Part 75

Lucius snapped a scythe-claw from a screeching Mare before ramming the dismembered blade into the creatures cranium. Weighing the blade in one hand as if contemplating its use as a viable weapon, he made his decision. Solomon looked upon the beat of a man in newly found admiration, he had recovered remarkably from the battle abroad the Infinity, but then a dark thought entered his mind. Lucius had been wounded by the claws of a Banshee, and bore no signs of infection. Another hulking mass charged the beast of a man, who spun as a gymnast would, pivoting on a single heel as if dancing an sliced the creature neatly down its flank, spilling its insides over the tall grass, weighing down the leaves. Another charged and met a similar fate. This weapon was more effective that his knife against these abominations. But then as he retrieved the scythe-claw from his latest kill, he felt a sharp pain slide across his lower back, blurting forward with a roar, he spun, slightly losing his balance to one knee, he locked eyes with one of the beasts, leering at the captain of the second. Lucius spat some blood to the grass, and the creature rushed him before he could check the wound upon his back. Trying elegance once more, he tried to pivot and splice into the creature, but his wound forced him to overcompensate and he fell, out of the creatures reach, it overshot him and span, kicking up dirt and mud, it's red blood stained fangs dripping. Charging again, it gnarled its teeth at Lucius who tried to fling his massive body out of the way, only to be yanked back and suddenly dropped to the ground, new pain searing through his arm, or lack of. Looking down to check the wound, his anger boiled above and beyond his threshold. The thing had taken his left arm from the elbow. He still had his right. His strong arm. His sword arm. Clutching the scythe-claw and with pure brutality intended, he swung and sliced the air, closer and closer he gained ground, spinning with ferocity and malice, he killed the creature that took his arm, and killed two more that tried to take him. Only when the loss off blood forced him to kneel did his river of luck run dry.

Breathing heavily and his vision going dark, a blur covering every movement, he still made out the advancing Banshee to his left. He raised to meet the pale creature head on, taking its head clean from its shoulders, but his victory was taken away from him as the constant blur had hidden the charging Mare from his right. It smashed into the captains side and closed its jaws around his chest with a sickening wet dull crack as his ribs collapsed.

Solomon saw his friend die, and he swore he saw a smile linger on Lucius' bloodied face, a smile of satisfaction, dying with a primed grenade in his remaining hand, he killed his murderer in a fiery explosion.

The Mares seemed to change tactic instantly and stopped gingerly picking up people and then scything them, to simply killing them by any means necessary, they then took an excitable interest in the supporting hovercopter, leaping to the slender emerald vessel, ramming the duo of scythe-claws into the hull and bringing its jaw into the side hull door that lay open to allow the mounted weapon to fire out of the side. It ripped at the metal and snarled as it missed the aliens. The weight of the unwelcome passenger cause the engines to quickly overheat as the pilot fought to keep the hovercopter in the air.

Solomon called to the human survivors to fall back to the landed hovercopter that fired energy weapons at anything that was unnatural. As Solomon released an empty clip to slap another that he had found on a fallen comrade into the body of his rifle, he saw Decius and Sandra run forward to help up an injured crewman who screamed in pain, his hand stretched out, pleading for aid, and then they were lost. The other hovercopter crashed into the ground between them and Solomon, covering the area in flying earth and fire. The explosion forced many on their backs, Solomon hit his head on something hard and could feel wet behind his ears, his vision coming and going as if a flash light flickered on and off behind his eyes. He could only feel the warm wetness behind his ears and nothing else. When his vision returned for its short stay, the trees above him, although out of focus, he could see they were moving in a jagged motion. No, the tree's weren't moving, he was. But he couldn't move. Before long, the pale sky and gnarled trees disappeared from his temporary vision and was replaced by an emerald sky, a sky that held nuts and bolts with plate armour instead of stars and clouds.