The Keys to Ascension

by Dilland Doe

  #

  Finio set his pot next to him. He didn’t know where the fox ran to, but he still didn’t have confidence in his healing anyways. He stood in front of the archers and squires as speed and endurance flowed through him and into Kericles and as many estra warriors as Finio could reach. He kept pushing the magic into more men until the stream to each man seemed weaker. He didn’t know what that meant and didn’t want to over extend himself, so he focused on Kericles and a large batch of leading chargers.

  The Citians hollered as they barreled toward the Hyzantrian infantry. Finio glanced at the large amount of cavalry and foot-knights in reserve. He didn’t want to be fighting against his own people, but what choice did he have? It was his people who wanted him dead for his father’s crimes. I’m just glad I don’t have to fight.

  Hyzantrian arrows rained on the estra warriors, bouncing off the armor. The deep shouts of the Citians were overwhelmed by the clunking and banging of metal as the Hyzantrian’s heavy weapons hit the Citans’ invincible armor. The estra warriors crashed into the Hyzantrians, blasting back rows of foot soldiers like a shockwave. Many of them fell as blood sprayed in the air. The middle of the Hyzantrian line caved in the furthest before the Citan advanced slowed.

  The foot-knights in reserve split in two. Half of them charged one wing, and the other half the other. Glancing blows bounced off Hyzantrian plate, but direct hits dented it and force behind a strong point punctured it. Some of these men fell as soon as they entered the battle, but others fought on. On the wings, the armies fought standing still. At the center, massive Citian weapons smashed through their enemies, but the Hyzantrians ducked and parried where they could, falling back but still holding up.

  Finio glanced up at the Hyzantrian reserves which including about twenty estra-armored warriors. None seemed to be the king. How did the Hyzantrians convince so many of those proud Actian brutes to not take part in the battle defending their own city?

  As the clash raged on, Finio’s mouth dropped when he noticed the Hyzantrian ‘C’ formed around the Citians. Then, the mounted knights and the inquisitors started moving.

  Half of the horses went right, the other half left. They moved along the side of the ‘C’ with the inquisitors lining the edges closest to the battle, creating a pure white border along the blocks of shiny grey knights. The small group of armored Actians stood as the only hand-to-hand force left in reserve for Hyzantria. They charged toward the center of the ‘C’. Finio could do nothing but keep his speed and endurance flowing.

  A few Actians moved back through the mass of men when receiving injuries, but Finio didn’t see a single one fall. Many Hyzantrians fell, but many more remained standing, and they no longer fell back.

  Galloping along the sides of the battle, the inquisitors tossed little blades into the fray. The darting weapons looked so small that they seemed like play things…until they flew through Citian visors and hulks of estra dropped to the ground.

  How can they be so accurate? Finio glanced around for a wizard, but saw none.

  The lines of white on each side rode by the ‘C’ devastating a handful warriors. A cheer went up from Hyzantrian soldiers and the ‘C’ around the Citians suddenly turned rabid. Hyzantrians pushed in on three sides, aggressively taking massive swings with huge hammers and even dropping weapons to grab arms and legs. Citians skillfully bashed and sliced many of the risk takers, but many more landed heavy blows or held warriors’ arms out of the way while other Hyzantrians stabbed through visors or undid the latching on helms.

  The ‘C’ pushed in. The horses kept riding past the main battle toward the archers and toward Finio. A volley of arrows shot over his head and rained on the charging cavalry. After passing the ‘C’, the horses spread out into a line as they galloped straight toward the soft squires and archers. Knights held up their shields over the inquisitors. The rain of arrows fell uselessly against plate, many of the projectiles landing behind the cavalry.

  The ‘C’ became smaller and smaller as the Citians compacted together. Some men couldn’t even move to defend themselves as the Hyzantrians furiously kept pushing, fervently stabbing through visors and launching heavy strikes.

  The inquisitors dashed ahead of the knights, launching more small projectiles. One of the hooded figures came right for Finio, its horse’s hooves throwing up grass. Finio acted without thinking. He had to, for in a moment the long blade of the inquisitor would be in his neck. Finio extended a hand and sent out Kwitty’s reverse magic, massively slowing the inquisitor and horse.

  They seemed to freeze mid-air, but a little flying metal kept coming. The inquisitor had already thrown some kind of dart. While it seemed to fly in surreal slow motion, it actually came in an instant, and poked Finio in-between the eyes. It only hurt a little, but a massive wave of drowsiness slammed over his mind and flooded the crevices of his brain. He collapsed as sleep took him.

  *

  Kericles glared at his brother’s eyes shining through his helm’s slit. Arcadius was a fool just like his father and Kericles was not afraid to kill for the justice of his people. Some Hyzantrian soldiers moved back from the front line while Arcadius and his band of thugs moved in. Kericles’s hammers flashed through the air like they themselves were the music of battle, bashing through skulls and breaking arms.

  Kericles’s man to his left got a little ahead, pushing into the Hyzantrians. No! Arcadius swung down his massive poleaxe, bashing into the man’s helm. It created no dent, but the man collapsed. Kericles swung to knock the poleaxe to the side, in order to leave Arcadius vulnerable, but somehow he adjusted the weapon and Kericles’s blurringly fast hammer just swung by.

  The blunt point of Arcadius’s poleaxe jabbed into Kericles’s chest, knocking him back slightly before he abruptly knocked into the warrior behind him. Kericles’s arms bumped into the men on his left and right as he lifted his hammers to take on his brother. The poleaxe jabbed him in the chest again, this one with much more force behind it, slamming Kericles into the man behind him.

  Kericles glanced around him. His men could hardly move. They were pinched from all sides. The shoulders of warriors squeezed closer more and more. Then the square tip came for his skull. Finio swung his head right, then instinctively moved for a counterattack as the weapon buzzed by, but Arcadius already retracted it, and kept his distance.

  The man beside Kericles screamed as two Hyzantrians yanked his left arm forward and then rammed a thin dagger through his visor. One of those Hyzantrians fought forward, the other toward Kericles.

  With his brother in front of him, a dagger wielding Hyzantrian to his side, and a mass of humanity pushing in on all sides, Kericles’s mind ran with possibilities for escape. He flashed his hammer to knock the dagger away from the Hyzantrian, but Kericles’s arm slowed. The magic left him. The work of intense fighting hit him. Finio!

  The Hyzantrian pulled back the dagger.

  “Traitor!” Arcadius yelled as he jabbed Kericles again. The shock of the force rippled his heart, knocking Kericles back before he slammed into the man behind him. Weight pulled against his left hand. A Hyzantrian stared resolutely at Kericles as he pulled it with one hand and held up a dagger with the other. Kericles glanced for allies to help him, but the Hyzantrian push had moved passed him on the left. He could hardly move to the right because his allies pushed against him from that side.

  Kericles adjusted and flung his left arm across himself, the Hyzantrian flung with it, into Acradicus’s face. Kericles lost his left hammer in the process, then charged, throwing his right hammer at his brother. The hammer arrived just after Arcadius swiped away the Hyzantrian with the pole. Arcadius jerked his head to the side, dodging the hammer while jabbing toward Kericles’s leading leg.

  Anticipating this, Kericles leapt onto the pole, then bounced up on his opponent’s shoulders before launching himself over the entire lines of Actians and Hyzantrians. While flying, he said, “You’re the traitor, brother.” He rolled onto the ground and sprinte
d around the side of the battle. The ‘C’ shrunk onto the Citians as they fell to the Hyzantrians who surrounded them.

  He ran toward the back lines, but all he saw were the butts of horses and the backs of knights. The squires ran as knights bashed them to the ground with their horses or sliced through them with swords. We should have trained them better! The few archers ran and died as well. Kericles didn’t see any mages standing.

  He ran with all he had, pumping his legs toward the mass of knights. Behind them laid the ships. Would a single one escape?

  Ch. 51

  Finio awoke laying in a cold, dark dungeon. His hands lay stretched behind his head on the ground. He moved to sit up, but his limbs came to a halt at the rattling of stretching chains. Manacles held his wrists and ankles to the floor so that he only could move each about a foot.

  Glancing around him, Finio saw an inquisitor stood about five yards away from him to his left and his right. No one else seemed to share this dungeon room.

  “Why am I alive?” Finio whispered.

  Almost every wizard was assassinated before the battle, and I witnessed my allies die by thrown inquisitor blades during the fight.

  He tried to touch between his eyes, where the dart hit him, but the manacle stopped his wrist. Oh yeah…Why a sleep dart for me? I don’t deserve special treatment. What’s going on?

  Boots echoed from behind a dark wall. The sound grew until it halted behind the wall and then it opened outward like a door. In the middle of the doorway stood an inquisitor in his full white robes and hood that shadowed the man’s face. Two prison guards stood behind him, probably guarding the door.

  Finio sucked in his breath as the inquisitor walked toward him. The assassin removed his hood and Finio knew why he’d been spared, whispering, “Parto…”

  *

  Parto stood over his brother. He hated to see him chained up like a wicked maleefa, but he was after all... All the inquisitor training could not prepare Parto for the swell of emotions whirling through his chest and head, urging him to smile and cry.

  Finio looked up at him, his face contorting and a few tears dripping from his eyes. “Brother…thank you. I love you.”

  Parto wanted to unchain his fellow triplet that he’d thought he’d never see again and desired to hug him until his arms could squeeze no longer, but he couldn’t. If the inquisition thought Parto might sympathize too much for Finio, they’d kill the prisoner as a precaution.

  Already as it was, a dark cloud of guilt hung over Parto’s love and happiness for his brother. It was his duty to execute Finio, not help him. Was he betraying his comrades, The Authority, The Sovereign, and even The Divinity?

  “Everyone knows you’re my brother. We are identical in appearance after all, so don’t expect any special favors.” Other than life. “You’re alive because as a character witness I’ve assured my superiors that you will cooperate with the inquisition and the Hyzantrian military. You will advise us on the tactics, strategy, and mindset of these islanders. Do so sufficiently, and you can live comfortably confined by the inquisition for the rest of your days.”

  Struggling against the chains like he forgot they were there, Finio nodded, while sniffling and releasing a few more tears. “I love you, brother.”

  Parto’s heart tore open. He could not embrace his friend who was the mirror image of himself. Instead, he winked.

  Ch. 52

  Hibb and Theto sat next to each other in the back of a wagon with several other warrior monks and Hibb’s secretary. Hibb held his face an inch away from Theto’s hair and shifted it with his pointer finger. “So you’re telling me there are two lice in your hair?”

  Crossing his arms, Theto said, “Yes. It’s an efficient way to carry around communicators.”

  Hibb searched through the hair for a moment, then pulled his head back, staring at Theto. “So…you have lice.”

  Theto sighed and shook his head. “Many Blastonins do it this way.”

  Hibb glanced around the wagon. The young men held straight faces. He muttered to himself, “Hmmm I see.” Then he looked at his nephew again. “How’s work with Thranix coming along?”

  Looking down before looking back up, Theto said, “Not good. He’s gone a lot.”

  Hibb was about to tell Theto not to worry about it and to focus on his other high beings, but Hibb caught his first close up sight of slaves. The tall stalks of sugarcane came right up to the road. Amongst the field, slaves bent over picking out weeds.

  Theto shook his head, then whispered, “Slavery…are we betraying The Divinity by defending such a practice?”

  “Well,” Hibb lifted a hand in the air, “they look a lot like working peasants.”

  “But peasants aren’t slaves.”

  Hibb looked at his nephew. “Can the peasants remain idle if they wish? Can they leave the land of their lord?”

  Theto scrunched his face. “But if they prove themselves able to fight, they can rise in the army, or if they are good at bartering, they could work selling stuff for their lord and one day earn their children’s titles as free merchants.”

  Tilting his head to the side, Hibb said, “Those are pretty limited circumstances. They certainly aren’t free like you and I.”

  Theto raised his voice. “They aren’t nobles.”

  They rode by five slaves standing on wooden platforms with their arms tied above them on a wooden beam. A man behind each one held a whip. CRACK CRACK CRACK! A few of the slaves hollered in pain.

  Theto shuddered at the noise.

  Hibb put a hand on his nephew’s shoulder. “I doubt they committed any crime deserving such brutality.”

  Crossing his arms, Theto said, “See. We don’t do that.”

  Hibb smiled warmly. “Your father was a good man. He didn’t do that. But others did. Count Rylo for example.”

  Theto clenched his fists. “The same bastard that tricked my foolish uncle into betraying his own family.”

  Shame clouded over Hibberro’s mind as he lowered his head.

  A hand rested on his shoulder. Theto said, “At least that gave me a valiant and skilled protector.”

  Hibb looked up to see his nephew smiling at him. Blinking away tears, Hibb embraced Theto in a bear hug. “I love you, boy! Love ya goooood!”

  Pushing against him, Theto said, “Uncle! Uncle! Enough!”

  Hibb let go of him. “Anywho, I don’t think our peasants have it so differently than the slaves down here.”

  Theto narrowed his eyes. “Are you really justifying slavery?”

  “No, I’m questioning the privilege of nobles and the restriction of peasants.”

  Theto remained silent for a moment. “Well, killing infidels is a good thing under any circumstances. I’m tired of fleeing and training. I’m ready to kill.”

  Hibb rubbed his chin. Is he?

  #

  Theto climbed up the wooden ladder, glad that he got a turn to man the tower. While the stables’ porch was shaded too, the smell of horses could not be escaped, and the higher Theto climbed, the stronger that breeze hit against him, cooling his sweaty body.

  I’m glad Hibb got signed on as a mercenary diplomat. With his illusionary magic, he can communicate in any language in the world. And his travels made him quite familiar with cultures on this side of the mountains. He’ll make much more money that way and will be out of my hair! Theto shook his head, thinking how stupid his uncle was for coming south to protect him just to leave when he got all excited about the diplomat job.

  He reached the top of the wooden lookout tower. Behind him, slaves worked in the fields, but his job was to scan the plains ahead where eastern raiders may attack from. Suddenly, magic forced its way into him and seemed to build behind his eyes, and then Theto could see great distances, like an eagle staring down from the clouds looking for prey.

  “Wow! Thanks, Ernestio. This is amazing.”

  From the stables porch, Ernestio said, “Just doing my job.”

  Scanning the distance,
seriousness washed over Theto as he focused on two horsemen. Even with farsight, the details of the figures were hard to make out, but Theto swore he saw spears with flowing cloth tied near each end.

  He yelled down, “Two potential raiders!”

  Captain Ripface, called so because of the giant scar going across the left half of his face, stood and shouted, “Stable boys, go. Mercenaries, stand ready!”

  The two horsemen stopped. Watching attentively, only a part of Theto feared the embarrassment that would come if these were plantation lords out for an afternoon ride.

  Then, more appeared riding in a wide line. Still too far away to count them all, Theto estimated: “Twenty potential raiders.”

  The Captain barked, “Messengers, away!”

  Young boys flew out of the stable on light horses.

  The group of potential enemies moved forward. They carried spears, swords hung from their waists, cloth covered all their heads except their eyes, and from their spears and bodies waved the signature cloth-ribbons that the infidels wore for some reason.

  “Confirmed raiders! On current trajectory, they’ll pass a mile north of us in twenty minutes.”

  “Get down here! Scouting teams of two. On sight of enemy keep distance and shoot flares.”

  Theto couldn’t feel Thranix’s power. He so rarely left himself open to Theto.

  Theto jumped onto the ladder. “Thranix you there? Battles afoot.”

  The power turned on, like an infinite well of energy that Theto’s mind could suddenly access. He jumped off the ladder, falling through the air. When about five yards above the ground, he unleashed a small shockwave underneath him, slowing his landing.

  A thrill shot up Theto from Thranix’s use. He wished he could release the high being’s magic more often. Everyone was already mounted and pairing with their scouting partner. Theto couldn’t send magical flares, so he had to partner with one who could.