Authors: Ben Bequer
“You were trying to help me.”
I smiled, still looking away, not wanting to make eye contact.
“I promise you; I’m not letting him do that to you again.”
* * *
The alien riders trailed us the rest of the afternoon, following as we walked around the lake towards a small estuary that flowed away, the most likely place for us to cross and head to the village. One time, Cool Hand lost his patience and charged at them, but they couched lances and readied for a charge, making him cower back to us with their deep laughter echoing the breeze.
I kept up the pace toward the narrowest point of the river, not even looking back to make sure the others stayed with me. There was no good ground to make a stand, so one spot was as good as any. The plan was to stay beside the river, with the water at our backs and try fording point in the narrow of the river. I figured having the water behind us would neutralize any charge against us by riders, so we walked only a few yards from the shoreline, my eyes never wavering from our nearest enemies.
Ahead of the larger group, now slightly in front of us, rode a big bastard, probably the largest man I’ve ever seen in my life, though I had no way of telling what he actually was behind that armor. He rode one of those skink lizard things, but this one was more decorated than the others, with all sorts of trappings adorning his mount with trophies from his victories.
The plan became worthless, as he and his riders saw what we intended and rode forward, cutting off our escape across the river and the group behind pulled up and spread out, herding us towards their companions.
“Now what?” Apogee wondered.
“Haha,” I started, “can you and Cool take the ones behind us?”
“Got it,” Cool said, his back to mine.
“Me and Apogee will take the ones in front,” I said moving forward, as a shadow moved overhead. Several winged beasts soared toward us, creatures like the manta ray that tried to kill me only small enough to serve as a mount for a man-sized humanoid. One detached from the formation and came closer. It flew across the field landing near the worm riders, and a figure jumped off from a harness attached to the beast, letting the manta rise up to join the other riders.
If I thought the leader of the riders was formidable, he was overshadowed by this newcomer. This fellow wore gleaming silver armor with long strakes like spines, jutting out the back. At his hip lay a sword that was easily twice my size. He was a different species, bigger than the other riders. A biped with legs were reversed like a chicken’s, he was tall and powerful. His arms were free of armor, roped with thick muscle. He took off his magnificent helm as he strode towards the riders, revealing a strange reptilian head, with a trailing edge of resplendent gold and silver feathers.
The riders deferred to him, bowing their heads as he berated them, gesticulating wildly with his sword. The newcomer was so loud I could hear him speak, and repeat several times to his browbeaten warriors the words, “Gor Narhalkas.”
So I yelled, “Gor Narhalkas.”
“What are you doing?” Apogee asked.
The leader looked at me, surprised, and strode in our direction. His face was terrifying, with multiple scars on his pale gray skin. His features were strange, but humanoid, and everything was where it would be on my body, except for the second and third pair of black eyes beside the originals, like a row across his temples. The leader’s hair was black, and long, but soon I saw that it was mostly a mane that formed as a ring around his whole face, and worked its way back down his body, mostly concealed by his armor, except for some long strands that swirled behind him.
His armor was magnificent and terrifying. The metal plates over his body were almost alive, moving and shifting in response to his movements. Whatever metals it was comprised of appeared liquid, with a flowing design as if formed in a wind tunnel before the metal had dried, giving him the appearance of incredible forward speed, even though he sauntered at us. A red phoenix-like design danced his broad chest, as if the emblem was alive. The rear facing spikes, were longer nearer to his neck, and gave him the appearance of having wings.
It was his sword that concerned me the most. A ten foot-long weapon with a blade that was as tall as I was. At the hilt, three bladders, like enormous ruby-colored organs pulsed with power, sending magical flames across the length of the sword. He held it in his powerful right gauntlet, as if it weighed nothing. I saw he had a second such weapon, an exact replica only two-thirds as long, on his hip.
When he closed near enough that he already towered over me, he dug his weapon into the ground and spoke to me in his strange language.
It regarded us one by one, unimpressed by Apogee’s beauty, nor any of us as warriors, and gave a menacing chuckle as he pointed at me and clenched his fist.
I stepped forward, pointed at him and clenched my fist right back.
He smiled and turned back to his troops, shouting at them in his strange tongue. His men all laughed, but he turned back to me, flashing an awful maw of jagged teeth.
“You and me, big guy,” I said.
If he understood, I don’t know, but he picked up his sword and waved it over at the group, pointing it at Apogee and spoke again. It was either a threat to their lives, and a boast of what he would do to her once I was dead, or a promise that they would live should I defeat him. I imagined it was the former. His troops howled and beat weapons against their shields in anticipation.
I nodded, hoping I understood what he meant.
“Are you crazy?” Apogee said. “Don’t do this, Blackjack, let’s charge him!”
“He wants me, Apogee. I’m the only one that looks like a warrior.”
“That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard of,” she swore.
“That’s our element of surprise,” Mr. Haha said.
“There’s too many,” I shouted back. “And Zundergrub is fucking useless.”
“What if he kills you?” Apogee said.
I winked at her, “No chance of that.”
The big fellow was inching around me, already preparing. I circled opposite to him, ready to dodge that big-ass sword. Suddenly he stood straight, lowering his sword and said something in his strange language. He drew his off-hand weapon, a smaller copy of the sword he held, and threw it on the floor at me. He stepped back and motioned for me to retrieve it.
I picked it up, and bowed my head to him in thanks, and gave the weapon a few swings. It was flawless, much lighter than it appeared, but too unwieldy for me to hold it one-handed. Thankfully, the handle was big so I could hold it as an oversized two-hander.
“That thing is going to embarrass him,” I overheard Apogee saying to Cool Hand.
The big bastard placed his huge hand on his chest and introduced himself; “Narhalkas.”
“Blackjack,” I said, mimicking the gesture.
He bowed slightly, repeating my name so that it sounded like “Brackshock”, and opened his legs into a ready stance. The preliminaries were over.
I was wielding an unfamiliar weapon, fighting an enemy who was obviously a master of swordplay, so I figured I might start the fight defensive.
He inched forward and flashed his weapon at me twice, not coming close enough to hit me, but gauging my response time. Both times he was faster than I was even able to react.
Realizing my lack of skill and speed, he flashed again, this time once from the high left, which I managed to bat away before it took my ear, and again from the right, this time low. The second blow was blinding fast, too fast for me to swing the weapon around, so I dove over it, rolled along the high grass, and came to my feet.
My enemy smiled, cocking his head in acknowledgement of my maneuver, but I knew he was playing with me. If I knew what I was doing, I should have parried that low blow easily, but instead he almost took my legs off. He circled in, this time from my right, and came at me with a series of strong blows at my flank. I swung my sword out and the weapons clashed in the air, once and twice, then he spun and swung an even stronger blow along the same line, but again my weapon held.
I shuffled back, away from my group, and he continued his assault with a graceful jump in the air, swinging downward to finish me once and for all. I could have dodged, but I think that’s what he had planned, remembering my last maneuver. Instead, I stood my ground and lifted my sword to parry his blow.
He landed, the metal clang ringing across the plain. I used all my strength to hold his strike, but he still pushed me back a few steps with his ferocity.
Despite being larger than me, he was far more coordinated than I was, and almost as strong. But I would have a hard time bringing my superior strength to bear in a sword fight and he didn’t give me much time to stop and think; pushing forward with strong stabs at my midsection that I could only bat away weakly while continuing to retreat. Fighting a retreating enemy only made him more aggressive, pressing the offensive, with a wide overhead swing that I sidestepped to my left. He followed up with a cross slash in the very direction I had moved and I stabbed my sword at his, in a pathetic attempt to block it. I was lucky his blade caught on my hilt or the blow would have skewered me.
I wasn’t fast enough to stop his counter, stepping in and stabbing, taking advantage that my sword arm over extended. I batted his weapon away with my hand, almost slashing my fingers off. I recoiled, shaking my hand as blood poured out of the wound, but he didn’t relent. Even though I was in full retreat, he pressed on, overextending himself. His next slash was at my head and I easily ducked under, but it was a feint for a quick reverse right back at my chest. I had no answer for the wide loping blow that was about to gut me, except to dive into the swing’s arc. I dropped my sword and dove into him, for the first time on offense, grabbing his swinging arm and using my back and rump to hurl him over me.
He floated through the air, flying almost thirty feet, and fell amidst his companions in a cloud of dirt and grass. I picked up the borrowed sword and ran over to him as he woozily got to his feet.
The other riders spread out, forming a semi-circle around us, as he readied himself. I didn’t attack outright, first trying to see if I had hurt him at all. The alien had landed awkwardly, and I wasn’t sure how resilient it was. I watched it get up and it was indeed hurt, stretching its left shoulder slowly. He was covered in black dirt, and his rear strakes were bent and twisted, a few had ripped off and lay embedded to the ground.
He shook the dirt off and faced against me again, shouting something at his troops. They moved back, so I guess he was telling them to keep off me.
For now.
His best bet was full offense, and I was ready for him to unleash his attack. My left hand bled freely, and I made it seem that it was affecting me worse than it actually was. I held my sword one-handed with my right, and kept my left low, almost protecting it.
He couldn’t resist, and did another of his flying attacks, covering the distance between us with his sword reared back. I moved in again, this time much more aggressively, and into his aerial arc. Instead of using my sword, I ducked my head and buried my shoulder into his legs, toppling him over. He crashed to the ground again.
To the alien’s credit, he recovered fast, fast enough to block my clumsy swing and retort with a nasty slash that clipped my chin, and sent me reeling back. Blood now flowed down my face and neck. It was a tiny gash against my tough skin, but I guess he caught an important blood vessel. He smiled and went at me again, this time staying as far back as he could, letting his long arms and weapon do their dirty work. At distance he was easier to parry and avoid which the only two things I had done with any skill so far. Keeping me back allowed him to set the pace, though, try to tire me out and wait for me to bleed out.
After his first surge of blows, four quick swings at my flanks, boxing me in, I assaulted right through the middle. But he was expecting that, launching a brutal kick that caught me in the face, and sent me reeling backwards.
With blistering speed, he raised his weapon to finish me, inching back to get me to the range of his weapon. But the kick did less damage than he realized, and I was getting good at taking punches and kicks to the face, so I forced the issue and charged him. He tried to step back but I got my hands on a strap of his chest armor, dropped my sword, and launched a full body knee strike at his chest. His armor was strong but the blow was devastating, cracking bones inside his midsection. He doubled over, grabbing at my back and I lowered my grasp, catching a hold of his thigh.
I lifted him off the ground, letting his momentum arch him backwards so he released me and threw his hands up, thinking I was going to hurl him to the ground behind me. Instead, I stopped his motion backwards, and propelling him forward and into the ground. I didn’t let go of his leg, throwing all my force into the motion.
He crashed into the ground in an explosion of dirt and grass, with a low groan, but I wasn’t done. I ripped him up, tearing the strakes on the back of his armor out of the ground, raining dirt all over myself and him. I reared him back and readied to toss him forward again as he grabbed and tore at my back.
This time I hurled myself into the air, getting some surprising hang time. Maybe this place had reduced gravity, or perhaps my strength was growing to a level I had never expected, but I flew almost thirty feet in the air. Carried high into the sky, I spun him around as we dropped so he would not land in a hard crunch, but also benefit from the centrifugal force of the rotation. I roared in anger, spending myself on the maneuver, using every muscle in my body to add to the impact.