There was a grand crystallized window along the port side of the vessel––the Harbinger. It afforded a view that overlooked Terra, as the blue planet had been called for the past thousand years. The sun cast a glare over its edges. Had one known what the world had looked like millennia previous, they would have seen the changes. The dark coloration of the seas, the murky, bruised clouds that covered a good portion of the land––save for the hundreds of square miles just beneath Culouth, the world above as it was called by those below.
A figure stood abreast the window; the one-piece jumpsuit was dark black, matching his short-cropped hair. The tight spikes were flushed forward. Hands clasped behind his back, he wore the expression of a military man.
His furrowed brows formed a sinister line over his cold brown eyes; the solitude that encompassed him reflected in his frozen glare. The corridor around him was bathed in shadow. The only light came from the glow of the planet below and faded illuminators that lined far off into the distance.
He was called Marion. Once he had been a respected member of the House of Te’huen, a warrior sect of Culouth that had waged wars against man and rim worlds alike.
He broke from Culouth, a clear distinction being made between those who chose to align themselves with Intelligence: fiber optic enhancements and regenerative replacements and those who opposed these technological interventions.
The clicking of footfalls resonated in the dismal chambers.
Marion did not bother to turn.
His dark eyes watched the slow rotation of Terra. His cheek muscles flexed. “So Kyien would not come himself I see,” Marion spoke with an air of confidence.
Deeper down the hall the lights flickered.
The running lights dimmed and then exploded in a shower of clear sparks. Black boots walked over the carpet of glass as each one shattered in turn. The face was shadowed over; only the stark white pants and the dark boots emerged from the darkness that seemed to surround the being.
“To see you?” responded the shadow man.
Marion lowered his head.
Eyes closed, his hands were still firmly placed behind his back. “A peace must be reached. Even your master must understand this….”
The man snorted indignantly.
He still hid in the shadows. His eyes were now illuminated crimson. Billowing energy flowed freely from his face. “There can be no peace. There will be no peace.”
“Why then did you bother to come here?”
The shadow man paced outside of viewing range, ignoring the question and posing another. “How many refugees are here with you?”
Marion’s surprise showed visibly in the cock of his head, looking back toward the shadowed figure. The twin clouds of energy shone like two animal eyes in the night. “What?”
“How many of your tainted kind walk this hollow home?”
“What is the meaning of this?”
The man emerged from the darkness, his features apparent for the first time. His bald head was tan. A jagged scar ran diagonally across his face, carving a ridge over his eye, nose, and ending just below his lip. A light brown beard covered his chin.
His brown eyes were tainted.
Crimson clouded where white should have been.
He wore a gray suit, fitted around his waist and flared out loosely over his thighs and legs. Marion inhaled sharply upon seeing the man move into the light.
His features darkened, outlining the set of his strong jaw. “He who kills his own kind,” whispered Marion. His words were like a hiss, a curse at the man who stood before him.
“I have no kind.”
“You have tainted the power of Terra, used its energy for the Intelligence. You were once a man, a human not unlike us,” reasoned Marion, his voice wavering.
“How many are here with you?” pressed the warrior with a level, unrelenting glare. A sweep of his hand dismissed Marion’s words.
“I am alone,” responded Marion.
The shadow warrior turned his head and looked toward the corridor wall. His face curled into a cruel grin. Turning back to Marion, the shadow warrior clucked his tongue against his cheek. “You lie,” he spoke with a hint of sarcasm and wagged his finger as if he were doing so to a sullen child.
“No,” called Marion, but it was too late.
The shadowed warrior raised his arm to the wall, flattening his hands against it. They shimmered with the same energy that consumed his eyes. The wall began to swell from the heat radiating out from his hands, the center brighter than the rings that flowed around it. Marion moved forward to intervene, but in the eyes of the shadow warrior he might as well have been standing completely still.
He had lowered his shoulder to bull rush into the dark warrior.
The denizen of shadow proved too quick, his foot flew out with true aim. He caught Marion along his kneecap, disintegrating the bone with inhuman efficiency and power.
“Damn you,” Marion snarled as he fell to the floor.
He grasped at the empty pocket of flesh riddled with shards of bone. His cold glance fell on the shadow warrior. His eyes welled with tears from pain and shock.
The shadow warrior did not even acknowledge the man’s pain.
“Why do you slaughter your own kind like cattle?”
The being looked down, but did not respond.
The wall melted away like a viscous liquid and pooled on the ground, solidifying into a gnarled mass of steel beneath the makeshift entrance. The shadowed man stepped through, his stride broad and the scowl carved across his features sunk in seriousness.
The Path of the Fallen on Amazon US
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