The Iron Pillars

Chapter 22

When Albatross disappeared into the ranks of his men and Brant followed, a group of the soldiers took hold of him. Their attempts to detain Brant quickly fell apart. He dispatched them all quite easily, even without using his blade. When he used his shield to ricochet a general's bullet right back on him, his men swiftly learned a lesson.

Except one man. A soldier with dyed black hair and blond eyebrows tossed his weapons aside and snatched Brant by his shoulder. The taller, burlier man spun to face him. Their gazes locked.

"You ain't nothin', pickin' on those wimps!" he growled in an Odegoan accent that Brant felt defiled Hannah's heritage, "Wait 'til ya get a load of me, partner! C'mon, just you and me, huh?"

Brant rolled his eyes and watched as his gloves absorbed the metal particles comprising his axe and shield. Once his hands had been emptied, he beckoned the man come closer.

He eagerly obliged. The man hurled himself at Brant, falling fist first into his chest. Making no move to block, Brant watched him crumble at his feet, groaning and clutching his hand from the mere impact of punching his hardened muscle. With a sigh, he pulled the Alcontean up by one hand and let his legs dangle as he held him by his neck. He gritted his teeth and tossed him aside like an unwanted toy, knocking several Alconteans over like bowling pins in the process.

"He was foolish." Sila said as it dashed past Brant, flames blazing.

Brant nodded. "Clearly."

He squinted into the huddle of soldiers. Albatross was hardly an easy man to miss in a crowd, so the difficulty in finding him concerned Brant. Then he smirked. Several of the Kemarian men from his squad had managed to corner him into the Innutukian shieldmen, trapping him with their pistols and shock rods. He paced like a trapped animal. Knocking Alconteans aside right and left, Brant generated new weapons and charged straight for his endurant foe.

Brant leapt at Albatross with a mace poised to rip several holes in his skin and tear them apart. Distracted by the sputtering warning shots from the Innutukians on one side and constant jabbing of shock poles by the Kemarians on the other, Albatross didn't see it coming. The spikes tore right into the flesh of Albatross' bicep.

Brant tugged and tugged, but he couldn't get the man's flesh to tear as he'd planned. Instead, he received a heavy backhand, throwing him back several feet and causing him to let go of the weapon. The mace crumbled out of Albatross' wound and nullified all his struggle.

Albatross strutted up to Brant with his metal-encased fists clenched. He raised one for a bruising blow. Brant threw himself to the ground and rolled before leaping up behind him and slamming his shield into his skull.

While the god stumbled away in a daze, Ace emerged from the shadows with a bottle of pepper spray. Brant backed up. Then he frowned when instead of spraying through the nozzle, Ace ripped the cap off and hurled all the contents of the canister into Albatross' face.

Hacking and choking, the god staggered away. He clutched his eyes and appeared ready to rip them from their sockets. His skin, already wrinkled from the splash of acid, now swole up into puffy red mounds of flesh.

When Ace hurried closer to stab Albatross, he received a swift laceration from the sharp edge of the god's wrist-mounted shield. Ace hissed, but still tried again. The other shield conked him on the head. Albatross kicked him in the groin.

Brant gritted his teeth sympathetically as he watched Ace collapse into a fetal position on the ground. Then he shifted his focus back to the task at hand and created a sword in his hand. He thrusted it into Albatross' belly, but the blade only penetrated a half-inch of flesh before it met heavy resistance. The god swatted Brant away.