The Last Flame

Arrows in the Dark

The warlock-wizard let out a long, guttural laugh that filled the room and penetrated inside the brains of the guardians until it almost started to drive them mad.

"Three guardians, away from the nest," Kazun spoke and the guardians turned around, "and they haven't even learned to truly fly yet."

"What use is flying when you are already drowning in the dark?" questioned the hunter-wizard.

"How are you speaking in a way that we can understand?" Alex strained his voice as loud as he could, but it sounded like that of a little girl compared to the wizards.

"You see, sunken one," responded the hive-titan, "when we were combined with guardians, we absorbed much of their knowledge in addition to their physical attributes. One of these was the language of your species, though we have not had need for it, until now."

"What of that guardian?" Ryan asked, gesturing to the mangled corpses of the two titans behind him.

"We tried combining them with lesser beings," Kazun spoke again, "Thrall, Acolytes. We achieved our goal with the second, a titan, but he crawled away through the ceiling like a coward," the wizard spat, "We did not need him though, for we had proven that it could be done and had three guardians left to perform three more rituals."

"Who was the real coward? The guardian who ventured into the unknown, or the snake that hid in his cave?" Christian stepped forward.

"YOU DARE CHALLENGE THE MIGHT OF KAZUN, AND HIS APPRENTICES NEKRAX AND ZARNUR!?"

"The fuck you gonna do about it bitch!?" Christian stared directly into the void that was Kazun's eyes.

Kazun looked to his left at his hunter student beside him, "Nekrax, bring me his lightless body."

Nekrax looked up at his master, "With pleasure." He looked back at the hunter and started walking towards him.

Christian did not back down. He took a step forward only to have Alex put a hand on his shoulder.

"Christian, wait."

"For what? We're cornered with no way out. I don't know about you, but I plan to go down fighting."

"Stand here, hold the line. When they approach we'll make a dash past them."

"There's no way that that will work Alex," Ryan said, "We can't get past them."

"Not if you don't have a distraction," Christian said, his head cleared.

"What do you mean?"

"Oh hunter..." Nekrax stood in the middle of the room, "Are you too scared to face me now?"

Christian ignored him, "I've got my smoke bomb, you guys come with me to the center of the room. I'll challenge that fuck over there and while we're fighting, I'm going to 'accidentally' throw a smoke bomb at you instead of him. When I do, use your invisibility to get out of here. I'll recharge my smoke bomb and by the time you guys are about to run out, you should be about there," Christian pointed with his hand so that the wizards couldn't see it but Alex and Ryan could, "I'll throw it again about there, make sure you're near it when it lands."

"No, we don't leave guardians behind. If we all can't make it then we need a new plan."

"Wake up Alex! We aren't all making it out of here. It'll be a miracle if even one of us makes it out of here."

"Tick tock, guardian..." Nekrax warned.

"I'll be fine."

"Don't make me come over there guardian," said Nekrax, growing impatient.