The Reward of The Oolyay by Liam Alden Smith

wrath of Oolyayns, as the Hagayalicks had been distracted for just long enough. He turned back toward his own executioner, whose eyes were still glazed over and his jaw still slack as he stared into the sky. Teftek struck at the stomach of the Necrologist and snapped his neck in one fluid motion. He heaved the limp body over his own and sent it tumbling down the steps of the Ulgayir as he watched Hagayalicks race up the old temple to stop him.
    Iquay ducked down as the chaos ensued in the crowd and ripped a confiscated sickle-blade off the side of a Hagayalick, slitting his throat a moment later. Inlojem gripped Iogi and yanked him up under his arm, a bloody sickle-blade appearing in his hand a moment later from Iquay, who had chosen to work with a straight-blade. He nodded his thanks to her and they started to weave through the crowd.
    Teftek lumbered down the steps with the executioner’s massive battle axe in his hands, launching himself over the body he had thrown and into the crowd. He swung it three hundred and sixty degrees, lacerating the bodies of many warriors as he moved. He saw Inlojem further on in the crowd and fought to push through in order to reach them. Projectile weapons fired rounds into the sky and haphazardly sprayed through the crowd while their owners were hacked down by blade-wielders.
    Inlojem and Iquay sliced and cut through the crowd of battered, screaming Hagayalicks who fired on their Oolyayn foes in sheer terror, and all the while doom rumbled louder and louder from above. Iquay led Inlojem into a hidden catacomb entrance  within the village’s humble library. Inlojem looked back to see if anyone was following them and saw that a whole squad of Hagayalicks were right on their heels. He slammed the thick wooden library door and scrambled after Iquay with the child in hand.
    Teftek followed close behind the squad of Hagayalicks that burst into the library, his whole form covered in streaming purple blood. He threw himself like a pile-driver into the crowd of Hagayalicks before they made it through the door, only one escaping his vicious slaughter,as his axe ripped through the bodies like loose clay.
    Iquay caught a glance at the Hagayalick behind them and took up Inlojem’s back to fight him. Yet the ground stammered as she moved past Inlojem, and they were all thrown to the ground for a moment. Something huge had hit the surface above them…falling wreckage from the ship. As Iquay made eye contact with the dazed Hagayalick, a massive piece of metal pried open the earth and incinerated his body, blasting chunks of debris in its wake. A piece of the debris tore through Iquay’s stomach and pinned her to the wall. Iogi fell from Inlojem’s grasp and darted down the corridor. Inlojem placed his hand upon the young Necrologist’s face.
    “Go…it’s just around the bend,” she begged.
    “Give me your last words, child-“ Inlojem pleaded beside her. She gripped him and gave him a small bar that hung from her belt.
    “Take this. The transmutation block…you’ll need it to activate…the…portal,” she stuttered, her grasp upon consciousness becoming weak as she struggled to keep life within herself. “When you…get to the…other side…it will be there. Take it back so they don’t…follow.”
    He stared at her with eyes of sadness. “I am just a faithless old Vesh. I'm not even as strong as you, how am I...how is it I who raises the child-“
    “Inlojem…I have never had faith,” she declared in her last moment of breath. He gazed upon her with ultimate understanding. Her grip released and her eyes went blank. Inlojem rose from his moment of weakness and felt the strength of his soul return to him. He felt Quantelenk inside of him, and Pojlim, and Aljefta and every other fallen Vesh who had died at the hands of this cruel world. He pursued the child.
    Teftek came to a massive metal shard that had bored into the ground and split it. The captain crawled atop it to see the sky's