Airel - Aaron Patterson [121]
Kreios noticed Yamanu; his weapon shone like the Sword of Light—in fact, as he looked around him he saw that all the angelic weapons had the same halo around them. Angels were arcing on shallow trajectories into the air in short bursts, careening back to earth, and enemy body parts and blood flew outward from their impacts. They would loop up into the air again, readying to deliver their next blow. The angels were killing over a hundred of the Brotherhood at a stroke, and soon, inevitably, the will of the evil army was broken. Command and control of the Seer hung by a thread.
Atop a heap of the bodies of his own men, the Seer stood with black robes billowing in the light of a supernatural midday. For the first time that many of the angels had seen, he had a weapon in his hand: a staff of obsidian, whichemanated darkness.
Kreios said to the remnant in a small but commanding voice, “Go and find any who have escaped. Kill them; there shall be no mercy for these.” Yamanu took them and flew to reconnoiter the remains.
Kreios removed his blood-soaked and stinking cloak, letting it fall to the ground at his feet, revealing his gleaming burnished breastplate. He pointed the tip of his Blade directly at the Seer, and from the distance between them, called him by name. “Tengu! You shall bend the knee!” A howling screech of agony greeted him in response. Kreios’s body rippled with white light, making his birthmarks gleam in silver and gold. The Sword was perfection, glowing as if it had just been drawn from the forge.
“No, Kreios!” He spoke in spitting disgust, firing out barbs of speech like wet wood on hot coals. “I shall not bend the knee!”
“You are wrong; you have been marked and you have been overmatched. Bend the knee you shall; if I must kill you to bring it about more quickly—I am ready.” Kreios took to the air very slowly, sizing up his prey, waiting for him to show a chink in his armor.
The Seer laughed raucously. “You cannot kill me, Kreios!” There was a long pause as they sized one another up; the Seer on his mound of flesh, Kreios riding the air. “You would not kill your own brother… would you?” He held his staff aloft, brushing his dripping hood back, letting it fall around his shoulders. He moved the head of the staff in a hypnotic series of circular motions, bathing himself in the light that now streamed down on them from heaven above, raising his face to it, feeling the unfamiliar warmth. The act was sacrilegious. It was clear in that light that he bore a likeness to the angel Kreios.
The Seer called his name, singing it like a child’s lullaby. “Krei-os,” He laughed hideously, his face marred by beauty; its features uncomfortably hung and draped over emptiness. He was a picture of what once might have been lovely, but the thought of such things was fleeting and repulsive, out of place.
Without any warning, The Seer’s host changed in appearance, becoming a withered old man, and he cried out in agony. Kreios lunged forward. The Seer was manifesting into two forms, and he needed to kill the host before the demon Brother could emerge. If he successfully split, the kill would be much more complicated.
A black bat-like wing protruded. Kreios was closing fast; he raised the Sword and hacked it off as he landed on the heap of bodies, the end of the wing skittering off, curling inward upon itself, rolling into a ball and finally exploding in a pungent whiff of sulfur. The Seer’s scream was surreal, being a mix of host and demonic parasite.
He wheeled around to face the angel, furious. As Kreios recovered into his ready position, bringing the Sword up to guard, the demoniac completed its manifestation. Kreios’s heart fell in that moment, knowing that he might have missed his opportunity to put an end to all of this madness, and only by a hair’s breadth.
The old man, a shell, screamed wildly at Kreios, wielding a short black dagger. He lunged very quickly, driving it into the angel’s side. Kreios smacked him, sending him flying into the forest of corpses that lay scattered roundabout them.