Crunch!

Kyembe’s scream shattered the twilight.

Bone splintered. Arrows jostled in his wounds, cutting wide. He sought his flagging eldritch energies for healing, but they flowed too feebly, nearing their limit.

A realization, unbidden and unwelcome, suddenly struck him.

He was going to die alone on this forgotten tower.

Images spilled into his thoughts. His father, the old mercenary, whose quiet laugh descended into reedy coughs in great mirth. The dark elf mother he never knew, her appearance painted solely by his father’s tales. The Archwizard K’mark, his stern master with his black beard and blacker armour. Companions and allies long dead.

Wurhi the Rat, whose alliance might have lasted.

Did she make it to the pitfall? His ears rang, and he thought he heard her cursing in the distance. He smiled bitterly. A soothing delusion. She would be likely dead by now.

With a strength borne of rage, he shot to his feet.

He’d see their killers pay a mighty toll for their lives.

Setting his jaw, he passed the sputtering eldritch power into his ring and quickly sheared the arrow in his belly. He didn’t have time for his forearm. His arm sizzled and scorched, yet his hatred for those who craved his death dulled the pain. His enemies poured onto the top floor. Eppon, frightful beyond his scarring, grinned from within their midst like a boy who’d stolen his mother’s honey. In the twilight, the red of his moustache looked like blood smeared over his lip.

“Pin him down.” He sneered. “And bring me a sharp knife before he bleeds out. No wait…a dull knife.”

Kyembe trembled. He exaggerated his weakness, seeming as though convulsed with terror. Eppon burst into a low, cruel laugh. The urgency slipped from his warriors by the heartbeat, replaced by the hunger for bloody vengeance.

The power built slowly. He could not further tax his body with a beam, but he could do something less rigorous.

“Hold him down,” Eppon smirked.

His warriors approached; dark looks painted their faces. Kyembe waved his sword weakly. They raised their own weapons to contemptuously swipe his aside.

The eyes of his ring flared.

His false whimpering erupted into the howl of a cornered beast.

Air thrummed and shimmered, hot white light wicked up his sword, outlining it like a star behind an eclipse.

With a crackle like bone bursting, the blade erupted in a white blaze.

The twilight burned away as though the sun fell to the tower. Kyembe’s enemies recoiled in alarm, but he already felt the flow of hellfire stuttering. He leapt forth, cursing them, burning steel striking through bellies, bursting superheated entrails and spraying boiling gore to drench the Sengezian. Blood bubbled on his skin, but left no burn; he’d adapted to the touch of a far crueler heat.

Kyembe brandished the hellfire-cloaked blade, warriors recoiling as their skin scorched from the residual heat. Through that opening he leapt, screaming, toward the Bear-Breaker. The white blaze reflected off his crimson eyes.

The Sengezian thrust for the heart.

Eppon, though maimed, still held a warrior’s wit and reflexes.

The giant kicked one of his own onto the white-blazing steel, it pierced through to the shocked man’s back. He emitted a sound that was half-shriek and half the hiss of sizzling fat frying. The man was immolated, his eyes boiling and geysers of fire and ash emptying from his eye sockets, mouth, and ears.

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His torso disintegrated. The morale of his fellows went along with it. As one, the Garumnans sprang for the staircase, pushing each other to get away from the terrible burning blade. In their haste, they failed to notice how the flame had been quenched by their fallen companion’s body.

Their leader did.

With the roar of a cave lion, Eppon the Bear-Breaker charged Kyembe the Spirit Killer, his massive sword falling like a mountain slide.

Whoosh!

The Sengezian stumbled back a hair’s whisper before he was cloven in twain.

Wheezing, he tried to counter, but his body was cold and moved like drying mud. Eppon swept aside his cut and sprang forth with all the fury of an enraged boar, shockingly quick for a man his size. The Spirit Killer pulled back and the Bear-Breaker followed. Both men were off balance with each having an arm in a sling. Yet Kyembe was losing blood, while Eppon remained fresh. The hulking Garumnan also bore considerable skill - to the Sengezian’s surprise - and his heavy steel sword had greater reach.

A hail of powerful strokes withered Kyembe’s defence to a feeble retreat. Again and again Eppon’s blade thrashed out, trapping the lean warrior in a cage of razored steel, beating apart his weakened guard until his hilt hung loosely in numbed fingers. The demon slayer fought with inhuman speed borne from desperation, but his exhausted form yielded Eppon openings, letting him inflict one sharp blow to Kyembe’s chest with a ferocious kick. The wind blasted from his lungs as he was driven into a broken wall.

Snarling in triumph, the Bear-Breaker closed, blade thrusting to split the Sengezian’s belly. Hate fuelled the Spirit Killer and he caught the larger man’s cross guard with his sword. With a deft twist, he sent the blade spinning from its owner’s grip. The tarnished sword soared over the tower wall. Eppon swore, but his iron hand caught Kyembe’s wrist before he could withdraw. A horrifying strength constricted the Sengezian’s arm.

“Aaaargh!”

Clatter!

His sword dropped to the stones.

Bang!

Eppon’s fist hammered into Kyembe’s jaw.

His vision spun. Bile boiled in his belly.

The hulking Garumnan wrapped the Sengezian’s torso in a one-armed bear hug and lifted him from his feet, crushing him to his chest. The arrows sank further into Kyembe’s flesh, his breath rasped.

“You’re the worst trouble I’ve ever run into,” the heir of Avernix sneered. His sour breath stung Kyembe’s nostrils. Scars warped with his every expression. He seemed a horror born from some abyssal spawning pit. “You gave a good fight, southlander. You tired me; I give you credit. So, I’ll still cut your nethers off, but only after you’re dead. How’s that?”

Kyembe struggled, but his arms were pinned and he could not contend with the giant’s strength. The air was being squeezed from his lungs. The world darkened. He head-butted the titanic barbarian, dizzying himself and feeling like he’d slammed his head into stone. Eppon sneered.

Desperately twisting his body, the Sengezian pushed his ring to the Garumnan’s sling. He channeled the little eldritch energy he had left, concentrating through his fading consciousness.

It was a trickle. Merely enough to make the hellfire sputter in the ring’s eyes.

But those eyes were pressed against cloth.

Fwooosh!

The sling burst into flame.

“Aaaaargh!” The titan roared in panicked agony as the fire raged around his arm, chest and neck. He dropped the Sengezian to the hard stones. Kyembe gasped for breath even as he grasped his sword.

Turning feebly toward the giant, he placed the pommel in the hand of his broken arm.

The Bear-Breaker stumbled away, frantically clawing at the burning material until it ripped free. The stench of his scorched flesh hung in the air.

The Sengezian tightened his grip on the pommel. His good hand clutched the hilt.

Death burned in Eppon’s eyes. “I’ll stick you like a pig!” he howled, snatching up one of his fallen warrior’s spears and rushing Kyembe.

The giant raised the spear.

Kyembe thrust with his good arm, extending his grip on the magical sword.

The hilt lengthened.

The blade shot forth, angled low.

Shhhnk!

Eppon’s shriek was a mammoth’s trumpet.

His spear dropped. His hands fell, crimson fountained between fingers that clutched for what was no longer there. The Bear-Breaker wailed, doubling over and curling up on his knees like a whimpering babe.

Kyembe drew back his sword then drove the point through the man’s neck.

Shnk!

The last son of Avernix choked on steel with incredulous eyes. A horrid gurgle trickled from his gaping maw. Blood poured from his lips and nostrils. Teetering like an upturned siege tower, the giant fell into a pool of his own red.

With one final terrible shudder, he breathed his last.

Silence.

The wind blew cold, carrying Kyembe’s weak, delirious laughter as his beautiful sword clattered to the stones.

His eyes drifted to the heavens.

The stars danced in the sky above.