The Rising Sun: Episode 5 (2 page)

“That was never going to happen.” said
Mantra, as he raced along the other two. “These are Zelgron.
They’ll catch us.”

Ion glanced back. The swarm of monsters were
nearing. The distance had been cut down to less than a hundred or
so metres now. The Zelgron seemed to have thrice the speed of even
the strongest mystic.

“What’re we gonna do?” he asked in a raised
voice, now with the roars of the creatures growing louder.

“We’ll fight.” answered Mantra, his voice
boding a note of grave acceptance. “Run as far as we can hold them
off from reaching, and fight when they catch up.”

Ion felt them hurtle towards a fast closing
end.
Fight?
There was absolutely no way they could put up a
fight against an entire horde of these things. They were done
for…

They were almost at the hill, when the first
batch of the Zelgron had caught up with them. Without breaking
pace, the three of them drew their sabers and ignited them. A group
of seven of the creatures had come within feet to them, their arms
thrown forward wildly. One of the monsters lunged forward. Mantra’s
sword whirled to the side and the Zelgron gave fast stifled yell of
pain, thudding to the ground in two chopped pieces.

Another of the creatures made a quick jump
forth, grabbing Ion by the back of his cloak. Twisting around in
motion, Ion sent his sword right across the beast, slicing his
torso in a slanted angle. The Zelgron crumpled and fell, but
another from the batch of seven took his place. He collided with
Ion from the side, sending him off balance for a second. Ion
stumbled, almost falling at the impact. But Dantox caught him by
the side, steadying him, while Mantra cut down the six Zelgron
which had just had caught up with them. Without stopping, Mantra
turned and sent a loud
smash
at the horde which was closing
in fast. Twenty times as powerful as Ion’s powers could have
mustered, the large wave like motion collided violently with the
batch of Zelgron, sending the first among the tide flying backwards
and crashing onto the ones behind them. The entire horde took the
beating of Mantra’s smash, with half of them either meeting the
impact of the
smash
and flying back, or being crashed over
by another who had. And thus starting a chain reaction that spawned
the entire mass. The tide of Zelgron slowed down, slowly falling
back. Without glancing back, the three Nyon dashed forth…

The groans of the monsters slowly died out,
replaced by their unearthly screams again. They had picked
themselves up, and came exploding at the Nyon with a doubled,
renewed fury.

The threesome’s unbroken, mindless sprint had
now carried them to the plateau, a giant, grotesque outgrowth on
the smoothened land. The shapeless plateau was about as large as
three storeyed mansion, with jagged, sharp edges and a roughness in
its outer layering. Without even thinking, the three of them
launched over the rough coated plateau and began climbing over it.
The Zelgron, having lesser stealth and intelligence than them, were
unluckier, unable to mount the plateau as fast as the Nyon could.
In less than a minute, the three of them had reached the top of the
giant plateau and were heaving deep, loud breaths to refill their
wearied lungs.

The vicious screams of the Zelgron seemed to
claw at the air from below them. While the three Nyon stood huddled
at the centre of the top of the plateau, the creatures slowly
climbed their way up. Seconds from the top.

“Well,” said Dantox, with a heavy air of
closure. “Nobody would’ve dreamt that
this
would be the
end.”

Mantra gave an ironic chuckle. “The end for
us all. The entire spectrum goes down with us, men.”

The first of the bunch climbing could be
heard groaning savagely, now seconds away from reaching them.

It doesn’t matter anyway.
Ion thought.
They’ve won. They’ve already sent the anarchy level spiralling
well out of control. And now, they’ll have the plague crystal as
well.

The first of the lot climbing could be heard
almost breaking to the surface now … The three Nyon stood with
their backs pressed against each others’, their swords raised and
blazing, ready to take how many ever of these creatures they could
with them, to where they now knew they were going…

Now with the end looming over him, Ion felt
himself fly back in time to witness a multi second flashback of his
life … He remembered his days as a bloodthirsty bounty hunting
killer with an stab of regret: he had never managed to find
redemption, right his wrongs by doing good to the world … He
remembered Vestra with another stab of pain. Wherever she and Qyro
now were, he was joining them soon … And he remembered Jedius.

He slid his hands beneath the front neck of
his cloak, and drew out his master’s token - the strangely shaped
fang like object. Plucking its chain around his neck, he held it
upon his palm. For if this was the end, he would go to the grave
holding onto this … the object that summed up everything in this
world for him.

The howls of the Zelgron mounted as they
slowly reached the top … the first of them could be seen throwing
their hands over the plateau’s top all over, anchoring themselves
slowly. Preparing to rise and head in for the kill.

Mantra glanced to Ion, and his eyes froze
over what he saw held within his palm. A strange look found his
wizened face as he stared at the fang for a few seconds. Then,
without warning, the old man’s hand swished across and snatched
Jedius’s token from his palm.

He surveyed the fang silently for a long
moment, while Ion stood in front, jaw slackened open. “Err, master,
what’s the matt-”

“Do you know what this is?” Mantra asked Ion,
cutting him across. There was a note of silent marvel in his
voice.

Dantox stood beside Ion, looking just as
perplexed.

“Some fang like thing my master gave me,”
answered Ion hastily, feeling that was slightly out of place amidst
the heat of this situation. “Does it
really
matter right
now?”

“It matters now more than ever. This is not a
fang
,” Mantra lowered his hand, staring at Jedius’s token.
“This is a conch. The
Grael conch
, the instrument used for
releasing the army of watchmen.”

Ion heard it, but only after a hazy, long
moment did he actually understand what he had heard.

“What?” he and Dantox gasped together,
looking at each other.

“I was wrong, I see now, to have thought that
the conch keepers’ line had died out.” Mantra said, without taking
his eyes off Jedius’s token. “It certainly hasn’t. You are the
conclusion of the line, Ion.” He gave a soft chuckle. “What do you
know … seems like we
do
have an army after all.”

“The Grael conch?” breathed Dantox, his jaw
still open. “You can’t be serious!”

Ion gaped at Jedius’s token, held in Mantra’s
hand. “Is this for real?”

Mantra lifted his head and looked at him.
“Well, let’s find out.”

He raised the conch, pressing its fat end to
his mouth, the pointed tip into the air … and he blew it.

__________

The ground beneath them seemed to shudder.
The air seemed to part. The world itself seemed to rumble with a
fury that seemed to have been contained for aeons. The entire
plateau seemed to reverberate at the piercing, clear note that
resounded with the force of a thousand war drums.

Ion and Dantox threw their hands up to cover
their ears … But the roar of the conch that sounded seemed beyond
mere sound … It seemed to resonate through their very beings, as
though echoing within their heads, and not outside of it…

The blast of sound had knocked the Zelgron
off the sides of the plateau: their screams had suddenly gone
quiet, and they were all apparently lying piled at the base of the
giant plateau. Mantra lowered the conch slowly. But the ghost of
its booming roar seemed to ring in the air silently.

Ion, Dantox and Mantra stood gazing about
them emptily for a few long seconds as the echo of the conch’s
bellow faded. Leaving everything blank and gloomy again.

The three Nyon looked at each other, waiting.
Hoping.

A clear, pitless silence had fallen after the
ring of the conch … And then, howls of the Zelgron resumed,
overrunning it. The effect of the conch’s roar, which seemed to
leave a silent glow in the air, was erased, gone. And mayhem and
chaos rose over the atmosphere again, which seemed to slowly close
around them.

Ion felt his heart, which for the meanest
second had dared to hope, now sink through his insides.

“We really are done for.” he stated, raising
his sword as the Zelgron came crawling over the sides of the
plateau again. And then -

“Look!” Dantox pointed above them, his eyes
widened.

Mantra and Ion drew their sights above…

And there, coiling and swirling like a
hundred fiery serpents, were a cluster of glowing, orange veins …
They billowed all over the skies, their brilliant orange light
spreading over the black blanket of the night.

Their warmth almost extending down to the
earth and to the plateau on which the Nyon stood, the bright orange
threads swirled around rapidly for a few mesmerising seconds, while
the entire world below watched, awed. The Zelgron had suddenly
stopped climbing and their screams had died out. A scenic,
entranced quiet had stolen over the night.

Without warning, the veins of orange stopped
swirling, took a final spin upwards, and then shot down. Like thick
beams of sunlight, like threads of burning orange spilling from the
heavens, they came down … There seemed to be a thousand of them.
And all of them shot towards the earth in a straight, normal angle
from the skies. The orange threads shot from the sky and connected
to their world across the wide desert expanse, spreading all over
it:

The giant desert expanse which the plateau
was amidst was linked to the heavens through a thousand reigns of
bright orange. They all stood steadily between the ground and the
sky like beams of light, unwavering and beautiful.

And the beams slowly faded, leaving a fiery
glow behind on the earth where they had touched.

Ion peeled his eyes, gazing out into the
expanse … everywhere the orange threads had connected to the world,
an orange glow lingered.

“What are they?” he asked, surprised to hear
his voice leave him as a whisper.

“It’s them.” said Mantra, smiling. “The
watchmen.”

The orange blurs slowly moved, taking shape.
And they formed the figure of a man. It was the same man
everywhere. He seemed to be made of a fiery orange light, with
tongues of flame stretching out to form limbs, and a thin torso
which looked like a pillar of fire.

The watchmen were spread all across the
desert around them, but every one of them was turned to face one
direction … towards them. They were all standing faced to the
plateau. The groaning of the Zelgron slowly stirred again below
them, as the creatures slowly grew wary of a new group of targets.
The Nyon ran over and looked across the edge.

The mass of Zelgron had abandoned the plateau
and were now raging forth towards the watchmen standing ahead of
them. They washed across the land like a great wave of bodies,
fierce and savage. As one the watchmen spread across the desert
plain turned and came dashing in towards the horde of Zelgron from
all sides. They gathered from all over the desert expanse, an army
of fiery orange men. Sweeping in towards the enemy group at the
centre, the men raised their flaming arms, as though bracing to use
them as swords.

Ion and the two masters watched in bounding
awe…

The watchmen zipped through the horde of
Zelgron, with their fiery limbs like the Nyon’s blazing swords:
spinning both arms like tongues of flame, they cut through the
Zelgron like brandished, burning whips.

The Zelgron were forced into a close pressed
huddle as the watchmen flew at them from all around. The fiery
soldiers seeped into the close knit mass of Zelgron, using their
flaming arms to chop through them like they were butter. They moved
so fast that all that was seen of them was an orange blur. The
Zelgron fought, clawed and lunged onto their opponents, but to no
avail: the watchmen’s’ arms acted like the blade of an ignited
sword, slicing past them at the speed of fire.

Ion felt his jaw drop as he witnessed the
scene unfold before him.

Within a minute, it was done. The only thing
remaining of the mob of Zelgron lay charred and littered over the
ground. The watchmen had finished them all.

“But how?” he breathed, turning to Mantra.
“The conch … how did -”

Mantra contemplated the question, frowning.
“My guess is that the master who had been caught by the Naxim ages
back had already passed the conch down to a student without our
knowledge. And, as per the rules of the line of secret keepers, the
student could obviously not reveal his identity, or that the conch
was safe with him. And so, the line survived within the Nyon,
unknown to even us … to even
me
.”