Chapter Twenty-Five.
The Final Fight.
* Riddick's POV *
Elisha's body takes the full force of the blade as it strikes her shoulder. Her body is shoved backwards like a piece of rubbish in the wind, only her pain filled moans echo through my brain as she breathes through the pain but she truly struggling to stay calm. The Lord Marshall grins like a mad-man dropping the blade that was used to hold Elisha in place before and stepping aside allowing me to watch her squirm whilst clutching the surface area around the wound.
As my focus was mainly centred on Elisha, the Lord Marshall's body shifts from solid to a ghostly cloud rocketing towards me furiously, a strong blood travelled through my chest knocking me backwards with such force I hit the solid stone column at the far edge of the forum.
I struggle to catch my breath but I collect myself quickly as rage bubbled inside me, tension buried itself in my face causing my to purse my round lips to keep myself from growling like a predatory animal. I step forward to meet the Lord Marshall whilst swinging a heavy punch but the Marshall shifts into soul form dart around me before become solidarity and punching my quickly before shifting back to his half-dead form to dart whatever punches I can throw.
Sharp agile punches struck my body with no time for be to react, the Lord Marshall's hazy ghostly image appeared in front of me before disappearing within the blink of an eye but after several concerning bone crunches, I am able to block a kick, four punches and an elbow but seeing as his tactics were failing in effectiveness, the Lord Marshall's accelerates in speed. My face begins to painfully swell at the uncountable amount of punches that my face witnessed and then a sharp kick to my back made the sharp crack of bone erupt from beneath the skin, I am rocketed forward to meet an incredibly powerful punch to the jaw before falling back the way I came to be introduced to another punch that buried me into the stone ground.
"These, are his last moments." The Lord Marshall hissed with power to his Necromonger audience that remains silently as he fixed his bloody gloved hands. The Marshall stand at my side before lowering down to one knee, his hands turn to an eerie transparent form before he grips the side of my face sharply. "Give me your soul." he growls pulling away his hands, still in their translucent state, from my face which shattered in painful screech as an powerful wave of an feeling I cannot pin-point, it hurts yes but there was something different about this pain, anger followed but it felt almost as if the pain was resisting with me, that my soul or whatever he was trying to take was trying to urge me to fight back.
"Give me your soul!" the Lord Marshall yelled angrily.
I press hard off the ground spinning my body in mid-air to punch the Marshall in the jaw forcefully as I growl angrily, "Fuck you." As the Lord Marshall travels through the air for a short distance he attempts to shift into soul form but his body refuses to do so, instead he lands face down on the stone at the feet of Hans whose hands are bound by heavy cuffs that made his hunch over.
Adjusting my chest-plate, I strut over to the Marshall's body. A low growl is released from his throat as the muscles in his arms and chest tense up whilst he gathers himself gracefully to his feet. The grey eyes embedded in his sunken face flicker from me to one of the statues holding up the first floor balcony. In a leap mixed with his half-dead ability, the Marshall travels through the air in a short two second to pull the needle replica from the large statue, he holds it as you would a spear using the needle like end as the primary weapon however as the Marshall descends from the shoulder of the statue he uses the bulky end to attentively hit me, I dodge with ease and retreat to a safe ish distance.
The Marshall growls with frustration as he swings the thick spear end at me, he aims for areas that would have dramatic effect if actually hit: my stomach, back, legs but most importantly, my head.
The sharp front of the spear aims for my heart but I turn swiftly dodging the deadly blow, I shield it with my forearm and swing to punch him but unknowingly aware he had shifted into soul form and was now on my opposite side, the thick end of the weapon smacked into the middle of my back knocking me forward where I rolled over swiftly to stand up. The Marshall drove the spear into my stomach piercing my thick armour but luckily it did not travel through, I gripped the end in a quick attempt to pull it out but with his supernatural strength, the Lord Marshall lifts the entirety of my bodyweight with the spear.
His heavy booted feet more quickly from the edge of the forum to the centre where he removed the spear from my armour allowing my to fall mid-way between the height of deployment and the ground before hitting me with all his might with the thick end of the weapon causing it to snap on impact sending me flying forwards into the floor where my skull smashed onto the floor, a wetness trickled down my face blinding my in my right eye. The metal clanking of the weapon being discarded echoed through the still silently room.
Hazily through my blurred vision I watch the Lord Marshall being handed an axe by a Necromonger guard. Stupidly, I crawl up onto all-fours giving the Marshall the space to slip the bar of the axe underneath my chin before I can intercept, he has a firm hold on the other side pulling me up onto my knees with the bar crushing into my windpipe.
Facing away from the throne, the Marshall adds slight pressure every second easing on my suffocation. My hands grip the bar in an attempt to pull it away from my throat but it is no use. And as my mind tells me to give it up, my eyes catch the beautiful glimpse of my knife, resting no further than a meter from me.
Out of reach. And simply to add insult to injury, the Lord Marshall chuckles darkly, his voice oozing with pre excitement. "You're not the one to bring me down." he says sternly adding on deathly pressure to the bar, but as I let out a squeaking noise like a wimp the Marshall gasps with pain and the bar is released from around my throat.
Despite my inability to catch my breath through my dented windpipe, I turn onto my front and look up at Elisha, hands freed from restraints, blade removed from shoulder and instead dug into the side of the Marshall, snugly slide between the fourth and fifth rib
She twistes the blade idly, "Hurt's doesn't." her smiling voice says. Then she glances at me as if to ask if I am okay, this nudge of concentration is her fatal move. The shift in concern gives the Marshall enough time to shirt into soul form and throw her across the gap to where I am laying attempting to catch my breath, her body smashes on top of mine but she rolls off to lay beside me. The Lord Marshall struggles to free the blade from between his ribs due to the turning of the blade.
I glance at her, blood gently dribbled from the corner of her mouth, I brush away a strange clump of hair that hid her eyes before trailing the tip of my fingers down her face. "You okay?" I ask in whisper. She smiles bravely before nodding.
sharp footsteps travel into the centre of the show, dragging my eyes away from Elisha the figure turns out to be Commander Vaako carrying a very impressive looking axe, different from the one the guards use, his axe was created by several razor sharp blades instead of one. The Lord Marshall removes the blade and throws it in our direction, Elisha doesn't hesitate to snatch it into her palm, the Commander studies the situation for a moment before his leader spoke.
"Help me Vaako." the Marshall pleads, "Kill them."
I edge forward to retrieve my blade swiftly, ready for another fight but pure shock hits me as Vaako doesn't even turn to face us, instead he continues to walk towards the Marshall whose facial expression changes dramatically from pure happiness to unbelievable shock and bewilderment.
The Commander licks the rim of his bottom lip before twisting the long handle of the axe in his hands. "This is for the faith." he declares before mustering all of his strength into his upper body to raise the axe high above his head, beside me, Elisha smiles with a twisted sense of happiness.
"Vaako?" the Lord asks but Vaako refuses to even acknowledge the Lord Marshall's questioning and disproving glare. The axe plummets down through the air, the world shifts to slow mode as the Marshall's body shifts to soul form in an attempt to escape his untimely death by one of his own to grab the discarded weapon, he is met by me and Elisha, both stood armed with blades raised above our heads ready to strike and our sturdy foot placed on the weapon sliver pinning it to the ground.
Now he must chose. Death by Commander Vaako, or death by us, Furyans. And with his soul trapped between two with no where else to shift.
The axe lowers at a quicker pace than our knives and in one quick second, the loud sound of metal hitting nothing and metal piercing bone and impaling soft brain beneath echoed through the forum.
The squeamish gasp erupted from beside me. Roughly I wiped the blood away from my eye to see the life drain from the Lord Marshall's eyes before us.
We had killed him.
The fate in which was told by a Elemental more than twenty seven years ago had finally been fore filled but there was a blip. The prophecy given to the Lord Marshall was that a male Furyan was to cause his downfall and destroy him, my blade missed and instead pieced his neck, this was not the fatal blow. Elisha's blade was the blade that travelled through the Marshall's skull into his brain killing him.
A female Furyan caused the Lord Marshall's downfall. Not a male.
The colour drained from her face as she remained gripping the blade handle, her eyes flickered across the Lord Marshall's face before she sharply turned her wrist to the side snapping off the handle at the top of the blade, I gently moved her backwards before planting a heavy kick into the Marshall's face knocking him backwards away from us. A small nervous chuckle echoes from her throat as Elisha turns to face me, her entire body shook as she struggled to take her eyes off the now dead Marshall's body.
I grip the back of her neck tenderly forcing her to look at me as I stare deeply into her eyes silently telling her we are going to be okay and that she did brilliant. Her entire body shook as she sunk into me, the heavily bleeding wound on her shoulder transferred onto my bare arm. I rolled my eyes at her whilst tutting as if I disapprove of her bleeding before I scoop her up in my arms like a small toddler. My arms protect her defensively as I walk confidently with her towards the only seat nearest to us, which smugly happened to be the late Lord Marshall's throne.
Cradling her in my arms, Elisha snuggled up leaning against my chest as I leant completely fatigued into the metal throne. She peeks through the gaps in her ridiculous hairstyle as the Necromonger guards, including Commander Vaako unexpectedly begin to travel towards us, they stop in neat rows in front of the stop leading up to the throne. Their weapons drop to their sides showing no intention to attack and even more shocking, they instead all get down onto one knee and bow their heads at us.
Well, I say 'at us' as they look up, ever single pair of greyed, Necromonger eyes are staring at Elisha.
And only Elisha.