by Diedra on Mon Jun 22, 2009 11:38 am
Liam spun in a broad circle, fire spraying with lethal accuracy from his semi-automatic. Several raiders dropped and others retreated into the trees, limping and clutching their extremities. The hero of the township of Canton, the leader of its militia and the sole means of survival of its people, shot an incendiary round into the air and tackled another fighter to the round just before a seeker would have taken her out of the world. The heat-seeking missile followed the incendiary and disappeared harmlessly into the thick cloud cover. As embers rained down on the battle, all orange and gold, Liam jumped back up to lead a last, definitive assault on the thieves that so plagued his home town.
A flicker of unnatural black caught at the edge of Liam's vision and dragged his head around, distracting him for enough time for a volley of bullets to dissolve ineffectually in his brown Aura.
Then came the flood. A seething mass of black uniforms, faceless and impersonal the way a brick wall across a freeway is impersonal, the way acid rain is impersonal, swept the battlefield, made a river between the thieves' forest and the town. They struck out ruthlessly, randomly, leaving the defensive force crippled and clotted with injured men. They trampled the militia and grabbed Liam by the arms and legs and carried him away, like an immovable riptide of fate. Liam lifted his head to watch helplessly as in their wake his militia was crushed by the raiders, his town overtaken. The diseased obsidian river carried him away and left a scar of death and decay behind, in the place he loved and had, formerly, protected.
"I'm not as noble as you think."
Liam's bulky muscles were lashed so tight they bled - only his head was mobile. It rolled back and forth seemingly out of his control, driven by physical pain and the incomprehensibility of his loss.
He continued, "I'm not in the resistance. I only care about Canton. Just Canton." He looked up suddenly and, laughing ridiculously, said, "I thought about it before. I thought about joining the resistance. But it was too much risk to Canton. Too much risk... to that smoking pile of rubble. Look what you turned it into now." Shaking his head he repeated, "Too much risk..."
Caleb was annoyed. "Shut him up," he snapped to a guard, who smacked Liam hard across the back of the head. It seemed to have no effect - he was done talking anyway.
Caleb's eyes peered over the crushed man. He was beginning to believe him. But he made just one last, impulsive assault. "Who are you?" he screamed, like an amateur, like a child, and crazed desperation was in his sickly eyes.
A stone-coldness came into the captive's face and he said with perfect certainty and an eerie calm, 'I am Liam Armistead. Head of the resistance. The thorn in your side. The only thing keeping you from total domination. I am your nightmare, and they are coming for you."
He didn't expect to be believed. That wasn't the point.
Caleb yelled senselessly and shoved the prisoner's chest, toppling him over, and, pivoting on the sole of a white boot, stalked out of the room. In the doorway he snapped his fingers. With that final signal to his second to eliminate the man, he slammed the door. He never looked back.
His body settled in a plush chair and a sullen, cold anger settled on his face. King Caleb Jerimiah picked at the hem of his white sleeve and as the muffled dying cry of a warrior pierced the walls, his servants noticed blood on his hands.
Last edited by
Diedra on Wed Jun 24, 2009 2:03 pm, edited 2 times in total.