Ballad of the Brothers: The Lion

Chapter Four

Caiaphas had spent all night diving in his wooden prison, whittling away at the dam with his weak psy blasts. After each blast he had to return to the surface, and cough up all the water he had inhaled. By the time the sun rose he had only worn away a small segment of the dam. He knew that the crocs would be coming for him soon.
The fighting had stopped, and even though he hadnt participated, he was just as exhausted as if he did. He lay on his back, squinting up the chimney at the sky. If he was going out, he was going all out. He'd need energy for that.
BOOM!
He was startled to his feet by an explosion at the west wall. The chimney began to collapse. As he scrambled out of the way of the falling debris, dancing around massive stakes of wood that seeked to run him through, he remembered the note. He dashed out through the hole, only to find that a raft awaited him.
While he was relieved that someone was breaking him out he was concerned due to the people that were doing so. The skippers of the boat were tall and birdlike in stature, being cloaked in feathers. Their beaks were polished, smooth, and sharp. Wings fused with arms, meticulously maintained talons gesturing and most importantly shining, they exuded an aura of quiet, polite bloodlust. He stood at the hole in the waĺl unsure if he should step on with such dangerous looking creatures. One of them was at about 8 feet tall, and the other one was around 6 feet. The shorter one had the face of a shrike, while the taller was more akin to a roadrunner.
The taller one silently preened as the shorter spoke up in a calm, muffled voice, its head bobbing and arms gesticulating animatedly;
"W-well don't just stand here GAW-!...Gawking, I mean, get on. We can explain the situation to you on the way to get your things."
The other one, poling stick in hand, nodded with an intimidatingly deep, "mmhmm, mmhmm."
Caiaphas reluctantly stepped on. They tossed him a sheathed machete.
"In case things get a bit...scaly." the lighter voiced one explained. She, or he assumed it was a she anyways, audibly strained not to stutter.
"Uh...thank you? If you don't mind me asking...what are your names?" He was slow and careful with his choice of words.
"I am Shen." The tall one answered.
"And I am Gaol." The other added. "Your father sent us for you to use as you please. Well...he sent thirteen of us, but, well, the others were killed. By the reptilian chief, Gharl. Do not worry though, they died willingly, albeit like a bunch of WARK-...ninconpoops."
Caiaphas tried and failed to process this dump of information. He tilted his head in confusion.
"Caiaphas. You are most likely thinking, 'how can my father send these people if he was dead for over a decade?' The answer to that is simple. He assigned us before he died. He also said not to tell you anything about him until we deem you are ready, so that is out of the window. We have been watching you, though. Back at the Jagd. In the desert. In the...shaded stall..." Shen trailed off. He was looking at the sky and shaking. "Shen. SHEN. It is okay. He has these...moments from time to time... Though he prefers not to talk about why it is." Shen calmed down. "I am sorry. This happens to me sometimes. Still, I would ask that you do not stand directly behind me for a while. Anyways, as I was saying, we have been keeping tabs on you. Those birds you have been chasing away? That was us."
Shen was visibly tired after that long rant. He was not the kind of person that enjoyed talking.
Caiaphas was dumbfounded, slightly afraid, and felt guilty for some reason nagging at the back of his mind, a memory that was instantly suppressed. "Oh. Okay." He responded weakly as the arrived at the place where the bathing incident took place. Corpses of reptilians, cleanly dispatched and looted of ornamentation, lined the path to the village. At the center of the village, Obma and his head guards stood in a half circle, apparently waiting on them. They were all covered in scars and one even had a knife sticking out of the back of his head, though he did not seem to mind. Stacked in two piles to the side were the bodies of the other Rocs.
Strix leaned on his axe. "Looks like this the last of em. After this we eat like very fat."
Caiaphas was disheartened at the sight of all the carnage surrounding what was basically him being an accidental peeping tom. He then realized that all they really wanted was a reason to fight. To kill. He could not blame the chief, because although he hated to admit it, he also smoldered on the inside, hungering for battle.
He drew the machete and pointed it at the chief. "You heard the man, Shen, Gaol. I don't know about you, but I'm pretty hungry myself."
Gharl pointed his axe at him. "Let us see who will be the one to eat."
Caiaphas used his free hand to command the Rocs to attack. He two handed his machete as he and the chief rushed at each other, weapons clashing on the upswing. Gharl was stronger but Caiphas had more finesse, and was able to use his blade being caught in the crook of Gharl's axe to knock his hand upward and follow it up with a one handed slash at his side. Gharl was too tall for Caiaphas to reach his head, otherwise he would have went for decapitation as a way to end the fight quickly. The other two were busy fighting off the guards. One was using a greatclub he had picked up off of one of the nearby croc corpses while the other was fighting in a flurry with a stiletto and estoc, becoming a cyclone of iron and feathers. Caiaphas was rapidly trading blows with the massive axe, clanging, sparks, and chips of iron flying left and right.
Since it was a duel, Caiaphas was not using his powers to parry nor defend, so the stakes were high and his blade was getting dull. A few axe hits grazed him after he did not backstep far enough. He was holding his own through footwork and sheer force of will. Eventually, Gharl got greedy after scoring a hit to Caiaphas' forearm, and went for a sideways attack with a long windup. Caiaphas switched hands and cut through the reptilian's hand before it could finish it's no doubt devastating attack. As it screamed in pain, Caiaphas hacked through it's chest. The machete was stuck, partly embedded in bone, partly in cardiac tissue. It punched him away in a last blaze of glory, sneding him flying, before collapsing to it's knees. Its transparent eye flaps closed over its dead eyes. The Rocs finished up, and rushed over to treat Caiaphas' injuries.
"So...when's dinner? He inquired jokingly before falling unconscious, having exhausted the last of his adrenaline.