Legends of Marithia: Book 1 - Prophecies Awakening: Uncut and Extended Second Edition (27 page)

Rumble…

The earth quaked and knocked them both down
to the ground, as well as the Dark Army in their close vicinity. As
the dust began to settle, Helenia recognised the body of the Dragon
Queen lying in the middle of the battlefield. She could see that
the dragon was not breathing and appeared lifeless.

Karven's growling voice boomed over the
battlefield, “No! Nymira!"

The Dragon King marched with furious intent,
ignoring the weapons raining down on his armour and scales as he
powered on through the destruction. Nothing else mattered as he
made his way to Nymira and nudged her now-lifeless body gently with
his head.

Andrielle came into their view as the dust
continued to settle, her armour covered in splashes of blood. She
knelt down and grunted as she ripped her sword out of a downed
skeleton warrior. The Queen of the Elves approached the dragons,
small fires around them reflecting off her shining armour.

“I am
so
sorry, Karven,” began
Andrielle. But Karven would have none of it.

“Our queen has fallen – there is nothing left
to say! She must be avenged!” growled Karven with a shaking voice,
his eyes fiery.

His power appeared to affect the other
dragons as their eyes also grew fiery and narrowed. His voice rang
over the battlefield. "Dragons,” he screamed, “it's now or never...
Show them our fury!"

The King of Dragons entered into an
uncontrolled fit of rage, as he flew with purpose into the middle
of the Dark Army and wildly began to attack anything that came
within his reach. The remaining dragons landed around him and they
fought from the ground as a unified group. Finn and Karven both
leapt on the attacking golem, absorbing the powerful blows from its
fists as Glaucus pounded into their scaled flesh. Tails swung
viciously into a group of shadow demons, sending their bodies
flying high into the air, and the dragons breathed fire over them
as they fell back to the ground.

“Take down those dragons,
now
!”
ordered Kassina in a booming voice.

The Dark Army closed in on the dragons as the
battle continued fiercely. The sound of laughter was heard over the
screams, and Kassina emerged from the smoke. She stepped over the
dead and dying as if they were discarded rubbish on the
battlefield. Andrielle and Faowind stood together beside Helenia.
They gripped their swords tightly as the sorceress came to a halt a
short distance ahead of them, the wind blowing her hair across her
face.

Vartan, where are you?
Helenia
desperately sent out her call.

“Oh
please
,” snarled Kassina, pointing
a long finger at them all. “Your precious boy should be well and
truly dead by now, along with his pathetic excuses for parents. All
of you are next! You will all die here tonight.”

“No! My love! You
lie
!” Helenia
cried.

The princess took a few furious steps towards
the sorceress, but stopped herself in her tracks as Kassina raised
her hand and attempted to throw lightning at the elves. A few
sparks flickered at her fingertips and she shook her hand in
annoyance. Kassina sighed, reached down to her hips and drew out
both of her swords to her sides, adopting a defensive stance. She
smiled, revealing her pearly fangs as her fingernails grew into
claws and her eyes narrowed. “I guess I will have to kill you all
with my bare hands.”

Andrielle snarled. “Do you seriously think
you can defeat the three of us without your magic?”

“Everyone always underestimates me! I am
somewhat used to that. Why don’t you come closer and find out by
how much?” taunted Kassina.

Suddenly a man’s voice yelled from behind
her. “Why don’t you turn around, wench?” Kassina half turned to see
Vartan and Leon standing beside Nymira’s dead body, their weapons
drawn.

“So here we all are by fate's design. But
these odds are hardly fair, are they? It is time to even them up a
little,” giggled Kassina. She sheathed one of her swords, brought a
small horn to her lips and blew hard. Andrielle cried, “Watch the
battlefield!” and they turned to face all directions, waiting for
whatever reinforcements Kassina was calling in.

“Oh, were you expecting your vampire army?”
Vartan's voice was lathered with sarcasm.

“Let’s just say that their energy is all
burned out and couldn’t make it here tonight,” said Leon. “Are you
so afraid of us that you need all of your vampires to help you?
Enough talking – let’s get this over and done with.”

The men approached Kassina, as Helenia and
Andrielle circled behind the sorceress. Vartan took a quick moment
to glance over at the dragons that were still battling the large
remainder of the Dark Army. Some of the dragons had fallen, but the
majority of Kassina’s army was being defeated.

The catapults were in pieces now, uselessly
lying on the battlefield surrounded by countless dead. Some of the
downed warriors from Andrielle’s army cried out in pain as they lay
on the ground bleeding. Without warning, a handful of silver
daggers rained down on their position.

“Take cover!” shrieked Andrielle as she
crouched down to avoid the falling weapons. Suddenly the sound of
choking was heard from Faowind, who had a dagger’s hilt poking out
of his throat. Blood burst from his mouth as he collapsed on the
ground, clawing at his flesh and staring at them with desperation
in his eyes.

Leon cried out in pain, “not again”, and he
fell to the ground with two daggers half embedded in his legs.

The seven attacking vampire assassins charged
out of the forest, drawing their swords.

“It seems you didn’t manage to kill
all
of my faithful servants, now did you?” snarled Kassina
as she drew her other sword and ran at Andrielle.

Kassina swung both of her swords in a
circular motion, bringing them back together with full force at
Andrielle’s neck. The queen leaned back as far as she could in her
armour, and the blades only sliced through the air in front of her
face. Andrielle kicked forward with all of her might into Kassina’s
stomach. The sorceress was thrown back by the blow, but quickly
recovered as she turned to face Vartan’s sword now stabbing at her
face.

Kassina swung one sword with just enough
speed to knock Vartan’s out of the way and brought her other sword
up to slash Vartan’s chest, drawing a trickle of blood. She quickly
returned to her defensive stance.

“Do you still think you’re special?” she
laughed mockingly.

Vartan took a few rough steps as he steadied
himself and turned towards the waiting sorceress, his adrenaline
meeting his anger. Helenia ran into the path of incoming vampire
assassins, throwing her sword hard and fast to crash through the
heart of her closest attacker. The vampire’s body flew backwards in
the air with the impact and fell to the ground.

The princess panted as her heavy armour
bounced against her unconditioned body, her soft flesh pressing
against the cold metallic surface where fresh holes were torn
through her undergarments. She leaned down to tear her sword out of
the dying vampire and swung it hard to decapitate another. It
landed on a vampire’s blade, sparks filling the air between them.
Trisa appeared from behind Nymira and grunted as she dragged a
groaning Leon away to begin tending to his wounds.

Andrielle breathed heavily and ran at
Kassina’s flank, their swords exchanging blow for blow and neither
of them finding flesh. Vartan wielded his sword with both hands and
ran to Helenia’s aid, as the four remaining vampire assassins
circled her.

Two vampires branched off to focus their
attention on Vartan, slashing wildly and hissing at him. Vartan
jumped over the sword of one attacking vampire, and plunged his
sword deep through the head of another, its acidic blood running
down the blade. He came face to face with the disintegrating
vampire, and could smell its nauseatingly putrid breath as it
screamed into his face in defiance. It was as though its breath
held the story of a thousand bloody deaths. Helenia elbowed another
vampire away from her and spun to slice the head off the other. It
bounced onto the ground beside them before shattering into
dust.

Kassina growled and her face contorted as her
swords were met with the determined queen’s defence. She spat
through the right eyehole of Andrielle’s helm. The queen groaned as
she stepped backwards and shook her head in confusion, her vision
partly blurred. Kassina pushed her to the ground, where her body
landed on top of Faowind’s cooled corpse. The dark sorceress
laughed wickedly as she raised her sword.

“Say goodnight, great Queen, as I put out
your lights forever and send you to the underworld!” screamed
Kassina.

Andrielle scrambled to stroke a shining jewel
on her armour that emitted a bright blue light. Kassina watched as
Andrielle’s armour moulded into a solid mass, allowing only a tiny
slit for her to breathe through.

Kassina snarled as she brought her face to
the queen's helm and screamed, “Damn you!”

Helenia cried out as a vampire’s blade found
her shoulder. She fell to her knees and groaned with pain as the
vampire started to swing his sword to slice through her neck.
Vartan screamed as he ran between them and met the sword with his
own, then punched the vampire hard in the face. The sorceress
turned away from the immobile Elven Queen, and watched as Vartan
dispatched the last two vampire assassins with relative ease. Their
bodies fell apart before her eyes.

Kassina spread her legs out to a wide stance
and pointed a sword at the boy of prophecy. “It's time to end this.
Vartan, come and fight me... Maybe you will do a better job than
your useless mother. What was her name? Oh yes, I remember your
father’s blood curdling cries… Victoria."

Be careful, Vartan,
said Keturah.
She is hiding something, but I can't read her… she has some form
of protection.

He turned to stare Kassina down, his body
pulsating from the adrenaline and anger built up inside of him. He
gritted his teeth as he cried, "Don't you
dare
say her
name!"

Vartan charged at the sorceress with
confidence; each swing of his sword connected powerfully. Sparks
flew into the air between them as they focused on nothing other
than each other. The battle was fought with such ferocity and speed
that it was difficult to tell what blows had landed. With a scream,
Vartan brought his sword down with fury toward the top of her
head.

Kassina crossed her swords high to catch his.
He grunted with frustration as he applied all of his might to push
his sword downward. Beads of sweat poured down his brow. Kassina
groaned as she forced his sword higher into the air.

Vartan yelled in her face, “You heartless
wench, it is
you
who will die here tonight!”

Vartan, listen to me!
pleaded Keturah.
Something is wrong – get away from her as fast as you
can!

I can handle this. She will die at my
hand!
responded Vartan.

“That may be so…” said Kassina, grunting as
she forced his sword even higher, their faces only an inch away
from each other. Vartan could feel her rich breath on his skin. Her
eyes glowed red momentarily, then she stuck her slithery tongue out
and licked her lips seductively.

“If only you had made the right choice,
Vartan, and joined us, everything would have been different. We
could have ruled the world together under the Blood Red Moon. You
could have had
everything
, you could have even had… me,” she
said.

Vartan spat in her face and kneed her hard in
the ribs. Her hold wavered momentarily, and then she pushed his
sword back up with all of her strength. Her suggestive smile
twisted into a contortion of hate.

“That was the wrong choice—you fool!”

She grinned at Vartan with a knowing smile,
and cast a spell.

“
Praefocere limus venenatus
defundatur.
”

A slimy green liquid burst from her mouth and
landed on Vartan’s face. He struggled as best as he could but was
unable to stop the liquid from shooting up his nose, sliding down
his throat and infecting his body. The tip of his sword dropped to
the ground and he felt dizzy. Vartan weakly picked up his sword to
defend himself before falling onto the ground. His body felt so
heavy that he could not move a single muscle. Kassina laughed
loudly as she sheathed her swords and raised her right hand in the
air, letting off tiny sparks before sending a few bolts of
lightning into the sky.

“Silly boy! Did you
really
think that
I would leave myself so drained that I could not cast spells of the
lowest order?” said Kassina. “Tricking all of you to get you alone
was the easy part, but this will be the beginning of Marithia's
end. With your death, your precious prophecy, that all your hopes
rest on, dies with you and for all who resist us.”

The sorceress closed in on his fallen body.
Vartan could only watch as her hair blew in the smoky wind; she
tucked her hair behind her ears. His eyes were heavy and
increasingly difficult to open. Vartan blinked as he hazily watched
Kassina raise a shiny dagger into the air, running her tongue along
the blade, and felt the burning white pain as she plunged it into
his stomach. His blood splattered on her face, and he could only
watch as she licked it off her lips.

Again he felt the pain as she stabbed him
through the ribs. His voice was heard from afar as he screamed out
in agony and spat out steaming hot blood. Kassina lay down on top
of his body, digging the dagger in deeper. She smiled as she
slurped the blood off his lips and swallowed it. He could feel her
hot breath on his neck as she slid her tongue along it before
bringing her face back up to his.

“You have the sweetest blood I have
ever
tasted. I will take great pleasure in draining the rest
of your body and turning you into my personal slave,” said Kassina
with a wicked smile. “I know of your powers, but as a vampire you
will be immortal, and I have methods of making you obey me so you
will never take your own life. Your prophecy will never be
fulfilled, and this world is ours.”