The Dark Horde Pt. 18

Gilgamesh rose in her heart. The old warrior filled her heart with his courage, his lust for battle, and his deadly cunning. That mounted lizard, he whispered. He is their courage. He must die.

"Bruno!" She shouted, gesturing towards the mounted lizard soldier.

Bruno lifted his blood-soaked head and looked in the direction Val had pointed. He bellowed, fists clenched, dipped his head down and charged. He charged into the massed orcs, through the them, tossing them aside, carving a bloody trench through the army. Val followed him, swinging her sword, tossing hurled spears and arrows aside, protecting Bruno, widening the path. A few minotaurs followed her, but she didn't notice.

Within a few seconds she was on the mounted lizard soldier. With a scream she launched herself over Bruno, stepping off of his shoulder. She sailed through the air followed by a crackling of lighting, sword hand raised. She had a single thought: CUT. She landed on the dinosaur, sword slicing through the lizard soldier and deep into the beast beneath. The dinosaur flopped to the ground. Val rose up, covered in blood, steam rising from her over-heated body. The orcs and lizard men formed a wary circle around her.

A sudden flash of light drew everyone's attention.

They all turned towards the tower, where the gate was opening. A bright light was shinning from within, and as the gate opened it spilled more and more light onto the battlefield. The gate opened fully with a metallic clang, revealing what was beyond it.

A sunlit beach. And on that beach column after column of lizard soldiers thousands of them. The battlefield had grown silent for a moment as everyone, orc, centaur, or wood creature, watched in amazement as the columns of lizard soldiers marched forward, through the gate and onto the darkness of the moon-lit valley.

A gate. The tower was a gate to the Lizard Priest's island. The orcs had never been the main army, just a scouting force. The Lizard Priests were now playing their real hand, and the forest people had no answer to it.

Val looked around. The minotaurs were waist deep in orcs. The centaurs were running along the side of the army, but cut off from the tower. The forest people were at the front line, engaged with the enemy. There was no one to stop the lizard soldiers from marching through that gate.

Except for Val.

She heard the war cry of Gilgamesh resonate in her heart.

She started running, sweeping orcs to the side, rushing towards the gate and the advancing lizard army. Even as she ran she knew that fighting the lizard men was impossible. There were too many of them. She was ready to die for the forest, for her friends. Gilgamesh was spurring her on, ready to fight them all. So she ran, closer and closer to the tower, to the open gate, to the rows and rows of advancing lizard soldiers.

Dying now felt stupid.

Suddenly she veered to the side. Val ran up to the tower itself and, with a mighty leap, reached up to a balcony and heaved herself inside. There had to be a way to close that gate, to stem the tide of lizard soldiers. She ducked and stepped into the tower itself, through a short passage carved out of the massive obsidian walls, to finally stand inside.

The tower was hollow, dark, the black glass walls reflecting the few lights hanging in the cavernous space. Above her was an unending darkness pierced by...stars? Distant and cold, they shed their light on a figure crouched below her, like a toad at the bottom of a well.

It was a gigantic figure, at least twice Val's size, vaguely human shaped, robed in black and green draperies hanging from its shoulders. The head turned to face Val, revealing a new horror. Where a face should be was a mass of tentacles writhing below two huge black eyes. The skin covering the bare head was moist and grey, like the flesh of some great sea creature, a shark with the face of a squid. But this was a vastly older horror than any earthly creature.

This was the god to whom the Lizard Priests pray to, thought Val.

With eery silent it rose and turned towards Val, one hand extended towards her.