Call to Octoron - Part II - Mantel
Mantel waded into the brackish waters. Thunder clapped on the horizon. A storm was coming. The water was chilly to the touch but his thick, scales insulated him to the worst of it. A warrior will forgo all comforts. A Warrior will embrace difficulty in their life. A Warrior will render themselves mute to the suffering of their own body.
He knew the litanies just as well as the next Zingirian Battle Master. He helped write them after all. The water crept over his mouth, then his eyes, and then the world was nothing but the cold wet of the swamp. Mantel focused his mind. The isolation of the water made it difficult to track what was going on but he could sense the changing pressures around him. A push against his leg, that was an inland cuttlefish. A swish near his ear hole was the cavitating bubbles of a propeller frog some distance from him. A massive woosh as a great measure of water was suddenly displaced told Mantel that his prey was close.
Mantel twisted to the right allowing the massive creature to swim right past him. Driving his massive spear forward, he waited to feel the tension and tug of the spear tip piercing hide but it never happened. This one is smart. A pressure change to the front of Mantel. He kicked his trunk-like legs, narrowly avoiding the thrashing jaws. Not too smart. This time Mantel’s spear found its mark…
Emerging from the swamp waters like a legendary god of old. The monstrous mud beast in tow. There had been a time when a beast like that one was slain in a glory hunt, that the body would simply be left to rot once a trophy was taken. This creature would feed an entire village for many cycles. A boat approached; Mantel caught the smell of the crude burning engine on the wind. The smell reminded him of death.
It was a war barge. Several of his Warrior-kin were waiting at the bow for him.
“Mantel,” the biggest of the group called as the barge slowed near the shore, “The siren wails!”
Mantel gritted his teeth, “Get me back to the Temple.”
The Temple of the Moon was a glorious monument to the Warrior Ethos of Mantel’s people. The Siren, as it was called, beat a somber note across the night sky. The companions were being called. The Anomaly had arrived. Mantel saw to the preparations of the Rift Portal.
“What are you doing, Mantel?” one of his kin asked.
“We have been summoned,” Mantel strapped his father’s spear to his back, “We do not ignore this.”
“We are not even certain of why they are calling.”
“It is clear that the Anomaly has attacked one of the Council worlds,” Mantel stood at the platform and focused his energies, “Our people agreed to answer the call whenever it came.”
“Did the Council help us when the Aeger’s battered at our walls?” Another of his kin exclaimed.
“If I am to defeat the Anomaly, we must put aside past transgressions. That is why the pact was created.”
Mantel’s Kin said nothing more.
The Rift Portal flared into life, “I will return. Prepare our defenses. It is only a matter of time before whatever is happening on the other side of this Rift comes to our roost.”
With those dire words, Mantel stepped through the Portal.
Mantel bellowed a war cry loud enough to shatter stone. The flesh constructs marched in from all directions. Mantel buried his spear in one and lifted his Warhammer over his head, bringing it down on another beast with a sickening crunch.
The litanies of his people echoed in his mind as he battled the Anomaly’s hordes. The Anomaly acted as a hive mind through all of its supplicants. Each battle death brought new knowledge for the Anomaly to learn from. Each defeat was another lesson to shore up its own weakness. Every victory brought another strategy in the fight against the living world, against the very physics that held the universe together. Fighting the Anomaly was like fighting a clock ticking down before it hit midnight.
The other Companions fought veraciously but Mantel wondered if they could actually save Detune. We must find Rhax. Mantel smashed another monster with his Warhammer before pushing through to where Surrack was making a larger and larger pile of flesh constructs to stand upon.
“Mantel!” the ram-headed Demon-tamer bellowed, removing his sword from another construct, “Another one for the pile!”
“This is not a glory hunt, Marthian,” Mantel pointed out towards the vast horde that was closing in on them, “We must fine Rhax and leave this forsaken place.”
Za’sahar galloped up to them, “I fear Mantel is right. This planet is lost but I sense our Companion is still alive.” “We need to keep this horde busy long enough to buy ourselves time to find them.”
Ghildel’s voice echoed in their minds as one, “I can focus my Mora and make the horde fight itself. I do not know how long I can keep them at it, the anomaly is very adaptive to our Mora abilities but I will do what I can.”
Mantel looked to a pile of rubble some distance away from where his serpentine warrior-kin rained down Mora infused arrows on the horde, each one blasting holes in the gathering ranks trying to reach her. “I will stay with Ghildel and protect her while she gathers what Mora she can.”
“Then the rest of us will scatter across this blasted hellscape and find our Companion,” Za’sahar nodded.
“What will we do when she runs dry?” Surrack asked from atop his corpse pile.
“I will use the cube,” Mantel said. They knew what it meant.
Mantel kicked off and let his momentum build as he sprinted down the pile of dead Anomaly creatures. He lowered his shoulder and crashed through a gathered throng of fleshy creatures. They parted like a bloody wave but Mantel didn’t stop. He gathered his momentum, bounding and leaping across rubble, craters, and more dead Anomaly fodder. Mantel needed to save his Mora. The cube required so much of it and any bit expended before that time could spell doom for this entire expedition.
At the foot of the pile of rubble from which the Torian launched her arrows, Mantel took his place. An endless sea of flesh monsters stumbled at him. His spear and Warhammer moved as though they had a mind of their own. Cutting, crushing, stabbing, and smashing with effortless movement.
“I’m ready,” Ghildel spoke. Above Mantel, the serpent touched a finger to her forehead and let out a wailing chant that echoed across the battlefield. The flesh constructs froze in place. Mantel edged back, ready for one to strike at him once more. For a moment nothing happened. The entire world seemed frozen in place.
Mantel spotted movement. A flesh construct pushing through the crowd. Mantel prepared to strike it down until he spotted the soft blue glow around it. The monster stood in front of Mantel and began attacking other constructs around it. More blue auras surrounded more constructs and a swirling melee began.
“Now, go!”
Mantel watched as the other companions scattered in search of Rhax. Dodging as they went, allowing the constructs to battle each other. Mantel climbed to the top of the rubble to join Ghildel. Her eyes were closed and her body coiled up. The concentration could not be broken and Mantel would not allow it to happen.
Despite the growing ring of mind-controlled beasts, a few of the Anomaly’s soldiers made it through and made their way up the pile. Mantel dispatched them as quickly as they were making their way to him. “They haven’t found Rhax yet,” He looked back towards Ghildel, the mental strength she showed was beyond most capabilities. Not only was she keeping up the mind-control spell but also keeping tabs on the other companions who were spreading out across the wastes as quickly as they could. It was a most impressive feat to behold.
“Wait!” Ghildel echoed in Mantel’s mind, “They might have found them!” The Serpent uncoiled and a great blue beam shot from her eyes into the sky. The blue aura surrounding many of the flesh constructs faded away. “That’s it, the Anomaly has pushed me out” The Torian collapsed just as a construct was descending on her. Mantel hurled his spear through the creature’s center, sending it tumbling down the rubble along with his spear. Three more were right behind it. Mantel bound over Ghildel and broke them bodily with his Warhammer. I guess it is my turn. Mantel produced a small, gilded cube from beneath his robes. Running his claws against the pressure points known only to him, Mantel watched as the cube flowered into a contraption that defied logic as curves and panels slid in and out of each other while arcing electricity jumped between them. He held the device close to his chest and waited for the three pulses of light that would tell him it was ready.
Flesh constructs clambered and jostled to get at him at the top of the rubble. One pulse thumped against his chest like a war drum. The constructs were at the top of the hill. A second pulse, harder this time. Ghildel propped herself up and readied her bow. It wouldn’t do any good if they reached her. The third and final pulse hit him like a hammer swing. Mantel pushed the parts back together and a great invisible wave spread from the cube. Mantel didn’t realize he had shut his eyes but when he opened them, he was face to face with the crude blade of a flesh construct. It was frozen in place. Not simply bound by the magic of mind control as Ghildel had done but locked in the second of time when Mantel activated the runed cube.
Mantel sighed. Altering the fourth dimension in such a way was only to be done in the direst of circumstances. The long-term impact of localized space-time alterations had yet to be determined. Ghildel looked around her at the halted world.
“Tell them that they have all the time they need but that they must hurry,’ Mantel pushed the construct away.
“What is the distance that the device works out to?” Ghildel asked after informing the others.
“Its effects spread for one lightyear then stop,” Mantel sat, his body ached with the effort of the battle, “this is something that not even the Anomaly can get around.”
“I do not imagine freezing time and space in one location can have the best ramifications for the universe,” Ghildel said, for once using her vocal cords instead of her mind.
“We suspect the Anomaly may have been born of such an event, but we didn’t’ have a choice, did we?”
Before she could answer, Ghildel perked up and looked towards the horizon, “Surrack found them!”
Mantel allowed himself to smile, “then this has been worth it.” He stood up and produced the cube once more, “Tell everyone to open their portals and get back to the meeting grounds. I will wait until you are all safe and deactivate this before joining you.”
Ghildel put a hand on his massive shoulder, “Thank you.” Mantel only nodded.
One by one, flashes across the horizon told Mantel that the others had crossed through their rifts. At last, it was only Mantel and his Serpent Companion. She opened her rift portal and slithered through. Mantel looked upon the wasteland that was Detune. He hoped that a sixth Companion would be the difference between success and stopping this from happening again. He thought of the thunder on the horizon back on his homeworld. There was indeed a storm coming, and they would all have to ride it out together or die. Mantel applied a single claw stroke across the top of the cube. The world shifted back into movement. The flesh constructs crashed forward but Mantel was gone before they could reach him.