Tree of Life Book III

Part I - Chapter 10

TREE OF LIFE BOOK III – PART I

CHAPTER 10

Nicole didn't quite know what she was feeling or whether she was glad to see Brian there or not. She just stared at her sometimes enemy, sometimes friend, now standing fully visible before her but dripping wet. Brian had on military fatigues, with gadgets of all sorts strapped to his waist and legs.

There was something slung over his back too. It appeared to be a rifle or something like it, only bigger and it had a flared out muzzle on the end.

Brian tipped his head at her. "Nikki."

Back in the distance, the guards began marching in on them.

Brian yanked out a handgun from his side. He fired off a round into the air. "Stop!"

No one stopped. The lead man actually sped up.

Brian leveled his gun at this one. He squeezed the trigger.

Bam!

The bullet glanced off the shoulder of this first man. "Argh!" He fell off to the side. One of the others rushed over to tend to him.

"I said stop!" Brian aimed his weapon here and there into the group, threatening one and then another of the guards in turn. "Don't come any closer."

The team halted where they were.

Brian shuffled sideways until he was standing right next to Nicole. He crouched down. Whipping out a knife, he cut her bonds, freeing her. "You all right?"

Nicole nodded. They got to their feet.

"What now?" She flicked her chin at the others. She rubbed her wrists for the soreness in them.

Brian glared at her. "How do I know?! They caught me by surprise, remember?"

"But don't you have reinforcements? Like helicopters?"

"No. I lost contact about a mile out from the base of the mountain. Something about the rocks in this place."

Nicole bit her lip. "You mean…?"

"It's just you and me."

In the other camp, Malchus stepped up. He motioned for the rest of his group to move off to one side, to give him room.

His men obeyed. They drifted out to the edge of the platform, back toward the tunnels.

From behind his back, Malchus brought forth a war hammer, with a long handle, as long as a staff and a head that measured at least two feet by three and must have weighed more than all of Nicole did, after a good breakfast, lunch and dinner. The hammer was black, shiny, exactly like the stone floor back in the meeting hall and the obsidian staff of Dior.

 At fifty yards out, the big man made his approach toward the two.

~~~

From the moment she first laid eyes on him, Malchus had always stood out from the others because he wore no armour. And now Nicole knew why.

As he stomped along, the man lifted his arms up and to the side, hammer and all. From all around on the floor and the walls, pebbles at first and then even larger stones, ones about the size of your fist, began flying to his side and then covering his body over in a layer of stone until it was inches thick, impenetrable and impervious to all harm, including nasty, flying bullets.

Brian let loose with his gun but aimed only for the man's head, which remained uncovered.

Malchus positioned his hammer and blocked these too. He kept marching.

"Should've known…" Brian stowed his gun. He began shuffling backward.

Nicole kept her position behind him as the two retreated. "Brian…!"

Brian swung out the weapon that had been strapped to his back. He gripped it in both hands and readied his finger on the trigger.

Nicole stared at the thing.

She didn't know much about firearms but this one looked indeed like a rifle or a machine gun. Maybe a minigun even, but with blinking lights and bulky attachments to the sides of the barrel, which gave it a strange, sci-fi kind of appearance.

"What is that thing?" Nicole frowned.

"Sonic cannon." Brian lifted it.

It whined as it charged.

Brian fired off the first shot.

The blast hit the big man full in the chest.

Malchus had known that it was coming, had raised his hammer to block, but still it pounded into him and sent him tripping backward three steps. Dust and gravel puffed out into the air from his body. He steadied himself.

Growling, he came at them again.

"Brian!"

Brian planted his feet. He fired another two times.

Malchus managed to glance one away, but the second still knocked him over and backward. He fell and rolled.

"Brian!" Nicole grabbed him from behind. "Why are you stopping? Keep firing!"

"Will you be quiet?! It's re-charging!"

Meanwhile, Malchus had regained his feet. He dove in for them once more.

Brian sent off another two shots.

Malchus flung his hammer at them.

The first blast sent the hammer flying. Malchus spun and evaded the second.

And that's all the time he needed.

He clapped hands together. He applied them to the ground.

Brian's cannon was re-charging.

The ground beneath them split open. With rumbling and shaking upon the entire platform, the earth beneath their feet parted.

Right below Brian and Nicole.

Nicole fell off to one side.

Brian lost his balance too.

The cannon slipped out of his hands.

Two boulders the size of refrigerators sliced upward and out of the ground. They slapped together from either side of it and crushed the cannon into tin foil.

The slabs eased apart.

The cannon, or what was left of it, crumpled to the ground in pieces, with bits and screws and clanking around like the scrap metal it had been reduced to.

The ground stopped seizing. The earthquake settled down.

Brian and Nicole struggled to their feet, still wobbling. Brian peered out.

There in the distance, in the settling dust and the quiet, loomed one ancient god of war, now standing tall and red hair flowing, with his arm held high in victory. In his hand was his obsidian weapon, gripped so his knuckles turned white. He had recovered his hammer amidst the melee.

Malchus howled and renewed his assault once more.

Brian and Nicole tore off to evade him.

This time, without even a single weapon in his hands, Brian could only dodge Malchus' attacks and remain on the defensive. Nicole tried distracting the enemy from the side, but even fighting together, the two were no match for the bigger man and his hammer.

And they also knew they couldn't get hit. Not even once. With the power that Malchus was brandishing and it was more powerful than Dior's by far, they knew that a single blow from the weapon and they would be crushed in an instant to jelly.