Shadowlands 12: nothing more important than...

Alice clutched the queen's wrist as her legs dragged across the stones to the center of the room. Tears streamed down her face, contorted in a mixture of pain and terror.1

I felt sick. There was nothing I could do. I had no weapon, I was weak from the non stop fighting, this could really be it, and someone else's life was on the line now.2

But I did have something. Vix. He was hopping around trying to get my attention. I followed him to a wall where several spades hung from hooks. They were fragile and dull, but beggars can't be choosers.3

I looked back to the group. they had lined themselves up and started some sort of ritual. Alice had been strapped across a pair of X'ed beams, like a tilted cross. 4

It was laying flat. Alice's wrists had been strapped to the two beams at the head of the cross, with her hips strapped over the intersection. She lay on her back with her legs hanging off of the cross, feet dangling inches above the ground.5

The queen raised a giant heart shaped crystal, and started chanting. I realized then that the Kami really beleived in all of this ritualistic pomp and circumstance. It would be a useful fact to remember if I ever lived.6

I circled around behind the throne and perched on the railing.7

Vix crawled onto my back and urged me forward. I leaned and jumped. The banister exploded beneath my feet, throwing me through the air over the group.8

As I flew over the queen's head, I threw one of the spades at the crystal. It struck and sent glowing chips of everywhere. "Kill him!" I heard someone shout.9

Before I landed, the clubs had already circled me. A flurry of tiny diamonds swarmed around me, cutting my skin away. A club ran up, still bearing a cut I had delivered to him earlier. He swung his weapon down and I sidestepped, stabbing him through the throat.10

I picked up the giant obsidian club and spun with it. The others backed away. I pitched it, and it smashed another club bearer in the head.11

Vix made some weird sound and the diamonds lit on fire, rebounding on their caster. He disappeared into the ensuing chaos, marking his position and progress with explosions and fire.12

The clubs closed on me again. I ducked around another swing, and latched onto the attacker's hand. Shadows crawled down my arm.13

He tried shaking me off. I rammed my hand into his bicep. I won.14

He fell down, and I took his weapon. I felt someone move behind me and struck.15

The jack blocked with his hand. An impressive feat considering the heft of the weapon. He punched me in the stomach and I flew across the room. He ran up at me and I put my hands up reflexively. A bolt of black slowed him enough for me to get my footing.16

He broke the wall next to my head with one punch. I struck him hard in the side, and heard a few ribs give way. His elbow bent hard and smashed into my head.17

He picked me up by the collar and slammed me into the wall. I reached for his face as he strangled me. My veins popped out visibly on my arms.18

My veins were growing. They were coming out of my skin, all the way up to my right shoulder.19

They fuzed together, into a single black tendril. At the end of my new appendage, several other flanges split off to form a many toothed mouth.20

Great, I though, He's making a worm grow out of my arm.21

But he wasn't doing it, I was.22

The worm lunged and bit his face. The flanges around its mouth dug into his skin. He dropped me and screamed.23

I grabbed the vein like a rope and pulled him down. His veins were turning black under his skin as my poisonous blood filled him.24

I pulled again, and the vein ripped off a chunk of face. Paper machee poured out of the wound. "Good job jacky!" shouted the queen of clubs, "Now kill him honey." I got the feeling she wasn't talking to me as a huge knobbed club swung down at me.25

I rolled away. The enormous king of clubs had set his sights on me finally. He lifted his club and swept it over the ground. I dropped to my right and latched my chain around one of the knobs26

The club pulled me up and I planted my feet on the club. I alternated the vein leech and the chain -now glowing bright gold- to hold myself onto the club as I ran up it.27

The king tried shaking me off, but he had no luck. "Just smash him idiot!" The king swung his club against a pillar. I jumped off and latched the leech into his neck. I swung under his left arm, and onto his back.28

The queen screamed and whipped at me. I caught her weapon and wrapped my hand in it. The chain coiled itself into the leather and constricted.29

The king reached up and tried to grab at me, throwing the queen off balance. I pulled her with my chain and she fell off of his shoulder. She swung there, holding onto the whip. "Please don't drop me!" she screamed. The chain released.30

I did not watch her fall. I slung the chain around and struck the king in his eye. He recoiled and I swung back under his arm, and over his other shoulder. I swung under his arm again, and landed on his chest. I belted his nose and then his eye. My mistake was realized when he picked me up and shook me.31

Fourtunately, though I seemed alone, I had one friend. A large glowing stone smashed into the king's face at a tremendous speed.32

Vix the flying burning imp caught me as I fell, and deposited me near the cross again. I had a breif moment to assess the situation. The hearts were all dead and/or burning, or were ready to kill me. The clubs were all demoralized. The diamonds were mostly running around on fire. This left the spades.33

They formed a wall between myself and the queen, who was chanting furiously now. I flicked up two pieces of glass with my extentions, and picked up a broken stone from the floor to hold in each hand, and stood ready to fight.34

Then I really saw who I was about to fight; an assorted group of emasiated men and women. 35

The spades each held some gardening or farming instrument, pointed threateningly at me. I saw their loosly gripped hands shaking on their 'weapons.'36

They knew I could kill them all in one go, yet they were less afraid of me than of the queen. I couldn't fight them. I couldn't bring myself to slaughter them. But Alice was not going to die.37

I swung my arms back, letting the glass blades fall far behind me. I then swung my right arm up, whipping the glass piece between two of them. The whole group split.38

I made the leech release the glass, and latch onto the cross, as I flicked up the chain and wrapped it around the foot of the hanging king of hearts. If you're having trouble picturing this, I just made myself into a giant slingshot.39

I retracted both extentions, and they shot me into the air. The king's neck severed, and I lost some altitude. As the queen finished chanting, I launched the king at her. The crystal speared him between the shoulders, straight down his spine.40

Vix hopped out of nowhere and landed on Alice's chest. The queen and any other cards able to crawl, walk, run, fly, or blink vacated the room with a high level of tenacity.41

I cut Alice free, and slung her over my shoulders. Vix blasted a wall away, and we ran. He moved quickly down the hall, incinerating any guards we came across.42

They seemed to be more advanced than the checkers we came across ealier. They looked like weird plastic insects, plated with oversized plastic disks, one per body segment, and a half piece on each segment of their six legs.43

As we ran through the halls, I noticed a rather annoying constant buzzing sound, probably being made by the guards.44

The black soldiers clutched polearms in their upper right and lower left hands, leaving their other two hands free for maneuvering and more advanced fighting techniques. The red soldiers held javelins and light swords in as many hands as they pleased. Each and every soldier had a bandoleir of pinecone grenades full of black ink.45

None of this however did them any good against Vix's fury, as he led me high into the central seige tower of the castle. 46

In the breakhouse beneath the tower top, I deposited Alice onto a bed, and started barricading us in. The buzzing had become almost deafening, even though there were no more soldiers. I looked out the window into the surrounding land.47

My mistake. There were definatly about ten thousand more soldiers than I had counted the first time. I could still hear Vix moving things merrily into the way of the door.48

I ascended to the top of the rook and looked down. All the surviving named cards surrounded the castle and myself with legions of card soldiers marked with their numbers. Wherever a commander had been eliminated by me, his cards had been distributed among that suit.49

The soldiers looked like the checker guards, only their armoring pieces were made of cards folded into hexagons.50

The Queen of Hearts stood amongst thirteen legions to the north of me, all marked with service Q's. She stepped to the edge of her carried platform, and opened the skirt of her outer robe. A small freakish woman stepped out from the curtain of furs, and read from a small card.51

"The Queen of Hearts commands you to surrender immediately mortal!" boomed her surprisingly deep voice, "And to return the pureblood you stole from her! Any other action will be met with violence!"52

I had the distinct feeling that one does not rally several thousand troops just to let someone peacefully surrender. So... I stood there. Silently.53

"Your choice has been made!" with slightly less anger she added, "If only you could survive to spread word of your defeat."54

"If only," I replied quietly. The intense humming was drowned out and swallowed up by the sound of untold numbers of feet and claws clicking against the stones and tiles of the castle, as the soldiers poured in.55

They clicked through hallways and windows and doors, along the catwalks and walls and ground, courtyards and terraces, everything everywhere was covered, and still the first wave had not all started their advance.56

They climbed the walls of the tower and stopped on the rim of the turret. I realized then that I had no weapons at all (save for my rapier wit). I also realized that I had no plan. Looking back I realized that if, IF, they had chosen to attack me right then, I would have died with urgency and tenacity.57

"Vix," I said with a crack in my voice, "Help please?"