Chapter XLI: (Cont. VIII)
Blackheart nodded, “Then I suppose we fight together and our fate is shared together.” He turned and glanced down at Kiki, who stood at the ready as well. He knelt down and beckoned for his devoted feralite to come forward. He leaned in, “I know you don’t like this…and you have been so very good to me all these years.” Blackheart reached up and unhooked the collar from around Kiki’s neck, “Now go on. You’re free…..and I don’t want to see you coming back. This isn’t your battle. It is ours.” Kiki stared in confusion, already willing to go. “Go on,” Blackheart urged, waving her off; Kiki opened her mouth to try and bark out a retort, but his hand raised up. “No lip from you. Get the hell out of here! Go!” Kiki, grudgingly, turned and began to trudge across the sands. “Go and tell Azurat!” Kiki looked back once more, then nodded to her old master, turning and racing off across the sands.
He watched her go until she was a dot on the horizon, then turned and unsheathed his sword. “Let’s go gentlemen and ladies, it’s time we finished this.”
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Baen stood in the center of the remaining warriors, piles of bodies were scattered everywhere, shreds of cloak spiralling through the growing winds. The remaining twenty warriors had not backed down, despite the slaughter of a mass of their comrades without so much as a fatal blow to their dark creator. His cloak was shredded at the ends from near misses, and a cut bled on his arm, but other than that, he was unharmed. He sneered at Vigile who stood off to the side, watching with horror. “You are a fool Xul’Nue! You have done all you could to stop me, but in the end, you have failed, too! I am not destined to lose this time, my dear Xul’Nue! Not to you…not to the Watchers….not even to those wretches who have tried so valiantly to stop me!”
Vigile blinked and the twenty lunged at once. Baen ducked quickly, bringing his sword around and taking the legs out from two, rolling backwards and to the side, dodging several downswings. The roll brought him outside of the lunging squads; he rose quickly and decapitated another figure spinning around and burying his sword in another, his staff parrying another’s thrust and then braining them. The flames surged up behind him as he leapt away and turned around again, landing and blocking the swings of the figures as he dodged to the side and took the arm off another, kicking another onto the sword of another. Flames began to rise again, igniting the cloaks and the sand, the flames surging everywhere and igniting some of the other living warriors.
Baen smiled as the flames spewed everywhere, ripping his cloak from his body and hurling it into the fire and revealing his frail frame cased in a gold and black armor, his smile flickering as his eyes seemed to generate the fires that raged. “Now stand against me General! Let us see if you really are the better warrior than the frail commander!” Baen brought his sword and staff around and prepared to swing, Vigile drawing his blade and bowing his head.
“It will be an honor to slay you demon.” Vigile leapt through the flames with a speed and maneuvering that caught Baen off guard and knocked him backwards, sending the frail figure to the ground as he brought his sword up to parry the several blows as Vigile moved with uncanny speed, kicking one of the dead warrior’s blades into the air and catching it. With a quick turn, he was wielding two swords and driving Baen, who had risen, back further towards the ring of fire.
Vigile’s arms were like the wind, moving with a flow and speed unexpected by his master, his swings caught Baen in the armor over and over again, though never penetrating into the skin. Finally, Vigile brought his sword around and caught Baen in the leg, sweeping him off his feet, his other blade cutting across the dark watcher’s cheek as he fell.
Baen rolled away with a hiss and rose quickly, unwilling to show the fact that fatigue was gaining on him. “You surprise me, Xul’Nue.”
“Prejudice allows one to often be surprised,” Vigile’s voice echoed as the figure lunged again. Baen was ready this time, bringing his staff around and blasting Vigile square in the chest, sending the Xul’Nue sailing backwards through the sands. There was no scream, for that would have been the reaction of one with a voice rather than with a mind. Instead, there was a ripple in Baen’s mind that dropped him to his knees as Xul’Nue’s shear pain cut into him, too. Vigile slowly rose to his feet, wobbling as he steadied himself.