Bloodsword: War of the Leaf

Retribution

Cursing hotly, Nalu swung the heavy, two-handed sword up and around to bring the blade down in an overhand blow.  Only to watch it shatter into silvery fragments on a barrier of energy that had formed around the human's kneeling body.  With a flare of reddish light, Tev's bonds fell away and a healing wave of warmth washed through him.

"No!" Kestival barked as he ran forward, gripping his medallion tightly.  With a simple gesture, his Silver Hawk armor began to form around him, tinkling musically as it appeared.  Then he and the other Silver Hawks in the crowd, were drawing their weapons and pushing forward.

Without looking up, Tev raised his left hand.

"You're dead," he rasped and a flare of reddish light appeared around his hand.  It was instantly echoed by a swirling mass of reddish energy that formed around Kestival's body.  The Silver Hawk had just enough time to stagger to a halt before, with the sound of crumpling metal, snapping bones and bursting tissues, he was crushed into an unrecognizable mass like a hand crumpling used parchment.

As the mangled mass of metal and flesh dropped heavily onto the ground, the chamber was instantly cast into dead silence.

"The Sword of Blood," Gerin husked as Tev stood, his shield shimmering around his body.

"He uses its power!"

Tev looked over to capture Nalu's horrified stare and smiled coldly.

"And you're next."  The human's right hand stabbed out and a massive tendril of energy snapped out to burn right through the Sun Guard captain's armor and body.  Gurgling thickly as his life left him in a rush, Nalu dropped to the ground where he had stood, dead before he could hit the ground.

A second tendril ripped apart the guard that had roughly handled him at Nalu's command before, howling madly, several more Silver Hawks burst out of the crowd already in full armor.  Their energy weapons were clutched tightly in gauntleted hands.

Turning to calmly peer at them, Tev reached up with his right and touched the blood that now ran freely down his face.  Bringing his bloodied fingertips away, he quickly sketched the shapes of azora in the air in front of him.

Snarling, the creatures literally climbed out of the stone in front of the Silver Hawks in less time it took to draw a breath, throwing themselves bodily onto the charging Solavar.  Screaming, the Silver Hawks went down, their weapons firing wildly as they tried to defend themselves against the blood magic creations.

Tried and failed as the first Silver Hawk died when the azora he faced bit through his helm and deep into his head, ripping his life from him with a jerk of its powerful stone jaws.

"Sun Guard!" a grimacing leftenant barked as he jerked free his weapon to leap in front of a cowering Gerin Has.

"Protect the emperor!"

Tev turned back to the throne to find himself facing a forest of raised swords, all gleaming in the late afternoon sunlight streaming in through the throne room's massive windows.  The massed Sun Guard also included what was left of Tev's escort, which had darted out from behind the human to join the soldiers gathered around the emperor before they joined their comrade and their captain in death on the floor.

The human grew a predatory smile as yet another Silver Hawk died screaming beneath the stone claws of Tev's ravenous creations.

"Sun Guard, the cream of the Solavar's military.  Do you truly think your metal and flesh is enough to stop me from killing your precious emperor?" he asked coldly and the soldiers blanched, several of them glancing over to where the stone azora were finishing off the last of the Silver Hawks.  Just in time to see those azora cast their hungry feline gazes onto the shivering crowds of nobles that were too frightened to attempt to run out.