Chapter 54- A Son’s Love

Four demonized hawks clawed at the barrier around the base. They had already dumped their payload of zombies and more demon summoners must be hidden in the desert because there were dozens of the horrors hammering away at the defenses.

Tian knew the barrier had been strengthened after the last attack. It was still holding. He didn’t believe it could possibly hold for much longer.

“Senior Redmane, can you drop the kids off somewhere reasonably safe?”

“Not without leaving the battlefront. You know how these heretics are. There are at least a hundred of ‘em buried in the sands all around the Depot.”

The Elder stood ramrod straight, hands clasped behind his back.

“Good thing you got those Heart Shield charms, then. If you suffer what should be a fatal hit, stay down. Am I understood?”

“Yes Elder!”

“Good. Now then. I suppose you can treat this as a sort of trial too. Remain silent, but watch closely.”

Senior Redmane flew higher, so high the zombies and birds were lost from sight. Then he folded in his wings and plunged downward. The elders must have used some magic to keep the juniors on the giant crane’s back. They would have gone flying away otherwise.

Elder Rui waved a horsehair whisk and started chanting. His voice was low, almost muttering, as he recited the words of a spell.

“The Ox Driving Boy cries for the Weaver Girl as nine nails pierce the grand roads and the eight stories pagoda collapses crushing the east wind and the Seven Heroes are scattered and driven before Six Lions and Five Tigers and the Four Stars of the generals grow dim and blacken under the rule proclaimed by the Three Suona of the heralds of the Minister who rules over Two Broken Paths which once were One whose perfection is denied for even the fallen path is a false escape…”

Redmane flared his broad white wings. Tian felt himself slam downwards into the ancient’s back, barely keeping his head up enough to see a blizzard of long feathers fly from the wings and stab downward. Screams started rising, howls of zombies, howls of demons screaming that they existed to hurt others, not to be hurt.

Elder Rui thrust his whisk up, as though he were piercing the twilight sky.

“Called now are the Generals of Thunder and Lightning! Called now are the Black and White Impermanences who restrain and castigate the wayward dead. Called now is the Army Eating Wolf and the Nine Sons of the Dragon, and the snake with two tails that brings drought and all the calamities of Heaven and Earth are called now, called now, DESCEND!”

Lighting struck out of a clear sky. Tian heard a strange roaring, crackling, snapping sound. He risked a look over Elder Redmane’s shoulder and saw utter chaos. Hundreds of man-tall feathers pierced demons, zombies and heretics alike, and prowling between them were horrors made of blue-white sky fire.

Elder Rui choked down a gasp. Tian saw the refined senior looking suddenly haggard. Then he pulled himself together, shoving a pill in his mouth.

“Disciple Sung, have you arrived?” His voice sounded conversational, but Tian knew better.

“A moment.” There was a long pause. “Windmother and I are here. Clear the field.”

“You heard her.”

“Windmother is always overbearing. See if I don’t rip out her tail feathers one of these days.” The giant crane grumbled, but he was already flapping hard and shifting away from the base.

There was something wrong. Tian could feel it, some twist of the elements down in the sands… no, by the rocky hill two miles from the Depot. They were passing near it. There was an elemental imbalance, too enormous and complicated for him to understand. He had the inexplicable sense of watching someone reach over their own head, open their jaw wider and wider, and pull it down over their neck, their shoulders, inverting their whole body through the terribly distended mouth.

“Brother Tian, do you feel that?”

“Yes, Sister. Elders, there is a terrible elemental imbalance over by the rocky hill over there. It feels very wrong, and it’s huge.”

“Eh, I don’t? How… The Dao charm is still on you. Shit. DISCIPLE SUNG, RUN! IT’S AN AMBUSH!”

Elder Rui swung his horsetail whisk, and thousands of brilliant threads, glistening like stars on a clear night, fell on the hill. The hill twisted and shuddered, breaking apart. Then it exploded, and a giant burst out.

Tian tried to understand the madness his eyes were reporting. Redmane was swearing and flapping hard, trying to gain height and distance while the giant unfolded. It was human, or at least somewhat human shaped. No head on its naked shoulders, and where its hands should have been were axes so broad, Tian thought you could build a house on them.

Redmane dove hard. A cut, black and twisting like ink in water, appeared in the air where they had been. A second after, the noise arrived sizzling and ripping, the sound of something that truly enjoyed destruction. The Giant was facing them now, one of its ax-hands down low. It had attacked them. Tian never saw it move. He would have died without knowing what killed him were it not for Elder Redmane.

Stolen story; please report.

Two more giants exploded out of the earth. How they got to within a few miles of the base, Tian didn’t know. But they were there. Three monstrous, nature despising giants. And Elder Rui clearly didn’t care to fight even one of them.