The Rising Sun: Episode 6 (17 page)

Zardin stepped to the side and, in the span
of an instant, sent three deadly slashes across the air, which Ion
parried with only a mini second’s grace each.

Without waiting, Zardin leapt forward, his
sword thrust forward in a wild jab. Ion’s sword swiped across the
air, and a burst of orange sparks occurred where their swords
met.

“Now you know why I tried to get you to join
us.” said Zardin, his razor sharp teeth exposed in a grim smile.
“But you refused, didn’t you. I knew you would, I just wanted hard
proof of it, before I could kill you with all the pleasure I knew.
And now, kill you,
I will
.” And with a shriek of fury, he
pounced again.

__________

Feeling eight thousand years’ worth of fury
rush up his veins, Redgarn lunged at Mantra, sending a slash across
his side. The Nyon master parried his blow with a lazy swipe of his
own blade, leaving a shower of sparks around them. Then, twisting
about at the speed of light, he sent his sword in a wide strike
across the air by his left. And two of the Xeni by his left fell
back with large glowing slashes etched over their black robes.
Redgarn felt fury grind his mind with a new resolve.

“No! now
YOU
DIE!” He lunged and sent
a speedy jab at Mantra, who leaped to the side, at the same time
spinning over to block the three other Xeni’s slashes swiftly.

Redgarn made a sharp lunge at his nemesis,
and before Mantra knew it, he had been tossed five metres into the
air. His head gently brushed the roof of their cave, before sinking
in an elegant arc, and crashing onto the ground. The force of the
airborne soar left him rolling over the cave’s ground, before
coming to a stall right before the tablet Valicros, which was still
steaming and issuing dry sparks into the air … But despite the
heavy fall, Mantra jumped right back to his feet the very next
second in front of the tablet, his sword held ready. His white eyes
seemed to radiate a power and fervour as they scanned Redgarn and
the three other Xeni.

He turned his head to steal a quick glance
around him, no doubt to collect the details of how his other three
disciples were faring. Two of them, a girl and a bronze haired
Redling boy, were in the grip of duels that fared worse than his
own. They were both being pushed further and further back,
swallowed by an entire pack of his men … They were all done
for.

And the revelation could be clearly seen
shadowing Mantra’s expression. The lines around his jaw went
stiffer as he gritted his teeth, staring dead ahead where Redgarn
and the other three stood, waiting to attack.

“It’s too late, Mantra.” sneered Redgarn, and
the other three by his side made jeering grunts. “Too late to
fight. Everything that you’ve striven to protect for so long is now
in complete ashes. Tonight, my demon army would have scoured the
entire spectrum, and taken complete control. Everything you and
your pathetic brotherhood have scraped a living for across eight
millennia, has been for nothing.” He spread his hands, feeling his
lips pull back in a leer. “Tonight, the evil empire has returned,
and the world shall remain bound under its feet forever now.
Tonight, we end what we started, and I’ll show you how wrong you
were, to have challenged me in that room that day. Eight thousand
years ago.”

The four of them stood before the last of the
Nyon masters, feeling the thrilling anticipation build within
slowly, waiting to set them loose again. Mantra held a completely
unwavered, composed gaze with Redgarn, his white eyes strangely far
off. He seemed to be thinking, lost in reminiscence…

And then, to the surprise of all four of the
Xeni in front of him, a grin cut across the old man’s wizened
features.

“Yes,” he said softly. “right you are, and
right you’ve always been. Tonight, we
will
end what we
started eight millennia back.” He gave a mild chuckle. “But as you
once said, old friend, let’s finish what we started
in
style
.”

Without warning, he twisted around, hands
outstretched, held pointing towards the broken, damaged tablet
behind him. A jet of fire escaped from both of Mantra’s hands,
tailing around the tablet, the broken and damaged remains of the
most powerful tablet. Valicros seemed to glow as the jet of fire
surrounded it. And then, for a moment, a dazzling flare of orange
light shot out from the tablet, immersing the entire world. And as
the light was sucked back into the tablet, Redgarn and the other
four staggered backwards, their eyes shielded. Mantra turned back,
his eyes seeming to linger with the bright, dazzling flame that had
just unleashed over the tablet behind him.

A moment passed when there was no
comprehension in Redgarn’s eyes, for what Mantra had just done. But
the very next moment, as the air around the glowing orange tablet
crackled … understanding flooded him. But it was too late.

Mantra jumped out of the way of the glowing
tablet, the air over which was starting to awaken with bright ropes
of flame out of nowhere. As Redgarn and the four others watched
with bounding horror, the glowing tablet seemed to spit flames into
the air around it. But no ordinary flames … tongues of swirling,
coiling orange that seemed to slither over the place like fiery
snakes having minds of their own. They danced over the air, roping
around of the tablet for a mean moment after their release, before
turning and shooting across the cave.

Redgarn himself was half blank with dawning
horror and alarm. For he knew what had just happened…

He’s just performed an ancient spell …
Inferno, the spell of the fire serpents!
The revelation was
followed by swift burst of fear.
And he performed it on a
broken
tablet! The spell’s now going to loosen completely out of
control!

The three other Xeni stagger backwards as
they witnessed the sheer awe, coupled with bewilderment, of what
they were witnessing.

As the glow consuming the tablet brightened,
the fire serpents, the tongues of flame released by the tablet,
grew longer and swifter. They seemed to spring out of thin air,
their light spreading over the entire dark interior of their cave.
They shot across the place like airborne snakes, coiling and
swirling over the air. Redgarn had just a second to understand that
the growth of the fire serpents was going to intensify, and
speeden. As one, the four of them jumped out of the way, ducking.
And not a second later, one of the coils of light shot through
right where they’d been standing. One of the men who was too slow
to jump out of the way was slashed across by the flame tongue like
a sword, and he hit the ground, dead, beside Redgarn.

The ones spread across the rest of the cave
stopped and stared at this new, bizarre development, all of them
lowering their swords.

The crackling grew louder and deadlier as
Redgarn lay on the ground. He glanced up and saw the tongues of
fire speeden, shooting out of thin air around the tablet, and then
racing across the cave.

__________

The four Xeni Vestra had been duelling halted
and glanced at the tablet metres from where they now stood, which
was beginning to glow and spurt flaming ribbons into the air.

The split second of faltering that they
allowed as they did this was all Vestra needed: she held her hand
up, summoning all the might of her mind. Two of the Xeni fell prey
to the
smash
released from in front of her palm. The wave
like entity collided with them, taking them off their feet. They
soared over and crashed to the cave’s walls, laying a spread of
cracks over it. The remaining two had been knocked to the side by
the wave.

Now having space for distraction, she turned
to the tablet, near which stood Mantra, Redgarn and three other
Xeni. But the tablet metres from them was glowing in a wild orange
colour, and the air around it was erupting with tongues of flame …
Something very unusual was going on.

The tablet seemed to vibrate as it glowed,
with the air around it spitting flames out of nowhere. One of the
tongues of fire shot across right towards them. The entire bunch of
them lunged out of the way. Vestra rolled over the ground, a
scorching blaze missing her by a few millimeters. But a quickly
silenced ear splitting shriek from behind her told her that one of
the two remaining Xeni she was duelling had been too slow to move
out of the way … and was now dead. The other one lay shrivelled on
the ground, trying to avoid the ribbons of fire shooting across the
place. The savage fury in his eyes slowly drained, and fear was
taking over.

The fiery snakes continued to shoot out of
the glowing tablet, swimming over the air inside of the cave, as if
with a mind of their own. The sight made Vestra’s blood still. A
sight was entrancing … but also terrifying beyond reason.

What’s going on?
she thought, panic
flaring within. Metres across, Qyro jumped out of one of the fiery
serpents’ way, while one of the three Xeni he’d been fighting fell
prey to it, engulfed in fire, and hitting the ground a few seconds
later in ashes.

She saw Redgarn and Mantra lying on the
ground feet away from each other, along with another of the three
Xeni accompanying Redgarn. But the flames weren’t willing to spare
the ground either. One of the tongues coiled over the air and
landed on the ground close to where the third Xeni accompanying
Redgarn was, so that his robe was partly set afire. The man jumped
into the air and ran off, his hands flailing as he tried to douse
the flames now gripping his robe.

Vestra’s throat ran dry as she realised that
they, the ones inside the cave, were now being held hostage by
something far more deady than their enemies’ swords … Far more
lethal … and the evidence suggested that not most of them would be
able to come out alive.

__________

Keeping himself pressed to the cave’s floor,
Mantra watched the fiery snakes explode over the cave, spinning
around over its interior. Holding all of them now prisoner to their
own selves. Because one bad move amidst the spinning fire serpents
could mean a painful death.

Mantra would have considered whatever he had
just done the heights of sheer madness in any other ordinary
situation. But this was no ordinary situation. Mantra had called on
the aid of cold logic for this: there had never been any hope for
them, the four Nyon, anyway: there was no chance they could have
fended off more than ten of their enemies. And so, he had done the
only thing remaining to wager them a chance out of here alive … He
had released inferno, and plunged the place into chaos so that half
of their enemies would be killed along with it. Mantra had thought
that it would give them the meekest sliver of chance to survive and
escape. But as he gazed at the horror unleashing about through the
ribbons of fire, which would soon engulf entire place in their
blaze, Mantra realised that his calculations may have been wrong
after all…

It didn’t look like anybody was going to
survive and escape this…

The glowing tablet feet from him was
beginning to turn white hot, and the spinning tongues of flame
released around it were beginning to accelerate wildly. One of them
zipped downwards and lashed the ground less than a foot from
Mantra, who would have been fried to a crisp if not for his razor
sharp reflexes. He rolled over the ground and then sat up, his head
ducked to avoid the fiery ropes spinning over the entire cave.

Around the cave, everyone else had stopped
fighting and were now trying to keep themselves from burning alive
at the hands of the fire serpents swirling about the air.

Redgarn sat kneeled as Mantra was, a few feet
from him. His face was undisposed of the fury masking it all along.
His gleaming red eyes found Mantra.

Without waiting, he launched himself towards
Mantra, missing one of the tongues of flame zipping past him by a
whisker.

Caught in the middle of the inferno, Mantra
duelled with his ancient foe, who was as determined to kill him as
he had been right from the start. His will unhampered even by the
deadly predicament they were all now in. Mantra’s attention was
split between fending off Redgarn, and not getting struck by the
fire serpents spinning around the place.

__________

Zardin hadn’t stopped his mindless assault,
even in the face of this new, extraordinarily strange
development.

What the hell’s happening?
thought
Ion, as ropes of fire sprang into the chamber they were, and
swirled about the air within it rapidly. The two of them were now
amidst a group of wildly spinning ribbons of fire that swept across
the place. Trying to devour whatever they found in their way.

Ignoring the strange distraction as
effectively as if it didn’t exist, Zardin lunged forward at Ion.
Panicky and dazed, Ion felt himself vaguely throw his own sword
over the air to block the assault, before disconnecting the blades
and jumping back as one of the fire ribbons swept down towards him
from the side. Blazing hot air enveloped his face as he missed the
tongue of fire by less than a foot.

Zardin lazily tilted his head as another of
the fire serpents spun towards his head. It passed right above his
shoulder, leaving not a trace of effect on him as he stood as still
as iron, unperturbed.