CH6: Ius Gladii (Right of the Sword)Part Two
**** ARNOR ****
I hit the wall with a grunt, blunting the impact with the Force. Elisa hit next to me and sagged down the wall, she hadn't had time to get a cushion up. "Two! Get that door open!"
No messing around now, no cocky droid profanity. Two righted the DCC and sprang back to the data port, plugging in again and this time he braced himself. Nothing would move him until he was done.
"Karm..." I whispered. My eyes went opaque as I reached out, touching our song. The fugue, normally so tightly woven, was fraying, the songs separating in an echo of our physical separation. "Sing, my love..." I felt his battle song swell and it relaxed me as the meld eveloped me. We were still connected. Whatever he faced, we would face it together.
"Arnor!" I heard Elisa's cry and turned to see red sabers approaching.
Lots of red sabers...
"Two! We need you, dear." I spun, fusing my own battle song into my husband's far stronger melody. Even separated, on different fronts, we were stronger together than apart. We would need that strength now. Two freed himself from the port, abandoning the effort to open the portal in order to support us. His fire hammered down one corridor, bottling up the attackers there, while Elisa and I faced the Shadows streaming out of the other corridor.
There were six in front of us coming up the corridor three by three. They were all dressed in identical black armor and carrying sabers. I slipped into a modified Soresu immediately, going defensive, parrying the first slashing attack high and riposte with a quick thrust through the attacker's off-hand shoulder. He cried out and stumbled backwards, only to be replaced with two more who attempted to hit me with a coordinated attack. I slammed a narrowly focused force push into the face of one and saw his head snap back as if something had pole-axed him across the bridge of his nose. He dropped like a sack, tangling the stance of his partner, robbing his attack of any power. I blocked his slice to my side and with a quick flip of my wrists spun my blade through his forearm. His saber deactivated as it fell from the severed hand.
A second hard force 'punch' put him down as well, and I turned in time to see Elisa's blade take the last Shadow standing through the thigh. He went down hard, his saber spinning away, but his hand clawed for his blaster. Elisa didn't give him a second chance, slicing through the arm and torso on her next orbit.
I turned and saw one of the Shadows behind us deflect one of Two's blaster bolts. It went up and into the ceiling, cratering the alloy and showering debris down on them. Three of them were down, leaving three still active. I took two steps toward them before one abandoned his saber, drew his own blaster and fired on me. I bounced the shot back at him, hitting him in the neck. As his body and head fell, separate, his mpanions broke and ran.
I caught Elisa's arm as she moved to pursue. "No, let them go."
"But..." I gave her a firm look. What Karm called the "Mother" look. She sighed and relaxed. "OK, ok..."
I turned back to Two, sampling the Song. Whatever was happening on the other side of the door, my husband was being pressed hard.
"Elisa, do you feel it?"
Elisa concentrated for a minute and nodded. "Yes. He's burning up, like before."
"Can you reinforce him like you did earlier?"
"Yes ... but I need to concentrate."
"Do it, I'll cover you." I turned to Two. "Get us through that door."
I turned and stared, trying to look through the door. All I could sense from the room was a hurricane of swirling force, wildly fluxuating song and savage, deadly struggle. "Hang on my love..."
**** Karmack ****
Mellichae let his laughter taper off and started to walk deliberately around the perimeter of the room. "Welcome, Master Karmack, to 'the pit'. We've been waiting for you..." Four more sabers ignited as additional Sith Shadows stepped forward. They were all wearing black armor, matching the armor Mellichae had adopted. I probed with the force, augmenting the probe with a discovery motif in the song, and what I felt was puzzling.
...Fury ... Anger ... Agression ... Fear ...Fear? Mellichae radiated fury and aggression. He was beyond fear, thinking only of hurting me and those close to me. But the rest... They felt more like Tiedowans than Knights, unsteady in the force and while they echoed their leader's fury and anger the aggression was suppressed by heavy fear like a dampening field. I adjusted the emitter in my hilt and ignited the back-side blade, adding its golden fire to the first. "Mellichae, just hand over the Ancient One, and we can part ways. No one else has to die today."
"YOU LIE!" Mellichae screamed at me, his eyes sick yellow orbs. "You want me dead! Admit it! ADMIT IT! The great Ka'A'Mack of the Mak'Tor, Master Singer, Defender of the Light, would like nothing more than to see me BURN!" Mellichae stepped back, close to the wall, and held his saber aloft, lighting the far wall of the chamber. "You're no better than any common murderer! Admit it..."
The red light of his blade illuminated another woman, chained to the wall. Blood trailed down from her mouth and a cut on her face, and there was evidence of other injuries on her body. She was unconscious, hanging from her wrists, and barely breathing. I felt the rage rise in me again, but with a great effort I set it aside. "If you insist, Justice will be done here today Mellichae. Maker knows you deserve it, but I yield the right to deliver it. If the Maker decrees that you live today..."
"THERE IS NO MAKER!" Mellichae screamed. He snapped his saber back around to the front and advanced. "No Maker, no light, no dark. Only the song ...
MY song ... and the force ... and they are MINE to command!" He suddenly started to sing and another light, a sickly green, began to glow from a dozen crystals embedded in the walls of the room. I felt like I'd been punched in the stomach, retched and went down on one knee. Mellichae saw me stagger and cackled. "Yes! A legacy from Mendax. They are Pontite, not Kyber, but they have virtually the same characteristics as the Rur." His song intensified and rippled through me in hammering waves, but something else was also there...
The Ancient One!I could feel it in the song, in the force. I rallied and poured more energy into my song, meeting and then exceeding his volume and energy. I wrapped it around me like armor and straightened. "The Maker
is. He is Truth. He is Light. Darkness is banished by His Light..."
Mellichae screamed and the attack came. With a battle cry of my own I dropped a hammer-fist into the ground before me, filling the shockwave with force energy. The ripple hammered out and knocked three of Mellichae's apprentices off their feet, tossing them backwards. The fourth staggered but kept his feet. I stepped in and engaged him, cutting high, middle, high... He blocked each attack but missed the twist of my hips as the third strike hit his high guard. With a twist I thrust forward and pulled my back-side blade through, severing his right thigh above the knee. He fell and I backed, using the pause to rest. Already the effort of countering Mellichae's song was beginning to burn inside me...
A soothing cool feeling suddenly washed over me, wiping the burn away and filling me with renewed energy. I felt a familiar song of healing wrap around my battle song as well as a sudden sense of calm and assurance from my wife.
Elisa's song! Bless you Arnor!Mellichae snarled. "To little, to late, Gray!" He screamed and poured even more energy into his remaining minions. I matched his energy level, pulling more energy, focusing through the Ancient One as well as the crystals in my saber, and I spun into the melee wrapping myself in the force. I hurled debris at the attackers, pelting them with rocks and furniture and anything not tied down from behind even as I drew their attention forward with my attacks. It didn't take long for a large chunk of rock to cause an opening and I struck like a viper, severing one of the Shadow's saber arm at the elbow. He screamed and fell back, and I was in the gap, my blade struck one way and I reached out through a small gap in the other's defenses that appeared as his concentration flickered. The second Shadow fell, my saber blade punching through armor and rib-cage, turning his heart and lungs to charred goo while the last suddenly collapsed, his spinal chord suddenly crushed just at the base of his skull.
I took a split second to assess the room - I'd lost track of Mellichae - and nearly died. Instinctively reacting to a ripple in the force I suddenly launched myself into a forward roll, assisting the dive with the force to move quickly. Mellichae's blade hissed through the air where I'd been only moments before. I overshot and slammed into the chamber wall, and blinding pain spiked through me as a protrusion slammed into my back, breaking at least one rib and possibly two. I stood, realized I was next to the woman Mellichae had tried to use to provoke me, and with a quick back-hand severed the chains holding her arms. She collapsed to the floor and started breathing easier, but that was all I could do for her now. I threw myself into another forward roll, extending my saber to parry the slash Mellichae threw at me as I went by. He missed - mostly - and more pain coursed through me as the tip of his saber tracked along my right thigh. The burn was shallow but the DL-44 blaster came apart under his blade as well, the energy discharge hammering my leg and very nearly breaking the femur.
I did another shoulder roll and came to my feet. The healing energy from Elisa's song was coursing through me again, but it was almost completely expended keeping the damage from the energy I was pouring into my own song at bay. But it was enough, barely, to keep me on my feet and mobile. I centered myself and reconfigured my hilt to a single blade, adopting a middle guard.
Mellichae matched my position and grinned. "You live up to your reputation, Karmack. But I know that had to hurt. I can see the pain on your face, it colors the force." His grin widened. "It makes me happy..." His attack was blindingly fast as he poured as much energy from his own song in as he could muster. He would burn out, perhaps die from it, but he no longer cared. He simply wanted to kill me, and he was willing to risk his own death to do it.
I parried and parried, unable to riposte as he drove me backwards. I felt the pain in my side, in my leg, and set them aside. There was nothing but the song, our blades, and the light. I felt my own energy levels rise higher. Our blades were blinding, moving faster than the eye could track. The blur lit the room in amber light as we circled, thrusting and retreating, moving forward and backward, up and down, attacking and defending. And then, an opening...
I struck, hammering his blade aside and with lighting swiftness bringing the blade down on his arm.
His MECHANICAL ARM! my mind hissed to me, a fraction of a second to late. My blade slid down onto his exposed shoulder - and into the cortosis shield he'd built over the new shoulder joint and hidden under his armor.
My blade died as Mellichae's cackle filled the room. His red blade struck, and I did the only thing I could: I blocked with my saber. The song-steel sheath held, but it came away scorched. It wouldn't hold for more than one or two more strikes. He hammered again as my thumb moved, sliding the selector back again, and I caught his second strike. The sheath turned the strike but failed, exposing the inner chassis. Mellichae's eyes were maniacal as he struck again, intent on the kill...
My blade exploded to life and I turned the hilt, catching his blade right at the base of my own. I had to move too quickly for control and I lost my grip. His red blade intersected the crystal chamber of my saber just as my golden blade sliced through his saber's power core. I ducked in time, bringing my armored right arm up to protect my eyes and face, and Mellichae's mechanical arm stood up to the energy release as the sabers immolated themselves in a fury of mutual destruction.
"What have you DONE?" Mellichae roared. He flexed his fingers, visually confirming that the arm's mechanisms were still good. "No matter! I will kill you with my bare hands!" He launched himself at me, arms extended for my throat...
My primary combat knife was gone, lost with the blaster to his long cut on my thigh, but the back-up I'd added was still in place. With smooth grace, as if I'd practiced the move a thousand times, I caught the extended wrist of his right mechanical arm in a c-block with my own right arm even as my left drew the 12-inch song-steel kukri blade from the sheath on my left hip. In a reverse grip, the spine of the blade resting along my fore-arm, I raked the blade through his armor and under his ribs, cutting deep into his upper abdomen. The shock of injury froze Mellichae in place as I extended his arm, brought my left arm up in front of me and reversed my slash - across the exposed right side of his throat. Blood fountained out in an arterial spray that, thanks to the continued control of the wrist, mainly passed over my head.
We fell to our knees, facing each other, and Mellichae's eyes met mine. "Oh..." he hissed, and his eyes rolled back in his head and he collapsed backwards. Relief flooded through me as his song collapsed, and I let my battle song die as well. Surprisingly I did not feel the heavy fatigue I'd felt before, but the pain of the accumulated injuries flooded in and I rolled over on my back to take the stress off my throbbing right thigh...
An explosion of sparks erupted from the closed blast door as a pale blue blade punched through and cut an over-sized passage through the heavy steel door, cutting as if it were butter. With a crash Two stepped through, his over-sized "seige" saber extended from his right gauntlet, his left gauntlet sporting the normal heavy blaster. Arnor and Elisa stepped through immediately behind him, eyes searching the room.
"Karm!" Arnor killed her saber and was at my side in a moment. "Are you ok? Where are you hurt?" she said between kisses, her hands patting me down frantically, looking for a missing limb or deep wound to account for the blood.
"Its ok, its ok. This isn't mine..." I said, sitting up. "Its his."
Elisa looked down at the still form, then spat. "Mellichae." She looked at me and I could feel her rage even now, but the hatred was dissipating. "Thank you."
I nodded. "Just one more thing I have to do..." With Arnor's help I stood up, calling the shattered remains of my saber to my hand. One of the crystals was intact and I extracted it from the ruined chamber, then dropped the wrecked chassis back to the floor before scanning around the room.
The crystals were still there, but they now glowed light blue ... except for one. "There you are." I hobbled over to the Ancient One, resting in one of the niches in the chamber wall. I picked it up, squeezed it in my hand, then dropped it into my breast pocket. "We'll talk later..."
Arnor was looking around now as well. "What are all of these?"
"Mellichae claimed they were copies of the Rur. Whether that's true or not I haven't been able to determine, but they were certainly tuned to his song." I picked one up, feeling it warm in my hand. "Pontite. I think Mendax programmed them, and he was able to make use of them."
"Mendax..." Arnor growled the name. "Good riddance to him. And now Mellichae is dead, ending his legacy." She glanced down at her communications device. "Mutt has the local militia on the way to take the rest of these jokers into custody. Lets get our folks home."
I looked over to where Elisa was helping the last victim to her feet and into a stumbling walk.
Six. We saved six. More than we expected... I looked down at Mellichae and felt the Ancient One, safe at last, humming in the back of my mind. "Lets go home."
