Anthem's Fall

Chapter Sixteen

A heavyset Royal Guard tried to step into the elevator to fight alongside him, but Vengelis shook his head sternly and motioned the soldier back into the cheering bunker. “Protect them,” Vengelis said to the brave Royal Guard as the doors shut between them with finality.

The lone journey to the surface seemed to last ages as Vengelis blinked at the closed doors. It was hard to conceive the yoke that now rested on his shoulders. As the elevator rose, so too did the rate of his heart. He could feel it pumping furiously, spilling oxygen and rushing adrenaline into his muscles. Vengelis clenched his fists and cleared his mind. His palms were sweating, and his ears rang.

His face was stoic.

The elevator opened with a hiss. Vengelis sprinted through the barracks and into the terrible massacre that greeted him in what once was a florid courtyard. He looked around him, unclear on how he was going to find the machines. Overhead, black smoke was gathering like a storm above Sejeroreich. Vengelis lifted off the ground and ascended into the caustic cloud cover. The midday sun barely held authority over the sky, it was merely a shadowy dot tethered in the billowing blackness. In the unseen distance of the city beyond the palace walls, sounds of unspeakable destruction and torment were swept up in the wind and carried to Vengelis’s uncomprehending ears. Dozens of dark skyscrapers appeared in the veiled sky around him, though many more had fallen.

“Where are the machines?” Vengelis screamed as he scanned the city below. It was impossible to discern anything, least of all these so-called machines. He shouted again and again, not knowing what else to do.

An oil line caught flame and exploded suddenly outside the palace, causing a spire of bright red flames to leap high into the air below him, the blaze in sharp contrast with the shadowy streets. He bore down at once, descending toward the whooshing flames. As he approached the inferno, Vengelis saw that a melee was underway. He slowed, hoping to catch a glimpse of a Felix.

The first thing Vengelis saw amid the fire was a man. Initially, he thought it was a member of the Imperial First Class that had shed aside his armor, but he changed his mind at once. This man looked like a demon born of fire. He moved amid the roaring flames that leapt from the spewing oil line. Sheets of burning fluid covered his body, his face and arms engulfed by dark crackling flames. Yet he was unaffected. The burning man was moving with faultless coordination, and a speed such that Vengelis had never before witnessed.

A soldier in Imperial First Class Armor with huge limbs and monstrous hands lumbered toward the burning man. Without even seeing the soldier’s approach, the burning man jumped over soldier’s broad shoulders and landed directly behind him. A burning arm wrapped around the Imperial First Class’s head and twisted his neck, easily snapping the giant’s spine. Another Imperial First Class started charging, fist cocked. The burning man covered the distance to the soldier in an instant, flames leaping around him, and launched his elbow squarely into the soldier’s solar plexus. The soldier gasped as a smoldering leg slammed into his chest, launching his body across the street. The Imperial First Class’s dead form crashed into a building, which collapsed inward from the impact. The burning man then turned, sending a smoldering fist straight through the chest of another Imperial First Class. Dark blood spurted from the soldier’s punctured armor and sizzled in the blistering heat.

Vengelis exploded down toward the flames, stopping just above their reach. He was livid with this burning man. Why would Primus be fighting Primus at this hour? He tracked his gaze across his surroundings, all around the flames and street beyond, but he lost the position of the strange burning man. He cursed and descended to the street level, touching down outside the flames.