The Sunken City [Darksea] [COMPLETE]

As always, Sirius was as quick with his mind as Silas was on his feet.

"Good. Let's hope they find it quickly. I doubt I'll be able to stand upright much longer." Silas muttered as he followed his brother. Normally he would have tried to rush his brother, even with his bad leg, but he scarcely had the energy to walk himself now. What energy he had, he had to put into keeping the both of them safe, hacking at blobs, tentacles and possessed people alike, sometimes exchanging his knife for a jab with the lightning rod or a volley of needles. Once he even had to toss down everything, using a burst of flame from his hands on a rather tough possessed soldier.

Under other circumstances Silas would have been horrified at the damage he was doing and the deaths all round them, but now it seemed strangely irrelevant. There were so many bodies, some only barely recognisable, scattered around that he simply did not notice them anymore.

Sirius had, against what Silas had hoped, moved closer to the lizard in the center of the plaza. The closer they got, the more dangerous the tentacles would prove. There were even more of them this close to the monster, as they seemed to be growing out its head and spine even as they fought it. For a moment, fear grasped Silas' heart. What if it did not have a weak spot? What if it simply kept growing it devoured everything, the city included? The shaking ground did not promise much. Had it been quaking like that when the lizard had first appeared?

"Do what you have to do, but do it quick. I can only use one arm and there are a lot of things here out to kill us. I'll hold them off."

Everything seemed to slow to a halt with Sirius released the arrow.

And then it hit.

The lizard recoiled in pain, its tentacles lashing out and twisting wildly, throwing everyone nearby off their feet, man and monster alike. The entire ground seemed to shake with its tantrum, bulging in places where its lower body seemed to try to break through. Silas wanted nothing more than to cover his ears at the sound the lizard was making, an inhuman howling of pain and frustration. Though its eye was not its weak spot, it did appear to be a sensitive one. But the lizard howling and twisting in pain was not the only thing to concern the remaining fighters...

As soon as the arrow had struck its target, the ground had started shaking more and more, until the very earth seemed to tilt, along with the sense of suddenly dropping several feet. Around the city, the shield seemed to shift and shimmer, the water around it bubbling. The city was sinking even faster than before now.

Though the ground tilted back to the way it was before, the shaking and unsteady feeling of sinking remained, worsened by the lizard trying to break through the ground.

"We have to find cover, Sirius!" Silas shouted, his voice a mere whisper amongst the noise. He made a move to run towards the buildings, the debris there would give them cover from the tentacles whipping around madly, and something to hold to should the ground tilt again, but he never made it.

With a deafening crack, the rest of the lizard broke through the pavement, not only rearing its hind legs, but also its tail. Or rather, its many tails. As long and numerous as the tentacles growing from its head had been, grew the tails from one larger tail, all ended in vicious mouths not unlike the ones found on the blobs, all filled with row upon row of shiny sharp teeth. The lizard let out another howl, though this one sounded more angry than anything else.

The brothers were faced with the sight of one still-working eye glaring at them, the multitude of tails slowly moving around behind the monster, ready to strike.

"D-don't say that! You always have a plan!" Silas felt panic rising in his chest. They were out of sight of the lizard for now, huddled behind what had once been a market stall, but it would not be long before it would find them. Sirius had always been the one with the plans, and hearing him say he had none was one of the most frightful things he had heard.

Out of sight, the lizard howled again, and Silas carefully stuck his head out from behind the stall. Something was moving around near its tails, though with the twisting mass it was hard to see what it was. Until one of the lizard's talls was abruptly hacked off. Twisting in pain, the monster reared itself on its hind legs, slashing as the air with its front legs. Silas' blood ran cold as he saw nothing on its stomach that indicated a weak spot. In fact, the skin seemed even less translucent than everywhere else on its body.

He leant back behind their cover, giving the men a grim look.

"Nothing on its stomach. We're-"

Another loud howl from the lizard interrupted Silas. Daring to take another look at it, he noticed something was still bravely dodging the tails and hacking away at them. Something in a very familiar armour.

"Onox! It's general Onox!"

Though he looked worse than Silas had ever seen the man, seeing him alive was a great relief. He watched the general dart away from the tails, stepping backwards to get away from the lizard, until he caught sight of the Sheikah. Even though he looked away for less than a second, the lizard managed to bowl him over with a tail, lashing out again to grab Onox. But the ground shook and tilted again, this time even more severe than it already had, sending several of the men sliding out of cover and the general just beyond the monster's grasp.

Silas was holding on for dear life, grabbing onto Sirius' arm with one hand and preventing them from sliding away with the other, fingers digging into the cracks between the stones.

"Sirius! We have to get to the general!"

Silas looked at the cracks in the ground with a hint of doubt on his face. If he had been in peak condition, he would have easily been able to jump across them like an acrobat, but in his bruised and battered state he had some severe doubts about his abilities. Still, he had little choice, as Onox was currently their only hope. If the man did not have any clue to its weak spot, all hope would be lost.

"Right." The Sheikah took a deep breath. "Time to go. Come on boy!"

Rover barked at him, and lept after Silas when he took off. The tilted ground was deteriorating, making it ever harder to focus on jumping across the fissures and obstacles. Most of the mosters had disappeared into such fissures, though a few of them attempted to climb out. Those were quickly shot down by Sirius or mauled by Rover, allowing Silas to continue on to the general's side.

A scream to his right drew his attention. Silas' head snapped to the side to see where it had come from.

'How did we miss one?!'

One of the lizard's tentacles had gotten hold of a mage, flinging them upwards before swallowing them with its huge maw. Almost at the same time water came crashing down on the plaza, stopped by a fraction of the shield that had once encompassed the entire city. Now it only protected the plaza, everything beyond it had been claimed by the water as well. If they were to lose one more mage... He could only hope that the remaining mages were safe in the barricaded town hall, and not hiding somewhere amongst the rubble.

Having made his way to the other side of the plaza, carefully avoiding climbing with his bad arm, Silas hopped down from the splintered remains of a tree, landing next to general Onox.

"Sir! Did your men find anything?"

To his surprise, Onox nodded.

"What we've been fighting so far is not the real creature. The lizard-like body and tentacles, the tails, it's a ruse to draw attention away from its real form. My men went into the sewers to attack the tails, and they found-" They had to dive away for one of the tails homing in at them, Onox cleaving it off with his sword. "Amongst its tails grows something else, a thicker and darker tail, ended by a round maw. It's one of the things that have been possessing my men, that is its true form! That's why the lizard did not respond to our attacks, it is not what is keeping the thing alive, it's a mere limb. The original tail- or creature, I should say, it more closely guarded than any other part of it, but if we defeat it, we can end this threat."

Silas gaped at the general. Sirius was going to want to hear this.

"FOR THE KING!"

Silas ran after the others as well as he could, though in his current situation he was starting to look more and more like his brother, more limping than actual running. His muscles ached, protesting against more exertion, but willpower and the thought of finally putting an end to this drove him onwards. They were going to end this.

He used his good arm to hack and slash at everything that passed by him, mowing a way through the mass of twisting tails and tentacles. Around him, Onox and the other men fought for their lives, drenched blood and liquids oozing from the cut off tails. Anyone who would have seen them now would have thought them more devils than men.

As Silas finished hacking off another tail, Rover tackled one that had crept up behind him, pushing it to the ground and tearing off its mouth. Silas barely felt fear anymore, this was what he had been trained for his entire life. To be a weapon for those who could not wield one, to protect the kingdom against all threats. He was swept up in a trance, almost instinctively hacking at the twisting and turning masses around him.

It was still a long way to the central tail, but they had regained their fighting spirit in full.

They fought on, some to their bitter end. Though they managed to cut down countless tails, some of them were simply too quick for any of the fighters, or struck from unlucky angles. Silas pushed his emotions away and ignored the screams as the men were getting devoured by the mouths, focusing on his movements. Stab. Slash. Stab. A step to the side, followed by slashing in a wide arc.

As the tails thinned out, so did the number of soldiers with them. In the end, their number could be counted on one hand, Onox and the Sheikah included. Though the ones that had been killed or devoured had not died in vain.

They were now facing the central tail, a huge, bloated version of the blobs they had encountered before, only a few tails left to protect it. The thing opened its mouth, showing countless of razorsharp teeth, each as big as a man's hand. The smell that came from its maw made Silas retch, a sick stench of death and decay, rank water and sewage.

This would be the final battle here. And it would end with either that thing's death, or the one of the men facing it.

Silas knew what he had to do.

He finished hacking off the mouth that had been assailing him, ignoring the blood that splattered onto his face. His next path of action was clear to him. Onox was not going to be the one to kill the monster, his armour was too cumbersome to move swiftly, and the other dead men had proved how vital it was to be able to dodge. Sirius was out of commission, with his leg and his other wounds, he would never make it alive. Perhaps Silas would not survive it himself, but that did not matter. His brother had a class to look after, and an office to return to. Silas had been commanded to end this, not even asked to come back alive. If he would be a weapon, he was going to be one. And weapons did not think about surviving.

With a loud battlecry, gathering all his remaining force, he ran forward, straight past Sirius, past Rover, past Onox and his men. The slug clacked its teeth in anticipation, a single tail lashing out at Silas, just as expected. Right before the mouth closed on him, he stuck out his wounded arm, surpressing a cry when he felt the teeth sink into it and lift him off the floor. Everything came down to his, the next moment would decide whether he would live or die, whether they would all live or die. The tail lifted him up, ready to throw the Sheikah into the air and devour him. But it had not expected to feel the knife. Silas twisted around, hacking through the tail. In its death throes, the tail had swept him up even higher.

And then he fell.

For a few moments all Silas could feel was the burning, crippling pain in his shoulder, though he was not even quite sure anymore if he really felt anything at all. Everything seemed to go so slow... He could see the slug beneath him, whipping its head around to focus on the other men, not noticing the one rapidly coming down on him. Until Silas landed, putting his entire weight behind his knife, stabbing the slug right behind its maw, tearing through the soft tissue deep into the monster.

A dark liquid, thick like blood spurted out, spraying everyone near. Silas was grabbing onto his knife so tightly his knuckles turned white and his nails drew blood on his hands, desperate to hold on to the creature that was now violently spasming under him. It shook and twitched, tried to twist around to shake off the Sheikah, but finally, after what had seemed hours to Silas but in fact had been mere seconds, the creature's gelatinous body started to dry, shrivelling up. The monster was dead.

Silas got off, teetering as he tried to take a small step towards the others.

"...I did it." He said shakily.

Then he promptly fell over.

After the monster had disappeared, an eerie silence spread across what was left of the city.

Until it filled with laughter.

Silas was lying on the ground, his brother having dropped down next him, shaking with laughter. To the others, it must have looked and sounded like he had gone insane, the strain of his mission having finally snapped him. But the laughter quickly turned from mad to relieved, and ended in a sharp exhale of breath.

"I'm alive. ...I'm alive! We're still alive, Sirius."

It took a while for it to dawn on Silas that they were done. The monster was dead, and they had survived. Everything the city had thrown at them, they had survived. He could almost imagine the feeling of the sun on his face, even though they were still far below the water. Would there even be sun when they reached the coast? How many time had passed since they had travelled to the city? The Sheikah could not be certain.

All he knew was that he was exhausted, and eternally grateful that this mission was done. After he had filed his report, he was going to take a nice long break, perhaps he could even get Sirius to come along. He moved his good arm, the other one lying limply to his side, and clamped a hand on his brother's head, ruffling his hair.

"We did it, brother. They'll be proud of us."

He yawned.

"And we... have earned our rest, for now."

-THE END-​