The look in the Fearless' eyes told him he'd struck close to home. The enemy retreated from him and Braen let it go, needing a breather for the first time in a battle in his life. He held the spear loosely in his hands, ready to raise it up on guard when the beast moved again. His breaths were heavy, as were the Fearless’.
The tall, powerful warrior before him looked nothing like the monster of nightmares that he'd killed, but it was no less dangerous for it. Quite on the contrary. The Fearless had chosen well, if Braen was going to admit it.
The draconic beast had been slowed down by its bulk, although it was still inhumanly fast. And with a body that big, the general had had an abundance of places to hit, and hide behind. This new form was nothing like that. The same everlasting fire burned in the enemy's eyes, but it was powerful and lean, no longer the dragon of fables, equipped with limbs that helped it fight instead of providing targets.
Braen stood, his intricate armor in shambles around his body. The Fearless had landed a blow on him more than once during their fight that had lasted without a pause for almost an hour. His shoulder guards were gone, as was much of his breastplate. Blood flowed down his body freely and he could taste it in his mouth. There was a large gash on his neck, the closest the enemy had come to killing him.
It had taken several of his most treasure valor squares with it. They were lying on the ground now, broken and discarded, although one was still slowly blinking.#p#分页标题#e#
One of the Fearless' swords was broken. There had been an insane, timeless moment when the beast had gotten too close, using the advantage of Braen not being able to swing the long spear at close range. He'd had no choice but to let go of his weapon and wrestle the beast to the ground with his strength alone, fighting away four arms by gripping one of them.
That was where he'd lost most of his armor and cracked at least a few ribs that now made themselves known through sharp spikes of pain, far too much like last time. Still, he'd lived. And broken one of the Fearless’ swords in half on his knee.
The Fearless had taken damage too. The metallic skin was exactly as tough as Braen had predicted, but nothing could be made indestructible that still lived. It looked torn now, cut in many places to release silvery blood to match the skin's tone.
One of the arms was bent at an awkward angle. The Fearless knocked it back into place with an angry grunt.
"You threaten me with my own plan," the monster said. "I wanted to fight you here or I would have left. I will still take your life and then I will take the girl, as well as the ship you boast."
"Not anymore," Braen replied as calmly as he could, his voice roughened by the cut on his neck that had damaged his throat. "Do you hear that? The ship's about to be destroyed. In a few minutes, there will be nothing on this sad little world to take you away from here. Whether you win or lose, you're trapped here until the day you die.
“The Benevolent will take great pleasure in blowing this planet out of existence and you along with it. Do you still feel the strength of the lifestone as you did before, Fearless? Will you be able to return so swiftly? I doubt it."
It wouldn’t be ideal, but Braen would take the short reprieve of killing this incarnation if that was what was necessary, if he could not take care of the threat for good by himself. There were measures in place, the Benevolent had been primed with the knowledge that if he were to not return, then the planet and the Fearless could not remain.
It had always been the direst fallback plan, as it assumed the death of him as well as his gesha. But he knew that the universe had to come before all else ultimately, if his gesha’s life could not be spared before it. At least then, he could give the next warrior a chance to truly win.
The Fearless didn't answer this time. It stared at Braen with the purest form of repulsion he'd ever witnessed. If there was ever anyone in the galaxy who loathed everything about him, it was the monster whose very existence he threatened.
In the next second, the monster smiled and dashed out of the room without a word, cackling laughter echoing behind it. Braen followed without hesitation, but he'd been a moment too late to stop it from fleeing. With its immense strength and skill, the Fearless was able to half-run and half-crash through the shaking ship faster than he could keep up.
Braen knew where it was going and it made the general's heart boil. The remaining valor squares on his neck pulsed a furious battle tune, urging him on to do what he should have done already. Unfortunately, the Fearless knew to avoid the spear.
Braen could hear Naima's startled cry when the Fearless bashed through a solid wall to get to her.
Naima!
He didn't waste a second in charging the enemy, bodily knocking it to the ground to save his gesha as a roar of anger tumbled over his lips. At that stage of the battle, the Fearless was desperately looking for ways to kill him. If it threw one of the swords, no one could dodge that, especially not Naima.
They went down together, rolling on the breaking floor. Out of the corner of his eye, from between the blades that were coming for his eyes, Braen saw Kerven dragging Naima away. She didn't look scared and lost like she had during the first days of her being aboard his ship. There was savage determination in her eyes.
“Braen!”
She screamed his name and it echoed in the hall, mixed with the sounds of the engine going wild.
Even recognizing that nearly cost him his life. The Fearless had twice the hands he did and they had caught on his throat. It was pressing down with savage glee and the strength of ages behind its bulging muscles.
Braen gritted his teeth, grabbing a hold of his spear with two hands and pushing it up against the Fearless' chin. The other two hands dropped the swords to scratch and tear at his flesh, but pain was nothing compared to victory. He held on, stretching out his arms, trying to break the monster's neck and jawline.
A hoarse grunt told him it was working. The Fearless was powerful and strong, but it wasn't invincible. He of all people knew that. They stayed locked together like that, refusing to give ground because every second brought the possibility of death closer to both. Blood pooled around them as the fight neared its conclusion.#p#分页标题#e#
The Fearless fought for its life. Braen fought for the chance to see Naima again. Boundless hunger matched against eternal love.
It was in that moment that Braen truly experienced the truth every Brion warrior knew, but few ever experienced. Flesh was weaker than the mind. His will to triumph over the Fearless was burning brighter than ever, but even he had his limits and the enemy was pushing him alarmingly close to them.
He could see the same thing on the face of the Fearless. It had not expected to battle for so long, neither one of them had.
Braen knew that war wasn't as glorious as other species sometimes seemed to think it was. Those who didn't live and breathe the turmoil of battle were bound to forget what it was really like. There were no victorious stances with shining armors, standing atop the corpses of your enemies. There was suffering and struggle and pain. It was never glamorous.
The corridor they were in was littered with corpses, their stink floating in the air, sticking to Braen like an invisible cloak. Ragged, sharp edges of the broken walls and floors were digging painfully into his back.
The ship itself was coming apart, bearing the possibility that the victor wouldn't survive long to celebrate, regardless of who it was. The immense damage they'd dealt to each other was showing. Flesh clawed away, revealing bone.
The Fearless was moving slowly and jerkily, his four arms pulled out of their joints too often to be properly put back. Braen had taken full advantage of that, aiming his hits in certain locations, damaging the nerves and tissue in pressure points. The enemy looked like a broken doll, but it was no less deadly for it.
Quite the opposite. As he lay there, hearing the Fearless' breath grow more rapid and struggled by the moment, Braen grinned, knowing that the hardest part still lay ahead. They were both broken.
Now, the real battle was about to begin.
Every Brion knew – only when death was an option did the warrior's true colors show.
Every inch of him hurting, the general put his entire mass behind the last push and shoved the spear in his hands forward. The enemy's head snapped back with a nauseating crack, signaling a broken bone, but Braen didn't stay to savor the victory. The hands around his throat relaxed and Braen took the first breath he'd been allowed in long minutes.
He kicked the Fearless off him just as the ship finally began to break down. The ceiling was cracking under pressure, thick sheets of metal peeling back to reveal the open sky and the spectacle of the battle in orbit.
There was a dangerous charge in the air and then the tide of the battle changed. Like a wave breaking over the shore, the Fearless jumped on the wall and climbed up through the hole in the ship's hull. Braen saw it and followed suit, jumping from floor to floor until he reached the fleeing monster.
He had a second to gain his balance on the icy roof of the Chali mothership. Judging by the way the massive vessel was shaking, twisting in its snow bed, they didn't have much time. Perhaps not even to escape, but the smile on Braen's lips dragged only wider.
These were moments that he wasn’t even supposed to have. Naima had clearly slowed down the process somehow, buying him more time.