|
|
|
This is now complete, the message is delivered and the story ends here (for now) wink
They crawled down the walls like spiders surrounding them, she could count five. In the blink of the eye three shapes jumped on the vampire, but he managed to avoid their attack with swift flight back, the other two took on her and Craze.
It would have been easy to eliminate them by using the power of rings, but the person who wanted them dead cunningly chose a very good spot to set up this ambush. The council had a shield against use of rings on another person inside the building and the secrecy of this corridor was a good guaranty that their corpses will not be found soon, if ever.
Syl grabbed her short dagger and made few steps backwards allowing herself to create the space for fighting in this narrow corridor, Craze just smiled saying “I don’t think I want to mess up my clothes today”, he stood still as the attacker jumped onto him, and then in middle of the jump dark creature cramped and squealed as it’s body loudly hit the floor, Craze grabbed it’s head and turned it quickly with rattling sound of broken bones. The sound of metal blades echoed trough the tunnel behind him as he turned to see what was going on with the vampire. Another black shape laid lifeless on the ground with large cut over the chest and stomach, the smell of the warm human blood sliding down the cold marble floor filled the air, Vampire was playing with the other two, avoiding their attacks quickly and moving across the walls and ceiling like the gravity was not meant to be applied on him, all the time he had a deadly grim of joy on his face showing his long shinny white fangs. Craze heard the ribs crack as Kearoo pushed his opponent to the floor with enormous force, the man gurgled when the ribs punctured his lungs and heart, the vampire was laughing, in split of the second he somehow caught the last one and nearly ripped his head of while breaking his neck.
Syl was standing above her dead attacker, cleaning her dagger on his clothes, “ Nice try!” she mumbled, then she looked at Craze with rage in her eyes, “Who ever arranged this, obviously expected only the two of us, otherwise he or she would knew that you can’t kill a vampire so easily. Lucky for us that people stupidly try not to believe in their existence...How did you do that without using your rings?”
“ Oh it’s just a small useful teaser device built in my belt,” he smiled. Kearoo was licking the blood of his hands when he approached them.
“You love to tear them apart and to make that bloody mess, don’t you?” said Craze with hidden anger and sarcasm in his voice, the vampire just smiled
“ It’s in my nature, besides these are just someone’s puppets,” he answered.
“Clean up yourselves and let’s go” said Syl, “I’m clean” added vampire with a joyful grim, Craze just rolled his eyes and sighted “ I’ll find someone of trust to deal with these bodies later”. They proceeded down the corridor almost running.
The round Council Hall was nearly full.A ring shaped amphitheathre that consisted of small open cabins with six places each (for members of clans and guilds) was placed under the large transparent glass ceiling. In the center was round empty podium for speakers, and in front was large high silver pedestal with only one row of seats, this was the place for four main city representatives among the members and the chairman of the Hall.
It looked like a mixture of parliament and theater, and most of the time discussions tended to become much like the other one. In the moment three persons sneaked by the guard into the room hiding in shadows of the last row, a young man stood up from the place of the chairman and addressed the crowd.
He looked too young for a role he had been given, dark black hair, black eyes and nearing his thirties, all of the sudden the commotion stopped and there was silence while his voice echoed trough the Hall.
He was talking about war and recent news and events, many of those things everyone already knew, but the Council was summoned to decide what steps are going to be taken next because they were running out of time.
Syl whispered to Craze “Why is he the chairman now?”
“He made several breakthroughs in his recent experiments, I’ve heard that one of his discoveries is the most significant thing for land in the last century, but they keep it a top secret until they decide to enlighten the rest of us!“ he answered annoyed.
“Oh, I see.” Then she continued to scan the crowd comparing the past information in her mind with what she was seeing now in the Hall, “well, most of the members are the same, there are only few new ones” she thought, as she was searching for one particular member.
The whole Hall was like the rest of the Council in bluish and gray colors, on the left side of the speaker among the cabins in the middle row she found what she was looking for, members of her clan. There were six of them including lord Cardo and the clan leader Kenshin Ryume also known as Dragon. The leader was younger than most of the clan leaders, but if his face would have fooled someone to think of him as an easy opponent, his harsh dark eyes were telling the different story. Most of people knew him as smart but sometimes bad tempered man with history in Guard and politics, he was one of the few who mastered little known forms of martial arts and the stories about him were so confusing that no one knew where the truth ends and fiction begins…The vice commander Delano Sloane sat by his right side, then there were Haru, Shadow, Resha and the others, she couldn’t quite see well behind them. Cardo was nervously checking the entrances and sighted relieved when he caught her look, he whispered something to Dragon who looked at her with a question in his dark eyes, she just nodded shortly and he turned his look back to the speaker.
“…. You know we now have several other problems and this war is only one of them, so we summoned this meeting to hear and decide what steeps should be taken next, the future of our land is at stake…” as the speech was coming to an end people started to whisper and murmur among themselves, soon the hands were in the air announcing the new speakers and questions.
“It’s time, we must act now” said Craze and pushed them down the passage to the podium in the middle. At that moment lord Cardo stood up and addressed the chairman,
“I apologize sincerely for this disrespect, but this is the matter of the greatest importance – the messenger that was sent to Silver Mountains has returned with the answer, my lords.”
There was surprised look on chairman’s face and on many other faces and then suddenly loud noise of people discussing and commenting replaced the previous shock of silence, the chairman raised his voice
“Silence! Why wasn’t I warned about this before the opening?”
he hated being caught by surprise and stared at lord Cardo with daggers in his eyes, meanwhile lord Cardo stood quietly for several moments waiting for the crowd to calm down, then when everyone overcame this surprise he answered
“ My lords, the messenger arrived early this morning and there was not enough time to notice everyone, and we thought since everyone will be here…” the chairman interrupted him angrily
“It was not up to you to decide! This shall not be overlooked easily lord Cardo, now let us hear what this messenger has to say!”
Syl and Kearoo stepped to the podium in dead silence with all eyes on them, she bowed slightly to the people in high places in front of her, the chairman addressed to her “You are the envoy we have sent, do you have the message I wish to read it first, before we question you and who is this person with you ?”
“ My lords, Keepers of the knowledge gave me no message for you,” she answered politely, ”but they have sent the answer to your question and this by me is Kearoo, one of them, the man that has their answer.”
She could swear that some people are piercing them with hate in their eyes when she finished, the chairman was curiously looking at Kearoo and probably calculating the next step in his mind, then finally he said
“ Our question was, what can they tell us about the force that came upon us and caused this war, what is their answer lord Kearoo?”
Kearoo stepped in front of Syl and bowed “ If you allow me …” he said, then he unbuttoned his black coat and reached for the pendant on his neck, he took the two pale milky crystal stones of the pendant placing each of them in one hand and then stretched the hands. Everyone sighted when the aura of electric light caused his body to almost crucify itself in the air, a large oval field of light appeared above his head and the far away voice spoke from it:
“The force that you ask us about is not new,
it is ancient and this is not the first time it comes to prey upon us.
Hundreds of years ago a blazing fire hit the ground behind Silver Mountains
known now as Black wasteland.
The place was then green and alive just like the worlds are now,
but the strangers came sleeping inside the light,
and they turned the land into dark lifeless place
before the old ones learned how to stop them.
Yes, there is a way of stopping them and even controlling them,
but this knowledge is too dangerous,
because it can fall into wrong hands and it can be used against people.
The old world is defending its borders and forests now,
strangers were bound long time ago by eight seals made by eight oldest clans and
doomed to stay in the dark hole their arrival created.
Only the Keepers knew the secret and guarded the place with their lives,
for seven centuries we’ve kept the northern borders and Silver mountains
out of limits for clans of people,
but a traitor has stolen two seals and released some of them,
we’ve found the man who did it, but it was too late,
his mind was stolen as well as the seals.
We’re sending you two persons of trust with this message,
they will unveil you the ways of fighting the creatures.”
When the voice stopped and the light disappeared, Kearoo leaned on Syl exhausted, the murmur again began to spread across the Hall when she addressed the Council.
“ My friend here and I are exhausted, we won’t be able to answer all of your questions now, my lords, furthermore there have been several attempts to kill us since we came here, so I ask of you to place us under the protection of lord Cardo and my clan until we can explain to commanders the ways of protecting the soldiers and killing the creatures.”
She could hardly hide the anger in her voice, instead of chairman she stared at her clan leader waiting for support. Dragon was calm and cold as the ice block, he was watching the chairman and those with him,
“May I approach?” he asked, they nodded.
Kearoo could barely stand, and after a few minutes of talking with those arogant five up there, Dragon waved his hand and Cardo, Delano and Craze took them out of the Hall. She could hear the disapproving noise of voices echoing behind her, but she couldn’t care less,” those fools deserve to be destroyed, always plotting against each other for gold and power, instead of trying to save lives they prefer to take lives…they should be the ones to suffer not people!” she cursed them all in her mind as she was leaving.
 Syl Talma · Thu Jan 03, 2008 @ 11:40pm · 4 Comments |
|
|
|
|
|
