Chapter XXIV: Last Man Standing
Amber drew out her pistol. The Farseer didn't seem to notice her.
He was still intent on whatever it was he was doing with the monolith.
She aimed and fired a series of shots at the Farseer's head. They
bounced harmlessly off his helmet, a small glow shimmering in the air
around the armor where her shots landed harmlessly.
The Farseer turned to her, his gaze seemingly full of malice even
though he wore a full helmet.
He stretched out his arm and made a hand gesture. A bright flash of
energy leapt from his fingertips.
Amber was thrown to the ground as the energy hit her. Her head slammed
into the dirt, and her head ached as small flashes of pain told her
where the energy kept coursing through her body.
* * *
“Amber!”
Becker ran to her side, dropping to his knees. He quickly looked her
over. She seemed unharmed.
“Are you alright?”
She winced and replied, “I'm okay. Get that damn psyker!”
He began to stand back up, but a massive explosion behind him knocked
him to the ground. A terrible sucking sound became a massive roar as
gusts of air tore at them in its rush to reach the point where the
monolith had once stood.
Becker rolled onto his side and saw what appeared to be a vortex in
the air. But it quickly dissipated, leaving small bits of rubble as
the only evidence an Eldar monolith had ever stood on the world.
* * *
Bob shook off the shock of the last explosion. He charged forward,
trying to draw a weapon to engage the Eldar with.
The Farseer gestured, this time more elegantly.
Bob halted his advance. He was in a dark field, smoke rising from the
ground. He looked down. All around were the burnt bodies of his
friends and relatives.
He ran, but not far. He stopped as he saw an Eldar run Janet through
with a sword.
Turning away, he saw a lance of fire enter Medis and smash it in one
blow.
He tried to close his eyes, but each time he saw a new death, or some
new horror visited upon his family or friends.
* * *
Becker got up angrily, now very mad at the alien psyker. He raised his
rifle and yanked out his bayonet, sliding it onto the end of the
rifle.
He charged forward, holding the bayonet out. He was determined to
spear the Eldar on his rifle.
He didn't realize the Eldar was carrying something other than a staff.
As he neared, the Eldar dropped his staff and gripped in both hands a
long blue spear with a silver blade. The Farseer thrust it toward him.
Becker's charge was cut short. The Farseer's spear had longer reach
than his bayonet. Pain curled around the wound in his chest and he
dropped his rifle.
In one last act of defiance, he grabbed the Farseer's spear. But that
just served to give the Eldar yet more of him to fire a surge of
energy down the spear and through. Pain like a flame washed up his
arms and through his torso.
The Farseer yanked his spear free, sending an arc of blood through the
air.
Becker dropped to his knees and fell forward on his face. In seconds
he was dead.
* * *
Amber screamed, both in terror and rage.
She raised her pistol and began firing again at the Farseer. The
results were much the same.
This time the Farseer held nothing back. He threw his arm forward, and
hurled a bolt of psychic energy at Amber.
The bolt struck her in the side of her torso. She could feel searing
heat across her chest and side. That heat dug into her, causing her to
scream again, but in pain.
A second blast hit her, knocking her to the floor and burning through
her chest. In a horrible flash of psychic energy, her ribs, lungs, and
heart were burned away.
* * *
Bob shook his head. He refused to believe the sights he was seeing.
The images faltered. He willed them away. They seemed to flee before
his presence. He followed the dark thoughts back to their origin, and
then into the depths of the mind that had spawned them. In there he
learned many things about his assailant.
He shouted out, “Luthien! I will make you pay for the lives you've
taken.”
He was suddenly at the monolith’s ruin, facing the Farseer again. The
alien seemed to falter and stepped backwards.
Bob drew the sword he'd captured from the Eldar in the last room. He
thumbed it on, glad that the gloves had prevented the weapon's
previous user from having it genetically locked.
The Farseer looked warily at the sword. He thrust out with his spear,
trying to impale Bob with it. He knocked it away with the sword.
The Farseer spun and came around with the spear upraised, ready to
remove Bob's head from his shoulders.
Bob ducked and sliced upward, managing to bat the spear away again.
The Farseer backed up. Small pieces of stone came up off the ground
and took flight in Bob's direction.
Somehow, miraculously, he managed to avoid almost all of them, with
the occasional stone scraping his forehead or bruising his leg. He
shook off the mental effects of the attack and ran forward toward the
Farseer.
The alien began to raise its spear to impale him. He lashed out with a
foot, at an angle that caught the spear below its blade. The weapon
was batted aside, and Bob brought his other foot crashing down on the
Farseer's helmet.
The Farseer staggered back, then brought his spear around in a quick
reverse-slash, opposite to his early moves. Bob jumped back, wary of
the move, and his cheek was grazed by the weapon.
He faked a stumble, making the Farseer come for him again. This time,
he was more than ready.
The spear came around again, and he ducked and kicked upward. His foot
connected with the alien's hands, causing him to drop the weapon. In
the short moment the Farseer was off-balance, Bob brought his sword
around in a diagonal arc. The blow caught the Farseer in the shoulder,
and continued down to his stomach before he could do anything to stop
it.
He yanked his sword from the Farseer's stomach and kicked him
backward, knocking him to the ground. He approached the heavily
bleeding Farseer and frowned down at the dying Eldar beneath him.
“How does it feel, scum? How does it feel to die?”
He spat on the body and closed his eyes. The prize they had sought was
won. It was over.
* * *
Bill came into the room, his breathing ragged from the short but
vicious battle with the Eldar defenders. He saw Bob standing in the
middle of the courtyard, blood spattered across his uniform and
seeping from some small wounds of his own.
The Farseer lay dead, sliced open along the front of his body. He
could no longer harass the Imperial soldiers or this world.
He noticed Becker, lying on the ground with a horrendous wound in his
chest. It seemed as if he'd been impaled.
And then, he noticed Amber. She lay motionless on the ground, her
chest and side almost completely burned away. A horrible smell of
burnt flesh drifted up from her. He dropped to his knees and reached
down to cradle her in his arms.
Small drops of moisture began falling, and began to be even larger
drops. Rain came down from a dark sky, causing the pools of blood to
spread.
Behind him, as the rain began to pour down from the sky, Bob turned
his face to the skies and screamed, an expulsion of his anger,
sadness, and fear, all in one wordless sound that echoed through the
courtyard.
Bill felt like doing the same, but found he had no energy left to do
so. He'd lost a second love in just two short weeks. All he could do
was cry, and that he did. |
