Shane Porteous - The Battle of Ebulon - A Shared Anthology

“Sorry.” Jesse glanced over at him. “I don’t like anything that puts you in danger. Or her.” He spoke quieter, resting a tender hand on my stomach.

“Jesse.” I turned as Joshua drew the soul out of its body. Jesse quickly moved his hand so he didn’t draw attention to where it was placed.

“What are you standing around for?” Joshua wanted to know. “Move! Go reap someone so I’m not stuck here any longer than I absolutely have to be.” I closed my eyes briefly so I wouldn’t snap at him. I had murdered him. I deserved to be treated like that. He should get a free shot at me.

I bent down next to another human, searching for his voice. I let myself disappear into his mind, cut off from the rest of the world. It was the worst thing I could have done at that moment. I just wouldn’t know it until it was too late.

“Who are you?” It was a question I would get used to.

“My name is Rachael,” I answered. “I am here to take you to your place of rest.”

“No!” He was angrier than any of the other ones were. “You will not kill me!”

“I am not the one who killed you!” I tried to calm him down. “I am here to help you.”

“You want to help me?!” he demanded. “Then get the hell out of my head!”

“I’m trying…”

“No!” he shouted. “You are not trying anything! You will not kill me!”

“I don’t want to…” It wasn’t him that cut me off this time. It was an agonizing, shooting pain in my back. I choked on the sensation, rippling through my disconnected body.

“What’s wrong with you?” His voice faded as my subconscious ripped its way through his mind, trying to get back to my body. The pain threaded its way through every vein in my system, tearing through me.

“Rachael!” Jesse’s voice slowly made its way into my panicking mind. He guided me back to the reality of Ebulon where I found myself in worse pain than I had been in that man’s head. I couldn’t even scream; it hurt that bad. What was going on?

“I thought you said that there weren’t any more coming!” Joshua’s angry shout momentarily distracted me enough from the pain to see the tip of a barbed arrow piercing the skin under my collar bone.

“What…? What happened?” I could barely whisper.

“There weren’t!” Jesse didn’t answer me, turning to Joshua instead.

“Well you didn’t do enough research, now did you?” Joshua was standing near the gates to the city, his sword in his hand. I turned slightly, the pain intensifying. Jesse was next to Joshua, his hunting knives in his hands. They were looking out at a huge squadron of Orcs, charging towards the city.

“Jesse.” I tried to get his attention. Neither of them realized I had been shot by an arrow because they were focused on the approaching army. The arrow had gone into my back and went the entire way through my body. If it had hit something vital, I would have known. I had to help them because they couldn’t help me.

I started to get up, gritting my teeth against the pain. As soon as I tried to take a step, the darkness descended around my vision. I stumbled and started to fall, the poison from the arrow flowing through my blood stream.

“Jesse.” I barely heard her whisper as I turned around. Rachael fell towards the ground, an arrow embedded in her back.

“No!” I ran to her side, barely catching her before she hit the street.

“What are you…? Good God!” Joshua turned to see what had happened.

“Jesse.” She struggled to breathe, her wide, panicked eyes focused on me. A cold sweat covered her skin and her heart was beating so fast I could feel it against my leg from her body resting on my lap. Her blood spilled out onto the hand I held tightly around the base of the arrow in her back.

“You’re ok, sweetheart.” I tried to reassure her but I had no idea what I was going to do. I didn’t have the kind of training required to help her. She had a poisoned arrow shot the entire way through her body.

“You need to pull it out and you need to do it fast,” Joshua told me, glancing back and forth between Rachael and the quickly approaching Orcs.

“She might bleed out!” I wasn’t just going to pull this thing out. I could kill her.

“If you don’t get it out of her, she’ll die from the poison,” he stated.

“Just let me think!” If I wasn’t a guardian, I would have been a healer. I really liked helping people. The reason I wanted to be a guardian more than a healer was because of Rachael. Gabriel had given me the option as a child. He showed me several pictures of angels I could help if I used my power to be a healer. However; as soon as he had given me a picture of Rachael there was no longer a choice. I knew I had to be with her. Now I was losing her and my baby and there was nothing I could do.

“Fine! Think all you want while we all die!” The Orcs were so close that I could hear their individual roars of bloodlust. I didn’t have much time.

“Don’t let me die!” she begged, her voice still a whisper. A single tear escaped from her eyes, the fear all over her features. “Don’t let us die.”

“I’m not going to let you die.” I refused to let that even be a possibility. I cradled her in my arms, knowing my time was running out.

“Hurry, angel boy!” Joshua stood ready for the Orcs. They were less than twenty yards away from him. Thirty yards away from me. I only had seconds. I couldn’t pull it out from her back. The barbs would take pieces of her with it. I had to help it continue its path through her body.

“I am so, so sorry.” I kissed her forehead before I pushed it out through her chest. She gave an agonized cry but I couldn’t stop. As much as her pain hurt me; her death would be far worse. I pushed the arrow as far as her body would allow before I switched hands and took the end coming out of her chest to pull it the rest of the way out.

By now the Orcs had reach Joshua. He was able to fend them off because only about four or five could come through the gate at a time. He wouldn’t be able to keep it up for long. I had to fix Rachael as fast as I could. Her blood poured out onto my hands, her shock and agony evident. I pressed my hand to the wound in her chest.

“You are going to be ok,” I repeated. I pushed as much energy into her as I could with no regards to my own personal store. My life and my own strength were not as important as hers. It didn’t take as much energy as I expected. Her vitals were uninjured and it was mostly just the repairing of her muscles and skin. “Does anything still hurt?”

“No.” She shook her head. I glanced back to see that three of the Orcs had escaped Joshua and were headed straight towards us.

“Stay back here,” I ordered. “Don’t go anywhere near the fighting.”

“But, Jesse…”

“No.” I didn’t let her finish. “You are not endangering your life or hers. Stay here.” I stood up, making sure she moved away from the fighting, before I met two of the Orcs with my knives through their throats. I pulled them out as quickly as I had stabbed them in, sending the third one to his knees with one in his stomach and then to the ground with the other straight into his brain.

I stayed behind Joshua, letting him head them off and catching what he missed. I was more concerned with keeping Rachael safe than protecting the city. However with the vast amount of these creatures pouring in through the destroyed city gates; it was very likely that I was going to be taking her out of this place.

She could continue to reap these godforsaken souls once they were all truly dead.

These creatures were even more grotesque alive than dead. They varied in how deformed their faces were. Several could be recognizable as having slightly human faces. Others were so horrific that they couldn’t be distinguishable as living. If they didn’t have souls I wouldn’t believe that they were living beings.