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The Doomed Bastards: Reckoning (story complete)
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<blockquote data-quote="Lazybones" data-source="post: 4285285" data-attributes="member: 143"><p>It was Parzad, Ghazaran's psionicist flunky/henchman. </p><p></p><p>* * * * * </p><p></p><p>Chapter 57</p><p></p><p>AN END IN BATTLE</p><p></p><p></p><p>Looking into the eyes of the ravager spawn, Dar saw the certainty of death staring back at him. The creatures were not intelligent, at least not in any way more than a cunning beast, but it had marked him and his blade, and recognized him as the foe most capable of harming it. </p><p></p><p>There was naught to do but to press his charge, and meet it in a last confrontation. </p><p></p><p>But as the monster lunged, it suddenly screamed out in pain. Dar saw Kiron, his huge sword blazing with holy power, draw back from the powerful stroke he’d just delivered to the juncture where its foremost leg met its body. His sword trailed droplets of the creature’s blood, but there was far more trailing from the knight’s armor</p><p></p><p>Dar knew what the man had done, what he’d sacrificed to give him an opening, even before the creature’s head snapped back. The wedge-shaped head slammed into the knight with the force of a battering ram, and he went flying back, twisting into a spin as one of his legs clipped the hindquarters of the beast. His flight ended only when he struck the ruined threshold of the vault door at the chamber entrance, and he fell hard, motionless. Maricela was running toward him even before he stopped moving, but Dar could not guess if he still lived after accepting a blow like that. </p><p></p><p>The spawn had gotten revenge for the painful wound it had taken, but it still remembered Dar. But as it swiveled its head back around, the veteran fighter was already moving. Everything seemed to slow down around him. He felt the jarring of his boots on the hard stone, each long stride sending a painful jolt up through his battered body. He had not been healed, but he no longer wondered at what gave him the strength to keep going. The sword in his hand blazed with a power that seemed to pour into him, and he felt a surge from it, something so familiar that it just seemed <em>right</em>. He and the sword were one. </p><p></p><p>The dragon’s head came down to meet his charge, its jaws opening so wide that for a moment it was as though those huge teeth were all that there was in the world. Yet it seemed almost trivial for him to duck under that sweeping lunge. The creature’s foul breath washed over him in a flood, and something hard grazed his back, but then it was past. </p><p></p><p>He planted his feet. One of the monster’s feet was already coming forward. The foot-long claws were like daggers; they would tear into his guts and spread his organs all over the ground. His armor would be of no use against a foe that could dig through solid rock the way that a child tore through sand. It was coming, but that inevitable contact was just a distraction; it meant nothing. </p><p></p><p>A hum filled his head as he thrust upward with <em>Justice</em>. Upward through the leathery flesh under the creature’s jaw, flesh that parted before his sword like taut cloth before the tailor’s shears. Blood spouted down onto his hands, burning as it hissed against his flesh. It meant nothing. The creature, its dim brain feeling pain, started to jerk away, but Corath Dar would not be denied. His hands tightened around the hilt of his sword, and he thrust deeper, penetrating through the back of the creature’s mouth, and then again into hard, muscled flesh. The sword penetrated the roof of its mouth and into the cavernous gap within the interior of its skull. Dar thrust still deeper, the crossguard and hilt of the sword vanishing along with his fists into the opening he had cut in the base of its jaw. He somehow knew when the tip of the blade entered its brain, and he cried out as the power flowed out of him, or through him, into the creature. Order flared where nothing but chaos had existed, and he felt the link binding the creature to life abruptly severed. </p><p></p><p>But momentum could not simply be destroyed so easily. Everything returned to normal speed even as the claws pierced his gut, and then he was spinning away, his hands empty, clutching at the air trying to regain what he’d lost. By the time he hit the floor, his lower body slick with his own blood, he’d already lost everything but a vague sensation of quiet, and then that too faded into gray as he slipped into unconsciousness.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Lazybones, post: 4285285, member: 143"] It was Parzad, Ghazaran's psionicist flunky/henchman. * * * * * Chapter 57 AN END IN BATTLE Looking into the eyes of the ravager spawn, Dar saw the certainty of death staring back at him. The creatures were not intelligent, at least not in any way more than a cunning beast, but it had marked him and his blade, and recognized him as the foe most capable of harming it. There was naught to do but to press his charge, and meet it in a last confrontation. But as the monster lunged, it suddenly screamed out in pain. Dar saw Kiron, his huge sword blazing with holy power, draw back from the powerful stroke he’d just delivered to the juncture where its foremost leg met its body. His sword trailed droplets of the creature’s blood, but there was far more trailing from the knight’s armor Dar knew what the man had done, what he’d sacrificed to give him an opening, even before the creature’s head snapped back. The wedge-shaped head slammed into the knight with the force of a battering ram, and he went flying back, twisting into a spin as one of his legs clipped the hindquarters of the beast. His flight ended only when he struck the ruined threshold of the vault door at the chamber entrance, and he fell hard, motionless. Maricela was running toward him even before he stopped moving, but Dar could not guess if he still lived after accepting a blow like that. The spawn had gotten revenge for the painful wound it had taken, but it still remembered Dar. But as it swiveled its head back around, the veteran fighter was already moving. Everything seemed to slow down around him. He felt the jarring of his boots on the hard stone, each long stride sending a painful jolt up through his battered body. He had not been healed, but he no longer wondered at what gave him the strength to keep going. The sword in his hand blazed with a power that seemed to pour into him, and he felt a surge from it, something so familiar that it just seemed [i]right[/i]. He and the sword were one. The dragon’s head came down to meet his charge, its jaws opening so wide that for a moment it was as though those huge teeth were all that there was in the world. Yet it seemed almost trivial for him to duck under that sweeping lunge. The creature’s foul breath washed over him in a flood, and something hard grazed his back, but then it was past. He planted his feet. One of the monster’s feet was already coming forward. The foot-long claws were like daggers; they would tear into his guts and spread his organs all over the ground. His armor would be of no use against a foe that could dig through solid rock the way that a child tore through sand. It was coming, but that inevitable contact was just a distraction; it meant nothing. A hum filled his head as he thrust upward with [i]Justice[/i]. Upward through the leathery flesh under the creature’s jaw, flesh that parted before his sword like taut cloth before the tailor’s shears. Blood spouted down onto his hands, burning as it hissed against his flesh. It meant nothing. The creature, its dim brain feeling pain, started to jerk away, but Corath Dar would not be denied. His hands tightened around the hilt of his sword, and he thrust deeper, penetrating through the back of the creature’s mouth, and then again into hard, muscled flesh. The sword penetrated the roof of its mouth and into the cavernous gap within the interior of its skull. Dar thrust still deeper, the crossguard and hilt of the sword vanishing along with his fists into the opening he had cut in the base of its jaw. He somehow knew when the tip of the blade entered its brain, and he cried out as the power flowed out of him, or through him, into the creature. Order flared where nothing but chaos had existed, and he felt the link binding the creature to life abruptly severed. But momentum could not simply be destroyed so easily. Everything returned to normal speed even as the claws pierced his gut, and then he was spinning away, his hands empty, clutching at the air trying to regain what he’d lost. By the time he hit the floor, his lower body slick with his own blood, he’d already lost everything but a vague sensation of quiet, and then that too faded into gray as he slipped into unconsciousness. [/QUOTE]
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