Mace PT 2

Oh ritual! Oh wonderful relief! I kneel. Not like a man who kneels in honor or submission but to an addiction. I kneel to an escapee bowing before a more gentle predator. The water from her hands is cold. I feel it spread through my chest as I drink. Something is different. A century of the same falling and then rising to the ever war and I can for the first time see just beyond the white cocoon she wraps me in. The white fabric is thinning. I see him the red one watching her enact the ritual. His thousand points of light blazing with knowing and approval. A slight movement of his head. Did he see?

When I rise I am not fully whole. My sight is split wider than normal and my thoughts are chaotic. All around me is confusion. There is a loud popping of bone and the creak of metal as my skull comes together sealing my mind and the helmet bends and straightens into a single piece. The glory of the battle and the draw of the noble goal come flooding back in crystal and hot. The mace is in my hand. It never left. It barks again. A proxy of something far off.

I wade into the violence. I can feel the blood from my last death wet the space between me and the full plate armor. The smell of it is the same smell that fills the red haze that paints the dust we kick up as we kill one another.

There is a scream behind me. I turn to see an enemy finish ripping the arm off of another. He is unlike the rest of us. He stands nearly twice as tall and wider. It is hard to believe he is human. Are we human? He lifts the arm to his face and takes a bite from the bloody stump. The creature that watches me barks another wordless command and my vision fills with red clarity.

I run at the hulking enemy before me. I am my mace and it is me. Another creature barks at him and he lifts his sword. It is huge and beyond reasonable. He does not yell he roars an inhuman sound and guides the weapons edge with meteoric force to intersect my path. I lay back sliding on the ground as the monumental weapon passes over me. It is heavy and its passing gives me a sense of dread that mingles with the battle frenzy.

I stand and continue my charge. I swing my mace at the hip of the behemoth. It dents his armor but does not faze him. He swats me like a bug casting me to the ground. In one fluid motion he brings the sword down on my prone position. I catch the blade with the handle of the mace supporting it with both hands. I hear the metal strain and give off tiny cracking sounds.

The sword is heavy and the enemy pressing down on me is strong. His wild face oozes pink saliva from between his clenched teeth. I roar with fury and roll from beneath the blade. As I stand I bring my mace up as hard as I can. Catching his face. The sound is like the clap of thunder. He reels back and the handle of my mace breaks.

I feel a rush of panic and anger. He lies motionless but breathing. I scramble over to the top half of my mace. Grabbing it and turning to the prone enemy. I climb onto his chest straddling it as best I can. Taking a flange in both of my hands I drive the broken handle into the face. He screams at first but the repeated blows plow the flesh on his face revealing the white wet bone. I do not stop until he is as inhuman as I can make him.

I sit for a moment catching my breath when the massive sword slides point first into the seam of my pauldron peeling it and my shoulder off. He sits up casting me off his helmet falling to the ground. He grabs my arm in a grip that no one could escape. It is impossible that he can see yet he does. He sees me with his mashed orbs. His face is skull with meat clinging to it. The jaw open and hot angry breath rolls out as he sinks his teeth in the fresh wound. I scream as he pulls hard on my arm. Then there is a pop and the tearing of flesh. My arm comes free I try and fall away from him but his bite is firm and fixed. He stands with me hanging from his mouth. I dangle a held above the ground by this monsters bite. The pain is without measure it is a background thrum that peaked a long time ago. What is left of my mace is gripped still in my other hand. In my remembering I plunge the splintered handle into his temple. He abruptly stops moving and falls.

I stand and stumble aimlessly away from the fight. I wander past bodies locked in combat. An ocean of violence that the watchers skitter below. I am no longer a threat and so I go unnoticed. I know that the ritual will begin again soon. So soon. I have not been long from the last. I wander for a while. I can feel the draw back into the fight but I am so weak how could I fight? So for the first time I walk away. I walk away outside the bounds of the battle to an open barren spot where the dust is brown and not red. I can see the silhouettes of the enemies clash in the red haze they kick up. I look down and it is there. It barks an order and I feel it spread from my mind to my limbs. None of me can obey. I fall.