Chapter Twenty One
Cemetary Plain
Zone III
Zone III
Shan was scared, and for a monstrosity like
him, that was worrying indeed. He could not shake Cornelius no matter how hard
he tried, and desperation began to seep into his bones. Thumbing his
communicator, he called the control centre.
“Are you there?”
“Of course,” came the reply, a sneer apparent
in the Ori’s voice.
“I need a distraction,” snarled Shan.
“Don’t we all?” asked the Ori, his voice
slurred by his lack of teeth.
“Enough!” snapped Shan, “this errant player
has just skirted past the bottom rung on the demi-god ladder. Send me
reinforcements.”
“All we have are the Ambryn,” replied the
Ori, “and they are busy eating what’s left of your last game piece. We do have
a few more in stasis…”
“I don´t care,” gasped Shan, jinking his fighter
to one side as a ball of flames whistled past, “throw them into the fray, and I
mean literally.”
“Your wish is my command…drop-pods
deployed…right on your position!”
The Ori was not joking! He had fired the drop
pods from the ship straight down Shan’s throat. He was not even sure the Ambryn
would survive, but that was none of his concern. A quick look at his scanners
saw Ngulu breaking away, desperately trying to avoid the rain of fiery
missiles.
Shan gunned his engines, putting his own
safety first. These Ambryn would eat their way through this zone and the next.
If he managed to survive this encounter, he could torch and rebuild. Right now
though, escape from the rampaging dwarf was his only thought.
*
Voices continued to intrude on Cornelius’
thoughts, this time though, they did not have the sweet insistence of Clari.
Instead they hissed, snarled and hungered. Whatever was in those drop pods
yearned to be free, to eat, fight, kill and consume. In his altered state,
Cornelius felt no fear. Rather, he saw the problem as an inconvenience to be
dealt with quickly, before he continued with his pursuit of the now rapidly
receding fighter.
“Down!” he commanded Ngulu, and the demon
obeyed, folding its wings and plummeted towards the ground.
Drop pods slammed to earth all around, yet none
struck Cornelius and his ride. Of his companions there was no sign and
Cornelius dismissed them from his mind. He felt Ngulu’s rage and battle madness
and revelled in its dark majesty. Killing was an outlet for his own anger, and
this promised rich fare.
