I wrote:Another writer's block is preventing me from advancing the plots of Bad Anime and Gobots: Storm of Steel (originally posted as Machine Robo: Storm of Steel here). I started a new story to keep myself busy as I wait for the block to dissolve. Unlike the previous story, this one is being written in segments.
EDITED 19MAR2009: I changed several details about the witch-gunners, including Freia's rank and the spelling of her name (originally "Witch-Lieutenant Freya"). The witches' names are based on female characters in Wagner's operas.
The sound of beating wings thundered as they carried darkness, death, and destruction towards the village; cruel laughter joined them as the gargoyles returned to burn, kill, ravage, and loot to their hearts' content. The villagers who were unable to find sanctuary-- in faraway lands; in Baron-Foreman Wilhelm's iron keep-factory; or braving wolves and bears in the relative safety of the forest-- bit their lips to silence cries of despair as they hid, clutching crude weapons or religious symbols.
Maria imagined feeling the lingering warmth of her father's hand as she gripped the knife he thrust between a gargoyle's shoulder blades, allowing her to flee from the devil's clutches-- the same knife the gargoyle used to behead her father, avenging the flesh wound he inflicted. A boy, his hands around the pitchfork towering over him, half-kneeled before her-- Cousin Johann, determined to protect the women hiding in the pit behind him, and fulfill the duty his father gave him.
The straw covering their hiding place, which Johann's father placed before he left to meet or flee his fate, muffled the sound of falling thatch as a gargoyle crashed through the roof; it didn't deaden the tremors Maria felt as the devil walked about the farmhouse. Maria heard or thought she heard sniffing, followed by laughter; then a roar accompanied a blood-red light and the smell of smoke.
"Gasp!" Priscilla, Johann's mother, quickly covered her mouth; it was too late. The laughter became louder as the devil waited to see what would kill the humans first: the fire, the suffocating smoke, or the gargoyle himself when the humans burst from their hiding place.
Johann, choosing to risk the latter, charged; the pitchfork reached for the gargoyle's belly. A slashing talon sent the crude weapon flying from the boy's hands; a second slammed him against the floor. "Ah!"
"Johann! Ahhhh!"
The boy saw the hem of a woman's skirt above him; his head turned to see Priscilla's throat in the gargoyle's grip. "Release... Argh!" He struggled to rise to his feet, only to cry again as blood shot forth from deep cuts on his chest.
'Father, I pray you, lend me strength and courage.' Maria drew the knife and...
Rat-at-at! Rat-at-at! "Howllll!"
"Ah!" Maria found herself on the floor, having tripped over a severed limp-- the talon that gripped her aunt's throat. 'My knife!' The weapon lay on the floor, between the gargoyle's legs.
The gargoyle's attention turned to the hole in the roof-- the humans' turned in the same direction-- to see a shadowy figure on a winged staff, a machine pistol in a gloved hand. "Who dares?!"
The figure wore a pointy hat with a wide brim, and a dark cloak that hid the silhouette, but Maria sensed the figure was a woman-- a scandalous woman whose every breath step sent forth lust and seduction. She glanced at the gargoyle she literally disarmed, and then rocketed out of sight; beastly howls of pain quickly overwhelmed the humans' cries of pain and screams of terror.
Being ignored apparently enraged the gargoyle more so than the wounds. "You will pay in blood and agony for...!" He scanned the farmhouse, seeking a weapon; then he caught Maria's knife between his teeth. Despite the loss of both arms-- or because of it-- he leapt through the roof, the seized weapon reaching for his enemy's back. Boom!
Maria used the distraction to get up. "Johann!"
"Mother!" Despite his injuries, Johann's first concern was to the prostrate woman lying before him. She was alive, but in shock; the rise and fall of her chest was the only life sign.
Maria glanced at her cousin's injuries. "I'll carry her. Can you move under your own strength?" Johann answered her with a nod; the pain made it near impossible to breathe, let alone speak. Maria reached under Priscilla's armpits and dragged her aunt out of the burning house; once the older woman was a safe distance away, Maria stepped forwards to help her cousin, only to see the boy running.
"Ahhhh!" Johann collapsed before his mother, his body twisted by pain. One hand covered his chest-- he felt blood rush between his fingers-- the other reached for Priscilla's wrist.
Maria knelt between her cousin and her aunt, and checked Priscilla's pulse-- faint but steady. "She lives." She watched Johann smile in relief, and returned the expression.
Then the boy's eyes widened at something behind his cousin; thinking it was another devil, Maria's head turned to see... "Lord of Valhalla!"
Dead gargoyles littered the town, their blood painting the ground black. Some formed dotted lines, suggesting a single blow from a powerful weapon killed them all. 'Who is she? A witch-gunner?' the child and near child thought of the gunfighter who flew overhead.
The young woman tore strips of cloth from her skirt; as she bandaged her cousin, she saw Johann's lips move, and lowered her head to hear him whisper, "Weapon." Risking death to prevent that of her family, Maria ran into the house to retrieve the pitchfork; when she returned, Johann had risen to his knees, an incredible feat of physical and mental strength.
Maria returned to place the weapon in her cousin's hands. "Our fathers are proud of you." Johann smiled as he used the pitchfork as a crutch. "I want to help the one who saved us from the gargoyles. Can you stay and protect Aunt Priscilla?" A nod answered her. "Thank you." Searching for a weapon, Maria saw the gargoyle whose talons were shot off; another burst nearly beheaded the devil, leaving little more than the jaws still locked around the handle of Maria's knife. The young woman freed the weapon and, gripping it, raced towards the sound of battle.
A stream of blood led Maria, her skirt torn and her legs free, to... "Ah!" She tripped over another headless gargoyle, and looked up and into a machine pistol's burning red muzzle. "Wait!" She released her knife and raised her hands. "I mean you no harm."
Golden eyes burned in the shadow of the gunfighter's hat, the pistol in her left hand targeting Maria, the pistol in her right targeting a dying gargoyle in the opposite direction. A golden serpent-- 'No, it's electrum,' Maria noted, recognizing a natural alloy of gold and silver-- was coiled around the gun barrel. 'It moved!' The inlaid decoration writhed to better see the young woman.
Then the gunfighter lowered the pistol that targeted Maria, into a wooden holster at her left hip. Silence fell; the battle was over. "Have you ever tasted battle?" she asked while reloading the pistol in her right hand; her left wrist twisted to remove the empty magazine and insert one with 20 rounds of ammunition.
"What...? I mean yes; my father died in a previous gargoyle attack."
The gunfighter lowered the weapon her right-side holster, drew the second pistol one again, reloaded the weapon, and then returned it to the left-side holster. "But this is the first time you bore arms against an enemy?"
Pain gripped Maria's heart; remorse tightened its grip on the young woman. 'If I was stronger or braver, would Father remain among the living?' "Yes."
"Never approach a warrior from behind; the warrior's first thought will be, 'The enemy is attacking from the rear!' and you will die."
"But...!"
"Death can come in within the split-second it takes to ask, 'Who goes there?' Now, am I correct in assuming you're a resident of this county?" A second rifle landed on the witch's right, its wings folding into a bipod.
Maria rose to her feet; now she could see the gunfighter more clearly. Dark armor protected the gunfighter from throat to groin, outlining a figure the young woman thought was natural. 'She looks so beautiful, so young and so old! Is it true the gods grant witches eternal youth?' "Yes."
"Good. I am Witch-Captain Freia. At Baron-Foreman Wilhelm's request, Duke-Supervisor Friedrich summoned my partner and me to deal with the gargoyle clan now challenging his and the Baron-Foreman's authority. I have questions I want you to answer them truthfully, so I may better complete my mission." A rifle whose length was greater than her height-- a weapon so powerful, it could send a single bullet through the stone-hard flesh and bone of a dozen gargoyles, killing them all-- rested on the ground behind the witch. Freia picked up the knife as she sat upon the rifle, examined Maria's weapon, and then returned it to the young woman.
The weapon resembled a bolt-action rifle designed by Meister Weapons, Limited, made under license by the Baron-Foreman's factory, and wielded by his men-at-arms; but it towered over those rifles as a god towered over a man, and there was magic in its craftsmanship. An electrum band in the form of Jormundgand, the great serpent whose coils encircled the world, encircled the stock and barrel; the muzzle, sending forth smoke and the scent of spent gunpowder, crowned the serpent's head like a horn; the folded wings formed the bipod. "13.2 x 92 mm SR" was stamped on the barrel.
Maria bowed and met the great serpent's eye. "Yes, Milady." She shivered when Jormundgand, its attention now upon the now dead gargoyle, extended a forked tongue to taste the devil's blood.
