Seeing as I've not been around for a while I thought I may as well make my return post my first in this section. So without further ado I present the first snippet of...
The Coven
The air parted under the edge of the three triangular blades. Passing a span from biting into soft and exposed flesh they tore instead through the ribbed rubber of the air hose, allowing air to pour into gasping lungs. The toxic, choking mist sloughing meat from meat, rendering the delicate tissues down into a bloody, agonising foam. Some would have paused to sup on the exquisite suffering and rattling death agony of the falling victim, but the owner of the golden-edged claw-blades strode on unheeding. Disdain etched the angular cavities of the figures mask face, as it drew its bladed talons down in an arc towards another sluggish human body, reaping through the gas masked soldiers.
The raid was small. A personal insertion for the sole purpose of fulfilling its leaders specific needs. Six twisted, formerly elfin shapes. Five masked, carrying stiletto blades and weaponised injection needles, their extended spines hung with sedative compounds, paralytics and subtle toxins. They walked barefoot, like their master, dark metallic files strapped to their sides so as not to impede their mobility as they fought in the cloying half dark of the planets misted dawn. The humans laboured under sealed carapace armour and hardened, rubberised bodysuits all designed to keep the caustic vapours of the atmosphere in check but more successful in already reducing their already comparatively woeful reactions. Their alien foes were naked to the waist, bare striated musculature embracing long bones, keeping the attackers lithe and waspishly thin, able to move with ease, dodging blows and responding with precise stabs of their own. And while human skulls were encased in the fusion of helmet and respirator mask, long threads of xenos hair flowed with the motion of every strike.
A cluster of humans stood firm against the slaughter. Using their comrades as cover they locked bayonets to the barrels of their rifles and advanced, bolts of ruby laser fire streaming ahead of them as they desperately tried to pin down their elusive foes. Two of the half-masked long haired aliens were caught in the fusillade. One fell its eyes misting as the beams staccatoed across its chest and limbs, opening sizzling wounds under their touch. The second was similarly pierced but fate or unnatural science trumped simple organ damage and it was able to rise from one knee and bounded away from the killing zone.
"Hold formation!" Came the garbled human cry, partially obscured by the respirator. "Keep tight and drive them back." Was the continuation. It was pointless bravado. A desire to maintain the shaking morale that kept them together, for the moment. In truth none expected to survive, but when the only other option was to lie down and die, they fought as one. And died as one.
The spider limbed, mechanical contrivance of the alien leader lashed out. Spinning razor teeth carved through armour, as injector syringes shattered goggles, and beneath it all the empty horned mask leered demonically as his myriad limbs, metal fleshed and metal, tore the ranked men apart. Though his motions spoke of an agility far beyond that of the mortal men dieing at the ends of his blades, each attack was simple and efficient. Kills may not have been clean, but a minimum of pumping human blood flowed into the air. As his need dictated.
When the mist collapsed back into the former battleground the only signs were the scorched furrows of earth from lasgun fire and the discarded equipment of the soldiers. Fallen from neither side remained, barring a single human head. It's raw muscle bleeding gently under the corrosive caress of the wind, the skin of its face disturbingly absent as its eyes and exposed teeth grinned a death rictus to the sky. A lonely marker of the bronze death that had come to Parnax.
***
Subject: The Coven 
Thu May 10 2012, 13:01
