Anthem's Fall

Chapter Nineteen

But suddenly, an arm wrapped around his neck, and the back of his head was pulled into someone’s unseen chest. The chest was burning, and Vengelis felt the tingle of flames sift through his hair. He knew at once it was the male Felix he had seen in the flames. Struggling, Vengelis could not break the unyielding grip. The sizzling flames of the Felix’s forearms and chest were nothing but a tickle against Vengelis’s impervious flesh, but the snakelike chokehold was suffocating him by the second. Dizzying blood began to pool in his head. Vengelis flailed his body as the caustic stench of his smoldering armor filled his nostrils. A dark hole began to spread from the center of his vision, and soon he could see only black. Vengelis thrashed his limbs into the mysterious body in frenzy, though the Felix easily sustained every hit. All he could feel beyond the strangulation was deep and infuriating confusion. In the midst of his despair, Vengelis felt a rocking blow in the darkness. The arm wrapped around his windpipe released at once.

He was free.

Vengelis fell into space, descending into a dim oblivion in a barely conscious haze. As his body rotated and spun in freefall, the pressure in his head steadily subsided. His vision began to return. Within the same instant he was upright and regaining his composure floating far over the rooftops of Sejeroreich. He looked up to see Master Tolland engaged in combat with the burning Felix.

His teacher had saved his life.

Vengelis burst upward toward their struggle. No words needed to be spoken between the two Sejero warriors. Together Vengelis and Master Tolland assailed the lone burning Felix. As they did so, the blonde Felix returned. Vengelis gladly focused his attack on her. She evaded several of his advances until he leveled a strike into her gut that sent her reeling across the rooftops of the city and nearly out of sight.

“Vengelis, this is not a winning fight. There are more of these machines down in the streets. That first punch broke my wrist.” Master Tolland was winded already, breathing heavily with forceful wheezes and cradling his malformed right hand in his left. He looked older and wearier than Vengelis had ever seen him. “Trust me and do as I say, Vengelis. You have to escape. We . . . together . . . can’t beat these demons.”

“I can’t.” Vengelis screamed to him. “You of all people know I can’t!”

"You must go! I know it will be difficult, but in order to defend your people, you have to leave—and leave right now. I wish I were younger and could be of greater help to you, but my time has passed. Go to Filgaia”—as Master Tolland spoke, the west portion of the palace collapsed beneath them with a roar that drained out his voice. When it subsided Vengelis only heard—“only if you work together!”

Panicked and shocked by the volume of the historic palace’s collapse, Vengelis ignored Master Tolland’s plea. He saw the blonde Felix coming, and he charged full speed toward her with everything he had. Either he or the machine would be dead before this fight was through. They met with a blur of speed. Vengelis launched every ounce of power within the well of his being at the strange machine. One after another his hits began to hit their marks. Vengelis was faster than her, he was certain of it. He caught the side of the machine’s face with a brutal fist, sending it stumbling, and he broke away for a split second, out of breath and exhausted. Nausea rose in his core and his muscles burned from fatigue. Vengelis looked down to the barracks far below, and saw something that turned his blood to ice. The enormous Royal Transport was lifting off from the barracks, ascending into the shifting ruinous skies over Sejeroreich. Eve and his mother were on board, along with all of the Royal families and the hopes of his people. This was the moment. They were following his last order to escape while he distracted the machines.