"We can deal with this later" Said Josh, grabbing his Kris from a hook on the wall, drawing it shattering a hole through the frozen tent door, running out before the solid pieces of canvas had finished tinkling to the ground.
The others grabbed their assorted weapons, and followed suit, Stuart's voice sounding over the tannoy as they ran: "To Arms".
The sight that greeted them was one they thought they would never see again.
About half a mile away, and marching steadily towards them was what appeared to be a small black cloud.
"It's a Haiken alright" Said stuart under his breath, teeth chattering in the now freezing air.
Jenna's voice sounded in the backround, sharp and commanding. "Spears ready! bows draw!" A row of sharpened spikes leant their way towards the oncoming cloud, and behind them a row of deathly points pointed to the air.
The air drew colder as the cloud approached. This is what happened with a Haiken, and it was the reason they were most feared among the Righmen. They could suck the energy from any dimension, even time, "even a man's soul" Though Josh, and use it as their own life force, or as a weapon. They had previously charged in volcanoes, hydrothermal vents, even power stations.
"From the east" Josh kept saying to himself "From he east". He had to figure it out... it just didn't make sense...
"It made sense in that they could have charged off the nuclear waste... but how did they get there... they had only been able to enter through very limited coordinates before..."
"Archers, FIRE"
A sheet of deadly points hurled themselves into the air. The air thrummed with what sounded like a sharp intake of breath. Suddenly the cloud collected itself into a finite point. The space around it appeared to bend, like looking into a crystal ball, and the arrows flowed around it, their own forms bending like raindrops on glass, embedding themselves in a harmless ring on the floor.
The bulb shrank down.
"Alone..." Said Josh. There were normally additional troops under the cloak of darkness where the light was being sucked in. There was a brief pause. "I have a bad feeling about this" muttered Jenna. Stuart looked up from his datapad, alarm in his eyes "DOWN!" his voice yelled, still crackling through the tannoy, though with his urgency and volume it would have been superfluous.
The noise came first. Like a thunderclap, only shorter, without the roll or rumble noise before and after. The wave passed over them like a wall of water. Josh felt his ears pop, and felt the darkness encroach out with the cold once more, sweeping over him like an icy blanket as his sweat froze to his face.
"Ph...ph...phosphorous!" he managed to stutter through shivering lips.
Almost as soon as he had uttered it, a flash of flame shot around in an arc on the floor in front of him, exposing a green, unnatural glow. Phosphorescent pigment that was embedded in metal. One of Jeeves' ideas. The phosphorus only released light very slowly, so it tended to focus the efforts of an energy manipulator, and distract them.
Josh felt the heat return almost instantly to his frame, as apparently, did everyone else. Jenna's voice cryed out over the crowd once more "Archers, fire!" once more the hail of arrows flowed from the massed ranks in their makeshift uniform, once more the bubble enclosed the Haiken. Josh ran out, keeping pace with the withdrawing cloud, and followed by five other swordsmen. A charge of the whole rank would have simply endangered each other.
They approached the near-humanoid form quickly, and though it hadn't had long to charge, it met them with a nother blast of cold, chilling air, knocking them to the ground, and sending Josh hurtling through the air, to land on the soft mud.
It strolled over to one of the limp forms on the ground, apparently aware that it had now gained a human shield, and picked him up by the throat, its black pit of an eye "looking" at him.
Josh had never quite worked out how he knew that the creature was looking at you, but you just knew, and if you had seen it before, you knew the horrifying consequence that followed.
His eyes narrowed
Not today.
Once again his hands clasped around the Kris's handle, and a red mist descended across his vision.
He couldn't have told anyone what happened next. He would never know for sure. He would never hear the words "Now it is your time to end" scream pass his lips in deep bassy tones that shook his ribcage. He would never see the blade in his hand as it flashed and thrusted back and forth accross the almost fluid body of his target. He never heard the strange sound of it's flesh being cut, like the fizzle of gunpowder in a tin, nor would he see the light that streamed forth from it's open wounds.
He simply saw the remains as the mist faded, and as the moonlight shone blue on his now dark blade, felt Jennas hand rest gently on his shoulder. The soldier lay on the ground, evidently in shock, looking at Josh with all the fear a mortal man posessed.
Jenna spoke softly in Josh's ear: "Ben?"
"Ben..."
