Paths of Damnation - The Final Chapter (never got to the parts between)

We were gathered in the rooms above the inn. Rooms we had spent so many days, evenings and nights in talking with those gone and those still with us. I had come too late to change the battle's outcome. Five survivors. Of twenty six rash young fools, only five had lived, and we may still lose Billenius. Her breath had burnt him badly as he tried to reach Nonia to save her. Arms, legs, chest, face, all burnt. He had inhaled her breath and thus scorched his lungs and throat as well. And unless the gods would grant healing to him, or the great healer come soon, nothing would save him. 

The local priests of his kind are trying valiantly to save him, and failing. Only the gods could save them. Or that servant of my sire, if he could be found. I could feel the old lizard, even across all that expanse of sand to my east, flying here himself. He had told to guard this elf, but I had failed. I was certain that the rage I felt was more at me than the bitch of our kine up that mountain. She had withdrawn not because of my presence, I knew now. One of those upon my back was who she had feared in that moment. Rutilius was not the fool we had all thought, and his rage had surpassed mine on that ridge below her lair. 

And now, I had to play the waiting game. To see who would come first, the death god of his folk to take his spirit from his flesh, or father and his healer. Had I the knowledge of how to call him, I would break the rules of all and call upon the rider of the ass to come to his aid. 

The fear of the blue ones screamed across the leagues of desert, as my sire roared by them, I could sense them all, seeking the deepest pits of sand to hide from the rage of the heir of the Lord of the Arbitrations. And it was a terrifying rage, one that was causing fear even in the heights above this town, where the Queen of Flame lay trying to heal her own wounds, dealt more by the ones she had maimed and slain than we who came in rescue. I knew I would taste some piece of that rage, even if it were only words. 

The dwarf beside him with the arm so chewed up by servants of the beast was crying as the dwarven chirugeon sawed off the arm above the elbow. But the tears were not for himself, but his dead twin still up there on the mountain's foothills, where ever the creatures of flame had taken his body to toss aside or consume with their inner flames.

Still I feel my sire, there is no cooling in his rage, or his determination to be here in time to save those he can. This is not the beast that others think he is, but the one I know of, who does have a heart, and it is as red and loving as all think it is black and cold. Billenius was my friend, and for that father had spoken with him several times over the years. Then something else had grown between them, a respect for each other, or what they were to me. I know not still. 

There is the displacement of air outside and the rage is here, but contained more closely of the sudden. I hear the howling winds raging out from where he has teleported to, like the storms of the desert that often assail this town on the benches that rise from the desert floor. He is here, there is hope. Doors burst apart before the healer as he enters, giving commands to bring him supplies for healing and surgery. All know who Zotikos is, the great healer who serves my sire. 

None know the whole truth, and if they had, he would have been slain in that moment, out of fear he had come to ally with the bitch. The door opens, and he strides in with a pace that is nearly a run. He bypasses the three the local healers had thought to save, and approaches Billenius. He stops and hisses loudly. 

"Bahai-Luthna-Naish." With that naming, my own mind exploded. She had forged her own fate, created the thing that we dragons feared the most. Sees-Without-Eyes" that my sire's sire's sire had prophesied of. The bane who would slay the great dragons of the day and choose from those he left alive to be the next Lords of the Arbitraitions to take back our ancient homeland.

Now I knew the respect of mine sire for mine friend. 

Sample of the work from November... just a rather large snippet, really

The following is the sample I'm sharing about the tale I wrote for NaNoWriMo, just a piece, well into it. When I wrote this, I knew I had to go back, re-write the whole damned thing, but hell, it gelled the tale for me. This is the raw, mostly unedited thing that flowed out, one day at a coffee shop to remain nameless, so I can keep using it to write and hide from the world while doing so. 

Sikilashtar allowed her wings to spill air, leading her Mulusu down towards the girl walking the long, empty stretch of road. Her AndarU created a clumsy landing, the bulk of the battle armor plant forcing her to stagger. None of the others preformed perfect landings either, something difficult under the heavy gravity of this damned planet. She followed the commands still of witch Hili, coming here to find those still hiding from the domination by the Fey Princess.

"Don't let her hear you call her just a princess, Mashkim." One of her battle sisters chuckled.

"I said that out-loud, did I?" Sikilashtar replied, ashamed. "Sorry, Sanabi."

"Very loudly, too." The earth child they sought to capture said, still facing away.

The Mulusu brought weapons to bear, fast. The words of the earthling were in the sacred tongue they spoke in, not some earth language.

"Mashkim... there are reports that some earthlings turn rogue, and are very dangerous." The soldier to her left said, reminding her of their mission. To gather in humans, and slay any who resist being put under Hili's will.

"I know. And they speak our tongue, learned by their transformation in the contamination of this world by the Shimxul." Sikilashtar said.

The child waited. She appeared young, human, yet had pink hair, and a certain grace that few of them held. Not that they had not found signs of such, but it had become rare. By her height and build Sikilashtar estimated her to be in what the humans called their mid to late teens, having the starts of the womanly, perfect figure humans sometimes shared with the Sedu. The tattered, blue jacket she wore over the heavy leggings the rebels called 'blue jeans', and seemed to prefer over the offered Utug, living clothing, made of parasite plants, offered by the Sedu to let them wear, marked her as a holdout, one of the rebels. A strange logo decorated the back of the jacket, in red, white and blue. A small bear cub. Her shoes were not the heeled things of the Sedu rule, but flat soled, red canvas things.

"Child of Kibala, surrender to the orders of the Lugal." Sikilashtar commanded. "Turn about, and give your flesh to our empress's rule."

"No. Give yourself over to mine." From under the jacket a weapon appeared. Sikilashtar aimed her own, but gestured for holding fire. The weapon had not been aimed at them, just shown, held by left hand, aimed to the side and up.

"Mashkim..." One of her younger squad members gasped. "That weapon."

Focusing upon it, Sikilashtar snarled. "We were told there was a base out here, near that land of craters and death glass, that the humans supposedly held aliens in. I guess those stories were true."

"All too true, sadly." The human said. "Surrender, and I will give mercy. Keep follow that pretender to the Zidguza, and I will make even Shumash fear my destructions." The gun held steady, in a grip only experts with that model, long ago abandoned, save for ceremonial use, in the service of one person, the heir to the throne.

Sikilashtar's anger grew. Before the coups that led to this debacle, the destruction of a human civilization, she'd served in such, and was pissed at this earth child for carrying such a weapon, and at herself for not recognizing it instantly. "You are unworthy of that weapon, earthling. Set it down, and tell us how you learned our language and found that tool."
"No." The child stood, long pink tresses blowing in a breeze that looked hot and nasty, given the dust  it kicked up registered as highly radioactive. Deadly to humans. Sikilashtar debated just waiting for the particles of the real to tear the child's flesh apart.
"Then you will die. But, I still must know. How do you know our language?" Taking aim, Sikilashtar, the pure heart, prayed to the gods to forgive her for killing an innocent, misguided child.
"I answer your question with one of my own." The human said, holding perfectly still. "How did my sister die?"

Sikilashtar cocked her head, not surprised at the question, too many rebels blamed the conversions and deaths of family on them all, not just Hili's special corps made for that purpose. "I know not your sister, child of earth. We have killed many here, sadly. So you will go to the heavens never knowing. But I must know how you came to speak the Emezir. Tell me, or die."

The earthling's reply was to turn her head, giving hints of a beautiful face when the moving hair let more than her nose show. "How did my sister die, Mashkim. I know you know, you would have been there. I know those markings on your AndarU." The gun was armed with a touch of her finger. "Tell me how Tukgala died, Mashkim Lash. Tell your commander you did not betray the Diluzu to that witch Sallilu."

Arming the gun started the mulusu on the path to destroying her, as they spread out into a wider formation, to avoid all dying in the battle to come, for the Telmuna guns were named aptly. They made the holder's arm into a land of missiles, or at least where it was pointed into one, each shell of the gun tossing out thousands of monofilament diamond needles. Not even the AndarU would save them from such a weapon, which is why only the royal family and their guards held such.

"Drop it, child."

"I'm older than you, Lash. You just don't remember it, I guess." The gun rose, still not pointed at them, but now aimed straight up, by the left ear of the human, who looked forward. "Last chance, how did that Nighul dumma Asipu have Tukgala killed?"

That insult hit home, at last. And the name she'd been called, she realized was an old nickname of hers, not some earthling insult. "Dingiri." She whispered. "It cannot be. I saw the wreckage."

From the girl's hair, two long, golden antennae rose. marking her as one of the Sedu. "If I am who you now fear me to be, Lash, you best answer, before I lose my temper."

"Lillashu." Shaking her head, the Sedu warrior fell to her left knee, right knee supporting the clear leaf helmet of her AndarU. "Empress. Forgive us. We failed."

"Tell me, Lash. Tell me it was not treachery you participated in, treachery by your hand." The child of earth turned. "Tell me she did not give up the secret, and lead to this mess here." The hand moved around her imperiously. "Tell me I'm not having to grow up because you stabbed my sister in the back."

"When you ran off, we were demoted." Sikilashtar said, sobbing in relief. "Even I thought you could not have survived that crash, on that world, when I saw.... DINGIRI... That Bitch!" Standing up, the mashkim tore off the helmet leaves of her Andaru, feeling the parasite's pain, but not caring she wanted nothing between her eyes and the ones she met. "This place. This is it, GusukalKi. The bitch wiped that out of our minds."

A soft smile touched the lips of the teen-aged girl. "Which Witch?" Now in English, she watched the commander of the squad fighting to deal with the homonym. "Sallilu or this little Hili slut daughter of hers?"

One of the mulusu spoke up. "Princess, Sallilu ordered her killed. But we saved her, at Hili's order. But, what her end was, well. The still sealed in soldier of the Sedu shrugged. "I know nothing of that, but she was on Nymphia, when the Nigkua betrayed the truce flag."

"On whose word was it the Nigkua. They might be aggressive, and dumb at times, but they are not suicidal. Especially not Baphy." The gun now rested on the shoulder of the girl, who still refused to relent in her pursuit of answers.

"Hili...." Sikilashtar let her voice trail off, only to curse softly.

"Now THAT is the Lash I remember." The girl smiled. "Rise up, gather round, we are going to rock this witch to the ground." Lillashu grimaced. "Def Leppard's heirs will sue me for mangling it that way, then again, the boys probably would have been right behind me in revolution. Who knows."

"Def Leppard is a philosopher of this world?" One of the younger Mulusu asked.

"Nope, musicians. Well, musical philosphers, I guess. Unlike us, they actually used music to carry messages to the people." She strode into the pack of the kneeling soldiers, reaching up to pull down a suddenly smiling Sikilashtar's head by the jagged, but healing collar leaves of her AndarU. "Now, stop stalling, talk to me. Tell me how Salli did it, how that witch took down my sister. Or, I throw a tantrum."

The smile grew. "I think at last, my empress, you are too old for such."

"Royal perogative, I get pissed off, I can toss a tantrum, I just get to lob grenades and use my Telmuna you gave me when I ranaway." Lillashu waved the gun a little, as a reminder. "Now, old friend who really raised my sister and I, tell me how Tukgala lost, so I can do something of the same to this little minx Hili."

"She is your neice, by Salamacis..."

"Screw that crap. She's an usurper. And allied with ZiReDam. Don't care if she's my own kid, which I have not had one of yet, she's dead. Treason. Regicide of at least one empress, a lot more I bet." She aimed the gun between Sikilashtar's eyes, face grim suddenly. "Talk, Lash. Tell me what the hell went down after I left, so I can fix it."

All but one, a younger girl of the Pisuzu third flesh, spoke. Telling the tale, as they knew it, of how Salamicis rose to power, seducing a heart-broken child empress when her sister's vessel had been found on the true earth, home of all the races. Of the death of the then empress, by poison in her AndarU during a skirmish with the forces of Gorgon, Baphomet's rogue brother, and other treacheries done, by both Hilimaaz and Salamacis, against the poeple. The silent one stood, angry at this betrayal of their empress.

"Hilimaaz will slay you all for speaking of these things." She snarled, aiming her own gun at the child.

"Only if she hears of it." Lillashu said, her weapon dropping and firing in one smooth move, the needle gun shredding the armor and Sedu inside it apart. As her body dropped, the grim faced girl, face streaked with tears snarled. "And here I thought I was just fighting to bring back baseball."
Sikilashtar's face scrunched up in puzzlement. "What is baseball?"

The girl blinked, looking at her former bodyguard. "Something these earthlings had, a past-time sport, a unifying thing." She shook her head. "Something we all need, I guess."

The still kneeling guards all unhelmeted, the transparent leaves of their helms unfurling slowly, exposing nine Diluzu with bright, tear-filled, fearful eyes. "Empress." Sanabi whispered. "We offer our lives for our sins."

Turning back to the earlier pose, back to them, Telmuna gun resting by her head on shoulder, Lillashu stared out across the wastelands once known as Frenchman's Flat, eyes rising to the pass to her former home and prison, where the dry remains of Groom Lake once lay. "Live your lives. Live them to redeem those sins." She said, turning back, face fierce. "Let's give these slug lovers a war they won't forget."

Cold winds stirred up the dust again, sheathing them all in the rising haboob, erasing the traces of their ever being there.