Episode 3: The Shardbearers
The rumbling perplexed the mountain just as Leonidas tried to reply. Right on top of the mountain, a footstep shattered the fabric image of the peak of the mountain top. An avalanche of snow flew down like hellfire at the climax of the war. On the other side at the beginning of the mountain trail, banners flung high in the air. Footsteps marched toward the base of the mountainside. The minor avalanche covered part of their barrier. Leonidas moved some of the snow debris to see what was happening, while Malakai still looked through his small gaping hole.
From the outside of the hidden barrier, three hundred soldiers marched forward in rows of ten. Shields and spears in hand, wearing warm winter armor. Silver-plated armor on top of large fabric wool coats. The soldiers all wore hoods to keep themselves warm. Each soldier over encumbered by their gear alone. They sensed the danger surrounding them, as a commander and chief wearing black-plated armor threw his hand balled up to the sky.
“Hold!” He ordered. “Ready yourselves, lads. Take the Green King alive! For the motherland of the Pale Nation!”
“Oi!”
The soldiers waited. Every second felt like an hour with their pulses getting thinner by the second. Malakai, Rorke, and Leonidas noticed the gaping opening of the shield opening up on the top. Their shot to it, when a hand finally crushed the rock of the mountain top. The hand alone was the size of the mountain they hid on top of. Every human and creature observing the green grass-colored hand watched in fear.
“Gurin… a superior. The Green King.” Leonidas whispered. He turned back to Malakai. “One of your kind Diborn. We need him alive.”
Malakai huffed at the thought. His eyes returned to the top of the mountain. The head of the green king peaked out of the corner of the mountaintop. His face was chiseled by brimstone rock and lit up with golden eyes that followed through each vein throughout his body. The beast massively overshadowed everything surrounding the forest, casting the greatest shadow of darkness ever. When he rose to his feet, his calve was the height of the peak mountain top. His head barely reached the clouds. He look down on the humans like mongrels. The flowing green hair of the beast soared like green flames on his back. The Green King Gurin. A Diborn from a great ogre titan clan.
“So… this is the true power of Diborn…?” Rorke asked, nearly pissing his pants.
“Sir, behind us!? Another one.”
Malakai and the two turned around where they were profound Malakai’s observation as true. The eyes of the three hundred and Gurin watched the skies become grimmer. Each cloud the other being passed became black as the night. Darkness is all that shrouded the second figure. This one is not the massive shadow of Gurin. Its darkness, however, cast a greater fear.
The being flew through the skies matching the height of Gurin’s head. Black clouds covered him as his shrouded black night cloak, ripped to shreds from the bottom danced with the winds. You couldn’t see the creature's feet hanging about, nor his head. The being's face was pulled into the darkness of his hood. Everything about the mystic appearance of the being frightened people more. The only thing anyone could see was it holding a small dark bag over its shoulder.
As the being slowly pulled out a crystal black scythe his skeleton hand pointed at Gurin. He revealed himself to be greater than the Green King.
Leonidas gulped. “Its… Kharon. Lord of Reapers.”
Kharon remained stagnant in the air pointing to Gurin who enraged screech like a siren to it. The soldiers of Edindale, as well as Malakai’s group all nearly died from the screech alone. Rorke’s ears both gushed in bled.
“Diborn, grab the young pup. Kill the one standing later. We need to get out of here – “
Leonidas’ orders couldn’t have been followed. Gurin kicked through the mountain, opening up a ravine that shook the ground like an earthquake. He jumped right through the earthquake to the three hundred who stood frightened. Those soldiers of Edindale were a militia, not an army of men like Rokia. They were clearly in over their heads and nothing could prepare them for an encounter of two superior beings.
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“Men! Hold… hold…” The leader of the three hundred tried to speak clearly. His eyes gazed directly at Kharon who took a glance at him. The reaper flicked his head slightly right and in an instant the neck of the leader snapped in two.
Kharon saw the rest of the men bask in fear, which it would happily devour. It charged up a large black crystal rainfall that showered upon all of the soldiers. Everything and everyone who stood beneath the mountains crumbled in the waking darkness of Kharon. If Gurin didn’t already destroy the lands by his rumbling presence, then it was for certain now.
Gurin screeched with the minor ants crushed to death by Kharon's wrath. Kharon pointed his scythe towards the beast. Both beings immediately thrusted themselves towards each other. Gurin tried to deliver a right hand towards Kharon. Kharon quickly dodged it and flew down around the arm of Gurin, grabbing the arm and peeling the skin and muscle from it. Anything he touched meant death and his power immensely doubled.
The beast screeched in pain but grabbed the puny twenty-foot-high reaper in a hold. Gurin quickly threw him through the mountain he came from. Kharon flew from hundreds of feet of rock, brutally beaten through it. Any sort of creature would have died. Malakai and the others used the ravine opening to escape.
Even the escape seemed imminent. Kharon rose from the outer layers of the mountain waiving off the pain endured. He reached for his bag grabbing a scepter this time. He aimed both scythe and scepter at Gurin charging up a black lightning bolt, engulfed by the flames of chaos in the darkness. Gurin screeched like the beast he was, doing the same with his power. He grabbed the literal earth of the forest as a wall barrier while charging up a divine power from the sky. His hand opened to the skies which brought out thunder. His hand retrieved from the clouded skies pulled out a large lightning bolt, ready to fire at Kharon.
“Did that thing just grab lightning!?” Rorke yelled out, his hearing destroyed.
Malakai stopped and looked at the ongoing battle overhead. Kharon the superior of death against Gurin the superior of Titans could only end in a massacre. This he knew, as every Diborn in the world does. Anytime two or more Diborn fight, thousands of lives are lost. He put Rorke on a rock underneath the ravine and grabbed his longsword. The blade shined with a greater white flamed light.
“Take Rorke.” Malakai ordered Leonidas. “This is my duty in the mission after all.”
Leonidas sat concerned and puzzled at Malakai’s human feelings. Diborn typically wouldn’t care for their comrades in his mind. Leonidas bit the bullet. “Why Diborn? Why fight to save ours?”
Malakai didn’t respond, blurred with images of bloodshed and tears flowing from his once-free eyes. The sensation of being left alone through years of torment, shattered by the oasis of fallen hope. Malakai could feel everything he once knew as a myth. He turned back and sighed at Leonidas.
“All Diborn were once human, Leonidas. Go. I have an oath to fulfill.” Malakai answered, climbing straight to the fight.
“Diborn wait!” Leonidas called out, as Malakai rushed into battle. The beams of both creatures grew into tremors themselves. The beings didn’t care for what remained of this continent. The explosion could disintegrate everything in sight. “Shit!”
Leonidas observed this, biting his lip. He grabbed Rorke. His hand held the sickened boy from the screech conjuring up all the magic he had stored. “Come now, boy. I am not the best in magic, but we are leaving. Yawart!”
The two disappeared from the ravine without a trace. Malakai stood underneath and between both superiors. He continued to walk through the massacre of the forest blight created by the two superiors. Malakai pointed his longsword into the heavens that were trapped in the darkness. “I cannot say life is a free one. But I do promise one thing. To the ones who had their freedom stripped from them. I will fight until my last breath, till I create a world of that substance. Even if it means killing all of my race. I swear to this oath, truly.”
His hands began to embrace the white-flamed embers of his power. The thrust of his blade shot into the sky between the two beings. A pure white line frees the sky of darkness and creates a large barrier all around the three. The destroyed mountain and blighted forest were inside the barrier. Everything outside of it was protected by this barrier. Leonidas looked on from a couple of miles away in a fishing village, seeing the white light. “So that is true also. That is your superior power Malakai…”
The other two creatures screeched and fired away their large, monumental attacks. Malakai thrusted his blade into the ground, screaming at the top of his lungs.
From the great white flame, I call upon thee. Emerge, Buhamad!” Malakai slashed away in the orb barrier, just as the beings attacked. The barrier blew up without breaking the foundation of the barrier. Everything inside erupted and nothing could be seen A triple disaster of three great beings called Diborn shook the entire land of Edindale. The Pale, the land of the forsaken trembled upon the sight of another cataclysmic eruption. This time the disaster didn’t spread away. The black orb from Kharon, and the lightning orb from Gurin, were saved by the graced white flame of an unknown Diborn superior. Buhamad.