71

Chapter 82

Literally. I don't make these things up, I swear.
There's a flash of greenish white light, which hits the mountainside with shattering impact, some way below where we all stand. The path shakes, and for one heart-stopping moment, I think it will all crumble out beneath our feet, and we'll tumble down through the empty air.
But it holds, though I find that somehow I've ended up flat on my back. However that happened, I right myself immediately, searching for Coal. I spot him picking himself off the ground, wincing with the pain in his chest, and I run over to him, scared to touch him now because of the still oozing wounds. Luckily, we have bigger problems.
"Crap." Coal groans, which pretty much sums it up.
My heart racing, I force myself to take in the full view. Unfortunately, that's hard, because there's a freaking Airship taking up the whole sky.
"How did they find us!?" I scream in horror, over the deafening roaring of the two engines, which belch thick, greasy streams of black smoke out into the rain, which has been lightening up. I think about the fires which were burning back before the downpour, and find my answer, because Coal seems preoccupied.
I glance over to him for a second, then look back to the running, screaming mob of refugees, the great ugly ship lighting up the cliff side every time it fires. It takes my brain a minute to recognize the expression, and that's when I turn back to him.
"You okay?" I say, concerned, then realize how stupid that must sound in the midst of an ambush. He gazes out blankly at the scene for a moment longer with glazed, almost wistful eyes, before blinking and shaking his head, as if coming out of a trance, and turning back to me, looking me over again like he's still confused.
"Yeah... Yeah-What are we doing?! We're under attack! Come on!" He says, as if suddenly realizing the danger we're in, along with everyone else camping on the cliff-side.
A flash of light, a blinding a explosion, and I fall into Coal, pushing us both dangerously close to the edge of the trail, as screaming people in rags hurtle past us, running wildly up the trail, careening to either side with every shot from the ship, every time the ground shudders and I think we're all dead.
After a moment of tottering on the edge, he regains his balance and grabs hold of my arm, pulling me up along the trail, as we dodge random machine gun shots fired by snipers in the ship, sparking off the stone, sizzling and popping in the rain, shards of rock breaking off and slicing my legs.
The world is pandemonium. Everywhere I look, flashing colors and lights and sparks, scrabbling hands, wide, terrified eyes, people clawing at the sheer wall of the mountain, trying to escape the attack. Boom. A huge section of the path, barely five feet down from us, is blasted off the mountain, and with it a mass of flailing limbs and pained, shocked faces.
"GLASS!" I shriek amidst the explosions and screaming and storm, seeing the angular figure helping his hassled-looking wife off the ground.
With a final heave, the woman, Hour, I remember now, is one her feet, and he whirls to face me. For a brief instant, his face is twisted in rage, as if I've brought this upon us. Then his gaze flashes to Coal, and he must see the look of despair on the Prince's face, the horror that he could possibly be related to people that would command this, and he relents.
"Where's the Beast?!" I shout as there's another distant blast of light illuminating the stormy sky, darker still with smoke from numerous fires, followed by a whoosh, and then I pitch forward, Coal throwing his arm around my waist and forcing us both forward as the path crumbles from beneath us, so we catch the remaining ledge with our hands, and pull ourselves up.
"Beast?" Glass frowns, while his wife turns and gives a cry, before kneeling and hefting a large chunk of rock off another young woman.
"The big furry one we flew down on!" I scream and what I thought couldn't be worse get's worse. The blood-curdling screaming from up the path escalates until I'm shaking so bad I can barely stand, and I see the figures.
Large grappling hooks whistle out from the main ship, striking and digging deep into the mountain, and the next second, dark figures in sparkling armor are propelling down the lines, hurtling into our midst, before hefting machine guns and rifles into their arms and charging through our injured lines, finishing us off.
A Servant of the Order drops down between me and Glass, and adrenaline kicks in. He swipes at me with his rifle; I duck, the spring back up and use the momentum of his swing to push him easily over the edge.
"My swords! Where're my swords!?" Coal yells over the chaos, suddenly realizing his precious and deadly weapons are nowhere in sight.
"Somewhere up there!" I scream back, exasperated, rolling under a man's legs and whirling, kicking in the pressure points in the back of his knees so he topples over, then rolling back on my shoulders, forcing my feet upward in a powerful double kick to the groin, and he crumples.
I roll to the right in the nick of time, as bullets chip the stone where my head just was, and my own breathing seems much to loud in all the noise.
"You left," He spins, boxing a Servant in the side of the head, "My. Swords!" With a roar, he brings both fists down on the soldier's head, knocking him out cold.
"You poor thing, having to fight empty-handed like the rest of us," I purse my lips with fake pity while I observe him delivering a series of deadly, professionally thrown punches in a blur, and the stunned victim stumbling backwards, armor cracked in numerous points, and slipping over the edge of the path.
I catch sight of Glass further up the trail, the distinctive figure standing out against the dust and light and rain and screaming people.
"Glass!" I cry out again to get his attention. He's over twenty feet up the trail, between us a mass of panicked refugees and survivors, attempting to fight back against the flood of elite, trained-to-kill soldiers, and failing. I almost break down right there, but, somehow, I keep going, turning and taking out my anger when I wail a round-house kick on a Servant like only a cat-girl can, leaping up six feet into the air and smacking the side of my foot into his helmet, the neck cracking under the combined weight of the golden helm and the kick. "GLASS!"
I glimpse him turning, and know he sees me. I duck when I hear the grunt to my side and watch an over-sized, armored fist fly over my head, stirring my hair. Then I drop and roll away just in time to watch Coal fling himself at the soldier, bloody wounds and all, and pummel him repeatedly with his fists. BANG BANG BANG. BANG BANG BANG! The helmet shatters and the man crumples, unconscious at his feet.
"Where," I begin, to be rudely interrupted by a stab of pain in my gut, and I look down at my left side, instinctively clamping my hand over the bullet wound, feeling my own blood oozing warm between my fingers, and swallow the pain. It's not only my life that hangs in the balance. "Where is the Beast!" I scream through the raging chaos, trying to ignore the throbbing of my wound.
"Duck." Coal mutters in my ear, his voice cracking slightly. Without question, I flatten myself to the ground instantly, and stare at the rough stone beneath me. Listening. A low grunt, a thud, the sound fists against skin, of bare skin slapping metal. The slick, grating noise of a sword sliding from it's sheath, then the sound of something heavy having impact on something hard. The grotesque snap and crunch of breaking bones, then strong hands on my shoulders pulling me off the ground in one easy movement.
"Okay?" He raises an eyebrow, looking slightly worried, with a new, but relatively shallow cut across his right bicep, and I nod before he can further check me over, and see the freely bleeding hole in my stomach. It's not a bad cut anyways, nothing to worry about...
I give him a silent thumbs up to reassure him, and he finally nods and pulls away, leading me towards Glass.
"Glass!" He hollers above the clattering, deftly ducking and pulling me down as well when a red laser slices through the rock where our necks just were. "The Beast!?"
Glass is trying to drag a wounded, bleeding man with long, flappy ears out from beneath a chunk of stone too big to be comfortable. With a jolt, I realize it's one of the hound-men who let me share their fire. "It," The doctor groans, yanking desperately, but stopping when Coal yells for him to duck and round-kicks the armored fist lunging for Glass's head, snapping the wrist, then whirling and kicking with the same foot, a solid plant in the chest, and the Servant stumbles off the edge of the cliff. Standing up, coughing in the dust, Glass wheezes, "I-It's gone!"
I feel like the ground drops out from under me. The sad part is, I actually have to check. Nope, it's all good here, no sudden drop to my death. Yet.
"Gone?" I say stupidly, still trying to register this. Well, there goes my escape plan. Somebody else better think up a plan B, because I don't have one.
"Yes, gone!" Glass heaves again in vain on the trapped man, and Coal politely moves him aside, grasping the man's arms in his own hands, and yanking him out in one great pull. "When in landed, before any of us could react, you two just slipped off it's back, then it was gone!" Glass cries over the heavy breathing of the almost-pancaked man. As Coal helps Bugs/Rugs (I still can't tell which the hound man is) to his feet, Glass frowns, scratching his cropped hair. "Why would you want to know, anyway?"
"Left, Ash!" Coal grunts, as he hefts the man upwards. Without thinking, I spin to my right, and snap my left leg out, catching the skulking Servant in the crook of the knee, sending him tripping over the edge, flailing in vain through the stormy air.
"What now?" I start at the proximity of Coal's voice, spinning and looking directly into his face, inches from mine. How does he do that, and why can't I sneak up on him like that? Trying to pull my train of thought back onto it's track after he knocked it off isn't easy when I'm also trying to ignore the intense gaze of his eyes... What was I going to...
"DUCK!" Coal shouts suddenly, jumping me again, then roughly shoving me to the side. Klutz I can be, I trip and stumble over my own feet, falling over backwards and hitting my head much harder than I would care for. I wince in pain when I pick my self up, relying on my hands much more than usual, when my abs forget how to function properly because of the hole in them. I instantly reapply pressure to the wound, pressing my hand down hard over the broken flesh, trying to think past the haze, and get my thoughts straight.
How rude of him to push me like that, I think, seeing in slight double vision from blood loss. I wonder how Coal can see at all, with all the blood he's missing... He must see, like, ten of me all the time... Haha... Then I finally comprehend what I'm seeing right in front of me.
"COAL!" I scream, stumbling towards him, seeing the knife blade glinting red and silver and green in the reflected light of the light beams from the airship, sparkling in the rain. Seeing his arms braced and shaking with the strain against the armored ones of Servant. Every passing moment, he grows weaker, and the knife blade inches closer to his exposed throat.
Uncoordinated and panicked, I flail onwards, grabbing the helmet of the attacker in my hands and pulling backwards- But before I can cause any real damage, another Servant grabs me from behind, lifting me clear off the ground huge, cold hands closing tighter around my throat, spinning to hold me out over the sheer drop, to the forest, invisible, somewhere far below.
"Ash, NO!" I hear Coal's strangled cry, suddenly cut off, and try in a spurt of adrenaline to turn towards him, catching a glimpse of scarlet dribbling down a blade.
"NO! PUT. ME. DOWN!" I scream at the top of my lungs, so loud and so fiercely it hurts, clawing at armored fists around my neck, legs kicking desperately out over the open air, trying to find something. My claws are extended, screeching ear-splittingly against the armored fingers, digging in and around the plates, searching for flesh.
Time slows down. I can't breath. Something is pressing in on me, restricting my breathing, and my lungs desperately suck at air that they can't get, gulping for oxygen, screaming for life. I feel like my eyes are bulging, like my lungs are contracting every second, begging for an end to the torture, for an end to it all.
Around my light refracts through the rain droplets frozen in midair. Fire light like great demon ghosts, deformed and grotesque in the watery reflections, laser beams glinting like unblinking, neon-colored eyes, always staring, always watching. Dust floats out into the open, dark air, the dark clouds above throwing all into shadow.
In this frozen second, I see the truth. Bodies, everywhere, bloody and broken and cold. Armored figures, yes, lying sprawled among the debris, but they are few compared to the slashed and bloodied corpses of the survivors. The last hope of a rebel dream. Dead, all of them. Dead.
Then a hoarse, ragged whisper in my ear, a voice torn away from all that is good and just and left to rot in the grasp of the Order.
"See," He whispers in my ear, breath hot on my cheek and reeking of tooth decay. "You never had a chance, you and your pathetic little friends. The rebels were a dream, a myth, a fantasy. You were always doomed, you know. And now, you will die."
And an angel came down to set me free.