“Don’t worry. And only use the staff for what I have said, and—”
“Yes. The shield only if they try to enter,” Jazzy continued.
“Are the girls ready?”
“I understand what you’ll be attempting, but I still don’t like it. The girls will be getting too close,” she said.
“I won’t let them come to any harm.”
“They will kill us all if you lose,” the princess said.
“We won’t lose today. Now, remember our talk last night about the staff. How you visualize…”
“Ok,” Jazzy said. “But it would have been nice to have some practice beforehand.” She closed her eyes and stood clutching the tall staff as Big Crunch strode towards the field marshall. The two men met on either side of the deep scar trench that led up to the tall mine entrance doors.
“If it weren’t for those smart locks, you all would be dead by now,” the field marshall said, drawing the bulky sword from his back scabbard. He took a few swings with it. It looked heavy, but he moved it incredibly quick.
Big Crunch had armed himself with a long pillar of steel from one of the metal piles. The same type of beam that he had used to grind the black droid into pulp the morning he had saved Kalla.
“Oh, I have no doubt of that,” Big Crunch said, and holding the steel beam in his right hand, he leaned it against his right shoulder. With his left hand, he reached up and pushed the steel bolt through his arm as if it were nothing more than a sliver. It clattered to the stone behind him.
“As we agreed, this trench leads to the mine access doors, so our fight is over the control of this trench. Gambling pit fight rules apply.”
“Agreed.” Daktor slashed his sword through the air with a blur as if it were only a rapier.
“I’m sure you know that sometimes they used to make all beasts and mutations fight in fire pits?” He turned to Jazzy, who still had her eyes clamped shut in concentration.
The pools of black ichor in the trench between Daktor and Crunch began to smoke. Tendrils like from a smouldering fire began to rise, and the trench erupted into orange flame.
Big Crunch stepped down into it.
“Come, Field Marshall Daktor. You have a challenge to keep in front of your men.”
Daktor stepped a heavily armoured boot down into the flames.
“Yes! Roast lizard meat soon, men!” he called out to them and laughed. The cavalry men jeered behind him from their mounts.
Daktor strode towards Big Crunch.
Big Crunch circled and backed away. Daktor stood tall and bold in his armour and advanced. Fire spread in the trench as the snow fell and was danced into swirls by the rising heat.
Big Crunch clutched the long beam across his front and continued to move, always giving ground to the larger man. The lizard man was broad with muscle, shoulder and arms appearing like bunches of boulders under his desert tan scales. He was also taller than an average man, but the field marshall towered over him.
“You know you’re a mutation yourself. A giant.”
Daktor closed with the lizard and sent his sword into a blur of sweeps and strikes that ended with a lunge. Big Crunch dove through a wall of fire to keep away from the heavy sword.
Daktor followed.
“My body image is in accordance with that recorded in the Gray Man’s Book. Men are not created equal in strength or size. I am simply large. One of the things that make me the field marshall.” The marshall said coming clear of the fire.
The next lunge was so quick it could barely be seen. Big Crunch had no time to move so met it with the beam, as if to parry. Daktor’s sword bit clean through the beam, and its end clattered to the ground. The marshall’s backswing was just as quick, but Big Crunch had anticipated it. It was what anyone would have done, any good fighter, that was, and Big Crunch was a good fighter. He may not know all the swings, prods, and parries in the soldier’s sword manual, but he knew how to fight. Big Crunch, anticipating the attack, spun out of the way to his right and was no longer in range. Daktor turned to face him.
“So you refuse to follow The Great Reclamation and destroy the towers, but you will follow the Book of the Grey Man?”
“It is our duty to reimagine the world in the true light of civilization.”
Daktor thrust as he turned to move around a large pool of fire. Again, blindingly quick, and again, Big Crunch parried it. The sword edge peeled a ribbon of steel off the shortened beam.
The fires in the trench around them had grown in intensity.
“Some have the common sense to know that everyone plays a part in life. From a mutant like you to the smallest children. All Beasts and Pure Strains in the valley are all equals.” He flicked his head in the direction to where the princess stood. “We all play our part to make the world a worse or a better place.”
“What I have often found,” Daktor replied, “Is that the wrong don’t realize how wrong they are until the very last minute. That very last minute when you take their life from them.”
“I think what you were actually seeing was their disappointment in you. Life is transition. Your actions reveal to them that you are blind to the greater path we all walk.”
Daktor swung again. Big Crunch parried, and another section of the beam clattered to the ground.
The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.
“Your weapon and your part in this is growing ever shorter. I will let you keep your ability to speak until the very last so you can turn over the control of the locks.”
Daktor swung. Big Crunch parried again, losing another section of steel. The backswing was about to follow, but this time, Big Crunch closed the distance and drove the short section of beam into the marshall’s helm. The big man’s head was driven up and backwards.
But not nearly far enough to do any damage to the man inside the armour. Big Crunch would not stop fighting, but he knew the armour that the field marshall wore was of the highest tech—created in the last days of the time before, when the individual towers were planning war on each other.
Daktor’s armour had been created at the apex of that conflict. And it was the best man had ever made.
The blow that Big Crunch landed would have cracked a boulder in half, but it had only knocked the big man backwards. Crunch was too close, but still tried to spin away as Daktor’s sword dropped to crease the lizard’s back. Big Crunch growled in pain. Daktor recovered from the blow to his helm, and watched the lizard man turn to face him, still clutching the shortened beam.
“You still have time, Princess, to come back and join with us. I will take you back—” Daktor began, but her angry voice overwhelmed his.
“NO! I will take YOU BACK for TRIAL! I will then put it to The People, an open vote, to allow all races equal representation. I will rewrite the edicts! I will—”
“You take HIS side! This… thing. This beast face that betrayed his own friend?” Daktor gestured with his sword to the crouching lizard.
“He asks forgiveness. He will ask it of his friend.”
“Forgiveness. Ha. Only the weak need a thing like that. The valley will not be populated by the weak, the sick, and the mutated. I will not allow it. I will kill him and then you because your short time with them has weakened your mind. It is understandable. You are young and can be easily influenced. Then I will kill the gargoyle cub you walk with. My men and I will eradicate this canyon of all mutations.”
“She is a girl. A child. And she helped me. She saved me from YOU! A murderer,” the princess said.
“You will not leave this canyon. None of you will. I will take the hide off that thing.” Daktor pointed his sword at Big Crunch. “And as I do, he will release the locks to me, and then everything in this canyon dies!” Daktor stepped towards Big Crunch and brought his sword down. As he did, Crunch threw the short piece of metal beam straight at the sword pommel. The throw was done with everything he had: the strength, the speed, the skill, all down into the fiery ground in the trench where he was rooted.
The stub of beam struck with a clang that resounded through the canyon. Dator’s sword arm was thrown back, and his sword spun off into the flames along with the beam. Big Crunch had taken a step back as Daktor recovered. Both men crouched, now weaponless, and began their circling of each other once again.
“Your scar…” Daktor pointed. “The one on your head…”
“What of it?”
“You beasts. Your mutations heal so quickly. You call me a mutation, but I know I’m not. I don’t have these powers of healing that beasts possess. Powers like the Wayfinder’s staff possesses. The blow I struck to the princess was lethal. She would be dead now if not for that staff. Men have tried to kill you before. Shooting you in your head. The fine scars at your neck, trying to slit your throat, remove your head…”
“It’s true. They tried these things. The men with Casket that day. Once they realized who I was, they gave me this scar. I’m still here because I was engineered by the old ones to resettle this valley, not to pull down the towers and destroy it.”
Big Crunch was forced back towards the rear wall of the trench as Daktor advanced. Behind Big Crunch stood the others of his group, watching the fight between the two big men, hoping it would not go as it looked it would go.
“These healing powers…” Daktor lunged. Big Crunch jumped back and struck a massive fist into the side of the helm.
Daktor’s head barely turned, and his boots scraped across the stone as he braced against the blow.
“That armour is quite the stuff. Never fought anyone wearing it before.”
“These healing powers. The counsellor has discovered a way to stop them. Stop the healing…”
“Why would he do such a thing? Stop any medical aid kits from working? Stop the effects of medical bird brains? He can’t stop the Wayfinder’s staff from healing.”
“Yes. He knows how. He would do this. He will release this freedom on our valley and the beasts like you will surely die then.”
“All of this because we are not in your Grey book?”
“And because it is part of you.”
And with that last word, Daktor lunged and grabbed the lizard man. He had circled Big Crunch against the back of the trench. Right where Crunch had first stepped in to start the fight. The stone steps leading up to the redoubt were immediately behind him, and there was nowhere for Crunch to retreat to. Crunch was able to stagger backwards and twist in the bear hug to land on his chest, his top half out of the trench. Daktor pinned him to the ground, the armour crushing into him like a vice.
The groan of the power armour came on loud as it bore down onto the lizard man.
“The counsellor has told me how to kill things like you,” Daktor said as he held Big Crunch pinned to the ground beneath him. “The tiny clockwork machines that heal you cannot save your breath so to incapacitate you, all I have to do is stop you from breathing…”
The clutch of the armour bore down harder. Big Crunch had been struggling or trying to struggle, but his arms were locked inside that of the giant in his armour, and he continued to weaken.
Big Crunch had nearly finished his fight. Almost unmoving…
“I’m still not sure if I’m going to skin you myself or take you back and let the counsellor…”
And then Big Crunch gave one mighty heave and arched his back to force the field marshall up and away from the ground. The move lifted them clear to expose the gauntlets that clutched him. Big Crunch reversed his grip, and instead of fighting against the hold, he clung to the marshall’s arms.
“Now!” he said.
Beside the men, the swirling snow thickened as if it was walking towards them and became a shapeless mirror that reflected flames. From that swirl of distortion, the sisters Ishi and Kalla appeared. Kalla was standing closest to the field marshall, right next to his shoulder, pretty and fair, wearing the strange warm clothing that Big Crunch had given her. Ishi stood behind her. In her hand, the shrill screech of the bomb broke through the air.
Daktor’s eyes went to the grenade, and expecting an explosion, the big man quit struggling and braced himself.
Kalla reached a finger up to the armoured nose of the field marshall.
“Boop,” she said, tapping him on the nose, and the marshall watched as her bracelets came to life and flowed over his arms like quicksilver.
Daktor tried to pull away, but Big Crunch held him fast. The girls dissolved back into the protection of the scout’s cloak, and Big Crunch released the field marshall and scrambled away.
Daktor was in a war on the ground with himself. The big man hollered and screamed in rage as he spun and kicked. Turning over on his front, he drove his chest and arms into the sharp ledge of stone, over and over again, trying to free himself of the winding steel.
Big Crunch climbed to his feet and ignoring the field marshall as he struggled and fought on the ground, he walked to the field marshall’s mount and rubbed him between the eyes.
“Overconfidence. That’s what that was,” Big Crunch said to the big bull lizard. “If he would have kept his head, he would have won. That armour. Never fought anything like that.”
Behind him, Daktor’s roars had started to subside and began to sound more like a child having a tantrum.
Big Crunch raised his voice and spoke to the stunned cavalry men. “I hear this is the second time that a little girl has beaten him!” he said. “Not much of a field marshall, really. I’ll tell you all something else right now. I’m going to let this big bull lizard free and off his chains in the next moment or two, and when I do that, you’re all going to lose control of your mounts.”
Daktor was sitting up now, quiet and motionless, his shoulders hunched, his head hung. Defeated. The locks wound and bound his forearms and hands together like living silver vines.