There’s nothing to add a little spice to your life like a giant reptile crash landing ahead of you.
It appeared as a dark shadow in the sky at first. How large was hard to say, seeing how half the sky was obscured, the sun included. Shadow befell them all, dark and insidious.
Before Remus could force the sick down his throat, Hadrian screamed. A single word, and yet he shrieked it with such conviction, you would have thought it the final declaration of a king. “Belindo!”
Right as their platform became a floating circus of yelping clansmen, the Right-bearer came into view. Remus had seen some weird Unbounded in his time, but this behemoth took the cake.
Its wingspan was more than enough to cover the length of two buildings. Looking more closely at the Supreme Steel making up their silver body, they could just as easily crush both buildings too. With a great flap of the wings, they descended closer to the ground, the amber wicks of their eyes like compressed suns.
There was a tail too, barbed and flickering through the air like a living spear. Images of his chest being pierced at the end flickered through Remus' mind.
It was all happening so fast. He stumbled where he stood, the fire in his arms knocked off course and blasting the floor below. Remus exchanged a frenzied look with Violet, the rest of their squadron not faring much better under the pressure.
With great talons, Belindo dived onto the edge of the platform. That, and the fact they had ceased to fuel their flying vehicle, meant one thing.
The platform tilted.
Remus grasped the chains around his waist, anchoring himself tightly to the floor with one rapid strike. He grabbed Violet’s hand, saw others linking together with them, and knew the worst was yet to come.
It wasn’t as common a practice as in the Ambition Clan, but the Flame Clansmen were perfectly capable of flying via their own streaking limbs. Remus’ main priority was Violet. It was more than likely that she could teleport to the ground below. Though Remus had to concede that down there, amongst fields of Rot and enough unruly Unbounded to fill a stadium, her chances of survival weren’t much higher.
To top it all off, Belindo was beginning to unhinge his jaw. Bathing them all in flame would be counterintuitive, but Remus was well aware that the fiend’s capabilities expanded much further than that.
An orb of water, like seeing a tidal wave form from a bird’s-eye-view, amassed in their mouth. Remus heard frantic shifting all around, like people were making way for someone. There were even a few disgruntled murmurs that sounded too confused to be part of the otherwise perplexed din. Though it was a little hard to focus, when a mini-ocean was seconds away from drowning them all.
He had to think fast. If that liquid smothered them all, flight via wild flames would be even more difficult. Impossible, even. They would struggle to summon a few sparks before flattening to the ground below.
Then Remus realised they weren’t sliding off. In fact, the floor was levelling out despite probably a hundred tons clinging to one side.
A man was grunting: Hadrian. Hadrian, the absolute lunatic, had flown to the bottom of the platform and was holding them all up. He quite literally had their lives in the palm of his hands.
Now it was time to repay the favour.
Remus used his anchoring chains as a slingshot, propelling himself like a lightning bolt. Right into the monster’s mouth.
Violet, Aziel, and Tanguy all shrieked his name in alarm. He wanted to reassure them all, to promise them that one more insane stunt wouldn’t hurt. The tongue beneath him was slippy, and he found himself performing a sort of crazed waltz to keep upright. In the corner of his eyes, he saw a series of fangs pointing out like inverted icicles — this was one dance floor he didn’t want to slip on.
He expected it to smell vile. Like rotting carcasses. Instead . . . he smelled wave-slapped sand; the salty scent of a beachside. A turbulent breeze struck him like he was actually there, near the Mortal Realm’s great ocean. The water spun inches away from his face. It was faintly luminous, as if itself was the heart of the sea.
Such pure, elemental power. Remus hesitated at the presence of it, gulped, and considered if this next part would be a good idea.
After hours of pouring out energy, he was exhausted. Nevertheless, he committed himself.
With a great sweep of the arms, he charged Eruptive Gold in the chamber of the beast.
The water immersed him in the same moment. The world shook, with Belindo’s fitful face performing every frantic movement it could to fling him away. No doubt, the rest of their squad were throwing everything they had at the Unbounded’s outside, while Remus destroyed his innards.
He was reminded of his tousle with Lumi, and that alone got his heart thumping. He relived that moment where he truly believed he was going to drown to death. Where the pressure in his throat became too much, where Lumi’s cuffs chafed against his chilly flesh like the head of a scythe.
It made him scream. Remus roared in challenge, his war cry somehow matching that of Belindo’s. Hot, frothing hatred split out of him. His Mark felt like it was going to tear, his skin a fickle container for so much power.
The water, unlike below the Frost Clan’s shattered Glacier, didn’t turn to steam at his fire’s fatal touch. Instead, both opposing forces met in the middle and seemed to congeal. Remus didn’t relent, and Belindo was just as stubborn in his ways. Neither of them were willing to back down.
A material was forming. Slowly, clump by amounting clump. Remus could have recognised the tar-coloured rock anywhere: obsidian. At the accumulation of so much pressure, the barrier lodged in Belindo’s throat.
Fire and water both ceased at once. Remus dropped to a knee, doing his best to keep his eyes from flickering as the draining effects of Eruptive Gold left him sapped. Slithers of lava had left his body too in the exchange, though it was a far-cry from anything the Flame Clan could pull off. He stared through blurred vision at the steaming boulder forcing the lizard’s mouth agape. Then at the charred state of the surrounding mouth. Ash coated everything, and a few of the teeth looked fractured.
The little strength Remus was reserving to keep his footing failed. He slipped, grasped weakly at saliva-coated tongue, and glanced with wide eyes below.
Evidently, Belindo hadn’t been sitting idly as they wrestled. As fatigued as his mind was, Remus could make out a slanted view of Hadrian still hoisting aloft their platform. It appeared to be lowering now, heading down towards a ravine inserted into the war torn ground below.
The platform itself was busted beyond comparison. The Mercenary only had one incentive for keeping ahold of it: to ensure that none of his allotted men or women died. Clearly, not all of them were flight capable.
Remus found himself flailing a moment later. The air whistled in his ears, and the sleeves of his appeal flapped in a noise far too tranquil to fit the mood.
Remus had to admit, there had been so many occasions he’d thought himself on the edge of death, only to somehow push through at the last second. Yet here, falling from hundreds of metres above, with one of the Right-bearers directly behind, things weren’t looking too salvageable. Part of him didn’t know whether it was better to laugh or cry. How, ironic. I’m seeing what Joshua saw in his last moments. I wonder what he was thinking.
He closed his eyes, knew with a sombre certainty he had no power left to invoke, and let gravity take its course.
His eyes flew open when impact came far sooner than expected.
“Gods Remus.” Aziel’s own eyes had never been so wide. Though he suspected his own bewilderment put them on equal footing. “You warded off a God-Graced equivalent! All on your own.”
“Now I don’t think there’s anything you can do to surprise me.” Tanguy admitted, a sly smile playing on his lips.
Remus looked between his saviours, the air at their feet, and finally their propelling blasts, keeping the three of them alive. He wasn’t sure why, but seeing their grinning faces, Hadrian and the rest of the squad unharmed, and the fleeing image of Belindo . . . he was surprised his body was clinging onto enough energy to produce tears.
“Thank you guys.” His eyelids closed for what he hoped would be the last time in a while. “Is anyone hurt?” Remus hadn’t seen any injured in his brief scan of the platform, but he couldn’t be sure. If any of them had gotten-
The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.
“Nope.” Aziel put him at ease. “You have nothing to worry about.”
Letting himself be dragged below, Remus had never been so glad to touch solid ground. Or at least to be near it, for he was still being dragged along.
Applause and cheers were abundant. Even as he sipped at the waterskin they passed him, and did his best not to pass out, his ego was stroked. “Thank you all. We did this — we survived together. I’m proud of us all.”
Veida sighed. “I didn’t know it was possible to literally leap into the jaws of death, but I should have known you were the one to do it. Bravo.”
After a few minutes, Remus gained enough sense to see what was really happening. They were enclosed between both sides of the ravine Remus had spotted earlier. Both frontiers of grey would have felt claustrophobic, if it weren’t for the fact they were the only things hiding them away from thousands of Unbounded.
The platform was placed lopsided across from them, buzzing with noise every few seconds. That concerned Remus, but nobody else seemed to mind, so he threw it under the rug.
He walked over to Hadrian, who looked more exhausted than him. Which, to be fair, was perfectly understandable.
“You did amazing back there.” He grinned at the burly man, who was most definitely on the verge of teetering to sleep. The only thing stopping him was the need to check the place was safe, which Remus found even more admirable.
“I must admit,” Hadrian said, “I didn’t think that was you when I saw you. That was incredible.”
“Says you. Deadlifting five hundred tons like that.”
That got him to laugh. Finally relaxing enough, he fell asleep.
Then it hit Remus. He strolled around the ravine, Violet, as always, the first to notice anything was wrong.
“What’s up?”
“Well, for starters, we’re trapped.”
“We’re not trapped!” She insisted. “We can definitely leave whenever, and-”
They looked over in tandem to where a hunch-backed form growled. It disappeared seconds later, likely to join dozens of its kind.
“Okay, yeah, we’re trapped.”
Violet’s voice seemed to travel to everyone present. Heads drooped, the skies darkened in grey twirls, and it looked to Remus like prime time for a little thunder.
“Someone will come for us, right?” One of the younger trainees asked. “They have to, right?”
With Hadrian fast asleep, Remus somehow found himself with all eyes on him. “They’ll look for us.”
“And they’ll find us?”
Remus couldn’t meet their eyes. He finally understood why Hadrian had been so serious when it came to Emblazed towing along.
“What if Belindo comes back?”
“I-”
“Are we going to die here?”
“We’ll starve, won’t we?”
Remus flickered helplessly from face to face, before Violet came to his rescue.
She was standing upon a clump of rubble, and said, very firmly: “No-one’s going to die. No-one’s going to starve, or be eaten by Belindo, or ask any more stupid questions. You’re all certified soldiers that chose to be here, not children — you should start to act like it. We’re going to survive. We’re going to live to see the fall of the Right-bearers and Enos, whether you like it or not.”
She took the words right out of Remus’ mouth, though perhaps he might have said it a little more nicely.
“We’re going to have to scout out for food.” Tanguy said wisely. “And we should probably get someone to keep watch.”
“Yeah.” Aziel nodded. “It would be nice to know in advance whenever a hundred ton, superpowered, winged reptile is about to arrive.”
Hadrian boomed with laughter, alarming them all. Remus was expecting his recovery to at least take a few hours, if not days.
Well, he supposed, if I can endure an encounter with Belindo and recover so quickly, what’s stopping a marginally stronger Mercenary?
“Ohhh, what a pickle we’ve gotten ourselves in.”
Veida, who had been nursing over Hadrian, looked to Violet. “Do you still have Pippin?”
“I don’t know. I haven’t seen him in a while.”
“Ah yes.” Veida realised something. “It’ll take him a while to catch up with us. As clunky as those platforms are, they are fast. When the bird comes, and if the other squadrons haven’t already arrived, we’ll have to warn them.”
“We’ve sent the equivalent of a five-star course his way.” Hadrian giggled, as if he was inebriated. Remus was starting to doubt if he really had recovered.
Veida guided him aside to somewhere to rest. The rest of them stood in silence, as though quietly brooding was the new craze. They soon dedicated themselves to clearing out the area, which Remus did quietly, doing his best to fight away the existential dread.
Remus was gathering sheets of metal that had ricocheted off in the collision, when Violet tapped him on the shoulder.
“What’s up?”
“Do you sense that?” She asked, a sense of urgency bleeding from into her voice.
Remus opened up his senses, but didn’t notice anything out of the ordinary. “Sense what?”
“It's hard to notice with the parade of Unbounded so close at hand, but I swear-” Violet sighed, cutting herself off. “No, nevermind. I’m just paranoid.”
Remus frowned, but had more pressing matters to attend to. After informing the others of what he was planning, Remus leaped upwards. His flames carried him through the air in a sapphire river, iridescent in parts as he risked a peek over their enclosure.
There, over the obscuring lip of the ravine, he saw it. And it forced his mouth agape.
He’d seen with his own eyes how overcrowded the Unbounded could be during the journey here. But now, equipped with a grim knowledge that the rest of his squadron was protected by only nature itself, and how fickle that barrier really was, it set his heart thumping.
None of the fiends appeared to be very powerful on their own, perhaps Foot-Soldier equivalents on average. But they gathered in tribes, and, like tribesmen, the chief was always a step or two higher in the Divine Ranks. Stronger, beefier, and with forms all the more grotesque for it.
Remus didn’t want to dawdle, but he couldn’t help himself.
He saw a caterpillar-like fiend, with metallic legs jutting out of its body in grisly curves. It was like the Unbounded had slithered through a village, only to be impaled by an angry resident at every doorstep it passed. Remus forced down his last meal, looking at the score of gooey figures that walked where it crawled, each vaguely humanoid splurges of purple.
They were gathered around a collection of stones, and the sight reminded Remus of demons frolicking through a house they themselves had destroyed. Other groups with a similar hierarchical structure could be seen in their own tight-knit packs, anywhere the eye strayed. It was like Remus was looking at the early barbaric stages of humanity, where prehistoric clansmen wandered through the wild, and killed anything that moved.
Skeletal nightmares, bloody creations of gore that more resembled corpses than living creatures, and beings of pure mist Remus wasn’t quite sure how he’d kill. Then he sensed it.
His eyes darted to a blast of purple in the distance. Remus blinked the fastest he ever had in his life, and it was gone.
Flight faltering, Remus took a deep breath. Could he trust what he’d just seen? Violet had mentioned sensing something, but if it was her father, she had never confirmed.
Remus flew back into camp, or more accurately, their crash-landing site. A cleaned-up crash landing site, he would add, but he supposed it was hard to make the former sound good. He was still tired from his journey into Belindo’s digestive tracts, so collapsed at a spot near Violet immediately.
The trainees asked him desperately over and over again. What did you see, what did you see?
Remus answered none of them. He locked eyes with Violet, who dragged him to the most discreet corner of the place as fast as possible. Veida joined too, and neither Violet nor Remus had the heart to turn her away. Besides, she probably knew more about Unbounded than the two of them combined.
“You saw him?”
“That,” he huffed, “or somebody playing around with fireworks really likes the colour purple.”
Violet strolled around, rubbing her chin, and didn’t look up from the ground until Veida spoke.
Veida scowled, deepening her fresh wrinkles. “I had my suspicions, though I suppose something in me didn’t want to admit it.”
“Like we didn’t have enough on our plates . . .”
Remus said nothing, still recovering on the floor and doing his best not to stress himself out. Any more strain on his psyche, and there was a good chance he really would snap.
“Belindo and Nova on the same day.” He pinched the bridge of his nose. “There are only so many odds you can defy until you get unlucky — and I don’t really feel like pressing my luck right now.”
“I don’t think Nova takes into account your feelings when he decides to attack,” Violet replied, “and I know my father better than anyone. Or at least I thought I did.”
The tension was palpable, and Remus hoped dearly that none of the younger trainees overheard Veida’s next words. “I’m starting to think someone let the cat out of the bag when it came to humanity’s plans to attack, and how. It could explain why we’ve spotted two Right-bearers so far, with a third not far off in the form of the Supreme Fiend. This is a more rapid, and powerful defence than should have been possible.”
“Not if there was an Unbounded eavesdropping on our plans. An Unbounded like Nova. And guess who attended the war meetings?”
“Nova this, Nova that.” Remus gritted his teeth. “If we can’t kill him, a God-Graced has got to, and soon. Whatever the case, the truth behind that monster won’t be a secret much longer, one way or another. The pressure Maris and Juniper must be feeling to speak-up has to be unbelievable.”
“Unbelievable or not, this has all gone too far.” Violet closed her eyes. Remus looked at the worry lines of her face, and was suddenly overcome by a panging pity. In the heat of their great debate, he had forgotten how her own Unbounded identity would be revealed, when Nova’s schemes inevitably came to light.
He grasped her hand without thinking. Remus was about to pull away in a flush of embarrassment, when she squeezed him still.
“It’ll be alright.” He felt inclined to say, ignoring Veida’s creeping smile. “We’ll kill him.”
Violet nodded, closing her eyes and leaning against him in a drowsy movement. “We’ll kill him.”