Xanthip rustled awake. She righted herself and stretched her arms and back. Standing up, she rubbed the eye gum out her eyes, stretching the dark bags pirouetting around them as she did. Wrinkles foldied at the edges of her eyes. She gulped down her water, the rest she used to wash her face, hands, and hair. She gathered the large clumps of hair and pulled on them. Neatly ordered them in a high bun, not a strand out of place. She tightened the strings and belts of her combat outfit, checked for her hidden needles, knives, cured with lethal poison.
In silence the rest woke up as well. A ritual sort of silence, one that brewed in the stew of collective anxiety before a big test, a trial. Mind and body knew the horrible effort that will come.
Xanthip finished her preparations, her knuckles wrapped tightly with bandages, wrist held secure. A sigh came from the pits of her lungs. She stared at her brother, he felt it and looked back. All-consuming black eyes warred against each other. Burning Purpose and Frozen resolve clashed.
“Let us go. Before the sun rises over the Hills.” Archeseus ordered as he stood up. Pops sounded out from the joints of his bones.
“Our hills. Our Sun, our vista. We’ll be taking it back today. So that our people may return to their home. So that my Wife can feel safe.” The youngest of the bunch of festering warriors said with a blood red anger. His voice dry and sharp. The rest nodded grimly, savage looks flashed in their faces.
“Yes… Our hills.” Archeseus felt a pang as he turned away from his men, his cousins, uncles, his people. Thirty men hand picked, the most patriotic, the most zealous for their cause. “You know what we’ll be doing, you know the dangers. Do you need me to coddle you?”
“Nay! We’re ready to die Patriarch!” The men responded as one.
“Very well then.” Archeseus nodded at his sister, who stood just a step ahead of him. She nodded back. She clasped her palms and raised them above her head, and bowed her waste, holding her hands high. “May the Spirits gift us with a Good Fate in this endeavor.” She Prayed to the graves and spirits of their ancestors. Most probably long overturned and searched through for treasure by The Spring Sage, or most likely the cunning fox.
In the dark before the dawn, the group departed like living shadows, to their hill, to their lost home. They jumped over the river, checked for any traps, avoided all possible alert posts or mechanisms and arrived at their western wall.
It had been easy. Too easy. Xanthip felt it then. One wicked smile after another morphed the features of the men behind her There, right near the start of the clearing a patrol was marching. Another near the walls. A third atop.
Patrols of mortal men in little to no armor, that were barely alert, with no training. It was a feast ready to be had. And Xanthip saw with terror the eagerness of the Laertis warriors to get a taste.
Archeseus nudged her, as he watched the movements of the three patrols. His lips pressed into a thin, hard line. His eyes ice cold. Through clenched teeth he passed on to her his thoughts. A massacre would occur today. If she wanted out, this was the last chance she would have.
“I’d love to play the innocent little girl Brother.” She whispered, not bothered that the others overheard. “But I have a hand in it already. Could I really look Argea in the eyes, knowing that I’ve trampled children like her to death? Directly, or not.” Xanthip did not look back. She flew forward, her footsteps silent and accurate. Her eyes locked onto her pray, from the thick forest she lunged. Hands stretched out like jaws she clamped down and blood washed her black uniform. Shadow blots rushed next to her and the bodies and heads were stopped from falling and alerting the rest. Hot blood pumped out the aorta one last time, as the heart was slow in realizing its death. The blood splattered on the four men, and a sick giddiness bubble inside them.
Crazy smiles lit up in their faces. They charged forward, all thirty of them, with Archeseus and Xanthip right behind. Before they could be spotted, poisoned darts pierced soft neck skin and death rained down
The troupe rushed over the fallen and reached the western Gate. Knives flashed silver and blood sprays filled the air. They landed on the other side as alarms blared from the nearby watch towers. With a single thought in mind the troupe sprinted to the Central building.
The scene before them only added to the black fire that raged in the pits of their stomachs. Cobbles covered in shoot, buildings burnt to the ground, piles of scrolls and books, personal affects half melted in large piles. Humans that did not belong, rebuilt over the burnt corpse of their home and the men only saw red.
They flared out, with wild screams like a pack of coyotes. Whether it be child or woman, man, old or young were cut and killed in the most gruesome ways. Limbs were torn, bodies sliced, veins turned purple with poison and melted as eyes burst in horrific gore, a firework showcase of the human body.
People ran away. Shouted for help. Soldiers stepped in. They surrounded them near at the entrance of the Main Building that was still left mostly standing. Archeseus felt his heart drop. He rushed forth. Snakes hissed from his body as they bit into the soldiers, crushing through crystal armor or bones and pumped them fool of black poison. Tens of humans burst apart at the seems in seconds. Their faces twisted in depictions of absolute torture. “SLAUGHTER THEM ALL!” The men roused themselves at their leaders call. Black tendrils grew, guided by their arms and fingers to heights that cast shadows on the men around them, even as most of the squad rushed after Archeseus into the building.
Xanthip cringed as she turned her eyes away from the faces of their powerless enemies, torn open or split apart, picked on from a swarm of crows, flesh tearing, elastic.
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The squad rushed to the main office. A shouting match could be heard ongoing even before Atlas pushed the thick wooden doors open, the maid that had been cleaning them falling flat on the ground.
Xerxes stood, helmet under right armpit, while the Sage waved what once was Archeseus’ old pen. The two men were screaming at each other, each one trying to impose their will.
They stopped their arguments, their anger froze as they looked upon Archeseus. “Hello there.” Archeseus said as million black needles blotted out the room. Xerxes moved before the group could unleash the deadly attack. He lunged over the large office desk and pushed the spring sage ahead. He slid to the ground as the torrent of heavy abyssal needles split sunk into the fat body {Tunk, Thunk, Tunk, Thump, Tunk, Tunk……..}
The sound was deafening, infinite, it would ring out to the end of times as the Spring Sage’s pockmarked corpse flopped dead and rotting to the ground along with chunks of flesh and blood separated from the whole.
From behind the needle littered desk the booming bellow of a horn sounded out. The rally of a scheduled betrays was heard. Cries of different kinds rose up from the compound. Archeseus did not wait to see this betrayal play out. There was no need as they would all be dead soon enough. He rushed forward and threw the old mahogany desk out the window with a blast of Qi, his arms coated in smoky black wisps of Qi. Yet what he saw surprised him. Xerxes lay on the ground facing him. His arm outstretched, at the end of his palms. A talisman painted on, drawn with blood, now sizzling rapidly to the center of the Talisman’s Drawing.
“DUCK!” He Shouted as Qi bloomed forth. He brought his arms to his face at the last moment. Sound disappeared for a moment, and then thunder clapped and cracked in the office. Wind rustled and run as fire spread out in a deadly display. A gaping hole opened up in the floor as Archeseus was sent over his squad of men crashing through wooden walls and hardwood planks from the might of the explosion.
Xerxes fell through the whole and Xanthip, ears ringing, shoot and dust blocking her vision followed. From behind the doors of the office Knights in Prismatic armor ambushed the squad. An ambush within and ambush, thick rods of steel sharpened to a singular point pierced through unsuspecting bodies and blood danced in the air. Old men carved apart into blood art, too slow to react. “Spread out!” Shouted one of the older men as his waist was cut clean from his body. His organs splattering to the ground. His words of caution the last thing he would ever utter.
Xerxes brought out a much smaller sword, with his ass to the ground, and sparks bloomed as Xanthip’s knives were parried aside. Xerxes’ arm almost buckled from the force of the old woman. Xanthip landed on the ground and dashed in, Xerxes had no time to steady himself, he rolled out of the strikes. His armor rung out, sparks flew, as he took hits, running, and scrambling, like a rat running away from the landlords broom.
That was until they pushed through the doors to the First Hall and swords flashed out of ambush. She had to duck and slide under the crotches of the men that surrounded her from the walls. Her knees flying over the floor, neck and waist bent impossibly to the side. She slid back up in one super-fluid motion, as the man under which she passed croaked and fell down, a deluge of blood flooding out of the whole in the lower half of his armor. A shriek of horrid pain tore up his throat. Which was cut short as Xanthip tore it apart.
“Do you children really think, you can best me with numbers? A joke!” Xanthip dominated the fight. She cracked the wooden floor and appeared on the ceiling, the next second she was puncturing two thick pike needles through the eye sockets of a crystal helmet and the the next she was swinging a thin bendable blade at Xerxes. A gush appeared along his forehead. Blood washed over his caramel eyes.
He jumped back, away from Xanthip, raising his sword high in defense, blindly, he could not see her. No attack came. Instead two stunted yelps sounded out, as he wiped the blood from his eyes. The delicate sound of stringy raw meat tearing apart borught chills up his spine. Xanthip stood and pushed off a man’s shoulders, his neck bones breaking as his flesh split away, a screech released from the Hardened soldier as he was still alive. With a satisfying pop the neck bone was disconnected from the body and hot blood splattered on Xerxes.
The bodies of two other men cluttered to the ground as he stumbled backwards, through the first Hall and into another room. From above, the ceiling shuddered as the screams of his men sounded out, dark hisses and wisps of black Qi broke through the floor.
The sharp edge of Death’s sickle breathed upon his neck. He ducked and rolled clumsily aside. A sharp kick whistling in the wind was thus barely dodged as it dug through a thick bark pillar.
“I showed bloodlust… Tch.” Archeseus murmured in anger as he landed lightly where Xerxes had been. Xanthip joined him. Behind them the courtyard in front of the Main building was washed with blood, ten men dressed in black clothing stood there, any person that dared approach was killed on the spot. A wall of bodies was being built surrounding the steps leading to the entrance. From above the sounds of fighting had nearly ceased. All his men, those prepared for the ambush on the Spring Sage and the take over of the Compound and the Qi Spring were dead, or in the process of having their life sucked out of their fleshy bodies.
Despite the ringing of the tower bells, the bellows of the victory, signals from his men on the walls, he didn’t feel victorious in the least.
“This is better though. I was disappointed by your performance the first time. You played right into my hands.” Xerxes said, legs crouched a little, back hunched forward, sword held at distance. “And how come that little dog of yours, your son, isn’t here.”
“The two weeks it took for us to understand what had happened had gone in a flash.” Archeseus straightened his clothes, cracked his neck and knuckles as he walked toward Xerxes, who retreated slowly. The three of them headed for the largest guest room on the ground floor. “I had only thought two things during that time. I failed my clan, and my duties as Patriarch. That much is clear. I should have been adamant and killed you off the moment I saw you myself. But I also failed in another way. I failed my family. My real family, my close blood. My sister, My son, My love. Not the relatives I have lived with, whose life I am responsible for. No. As you’ve said I passed a wrong image to my son. I don’t own him. He is the only thing I have made that is worth anything. I won’t repeat the same mistakes this time.” Archeseus declared as the three of them fanned out, now inside the large flat room. Hundreds of square meters to play with, the two lions stalked around the bison. “I have pushed Atlas away from my control, and today I plan on freeing him from it.” Archeseus smiled with serenity, a peace came over him. The acknowledgment of all his wrongdoings and massive failing. It was freeing. This would be the last act of his redemption. Convoluted, misunderstood, cunning and filthy, just like himself.
“Let’s do this then.” Xerxes responded with a smile like dazzling gold. His wild hair sticking to his face and bloody forehead, curly and wild and thick. His eyes burned with the rush of the challenge. This was it. If he won, he got everything.