55. One Last Push

Jorge watched as Heroes and apprentices piled into the Guild Hall, frightened and bloodied.

The screams of the Beasts were drawing closer.

He worked himself into a sitting position on the table, gritting his teeth against the pain, and caught an apprentice by the sleeve as she tried to run past. He recognized her, tried to recall her name.

Veera. That was it.

“Veera, tell me what it’s like out there,” he said. “They broke through again, didn’t they?”

The girl nodded stiffly, eyes wide with fear even though she tried her best to hide it. “Yeah. There’s no one to hold them back this time.”

Jorge scanned the main hall. No sign of his apprentices.

“What about Kiren and Lace?” he asked. “Did they make it inside?”

“I don’t know about Lace,” Veera said, “but Kiren is still trapped out there with Titaness and a couple others.” She pulled her sleeve free. “I… I’m sorry. I think he’s gone.”

She diverted her gaze and hurried off.

Jorge blew air through his teeth. He closed his eyes, steeled himself.

They certainly have a knack for getting themselves into trouble.

Looks like my job isn’t quite over.

He swung his stiff legs over the side of the table, ignored the intense, stabbing pain. He dropped to the floor on his hands and knees, everyone too oblivious to notice as the spawnlings had already begun pawing at the windows.

The leg braces squeaked with every movement as he crawled across the floor, all dignity thrown to the wind.

Jorge got to the stairs, climbed the steps painstakingly, one at a time. The sounds of combat below were growing more intense, more desperate.

The kids won’t survive long out there, he thought. Got to move faster.

That was an impossible task. His body would hardly move. His limbs were heavy, so heavy. He was just about ready to collapse and slip off into the final sleep.

Not yet.

He dragged himself up one more step.

His body burned with hellfire, set him whimpering and shaking.

And he climbed one more step.

Then one more.

Then one more.

He blacked out somewhere along the way, came to with a start. He wasn’t sure how long he’d been out. Maybe seconds. Maybe minutes. He kept going.

Jorge made it to the fourth floor and dragged his broken, battered body through the hall.

I won’t die.

Not here.

I have one job left to do.

He shouldered open the door to his room, fell into a fetal position inside. His legs shook like branches in the wind, every countless tear in his muscles flaring up.

Vision tunneling from the pain, he simply lay there, breath throwing up dust, as he attempted to regain his senses. With a spurt of strength he didn’t know he had, he made it to the bed, grabbing a robe of the wall on the way which he shrugged over his shoulders.

Reaching underneath the bed, he pulled out a long, heavy case. He popped open the buckles and laid eyes on what was kept within, just as pristine as when he had last stowed it away years ago.

A sword. As long as he was, as broad as a woman’s waist, and so heavy that no normal man could wield it in both hands, with a sturdy, cloth-wrapped handle on either side of the blade instead of a crossguard.

The Killspade. One of Reya’s nicknames, on account of it being so wide.

It had belonged to Titaness, once. She had given it to him as a gift. It had served him well in the bloodiest throwdowns before age and atrophy had forced him to set it aside.

With a burst of energy afforded by his Power, he managed to lift the blade out of its case, resting it on his shoulder to take some of the weight off.

Jorge shuffled over to the window, sheared the shutters open with one swing of the Killspade.

“Hang in there, kids,” he said. “I’m coming.”

*****

Despite their desperate efforts, the gate crew was losing ground, slowly being backed up against the gates they had been charged with defending.

No matter how many spawnlings Kiren hacked away, there were always more to replace them. The entirety of his greatsword ran dark with beast-blood, and his arms ached with the effort of swinging the weapon. His hair was streaked to his scalp, and sweat dripped off his nose.

A Beast charged him from the front. He drove his sword into its malformed skull, but the blade caught on the bone and wouldn’t come out. Two more spawnlings charged him from the left and knocked him down, ripping the sword from his grip.

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They got on top of him, carved away at his flesh with claws like small knives. More piled on, pinning down his arms and filling his ears with their screams.

Kiren roared his defiance right back at them. Titaness leaned down and swatted away most of the spawnlings with one giant hand, leaving him with only a pink, pig-like creature that gnawed at his right arm with needle-sharp teeth.

Kiren overpowered the spawnling, pushed his weight down on top of it, and pummeled its soft flesh with blow after blow. He cracked bones and spilled putrid blood, his knuckles covered in razor-like nubs that sank clean through the skin.

Once he was clear of immediate danger, he stumbled back to his feet, only to find that the rest of the gate crew weren’t faring any better. They were already starting to fall, consumed one by one under the crushing tide of monsters.

There was no end to them.

“Unmaker’s black,” Kiren panted. “There’s no getting out of this one.”

More of those charged-up humanoids were headed their way, too.

Even as he fought, Kiren wrestled with the fact that he wasn’t going to survive until the morning. Wrenching his greatsword from the spawnling he had impaled, he set to taking down as many of the monsters as he was able before his body gave out.

Just then, a black streak shot out from the top of the Guild Hall. A dull wedge of metal gleamed amber in the light of the Lodge as it soared through the sky.

Even in the night, over the din of battle, Kiren recognized that smear of darkness.

That old madman really went and did it, huh? Kiren thought as he watched his master glide effortlessly over the endless horde of Beasts. He just couldn’t stay out of it.

A smile crept over his lips.

*****

Jorge landed in the thick of the spawnlings with a sharp jolt, crushing a Beast skull beneath his foot.

Baffled at his sudden entrance, the Beasts struggled to wheel around and face him, packed in as tightly as they were.

Jorge reached down to his leg braces and tore off the leather straps that kept them attached. One brace fell away, then the other, causing him to tip forward as his legs were unable to hold his weight.

It didn’t matter. He needed the mobility.

Struggling with the ludicrous weight of the Killspade, he worked his way back to his knees.

A few of the closest spawnlings threw themselves at him, all teeth, claws, and rage.

Jorge grabbed the handles on each side of the huge blade and held it outwards. He kicked off with one leg, putting all the strength he could muster into it.

Jorge’s body spun uncontrollably, the massive blade shearing through mountains of twisted flesh without any sort of resistance. He came to a stop, having gone through dozens of spawnlings, and immediately pushed into another uncontrollable burst of speed that sent him spinning.

With each kick, he felt the muscles in his leg tearing, felt the bones grinding against one another and splintering on impact.

He was tearing himself apart.

But that didn’t matter. He had been falling apart for a long time. This was just the last step.

He pushed himself off once more. His vision blurred with the movement, but he had no need for sight as he crashed through the lines of Beasts. He tore through a humanoid that crackled with lightning. It exploded when it died, but Excelerate was already way past it by the time it did.

Jorge halted himself with a hand, feeling the bones of his fingers crack under the immense force.

One more, he thought.

Kicking off, he went in a wide, lopsided arc, clinging to the Killspade with his one good hand. The spawnlings shrieked as they fell, and a sweeter sound he had never hurt. He caught two more of those humanoids, cutting them both in half and causing them to explode into tiny pieces.

Another kick, followed by a burst of speed, then another, then another. Each was faster than the last. There was so much pain that it hardly registered anymore, and he became numb.

He grinned, wild with glee.

It was about time someone showed these creatures how a real Hero does things.

*****

Kiren watched in awe as Excelerate zig-zagged across the courtyard, taking swathes of spawnlings with him each time. He had torn great scars into their lines, hundreds of dead Beasts.

The horde had turned their attention away from the bridge crew in their relentless bid to catch Excelerate.

Titaness grabbed a wooden board off the ground and used it to swat away spawnlings.

“Come on, everyone!” she said. “Excelerate has bought us some time. We have to get out of here. Now.”

That got everyone moving, no matter how wounded and exhausted. They fought their way around the edge of the courtyard, encountering only token resistance.

No matter how many of the creatures Excelerate took out, more kept piling on from the corners of the courtyard and over the walls.

The gate crew made it to the doors of the Guild Hall, and Titaness started pounding on them for the Heroes inside to open up. The others worked on keeping the area clear of Beasts, but Kiren couldn’t bring himself to raise his sword. He stared out at Excelerate, a black speck zooming amid a sea of twisted shapes.

Come on, old man, he thought. Retreat. You’ve done enough.

But Excelerate didn’t retreat. He kept pushing. The man spun around and around, locked in a fatal dance with the children of the Unmaker.

“He’s not going to make it,” Kiren whispered.

Before he realized what he was doing, he had started walking. He went beyond the slim protection of the weary gate crew, back onto the bloodsoaked courtyard.

He walked towards his master, slowly picking up the pace.

“Hey, Kiren!” Haden called. “What are you doing, you fool? Get back here!”

Kiren ignored him. A spawnling jumped for him, and he simply raised his blade so that it impaled itself, then let it slough off to the side.

He started running, cutting down any spawnling that got in his way.

Excelerate stumbled, faltered, and got back up again. The Beasts swarmed him, but a rapid rotation threw them off of him.

I won’t let him die, Kiren thought. Not now. Not after all that’s happened.

Several Beasts latched themselves onto the black-clad Hero, dragged him to the ground. A humanoid pushed itself through the ranks, stepping up to Excelerate. He tried to raise his ludicrous blade, but the humanoid placed a foot on the flat, pushing the tip into the ground.

“No!” Kiren shouted. He picked up the pace, jumping over a group of spawnlings, all wounds forgotten.

Excelerate drew a dagger and stabbed at the humanoid. The thing caught his hand in two of its own, twisted his wrist so that he dropped the weapon.

It pulled back another of its many arms and drove it through Excelerate’s chest, dark energy searing away the cloth of his robe and burning the flesh underneath.

The humanoid retracted its arm with a hoarse cackle. Excelerate fell away, unmoving, as he let go of his sword. The spawnlings descended on him, ripping away chunks of flesh and clawing at his limbs.

Kiren skidded to a stop. His hands grew cold, and he was unable to blink as he stared at what was left of his master.

“They killed him…” he whispered.

His heart beat out of rhythm, fast and frantic.

All of a sudden, the coldness was replaced by an intense heat. Rage boiled in his gut, spilled over into every fiber of his being.

“You killed him!” he roared.

Kiren fell down on all fours. His skin split. His bones cracked. His vision tunneled.

“I’ll kill you all,” he growled between teeth that grew longer, sharper.