The Quest of Deimos Ep. 02

Through a gap in the smoke, Deimos saw the vanguard of Elv Amazon's, their golden armor gleaming in the fire's reflection, storming down upon them on their Pegasus steeds.

The Centauri fired a force arrow into the charging wave. A sword whirled like a rotor blade slicing the beam in half.

Their cavalry crashed against the force shields as the Amazon's leaped over the bodies of Deimos's men, turned in the air, already drawing their short bows, and fired their arrows.

"Damn it," growled Deimos, "Elv Amazon's, the king's personal guard."

The Cyclopean growled arrows jutting out of him like pins in a pincushion. He swung iron rebar that took one of the elvs and lobbed her high into space. A golden Elv ran up his back, as nimbly as a mountain goat, and came down behind him to pierce his eye with her glaive.

The Elv citadel's greatest warriors, the Elv maiden Hippolytus, landed nimbly on her toes, clearing the shield wall by a good twenty meters. Nothing stood between her and Deimos.

She lifted her second throwing lance, sparking with its energy conduits, and flung it straight towards the pair. Deimos cursed, dropping Aganon and falling backward, as the spear flew between them.

Her maneuver had a secondary stratagem, however. It pierced the right engine of Deimo's lander. The ship clicked for a few seconds like a bad ignition switch on the car and then exploded. Deimos was flung backward again and through the battle lines.

When he came too, his arm was on fire, and the Amazon was swinging her sword at his head. Instinctively, he raised his arm, so his bracer took the total hit. The blade cut through the bracer and sunk to the bone.

For a second, Deimos stared at his burning and cleaved arm.

Bracing his back against the wall, Deimos kicked upward against the Elvs cuirass, pushing her away from him, hoping to get some purchase to get up.

She landed on her feet and shot forward again, her sword whirling in a blinding flash.

Helplessly, Deimos brought up his still burning glaive to block it. Her movements were a blur, and Deimos was barely able to stop any of them. Soon, his body bled from several shallow cuts that his heightened healing system was trying to staunch.

She leaped back from him again. This time to size him up. A smirch lit up her face. Deimos was panting, his sword trembling, barely in the guard position. He batted the flame down. He could smell burning fur and flesh and realized that a part of him was still likely on fire.

Suddenly, ion cannon fire raked between them as a lander blazed by. The lander hovered in the air above fight. Behind Deimos, the battle stopped. The cockpit opened, and from thirty meters, someone dropped.

Killer cratered into the ground like an ancient god. He rose slowly, unconcerned with the chaos around him, and smiled a feral smile at the amazon warrioress. She charged spear held high, eager to face a proper match.

The battle between the two demigods was like two opposing forces of nature, a crashing tsunami against the raw fury of a hurricane. At first, the two combatants looked evenly matched, but Killer was inexhaustible.

Soon, the Amazon was breathing heavily, cuts spread across her body and leaking from her cuirass. She dove in with an all-or-nothing stab, and the killer grabbed her arm and broke it.

She screamed, a terrifying sound, and her fellow soldiers cried out. She grabbed her dagger with her other hand, then Killer broke her other arm.

He refused to offer her the dignity of death. He kicked her leg until the bone broke, then picked her up over his shoulder and carried her to his men.

She cursed at him in Elv as he dumped her like a sack of potatoes into a pile of injured and surrendered.

Her capture was a moral blow to the other elv amazons who broke and ran. But where could they run too? Their city had fallen, and there was nowhere left to hide.

"Do not throw her into the bins with the others. Take her to the med compartment and have her healed. Then bind her in my room. This one is special. She has a wild spirit. She is mine." The Killer growled.

He was already loading up his men, and Deimos knew where he would be heading. The temple, where the best prizes would be. King Agagnon's eyes bulged with rage and fear as he realized the battle and its spoils were going to happen without him.

"I'm commandeering your ship." He growled at me.

I looked at him and thought about ending this now. A lot could happen in the middle of a battle, but I didn't know my men's true loyalties. I tapped my earpiece.

"Sarpedon, I need a pickup."

"Coming in, my friend."

The lander swooped down, just skirting the ground, with the backend opening. The king cursed at my men to board quickly, ignoring the awkward fact that they were my men and not his. I looked around. I had lost some good fighters in that skirmish.

Our ship lifted into the air following Killers. Above the smoke, illuminated by flames, was the temple of the Immortia.

Scene 3

Prius, king of fallen Illium, guided his seven daughters into the sanctified space. His hands swiped across the digital device that scanned his genetic code, and the fortified doors slid open with a hiss.

Cassandra looked up at the hallowed Goddesses in statue form above her head; the Queen, the Matriarch, the Amazon, the Mistress, the Vestal Virgin, and Concubine.

The six goddesses, eternal in their judgment, stared down at the harried king and his six daughters. The Queen's face regal, the Amazon's stoic, the whore's holding a subtle smirk as if the daughter were justly chastened.

"Get in, my children, move quickly." said their father as he pushed them inside.

"They cannot harm us inside this sanctuary. The Immortia protect all who seek shelter in their temple."

"What of mother, father?" asked Philomena, the eldest. Her hair was the longest, as the eldest daughter. The long lacy curtains hung down each side of her face presenting a theatre of tragedy.

Prius's face was stricken. "I... She was right behind us... She must have been separated when the palace was struck. The amazons should protect her."

Cassandra remembered the Orc ship crashing through the walls. The columns shattered, the heat was like an inferno, and the smoke was a blinding labyrinth.

Etheonome's hand grabbed hers and pulled her through.

"Father, we must go back for her," cried Polyxena. She had a sword in her hand, probably picked up off the ground. Polyxena liked to think of herself as an amazon.

Prius ignored her.

"At least open the security doors in case mother arrives," called out Laodice.

Cassandra remembered the wrath of the Orcs close behind them as they fled and the screams of the guards and servants. There was no going back out there. The city was lost. Guilt burned her from the secret knowledge she possessed.

Etheonome, the only daughter with any military training, an initiate in the order of the Amazons, somehow slipped a dagger from her robes. She looked fixedly at the door, ready to step back out there.

Cassandra moved to her. "Please, sister! I know what you are thinking. Do not go out there. You saved me; now let me save you. The city is lost. No good will come of you sacrificing yourself."

"I will not let them take our people as slaves. I will not let them take my mother."

"You cannot help her. She is gone. You saw the fires behind us." Begged Cassandra.

"No, we cannot let this happen. We must go back out there," cried Polyxena, panic in her voice.

Cassandra and Etheonome eyed each other. Etheonome was the only one to know of Cassandra's dreams.

No need to bring the royal family into a panic, and an upset father scolded Etheonome. All Elv girls dreamt when they slept, and nightmares did not mean prophecy.

Now Etheonome's face was a mask of horror.

"We will not leave. We will be safe here. These marauders will not breach the sanctity of this temple. They would not dare." Etheonome's voice, a mirror of her mother's, commanded the other sister's respect.

There was a noise at the door.

Outside

"The king and his family have escaped into the temple, my chieftain."

Sarpedon looked at me as he spoke to King Aganon. His voice was calm and laconic as ever. Still, I could tell by the rigidity of his tail spines that he was anxious.

The king roared and swung his scepter, shattering a piece of a temple column.

Sarpedon hissed. Like most cockatrices, he was particularly pious.

For the Chieftain, the fury was overflowing into madness. They had just arrived at the palace grounds only to see that the building had gone up in flames along with all of the city's wealth.

His men reported that the Queen had been found dead, her body crushed under falling masonry. In his madness, he kept muttering about Killer. About how he caused her death to spite him, to take from him what he rightfully deserved.

Now the valuable princesses and the king were safe behind temple walls, supplicating to the Goddesses. They were untouchable according to ancient traditions that Deimos didn't understand but knew were immutable.

The city had fallen in the most spectacular display of military cunning in Orc history, yet the ultimate reward was lost.

In the distance, Killer was laughing. His men had raided the high estates around the palace and loaded up rich treasures of slaves and goods onto his ship. Killer had the Amazon, the Captain of the Guard bound and gagged, over his shoulder. His hands fondled her backside as she wiggled and cried.

At this point, she was the highest prize in the field. And he had earned her in combat, which meant his claim over her was ironclad.

The Chieftain glowered at him, the veins in his temple throbbing.

"Get the siege beam, the Dwarven Lorde's cannon," growled Aganon to his men.

The orcs looked about dumbly. Sarpedon stepped up to speak, but I held him back. I could see his dew claws flexing, his neck flaps ballooning outward and filling with venom.

"A sacrilege," he hissed. "We must stop this. He has gone mad. He will curse us all."

"Think, lizard brain, anyone who stands in front of him when he's in his mood is dead. He has an entire bloody army behind him," I growled.

Sarpedon looked at me askance. His bird eye blinked. Anyone except one. Killer.

"Not a chance. You know, getting Killer to intervene is like throwing gas on a fire. Can you sense the tone out there? We are this close to turning on each other, and if that happens, you and I likely lose everything. I need the Tripodium for Terra."

"Captain, I cannot stand here and watch this happen. There is no greater crime of impiety than breaking into a supplicant's temple. The Immortia will destroy us for this."

I doubted it. I had seen no proof since my own slavery in the Styx fighting pits. I had heard my fair share of dying creatures begging their Gods for mercy, only to have their prayers go unanswered. In my opinion, there were no Immortia. Still, Sarpedon was the closest thing I had to a friend, and I knew he took his gods and goddesses seriously.

I had to try.

Killer was sitting on an ornate chest pilfered from the remains of the palace. Silk robes peeking out from the edges. His men worked diligently, packing their landers with treasures to bring back to their pentecoster. In one hand was the naked Amazon's ass; in the other was her gold Doru which he spun in the air like a toy.

"Killer, turn Chief Agonan from his path. You know this course will end badly."

Killer laughed. It was a deep cavernous hackle, the sound of bone and marrow cracking. "You wish me to reason with him. Unlike you, Deimos, I don't hide behind a cunning tongue and an exaggerated reputation. I don't meddle in the affairs of lessers. I care not what that ass does."

"You are no talker, but you can distract him. Turn his anger towards you and away from those walls. We might still lose everything if he does something foolish."

"Tempting. But I have had enough of your games, Deimos. Let the king do what he wishes. I do not fear Immortia. I am rage incarnate, and if these goddesses do exist, they should fear me."

He had long since gone mad. Whatever the grey wizards had done to him, had done to us, his mind was broken. Nothing left of the human remained. He was the monster, incarnate.

"You and I were abducted and underwent those experiments. Terra fell, and you and I are all that is left."

Killer looked at me. He had suffered the same tortures from the Grey Wizard who had abducted us from under the noses of the hedonistic Infernali, the new alien proprietors of Earth.

They had experimented on us by hardening our skeletons with a molten adamine frame, updated our musculature with carbon fibers, and our nervous system with a quantum optics system.

Worse, they spliced our genetic code with the kodanthropic mutagen from the quarantined dead planet of Borea. The pain of our genetic transformation killed most of the prisoners, left the rest of us mad.

The genetic code they spliced with us was a war crime. The Arcordium had glassed entire planets to destroy it. If they knew we existed, we would be hunted down and incinerated.

For a second, behind eternally raging eyes, I saw a moment of pause. Our hypersensitive nervous system often proffered information on a subconscious, almost prophetic level. Something nasty was about to happen.

The siege engine was being brought up.

Sarpedon hissed. His tail lashed.

Inside

"Praise the Immortia. They will protect us from rapine orcs and evil forces." Polyxena was on her knees praying. The sword was abandoned at her side. Etheonomi looked down on her with contempt.

The outside had gone quiet, leaving only the dripping noise that distracted Cassandra. She watched her father pillared by the two oldest daughters. Their bodies practically held the wizened patriarch up.

He was their father and father of all the Elvs that resided in Ilium. The only male elv. If he fell, Ilium would be no more. But, Cassandra thought, he was also the weakest of her family.

Mother was the one with the will of iron, like the Goddess herself. She was the one who convinced her people to travel beyond the inner spheres and make a colony out here. Now it was up to the daughters to pick up that mantle.

Cassandra told herself her dreams were just that, dreams. She remembered the terrifying bestial shape looming over her, far more monstrous and more terrifying than any orc. It could only be the fabrication of her imagination brought on by the anxiety of the invasion.

She followed the sound until she was under the statue of the Concubine. A vase of oil had tipped during the explosion and poured out over the offering table. It was dripping off the table in thick wet plops. The oil smelled rich oozed darkly.

Time seemed to slow down, with each drop falling in slow motion until it landed in a small pool of its own substance. The oil transmitted outward like a black ring. Blood.

Slowly, as if trapped in amber, Cassandra looked upward. Her father's body was stretched across the concubines' feet. Blood dripped from his neck. Cassandra opened her mouth to scream, but her voice was pulled from her throat. Hands grabbed her and pulled her down into a deep well, chains hanging above head, cutting into receding light.

Dimly, she could see the faces of her sisters, calling for her in fear. The claws embraced her; Talons pressing against her womb and above her a snarling feral snout. Trembling like a fawn, she was paralyzed as it caressed her flesh.

She could see around her planets. She was falling through space or flying through it. She passed through the phlogiston like a fish caught in the currents.

Her body, entangled with that of a monster, flew like a comet through space. They hurtled towards a tiny planet of green and blue hues, crossed with red-hot chains.

She woke up with a gasp. A father and six sisters were staring down at her.

"Cassandra, are you ok?" asked Eleonome.

Her sisters screamed, but Cassandra was relieved. She looked beyond them at the closed door as it disintegrated. Smoke rose up from the fuming wound, and into the ingress, a hulking body stepped. It was not the figure she saw in her dream. It was an Orc, regaled like a chieftain, holding a cruel-looking orc scepter in his clawed hands.

Her father, the king, stepped forward, arms wide.

"This is a sacred shrine of Immortia, and we are supplicants."

The staff raised and fell.

The screams consumed her. Were they hers or theirs?

Eletheonome leaped forward, her knife raised to kill her father's murderer. She was blinding fast; the Chieftain's eyes widened in fear.

A shocking blast from behind the orc knocked Etheonome to the ground. Behind the orc, a horror show of monsters marched in.

Cassandra's heart stopped. The nightmare had come to life in front of her eyes. There were two of them. One was laughing at the king, heckling him. The other was in the back of the assembly, his eyes shifting. They paused on her for a second, then continued past.

The orc grabbed the slumped body of her dead father and threw him against the wall. He fell into the arms of the Concubine and lay against the holy idol.

A basilikian blocked the orc chief, hissing through its savage beak. Reacting to the threat, several blades ringed the lizard's neck, and her nightmare dragged it away from the orc who murdered Cassandra's father.

The orc moved up to the body help up by the arms of the statue. The warlord's staff raised and lowered again and again. The body that was once King Prius shook with the force of each violent blow.

Her sisters wailed in lamentation.

Deimos held Sarpedon back, keeping his body between him and the king's menacing bodyguards.

The Killer leaned against the wall and smirked. Damn you, thought Deimos, this is all good fun to you.

He was leaving with Sarpedon. Getting the hell out of here and leaving them to this. He would have to find another way to rescue his family back on Terra.

"Strip them, bind them, and get them on their knees," growled the Chieftain. "The eldest is mine by right; the rest I shall bestow as prizes to my noblemen."

Killer stepped forward and picked up the girl he had dropped with his burst gun. "This one who almost killed you is mine. She has shown herself too dangerous for you to handle."

Aganon growled. "Fine, take her and leave. Your services are no longer needed, and your company is no longer desired."

Killer chuckled and walked out, Etheonome in his arms.

Cassandra watched as her dearest and closest sister was taken away from her by a vision from Hel.

The other beast turned to the king. "I'm going to. I got you your polis. I'll take what I have earned and leave."

The orc chieftain looked at him. His men were stripping the weeping girls.

He gestured towards Cassandra. "Take that one. The mute. You have earned her for your service, Deimos."

Deimos watched the orcs drag over a silver-haired elv girl. She looked to be in shock. Her eyes were frozen on her father's body.

Outside the temple, Deimos handed Sarpedon the Elv princess.

"We cannot claim this slave." Hissed Sarpedon. "The blood curse is tied to her. The goddesses will curse us."

"Fair enough," said Deimos, "but we are getting her out of the city."

This world had forced him to tamp down his empathy to survive, but what he had just witnessed frightened him.

Instinctively, he could sense some karmic shift in the aether. Something had gone terribly wrong, and it was about to drop on them. For an atheist in an alien world, it was an uncomfortable feeling.

Outside the temple, Cassandra could hear the cries of their sisters as the orcs began to have their way with them. The sounds were worse than any image could convey. Her sister Etheonome was being carried off by the other monster and wondered if she would ever see her again.