Just when I thought he was done for, a crossbow bolt came out of nowhere and hit the blade off course. It flew above his head, passing so close that I could have sworn it shaved some hair off. The projectile had come from Nyka’s crossbow, which was now gone and replaced by her spear.
She charged with a ferocious war cry, leaping into the air to deliver a deadly downward stab. At the same time, Donovan did a sideways slash and I joined the battle by throwing an axe into the mix. Hector spun his double blades, knocking my axe out of the air while simultaneously intercepting Donovan’s blade and carrying it away from his body. He tried to dodge Nyka’s spear, but if it wasn’t for Kam smacking it out of the air with one of his swords, Hector surely would have been impaled.
Hector leaped away from us, Kam by his side. Though I had guessed it, I couldn’t conceal my surprise as I said, “Kam! What are you doing?!” He wasn’t a traitor, there was no doubt about that. But he wasn’t seeing the situation clearly.
He looked at me steely-eyed, and replied, “I believed Nyka. I do not believe Donovan. He has been playing us from the beginning, deflecting blame in every other direction! You can’t trust him!”
To my left, Donovan grumbled a few choice words, but didn’t respond to these accusations. I couldn’t see Hector's expression under his helmet, but I could almost feel his malicious smile. “He is not a liar. He was with me when we left Daniel at Argos! He didn’t have a chance to kill him!” Nyka yelled.
Kam shook his head, “You left at night, meaning as soon as you got out of Argos you made camp. Who took first watch Nyka?”
She opened her mouth to reply but faltered. She and Donovan shared a look, as if having a silent conversation. When she spoke again, her voice was absolutely determined, “He didn’t do it. I believe him. Hector is the traitor and he murdered my friend in cold blood. He is going to pay for his crimes.”
Hector finally broke his silence, “Then come and get me.” The challenge hung in the air for a few seconds before Nyka charged and Hector ran to meet her. Kam summoned his bow and fired an arrow at Donovan, who deflected it off his great-sword. Donovan ran towards him as he fired more arrows.
I wasn’t sure what to do; I didn’t really want to fight my brother, but it looked like I might not have a choice. Nearby, I heard Ranger run off, probably to find Arianna. I finally made up my mind to help Nyka. I would avoid direct combat with Kam if I could, but Hector needed to be brought down.
Hector and Nyka were masters with their weapons. Both weapons moved and spun so fast that it was hard to tell when they made contact. Nyka already had a small cut on her arm, while Hector appeared to be uninjured. That did it for me. I charged into the fray with my sword raised. Across the field, Kam and Donovan were doing their best to filet each other.
Hector saw me coming and took a swipe at me with his blade, which I managed to avoid. I responded in kind, but he blocked my sword easily, as if I was nothing more than an annoying insect. I now understood what Bione had meant when he talked about how skilled Hector was. I was definitely outmatched. Nyka, on the other hand, was doing a pretty good job against him. Together we might be able to bring him down.
Nyka attacked with the ferocity of a lioness defending her young. Her attacks perfectly complimented mine, attacking him whenever he put too much focus on me. We pressured him from both sides, but he didn’t even appear to be breathing hard!
He took a step back to get away from her spear, then suddenly leaped at me. I parried his blade on one side with my sword, then blocked the other side with my shield when he spun it. He pushed me hard for a few moments until Nyka jumped back into the conflict. Literally, she jumped off the ground with such power that she flew above both of our heads and came down with her spear raised for a vicious downward stroke. Hector sidestepped the spear as it lodged into the ground and kicked Nyka while she was off balance.
She stumbled and fell to the ground. Hector turned on me again attacking with so much aggression that I only just managed to keep from losing an appendage. I was so busy with his blade that I failed to see his gauntleted hand until it was too late. He got past my guard and backhanded me in the face. Thankfully I had my helmet. Still, it hurt. The force of the strike was enough to knock me over.
As my butt landed in the dirt, I thought, Well, I am done for. Thankfully Nyka distracted him before he could finish me off. I glanced in Kam’s direction to find that he and Donovan had stopped fighting each other and were now fighting half a dozen Acephali! They were probably the scouting party for the army, which I had forgotten all about.
“Wait! Stop!” I yelled as I got up. When I finally got Nyka and Hector’s attention, I pointed at the Acephali and the now very close army. Nyka turned to Hector, “Temporary truce. They aren’t going to care what side we are on.”
He nodded, but I could tell he wasn’t happy about it. We turned to join the fight right as another group of Acephali showed up. Just before we reached them, a winged figure dove from the sky into their midst. Arianna had arrived! Ranger appeared right behind her. We crashed into the Acephali and laid waste to their battle group.
Within minutes, the entire Acephali group had melted into darkness. “Hurry! Let’s head for the tree line before the rest of the army shows up!” Arianna said. We all turned and sprinted for the shelter of the forest. Donovan’s fresh burst of adrenaline allowed him to ignore his leg for a short time, but he wouldn’t be able to keep it up for long. As I ran, I could hear the sound of the army behind us. It was like a loud buzz, as if a swarm of bees was chasing us.
I ran next to Kam because I had quite a few choice words for him. Unfortunately, I was too out of breath for anything more than the occasional angry glare, which he pointedly ignored. When we finally made it to the trees, we stopped, gasping for air. Hector glanced at us warily, just to make sure that we wouldn’t attack him again.
Ranger barked in warning as the fastest of the Dark Legion’s warriors made it to us. I raised my shield and prepared for the fight of my life. The creature in the lead was one that I knew quite well. The Bakshazani glowered at me, licking his lips in glee.
“I hate that guy…” Kam grumbled. I was thinking the same thing, but decided not to voice it. I was so mad at him that I didn’t want to agree with him. The Bakshazani opened his mouth, probably to gloat, but a scream from behind us interrupted him.
I whirled around to find Nyka crumpled on the ground with blood covering her right side. Hector stood behind her with a bloody dagger in his hand. He smiled at us like we were pigs for the slaughter. “Bakshazani, they are all yours! Just make sure his death is quick.” He pointed at Kam, who had a completely dumbfounded look on his face. “He was a very useful pawn. The rest can die slowly and painfully.”
26
I am Officially an Idiot
KAMARON
In my defense, Hector should have gotten an award for his acting. He had played me from the beginning. Of course, I couldn’t see any of the tell-tale signs until now, like the fact that he disappeared before each attack, then reappeared after the fighting was over.
The look on my face must have told the whole story, because he laughed. “If it makes you feel better, you were supposed to be dead a long time ago. I thought the Banshees would be enough, but somehow you survived. Then the Bakshazani attacked, which I thought for sure would finish you off, but your glorified eagle and stupid fox saved you! I had come here planning to kill all of you, so imagine my surprise to find out that you actually bought that story about Donovan betraying Argos! I brought you two because I figured you would be easy to outmatch, but here you are helping me! I almost feel bad!” He laughed again, long and villainous for effect.
Ranger growled at him in response to the fox comment, then disappeared in a flash. Hector doubled over in laughter. “Good move, saving himself and leaving you here! Maybe he is intelligent after all. A lot smarter than this one.” He pointed at Nyka, who was trying to crawl away from him.
He leaned towards her
as he said, “You just couldn’t leave it alone, could you Nyka?! You had to go and try to screw up my plans! I mean, I planned to frame you for murder from the beginning, but you forced me to move up my plan. Oh yeah, and that guy Daniel didn’t even put up a fight. He was a true Horatii, cannon fodder to take the fall for a pointless cause.”
Nyka tried to yell in anger at him, but she spat up blood instead. This was enough for Donovan. With a cry of rage, he charged Hector. Hector simply faded into shadows with one final smile, leaving a dark outline of himself that dissipated like smoke as Donovan’s sword passed through it. Donovan yelled into the air like it was the sky’s fault.
Before I had a chance to really process what had just happened, a resounding growl from behind me drew my attention back to the scouting party. To my unfortunate surprise, the rest of the army had shown up and were all glaring and smacking their lips at us.
In a shaky voice to my right, Garret called, “Ummm, ideas? I would rather not die today if that is at all possible!”
Behind us, above the sound of Nyka groaning in pain, Donovan said, “I need to stop the bleeding! Hold them off. Arianna! Help me!” She rushed over to help bandage Nyka’s wounds.
Hold them off? I thought. We are outmatched 100 to 2! Actually, by my count, you are matched about 376 to 2. They should have brought more! This isn’t an even fight!
I couldn’t tell whether he was joking or not. Either way, not very helpful. You know those fighting enhancements that you mentioned earlier? Yeah, I am going to need those right about now. Done and done. I got your back. We fight and die together.
The Bakshazani watched us warily, as if trying to gauge our strength. Apparently, our last two encounters had given him an ego check. Finally, he grunted and waved a small group of Acephali forward. Whether to test us or tire us out, I wasn’t sure. I had expected him to simply try to overwhelm us with numbers.
The Acephali pushed forward cautiously and I found myself side to side with Garrett. We glanced at each other and, in that brief moment of eye contact, a plan passed between us. Maybe it’s because we are brothers, or a bonded pair, or both, we could read each other like a book. We let go of any annoyance or anger with each other. We couldn’t afford to have that between us. We needed to be in perfect unison in order to have any chance at surviving.
“Let’s do this!” I yelled. The Acephali charged, like they were waiting for my cue. Garrett took two steps forward to meet them and I took two steps back, summoning my bow. I brought down two of the Acephali before they even had a chance to fight, which left us with 6 others to handle. The third managed to sidestep my arrows.
They fanned out around Garrett, trying to find a way past his guard and all but ignoring me, which was just fine. The first of them took an experimental swing at Garrett with his axe and got an arrow in the nose for his trouble. Three of his buddies all attacked Garrett at once, while the other two turned on me.
I shot arrows at both, but they were too fast when they were paying attention to me. I switched my bow for my swords as they both attacked. I ducked the first one’s sword and slammed the other’s spear away. While they were off balance, I stepped in close and managed to stick the first one with my sica. The other wisely backed away and tried another spear jab, which went through my armor and ripped a hole in my shirt, but luckily didn’t catch skin. I heard an amused murmur escape the watching army. They went silent when I swept the Acephali’s feet out from under him and brought my daggers down on him.
I looked up to find that Garrett had dispatched two of the Acephali that he was fighting and was locked in combat with the third. This one appeared to be the leader, because he was better armed and a better fighter. Still, he fell from a well-placed slash after a few seconds.
I stepped back to his side and muttered, “That wasn’t so bad.” The Bakshazani snorted and raised his hand. From behind the rest of the army I heard a loud twang! and watched as arrows filled the sky. They were crudely made things, but they still had vicious points on them.
“You had to say something! Get behind me!” Garrett yelled. I did as he said and he raised his shield into the air, as if that would block all of the incoming projectiles. Just when I was about to run for cover, his shield elongated and widened until it was covering us completely! A few of the arrows that would have slipped around the shield and hit our friends were knocked away by some invisible force field that extended off of the shield. After the arrows stopped pinging against his shield, it went back to its original form.
Wow, that’s new! I thought. Phelix, of course, couldn’t keep quiet. You should see the stuff I can do!
The Bakshazani, on the other hand, was not impressed. It was hard to tell with the animal head and everything, but he actually looked a little bit annoyed. “Fine then,” he said, turning to his army. “Slaughter them all! Leave nothing left!”
In perfect unison, Garrett and I said, “Uh oh!” Then I yelled at Donovan, “A little help up here would be really nice!” Was it weird asking the guy I had just accused of murder for help? Yes, it was. But desperate times call for desperate measures.
“Done!” yelled a familiar voice from above us. I looked up to find a very friendly face gliding down towards us on a majestic creature. It was Vienna riding her pet griffin! She was flanked by two others riding equally odd creatures, but I won’t get into that now. The astonished look on the Bakshazani’s face made my day. The army faltered as they watched the leader of the Argonauts land in front of them.
Right as they landed, Ranger appeared in a flash of silver. He did a series of yips at Garrett, whose mouth dropped open. (Apparently, he had something quite impressive to say, but I don’t speak fox)
Garrett turned and smiled widely. I followed his gaze and watched as hundreds of humanoids shuffled into sight. They looked like ants, but with only two legs and two arms. The leader, who was covered in white markings that must have symbolized his rank, stepped forward and said, “Heard you could use some help. We are at your service!”
It took me a few seconds to realize that they were talking to us! I turned to Vienna, “Myrmidons?” I guessed. She nodded and smiled down at me from her mount. I then turned to the Dark Legion and found a few hundred awestruck faces looking back at me. I wish I could have taken a picture.
I smiled at Garrett and we both stepped forward. Even better, every single monster other than the Bakshazani took a large step back. The battlefield went silent enough to hear a pin drop. Suddenly, a war cry came from the Myrmidon ranks and we all ran to meet the Dark Legion.
The Bakshazani’s backup descended into chaos, with half of the monsters either frozen in fear or running away. The other half charged to meet us and crashed into our Myrmidon line. Garrett and I ran into the fray, with him hacking away in front of me while I fired arrows over his shoulders and stabbed anything that got around behind him. The rag-tag army of monsters and Acephali were no match for the military might of the Myrmidons. Creatures melted into shadows left and right as the Myrmidons hacked, slashed, and stabbed their way through. Garrett led the way, destroying anything that got in his way. Anyone who tried to get behind or around him got an arrow from me or was swallowed by the wave of Myrmidons at his sides.
Our goal was the Bakshazani. He walked towards us lazily, smacking aside anything that got in his way, whether it was friend or foe. I shot two arrows and brought down two Acephali, while Garrett slashed through a creature that resembled a werewolf. After those creatures were taken care of, there was an empty field of battle between us and the Bakshazani. Allies and enemies surrounded us, locked in combat, but there was an empty circle around us.
“Ready?” I asked Garrett.
He looked me straight in the eyes and smiled. “Let’s kill this guy for real this time.”
We turned on the Bakshazani and ran to meet him. He picked up speed, moving into a full speed charge towards us, his eyes burning with rage. Jeweled knives in hand, he swung at Garrett viciously. We attacked him as a single uni
t, like we had been training for this moment our whole lives. Whenever Garrett took a hard blow, I pushed the Bakshazani back by finding chinks in his armor. Whenever he got too close to me, Garrett attacked with such ferociousness that the Bakshazani was forced to target him.
We fought for what felt like hours. By the time the combat lulled, the Bakshazani was covered in cuts and arrows. He stumbled after taking an especially hard hit, and together me and my brother attacked. I fired three arrows at once, which each found their mark in his chest. Garrett ran forward, hacking and slashing at everything within reach. He jumped back when the Bakshazani took a lazy swing at him.
I glanced at him, presenting an idea. He nodded, and even though I couldn’t see through his helm, I knew he was smiling. He stepped forward and crouched to the ground. With a running start, I jumped on his shoulders and he launched me into the air. I brought out my swords and fell towards the Bakshazani for the kill. The look of utter horror and fear on his face as I fell towards him told the whole story. He knew he wasn’t strong enough to smack me away. This was his end.
With all the strength and momentum I could muster, I drove my swords into his head. As I did this, Garrett slammed into him like a football tackler. Our combined force was more than enough to bring him down to the ground with a satisfying boom. All eyes turned in our direction as we stood over the fallen Bakshazani. His eyes still held all of the horror of his final moments as he melted away for the final time.
27
The End?
GARRETT
The next few minutes went by in a blur. Most of the monsters fled when they saw their leader go down, but a few of the braver ones stayed to fight till the bitter end. They were strong but heavily outnumbered. Between us, the Myrmidons, and the other Argonauts, they got overwhelmed and brought down.
The Wish Box Page 16