BECMI Chapter 510 – Red War

“That sounds horribly unwelcome, but we will need to find the truth of the matter. Will it be difficult to convince your lord to lend us his Arrow?” I asked the scarlet guardian barring the way forth from the entry chambers.

The knightly Kalrag hesitated, looking back and forth between Cirru and I. “Ah. My lord Finisli is fond of war and battle, and unlikely to pass the Arrow to one who is not capable of combat. Indeed, even if you be not foes, my own task is not to let one pass who is unworthy of retrieving the Arrow. If you cannot defeat me, then you will not be able to defeat the Carnifex!” he declared with dire formality.

I eyed the bridge we could certainly run down faster than this hulk in so much armor could stop us, now that he’d left his station, but he’d been very helpful.

“You will return on the morrow unharmed, Sir Kalrag?” I asked respectfully, stepping away as Dread tapped on the floor. The ghostly image of a large morningstar-like force shadow appeared around the black Star Sapphire atop my Staff. Duum flitted off over to Cirru’s shoulder to watch what was coming.

“Such is my duty and my fate, Lady Edge!” the energy being in the brightly polished scarlet Armor declared proudly, clearly not put off by the idea, lifting his flaming Greatsword to his crimson-armored shoulder. “I must fight to destruction, so do not hold back your blows!”

I eyed the Anti-magical Aura and Spell Turning field about him, which would make him something of a nightmare for spellcasting combatants. Obviously he’d taken a toll on the Carnifex coming in because of it. I could use Pierce Any Defense and Resonance to get through them, but that would be very disrespectful at this point.

Cirru was kind of moping that I was doing the fighting, but knightly combat demanded weapons, and a Staff was better than fists for this kind of fight.

“Cirru, if you would be so kind?” I asked, Staff extended, the both spiked and round image of the Greater Mighty Wallop turning Dread into something a Titan would be happy beating on stuff with resting on the ground. Kalrag didn’t seem to think much of it, but his Anti-Magic Aura wasn’t going to stop it.

“Combatants… begin!” she shouted out with authority and rather inhuman vocal power, having overseen many duels between dragons.

We zipped together, and began our dance.

He was much, much lighter on his feet than he appeared, the gleaming crimson Armor obviously meant to contain his form, rather than housing much that was material. He was also supernaturally strong and very skilled, which was immediately obvious the second our Weapons crossed.

He was quite startled when he didn’t push me back in the slightest, given I didn’t come up to his shoulder, and he didn’t really have much reach on me, either. The crashing impact of my Staff on his Sword rattled him all the way up his arms, and the steady red glow out his visor and the seams of his armor actually flickered, like he was blinking in disbelief.

“A worthy foe!” he crowed, and his Sword began to really move.

He was really, really good, and I could imagine he had carved a memory into both Daskad’s band and the Carnifex. He was uninhibited in going for the kill, strong, fast, and basically tireless.

But I sparred with Sama and Briggs, Sif and Thor. They had all long surpassed me in martial combat, but I was still one of the rare few people they could really get enthusiastically into it with, and they couldn’t slack or I WOULD punish them.

My Staff skirled and flowed, blocking strike after strike, shielding me from the burning edge (whose flames were not a threat in the slightest, but it sure looked impressive flashing around like he did!), an immovable bar he could not get past. When I instead deflected and moved aside, it was time for my offense, and the crashing impacts crushed into his Armor, punching holes into the steel that fiery red light shone out of, driving him back with the force of my strikes.

They only made him more enthusiastic, trying to get past my blocks and finding it very difficult, but never stopping in the slightest.

He tagged me three times, lashing across arm and cheek and leg, each time setting him up for a massive counter-blow which rattled him and drove him back.

The last one smote the thick helm with its radiant visor slit clear off his shoulders, cracking his gorget as it did so and sending the helm bouncing away across the floor.

“HAHAHAHAHA!” the glowing, escaping plume of radiant fire escaping through the neck of his breastplate shouted out, raising his hands. “Well fought, little Lady Edge! Your Stave is fierce, indeed!”

And then he exploded.

The eruption was big, and explained some of the sear lines we’d seen on the floor. There was only a rising flash of light, and then BOOM, the Armor blew apart, launching me backwards a good thirty feet, where I hit the ground and was pushed to the edge of a sixty-foot radius explosion strong enough to blast a grown human directly into ash.

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My skin was all red, and a mistfall of ice was coming off the ends of my hair as I slowly straightened up. The wounds he’d made on me were already burning shut, leaving no traces behind on my silks or skin.

“I would like to come back and spar him, too!” Cirruluxul spoke up with great interest.

Cirruluxul was a Grand Master in Open Hand, revered as the great Lightning Claw among the many Mystics who followed Master Lalo in his Postal Order and Innkeeper Orders. She sparred regularly with Molniya, the Thunder Fist, who, along with Dame Adama, was the primary Patron of their martial artist styles, wielding the House of the Storm Dragon and its Wind Dragon kicks, Thunder Dragon punches, and Lightning Dragon speed!

“He was quite exceptional, but I’m not mortal and wasn’t subject to some of his defenses, specifically his Anti-Magic Aura. It would reduce the magic of your attacks and defenses to nothing,” I warned her, as we glided together towards the eldrcopper door, worth a fortune in and of itself. Some of the magic upon it had faded with the death of Sir Kalrag, his will probably holding it closed before.

I wondered if it was impassable to Carnifex and had to be Dispelled to break open, thought it likely.

Cirru confidently stepped up to it, cracked her knuckles once, and Thunder-Palmed them open like she was pushing back a giant.

The doors didn’t fly open, but both did swing back without interruption, silent and smooth and marvelously balanced, more than wide enough for us both to exit.

We stepped out onto the top of a large hill, looking down upon the battlefield that lay in all directions around us, trailing off into the distance. The fighting was still ongoing, the war machines now enveloped by pikemen stabbing broken hafts into the gears of the things with unflinching enthusiasm, the drakes and hippogriffs dissolved into snarls of ground combat, and the cavalrymen riding through and hacking enthusiastically at the swordsmen returning their fervor.

“Cursed souls, doomed to keep reliving their battles, over and over?” Cirruluxul asked, watching the semi-solid combatants going at it.

“Some would call this a great afterlife for warriors, always another day and another fight to revel in. The very definition of einheriar.” My cool tone didn’t indicate that I agreed. I pointed, and her eyes narrowed as two outliers became visible.

One was a very large serpentine form racing through the battlefield. My Mask of Bloody Tears dropped down, Eagle Eyes leapt out, and we both regarded a massive thing that looked like like a hundred Headless centauroid bodies the size of hill giants, fused end to end like a centipede, bearing stubby torsos for every set of legs, each chest bearing great arms wielding greataxes like they were hatchets. Fifty pairs of hooved legs powered it through the battlefield, able to turn away war machines, stomp infantry flat, and hurl cavalry out of the way with its unstopping speed and mass. It ate a path through all lines of combatants, killing everyone and everything in front of and around it.

“I have never seen anything like that,” Cirru admitted uneasily, watching as the creature vanished over a hill in the distance, momentum and speed unbroken after plowing through a thousand soldiers and reaping everything within reach relentlessly, filling the air with shattered pikes and carving apart five different fire-gouting war machines while ignoring the damage they did.

“It’s a variant Hundred-Handed One, a hecantoncheires,” I told her calmly, gazing after it. “It has more legs instead of heads, but exactly one hundred arms.” It was also ‘real’, not a ghostly recreation of souls in combat. “I imagine the chariot trailing flames racing back and forth there is the Lord of this Realm, Finisil.” He seemed to be charging about behind his fiery steeds and throwing blazing javelins with laughter and impunity, ignoring all the attacks being sent his way and impaling three or four targets with every toss, the javelins trailing flames like fiery lightning bolts that exploded at their ultimate destination.

“How did Daskad deal with them? They were certainly not adept enough in combat…” Cirru muttered, glancing between the two. It was a given we would somehow have to deal with them.

“My guess would be avoidance. The Dungeon Doomrose would have taught them to avoid unwinnable fights, and Talk no Jutsu can be a formidable thing in the right hands.”

She inclined her head in acknowledgment. “With an Immortal Creature devoted to war?” she had to ask.

“We only do what we can do,” I responded, and we set off across the field towards the chariot, Duum launching himself into the air in his small form to give us eyes in the sky as we entered the realm of red skies, bloodied sands, fire, and the carnage of war.

----

“The hundred hands is coming this way!” I informed Cirru, turning my head sharply as Duum saw it tracking our way, plowing across a line of archers and ignoring all their shafts as it came thundering directly towards us, just after we had reached a hilltop after traversing through the quiet portion of the battlefield.

Well, quiet except for the companies of swordwraiths that had materialized to fight us, but a volley of Chained Shards had taken care of that problem.

Cirru just looked at me as I spun to face in that direction, and saw the headless lead torso pop up, then the long line of racing tauroid centipedal flesh machine came pounding the earth after it, heading right for us.

“Perhaps I should not have worn blue,” she quipped in some amusement, her natural choice of colors when in halvyri form, looking like a flower in a graveyard here. My red and blacks actually fit right in on theme!

“You do stand out,” I agreed calmly, waiting there as the Immortal Creature pounded our way at the speed of a charging horse, notched great axes and great scimitars raised and shaking, ready for use. I didn’t go anywhere, even to fly. I could see numbers of weapons suitable for hurling carried upon its stumpy, headless torsos for things that thought they were out of reach, ranging from great javelins and spears to massive throwing stars and spiked cannonballs and the like. “While I am interested in seeing if we could defeat this thing, we’ve more important things to do.”

“I agree,” she nodded as it pounded closer, unperturbed if I was not worried. “Do you think that if I twisted and threw it, I could corkscrew the whole thing off its feet?”

“You’d have to be in your natural form to have the mass, but it is possible,” I conceded, the thing pounding up the hill towards us, weapons trailing echoes of countless multitudes slaughtered rising high to cut down at us as it ran through or over us!