"THE HAND THAT WIELDS THE SCYTHE III"
Mar. 13th, 2023 05:47 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dochermesIX.
Recklessly they plunged down the winding stair, and by the time they had reached the first floor level, Bane's groping hand felt a door. Even as he found the catch, it moved under his fingers. Their noise must have been heard through the wall, for the panel opened, and a shaven head poked in, framed in the square of light. The Gelengi blinked in the darkness, and Bane brought an iron-hard fist down on his head, experiencing a vengeful satisfaction as he felt the skull give way with a crack. The man fell face down in the narrow opening and Bane sprang over his body into the outer room without taking time to learn if there were others. But the chamber was empty. It was thickly carpeted, the walls hung with black velvet tapestries. The doors were of bronze-bound teak, with gilt-worked arches. Shiro entered right behind him.
Ignorant as they were of the house, one way was as good as another. Bane chose a door at random and flung it open, revealing a wide corridor carpeted and tapestried like the chamber. At the other end, through wide satin curtains that hung from roof to floor, a file of men was just disappearing... tall, black-silk clad Gelengi, heads bent somberly, like a train of monks. They did not look back.
"Follow them!" said Bane. "They must be headed for the execution!"
"I'm warning you again about ordering me around," Shiro snapped right back at him. "We're going to have a little sparring later to straighten you out. You're not my boss." But with the last word, the Tiger Fury was already sweeping down the corridor like a vengeful whirlwind. The thick carpet deadened their footfalls, so even Bane's boots made no noise.
Shiro would have burst headlong through the curtains, because he was already drawing breath for a tiger roar, if Bane had not seized him by a shoulder. The Tiger Fury's sinews felt like bundles of wire under the Dire Wolf's hands, and Bane doubted his own ability to restrain him forcibly, but that moment's pause was enough. Shiro shrugged loose and reluctantly calmed down. Bane felt more trepidation at annoying his partner beyond endurance than he did at facing the Gelengi.
Squeezing past him, Bane gazed between the curtains. There was a great double-valved door there, but it was partly open, and he looked into the room beyond. Shiro's face was jammed hard against his neck as the Tiger Fury glared over his shoulder at the sight within.
X.
It was a large chamber, hung like the others with purple velvet on which golden lions reared up. There were thick rugs, and stained glass lanterns hanging from the ivory-inlaid ceiling cast a red glow. Black-robed men who ranged along the wall might have been shadows but for their glittering eyes.
On a throne-like chair of ebony sat a grim figure, motionless except when its loose robes stirred in the faintly moving air. The Alchemist's throne was set against a side wall. No one stood near him as he sat in solitary magnificence, like an idol brooding on human doom. In the center of the room stood what looked uncomfortably like a sacrificial altar, a curiously carved block of stone that might have come out of the heart of some desolation.
Naked on that stone lay Rook, white as a marble statue, her arms outstretched like a crucifix, her hands and feet extending over the edges of the block. Her dilated eyes stared upward as one lost to hope, aware of doom and eager only for death to put an end to agony. The physical torture had not yet begun, but a gaunt brute squatted on his haunches at the end of the altar, heating the point of a bronze rod in a dish full of glowing coals.
Bane made no outcry but he felt an outrage he had never known before. Then he was hurled aside as Shiro burst into the room like a bronze whirlwind. Temur Kasten started upright with a startled gasp as the Tiger Fury came tearing forward in a headlong blast of destruction. The torturer sprang up just in time to meet a whirling heel to the side of the jaw that audibly broke his neck.
"Margoth! Margoth!" was a howl from a score of Gelengi throats.
"Screw your Margoth!" yelled Shiro in return, smashing through the crowd so smoothly they seemed to be co-operating. He threw himself on the altar, tugging at Rook's bonds with a frenzy while still trying not to harm her.
From all sides the black-robed figures swarmed in, not noticing in their confusion that the Tiger Fury had been followed by another grim figure who attacked with less abandon but with equal ferocity.
They were aware of Bane only when he cut through the mob, striking men right and left, bowling them over broken and ruined, and reached the altar through the gap made in the bewildered throng. Shiro had freed the girl and he wheeled to face the assassins, his bared teeth gleaming.
"You want her back, come and get her!" he spat in the faces of the oncoming Gelengi. The Tiger Fury crouched as if about to spring into the midst of them, but then whirled and instead rushed headlong at the ebony throne.
The speed and unexpectedness of the move was stunning. With a choked cry Temur Kasten fired and missed at point-blank range and he had no second chance. Shiro pinned the man against the wall with a foot in the throat. Leg fully extended and rigid as a steel bar, he pressed until he felt the Alchemist's neck break under his foot.
There was a long hissing intake of breath as the Gelengi stared wide-eyed at the black-robed figure crumpled grotesquely among the ruins of the broken throne. Their leader and master, slain in a heartbeat. In the instant that they stood like frozen men, Bane caught up Rook and ran for the nearest door, bellowing: "Shiro! This way! Quick!"
With a howl and a whistling of blades the Gelengi were at his heels. Awareness of steel at his back sped Bane's feet, and Shiro hurtled slantingly across the room to meet him at the door.
"Come on, Jeremy! Down the corridor! I'll cover your retreat!"
"No! You take Rook and run!" Bane literally threw her into the Tiger Fury's arms and wheeled back around in the doorway, raising his fists. It was rare that the Dire Wolf dropped being controlled and calculating in a battle but he was in a cold hard fury then.
XI.
The Gelengi came on as if they were blood-mad. They crammed the doorway full with square snarling faces and squat silk-clad bodies before Bane could slam it shut. The assassins were in each other's way. Knives flicked out at him, gouging and slicing. But he struck full-power punches that shattered and crushed wherever they landed. His blows wreaked havoc among the shapes that strove in the doorway, wedged by the pressure from behind.
It was the healing factor of the Tagra tea diet that allowed him use his hands as hammers. Tiny fractures in his bones sealed up instantly and his fists were not swelling from the hundreds of impacts. Any normal Human would have quickly had two useless masses of soggy flesh on his wrists under those conditions.
He could not close the door then. It was blocked and choked by a ghastly mass of crushed and red-dripping flesh, men dead and dying. Bane wheeled and began running down the corridor. Even he was breathing hard from the exertion. Racing so fast he began staggering, bumping into walls and caroming off them, he reached the further end of the corridor where Shiro was struggling with a lock. Rook was standing now, though she reeled on her feet, and seemed on the point of collapse. The mob was coming down the long corridor full cry behind them.
"Step aside!" yelled Bane, still running headlong and leaping up sideways to crash both feet in a double kick that shattered the lock, burst the bolts out of their sockets and caved in the heavy panels as if they had been cardboard. The next instant they were through and Shiro slammed shut the ruins of the door which sagged on its hinges, but somehow held together. There were heavy metal brackets on each jamb, and Shiro found and dropped an iron bar in place just as the mob surged against it. "I could have done that," the Tiger Fury muttered, "I don't like to show off."
Through the shattered panels the Gelengi howled and thrust their knives. Bane knew that, until they hewed away enough wood to enable them to reach in and dislodge it, the bar across the door would hold the splintered barrier in place. Recovering his wits as he caught his breath, he herded his companions ahead of him with desperate haste. He noticed, as if it had happened to someone else that his outer clothes were mere strips hanging down over the Trom armor. Blood ran freely from his exposed hands, neck and face. The Gelengi were hacking at the door, snarling like jackals over carrion.
The apertures were widening, and through them he saw other Gelengi running down the corridor with rifles. Just as he wondered why they did not shoot through the door,
he saw the reason. They were in a chamber which had been converted into a magazine. Cartridge cases were piled high along the wall, and there was at least one box of dynamite. But he looked in vain for rifles or pistols. Evidently they were stored in another part of the building for security reasons.
Shiro was tugging bolts free on an opposite door, but he paused to glare about and yelping "Hah! That's what we need," he pounced on an open case, snatched something out. Bane veered over and grabbed his wrist.
"Don't throw that! What's wrong with you? You'll blow us all to Hell! They're afraid to shoot into this room, but they'll have that door down in a second or so, and finish us with their knives. Go help Rook!"
"For the last time, stop giving me orders!" the Tiger Fury retorted. "I don't work for you, you're not my boss."
Bane took a breath, "We'll work that out when all this is over."
"You bet we will," Shiro said before turning away.
It was a hand grenade Shiro had found, the only one in an otherwise empty case, as a glance assured Bane. The Dire Wolf threw the door open, slammed it shut behind them as they plunged out into the starlight. Rook was reeling, half carried by the Tiger Fury. She had picked up a cloak from one of the dead Gelengi to wrap around her nakedness. They seemed to have emerged at the back of the house. They ran across an open space, hunted creatures looking for a refuge.
There was a crumbling stone wall about chest-high, and they ran through a wide gap in it, only to halt suddenly. Thirty steps behind the ruined wall rose the steel fence of which Shiro had spoken, a barrier twelve feet high, topped with keen points. The door crashed open behind them and a gun spat venomously. They were in a trap. If they tried to climb the fence the Gelengi had but to pick them off at leisure.
"Down behind the wall!" snarled Bane, shoving Rook behind an uncrumbled section of the stone barrier. "At least we'll make them pay a heavy price, before they take us!"
The door was crowded with snarling faces, now leering in triumph. There were rifles in the hands of a dozen. They knew their victims had no firearms, and could not escape, and they themselves could use rifles without fear. Bullets began to splatter on the stone, then with a single effortless leap, Shiro bounded up to the top of the wall, ripping out the pin of the hand grenade.
Once again he gave out the deep, primal roar of the Tiger Fury and hurled the bomb...not at the group which howled and ducked, but over their heads, into the magazine of gunpowder and dynamite
The next instant a rending crash tore the air apart and a blinding blaze of fire made the darkness flash white. In that glare Bane had a glimpse of Shiro, etched against the flame, hurtling end-over-end backward, arms out-thrown. Then there was utter blackness in which roared the thunder of the fall of the house of Kasten as the shattered walls buckled, the beams splintered, the roof fell in and story after story came crashing down on the crumpled foundations.
XII.
Bane had no way of telling how long he had lay there like a corpse. Blinded, deafened and paralyzed, not to mention covered by falling debris. Even his Tel Shai healing factor took a while to bring him out of the daze. His first realization was that there was something soft under him, something that writhed and whimpered. He had a vague feeling he ought not to hurt this soft something, so he began to shove the broken stones and mortar off him. For some reason, his right arm seemed dead and useless, but eventually he excavated himself and staggered up, looking like a white scarecrow in his dust-covered rags. Groping among the rubble, he grasped a woman and pulled her up as full realization returned to him.
"Rook! Are you hurt?" His own voice seemed to come to him from a great distance; he had to shout to make her hear him. Their eardrums had been almost burst by the concussion. He tried taking her pulse and pressing two fingers to her chest to check her heartbeat but he was too battered to understand any results.
"Not too badly, I think," she faltered in her response. "What the hell happened?"
"Shiro's grenade touched off the dynamite. The house fell in on the Gelengi. We were sheltered by that wall. I guess that's all that saved us."
The wall was a shattered heap of broken stone, half covered by rubble of shattered masonry with broken beams thrust up through the litter, and shards of walls reeling drunkenly. Bane gingerly cradled his broken arm and tried to think, his head swimming.
"What happened to Shiro?" cried Rook, seeming finally to shake off her confusion.
"I'll look for him." Bane dreaded what he expected to find. "He was blown off the wall last I saw."
Stumbling over broken stones and bits of timber, he found the Tiger Fury huddled grotesquely against the steel fence. Bane's tentatively probing fingers told him of broken bones, but the Tiger Fury was still breathing and his heartbeat was strong. Rook came stumbling toward them to fall to her knees beside Shiro. For once, she could not hold back tears.
"He's not like ordinary Humans!" she exclaimed, tears running down her grimy, scratched face. "You Tel Shai knights are hard to kill. Even if we don't get him medical attention he'll live. Listen!" She caught Bane's arm with tense fingers; but he had heard it too, the sputter of a motor that was probably a police launch, coming to investigate the explosion.
Rook was tearing the robe she had taken off a Gelengi to pieces in an effort to staunch the blood that dripped from the Tiger Fury's wounds. Miraculously, in that swollen face, Shiro's pulped lips moved. Bane, bending close, caught fragments of words: "What.. have you got lined up for us next?"
Immensely reassured, Bane said, "Don't worry about being bored," glancing at the ruins which hid the mangled figures that had been dozens of assassins, "The Midnight War isn't going to wind down any time soon."
3/13/2023
Recklessly they plunged down the winding stair, and by the time they had reached the first floor level, Bane's groping hand felt a door. Even as he found the catch, it moved under his fingers. Their noise must have been heard through the wall, for the panel opened, and a shaven head poked in, framed in the square of light. The Gelengi blinked in the darkness, and Bane brought an iron-hard fist down on his head, experiencing a vengeful satisfaction as he felt the skull give way with a crack. The man fell face down in the narrow opening and Bane sprang over his body into the outer room without taking time to learn if there were others. But the chamber was empty. It was thickly carpeted, the walls hung with black velvet tapestries. The doors were of bronze-bound teak, with gilt-worked arches. Shiro entered right behind him.
Ignorant as they were of the house, one way was as good as another. Bane chose a door at random and flung it open, revealing a wide corridor carpeted and tapestried like the chamber. At the other end, through wide satin curtains that hung from roof to floor, a file of men was just disappearing... tall, black-silk clad Gelengi, heads bent somberly, like a train of monks. They did not look back.
"Follow them!" said Bane. "They must be headed for the execution!"
"I'm warning you again about ordering me around," Shiro snapped right back at him. "We're going to have a little sparring later to straighten you out. You're not my boss." But with the last word, the Tiger Fury was already sweeping down the corridor like a vengeful whirlwind. The thick carpet deadened their footfalls, so even Bane's boots made no noise.
Shiro would have burst headlong through the curtains, because he was already drawing breath for a tiger roar, if Bane had not seized him by a shoulder. The Tiger Fury's sinews felt like bundles of wire under the Dire Wolf's hands, and Bane doubted his own ability to restrain him forcibly, but that moment's pause was enough. Shiro shrugged loose and reluctantly calmed down. Bane felt more trepidation at annoying his partner beyond endurance than he did at facing the Gelengi.
Squeezing past him, Bane gazed between the curtains. There was a great double-valved door there, but it was partly open, and he looked into the room beyond. Shiro's face was jammed hard against his neck as the Tiger Fury glared over his shoulder at the sight within.
X.
It was a large chamber, hung like the others with purple velvet on which golden lions reared up. There were thick rugs, and stained glass lanterns hanging from the ivory-inlaid ceiling cast a red glow. Black-robed men who ranged along the wall might have been shadows but for their glittering eyes.
On a throne-like chair of ebony sat a grim figure, motionless except when its loose robes stirred in the faintly moving air. The Alchemist's throne was set against a side wall. No one stood near him as he sat in solitary magnificence, like an idol brooding on human doom. In the center of the room stood what looked uncomfortably like a sacrificial altar, a curiously carved block of stone that might have come out of the heart of some desolation.
Naked on that stone lay Rook, white as a marble statue, her arms outstretched like a crucifix, her hands and feet extending over the edges of the block. Her dilated eyes stared upward as one lost to hope, aware of doom and eager only for death to put an end to agony. The physical torture had not yet begun, but a gaunt brute squatted on his haunches at the end of the altar, heating the point of a bronze rod in a dish full of glowing coals.
Bane made no outcry but he felt an outrage he had never known before. Then he was hurled aside as Shiro burst into the room like a bronze whirlwind. Temur Kasten started upright with a startled gasp as the Tiger Fury came tearing forward in a headlong blast of destruction. The torturer sprang up just in time to meet a whirling heel to the side of the jaw that audibly broke his neck.
"Margoth! Margoth!" was a howl from a score of Gelengi throats.
"Screw your Margoth!" yelled Shiro in return, smashing through the crowd so smoothly they seemed to be co-operating. He threw himself on the altar, tugging at Rook's bonds with a frenzy while still trying not to harm her.
From all sides the black-robed figures swarmed in, not noticing in their confusion that the Tiger Fury had been followed by another grim figure who attacked with less abandon but with equal ferocity.
They were aware of Bane only when he cut through the mob, striking men right and left, bowling them over broken and ruined, and reached the altar through the gap made in the bewildered throng. Shiro had freed the girl and he wheeled to face the assassins, his bared teeth gleaming.
"You want her back, come and get her!" he spat in the faces of the oncoming Gelengi. The Tiger Fury crouched as if about to spring into the midst of them, but then whirled and instead rushed headlong at the ebony throne.
The speed and unexpectedness of the move was stunning. With a choked cry Temur Kasten fired and missed at point-blank range and he had no second chance. Shiro pinned the man against the wall with a foot in the throat. Leg fully extended and rigid as a steel bar, he pressed until he felt the Alchemist's neck break under his foot.
There was a long hissing intake of breath as the Gelengi stared wide-eyed at the black-robed figure crumpled grotesquely among the ruins of the broken throne. Their leader and master, slain in a heartbeat. In the instant that they stood like frozen men, Bane caught up Rook and ran for the nearest door, bellowing: "Shiro! This way! Quick!"
With a howl and a whistling of blades the Gelengi were at his heels. Awareness of steel at his back sped Bane's feet, and Shiro hurtled slantingly across the room to meet him at the door.
"Come on, Jeremy! Down the corridor! I'll cover your retreat!"
"No! You take Rook and run!" Bane literally threw her into the Tiger Fury's arms and wheeled back around in the doorway, raising his fists. It was rare that the Dire Wolf dropped being controlled and calculating in a battle but he was in a cold hard fury then.
XI.
The Gelengi came on as if they were blood-mad. They crammed the doorway full with square snarling faces and squat silk-clad bodies before Bane could slam it shut. The assassins were in each other's way. Knives flicked out at him, gouging and slicing. But he struck full-power punches that shattered and crushed wherever they landed. His blows wreaked havoc among the shapes that strove in the doorway, wedged by the pressure from behind.
It was the healing factor of the Tagra tea diet that allowed him use his hands as hammers. Tiny fractures in his bones sealed up instantly and his fists were not swelling from the hundreds of impacts. Any normal Human would have quickly had two useless masses of soggy flesh on his wrists under those conditions.
He could not close the door then. It was blocked and choked by a ghastly mass of crushed and red-dripping flesh, men dead and dying. Bane wheeled and began running down the corridor. Even he was breathing hard from the exertion. Racing so fast he began staggering, bumping into walls and caroming off them, he reached the further end of the corridor where Shiro was struggling with a lock. Rook was standing now, though she reeled on her feet, and seemed on the point of collapse. The mob was coming down the long corridor full cry behind them.
"Step aside!" yelled Bane, still running headlong and leaping up sideways to crash both feet in a double kick that shattered the lock, burst the bolts out of their sockets and caved in the heavy panels as if they had been cardboard. The next instant they were through and Shiro slammed shut the ruins of the door which sagged on its hinges, but somehow held together. There were heavy metal brackets on each jamb, and Shiro found and dropped an iron bar in place just as the mob surged against it. "I could have done that," the Tiger Fury muttered, "I don't like to show off."
Through the shattered panels the Gelengi howled and thrust their knives. Bane knew that, until they hewed away enough wood to enable them to reach in and dislodge it, the bar across the door would hold the splintered barrier in place. Recovering his wits as he caught his breath, he herded his companions ahead of him with desperate haste. He noticed, as if it had happened to someone else that his outer clothes were mere strips hanging down over the Trom armor. Blood ran freely from his exposed hands, neck and face. The Gelengi were hacking at the door, snarling like jackals over carrion.
The apertures were widening, and through them he saw other Gelengi running down the corridor with rifles. Just as he wondered why they did not shoot through the door,
he saw the reason. They were in a chamber which had been converted into a magazine. Cartridge cases were piled high along the wall, and there was at least one box of dynamite. But he looked in vain for rifles or pistols. Evidently they were stored in another part of the building for security reasons.
Shiro was tugging bolts free on an opposite door, but he paused to glare about and yelping "Hah! That's what we need," he pounced on an open case, snatched something out. Bane veered over and grabbed his wrist.
"Don't throw that! What's wrong with you? You'll blow us all to Hell! They're afraid to shoot into this room, but they'll have that door down in a second or so, and finish us with their knives. Go help Rook!"
"For the last time, stop giving me orders!" the Tiger Fury retorted. "I don't work for you, you're not my boss."
Bane took a breath, "We'll work that out when all this is over."
"You bet we will," Shiro said before turning away.
It was a hand grenade Shiro had found, the only one in an otherwise empty case, as a glance assured Bane. The Dire Wolf threw the door open, slammed it shut behind them as they plunged out into the starlight. Rook was reeling, half carried by the Tiger Fury. She had picked up a cloak from one of the dead Gelengi to wrap around her nakedness. They seemed to have emerged at the back of the house. They ran across an open space, hunted creatures looking for a refuge.
There was a crumbling stone wall about chest-high, and they ran through a wide gap in it, only to halt suddenly. Thirty steps behind the ruined wall rose the steel fence of which Shiro had spoken, a barrier twelve feet high, topped with keen points. The door crashed open behind them and a gun spat venomously. They were in a trap. If they tried to climb the fence the Gelengi had but to pick them off at leisure.
"Down behind the wall!" snarled Bane, shoving Rook behind an uncrumbled section of the stone barrier. "At least we'll make them pay a heavy price, before they take us!"
The door was crowded with snarling faces, now leering in triumph. There were rifles in the hands of a dozen. They knew their victims had no firearms, and could not escape, and they themselves could use rifles without fear. Bullets began to splatter on the stone, then with a single effortless leap, Shiro bounded up to the top of the wall, ripping out the pin of the hand grenade.
Once again he gave out the deep, primal roar of the Tiger Fury and hurled the bomb...not at the group which howled and ducked, but over their heads, into the magazine of gunpowder and dynamite
The next instant a rending crash tore the air apart and a blinding blaze of fire made the darkness flash white. In that glare Bane had a glimpse of Shiro, etched against the flame, hurtling end-over-end backward, arms out-thrown. Then there was utter blackness in which roared the thunder of the fall of the house of Kasten as the shattered walls buckled, the beams splintered, the roof fell in and story after story came crashing down on the crumpled foundations.
XII.
Bane had no way of telling how long he had lay there like a corpse. Blinded, deafened and paralyzed, not to mention covered by falling debris. Even his Tel Shai healing factor took a while to bring him out of the daze. His first realization was that there was something soft under him, something that writhed and whimpered. He had a vague feeling he ought not to hurt this soft something, so he began to shove the broken stones and mortar off him. For some reason, his right arm seemed dead and useless, but eventually he excavated himself and staggered up, looking like a white scarecrow in his dust-covered rags. Groping among the rubble, he grasped a woman and pulled her up as full realization returned to him.
"Rook! Are you hurt?" His own voice seemed to come to him from a great distance; he had to shout to make her hear him. Their eardrums had been almost burst by the concussion. He tried taking her pulse and pressing two fingers to her chest to check her heartbeat but he was too battered to understand any results.
"Not too badly, I think," she faltered in her response. "What the hell happened?"
"Shiro's grenade touched off the dynamite. The house fell in on the Gelengi. We were sheltered by that wall. I guess that's all that saved us."
The wall was a shattered heap of broken stone, half covered by rubble of shattered masonry with broken beams thrust up through the litter, and shards of walls reeling drunkenly. Bane gingerly cradled his broken arm and tried to think, his head swimming.
"What happened to Shiro?" cried Rook, seeming finally to shake off her confusion.
"I'll look for him." Bane dreaded what he expected to find. "He was blown off the wall last I saw."
Stumbling over broken stones and bits of timber, he found the Tiger Fury huddled grotesquely against the steel fence. Bane's tentatively probing fingers told him of broken bones, but the Tiger Fury was still breathing and his heartbeat was strong. Rook came stumbling toward them to fall to her knees beside Shiro. For once, she could not hold back tears.
"He's not like ordinary Humans!" she exclaimed, tears running down her grimy, scratched face. "You Tel Shai knights are hard to kill. Even if we don't get him medical attention he'll live. Listen!" She caught Bane's arm with tense fingers; but he had heard it too, the sputter of a motor that was probably a police launch, coming to investigate the explosion.
Rook was tearing the robe she had taken off a Gelengi to pieces in an effort to staunch the blood that dripped from the Tiger Fury's wounds. Miraculously, in that swollen face, Shiro's pulped lips moved. Bane, bending close, caught fragments of words: "What.. have you got lined up for us next?"
Immensely reassured, Bane said, "Don't worry about being bored," glancing at the ruins which hid the mangled figures that had been dozens of assassins, "The Midnight War isn't going to wind down any time soon."
3/13/2023
