Queen Yavara Ch. 58

If you come after me, then I'll have to come out and save you, and we'll both die in the streets.

I laughed, and wiped the tears from my eyes. We're dead anyway, you asshole. Why couldn't you have just died with me?

I had to be a hero.

You dumb fucker.

I know. I'm sorry. I just wanted to say—

Don't you fucking say 'goodbye' to me.

...I just want you to know that I love you.

I already knew that, dumbass.

You're supposed to tell me you love me back, you insensitive slut.

If you want to hear it, you'll have to hear it from my lips. Get your ass back here, bro.

Brianna...

This isn't goodbye. Don't fucking say it's goodbye.

Kiera didn't say anything for a while, then she whispered so sweetly into my mind, It's not goodbye. Not yet.

Then, she was silent. I transformed back into my elf body, and blotted my cheeks. My soldiers couldn't see me like that. I stepped out of the royal box, and stood before the clusters of women awkwardly holding weapons for the first times in their lives. Most of the tribal warrior-women had been in Eva's group. The women that stood before me were Ardeni orcs; knitters, cobblers, smiths and factory workers. The only weapon they'd known were hammers, and their only enemies had been nails and anvils. The teenagers flowing in from Soraya's battlegroup were at least somewhat trained in weaponry, but by the looks on their faces, I could see the fight had been shot out of them. All they'd done the entire battle was run away.

"Form up!" I yelled, and the order was passed down the ranks. Nothing happened. No one knew what 'form up' even meant. The subdivisions of each battlegroup were terribly disorganized, as they'd been thrown together fucking yesterday. Most of these people didn't even know who their commanding officer was.

"Everyone face that way!" I hollered, and pointed toward the south. "Melee weapons front and center, skirmishers to the sides! Come on!"

The rabble chaotically organized itself into something resembling a formation. I stood in the front of it and watched the mouths of the ten boulevards that converged upon this pavilion. A succession of booms sounded from the streets, followed by ten clouds of dust that floated high into the air. First, the succubi came flowing over the rooftops. I felt a dangerous tug of hope when I counted their numbers; almost all of them had made it back. I waited for Kiera's battlegroup to come pouring into the pavilion, but there was just a trickle. A few hundred beleaguered and dust-covered individuals limped their way past the last street corners. Only the final line had made it out. And even they didn't make it, for even as they stumbled and dragged themselves across the pavilion, a great flood of silver and blue burst from the mouths of the boulevards, converged upon the straggling beasts, and swallowed them whole.

"Let's fucking go!" I screamed, and sprinted out into the pavilion. For thirty excruciating steps, I was running alone. The low winter sun glared in my eyes, my feet crunched in the snow, and my heart thundered in my ears. The great mass of silver and blue surged forward, thousands of blades flashing in the air, all eyes on the lone elf charging toward them. Then I felt the thunder of footsteps behind me, and the army swelled out from the arena like a flooding gorge to meet the Lowlanders. The enemy faltered for just a moment, and that moment was all we needed. We closed the distance in two breaths, smashed into their lines, and drove them backward with our greater inertia.

I was pressed in on all sides. Before me was some young handsome Lowland buck, his eyes wide with terror, his mouth filled with my sword. I pushed it through the back of his skull, and stuck the man behind him in the throat. The towering orcs at my sides held my shoulders square, and the tonnage of beasts behind me propelled me forward. I trampled over my first victim, and barely pulled my sword out before it was torn from my grip. The man behind him clutched his throat and fell, and he too was carried under my heels. The third man was nothing but a shield, and I was soon flattened against it, my entire body pressing as I was lifted off my feet by the surging beasts behind me. I stabbed over the top of the shield, and my blade clanged blindly off the man's helmet and shoulder until it finally sank into a crease of his armor, and his shriek sounded out. He fell beneath me, and my toes brushed his body as I was hurled forward onto the next man. This one had his spear ready for me, and I barely moved my head out of the way in time. The shaft of the weapon glided along my neck until I fell atop him, and drove my sword through his collar. He crashed down beneath me, my sword was wrenched from my hand, and I was sent sprawling into the next man.

This was a mage, a very pretty young woman with red hair and freckles, and by the look of utter shock on her face, she hadn't been ready for me. My luck. I smashed my forehead into her face until her nose caved in, then I punched my thumbs into her eyes, burst her eyeballs, and ran her over. Her screams carried for a remarkably long time before the fatal crushing blow was dealt to her. There was a space left in her wake, and I used the moment to snatch an axe from the ground, and hasten my pace lest I be run over by my own men. I split one man's head open, side-stepped a spear thrust, decapitated another man, dodged a sword swipe, and separated a third man's shoulder. I couldn't move much within the confines of battle, but I could move faster than anyone, and my small frame allowed me to contort within the press of bodies. The poor beasts behind me didn't appreciate my elusiveness, for they caught most of the attacks meant for me. Their screams filled my ears for a second, then were cut violently when they fell beneath the feet of the horde. Once the stampede got going, it wouldn't stop for anyone.

And then, our momentum slowed. The press of beasts around me became more intimate, and the men before me no longer fell like dominoes. I drove the spike of my axe through a man's eye, and he simply slumped against the man behind him. Before I could raise my weapon, I was shoved into my victim, and me and his brethren sandwiched him between us. A beast on either side of me pinned my arms to my side, and the beast behind me forced me against the dead body. I dug my feet into the ground and drove with all my might, but I couldn't take another step forward. Suddenly, everyone was standing still. I was at the center of two great masses grinding together like tectonic plates, applying pressure from all sides to force an uplift. The heat was unbearable, the weight was suffocating, I was gasping like a beached fish just to expand my diaphragm a tiny bit. Grunts, growls and moans flowed from the mouths of the beleaguered warriors on both sides as we drove with all our might to break the deadlock. Just one more step, that's all it would take. Just one more step, and we could build our inevitable momentum forward, and drive them back into the sea. We just needed to push a little harder.

From my periphery, I could see the flitting motion of missiles being hurled back and forth between the armies. Arrows, rocks and bolts were shot from the flanks of each force into the belly of the battle, trying to break up the bulk of the enemy. The shower of death was mostly focused on the edges, but it was progressively moving inward toward the center. The line began to shift. The deadlock began to weaken. The rows of men and beasts on either side of me were slowly being thinned out by a hail that was shot indiscriminately from both sides, and the downpour was closing in on me. I looked at the man in front of me, and he looked back at me, and for a moment, we were no longer enemies. The soldiers at our sides dropped with a scream, and we hoisted the body between us up and over our heads, and took cover from the passing storm. The body thudded with dull impacts, bloody arrowheads punched through his armored back, and stones rattled off his breastplate. The storm lingered for a moment, then past. I looked at the man before me, and he looked at me.

"Wait—" was all he managed to say before I pulled the dagger from my boot, and stuck it in his throat. I stood up, and was sent sprawling backwards into the ranks of beasts behind me. Scrambling to my feet, I pivoted against the coming charge just in time for it to smash into me. I was pinned on all sides once again, only this time, I was moving backwards. The savage snarls of the humans filled my vision, and their growls and roars filled my ears. I moved my axe in front of me just in time to catch a sword's edge, but I couldn't counterattack, I couldn't gain any footing, and any attempt I made to brace against my attacker was futile. We were moving faster now. The enemy accelerated forward, and we surged backward, stumbling and tripping over a layer of dead. The man locking weapons with me leaned into the charge, looming over me, snarling and frothing at the lips with the fervor of battle. He was a towering man, ugly and scarred, stinking and barbaric; he was the kind of bro I'd take behind a back alley for a dangerous against-the-dumpster fuck in the dead of night. When a space opened up between us, all I could do was react to his strike, and bear the brunt of it against my axe handle. He struck, I blocked, and we pressed and together, snarling and gnashing our teeth, staring at each other from bulging eyes. We separated, he struck, I blocked, and again we met together, roaring and snapping like combating lions.

"I'm gonna kill you, bitch!" He roared, "I'm gonna gut you like a fucking pig!"

"I'll rip your fucking throat out!"

We separated, he struck, I blocked, and we met together again, growling and spitting.

"I'm gonna make you squeal, piggy!" He snarled, "Squeal! Squeal! Squeal!"

"I'm gonna feed you your balls first!"

We separated, he struck, and I blocked too high. His blade chopped into my hand, and cleaved off every finger through my split knuckles. I shrieked and dropped the axe, and he pressed into me, his sword digging into my leather armor, his eyes wild and hungry.

"You'll squeal for me, piggy!" He growled in my ear as his blade bit deeper and deeper into my armor, "You'll squeal! You'll squeal! You can't wiggle away from me!"

We separated. He struck. I squealed. The point of his blade punctured my armor, drove through my flesh, my muscle, and my belly. The sword exploded out of my back, and the hilt sank into me. He was pressed against me, his breath in my nostrils, his sweat smearing against my face, his wild eyes raging into mine. The blade moved within me, cutting and sawing, opening me from end to end. I was shrieking, writhing around my penetration, tearing my rent muscles in a manic effort to get the sword out, to make the pain stop, oh god, make it stop!

"That's it, piggy!" He roared, "Squeal me for me while I fuck you! I'm fucking you good! You ain't never had a cock like this before!"

We separated. He ripped the sword out of me, and rammed it in again. It pierced through my gut, blended my intestines, and shot out of me high on my back. Blood vomited from my mouth and speckled his face as we came together once more, intimate like lovers.

"You'll die here, little piggy." He grinned at me, twisting his blade inside me, making me screech higher and higher, "You'll die good and slow like all piggies!"

He got too close. I wrenched forward, sank my teeth into his nose, and clamped down. Now it was his turn to squeal. He bellowed and screamed at the top of his lungs, and ripped his blade this way and that inside of me. He sawed to my sternum, sliced toward my hip, and plunged toward my pelvis, opened me from every direction, but I kept my teeth clamped on his face, biting deeper and deeper, blood flowing freely from my mouth as my esophagus spasmed with it. The dance of battle continued around us, and the partners all separated, but we didn't. When I had enough room to move my arms, I wrapped them around his neck, and threw my weight backward. The screaming man in my mouth toppled forward, and we were swept into the trampling undercurrent.

It was dark down here. The light was fading from my vision, and the world was swimming above me. Feed pounded all around me and on top of me, driving the squirming man against me, pounding me into the ground. Like a dying snake locked in its last defiant moments, I kept my jaws clenched around the man's nose, but the rest of my energy dissipated from my body. A numbness crawled up from my feet, taking away the life from every part of me it touched, sapping me slowly from the bottom. I was so cold. A fever seemed to be raging in my head. My heartbeat was thumping slowly in my temples. Ba-bum, ba-bum, ba-bum... why was it so loud? It was like it was warning me of something. It needn't bother. I knew what was happening.

It sure is dark down here, a wicked part of me thought; a dark, and gleeful little piece of evil. No reason to go out like a pussy, bro.

I grinned at the thought, and my teeth became fangs. My fangs sank into the man's face, and his shrieks moved up an octave until his head exploded in my jaws. My hands became claws, my rent flesh knitted back together, and my limbs exploded with muscle. I was alive. Oh, I was ALIVE! I reached out, grabbed a passing leg, and tore it clean off like it was a chicken wing. Its owner pitched forward with a bloody scream, revealing the blinding high-noon sun. I dashed out from the light, moving like a centipede on my hands and feet beneath the trampling feet, slithering nimbly through the dynamic forest of legs. They didn't even see me; just glimpses. Just a pale horror of their worst nightmares scuttling across their toes. I grabbed a man, pulled him under, and darted away before the sun burned too much of me. I left him to be trampled behind me, then I scurried between another man's legs, punched upward, and ripped his guts out through his new asshole. Holy shit, that was funny. He stayed standing long enough for me to avoid the light he'd leave in his wake, and I continued my aimless path of terror. The flashes of sunlight from above constantly burned marks upon me, leaving red blotches on my shoulders and back, and bald spots in my hair. I giggled like a crazy woman to think about how ugly I must look, and then I punched through another officer's pelvic floor, tore the awful out of him, and let his innards slide cleanly from the fresh hole.

Hey bro, you still alive? I called Kiera. Bro?

I tore a man's feet right off, and dragged him under. God, that fucking sun was getting annoying.

Bro?

I gutted another man through his anus, and ran away with his entrails in hand, letting them string out like twenty-foot rope to trip a whole platoon of his comrades. This joke never got old.

Bro?

Hey bitch. Kiera answered. Her voice was so weak. How's it going?

I'm just... you know... dying.

Cool-cool. Me too. What's your mode of transport?

I'm going out like a fucking legend, bro. Running through the Lowland army like a fucking predator, ripping guts out of assholes and tearing legs off.

Fucking legendary, bitch.

Amen. How's it going for you?

I... uh... I don't really want to say it now.

Why not?

It's not as cool as yours. It's kind of embarrassing.

This is a strange time to be insecure.

Ugh, fine. This bastard mage is torturing me to death.

Fucking bummer, bro.

Dude is a total amateur. Dumbass doesn't even realize I took ten times the lethal dose of heroin before he even captured me. I can't feel a thing. Oops, there goes my penis.

I'm really gonna miss that dick, bro.

I am too. But hey, he just informed me he's going to display it in a glass jar at the Ardeni Science Museum.

Right where it belongs.

I thought it belonged in an art exhibit myself. Ah shit, now he wants to cut the baby out of me.

What the fuck is wrong with this dude?

Total virgin for sure.

One-hundred-percent virgin. I guarantee you he didn't even come out of his mom's pussy, so he can't even claim a score on a technicality.

Holy shit, I just realized my whole body was once inside my mom's pussy.

Fucking crazy, right? We start our lives coming out of a pussy, and spend the rest of 'em trying to get back in.

Circle of life, bitch.

Fucking circle of life. I bet that mage is so hard right now

He's definitely gonna fuck my corpse.

Circle of life?

I don't think that applies here.

Make sure to shit yourself before you go.

Way ahead of you, bitch.

I sniffled with pride. I fucking love you, bro.

I fucking love you too. Kiera sniffled back, You would've been a really good mom, you know.

Nah, we both would've been really shitty parents.

But the good kind of shitty. Not neglectful, just... fucking crazy.

I'm gonna miss you.

Not for long. You'll see me on the other side.

You know I'm atheist.

Who said God would be there? Kiera's voice was so faint, It'll just be you and me. Holy shit, Bri-Bri, we're actually about to die. Fucking unreal, man.

Fucking unreal. I whispered back as I felt our connection fade, I'll see you soon, my love.

There wasn't a reason to keep going. The sun had scored so many marks on me that it was becoming a struggle to move, and frankly, I was getting tired of ripping guts out of assholes. It just wasn't as funny as the first time. Still, I needed an epic sendoff. I needed an honor guard of worthy foes to carry me into the oblivion. Fucking legendary shit. Fucking next level shit. And lo and behold, between the rows of iron-clad legs, way at the back of the Lowland army, I found a cluster of red robes shuffling ponderously toward me. Maybe there was a god after all, but she had a sick sense of humor.

I shot through the ranks of Lowlanders, weaving between legs like a serpent, my eyes fixed on the red robes. They didn't even break stride; they didn't know I was coming!

"Kiera, I hope you're watching this." I grinned to myself, and shot into the air like a goddamn missile. The sun blistered my flesh, but I didn't care. I grinned through cracked lips, my fangs bared in a wild grimace, and I barreled onto the heads of ten of the Lowland's finest. There were seven men and three women, all of varying age, but what they all had in common in that moment, was that they all were shitting their robes. I splayed my arms out wide as though to embrace them, and then swept downward. Two heads exploded into brain confetti, one head was ripped right off the neck, and another was only caved in. Disappointing. I landed atop two of them, crushing their chests and bursting their hearts, squirting blood from their hemorrhaged eardrums. The sixth died with her throat ripped out between my teeth, the seventh got his spine torn clean from his back, the eight got her guts ripped out of her asshole just for nostalgia, and the ninth, I beat to death with her own torn-off leg.

I turned my gaze to the frozen tenth mage. He'd pissed himself as well as shit himself, and his lips were stammering stupidly below his bulging eyes. My flesh was smoking, and agony was sounding from every nerve, but I was too out of my mind for the pain to do anything but make me giggle.

"Hey bro," I hacked at him, "lemme give you some advice. If you don't shoot your shot when you have the chance, you'll spend your whole life loading up for nothing."