Part Three

In which the Rainbow Demon attacks

The battlefield had come to an abrupt halt, everyone staring aghast at the inconceivable sight and all equally unable to process it. That terrible, acute thunder utterly shattered the shock and awe and another individual collapsed to the grayed earth, now sprayed with this madness. His fresh corpse leaked it. Another sharp crack in the air, and one of our soldiers’ shoulders exploded. He fell to the ground, arm almost completely disconnected from his body, writhing in panic and pain. His eyes were wild and foam flung from his mouth, from injury and just madness at what was coming out of him.

Another crack, and this time survival instincts overcame irrational gridlock. She and I ducked and scrambled for cover, though from what we couldn’t fathom. The city defenders bunched in tighter, as did our men presently in the field. Everyone’s eyes darted for answers immediately trying to survey their surroundings, for clearly their preconceived notions of reality were wrong.

The wind blew in a single gust, and something ticked at my ears. I thought…I thought I heard something, some sound carried in the breeze. Was it bells?

Then I heard a trample and snort, much closer and far more real. These sounded as if they came from a horse nearby. I peeked up, and brain wanted to curl up and destroy itself. A scream like the unholy pierced my lungs and I wanted to, literally, tear my eyes out of their sockets, but I could not. Everything in me stilled, gone completely rigid.

It could not be, this sight. The horseman and steed existed in others. The colors. It was like staring into creation for the very first time and wanting to unmake myself. I heard vomiting all around me. This…this…being…its existence bent the light, or reflected the light, in ways impossible. Bright and dark, vibrant but not, deep but shallow, warm, cold, alive, dead…. I wanted to look again to the world around me, to the sky, earth, and people again, to see things as they should look, but like a crack in the largest of glass planes I could not not-see this. The names, the colors, I knew not where they came from. But upon seeing them the notions were forced into my mind and carved with all the painful care of a sadist.

The horse, a mass of muscled burgundy, easily stood higher than me at the shoulder; its head and ebon mane an ever-moving turret for its master. Tar-black hooves pounded into the gray earth, their impacts leaving a jagged imprint through the ground. Tanned reins led back to crimson gauntlets, their deeply-curled grip a reflection of the bulging mass of the arm, clad in an azure shirt. Khaki stirrups with blackened iron rings and bolts suspended faded chestnut boots, partially covered by ancient vermillion chaps. Beneath them tensed powerful legs in equally aged saffron pants.

At the rider's neck was tied a deep, violet bandanna, richer in depth than it was old. It nearly draped its owner's broad shoulders, which threatened to burst from the seams of a sienna-toned duster. As it rode past, the coat's tails fluttered forth, revealing the russet belts at the rider's hips. Holsters, ringed with golden shells filled with death. In one holster could be spied the twisted bluing of some metal thing caught between blackened plates of ironwood. The other was empty, its contents held aloft in the rider’s hand.

These colors, these names and ideas, where did they come from? How were they in my head, how could I know what did not exist? It was as if their very presence here had changed everything, altered the very fabric of reality. Was this thing human? Could it be? I tried to find its eyes, but I couldn’t get past its evil, twisted looking head…

It wasn’t until my sight thankfully began to blur and fuzz that I realized I hadn’t even been breathing, and the gulp of air allowed me to shut my vision away from the abomination. I grabbed her hand, and I only knew we had to run. We sprang and dashed, and the horse’s cry sang in the air before it charged into the fray. Thunder-cracks filled the air, followed by the soft plops of the dead hitting their burial grounds.

Our troops rushed in to confront this interloper, this monster, and her eyes and mine turned to look back at the carnage, trying to stifle ourselves from the incomprehensible. In the rider’s hand the forged metal thing erupted in explosions of orange light that announced death from the heavens. Soldiers fell, completely and utterly slain, missing entire chunks of their bodies. One of my countrymen slashed at the fiend, but the horsemen deftly swerved to the side and pointed its arm at him. The swordsman’s chest detonated with more of that reddened blood. The rider kicked its horse ahead, and the beast carelessly tramped over the body.

Though everything within me railed, I forced myself to focus on the thing in the rider’s hand. Parts of it moved, it was a contraption, some sort of device. One of the city defenders charged the colored fiend with a greatsword, ducking low at the last second to try and slice across its mount’s legs. The steed reared up, and its master again pointed the weapon. The defender’s neck suddenly sprayed red with the thunder crack, but I noticed something. The ground beyond the fallen man had exploded as well, as if something struck it. Something in a straight line from the now-dead warrior to the rider’s metal instrument.

A projectile. Like an arrow, more like a crossbow, but infinitely more horrific.

Now everyone on the field, kin and enemy, raced to attack the intruder, even charging side-by-side. The colored fiend just aimed and annihilated them one by one. Some managed to get close, but the horse’s size belied its agility, and its owner masterfully dodged their attacks. They, however, could not dodge the shots from the rider’s weapon. More terrible fire and noise came from the thing within the fiend’s hand, wherever its arm moved death followed.

The air was filled with booming shrieks with every fire, and columns of troops and their captains were rushing to see what was the cause of it. Chaos was amidst the generals as they tried to take in this new attacker, and nearly all the soldiers fell to their knees upon seeing the red-soaked ground and the emblazoned horseman.

She and I could only look over the massacre, speechless. With every shot I saw the rider’s fingers tighten around its weapon. A tiny arm ratcheted back, and as it did so a cylinder within the device rotated. Then the tiny arm would fall forward, and then that terrible orange and yellow nova of light erupted from the tubular portion of the weapon. The processes were unfathomable to me, but it was clear that there was a process. Death-engines these were indeed.

Our generals had finally regained their composure and were shouting for ranks and orders. All troops were to be called in now unless completely incapable of battle. Their lieutenants scrambled to pass the word out. This much commotion hadn’t been present since the initial attacks that had started the war.

I looked back to the field and saw that it was now nothing but a bloodbath. Everyone there was either dead or running, and the terrible mounted demon was taking its time in aiming and slaying those it could. One of her hands was still gripping my arm, and she held it so tight it started to tingle. Her expression was mostly blank, but never had I seen such clarity in her eyes, suck sparkling malevolence. Not even when we were completely surrounded in the trenches.

The decimated battlefield was empty now, save for the lone rider. It urged its steed forward, stepping and crushing bodies with no regard, up to the city gates. The din of shouting coming from the direction of our commanders just about ceased upon sight of this, as again all eyes were locked upon the fiend. With a pull the mount reared up, waving its hooves in the air, and brought them down with a tremendous crash upon the gates. Was that the sound of bells ringing, too? I shook my head in disbelief, trying to focus on what was real, as terrible as it was. The wood had splintered as if struck with a battering ram, and the doors were all but ripped off at their hinges. I gasped, unable to believe the power present in just one creature.

With the massive gates torn asunder we could all see the ranks of soldiers just within the city walls, weapons at the ready. With their last defense gone they poured out, trying to overwhelm their attacker. Many of them stalled at sight of the thing, but they surged forth, somehow able to put the impossibility aside and simply defend themselves. I stood agape, unable to understand any of it. How could they just go on with it, just go through with it?

The rider pulled forth its other engine of death and fired with both hands upon the onslaught, arms recoiling back and forth with each and every shot. Man and woman fell one after another, but they just kept charging ahead. Soldiers gave way to recruits, to citizens in armor, to citizens with just simple tools. And the unholy horseman just kept firing upon them, bringing an entire populace down to nothing two deaths at a time.

The generals must have known this distraction was their only chance, for our forces rallied and dashed forward to try and out-flank the monster. I yelled after my countrymen; were they mad? Had the colors driven them to insanity? That monster, that demon, was unstoppable, and they were all throwing their lives away. For what, for an enemy, invaders? It was one thing to defend our homeland, but this was not our fight to win. Nor was this fight even remotely winnable!

The beast reared up its hind legs, and with the same force that broken down the gates, kicked out and cleaved a packed handful of soldiers. The death-dealer swung its other arm around to unleash hell on our soldiers, now firing from both sides. As crowds of fighters pressed in the infernal mount nimbly leapt out of the maw, crushing people under its iron-cloven hooves.

I felt a harsh pull, and looked. She was pointing to the newly arrived corps of bowmen. Virtually all of the ones assembled for the counter-attack were present at once, stringing their longbows and notching their arrows. And then there came the twang of countless bows all firing at once. I cried praise to the gods as enough shafts to blot out the sky raced upwards, hung for too many precious seconds, and then began to fall. Only then did I realize the terrible sacrifice that had been made. All those people still in the thick of fighting were going to get pin-cushioned. We both yelled in dismay, and yet, still hoping that this would be enough to down the demon-rider.

The arrows fell like rain in a storm, and from our ranks, and even from the last of the city’s defenders, there came a great cry. Perhaps of anguish, perhaps of defiance, perhaps even in hope. Countless bodies were struck almost at the same time, gushing normal, quicksilver-colored blood and falling in heaps. A massacre almost as complete as when the rider had first arrived.

But yet the demon remained, astride its horse, both rider and mount punctured on every side by arrows. It had hardly budged. We waited, praying that at any second, the human-shaped thing would slump, or slide off the saddle, or the beast itself would collapse.

It did not. The unholy steed shook like a wet dog, freeing itself of some of the arrows. Its master shrugged, as if stretching its tired muscles, and whacked off some of the arrows from its arms as if they were rainwater. Despite the arrowheads still embedded in their bodies, both rider and mount acted as if unencumbered, stepping upon all the dead like rocks in the road. It moved unhurriedly, and every crack of bone, tortured scream of pain, and rattle of death echoed to where we stood.

The demon raised its death engines, and bowmen exploded in reddened bursts. The generals called for another volley, so the fiend opened fire towards them. The arm of one of the commanders flew straight off, drenched in red blood and leaving only a ruined stump. He fell, his ornate silver uniform permanently stained, screaming and clutching where his arm once was.

The bowmen began firing at will, but the rider urged its steed into a charge, heading straight into the storm of arrows, not even betraying a flinch whenever struck. It crashed into the line of archers, trampling and firing. I saw one of the soldiers try to stab the fiend in its leg with his short sword, but the rider only sharply kicked him away. The unfortunate lad fell backwards right onto his cohorts own blades.

At this the other commanders now turn and fled, leaving their maimed compatriot on the ground and quickly bleeding out. Already his struggling was slowing, and his screams becoming ever softer as all the lifeblood ebbed out. It was then I noticed that the iron grip upon my arm was gone, and I turned to see that she wasn’t by my side. My heart seemed to skip a beat. My head reeled. She shouldn’t be, couldn’t be, but she had to be….I looked back towards where the archers fought, dismally, against the rider. She had grabbed a pike and was sprinting towards it.

Despite all the attacks coming from all sides, the fiend seemed to pause in its brutality to notice the new combatant racing towards it. It raised its death engine towards her, cylinder perfectly aligned with her onrushing form. The demon still fired at the archers with its other hand, still managing to hit all its targets perfectly.

I could just picture the demon’s finger tightening around the weapon, its parts churning and moving, and her destroyed body tumbling to the ground completely and utterly dead. I ran.

No!

And I was there. Before the rainbow demon, grabbing at its death engine, yelling and forcing with all my might. I knew she was still charging. I saw that crimson finger curl, and the hammer start to pull back.

NO!

Not knowing what to do, or even why, I leapt.

Author's Note

I usually proofread my works, however as always I'm sure there are typos and syntax errors. I appreciate any and all notices of that, and will work to correct those. If I haven't do know that I did acknowledge your notice and try implementing it, but found that it detracted from the effect I wanted and so omitted it.