From above the head of the great worm beast he could see a lone figure coming down on it with an ignited Barudii blade that was quickly driven straight into whatever brain it might possess.
The creature reared up as the soldier drove it deep again. The beast gave up the fight quickly and the head crashed with tremendous force into the ground near Tiet's paralyzed body.
Without warning, this person picked him up somehow, almost as if he had levitated up to him. And then they were off and running. He heard a voice as the scenery kept changing before his fixed eyes. 'Don't worry; I'll get you out of here, brother.'
It couldn't be. Kale? But he was in detention at Baeth Periege. And suddenly with the realization, he felt no anger, only relief that somehow and for some reason his brother was here to save his life.
He could hear Kale as he called for a retreat to behind the defense wall. 'Abandon your posts and return to the city immediately, by order of the King!'
Tiet was glad Kale was taking charge. The men were getting slaughtered and he would have called the retreat himself had he been able. Hopefully, the remainder of the civilian population had been able to get behind Wynn's ten mile front by now. They had been nearly out by the time the defense cannons were set to auto track and left running as long as the Baruk were within target range.
Kale joined other soldiers who were now in full retreat from the advancing Baruk. They had to reach the access portals quickly to get inside the wall before the enemy caught up with them. Fortunately it appeared that the creatures were busy still feeding, leaving only the Baruk warriors on their trail.
The clatter of their projectile weapons could be heard all around, as the metal shells pounded the surrounding buildings and took down more of the Castillian soldiers retreating toward the defense wall. Of five hundred elite warriors that had come to the battlefield with their king, fewer than a hundred remained standing.
Kale tried to put as many structures between himself and the advancing Baruk as he could to block the storm of shells swarming around them. He found them easier to detect mentally than pulse blasts that traveled much faster, but it was still difficult to evade all the gunfire with his brother limp across his back.
He was supporting the majority of Tiet's weight kinetically, but his movements were still cumbersome. With the masses of Castillian soldiers dying all around him all he could think of was getting his brother safely behind the defense wall up ahead.
Some of the other soldiers had already reached the wall and accessed one of the portals through. One of the Vorn was standing at the doorway waving other Castillian warriors inside. Kale followed the others through the passageway that took them beyond the defense wall into the city. Several of the soldiers guarded the portal until they could see no other Castillian soldiers; then they followed the others through, sealing the doorway behind them.
The Baruk were locked outside of the city now. As Kale came into the open city he spotted a place where a med station had been set up and left for anyone that might be wounded in the battle. The other soldiers were congregating around several of the stations that had been set up while the city's population was being evacuated to Baeth Periege.
Kale laid down his brother and examined him. He passed a med scanner across his limp body and determined that he was alive and well despite the neurotoxin that kept him paralyzed. He took one of the needle leads from the scanner and pushed it into Tiet's deltoid muscle. It may have still hurt him but he needed to do a cellular muscle scan to determine how best to treat the poison. The scanner began to run through a series of tissue and function tests over several minutes. When it had finished, a series of instructions came across the screen to instruct Kale on what medication combination would be effective in reversing the paralytic effect of the Hurutai neurotoxin.
The gunfire beyond the wall was quickly quieting down, which disturbed him; they were up to something. He rummaged through the med box in the station tent looking for the prescribed drugs called for. Only two were needed, but the dosage had to be precise. He located more supplies to mix the concoction and went to work. Tiet remained seemingly lifeless on the ground.
Beyond the med station tents something was happening. The men were yelling and then he heard the screeching of the Hurutai. He went to the tent door to look out just as a spray of Hurutai spines pierced the flaps. Kale jumped back and could see several of the spines in his body.
He had the injection in his hand called for by the med scanner and immediately jammed it into a vein in his arm and pushed it systemically. He quickly began to get dizzy, but within moments the effects of the neurotoxin appeared to be prevented.
He went to work mixing another dose for Tiet. He could hear more than the just the Hurutai outside now. Kale fixed his mental senses on the area around him and found the Baruk warriors coming through the Hurutai tunnels into the city. Gunfire was erupting again as the remaining Castillian warriors tried to defend themselves against the steady stream of Baruk warriors pouring through the tunnels.
Kale worked fast to get the mixture prepared and when he had it he injected the medication into a vein in Tiet's arm. He could sense the Baruk closing in on where they were now and he didn't have the time to wait for the paralysis to be reversed on his brother. He quickly lifted him up kinetically and moved to the rear of the tent, where he sliced down the cloth wall with a kemstick and plowed on through to the outside.
The battle was raging again but there were hardly any of his comrades left alive as the Baruk began to capture the area the Castillians had been recuperating in. Kale ran for cover toward the large buildings ahead, but the Baruk were closing on him fast.
He could feel Tiet beginning to shift on his back as the paralysis wore off.
Ahead in their path a Hurutai worm erupted through the surface, leaving the brothers with no where to go. Kale dropped to the ground fast with Tiet as the reflexive spray of toxic spines sprayed away from the beast and sailed over their heads. Tiet was moving on the ground now, trying to regain his own muscle control as Kale drew his blade to defend as best he could.
Suddenly a flash of light appeared between the Hurutai and the buildings behind. Kale could see what appeared to be a huge window, to another place, materialize with the figures of men coming through it into the city. He could begin to make out the people as Horva warriors, and General Grod was leading them through.
They each wore a metal glove with wires trailing along the length of their arms to a small pack across their backs. The gloves were being held before them as they ran into the area, alerting the Hurutai to their presence. Streams of plasma energy shot forth from the gloves; some of them hitting the Hurutai. The creature screeched in pain and within seconds it fell over dead.
The Horva were running straight at him and Tiet, who was still trying to stand for battle. Kale raised his blade as he ignited it and prepared to fight the Horva coming at them. More streams of plasma energy issued forth like lightning from their fingertips, but the attack passed them and hit the advancing Baruk head on.
He was dumbfounded as the Horva warriors ignored them completely to fight off enemies behind him.
General Grod came right up to the pair of warriors as they stood there exhausted from the fight they had already faced.
'Come with me, we need to get you to safety,' he said speaking directly to the young king.
Tiet responded now, appearing to realize more of what had just happened than Kale did.
'I knew it, Grod,' he said weakly as he tried to catch his breath. 'I knew you were a man of honor.'
Tiet could still barely stand and Grod helped Kale support the young man as they made their way back toward the energy portal standing in mid air.
'My warriors!' said Grod into his own communication headset. 'Return to the transgate!'
Grod, Kale and Tiet all proceeded through the portal and found themselves immediately inside the fortress at Nagon-Toth.
'SIR, we've been unable to confirm how many troops have off-loaded inside the city since the other transports began landing,' said Sergeant Corbin.
'What about the power?' asked Wynn. 'Have you had any success getting to the main supply conduits?'
'No sir. The Baruk are still fortifying that area very heavily. We can't get through.'
'It's been two hours now and nothing from Tiet or anyone from the preliminary team.'
'With all due respect sir, it seems clear that no one survived and the Baruk have the city now; how could they possibly have made it?'
