The Withered Land, THE EMPIRE FALLS: HELL'S AVATAR

HELL'S AVATAR -- PART TWENTY-EIGHT

The sounds of people screaming and the clashing din of catastrophic impacts from metal hammering on metal were deafening. Xemyazzus could barely hear his own voice above the clamor as he bellowed orders to the few Wenkrang warriors remaining alive.

The arcane Tekk-weaponry of the Ashen Brood sentries had exacted a terrible toll on the first wave of eighteen Xsieh'Potheth Vindicators. "Vindicator" was the term by which the Tribe referred to their fearless sectarian soldiers. During the assault, the Wenkrang infantry unit's rabid zealousness quickly overcame the Brood's rigid and passionless militarism, breaching their defensive line in minutes. But the unprecedented arrival of the gargantuan xenomorph, Dessimathiah, had thrown the battle plans of both sides of combatants into disarray. Xemyazzus had not expected the electronic beacon given to him by Atu'ihma to resurrect such a monstrosity. the creature was uncontrollable, killing any and all who crossed its path. Dessimathiah was not at all what Xemyazzus had expected the HyperLord to be; instead of a sophisticated, alien philosopher-warrior of very human-like scale and bio-type, the beacon had awakened a bloodthirsty alien beast that turned on those who had worshipped it. It had become very obvious in a very short time that Dessimathiah had no use for the comparatively tiny, humanoid bio-lifeforms scurrying around the ancient, collapsing remains of the necropolis that had entombed him. Wenkrang warriors and Ashen Brood soldiers alike, died by the dozens...

And it was entirely his fault. He had naively believed the Celestial Empyrean's lies. He had imagined Dessimathiah would be the savior of his Tribe, that the god-beast would help him to drive the hated Ashen Brood from the Wenkrang's territorial domain. He'd believed that the HyperLord would bring pious righteousness to his flesh-eating, cannibalistic people, that they would be forgiven the sin of their awful appetites and be made clean and pure again. But that had been a fool's folly, a madman's fantasy. The creature was an alien, an estranged Otherworlder, and it felt no kinship to the Xsieh'Potheth. In turn, there was no cosmic forgiveness for the Wenkrang. They were tainted and unsanctified. They were Damned. And the Xherim'efarr demi-god certainly had no interest in the historic enmities between the Wenkrang and their former slave masters. Xemyazzus had led his people to ruin.

Now, the brutish, behemoth devil was locked in a lethal confrontation with the fabled Sons of the Bur'heddam, who had at last returned to Shi'draih-Hakaba to settle accounts with those of the Brood who had betrayed them so many long heliars ago. The prophesized day of Judgment had arrived for them all. It was not a thing of metaphor. It was not an event born of myth or legend. It was the dread, dire culmination of many generations of lies, betrayal and murder.

The world had gone mad and a storm of blood had descended upon it.

There was yet one thing Xemyazzus could do before he met his ultimate end. He could reap his revenge against the being he now saw as his own personal devil, his deceiver.

He would kill Dessimathiah.

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Her right leg was smashed, broken, the flesh split open in a ragged wound. Her face mask had been ripped away by the concussive wave from that last strike against the city's shattered chassis yet, even while the last remaining cannons thundered, pounding a barrage of deadly artillery into the enormous alien's near-invulnerable body, she had quickly crab-crawled over a mound of debris back to the city-scarab's intra-bridge command console. Out the corners of her bleary eyes, she could see the bloodied remains of Qeskan Wa'entrud, Ambassador Jhonwin Czuek and the Magistrate.