The Iron Pillars

Chapter 6

Baird jumped when the flashy lights died away and the energetic music with it. He squinted into the veil of darkness, but saw nothing. Besides the scrambling of footsteps on the floor and groping hands slapping the walls, the room fell into a relative silence. A silence soon shattered by a duo of voices bursting into laughter. Baird heard the click of the dog's nails circling several times around Kookaburra's seat before the sound became swallowed up in their explosion of audible mirth. 

"See, it all makes sense now!" Kookaburra's voice shrieked over the growing commotion, "The criminal's come to cause us trouble! He's come to kill me!" 

"It's him or us, you see!" the dog agreed, his nasally voice topping Kookaburra's pitch by an octave. 

Baird pushed back in his seat and rose to his feet. His vision being completely useless, he shut his lids so as to protect his eyeballs. I'm like Khemera now. he mused to himself as he shifted to a fighting stance and kept his ears peeled for an incoming attack. 

His first attacker announced himself with a noisy war cry. Baird leapt up and kicked in the direction of the scream, assured he had hit his target when the sound became muffled, and shifted tonally from rage to agony. When Baird landed, he heard a grunt, and jetting his arm forward, he blocked a punch. 

Kookaburra and his dog cackled behind Baird with a hearty vigor. He strained to pick up audible clues through their clamor. When he heard the distinct ring of a sword leaving its sheath, he gritted his teeth and lunged forward. 

Both Baird and his opponent grunted when they hit the ground. With a clenched jaw, he wrestled the bladed weapon from the man's grasp. Baird swung a heavy fist down. He felt his knuckles hit cheekbone, and the man's body became limp beneath him. 

Baird leapt to his feet and strained to hear over the crescendo of laughter coming from Kookaburra's direction. The god and his dog created dissonant harmonies in their cackling, rising and falling in pitch in almost perfect sync. 

When Baird felt the ground rumbling behind him and heard the floorboards creak, he reached down for the sword his previous opponent had dropped. He hurled it over his shoulder. A squishing sound ensued, followed by a deep, gravelly grunt. When a heavy thud rumbled the floor, Baird felt assured of success. 

He shifted back into a defensive stance as he heard a crowd gathering in a circle around him. The men began laughing together, though the sound struck Baird as far from natural. Their chuckles followed a steady rhythm, slowly increasing and decreasing in speed and volume all together. Kookaburra's chortling in the background seemed to serve as a master clock to the gleeful symphony. 

When Baird felt a brush of wind, he dodged. Another pair of punches came his way from separate directions, which he also dodged. As the clamor of laughter grew, his hearing also became useless as a tool, and he focused only on feeling. Several blows hit him, and the warmth of his attackers' bodies drew ever closer. 

"Armory, thunder blade!" he shouted, reaching his hand skyward. 

After a second's pause, the roof noisily splintered open above, and the pieces of a metal container clattered to the floor. The hilt of Baird's saber jumped right into his hand, drawing a grin to his face. He ducked to avoid another punch, and while crouched, he gave a button on the weapon's handle a hard press. Electric sparks ignited and hopped over the curved blade, providing a slight bluish glow for the swordsman to see by. 

Baird's eyes shot open, and he lunged into his attackers with an explosive leap. He slashed into the nearest man and watched as the man's convulsions prevented him from clutching the fresh wound. Upon landing, Baird hacked away at his enemies. Laughter morphed into screams as he inflicted wounds aplenty.