Chaos Lives in Everything - 55. Chapter 55

Skold reached the landing of another flight of stairs. He was at the very top of the east tower. There was another door at the end of the corridor that led out onto the top of the tower. But there was one thing standing in his way: Samhein blocked his way to the door. The top of his scarlet robs was opened at the neck to show his pale, hairless chest and milky pink nipples. In his hand he held a dangerous looking sword.

“Done playing hide and seek, are we?” Skold said smoothely.

“As I said, you’re too late,” Samhein said. “A chopper is just seconds away, awaiting to pick me up. I will be on that chopper. This time I will be in Tokyo.”

“So you’re running again? Is that all you’re good at, running and hiding, and running some more? And you call yourself a male?”

Samhein grinned maliciously. “At least I still have my cock.”

“And not much else. Your kingdom is falling down around your ears again. At least the first time around your lover had the courage to stand up and fight for what he believed in. Unlike you.”

Samhein turned and darted towards the door without a word. His movements were quick, almost snake-like.

Skold gestured at the door and shouted “ Sdheil!”

A wall of kinetic energy spread out in front of the door, blocking Samhein’s way. He turned around and snarled. “Damn you, Skold!”

“Indulge my curiosity just this once, won’t you? Dance with me.” Skold held the blade of his sword out before him. “I’ll even take the defensive position.”

Samhein gave no warning. He charged at Skold, sword raised above his head. He moved so quickly that Skold barely had enough time to get his sword up in time.

Samhein was quick and graceful, his attacks coming from every angle. Most of the times Skold could predict what his adversaries were going to do before they did it. Most of the times they had a style, a pattern. A certain composure. But Samhein had none. Though he was graceful and quick his movements had no fluidity. They were violent, brutal. His eyes, normally red, burned like a flaming inferno. He was letting his anger control his movements.

“I’m going to enjoy tearing you apart, Skold!” he roared. “Fuere!”

A flaming ball of fire shot from his outstretched hand. Skold rolled out of the way just in time to feel it soar over his head. It hit a bust behind him, disintergrating it into ash. He rose to his feet just to feel Samhein’s fist strike him in the face with enough force to send him stumbling back a few steps.

Samhein stopped, panting furiously. He watched as Skold wiped the palm of his hand across his busted lip.

Pools of silver light shot from Skold’s eyes. He beared his teeth in a rabid smile. “Is that all you got? Is that all you can do?”

Howling, Samhein drove his sword towards Skold’s chest. Skold parried the attack with a downward swipe of his sword. With a wild kick, he knocked Samhein’s sword out of his hand. With a curse, Samhein made the mistake of reaching for his sword. Skold could have ended the moment right then and there and drove the blade through the back of skull. But he was having too much fun. He was getting too much satisfaction out of this. This is what the glory days must have been like, he thought. He grabbed Samhein by the back of his hair and slammed it into the wall as hard as he could.

Samhein’s head bounced off the wall. He stood up straight. Blood dripped from a nasty gash in his forehead. Other than that the blow had not done any damage to him; if anything it only enraged him further. He lashed out with a kick that caught Skold in the center of his chest. His armor took most of the force but not all of it. Before he could raise his sword to defend himself again, Samhein grabbed a hold of him and slammed him into the wall.

Skold felt the air being crushed from his body, felt the wall giving way at his body hit it. The next thing he knew he was plummeting through open air. For a split second he felt the chill of his wind as it slapped at his face before he slammed into stone once again.

The moment of impact was like being struck by a sledgehammer; it reverbrated through his entire body, made every bone shake. Grunting, he forced himself to get to his feet and looked up. He felt a muscle twist painfully in his back. Tears sprung to his eyes. He was so exhausted that everything made his body hurt. This is what it must feel like to be human, Skold thought. To be so vulnerable.

He had landed on a sort of patio that had been built into the side of the palace. Samhein was looking down at him through the hole that he had just made in the wall. They stared at each other for a moment, one measuring the other and vice versa. Then Samhein left through the hole in the wall, plummeted several feet, and landed gracefully before Skold. He had his sword in hand again.

Skold had nothing, no weapons. It seemed that the tables had turned against him.

Lightning flashed from the sky and struck the ground. The earth shook around them. The smell of smoke and flame made Skold’s nose twitch. Somewhere a fire was burning in the castle. Wouldn’t it be fitting if the castle were to burn beneath our feet and collapse, killing us both? Skold thought. That would be the perfect ending to this little standoff. He had to bite his tongue to keep from laughing.

Just to the right, out of the corner of his eye, Skold could see the glass paneled roof of a beautiful, elaborate greenhouse.

Samhein spread his arms, gesturing at the spectacle that was happening around them. “You wanted to dance. Now we’re dancing. I hope Paladin’s watching. I hope he watches as I rip your heart out of your chest.”

The sound of an approaching helicopter distracted them. The helicopter hovered before them, the rovers spinning rapidly. The light blared in Skold’s face, blinding him.

“Shoot him!” Samhein screamed. “Shoot HIM!”

The gun turret attached to the side of the helicopter rattled off, firing hundreds of rounds per a second. Skold dove for cover, sliding into a small alcove that was just big enough to fit him to fit inside. Shells slammed into the wall, turning the stone into dust.

“Fuck,” Skold cursed.

His heart gave a jerk. Samhein was running towards the chopper. Skold knew that if he got away everything was over.

I can’t let Samhein get away. I can’t fail.

For a second, just a second, there was a slight pause in the fire. That was all Skold needed. He bolted forward and leapt off the patio just as the helicopter started to drift away. He soared, suspended in the air. There had been no time to measure the jump. He had made the jump blindly. If he missed then this game would be over.

He landed on his hip, inside of the helicopter. The helicopter swerved so that the ground was almost directly beneath him, very far away. He gripped the sides of the door with all of his strength. Gravity threatened to pull him down, to pitch him out of the helicopter. The helicopter uprighted itself again.

“Damn you, Skold!” Samhein screamed. His robes rippled in the cold wild. He raised a gun to Skold’s face. It was a standard .9 mm weapon. A single shot to the face would be fatal enough to kill Skold.

Skold struck out. His hand knocked the gun out of Samhein’s grip. As it spun sideways the gun went off. The pilot’s head jerked forward, slamming into the dashboard. The sudden jerk of the the helicopter slammed Skold into the ceiling and then face first into the floor.

After that he didn’t know which way was up or down. He was being pinballed this way and that. The air was being crashed out of him again and again. There was no time to feel the pain. He thought he could hear Samhein screaming in pain but he couldn’t be sure. He was too busy dealing with his own pain.

The helicopter crashed through the glass roof of the greenhouse and then-

Darkness engulfed Skold. Oblivion. There was no feeling that followed, no thought. There was only nothingless and yet Skold wa s fully aware of that nothingness. That was okay with Skold. He deserved a nice vacation.

But the darkness didn’t last long.

“Skold!”

The voice was distant yet familiar. It was just loud enough to penetrate the darkness, to pull him from it.

Someone was pulling him out of the wreckage. He stared at what was left of the helicopter, amazed. The helicopter now looked like a crumpled up piece of tin foil, all twisted up and wrong. The rotors had snapped off. There was glass everywhere.

He could feel wetness. Blood. He was bleeding.

Now he was lying on his back, looking up at the night sky. He could see the stars and the moon. It’s cool silver light fell upon his face. The roof of the greenhouse was gone, brought down when the helicopter crashed through it.

A face blocked out the moon, hovering over his. It was a familiar face. A face that he was glad to see.

“Dom,” he croaked, smiling. He could taste blood in his mouth.

“I’m here. Can you move?”

“I don’t know.”

“I saw the helicopter crash and came running. I figured it had something to do with you. I came running. It’ll be a miracle sent from the spirits of Valhalla if you didn’t break anything.”

Dom helped Skold get to his feet and stepped away cautiously. Skold’s felt weak. He was more than sure that he had some broken ribs. But he managed to stand on his own. And he was alive. There was nothing that he couldn’t deal with.

“Where’s Samhein?” he asked. His voice came out slurred.

“Over here.”

It wasn’t hard to find Samhein among the wreckage. They only had to follow the trail of blood and they didn’t have to walk far.

Somehow Samhein had managed to crawl away from the wreckage but there wasn’t much left of him. Past the hips there was nothing left of his legs. One of his arms was twisted in at an awful angle. And there was red so much red. So much blood and torn flesh. Samhein’s face was a mass of flesh and bone. It was no longer a face but something straight out of a nightmare.

“He’s dead,” Dom said. “Good riddance.”

“ Mya yuo reetunin whit yrou lrove ni teh dsunngoe fo teh udnldreorw,” Skold said. (May you reunite with your lover in the dungeons of the underworld).

Skold and Dom left the ruins of the greenhouse. They stopped and looked at Paladin’s palace. Flames billowed out of the windows. Smoke spiraled towards the sky. Skold had the unshakable feeling that this was not the first time that he had watched it burn.