Ascension Of The Elder

Kyle led the way as he raced down into the tannery yard followed closely by his men. Gradually they ranged out and formed a cavalry line three men deep. The ground shook and war cry"s sounded, this wasn"t going to be a battle but rather a purge of this unclean growth.

Kyle drew his heavy mace from his saddle and as he reached the nearest cultist he used an underhand swing like he was playing polo. The cultist only had time to look up before he was launched through the air smas.h.i.+ng into a wooden fence behind with a new hole in his stomach where the mace made contact.

As the rest of the line made contact the cultists were being sliced and crushed by weapons and the weight of the steeds Kyle and his men rode. The post and rail fencing was no barrier to these war steeds as they just ploughed right on through with barely any loss of speed.

Ash seemed to be on a mission as all around him there were bits of cultists now mixed in with the remains of the civilians, even Bruno seemed to be in a state of bloodl.u.s.t. Bruno was still using his war hammer but he had tears streaming down his face as he swung his weapon around blasting the cultists away.

In Bruno"s mind he put his parents and Alena in this position without any help or strength to defend themselves. He became overtaken with anger and pain so like any child would do he lashed out at those that wanted to hurt his family in the most basic way possible.

Kyle broke the line down as they began clearing the yard with squads ranging out to delete the groups of cultists who were out of their line of attack. When Kyle saw Bruno swinging his hammer down onto an already dead cultist Kyle approached him.

"Bruno stop he"s already dead."

"I know but what if they can come back."

Bruno responded to Kyle with bloodshot eyes and with his mind shaken. The depravity he had seen was something which disturbed him on a level which he wouldn"t have believed possible. Kyle looked at his best friend with sympathy as he had already seen something similar when he was on a mission with "shadow hand" to remove another cultist group in the city.

"Bruno trust me he isn"t going to come back from that. Now look up at the sky and think of Alena and your parents. They are safe and no one can get to them where they are, they are safe and you are going to keep them that way okay?"

Bruno had been under Kyle"s command for years now and obeyed without even thinking about it consciously. With Kyle"s calm words he began to recover before looking around himself and saw what he had done to the nearby cultists.

If his face wasn"t already pale it would become so and if he hadn"t already puked his guts out he would already be trying to regurgitate his toenails right now. Kyle saw Bruno swallowing quickly and using this opportunity grabbed a nearby overturned bucket before saying.

"If you"re going to spew, spew into this."

Before he shook the bucket in front of Bruno"s face. This brought a pained smile to his face before he responded to his friend.

"Yeah very funny, you should get back to work before I replace you."

On hearing this Kyle knew Bruno would be okay as sometimes dark humour is the best way to deal with the horrors people can create.

Ash and his men had finished sweeping up the yard and were now arranging themselves in front of the tannery. Kyle approached them while Ash was still issuing orders with Bruno following behind him. When the men saw Bruno they felt for the kid as most of them hadn"t seen anything this bad before but they had fought in wars so were somewhat hardened.

"Ash I want your men to form a perimeter around the building, I don"t want any cultists to get away during this purge. Dylan you take your men and head through the loading dock. Luke you and I will be heading through the personnel entrance on the other side. The chains are off gentlemen use all of your skills to remove this cancer. Remember no cultists get out of here alive."

With that Kyle headed to the staff entrance with Luke and his squad of five other men while Dylan headed to the loading dock. Dylan"s team also consisted of 6 men in total with the Daryl"s the other 2 men where some who knew Dylan from before they joined and where from the same battalion he was from in the imperial army.

"Luke how"s the arm ready to remove some sc.u.m?"

Kyle asked Luke as he was formerly the one armed guardsman who with the use of Kyle"s technique had his arm re-grow. Luke flexed his arm a little before responding.

"All good sir I"ll show these b.a.s.t.a.r.ds what it means to attack our city? I have to ask though why is Dylan in command of the other team, I mean I like the guy but he"s a bit..."

Luke struggled to find the correct words to express what he was trying to say as he had lived and trained with Dylan over the last few years and wondered why Kyle and Ash gave him so much authority.

"Look I know Dylan is a little....special when it comes to his daily life, but he is an exceptional soldier and a loyal comrade. You should trust him when it comes to battle, maybe not in anything else though."

The team had a laugh at this as they reached the personnel entrance. There was no reason to try and sneak in and the only reason Kyle didn"t have the entire force rush in was because there was too much debris scattered around for the whole force to fight effectively and with all the other ways in and out the cultists would be easily able to break through a perimeter with too few members.

Kyle used his soul sense to scan past the doorway and a distance further in and found that past this door was a small hallway with another door on the other side. On the other side of the door was a group of 7 cultists with one on either side of the door.

Past these 7 several other groups of cultists were spread out around the workshop floor, luckily these groups were spread out as the various workbenches, rollers and tool stations meant they couldn"t just crowd the door without blocking their other members.

Knowing that the area around the door was clear Kyle led the way in followed by Luke who"s eyes travelled all over looking for the enemy. Kyle reached the door and was thinking of the best way to deal with those on the other side.

Kyle"s eyes fell on Luke"s weapon which was a staffsword with a four foot hilt and a blade of the same length. Kyle wasn"t a fan of this type of weapon, I mean why not just use a spear if you wanted the range but after Luke had trained with this Kyle couldn"t deny it"s utility.

Kyle indicated Luke should aim for the wall where the door opened at about 5 foot 2 inches high and began to count down with his fingers 3, 2, 1.

When Kyle reached 1 Luke stabbed forward and Kyle kicked the door open with as much force as he felt the door could handle.

One the other side of the door the cultists were standing there and were beginning to get restless as they could hear battle coming from the other side of the building already but on their side there was no movement.

Suddenly there was a burst of activity, one of the men standing next to the door had a blade sticking through his neck and the blade only stopped mere inches away from the man nearest to him. Before they could even react to this the door they were guarding was blasted open.

The door swung open coming back against the wall smas.h.i.+ng into the cultists standing there stunning him for a moment, however the bit the made everyone freeze was that the latch from the door broke away when the door was kicked and ended up in the eye of the cultist standing directly behind it killing him instantly.

Kyle saw this and couldn"t help saying aloud.

"Well can"t say I was expecting that but I"ll take it."

With that Kyle rushed in with his mace and with a wide swing knocked the rest of the cultists over the worktables behind them letting the rest of the squad enter and form up cleanly. Luke had pulled his staffsword from the wall and followed Kyle.

Seeing the number of cultists Luke merely flicked his blade to clear the blood on it before they all rushed forward and a large scale fight ensued.

The cultists were not true soldiers and relied on the strength boost they received from their corrupted cultivation techniques so when faced with Kyle"s team they were at an immediate disadvantage.

These beastly cultists weren"t smart enough to fall back and whittle down their enemies strength, instead they would obediently approach through the tight alleys within the tannery or try to climb over the tables only to be greeted by an array of weapons Kyle"s team were carrying.

There was one thing Kyle knew and that was that these cannon fodder were the weakest and lowest rank within the cult and the higher ranks used a more beneficial technique so they retained their mentality.

Finally clearing the workshop area Kyle and the others pa.s.sed through into a packaging area while wondering when Dylan"s team would meet up with them.

Within the packing area there were several more cultists only these seemed to be the stronger members as they formed up in smaller teams and rather than just rush in were waiting for Kyle to make a move.

Not wanting to draw this out Kyle ran towards a largish group who were standing behind a barricade of boxes. Kyle didn"t slow down and instead jumped when he reached the boxes. As the cultists prepared to attack him Kyle"s foot landed on the top of the boxes and he gave himself a hard push launching over the heads of the cultists who couldn"t react fast enough.

The cultists could do nothing other than watch as Kyle flipped over them but this was their undoing as Kyle wasn"t alone. As they were distracted Luke and the rest of the team rolled over the boxes and stabbed, hacked and smashed them.

The other cultists in the room broke rank when they saw this, some rushed towards Kyle and the team while others ran in different directions. A melee followed with Kyle moving around and between other battles, helping when needed and taking out as many cultists as he could.

As the battle was dying down Kyle was faced with the largest cultist present. He was holding 2 b.a.s.t.a.r.d swords with a wide stance prepared for a battle. Kyle didn"t want to waste anymore time so he simply kicked a piece from a broken crate at the cultists face.

The cultist used one of his swords to block but while his vision was obscured Kyle rushed in and swung his mace along the ground rising up at the apex of the arc and crack.

"Uhh."

Yup right in the daddy sack. The cultists face went pink, white, green and yellow before finally settling on something similar to pumpkin before he said in a voice which could pa.s.s for a soprano.

"You win."