Legends of Amacia Return of the Beowulf

Three hundred cubits down the causeway from the defenders’ ambush positions beyond the pall of smoke and dust, the leading edge of the main assault force moved forward. Two six-legged multi-ped tanks with heavy plasma cannons and chain gun turrets lumbered forward, scanning the causeway looking for mines. Whenever the scanners found something, the heavy plasma chain gun would open fire, detonating the mines. Two platoons of battle droids armed with both plasma weapons and medieval weapons shadowed the two tanks, using them for cover. The forward attack force of five companies followed the advanced minesweeping tanks at two hundred cubits. The forward assault units consisted of two companies of battle droids, one company of Zarukars, one company of Xenians, and one human company. All companies were armored and heavily armed with the heavy weaponry mixed with medieval weapons. These five companies consisted of the point of the 7th Division’s spearhead attack on Hreidmar’s Bastion. Because of the limited space of the causeways, only a few dozen small armored mechanized mobile units such as the multi-ped tanks and some armored exo-suits accompanied the infantry. The remaining infantry battalions of the 7th Division followed, spreading out and trying to find alternative routes to the keep.

A giant Zarukar commander in a twelve-foot tall armored exo-suit armed with a massive sword, a heavy plasma chain gun, and a small shoulder-mounted artillery launcher led the troops immediately behind the minesweepers. He kept his troops in check, making sure to keep them back from the minesweepers. A large spider Xenian captain stood at his side with its weapons trained forward. “Why are we holding back, commander?” the spider Xenian asked with disdain. “The rebels have already fallen into our claws. We should roll in there and slaughter them. Their weapons are useless against us and they know it.”

The Zarukar commander turned a sour face to the spider, slapping him brutally with the back of his exo-suit’s metal hand. The Xenian crashed to the ground, stunned by the hit. “You stupid, bug-faced shit,” the Zarukar commander growled, kicking the spider while it was down sending him slamming against a large, broken column. “That’s just what they want! We don’t know what surprises they may have for us. The mines and their placement should have clued you that these pestilent humans are not to be underestimated. Question my orders again and I’ll blow that bug-head of yours off your shoulders. I’ll not be questioned by anyone, much less a miserable maggot like you!”

An angry hiss echoed from the spider Xenian’s throat. “You’ll regret that,” it snarled, raising its weapon against the Zarukar commander.

The Zarukar commander saw the move and opened fire with his plasma chain gun, blowing the spider Xenian to pieces in less than two seconds. He turned to those behind him and roared, “I will not tolerate dissention or mutiny! If you don’t follow my orders, I’ll kill you myself. Am I making myself clear? I won’t have anyone botching this attack, not when we’re so close to complete victory.” Everyone in the immediate vicinity saw what happened and agreed to follow the commander’s orders out of fear. Just then, a massive explosion got everyone’s attention. “What the fuck?” the commander cursed, seeing pieces of droids and the minesweeper tanks raining down on their position. The rain of smoldering droid and tank pieces caused him and the line immediately behind him to stop their advance and take cover. The commander knocked away the larger pieces of debris that came in his direction. A blazing fire roared from the wrecked minesweepers just up the causeway. “Battle positions!” he barked to his troops, which took up a defensive position. A few moments later, he saw movement in the fire. “What the hell is that?” he growled, seeing a lone figure walking boldly through the fire towards him.

“I don’t know, sir,” one of the Zarukar soldiers replied. “It doesn’t look human. Should we open fire?”

“No, I’ll see to this. I’ll make this thing regret attacking us alone,” the commander replied, seeing a single armored figure with a strange skull-like helmet walking deliberately towards the line. The commander saw the spiked platinum armor and the enormous glowing sword in his adversary’s hand. Stepping forward to greet his enemy, the commander drew his sword. As they approached each other, the commander noticed the skull helmet was unlike anything he’d ever seen before. It looked like a draken skull with six glowing red eyes, two horns swept back to the rear along with a large razor-sharp ridge coming down over the nose area. The helmet bore strange scarlet and black markings that gave him considerable pause. A deep, penetrating fear of this enemy filled his being as they stopped ten paces from each other. Yet, his fear of the Emperor kept him from fleeing. “How dare you attack the point of the spear of the 7th Division!” the commander roared, pointing his sword at his enemy. “I will rip you apart for this interference!”

A deep, menacing growl rose from the skull-faced enemy. “Do you not know death when you see it, Zarukar?” the warrior replied icily in an almost reptilian tone. “Leave now, or face the consequences. The people in this place are under my protection. Leave now, or perish.”

“Who do you think you are to command me, freak?” the commander roared. “I’m General Zarmari Si, leader of the Hunter Battalions of the 7th Division. The Emperor himself put me in command of this operation. You will die with the pathetic human scum you claim to protect, whatever the hell you are.”

“I think not, General,” the warrior retorted grimly, his skull helm and sword abruptly glowing brightly, “It’s you who are dead, along with your entire army if you do not withdraw immediately. The people of this savage land don’t call me the Beowulf without cause. You will stop the attack now, or I’ll kill you were you stand. That goes for the rest of you. Leave now before I combine the power of Grimm’s Mask and the Sword of Thoth Caverias to destroy you.”

Zarmari Si’s face fell with great fear as Hannibal pulled the Caverias Sword back into a classic hasso samurai stance. In the blink of an eye, the Caverias Sword opened with a loud bang, the blade expanding from three inches wide to seven in an instant. A bluish-white fire enveloped the blade from point to hilt. A fearful rumble echoed through the ranks behind Zarmari Si when they realized what faced them. “It’s your move, General,” Hannibal growled menacingly. “Don’t do something we’ll all regret. Please, just walk away. The Emperor doesn’t need to know what happened here. No one needs to die here today.”

Deep terror coursed through Zarmari’s dark soul as he eyed Hannibal. “You don’t know the power of the Emperor,” Zarmari replied, more fearful of the Emperor than of Hannibal. “I will kill you where you stand, and claim that Mask and sword as my own! Not even the Beowulf, if that’s truly who you are, will resist the will of the Emperor.”

“Don’t do it,” Hannibal urged, seeing Zarmari raising the plasma chain gun of his exo-suit, training it on him.

“Beowulf or not, you’re so dead,” Zarmari snarled, starting to lock onto Hannibal.

However, before he could fire, Hannibal darted forward with such speed it caught the commander off-guard. Hannibal’s sword crashed through the mechanized arm that held the plasma chain gun, demolishing it and severing the machine arm it was attached to. In less than a second, Hannibal spun the Caverias sword around, striking diagonally from ground to sky to the right across Zarmari’s chest. The flaming blade flashed through Zarmari’s exo-suit like a hot knife through butter, slicing the commander in two diagonally. The force of the strike sent Zarmari airborne, flying back towards the line with his black blood and entrails spilling out of his body. Hannibal then spun the sword over his head horizontally as a blazing red aura swirled around him. Both the sword and Grimm’s Mask drank in the red aura, blazing fiery red. Striking along the left diagonal from sky to ground, he let out a tremendous roar as a blazing energy wave flew off the Caverias Sword heading towards the enemy. The fiery wave hit Zarmari first, incinerating him and melting his wrecked exo-suit before expanding laterally to become a wall of fire that filled the entire causeway from wall to wall. The wall of fire elongated into an arrow-shape and plowed into the enemy troops with devastating results before they could react. The blast wave mimicked a pyroclastic cloud mixed with napalm, flowing in an almost liquid manner. It incinerated three hundred enemy troops before the blast dissipated four hundred cubits down the causeway near the third gate. The force of the blast tore apart those who weren’t immediately vaporized, sending body parts flying. Two hundred enemy soldiers who were deep in the line near the third gate lay badly injured by the blast. In one fell strike, Hannibal unleashed the power of both the Caverias Sword and Grimm’s Mask simultaneously, striking down the five companies that consisted of the front line assault, including all their armored mechanized mobile units and exo-suits. The sheer heat and concussion of Hannibal’s blast from the Caverias Sword detonated all ammunition carried by the enemy troops, adding to the carnage. Fireballs rose to the sky as if they were exploding volcanoes, the ammunition whistling as it went off. Hannibal stood with the Caverias sword in a midlevel position, panting and staring in amazement at the apocalypse he’d unleashed by instinct on the enemy. His berserker rage boiled at dangerous levels as he felt the fortress tremble with an audible rumble. The light level dropped significantly, causing Hannibal to look up with concern. “Oh, shit,” he cursed, seeing a pitch-black shelf cloud advancing on the fortress from the southwest. “That’s not good.” A whispering murmur filled his ears while the fortress shivered noticeably, making loose debris fall from the walls. A deep ominous groan rose from the ground as the trembling increased slowly.

“Fall back, Hannibal,” a soft, but familiar voice echoed in his ear as he looked around with growing concern. “Fall back now and get your people to safety while there’s time. The Bastion is no longer safe for man or beast. The storm is almost upon you. Flee the storm.”

“Right,” Hannibal replied, feeling the urgency in the voice as he retreated to the courtyard. The pitch of the tremble increased as the solid rock of the causeway broke, forming a crack that spanned the road.

Down at the third gate a few moments earlier before the tremor hit, the human general in charge of the main battle group saw the fiery blast roaring down the causeway towards the courtyard and shouted to his officers, “Everyone take cover!” The troops dove for cover amongst the ruins in the courtyard as the blast hit, scattering fifty soldiers like flies, shattering bones with the concussion and scorching many. The general felt the concussion and heat from the blast as he dove behind an overturned statue despite his advanced body armor and helmet. For a moment, he couldn’t breathe. Then as quickly as the blast hit, it dissipated. Gasping for air, he rose to his feet and surveyed the scene, seeing the fifty soldiers in the courtyard injured to various degrees. When his eye turned to the causeway, he saw nothing but the severely burned troops wailing in agony amongst the charred dead.

“What was that?” one of his officers asked in bewilderment. “I didn’t think these people had that kind of firepower? What do we do, General Hadiff?”

“Tell everyone to hold their position,” General Hadiff growled, starting to move toward the burning causeway. “Pull back the wounded and secure the gate, wall, and courtyard. We have encountered something new here that must be scouted before we proceed.”

“Aye, sir,” the officer replied. “Secure the gate, wall, and courtyard! Remove the wounded.” As other officers started to implement the general’s order, the general moved cautiously towards the causeway, followed by his human bodyguard...a colonel in heavy armor armed with a large sword and a heavy blaster rifle slung over his shoulder. Fresh troops flooded into the courtyard to assist in securing the area.

“What could have unleashed such destruction, General?” the colonel asked.

“I’m not sure,” General Hadiff replied, stopping just at the entrance to the causeway because of the intensity of the fires and smoke. He engaged the visual unit on his helmet, allowing him to see through the fire, smoke, and dust. Zooming in, he looked up through the hell burning in the causeway. Instantly seeing nearly two hundred severely wounded troops just ahead of him with none alive beyond that, he reported, “This is no normal weapon’s strike. It’s as if a volcano exploded near the fourth gate. It obliterated everything except for those of us down here on this end.”

“I noticed that,” the colonel replied. “I’m seeing a number of wounded just outside the courtyard on the causeway. How far up do they reach?”

“About a hundred cubits,” the General replied. “Beyond that, I don’t see anyone intact with my visual or infrared scans. In fact, there’s nothing left except the melted remains of the tanks and exo-suits General Zarmari took with him. This is a disaster. I can’t understand how the rebels got hold of something of such phenomenal power. We had no intelligence saying they had such firepower. Wait, something is moving up there near the center of the blast.”

“What do you see, sir?” the colonel asked, becoming very concerned.

“I’m trying to see it,” the General reported. “The heat, smoke, and airborne debris are making it difficult to see. Let me try filtering the input.” He glanced at a control display on his forearm armor, pressing a few buttons. “Ah, it’s clearing up,” he crowed. When he saw Hannibal in spiked platinum armor wearing Grimm’s Mask wielding the Caverias sword and the smoke swirling around him, the General paled significantly. Hannibal looked like a demon standing amidst the fires as he looked up to the sky. “Fate, be merciful,” he breathed fearfully. “I don’t believe what I’m seeing. What the fuck is a Grimm doing here?”

“A Grimm?” the colonel asked in disbelief. “Are you sure? No one has seen a Grimm since the Calamity.”

“I have,” Hadiff answered in a terrified tone. “And it’s not just any Grimm. It’s a draken Grimm! But it’s incredibly small for a draken Grimm, and it’s bipedal. Colonel, order the aircraft and artillery to target that Grimm right now. We cannot let that beast do any more damage or call on its fellow Grimm. No one advances on the keep until that monster is taken out!”

“Yes, sir,” the colonel replied. “What are the coordinates?”

“Three hundred twenty cubits west of the fourth gate, elevation 893,” the General barked urgently. “Pound that entire area to dust using the carite warheads. With any luck, any rebels in that area will be vaporized by the attack on this infernal Grimm.”

“Yes, sir,” the colonel replied smartly, activating the communicator built into the forearm of his armor and relaying the order. As he finished relaying the orders, the colonel heard a low ominous rumble as the ground started to shake. At the same time, darkness fell over the courtyard and fortress with an incoming black shelf cloud. A deep, icy chill raced down the colonel’s spine when he saw the cloud and felt the shaking. Fearful murmurs rose from the soldiers as the shaking became obvious. A sulfurous stench suddenly filled the air, coming from the ground itself. “General!” the colonel called out with great concern. “What’s going on? Why is the ground shaking, and where did this stench come from?”

“I don’t know,” Hadiff replied. “But this shaking and the sulfurous reek have me worried.” A loud groan echoed off the walls of the courtyard as the ground split at his feet. The crack ran to the left and right, cutting across the courtyard, going through the walls. His fear blossomed and he shouted to everyone, waving his arms pointing to the gate, “Quake! Everyone retreat before the walls fall on us! Move it! Move it!” The shaking multiplied tenfold as the courtyard started to splinter and collapse along with the walls and the gate. The soldiers fled in panic, rushing out of the third gate back the way they came. General Hadiff and his colonel staggered around, trying to reach the gate when the ground between them and the gate buckled with an earsplitting bang, violently rising ten feet beneath their feet. Half a second later, the bulge collapsed and then exploded, opening a thirty-foot wide fissure that spanned the courtyard, cutting off any escape for those trying to reach the gate. The explosion threw General Hadiff, the colonel, and two dozen soldiers in all directions, scalding them with a horrid sulfurous blast before a geyser of molten rock spewed from the crack. The blast threw Hadiff and the colonel almost fifty feet towards the causeway to the fourth gate. The pair tumbled over a large overturned pillar that shielded them from the worst of the blast, even though it burned them seriously. The other soldiers caught in the blast perished instantly, incinerated by the hurricane gust of hot gasses followed by the lava fountain that rained down molten rock all around the fissure, which now had broken through the third wall, collapsing it and the third gate.

The colonel shook off the hit, feeling the scorching heat from his partially melted armor burning him. He groaned, quickly removing the armor, throwing it down along with his ruined weapons. Seeing General Hadiff unresponsive and his armor in a similar state, he removed it before dragging Hadiff farther away from the lava fountain despite the heat and shaking of the courtyard. Once he’d put another hundred feet between them and the volcanic eruption, the colonel shook Hadiff, trying to bring him around. “Wake up, General,” he pleaded as they hid in the shadow of a six-foot diameter pillar lying near the causeway entrance. “Please, wake up. We have to get out of here.” When the General refused to come around, the colonel picked him up in a firefighter’s carry, heading up towards the fourth gate leaving all their weapons behind. “I hope the rebels don’t kill us,” he muttered, staggering through the shaking wasteland of the causeway. “I’d hate to escape this catastrophe only to be killed by the rebels. I don’t want to die, not like this.” A crunching roar rose from behind him as he passed into the kill zone of Hannibal’s earlier attack. Turning back briefly, he saw the courtyard collapse into the volcanic vent with the lava fountain quadrupling in size. “Fate, be merciful,” the colonel cried in dismay. “I have to get the General out of here or we’re both dead.” He picked up his pace, literally fleeing up the demolished causeway towards the fourth gate carrying the General, knowing the rebels were their only hope of survival now.

Hannibal reached Xavier, Tyr, Morpheus, Carver, Hancock, and Osborne at their first line of defense just as the main quake struck. Staggering up the causeway, Hannibal shouted, “Fall back now to the keep! It’s not safe out here! Go! Get out of here! Make for the portal! It’s our only chance! This quake will be the end of this place!”

“To the keep,” Hancock barked over the roar. “Everyone to the keep; this is a big one! Hurry!” Not refusing the order, everyone except Hannibal raced to the keep. He headed up on the wall to spread the word to pull back.

Once Hannibal reached the top of the wall, he barked, “Everyone into the keep now; we’re having a major quake!” He looked down towards the third gate and gasped. “Oh, my god,” he breathed, seeing a lava fountain spewing in the interior courtyard at the third gate. Looking out over valley, he saw the valley floor crumbling with lava fountains rising everywhere, destroying the 7th Division’s Hunter Battalions. He also noticed the super-cell storm cloud swirling, dropping torrential rains just outside the fortress along with at least six tornadoes. Furthermore, nearly continuous lightning strikes pummeled the valley and the 7th Division, knocking out all its aircraft and heavy artillery.

“What’s happening, Hannibal?” Magnus asked. “Where did this storm come from? It’s not like any storm I’ve ever seen, either natural or Cadre created.”

“I don’t know,” Hannibal replied over the rising wind and rumble of the quake that made it difficult to stand. “We can figure it out later. For now, everyone make for the keep! The portal is our only hope now. This quake and storm is going to tear this place apart. Go!” Ash started raining on them from the volcanic eruption at the third gate.

“You don’t have to tell me twice,” Magnus stated, “Come on, guys; let’s get the hell out of here while we can.” He led the remaining troops off the shaking wall.

Nemesis scanned the entire area one last time with his cyborg eye and saw one figure carrying a second staggering up the causeway from the third gate. “Hannibal,” he stated, “Look there just down from your forward position on the causeway. We have two injured officers down there. It appears they were separated from their comrades. What do you want to do?”

“Take them with us,” Hannibal stated firmly. “Even if they are 7th Division officers, I’ll not leave them to die in this calamity. Who knows? They may have turned on the Emperor.”

“Then we’d better move our asses,” Nemesis stated. “The structural integrity of these walls isn’t going to hold up much longer with this shaking.”

“Right,” Hannibal agreed, heading back to their old front line to confront the officers.