Anej: Birth

**For the contest reader -- Word Count: 1310 with Intro (995 without), but the intro is important.**

Anej: Birth

        The Anej sit at the cusp of a mountainous ridge arcing across the northern rim of the continent.  To the south, the mountains cascade quickly into a cavernous woodland: Movement, unnatural, stirs there.  To the north, the sea hurls tempest and creature onto the craggy sands of the land, and those evils recoil or die in time when beset by the mountain steep.  The sea sucks warm gales through the peaks like sucking fresh blood through starving teeth.  On the tallest mountain of the spine, a deep, expansive crater concaves the top. Inside, the Anej hold refuge.  The deepness and intensity of the concave shields them from the gales; though if it were not for a contract with the mountain, the resonance of the wind over the crater would rip their sense of hearing from them with ease . The crater is self-induced: The mountain shed itself of its own cap under contract--the Anej rid it of an ancient evil, so the mountain promised them worthy refuge and, more importantly, its core: Raw Novonite.

        Novonite, better referred to as Warpcream, is a supernatural substance.  The actual properties of the rock are unintelligible to almost all other life forms, for the substance sits barely on the rim of our dimension, and it is entirely imperceptible to those who do not have that instinctual hunger for it.  The Anej are a race of sorcery, intelligence, and scarcity; they magnify their power on this queer rock--not by proximity, static accessory, or religious devotion, but by ingestion through any possible orifice known to them. They smoke it, rub it, eat it, bathe in it, and the like when it is time to employ their strength. The substance is only used for battle and birth, yet it is birth that the Anej fear more than most any battle.

        The entire population of the people hangs at thirteen.

*          *          *          *          *

        The People of the Crater stand in a shoddy ring facing inward toward a woman on the ground.  The sun has set behind the ridge.  They are 3 miles south of the village.  do not look anywhere but at the woman--their eyes a mass of matte black.  Their skin glows slightly.  The thick of fomented Warpcream catalyzes the friction of the air, slowing movement by fractions of milliseconds.  It worries the birth-giver.  The ground rumbles slightly as the mountain's fear becomes tangible.  The planet becomes anxious as its lifeline becomes more taut and strained as breach comes near.

        The woman makes no noises as she continues to give birth.  She knows that this pain is small.  She has accepted death.  She will die silently as an Anej.

        Breach.  The newborn falls into the world with a sickening splat.  Impulsively, the woman shudders vigorously.  Her eyes aim skyward; massive jets of fire burst forth from her eyes and mouth; huge pillars of fire throw the heavy air above the crater into the sky; the warning has been shown.  The fire subsides as the woman falls back against the rock.

        Silence, again.  The ring of twelve sway savagely, throwing themselves forward, back, with the force of their mind.  They are deeply stricken with Warpcream, and a blatant madness is loosed in them that had been held back until now.  Their bodies curl and expand--backs arc in contortion: Convex, concave, convex, concave.  Some of them slam into each other with such force that would shatter granite.  Thick slapping noises protrude into the silence, yet the twelve do not take note.  All black, dull eyes watch the child and mother.

        The woman writhes in pain, now.  She begins to gurgle and shake slowly.  The shakes become vehement tremors; her bones crack and give way as they smack incessantly against the crater floor.  From her wounds, white curls of smoke pour forth and inch along the blood-wet ground to the child.  What is left of the woman's right hand is thrown forty feet into the sky as her wrist breaks.  A thin trail of blood trails behind, and white vapor ejects from the life-liquid as it begins to fall back toward the woman.  More and more of the smoke and vapor stream from the womans insides.  Hot, shrill whistles emanate from a cloud that forms around her and the child.  The whistles are replaced by a disturbing popping.  Abruptly, the vapor implodes. The woman is gone; ash remains.

        Silence, again.  The remaining Anej stop suddenly.  Their vision is almost traceable in space between them and the child.  And then... barely audible: An infinitesimally small breath.

        The twelve react at once: Three suddenly glow red and instantly appear in a triangle around the child.  Within a blink of an eye, a hyper-focused inferno is conjured and pressed against the newborn.  The land beings to slack and melt, yet the inferno, with visible strain and pressure from the three, does not move past where the child lay.  Five instantaneously gather 30 paces to the side.  Their hands move as lightning.  A glossy bubble forms around them, and they are encapsulated by it as the vesicle soars high into the air.  Once there, the five begin to churn the air around their capsule, and eventually they are blurred by the intensity of the winds around them.  The last four teleport away from the combat to straddle the rim of the crater.  The mountain gales have no effect on them in their present intensity.  They thrust their hands into the sharp stone ridge of the mountain.  A dark circle forms at the center of their high square. The circle quickly expands across the length of the crater, and as black circle reaches the boundary of the crest, it drops downward parallel to the wall of the concave.

        Suddenly, the three release the inferno and it explodes upwards towards the cyclone. The fires hold stake into the wind and breath into its ferocity and the debris of the explosion embed into the gale. The five release the sphere: A tempest is hurled at the child filled with fire, lava, and red-rock slag. The force of the blow digs a mile scar into the crater floor. The seven teleport out of the black shield and thrust their hands franticly into the earth. All twelve are visibly strained: Muscles like fat wires protrude dangerously against the underside of their glossy skin, threatening to burst at any moment. The black shield has covered the entirety of the crater. The only hole in the shield itself lies above the wreckage of where the child once took breath.

        With jarring severity, a stark shriek emanates from that debris. A huge shadow-creature bursts forth from the scar into the girth of the black shield. In the likeness of a centipede, miles in length, the white, smoke-manifested creature quickly charges completely into the trap. The hole in the shield closes. Without hesitation, the shield implodes soundlessly, snaking, tightening against the creatures hulk and form. The shield bursts at one end and a single, white pincer punctures the prison. The faces of the Anej have slipped from stoicism or savagery to panic. The hyper-compressed air blasts out with such force that it completely destroys a fourth of the crater wall. The hole in black shield rings around the protruding pincer and severs it from the creature. An explosion rattles the mountain. The stone around the twelve begins to loosen. The shield compresses intensely. Smaller and smaller does it become. One of the twelve's veins bursts in his right shoulder and a cloudy purple bursts under his skin, yet he does not falter. The shield shrinks smaller and smaller. The mountain shudders. Smaller. Shudder. Smaller. And finally, the twelve release the spell; one of them falls against the rock, nearly dead.

        Silence, again.

        The child's cry echoes weightlessly along the crater's steep; Thirteen is preserved, for now.

~RDK; Slight

Word Count: 1310 with Intro (995 without)