“I am the Rain Lord!” The giant answered my cry with a spray of bullets. Slow. So very slow. I spun past the chattering metal, plunging my nithu beyond his flesh. Blood sizzled, boiling against the heated core of my blade. The giant pulled away, collapsing upon a mound of his brethren.
“I am the Rain–”
My words were cut short as I stepped from existence. A moment of darkness and then I reappeared, feet firm against the ground, five spans to the left. Flame billowed, warming the air. I mouthed a word of thanks and my pistol sang. The energy blast caught my attacker in the eye, spraying fluid out the back of his head. For you father.
It was a small victory in a sea of loss.
Darkness fell, and I sprang, twisting to the side. A true giant loomed, twice my height, grim and black with flashing claws of steel. Size does not matter, so the battle dancers teach. I came at him from all sides, my nithu a blur of speed and precision. It was as if I swatted at a mountain. My blade skipped across his ebony shell, for there was no weakness. Still I slashed, still I stabbed, denting, chipping, tiring. Slowly I was losing. Sweat glistened across my brow and each breath began to pull. Soon his claws would catch me. Soon I would be blood and ribbons.
There was no choice.
I dropped my gun, flicking fingers across the digipad embedded in my armor. A hiss of acceptance and then pain, as countless monofilament fibers injected midnight oil into my veins. The giant loomed high, arms pushed forward, claws extended, ready to make the killing blow as I stood frozen. And then time sat upon my palm. I existed in a hundred places in the space between two breaths. I found every chink, ever hole, every secreted joint in the armor and tested the soft flesh beneath with my blade. The giant was dead before he fell, dismembered within his shell. The earth shook at his passing, trembling up my armor and through my skin.
The race had ended.
Time slammed into me and I bent double. My blood was acid, burning up and down my length, eating at me from within. Such a price but by Kalla what speed I had possessed! I shook, holding my knees, giddy and aching. It was then I saw the bodies, spread out before me like a fan. Some were the hulking forms of the invaders but all too many were smaller, slimmer. My brothers, my sisters, ragged tatters of their once proud glory. My vision blurred, tears welling. So much death. My clan. My whole clan lay broken before me.
Steps.
Crunching the ground, defiling my land. With effort, I raised my head, seeing a line of warriors. There were perhaps a dozen. They might as well have been a thousand. My end was nigh. They raised their crude weapons and screamed death with metal tears. The sacred devices upon my armor began to whir and I phased. I reappeared to the side, finding more bullets, I phased, moving forward, death, I phased, skipping back, again bullets, now to the side, to the left, again to the right.
I laughed as I jumped, throwing my arms wide.
“I am the Rain Lord! I am An’su’wa! You cannot kill me!” I know not if they heard my cries as I tumbled through existence. In truth, I didn’t care. The blessing of my armor was not infallible and if I was to die it would be with curses upon my tongue.
Invaders. Trespassers. Devils.
Slowly their fire began to fade, coming in mere bursts and then only an occasional spat. They must have realized the futility of their assault. I was still laughing, lost in madness, lost in anguish. I had used the oil too soon. Now I was stripped of life and too weak to move. What I would give for one last moment of purpose. Just enough to slip across their throats.
Enough to make them bleed.
I watched uncaring as their metallic ranks parted and a tiny figure stepped forward. The newcomer was short, enveloped in overlarge robes. He seemed out of place among the shining giants he walked between. A child lost on the field of battle. How must I look, I darkly mused. And then his eyes were upon me and my thoughts were gone.
A thunderclap.
His orbs blazed like liquid silver, sucking at my very soul. I have never been so consumed. Even the stabbing pain of the midnight oil slipped from me. It was as if the man plucked me from my skin and deposited me in the air between my battered remains and his aging form. I watched in horror as my body twitched, my right hand turning the blade. I was possessed! I tried to rail against the unclean power, shouting, flailing, but my prison was endless and I could find no escape. My nithu, the extension of my hand, the blade of dreamers now pointed at my throat. No! I screamed. No!!! But my voice was nothing, sucked into those terrible eyes. My body capitulated, sagging into the blade. Hot agony. Jerking me from the air, wrapping me in flesh once more. So much pain, more than should exist.
I am the Rain Lord.
I collapsed onto the ground, twitching, the blade eating a hole in my neck. The man stepped closer, and I could see the folds of his face, the thinning hair, and the hunger that leapt from his unholy eyes. I tried to pull away. Now he crouched at my side, fingers extended, pressing into my face. I opened my mouth to bite but gagged up blood instead.
I was dying.
And though he had killed me, the demon was not pleased. His eyes formed to slits, shadowed words taking flight. I smiled as I fell away, joyous to deny the invaders something, anything. And then I stopped. Somewhere between passing and death, I stopped. The fall had ended and I hung, dangling over the depths of nothingness. Words cannot describe such sickness, such wrongness.
It was only the beginning.
My puppet flesh was thrown into a cage and carted amongst the victorious warriors. I was their prize. I was their proof. Never have I felt such shame. Such helplessness. Movement was beyond me, speaking impossible. All I could do was watch. Watch as five hundred and sixty one giants filed past my body, each dripping the blood of my kin. Five hundred and sixty one sets of eyes. Five hundred and sixty one marks upon their armor. I see them in my dreams: a hook and slash, three lines across, a twisted moon, a peaked valley, a broken spine, a gutted circle, on and on. Each I see. Each I remember. And the man. The man with silver eyes.
All will die.
Once I was the Rain Lord. Once I was the protector of my people. Once I was a son, a husband, a father, a friend, a brother. But that was taken from me. Now I am only Estioth. Now I am only vengeance.
And I shall have my bloodletting.
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