![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dochermesTHE NINE BEAST HELMETS III - Beasts of the West
I. Black Angel and Returning Blade vs Eagle
Spreading his artificial wings, Black Angel glided up to stand on top of the main wall around the fortress. He turned, knelt down and grasped Magulu's upstretched hands to give an assist. When the armored warrior was ready, they both leaped down into the courtyard, breaking the fall with bent knees and fingertips touching the stone flags.
Magulu of the Seven Swords was encased in a long tunic of tough boiled leather covered with metal rings, his arms and legs left bare and his long sword sheathed at his left hip. In contrast, Stephen Weaver was a striking sight. His tight black flightsuit was contrasted with a red stripe running down the outside of each arm and leg, his own helmet was modern combat model with goggles and a respiratory mask.
Most dramatic were the two wings which stretched from head to heel, had a seven foot spread when fully open and were constructed of taut nylon over aluminum tubing. This made them look more batlike than avian. Weaver's levitation made him perfectly capable of flight by himself, but the wings added stability and tight maneuvering.
"How long has this joint been abandoned?" he asked in a voice made hollow by the speaker in his helmet.
"More than a generation," came the reply. "Melgarin still tend extensive farmland and pastures to the West, but most of Evaho has been reclaimed by the Cojobes."
"An experiment in colonialism that didn't work out," Black Angel grumbled. "Seems to be the way that empire building ends up."
The courtyard had piles of fallen leaves that wind had pushed up against the walls, great cracks ran across the masonry from exposure to the elements. In the center of the open space stood a fountain which had long since run dry, marked by a life-size marble statue of a rearing horse.
The fortress itself was a simple three-sided structure, rising up ten stories high in the freezing night air. Each wing was topped with a cylindrical guard tower, but not a single light showed in any of the narrow window slits. "If I stumbled over this without knowing better, I'd figure this place is empty," Weaver said.
"Three wings of a castle, three ranks of the Helmets," Magulu responded. "Beasts of the East, Beasts of the West, Beasts of the South. We do not know which we will face."
"Might as well get this party started," the Black Angel said. He walked boldly up to the massive front door made of oak planks braced with horizontal iron bands and found it was ajar. "Oh man. Well, not the first trap I stuck my fool head into." As his gloved hand pulled the door open, from the roof of that wing a red firebolt shot upward to explode in a thunderous burst of light. Both the echoes and the flare hung in the air.
"We know no one in this stronghold is still asleep," Magulu remarked as he followed Weaver into the building. That drew a snort from the Black Angel. They entered an open chamber with a ceiling so high that the staircases on either side rose to a second floor showing open doorways. Torches flickered in wall brackets, revealing not a bit of furniture or furnishings. This entrance hall had been stripped down to bare stone floor and walls. Dust covered every surface, and the lack of footprints made Weaver lower his guard a bit too much.
For the occupant of that room did not need to walk across the floor.
A sharp twang sounded overhead and a thick arrow thumped against the Black Angel's chest, bouncing back off without doing any damage. Under the tough material of his flightsuit was a layer of the flexible Trom armor. It would take more than even a skillfully shot arrow to make Weaver even feel an impact.
High up near the vaulted ceiling hovered a muscular figure in coarse robes belted at the waist. He had a cylindrical quiver across his back and was fitting another arrow to the string of his short recurved bow. The iron helmet he wore was fashioned in the semblance of a fierce Eagle head. This was one of the three Beasts of the West.
With a crack, Weaver extended his wings their full spread and hurtled upward. The Eagle had placed himself in a strike position and loosed an arrow that pierced the tough fabric of Weaver's artificial wings, pinning them together like a needle sewing two pieces of cloth shut. Black Angel lurched as his balance was thrown off. He hovered uncertainly. The Eagle came in fast in a predatory dive and kicked Weaver squarely in the head, his boots smacking against the rigid flight helmet with gusto. Unsteady to begin with, Black Angel spiralled in a rough circle to the floor.
The Eagle Helmet wearer laughed heartily, notching another arrow to his short bow. He swung around to look back at the Seven Swords fighter and received an agonizing surprise. The Returning Blade had spun end over end to sink its point deeply into the Eagle's right thigh, touching the femur. The Beast Helmet man screamed at the unexpected pain, dropped his bow and grabbed the sword with both hands.
Standing thirty feet below, Magulu of Danarak held out his open hand and summoned the weapon to him. This was the special property of the Returning Blade, infused in the sword ages ago. Slowly, despite his enraged resistance, the Eagle Helmet man was tugged downward by the blade embedded in his leg. Fighting the pull only made the wound worse. He shouted both from pain and anger, reached to his belt and drew a long narrow-bladed knife, thinking how it was just the thing to slide through the Seven Sword's face.
Stephen Weaver twisted the round buckle on his chest and let his wings fall to the floor. He did not want to waste time trying to free his wings and then fastening them back on to their harness. Even without their help, he was still the most gifted levitator in the Midnight War. He took three running steps and launched himself upward from the floor exactly as if he had used a springboard. Accelerating as he rose, Black Angel swung his body around and drove both feet deep into the Eagle Helmet's stomach. That doubled the already distressed man up, making him lose the last vestige of concentration.
Without his conscious mind controlling the helmet's gift, the cult member dropped straight down and landed poorly. The thump of impact had a grim finality to it. Even with the Eagle dying, the Returning Blade still dragged his body across the floor as it strove to go to its master's hand.
This fight at least was over. Weaver alit, picked up his wings and began disentangling the arrow from the nylon. "Drat darn heck," he said mildly.
Magulu had tugged his weapon free from the Eagle's corpse and cleaned it before returning the sword to his scabbard. He had the face of a typical Danarakan... very dark-skinned, strong-jawed, with the distinctive hooked nostrils that had always been prevalent in that realm.
"Seeing this man dead gives me great satisfaction," Magulu told his new colleague. "Danarak has suffered much from the Nine Beast Helmets. They have pillaged and looted, they have slaughtered entire villages, except for young girls that they sell as slaves to the Darthim and Nekrosim."
Holding his folded wings under one arm, Stephen Weaver said, "I just realized there's something you don't know about me." He unclasped his own modern helmet with one hand and pulled it up off his head. Weaver was an American black man, lighter in tone than Magulu, with a thick mustache and friendly expression. He grinned now as he saw the Seven Swords' reaction.
"Ah. I see we have more in common than I thought," Magulu said.
"Always glad to help a brother out," Weaver responded.
II. Seeking Blade vs Stallion and Ram
Fuming, Hagen strode stiff-legged down endless empty corridors. In his right hand, the leader of the Seven Swords held the Seeking Blade point forward. Its particular attribute was to pull him toward whatever he sought to find. Many times had its gift led him toward enemies in hiding or to safe passage in storms or wilderness. Now he concentrated on locating the nearest of the Nine Beast Helmets.
How dare that Dire Wolf question him? Hagen thought with a sullen anger he had not felt in years. What did this Bane know? Had he fought the Midnight War for forty years as Hagen had done? Bane did not have even that many years of life behind him. To the long-lived Melgarin, who reached an age of two hundred as often as not, Humans often seemed like callow youths, even those with grey beards.
Too wrapped in his resentment for his own prudence, the Seven Swords leader stormed through one final open doorway into a ceremonial chamber that was ringed with rough-hewn wooden benches and an altar still displaying a marble statuette of the sacred White Horse, symbol of Androval. Hagen felt further anger at the thought of these Beast Helmet scum occupying a fortress that his people had erected with so many labor in a hostile realm. That was only a passing thought, his attention fixed on the huge figure who had been awaiting him.
Standing with arms folded across a massive chest was a robed man who towered six inches over six feet tall. Even with his features concealed by a metal helmet shaped like a ram's head, his identity was obvious to Hagen. The two Melgarin had clashed many times over the decades. This was the raider, pillager, bandit chief and pirate captain known as Manesol. It could be no other.
Maneslol! No one knew his true backstory. Some said he had been sold to Chujiran slavers to work their jade mines and had escaped by killing twenty guards when he reached manhood. There were those who claimed he had been lost as a child in the wilderness of Evaho and had raised himself as a wild beast might. Rumors also circulated that Manesol was a disinherited illegitimate son of some Melgar royalty, perhaps even a bastard child of King Holmir himself. It didn't matter. He was a threat to be reckoned with.
Now, in a foul mood and aching for combat, Hagen marched across the chamber with sword ready. "You are a living shame to all Androval!" he yelled.
"Spare me," retorted the Ram Helmet wearer. "You Seven Swords make pretty speeches but you are no better than I. You take riches from those you slay. You go where you are not welcome, you strike down whoever offends your niceties. The Nine Beast Helmets are more your brethren than you admit."
"White Horse, witness me. Shall I bandy words with a renegade like you?" Hagen broke into a full run toward the exiled Melgar. Thundering to meet him, Manesol bent forward until his torso was parallel to the stone floor. In the instant before Hagen's sword would have sliced him, the Ram Helmet tripled his speed and crashed the top of his helmet against the Seven Swords leader's chest.
Even if he had been braced and ready for that collision, Hagen would have been knocked down. As it was, the Melgar hero fell backward with a crash of flesh against stone and slid for ten feet. In those seconds that he was stunned, even Hagen loosened his grip on his weapon. Manesol seized the Seeking Blade and wrested it away, flinging the sword as far across the chamber as he could.
Watching his sword enemy rise, Manesol raised a clenched fist. "Let us see how good you are without an ensorcelled sword that find weak points."
Hagen raised a face that had gone pale with channeled rage. "Do your worst, I say."
"Oh, I will!" The Ram Helmet charged again but this time the Seven Swords leader was ready for the attack. Twisting his body like a matador, he moved just enough that the Beast Helmet man missed him. Hagen raised his arm high and smashed his elbow down with murderous force between his enemy's shoulder blades.
Manesol fell but he grabbed Hagen's legs as he did so, pulling his kinsman down to the floor where they grappled only briefly. Knowing he could not match the huge renegade's strength, Hagen had no intention to chance wrestling. He broke free immediately. Vaulting back to his feet, he met the rising Manesol with a storm of hooking punches to the body and the Ram Helmet responding with full-strength left and right blows of his own.
Like all Melgarin, male and female, both of them had been raised to be fighters. Melgar boxing used fists and elbows with an occasional throw or choke hold, but kicks were seen as dishonorable and a sign of weakness. Even though he knew this, Hagen was still taken by surprise when Manesol pivoted on one heel and whipped his other legs up in roundhouse that exploded against Hagen's cheek. The Seven Swords leader was struck down for the second time in that confrontation.
He slapped the stone floor with his palm in outrage, leaping back up to attack more furiously than before. Because of his enemy's metal helmet, he could not try any punches to the head, so he concentrated on a punishing barrage of blows to the ribs and stomach. Manesol met him with vicious strikes of his own. A Human receiving impacts like that would have been killed within a few seconds.
Slowly, inexorably, Hagen began to gain the upper hand. His dedication to training and his study of the fighting methods of other Races had raised his skill level. More of Manesol's punches whirled through empty air or were thrust aside with open palm blocks. He was beginning to tire, not having kept in condition with running and swimming as Hagen had, and his breathing grew labored.
Hagen's peripheral vision caught a dark blur behind him, but too late. Something crashed against the back of his head so lights blinked in front of his eyes and his hearing rang. The Seven Swords leader unavoidably let his defenses fall. Manesol threw a final uppercut that began down by his knees, bending Hagen's head far back on his neck and felling him.
Even now, the Seven Swords leader was not entirely unconscious. Through the pain and the blurred vision, he strove futilely to get over on his hands and knees. He looked up to see in dismay another of the Nine Beast Helmets had arrived. The Stallion had a helmet shaped like a chess knight, and he flourished a brutal mace in one gloved hand.
Both of Beast Helmet men laughed. Then a final combatant hurtled into the chamber and dove right at them.
III.
In their most gleefully triumphant moment, the Ram and the Stallion were sent flying by savage blows they never saw coming. Jeremy Bane had found the chamber by chance and arrived in time to see Hagen fall. He was wearing the combat gloves with steel knuckle guards, so he could punch the Beast Helmets in the head with impunity. The Stallion was closer. Bane seized the man's outstretched right arm and yanked him into a backfist that rang like a hammer on an anvil. The cultist's knees weakened, he sagged and was thrown aside.
Manesol had recovered. "Dire Wolf! You are here too?"
"Oh, I've been hoping to run into you again," Bane replied, launching himself in close with one punishing blow after another. Too often had he felt obligated to pull his strikes so as to not kill everyone he fought. Against a Melgar with their durability and strength, the Dire Wolf could put everything into his attack. A side kick to the lower abdomen was immediately followed by a higher crescent kick with the same leg and then a reverse kick, all landing within half a second. Manesol spun around and staggered back as if drunk.
The Stallion was uncertain on his feet, as well. He realized he had dropped his mace somewhere and although dazed, he knew he had to find it if he were to stand a chance against this terrifying newcomer to the game. The Beast Helmet turned arounf and had only a brief glimpse of a stern-faced Hagen swinging the Seeking Blade directly at his throat. The severed helmeted head clanged on the stone floor and rolled off as the body fell with a few spurts of blood from the stump of a neck.
Only a few feet away, Bane had given his opponent no chance to recover from that initial attack. As the Ram Helmet wearer got his balance again, he was thrown down by a crashing overhead left fist that had all of Bane's strength and fury behind it. Aside from the punch itself, the way Manesal hit the stone floor would have been enough to critically injure a normal Human.
Crouching suspiciously over the unmoving form, the Dire Wolf finally exhaled and untensed slightly. He began kneading his hands together. Even through the protective gloves, his fists were beginning to swell. In a few minutes, his enhanced healing would repair all the microscopic bone fractures and the broken blood vessels in his hands but he felt the soreness now.
Kneeling to clean his sword on the coarse robes of his enemy, Hagen spoke in a voice only slightly out of breath. "Well met and well fought, Dire Wolf. Never have I been more gladdened by the arrival of an ally."
"You would have done the same for me," Bane replied evenly. "I killed the Crocodile and here we have the Ram and Stallion. Now we need to find out how our teams are doing."
Hagen sheathed his sword and came over to face the Dire Wolf over the limp form of the Nine Beast Helmets leader. The rise and fall of Manesol's chest showed that he still lived.
"Hagen!" called a clear female voice from the doorway. "Good to see we both have triumphed."
Hurrying into the chamber, the Silver Skull and Perendir greeted their captains joyfully. As they congratulated each other, the black uniform and silver helmet vanished from Taper, along with the shield and the sword Chalcemar. He was left in the incongrous dark brown business suit and tie he had been wearing before coming to Valefar. "How felicitous. You are cognizant of the import signified by apparel, Jeremy."
"Yes. And I'm relieved. When your outfit vanishes, it means the threat is over. Our brothers and sisters have beaten their targets. There are no Nine Beast Helmets in any shape to fight right now."
"One glad tiding follows another," Hagen told them, unaware at that moment of the death of one of his company. He would not learn of Elanda's fate until all the Tel Shai knights and the Seven Swords had managed to assemble. "Yet, Dire Wolf, our dilemma still remains. The ultimate fate of these helmets."
"Hear me," Perendir spoke up. The diminuitive Eldar placed her small fists on her hips in a surprisingly confrontational pose. "Have either of you ever known one of my Race to lie?"
"No."
"Never."
"This is so. It is not in our nature. Allow me to explain, good sirs. Eldar magick derives its force from our own innate charge of the gralic force. Our talismans are charged by gralic force freely given off by the Halarin. Sagehelm, the Eyeless Helmet, is a good example. It shines by channeling the light of the Halarin themselves." She raised a single imperative index finger. "But the Darthim are different. Their sigils work by drawing off gralir from the unwilling lifeforce of the Sulla Chun which lies imprisoned on Maroch. This gives great potency to their talismans but it brings with that potency a deep malevolence."
Bane nodded slowly, grudgingly as her words sank in.
"Darthan magick cannot be used for benevolence. It always corrupts. It always lessens. Jeremy Bane, heed me. I have had thousands of years to reflect on these matters. The Nine Beast Helmets will inevitably turn even the nobles of Humans wearing them to brutality and cruelty. Instead of heroes, there would rise only new villains."
All three in that chamber watched the Dire Wolf expectantly. "I've been thinking it over, too," he forced the words out. "The Crocodile told me the same. He said the helmets carried 'Essence of Predator.' All right, Hagen. Destroy them. Melt them down, discharge the spell however you think best. I'll accept it."
There was not even gentle mockery in Taper's voice. "I know, captain, that admitting you were wrong is not easy."
Bane raised weary shoulders in a shrug. "It's harder than all the fighting."
10/19/2021
I. Black Angel and Returning Blade vs Eagle
Spreading his artificial wings, Black Angel glided up to stand on top of the main wall around the fortress. He turned, knelt down and grasped Magulu's upstretched hands to give an assist. When the armored warrior was ready, they both leaped down into the courtyard, breaking the fall with bent knees and fingertips touching the stone flags.
Magulu of the Seven Swords was encased in a long tunic of tough boiled leather covered with metal rings, his arms and legs left bare and his long sword sheathed at his left hip. In contrast, Stephen Weaver was a striking sight. His tight black flightsuit was contrasted with a red stripe running down the outside of each arm and leg, his own helmet was modern combat model with goggles and a respiratory mask.
Most dramatic were the two wings which stretched from head to heel, had a seven foot spread when fully open and were constructed of taut nylon over aluminum tubing. This made them look more batlike than avian. Weaver's levitation made him perfectly capable of flight by himself, but the wings added stability and tight maneuvering.
"How long has this joint been abandoned?" he asked in a voice made hollow by the speaker in his helmet.
"More than a generation," came the reply. "Melgarin still tend extensive farmland and pastures to the West, but most of Evaho has been reclaimed by the Cojobes."
"An experiment in colonialism that didn't work out," Black Angel grumbled. "Seems to be the way that empire building ends up."
The courtyard had piles of fallen leaves that wind had pushed up against the walls, great cracks ran across the masonry from exposure to the elements. In the center of the open space stood a fountain which had long since run dry, marked by a life-size marble statue of a rearing horse.
The fortress itself was a simple three-sided structure, rising up ten stories high in the freezing night air. Each wing was topped with a cylindrical guard tower, but not a single light showed in any of the narrow window slits. "If I stumbled over this without knowing better, I'd figure this place is empty," Weaver said.
"Three wings of a castle, three ranks of the Helmets," Magulu responded. "Beasts of the East, Beasts of the West, Beasts of the South. We do not know which we will face."
"Might as well get this party started," the Black Angel said. He walked boldly up to the massive front door made of oak planks braced with horizontal iron bands and found it was ajar. "Oh man. Well, not the first trap I stuck my fool head into." As his gloved hand pulled the door open, from the roof of that wing a red firebolt shot upward to explode in a thunderous burst of light. Both the echoes and the flare hung in the air.
"We know no one in this stronghold is still asleep," Magulu remarked as he followed Weaver into the building. That drew a snort from the Black Angel. They entered an open chamber with a ceiling so high that the staircases on either side rose to a second floor showing open doorways. Torches flickered in wall brackets, revealing not a bit of furniture or furnishings. This entrance hall had been stripped down to bare stone floor and walls. Dust covered every surface, and the lack of footprints made Weaver lower his guard a bit too much.
For the occupant of that room did not need to walk across the floor.
A sharp twang sounded overhead and a thick arrow thumped against the Black Angel's chest, bouncing back off without doing any damage. Under the tough material of his flightsuit was a layer of the flexible Trom armor. It would take more than even a skillfully shot arrow to make Weaver even feel an impact.
High up near the vaulted ceiling hovered a muscular figure in coarse robes belted at the waist. He had a cylindrical quiver across his back and was fitting another arrow to the string of his short recurved bow. The iron helmet he wore was fashioned in the semblance of a fierce Eagle head. This was one of the three Beasts of the West.
With a crack, Weaver extended his wings their full spread and hurtled upward. The Eagle had placed himself in a strike position and loosed an arrow that pierced the tough fabric of Weaver's artificial wings, pinning them together like a needle sewing two pieces of cloth shut. Black Angel lurched as his balance was thrown off. He hovered uncertainly. The Eagle came in fast in a predatory dive and kicked Weaver squarely in the head, his boots smacking against the rigid flight helmet with gusto. Unsteady to begin with, Black Angel spiralled in a rough circle to the floor.
The Eagle Helmet wearer laughed heartily, notching another arrow to his short bow. He swung around to look back at the Seven Swords fighter and received an agonizing surprise. The Returning Blade had spun end over end to sink its point deeply into the Eagle's right thigh, touching the femur. The Beast Helmet man screamed at the unexpected pain, dropped his bow and grabbed the sword with both hands.
Standing thirty feet below, Magulu of Danarak held out his open hand and summoned the weapon to him. This was the special property of the Returning Blade, infused in the sword ages ago. Slowly, despite his enraged resistance, the Eagle Helmet man was tugged downward by the blade embedded in his leg. Fighting the pull only made the wound worse. He shouted both from pain and anger, reached to his belt and drew a long narrow-bladed knife, thinking how it was just the thing to slide through the Seven Sword's face.
Stephen Weaver twisted the round buckle on his chest and let his wings fall to the floor. He did not want to waste time trying to free his wings and then fastening them back on to their harness. Even without their help, he was still the most gifted levitator in the Midnight War. He took three running steps and launched himself upward from the floor exactly as if he had used a springboard. Accelerating as he rose, Black Angel swung his body around and drove both feet deep into the Eagle Helmet's stomach. That doubled the already distressed man up, making him lose the last vestige of concentration.
Without his conscious mind controlling the helmet's gift, the cult member dropped straight down and landed poorly. The thump of impact had a grim finality to it. Even with the Eagle dying, the Returning Blade still dragged his body across the floor as it strove to go to its master's hand.
This fight at least was over. Weaver alit, picked up his wings and began disentangling the arrow from the nylon. "Drat darn heck," he said mildly.
Magulu had tugged his weapon free from the Eagle's corpse and cleaned it before returning the sword to his scabbard. He had the face of a typical Danarakan... very dark-skinned, strong-jawed, with the distinctive hooked nostrils that had always been prevalent in that realm.
"Seeing this man dead gives me great satisfaction," Magulu told his new colleague. "Danarak has suffered much from the Nine Beast Helmets. They have pillaged and looted, they have slaughtered entire villages, except for young girls that they sell as slaves to the Darthim and Nekrosim."
Holding his folded wings under one arm, Stephen Weaver said, "I just realized there's something you don't know about me." He unclasped his own modern helmet with one hand and pulled it up off his head. Weaver was an American black man, lighter in tone than Magulu, with a thick mustache and friendly expression. He grinned now as he saw the Seven Swords' reaction.
"Ah. I see we have more in common than I thought," Magulu said.
"Always glad to help a brother out," Weaver responded.
II. Seeking Blade vs Stallion and Ram
Fuming, Hagen strode stiff-legged down endless empty corridors. In his right hand, the leader of the Seven Swords held the Seeking Blade point forward. Its particular attribute was to pull him toward whatever he sought to find. Many times had its gift led him toward enemies in hiding or to safe passage in storms or wilderness. Now he concentrated on locating the nearest of the Nine Beast Helmets.
How dare that Dire Wolf question him? Hagen thought with a sullen anger he had not felt in years. What did this Bane know? Had he fought the Midnight War for forty years as Hagen had done? Bane did not have even that many years of life behind him. To the long-lived Melgarin, who reached an age of two hundred as often as not, Humans often seemed like callow youths, even those with grey beards.
Too wrapped in his resentment for his own prudence, the Seven Swords leader stormed through one final open doorway into a ceremonial chamber that was ringed with rough-hewn wooden benches and an altar still displaying a marble statuette of the sacred White Horse, symbol of Androval. Hagen felt further anger at the thought of these Beast Helmet scum occupying a fortress that his people had erected with so many labor in a hostile realm. That was only a passing thought, his attention fixed on the huge figure who had been awaiting him.
Standing with arms folded across a massive chest was a robed man who towered six inches over six feet tall. Even with his features concealed by a metal helmet shaped like a ram's head, his identity was obvious to Hagen. The two Melgarin had clashed many times over the decades. This was the raider, pillager, bandit chief and pirate captain known as Manesol. It could be no other.
Maneslol! No one knew his true backstory. Some said he had been sold to Chujiran slavers to work their jade mines and had escaped by killing twenty guards when he reached manhood. There were those who claimed he had been lost as a child in the wilderness of Evaho and had raised himself as a wild beast might. Rumors also circulated that Manesol was a disinherited illegitimate son of some Melgar royalty, perhaps even a bastard child of King Holmir himself. It didn't matter. He was a threat to be reckoned with.
Now, in a foul mood and aching for combat, Hagen marched across the chamber with sword ready. "You are a living shame to all Androval!" he yelled.
"Spare me," retorted the Ram Helmet wearer. "You Seven Swords make pretty speeches but you are no better than I. You take riches from those you slay. You go where you are not welcome, you strike down whoever offends your niceties. The Nine Beast Helmets are more your brethren than you admit."
"White Horse, witness me. Shall I bandy words with a renegade like you?" Hagen broke into a full run toward the exiled Melgar. Thundering to meet him, Manesol bent forward until his torso was parallel to the stone floor. In the instant before Hagen's sword would have sliced him, the Ram Helmet tripled his speed and crashed the top of his helmet against the Seven Swords leader's chest.
Even if he had been braced and ready for that collision, Hagen would have been knocked down. As it was, the Melgar hero fell backward with a crash of flesh against stone and slid for ten feet. In those seconds that he was stunned, even Hagen loosened his grip on his weapon. Manesol seized the Seeking Blade and wrested it away, flinging the sword as far across the chamber as he could.
Watching his sword enemy rise, Manesol raised a clenched fist. "Let us see how good you are without an ensorcelled sword that find weak points."
Hagen raised a face that had gone pale with channeled rage. "Do your worst, I say."
"Oh, I will!" The Ram Helmet charged again but this time the Seven Swords leader was ready for the attack. Twisting his body like a matador, he moved just enough that the Beast Helmet man missed him. Hagen raised his arm high and smashed his elbow down with murderous force between his enemy's shoulder blades.
Manesol fell but he grabbed Hagen's legs as he did so, pulling his kinsman down to the floor where they grappled only briefly. Knowing he could not match the huge renegade's strength, Hagen had no intention to chance wrestling. He broke free immediately. Vaulting back to his feet, he met the rising Manesol with a storm of hooking punches to the body and the Ram Helmet responding with full-strength left and right blows of his own.
Like all Melgarin, male and female, both of them had been raised to be fighters. Melgar boxing used fists and elbows with an occasional throw or choke hold, but kicks were seen as dishonorable and a sign of weakness. Even though he knew this, Hagen was still taken by surprise when Manesol pivoted on one heel and whipped his other legs up in roundhouse that exploded against Hagen's cheek. The Seven Swords leader was struck down for the second time in that confrontation.
He slapped the stone floor with his palm in outrage, leaping back up to attack more furiously than before. Because of his enemy's metal helmet, he could not try any punches to the head, so he concentrated on a punishing barrage of blows to the ribs and stomach. Manesol met him with vicious strikes of his own. A Human receiving impacts like that would have been killed within a few seconds.
Slowly, inexorably, Hagen began to gain the upper hand. His dedication to training and his study of the fighting methods of other Races had raised his skill level. More of Manesol's punches whirled through empty air or were thrust aside with open palm blocks. He was beginning to tire, not having kept in condition with running and swimming as Hagen had, and his breathing grew labored.
Hagen's peripheral vision caught a dark blur behind him, but too late. Something crashed against the back of his head so lights blinked in front of his eyes and his hearing rang. The Seven Swords leader unavoidably let his defenses fall. Manesol threw a final uppercut that began down by his knees, bending Hagen's head far back on his neck and felling him.
Even now, the Seven Swords leader was not entirely unconscious. Through the pain and the blurred vision, he strove futilely to get over on his hands and knees. He looked up to see in dismay another of the Nine Beast Helmets had arrived. The Stallion had a helmet shaped like a chess knight, and he flourished a brutal mace in one gloved hand.
Both of Beast Helmet men laughed. Then a final combatant hurtled into the chamber and dove right at them.
III.
In their most gleefully triumphant moment, the Ram and the Stallion were sent flying by savage blows they never saw coming. Jeremy Bane had found the chamber by chance and arrived in time to see Hagen fall. He was wearing the combat gloves with steel knuckle guards, so he could punch the Beast Helmets in the head with impunity. The Stallion was closer. Bane seized the man's outstretched right arm and yanked him into a backfist that rang like a hammer on an anvil. The cultist's knees weakened, he sagged and was thrown aside.
Manesol had recovered. "Dire Wolf! You are here too?"
"Oh, I've been hoping to run into you again," Bane replied, launching himself in close with one punishing blow after another. Too often had he felt obligated to pull his strikes so as to not kill everyone he fought. Against a Melgar with their durability and strength, the Dire Wolf could put everything into his attack. A side kick to the lower abdomen was immediately followed by a higher crescent kick with the same leg and then a reverse kick, all landing within half a second. Manesol spun around and staggered back as if drunk.
The Stallion was uncertain on his feet, as well. He realized he had dropped his mace somewhere and although dazed, he knew he had to find it if he were to stand a chance against this terrifying newcomer to the game. The Beast Helmet turned arounf and had only a brief glimpse of a stern-faced Hagen swinging the Seeking Blade directly at his throat. The severed helmeted head clanged on the stone floor and rolled off as the body fell with a few spurts of blood from the stump of a neck.
Only a few feet away, Bane had given his opponent no chance to recover from that initial attack. As the Ram Helmet wearer got his balance again, he was thrown down by a crashing overhead left fist that had all of Bane's strength and fury behind it. Aside from the punch itself, the way Manesal hit the stone floor would have been enough to critically injure a normal Human.
Crouching suspiciously over the unmoving form, the Dire Wolf finally exhaled and untensed slightly. He began kneading his hands together. Even through the protective gloves, his fists were beginning to swell. In a few minutes, his enhanced healing would repair all the microscopic bone fractures and the broken blood vessels in his hands but he felt the soreness now.
Kneeling to clean his sword on the coarse robes of his enemy, Hagen spoke in a voice only slightly out of breath. "Well met and well fought, Dire Wolf. Never have I been more gladdened by the arrival of an ally."
"You would have done the same for me," Bane replied evenly. "I killed the Crocodile and here we have the Ram and Stallion. Now we need to find out how our teams are doing."
Hagen sheathed his sword and came over to face the Dire Wolf over the limp form of the Nine Beast Helmets leader. The rise and fall of Manesol's chest showed that he still lived.
"Hagen!" called a clear female voice from the doorway. "Good to see we both have triumphed."
Hurrying into the chamber, the Silver Skull and Perendir greeted their captains joyfully. As they congratulated each other, the black uniform and silver helmet vanished from Taper, along with the shield and the sword Chalcemar. He was left in the incongrous dark brown business suit and tie he had been wearing before coming to Valefar. "How felicitous. You are cognizant of the import signified by apparel, Jeremy."
"Yes. And I'm relieved. When your outfit vanishes, it means the threat is over. Our brothers and sisters have beaten their targets. There are no Nine Beast Helmets in any shape to fight right now."
"One glad tiding follows another," Hagen told them, unaware at that moment of the death of one of his company. He would not learn of Elanda's fate until all the Tel Shai knights and the Seven Swords had managed to assemble. "Yet, Dire Wolf, our dilemma still remains. The ultimate fate of these helmets."
"Hear me," Perendir spoke up. The diminuitive Eldar placed her small fists on her hips in a surprisingly confrontational pose. "Have either of you ever known one of my Race to lie?"
"No."
"Never."
"This is so. It is not in our nature. Allow me to explain, good sirs. Eldar magick derives its force from our own innate charge of the gralic force. Our talismans are charged by gralic force freely given off by the Halarin. Sagehelm, the Eyeless Helmet, is a good example. It shines by channeling the light of the Halarin themselves." She raised a single imperative index finger. "But the Darthim are different. Their sigils work by drawing off gralir from the unwilling lifeforce of the Sulla Chun which lies imprisoned on Maroch. This gives great potency to their talismans but it brings with that potency a deep malevolence."
Bane nodded slowly, grudgingly as her words sank in.
"Darthan magick cannot be used for benevolence. It always corrupts. It always lessens. Jeremy Bane, heed me. I have had thousands of years to reflect on these matters. The Nine Beast Helmets will inevitably turn even the nobles of Humans wearing them to brutality and cruelty. Instead of heroes, there would rise only new villains."
All three in that chamber watched the Dire Wolf expectantly. "I've been thinking it over, too," he forced the words out. "The Crocodile told me the same. He said the helmets carried 'Essence of Predator.' All right, Hagen. Destroy them. Melt them down, discharge the spell however you think best. I'll accept it."
There was not even gentle mockery in Taper's voice. "I know, captain, that admitting you were wrong is not easy."
Bane raised weary shoulders in a shrug. "It's harder than all the fighting."
10/19/2021
Tags:
