.

"There is still more to tell, but not much now. Our soldiers were dwindling and so were our own numbers, as not five minutes after Hermione was lost to the enemy that Avriole was killed, her head was severed from her body from an axe swing of a Necro-Captain. Once we were reinforced, we had more than fifteen thousand, but we were reduced to less than 7 thousand in the last attack, but that number was falling rapidly. It was only when we had just over a quarter of our force left that Zhyandress ordered Davrun and I to flee, and as you know, one does not argue with him when he gives an order."

"Tell me about it, I have done more than enough times." Voldan said with a slight smirk, though the grief was still ripe in him.

"As we started on our retreat an attack which had subsided a bit, for some reason I do not know, was renewed with more power, as if they knew that soldiers were planning an escape and they wanted to stop us. They probably did. That's when the main disaster struck. It was when we had came to the hangar and I turned round that I noticed Davrun was missing," Alzan noticed a look of worse anguish spread across his friend's face, it was at this time when Alzan knew he must tread carefully. "I thought that he had turned back to help Zhyandress with the fight, but as I retraced my steps, he was nowhere to be found, he wasn't fighting, he wasn't lying injured, he had just disappeared. I didn't dare move any further forward than I already had because if Zhyandress had seen me he would have bodily thrown me into the hangar. I fled to my ship taking some soldiers with me; I made some calls to cruisers and told them to wait at the back of the hangar for the soldiers to retreat, as I knew that Zhyandress would be passing the word around the colonels for them to make for the hangars. I took the nearest soldiers to me and went in my ship to go to Helion Prime, as that was a planet which I had always wanted to visit. When we left the atmosphere I saw your ship approaching, though I doubt you saw me. It was a Parsec away at the least when I saw you but it was too late for Brilbane as they had executed their Ascension Protocol and destroyed what life was left on the planet. Whether the cruiser had left in time I do not know, but I do know that Zhyandress was killed and that a lot of the civilians left to our last refuge."

He noticed that Voldan wasn't listening. He realised that he was furious as well as distraught; a deadly, potent mix. Voldan's eyes were shining like bolts of lightning themselves, his body was flashing with lightning in an electric field, tears ran down his cheeks and he squeezed the shaft of his swordstaff.

"Their Lord Marshal is going to pay. Mark my words, Alzan. I will rip him limb from accursed fucking disgusting limb. He kills Hermione then somehow obliterates Davrun, my friend upon friends, the closest friend I have ever had, my brother! I shall destroy that vile wretched little insect and cast the shreds of him into the very peaks of oblivion. Even if it fucking kills me!" His voice was growing louder and louder with every word until he screamed the last in an uncontrollable rage. He made to charge along the roofs. If Alzan didn't act now, then he knew that Voldan would do something stupid, and if Voldan moved at his full pace, nothing except the speed of light could catch him, even though he can only go full speed for, at the least, five minutes before he'd become absolutely exhausted. All the same, Alzan knew he must calm him down, and now.

Tachleánagh was the name of Zhyandress's Great sword, which stands for body-crusher in Brilbanian.