Shattered

by Stef M Ensing

  “I’m not made of glass. My shoulder is just out of place and I’ve had a few blows to the head. I’ll live.”

  “Fix her. She can be another blade if necessary,” Isiah ordered before pivoting and heading toward the others that he apparently deemed ‘more in need of his attention’.

  Samuel exchanged a look with their father. “I’ll hold her steady.”

  Payton considered flipping her brothers off for their callousness but then thought better of it. Instead, she nodded her consent. Not that it was needed, Samuel had already braced her and her father placed his hands on either side of her shoulder.

  “One, two…” her father did not go higher, choosing instead to jerk her misaligned bone into place at an unexpected point in the count.

  Payton hissed in pain and recoiled, bumping into Samuel, his arms holding her in place and keeping her from collapsing. Her shoulder ached, badly. So did her head. And her arms, ribs, and probably about a dozen other places but she would have to push through it. She had to.

  Her father pressed a set of spare daggers into her empty hands. She opened her mouth to speak but lost any words to say. Not that it mattered, he would not look at her. Did not let their hands touch for longer than a second, opting instead to drop his grip as quickly as possible and move away.

  The cold, empty expression on his face tore at Payton as much as her brothers’ hurt-filled one. They all lingered and lurked in the background acting like pinpricks against her skin, driving their point painfully home.

  Blame.

  Gathering her emotions and pushing them back, Payton tightened her grip on the weapons in her hands. She flexed her hand around the hilts, trying to get a feel for them, grimacing at the pain which shot through her shoulder when she used that arm. Finally, she looked up only to realize she had been left to stand alone. Making her way to the group, she gave a confirmatory nod to her father and Isiah when they turned her way.

  “I’m ready,” she lied.

  “Good,” Isiah announced before taking point. “Let’s get these people to safety.”

  Chapter Two

  Sneaking a group that was over a dozen people – many of whom were injured – through the streets of a burning city crawling with enemies was difficult. Whole paths were made impassable by debris, smoke, or worse: patrols rounding people up.

  They barely made it around their third turn when a flash of steel came out of nowhere. Isiah’s reaction was fast, drawing his weapon and blocking the oncoming attack in one fluid motion. The rest of the Templars who had been on patrol were on them in seconds.

  An axe hit her dual blades hard, the blow vibrating up her arms. The pain from the blow nearly caused her to lose her grip on the dagger held in her right hand. Moving out of the way of the other swinging axe, she adjusted her hold and swiped at the weak point in the armor. The man let out several choice curse words and stumbled back.

  With a deeply etched scowl on his face, he launched himself at her again. In an instant she was out of his reach, spinning away from the edge of his axes and redirecting him into one of his brethren. The two of them toppled into a heap on the ground, limbs tangling and metal crashing together.

  Her victory was short lived and she had no further time to incapacitate the man when she narrowly avoided a brutal blow by flinging herself to the side. The female warrior overextended herself but quickly recovered, taking position across from her and then charging again, mace and round shield ready. The woman’s attacks were powerful and unyielding. There was little flurry to the woman’s swings, only brutal and staggering blows that kept Payton off balance and on the defensive.

  After a particularly close blow that grazed her arm but did not fully hit, she threw caution to the wind. Feigning right, she twisted around at the last second, dropping down into a near roll. Ducking under the shield that swung out to strike at her, Payton darted up between the attacking weaponry and the woman, driving her dagger straight into the unprotected part of the woman’s chin. Surprise flickered across the Templar’s face before they were both sprayed with blood. The woman struggled for a moment, one where she still tried to fight the inevitable, but then she dropped, nearly bringing Payton down with her.

  A cry ahead of her made her look up sharply as she was pulling her blade free. Samuel was surrounded by three of the Templars, the group closing in. That same toxic gas was drifting up around him from broken vials. They found their target and he was doubled over, hurt by the gas or by their weapons. She would be damned if they would take another one of her family from her.

  Without a thought she ran at them, using one of the Templar corpses as leverage to leap off the ground. She tackled one of them, impaling her twin blades into him before ripping the daggers free and throwing her arm out, slicing the neck of one of the others. The distraction of her arrival was enough for Samuel to use the blade of his staff against the last of them before collapsing to his knee in a fit of coughs.

  Fear tore through her and she dropped down beside him. “Sammy?”

  “It’s nothing. Just the gas. I’m fine.” The breathless way he said it did not inspire confidence but he was pushing himself upright nonetheless.

  Turning back to the battle, Payton found it had ended without her realizing. Bodies littered the ground. Blood pooled beneath them and ran along the grooves between the cobblestone road in tiny rivers of scarlet.

  Frantically she searched for her father and twin brother, a breath of relief escaping when she saw them standing a few feet away. So many others in their group had not been so lucky. Their numbers had thinned from seventeen down to nine, the victory against the Templars here hollow in the face of it.

  “Creators, save us,” one of the survivors wept, burying their face into blood-soaked hands. “We’ll never make it out of here. Never escape them. They’ll kill us all. Not just those poor mages. Any of us who stood against them.”

  “We survived. That’s what matters. Come on, we have to keep moving,” Isiah tried to encourage him, but he didn’t move. In fact two other of their group were just as listless, seeming just as lost and hopeless as him.

  “We’re doomed,” he lamented.

  “Doomed is right there between damned if you do and damned if you don’t,” Payton retorted glibly earning her a glare from Isiah. But it succeeded in making the man look up. “If you’re damned either way, isn’t it better to go down fighting? At least that way you take the bastards down with you.”

  Slowly the man nodded. With help, he stood, retaking the weapons he had been given. “I’ll drag them to hell for what they’ve done,” he said shakily.

  Payton gave him a tight smile. “That’s the spirit.”

  The group of nine began to walk again. After a few moments, Isiah fell back, coming in step alongside Payton. “I’d appreciate it if you didn’t encourage suicidal behavior,” he said in a harsh whisper.

  “Because I totally told him to charge into the army in a single-handed attempt to win back this city. He felt helpless against the tide of brutes who have done this,” she gestured to the fires raging in the skyline around them, “to our home and murdered our friends and family. He needed a reason to fight.”

  “And “you’re gonna die anyway” is reason?”

  “No one wants to just roll over and give up,” Payton said quietly. “It’s human instinct to fight for survival. Even when it seems impossible.”

  “I don’t like it.”

  “Well next time I’ll be a good little girl and wait in silence while you try to do team motivation speeches to get people moving. You might bore the people you’re rescuing into movement.”

  He huffed, rolling his eyes in exasperation.

  It was a few more twists and turns and two backtracks to a different route when they saw their path was blocked before they came close to their escape. The south sewer grate was a half circle hole barely two feet high in the city wall. It filtered the stream of water and refuse out of the southern part of the city.

  Payton
felt her throat constrict at the sight. As the group slowed to a stop, Isiah and Samuel moving to work the iron bars out of place so the group could slip through, she shifted to the embankment, ignoring Isiah’s hissed demand to come back. She only had one goal in mind, one thing she could see.

  There, just where they had abandoned them when the Templars attacked were the packs she and her mother had been carrying, lying forgotten amid the dead.

  She reached for them, ignoring the blood that drenched the side of one. She was only relieved they were still there and not stolen by Templars or looted by opportunistic thieves who cared little for the conflict and took these moments of chaos to help themselves. In truth, the packs were nothing now. Just… items. Food, clothes, memories stuffed into leather sacks prepared when the first bit of news of who and what the Templars were trickled into their city. Sack set to wait at their back door “just in case”. When that moment happened and they were forced to flee, she never thought this would be all she had left of her mother.

  It was not enough.

  It could never be enough.

  Wiping stray tears from her cheeks, she turned around with the two packs in hand only to stop, nearly recoiling when she saw her father standing mere feet behind her. She had not heard him come after her. He wasn’t staring at her, or the dead laying scattered about but at the broken staff that littered the ground.

  Her mother’s staff. Shattered into pieces by a jeering Templar who took pride in breaking it in front of them and tossing it aside.

  “D-dad…” she started and tried to think of what to say but all words failed her when he flinched before backing away.

  Your fault. Too late.

  Payton took a shaking breath in and let it out. She could not break down now. Could not deal with the guilt, the shame, the pain, any of it right now. All she had left was to gather her emotions and push them away again. She had a job to do and Creators be damned if she was going to lose anyone else to the Templars.

  She walked back to the group, arriving just as the first of them were going through the passage. Samuel was looking at her questioningly and she held out the second pack without a word. He took it, comprehension dawning on him a moment later. Thankfully he didn’t speak. She was not certain she could bear it if he asked her any questions about what happened.

  After the entire group piled out, squeezing and squirming through each set of bars until they were outside the walls, they began to run. It was dangerous because they were out in the open. If any of the Templars were on the walls they would be spotted but there was little choice. It was only when they made it nearly a mile out from the city that they finally began to slow down, most of them wheezing and gasping for air.

  “Where are we going?” one of the women who had been rescued from the beams asked. She was on her knees, resting in an attempt to regain strength.

  “Away from here, that’s all that matters,” the same man who had been so hopeless spoke.

  “Most groups have headed west or north,” Isiah informed. “Your best bet is to take a route in one of those directions and hope to meet up with the other refugee groups we’ve rescued. Maybe you’ll find friends and family.”

  “But they’re spreading northward!” the last of the people they rescued from the posts exclaimed. “If we go north they’ll just find us again!”

  “They are spreading everywhere,” Samuel pointed out. “At least you know that north is safe for now.”

  “Until they finish with Aodhan,” the moaner from the city retorted.

  “What about Lindon?” Payton suggested.

  “They came up from the south,” Isiah said frustrated.

  “Yeah, but they didn’t cross the river. Lindon would still be safe and it’s closer than anything north or to the west. All we’ll run into there is farmland for miles. It may be our fastest and potentially safest option,” Payton reasoned.

  Isiah stared at her, something hardening behind his gaze. Whatever it was it clearly wasn’t all that important because he gave a sharp nod. “It is the most sensible. You are the most injured of the groups. Alisha, take them along the river to Lindon.”

  “By myself?” the last and only of the guards who survived the Templar attack questioned.

  “There may still be more people—” Isiah began but their father cut him off.

  “No.”

  “What?”

  “No. We aren’t going back in there. Not again,” he said firmly.

  “Dad, there could still be—”

  “Look at that city!” Leon gestured behind them.

  Collectively as a group they did. It was awful. Smoke poisoned the sky above in black and gray clouds, orange flames licked the air, rising higher and higher, in danger of taking the whole city down with it. And most unsettling of all was the flag. The once prominent flag displaying Aodhan’s city sigil had been replaced with one of three intersecting blades over a green glowing flame. The symbol the Templars had chosen for themselves. A symbol etched on their armor and one that would forever haunt her. It sent a chill down Payton’s spine as she saw it fluttering in the ash-filled breeze.

  “The city is lost,” Payton whispered. The finality of those words was hard to swallow. “Sacrificing your life by going back into that place won’t make you anything but stupid. These people need your help. Need our help.”

  Isiah’s expression turned sour. “There are people in there that need our help too! You and dad can escort these people to safety just fine.”

  “Are they worth your life? Sammy’s life? Going in Aodhan by yourselves is stupid,” she challenged in a shaking voice.

  The two of them stared each other down for a moment before Isiah cursed. “Fine,” he snapped and then marched forward in quick long strides.

  The others in the group who had silently been watching their family squabble exchanged looks before awkwardly getting to their feet, moving to follow him. Samuel and her father took the center guard while Payton was abandoned to the rear with the remaining city guardsman – Alisha. She walked beside the woman, hiding her thoughts and emotions away behind a stony mask.

  Maybe if she just focused on surviving she could forget the pain and guilt that was steadily growing larger with every moment that passed. Maybe if she put distance and time between her and Aodhan, her and her mother’s death, she could believe that it wasn’t her fault. And maybe if she kept repeating that to herself, she’d begin to believe it.

  Chapter Three

  It was late. Nearing midnight, maybe later. Both moons were high in the sky, the smaller of the two shining brighter as it was nearly full and in the peak of its three-month cycle. It gave Payton the light she needed to work. The others had fallen asleep, fatigue overwhelming them all. Even Isiah, who had volunteered for the watch, had nodded off nearly an hour ago and she had not woken him. In truth, she was not far behind but she needed to tend to her injuries and did not want anyone to see.

  She worked the laces of her leather vest loose. She had to bite her lip to stifle her cry of pain when she jarred her shoulder while removing the protective layer. Her outer long sleeve shirt followed leaving her sitting in nothing but her thin inner top.

  She was a mess of bruises. The worst part was the swelling where her shoulder had been dislocated. Along with the deep gouge on her forearm from the Templar who “tested” her blood, she had a couple of other worrisome cuts that had managed to land. Luckily the sturdiness of her leather vest, which was not strictly armor, had protected her from anything worse. Other than sore ribs and a nasty looking bruise forming, she was relatively unharmed.

  Pulling the pack closer to her, she tugged it open, reaching inside for the medical supplies only to stop short. She had grabbed the wrong one. The scent hit her before the realization had. Roses. It smelled like roses and the sharp iron tones of blood. It was her mother’s bag. It had been laying in a puddle of Templar blood by the south gate and now it had been tainted, the scent that permeated her mother’s things was poisoned by
death.

  Tears pricked her eyes as she stared at the contents. Her mothers’ pack had been clothes and keepsakes with any extra room devoted to food. That food had been eaten earlier that night so now Payton was left staring at the carefully packed keepsakes. Gazing specifically at the item on the top of the pile. Something wrapped in what was likely a shirt and secured with a ribbon.

  A blue ribbon.

  Such an innocuous thing. Meaningless. Or it should have been but it wasn’t. Not to her. Not to her family. That ribbon, the pale blue piece of silk, had meant so much more.

  “What are you doing?”

  The sound of Isiah’s voice made her jerk and look up. He was awake, staring at her. She was uncertain if she was grateful to have the company now that she was flooded with thoughts and memories of their mother or if she wanted him to go back to sleep so she could cry in peace. In the end, she let out a shaking breath.

  “I… I opened the wrong pack,” she whispered.

  Her fingers fumbled on the edge of the ribbon, recalling how when she was young her mother would let her hold it while she brushed Payton’s hair. Payton would run her fingers along it just like this, mesmerized by the silk.

  She pulled it free and fiddled with it. “Do you remember the story they used to tell us about this?”

  Isiah rolled his eyes. “How could I forget? You asked for it every night for a year.” In a bored tone he began to recite the story they all knew so well:

  “Dad grew up in Malvathar on his uncle’s estate. His aunt hired this new painter from Vaelorn to do her portrait. She and dad fell in love but it was forbidden because she was a nobody and he was some hoity-toity from a snooty family line. Our aunt threatened to ruin mom’s career if she didn’t stop “socializing” with dad. So they could only see each other in secret. Dad devised a plan to steal money for them to elope but he wanted to know she would wait for him. So he gave her something that our aunt would never suspect: a plain, unadorned ribbon. And as long as mom wore it, dad would know that she loved him. She only took it off once she had children because we are messy and she didn’t want to soil it.”