Chapter 4 – Part 3 – Chimecleaver
A void formed about the Regulator and his charge, fear forcing the students away from the clump and into each other. Kintere , Mireya and Rhayd found themselves beside a shivering Sahren, many ranks behind the front, having earned a momentary respite as the battle resumed after the brutal slaying of one of their own. With a nod to Kintere, Rhayd tossed his friend his long crystalline sword and shed his thick leather jacket, passing it toward the girl.
“Here,” he said quietly, locking his eyes to hers. I think you need this more than I do.”
Sahren was surprised by the kindness, her blue eyes seeing the boy, her fellow student as if for the first time. Not time for a smile though, no place for the expression, screams curdling her blood.
“Thank you…” Trailing to nothing as her innocent eyes widen, the never-ending swarm of assassins closing in.
“Pay attention,” Mireya spat at Rhayd, pointing a slender finger at the action ahead.
As an afterthought, Kintere shed his own coat and offered it to Mireya, but it was too late for gestures, and the blonde beauty rejected the offer, barking an order to keep alert and stop wasting time.
Not all of the students were heeding Anrui’s call, though Sahren did not intend to get closer. The drone of voices growing in her mind, the chaos was all about the noise to a girl from the quiet pasture lands, screams, battle cries, orders…It all swirled into mist in her mind’s eye with the clarity of the shiny patina of her kukri flashing as it’s drawn.
Odd, how in the sea of panic, having a coat made everything warm, safe. Not being alone gave her the courage to face the charging wasp nest. All the sounds still converged in the silent moment between heartbeats.
A black form rushed the trio – another of the Gault. Mist seeming to scream from Sahren’s lips, a silent thunderclap called, the man charging her struck by a concussion of air pressure like an explosion as the wisps struck his chest. The figure dropped to writhe, deep indigo stains appearing on his chest.. Kill or die, a lesson learned then, and learned well as she finishes the assassin with a merciful sweep of a blade across his neck. It was like slaughtering cattle. At least that was how she explained it to herself, how she let herself cope.
The kind boy, the one now lacking his coat was watched for, and the other one, the short boy, the one she’d heard first…She knew them from the safety of class, and for the very first time she missed class.
“Where’s Kintere?”
Sahren blinked and looked about. The tall man who had been with her new companion was gone.
“There,” she said, pointing some fifty spans away, where Kintere was grappling with a Gault, trying to get him off one of the other students. With a loud growl, Kintere struck the chest of the Gault, and a spark lit the night. Lightning fired through the body of the attacker, and made for one of its kin, causing both to sizzle and burst into flame. With a savage scream, Kintere struck again, this time connecting with the head of another Gault, and sending out a chain of white heat through the next two figures.
“He’s gone berserk,” Rhayd screamed, running toward his friend, grabbing up the long amethyst sword from where Kintere had dropped it on his run. Sahren was frozen, taken aback by the brutal display of feral might Kintere was carrying out. Again and again the man struck every black-clothed head in reach, spires and shards of hot white light bristling from his iron Athama. And Rhayd, his sword aflame, joined in whipping through more and more of the killers.
Everywhere, the tide was turning. Sahren felt lost in it all, unused to such violence. She turned, spying the Accord Council far behind the line, his arms lit with unearthly fire, setting arrow after flaming arrow of mage fire down the beach and into the sails of the Gault ships, most of which were already being set to the tide. Grale Hammerhand was there as well, bearing his massive gemmed hammer, wheeling blow after crushing blow to the knees, hips and thighs of his aggressors. His entire class was there with him, set in a wedge, obviously a trained fighting force. The Redcards’ instructor, Caspiain, was alone save his remaining few students. His normally dour garb was accented with streamers of light cloth showing his stolid refusal to remove his black robes. His hands were caged in gauntlets of stone and steel, and wherever he grasped one of the Gault ice formed. Perhaps most grotesque of all of them the Redcards’ teacher was silently striding through the waves of attackers, grabbing pieces of bodies and tearing them away in sickening crackles, freezing every piece of flesh so fast it shattered in any impact.
Light. Thunder. Moreover, the cloying grind of battle. The assassins, almost as one, stopped – metal screamed as swords were sheathed. Dozens fell beneath the onslaught of the Regulators, still more by the chains of lightning, adding rapidly decomposing bodies to those of the fallen initiates.
Sahren looked back to where she had last seen Anrui, facing off against the leader of the assault and his pack of elite warriors. The three remaining had stepped back from the ivory Weaver, leaving Anrui with his shoulders heaving, his hands wreathed in disused Mists. As with Caspiain, ice littered the ground about Anrui, but in his case it was n the form of spears, discs and other blades having gouged through his attackers. Moar Gault paused, surveying his devastated clan. And, of course, the Regulator before him.
“Chimecleaver,” Sahren heard the arbiter whisper, clenching his right hand. A word of power, tied to the ametrine bracelet around his right wrist, caused trapped mist to spring up in a cascade, rocketing out and wrapping about the Regulator’s forearm before shooting down and solidifying into a terrible, glowing hand of fate. A sword of light and fire and air, wrapped in its own eerie blue essence. And he attacked.