Call of the Watch Crow, Part-7
Recap: The Consortium and Black Sun Empire continued their battle across the V’Lusian world. The Call of the Watch Crow, a mysterious message had gone out alerting the world to vast change triggering mass revolts as lesser warlords and Chieftains rose up against their V’Lusian overlords. Kall-Ku was approached by the enigmatic Elana with a promise of freedom. She injected him with an internal implant that slowly grew and connected through nanitic means inside his body until it became an artificially intelligent conscience, an insightful voice and clarifying perspective to the frightening changes that gripped the world around him.
Kall-Ku has fought off and evaded deadly Piranha Women, escaped the belly of a dead assault craft moments before its destruction by Consortium rockets, and most recently defeated a black hearted Skin-Jacker, all the while befriending a War-Shuck, a dangerous bioweapon in the form of a scorpion tailed canine; all, occurring beneath a battle raging in the stars between the merciless Black Sun Empire and the insurmountable Consortium. All he had to do was escape V’Lusia and rendezvous with contra-imperial forces in the stars. For the first time he would choose his own allies; he would choose his own battlefields.
He was faced with a death that was not meaningless, and a life worth living. Every moment since he left the V’Lusian Mercenary-Slave legion has been intoxicating, terrifying…and delicious.
Kall-Ku and the War-Shuck are on a remote hover platform, descending toward a village, a strange, unknown place. Dark Skies loom in the west.
No other slaves joined Kall-Ku in his escape from servitude to the legions of Zahnak. He shook his head and pinched the bridge of his nose. Even now, he heard the cries as the Piranha Women fell on the slave ranks, pulling them apart with their savage teeth—mercilessly slaughtering anyone who stood with the fallen V’Lusian government. Many others waited too long before routing and were put to the sword by their own lash masters. Nothing could be done to help any of them; they were casualties of chaos—their death was without purpose.
The War-Shuck watched as Kall-Ku choked the memories back, banishing them to a dark, deep place. The bio-beast was genetically designed to endure and dismiss the unspeakable realities of war. Though it did not feel anguish as Kall-Ku did, it recognized a fellow soldier was struggling to win an invisible battle. It waited patiently, guarding the deck of the hover platform which glided towards a village surrounding a hill on all sides, distinguished by a vine covered tower pointing somberly upward like the crooked finger of an old crone. Darkened skies flashed intermittently with electrical light. The War-Shuck wrinkled its muzzle and growled—a toxic storm was imminent.
Kall-Ku looked up as he crouched over a bag of medical supplies found on the platform while he recovered his weapons. His infected wounds would have to wait a little longer; there was no time to examine the contents now. The acrid stench of toxic wind, laced with a hint of ozone buffeted against him, portending the coming of a storm. He swallowed down the last echoes of anguished screams; those voices were never far away and would always be there to torment him, but there were mortal matters at hand now. A toxic storm was a deadly event without proper shelter, and the platform offered none. He rose to the balls of his feet, hoisting the medical bag over his shoulder. With the chains of his weapons secured to his belt, the Mercenary-Slave moved to the edge of the platform, now moving past the tower to an unknown destination on the other side of the village.
Chain lightning lit up the sky, visibly striking village and treetops. Wood exploded and trunks split violently with devastating force. The brief brilliance illuminated the village. In that moment Kall-Ku saw no movement below; it appeared deserted. More chain lightning flashed further away in almost the same moment. A loud, unsettling sound like frying meat dominated the air. The toxic rain was starting to fall. The cloud burst had not yet reached Kall-Ku, but a deadly downpour of chemical heat was only moments away.
[SITUATIONAL AWARENESS UPDATE] urged his subdermal chip. [THE STRONGEST OPPORTUNITY TO SUCCESSFULLY JUMP AND LAND SAFELY WILL BE IN APPROX…]
Kall-Ku ignored the timing announcement—now or never. With a last look to the War-Shuck, cementing his intent with his gaze, he jumped—the War-Shuck followed without hesitation.
Kall-Ku plummeted without grace to the hard ground. He snapped through limbs and vines, using them to break his momentum, slowing, but not stopping, his descent.
He landed awkwardly on the steep slope, the small, jagged rocks twisting and giving way beneath his weight. He was never able to get his legs beneath him and began to slide down the steep hill on his exposed shoulders. The smooth surface of the stones did not slow his terrible slide, while their edges sliced into his flesh. Beside him the War-Shuck landed with the powerful grace of a jungle cat.
His beast brother caught his foot in its mouth, and using its barbed tail as an anchor, dug into the ground, stopping his ill-fated trajectory. Kall-Ku rocked upward at the hip, stretching forward and grabbing ahold of the War-Shucks head and powerful neck, pulling himself forward and upright with the war beast’s assistance.
“Thank you, brother.” With his feet under him again, Kall-Ku began to sprint up the hill towards the tower. A curtain of sizzling rain drove towards them from the right side. The sizzling deluge drowned out almost every other sound. The trees of this jungle were naturally resistant to the acidic properties of the rain. Jungle creatures had specialized senses that told them when to shelter. Kall-Ku had no hope except for the tower. The acidum-aqua would be on them in a moment—then searing death would follow.
Any distraction or misplaced step would be a lethal mistake. Survival would only be framed by flawless execution. Kall-Ku watched the War-Shuck move ahead of him. As best as he could, he mimicked its path and movement. Once, he caught the War-Shuck glancing back at him. It was intentionally picking a path a skilled human could travel. It was intentionally showing him the way; with this realization, a renewed confidence followed, and with confidence—speed.
Ghostly brown and silvery light occasionally snuck through the cracks in the gloomy sky. The tower loomed before him, an ancient stone sentinel still stationed at the top of the hill. It was overgrown with moss and vines. A few runnels of toxic rain sizzled down the sides of the crumbling walls. Within the crooked tower Kall-Ku hoped to explore the contents of the medical kit. There might even be a clean water source within; a well or cistern. Rusted portcullises lay like the ancient bones of an iron carcass, twisted and broken in the rocky earth. The Mercenary-Slave and War-Shuck blazed through the broken gates just as the devil rain bathed the hilltop in liquid death.
Kall-Ku turned back towards the doorway, backing away from the opening so that no rain would blow in on him. As he watched the distant sky he saw flashes of chain lightning and a brilliant explosion as lightning struck the hover platform, still on its programmed path, followed by a second explosion as the platform crashed into the hillside village.
[SITUATIONAL CORRECTION. THERE WOULD NOT HAVE BEEN TIME TO JUMP. ADDITIONAL INFORMATION MUST BE COLLECTED BEFORE NEW ADVICE CAN BE PROVIDED.]
Kall-Ku blindly dug into the medical kit. He searched for a hand flare. It was a common enough item in many vehicle kits. Without light it was impossible for the powerful warrior to make out details in the dark confines of the tower. Even with the subdermal chip optimizing his senses, he still needed something. At last, he withdrew a tubular flare. He twisted the end, igniting the flaming tip, smitherines flew out from the hot fire sporadically.
Rubble dominated the floor, making the footing only a little less tricky than the cobbled hillside. Kall-Ku looked up at an immense statue, almost twenty feet tall. It was a statue of an ape wearing a hooded priest’s robe. Carvings of emaciated, naked, human slaves held scrolls open before it. The warrior looked slowly around the temple structure. Though queered in the flickering, deep shadows caused by the flare, there were eight more similar statues, each accompanied by the semblance of human slaves, and each representing the same ape man.
“Taranis,” he hissed quietly between clenched teeth. The beast-god of conflict and adversity, or at least that is what he was once taught by the educators who sought to sew fear and reverence into young slaves destined to serve in the Mercenary-Slave legions. Fear made them easy to control. Superstition bred ignorance and ignorance—superstition. He shuddered involuntarily. Though he wished it had been caused by the infection, he knew that it was latent fear of the beast god was still engrained there, lingering as deep as the infection. This was indeed an ancient place; a temple of the Storm-Ape.
He searched nervously for a well or cistern, unable to shake the feeling he wasn’t alone. He felt alien eyes on him, imagining something sinister in the blackest shadows. The War-Shuck began to growl.
[End of part seven…look for part eight, next week]