by Lee LaCroix
“Be careful with those,” she told Garreth.
Garreth bowed his head before rejoining his group waiting outside the smithy. Garreth passed out the bottles to his crew, save one for himself, and they all secured them tight to their packs. They did not make the most inconspicuous bunch, for they were fully armed and hooded, looking much like bandits themselves. However, they passed through the city gates without incident and trekked around Amatharsus onto the proper highway.
Looming clouds of dark gray hung on the horizon to the north as their billowing masses stretched towards the ground in watery torrent. Garreth stooped to rip some grass from the earth and tossed it into the air. As they fell, the blades twirled southward. They would have to reach the woods before the storm was upon them. The party could hear the cracks of thunder and the occasional flash of lightning and considered themselves lucky that the drizzle was so light where they were travelling. But Garreth knew that would not last.
“So, what’s the plan, captain?” Cern, the youngest and shortest man out of the troop, asked.
His blonde hair jutted out of his hood at haphazard angles and often dangled in front of his light green eyes, giving way to his slightly upturned nose.
“We’re charged with dismantling a Blackwoods camp hidden in a forest ahead. We’re to eliminate any bandits and destroy the compound itself. We’ll begin with a ranged assault from cover and fell any and all footmen that way while resorting to melee as a last resort. When the camp is clear, we set it ablaze,” Garreth explained.
“Sounds simple enough,” Tamil, a raven-haired woman, boasted.
Garreth had never seen a complexion or facial structure like Tamil’s before, which was both smooth and finely textured but also rigid and soft. He wondered what area of Malquia she hailed from, if any.
“I’m getting tired of shooting at straw targets,” she remarked.
A subdued chuckle rose from the ranks of the crew.
“You’ll have your chance. But let’s keep quiet from here on in, the wood should not be far,” Garreth told them.
The crew nodded, and they all tried their best to become calm and focused. Regardless of the weather, Garreth was glad to be out of the city again. He may have once rejoiced in his service there, but his heart yearned for travel. He flexed his shoulders with a loose roll and stared into the scenery beyond. He was growing restless in the confined spaces of the city and becoming tired of the immutability of stone and steel.
The wild seemed a vibrant and ever-changing enigma to him still. He was glad for this expedient outing, so he could breathe in the open air again and put his boots against the open road. Nothing made him feel more alive than to get his lungs pumping from a quick dash through a grassy field and to feel the winds of the meadow cool the sweat that beaded at his forehead. Garreth was relieved that he could take his stalwart vision off the borders of the road and simply enjoy his journey, knowing that his dependable team would see where he did not.
Before long, Garreth and company came upon the splintered signpost, and Garreth knew from Novas’ directions that this was the way in. Garreth raised a finger to his mouth, pointed the way into the forest, and then unlatched his bow. The rest did the same and followed him into the forest at the ready. However, they were not as skilled as Garreth, and their passage through the woods was not without disturbance. Luckily for them, the brunt of the storm had settled above, and the cacophony of heavy rain bursting upon the forest foliage gave them a convenient cover of sound. They ventured to the hilltop that overlooked the camp and huddled close to Garreth for some final orders.
“Wait for me to make the first shot. Try your best to stay hidden if their attention is drawn to us. Let them come to us if that happens,” Garreth instructed.
Each of them nodded and split up, dividing themselves across the hilltop in places of fallen trees and bunches of foliage. Garreth looked down upon the camp. It seemed another wagon was being loaded, for crates were carried out of Griff’s cabin and were rested upon its bed. Garreth could see two men in the watchtower, two men at the door of the building, four men watching the perimeter, and three men loading crates. He could only guess how many men were in the building itself, but on a stormy day like today, there was no safe number he could assume. There could be a dozen or more. He had to be ready for anything.
Garreth withdrew an arrow from his quiver and inhaled a breath to steady himself. He primed his shot at the watchtower that lie at the other end of the encampment and let his arrow fly. It whistled through the air in an instant, unheard over the falling drops of rain, and ripped through the neck of one watchman, dropping him to the floor. Eyes wide in alarm, the second man became slack-jawed and turned his attention from his fallen comrade to the hanging bell. He yelled once and smashed the bell twice before an arrow caught him in the breast, and he fell to join his fellow watchman. Garreth smirked, for his allies had been trained well.
But the surprise was already lost. One of the labourers dropped his crate and began to sprint up to the watchtower but did not make it up the ladder’s fourth rung before Garreth had put an arrow into his back. The perimeter guard closest to the archers took two arrows to the torso and dropped to the ground, and was followed by one of the guards of the building soon after. The bandits were now sure they were under attack, for the remaining building guard fled inside and shut the door tight while others ran to find cover from the deathly hail. Confused as they were to the direction of the assault, some went into hiding facing the wrong way and found themselves pinned against their wooden defenses by the lethal rain. The last man who had hid properly waited with caution for any signal or sign.
“Come out, you dogs! Fight us fairly!” a voice yelled from within the building.
At that sound, the last man outside charged towards the door and twisted the handle, shouting and pounding when it did not open. The door opened a crack but was pushed shut again by the weight of the man, for three arrows skewered him to the outside of the door, and there he remained fixed and unable to fall.
Garreth saw that they were at a standstill. The number of opponents within the building concerned him now, and he had definitely seen four flee inside. Garreth and his company waited for a time and then rallied together again.
“I am going to approach the building. When I get in position, fire a series of arrows through the window. You need to shatter the glass and the window frame,” Garreth commanded.
His troops nodded and got into position facing the side of the window that Garreth pointed out. The hunter crept into the perimeter of the camp and kept as low as he could, sneaking from bush to stump to fallen tree. He unlatched the bottle of oil from his belt, took the cloth scrap from his jerkin, and then stuffed it inside, leaving a trail of cloth hanging from it. Garreth stood the bottle up on the forest floor and knelt over it, protecting it from the misty rain. He took the pieces of flint out of his pocket and ran them together, creating sparks over the cloth. Within a few precise strikes, the cloth had caught fire and was alight, and Garreth tossed his hand up in a hurry and gave the signal. Garreth heard the smashing of glass and the splintering of wood, and he looked to see the broken window. He took a deep breath, stood, and tossed the flaming bottle through the opening.
To Garreth, the bottle seemed to hang suspended in the air for what seemed eternity as the trail of flame bent like a vibrant flare from the sun’s edge. The volatile mixture bounced off the windowsill and tumbled inside, twirling while unleashing its flaming concoction. A split second after the bottle had smashed, there was an uproar from inside the building and a stamping of feet in wild commotion. As the door burst open, Garreth picked up his bow with one hand and pointed to the door with the other. Garreth primed an arrow and had let it free by the time the first man had scrambled out the door. A lethal downpour struck each man who tried to make his speedy escape from the building that soon began to smoke, blacken, and catch fire. A pile of men lay feet from the opening of the door, and then an enflamed man emerged.
/>
Garreth signaled for the assault to stop as Griff flailed like a madman, sprinted out into the rain with roars of agony, and dropped to the soaking forest floor. His flames were soon extinguished, but the fire had done its damage. Griff, red and black as the death that he oversaw, twitched and cringed with his back to the floor as he stared towards the forest sky. Garreth searched the insides of the building that was turning into a raging inferno. When he saw no other living occupants, he paced over to the charred bandit. Griff spat as Garreth entered his vision, and his cracked lips bled. As much as Garreth pitied the man, he could have no remorse.
“For the King,” Garreth stated as he sent an arrow through Griff’s forehead.
Garreth’s company emerged from the woods and became witness to the carnage they had brought. It was a gruesome spectacle, and Garreth feared that bloodlust had consumed them all. Had they gone too far, he thought, to take so many lives.
“We have done what was needed. Someone had to do it. It might as well have been me,” Behn explained as he waded out of the brush to look down upon Griff’s charred body.
Even the scowl of Behn’s face had left for the moment, and his tight-lipped face was set with the responsibility of what had been done. Like the highwaymen had deserved the justice for what they had done to others, Garreth knew his allies had deserved vengeance for what had been done to them. He had hoped that this idea was shared but feared to speak the words that would make such bloodshed appear righteous. The company gathered up the bodies and threw them upon a wagon but not before scrounging through the crates that were aboard.
“These will make a fine gift for the needy of Amatharsus,” Garreth quipped as he looked through the goods and placed them aside.
When all the bodies were stacked high, Garreth tossed another bottle alight upon their flesh and watched it burn. As the carriage burned, it collapsed in the middle, and the wheels fell on top of the bodies, pressing the remains into the ground. Garreth did the same for the watchtower, and the height of it fell to nothing. Besides the ashes, the only sign of civilization that remained was the rounded stump of a table that was hewn by knives in greedy hands and stained with unwilling blood. Garreth assigned a crate to each person, and they left the perimeter of the camp. As he looked back, the last of the fires were being extinguished by the tears of the trees. Only the forest remained, for the evil of man was being swept away.
Act Four
Chapter Twenty-One
The next day, Kayten made her way to the courtyard to see if the smithy was in need of her particular skills. Mose had been training his new apprentice, Daville, to do more maintenance and refurbishing, which remained the majority of the work concerning the arms and armour of the courtyard. Kayten assumed that after Mose had seen the sunsteel weaponry she was capable of making that her talents were being wasted on repairing second hand equipment. Perhaps Mose just wanted her out of the smithy all together, but he had never made those intentions clear, Kayten mused. Kayten had wished that she could make fine weapons and armour for everyone in the courtyard. With the designs she dreamed of, there was no way the Blackwoods could stop them. But funds and resources were still in short supply, for they were maintaining the operation of the courtyard with paltry donations and humble wishes; her fanciful army would have to wait.
When she entered the courtyard, there was an unexpected addition to her left. People exchanged parcels where space and silence was there before. A line stretched behind the armory to just before the doorway to the courtyard where Berault, Garreth, and some other helpful hands were distributing all manner of goods from a stack of crates to elated commoners. Some of the folk were familiar to Kayten, for she had seen them in the courtyard from time to time, and others were merely misfortunate and needy as told by patchwork clothing and skinny frames. The sound of high-pitched voices rose and drowned out the grunts and yells of the usual roughhousing in the courtyard. Children danced as they held new keepsakes, and their parents smiled and wept as they knew they could afford real food again. As she walked over to the center of charity, she couldn’t help but see a certain symbol burned into the side facing away from the line of the destitute. Kayten cracked a wide grin, walked straight over to Garreth, and slapped him firm on the shoulder.
“It looks like you put that oil to good use,” Kayten cheered, laying a hand on the crate.
“Indeed, we did. Yesterday was a small victory that will go a long way in convincing the people that bowing to the Blackwoods isn’t the only way,” Garreth stated and crossed his arms.
“I can definitely see that. You and your men were looking for trouble yesterday, I could tell. You’ve brought hope and joy to all these people. That’s very good,” Kayten said with a smile.
“We try. I need to get back to it. See you around,” Garreth declared as he turned back to the busy line and grateful faces.
Kayten wandered over to the armory, and the sun seemed so much warmer that day. Yesterday’s rain had risen away, and the bright summer days in the city had returned. She entered the armory where Mose was working with Daville on the grindstone.
“Not a lot of work today I’m afraid, Kayten. There are a few harnesses to mend, and some blades to sharpen, but that’s nothing the boy and I can’t do today. The day is yours if you wish it,” Mose stated as he turned from his work and his careful inspection of Daville’s grindstone practice.
“Alright. Thank you,” Kayten said with a nod, and she went into the storage to fetch her shield and sword and get some training in.
It had been too long since she was able to practice because the new influx of volunteers had kept her cramped in the smithy in repairing their poorly maintained equipment. She was fully armed as she walked out of the smithy and was excited to smash some steel together and test her mettle. Before she got into the training area, she was stopped by a young lad with burlap sack.
“You are Kayten? The smith who labours here?” the boy asked and raised a hand to block out the sun from his squinting eyes.
“That I am. Can I help you?” Kayten replied.
“Letter for you,” the courier stated as he withdrew the parcel. “Here you are.”
“Thanks,” Kayten offered as she took the letter.
Kayten looked down at the unmarked letter. By the time she looked up again, the boy was gone. She was curious as to how these people kept finding her in the courtyard. She walked over the walls of the armory, leaned against it, and opened the letter.
“Dear Kayten the Smith,
I have allotted you a fair amount of time to complete the commission of two sunsteel blades as requested by myself, Ralphedo Cross, in the days prior. Please deliver these to the Cross Manor on Brightsbend Way in the Upper Quarter. Enclosed is a writ of passage that should take you through the gates without complication. You are expected promptly.
Sincerely, Ralphedo Cross.”
Kayten scanned the letter and uncovered the writ of passage folded beneath it. It bore a stamp in black ink that featured the symbols of open book and a scrawling quill, was marked “full passage” above, and was signed below with what Kayten assumed was Ralphedo’s signature. Kayten folded up the letter and the writ and slid it back into the envelope. Her much anticipated practice would have to wait.
She sighed as she returned her gear to their place in the armory and made her way back to the Salty Dog where she was storing the commissioned items. She picked up the blades by their scabbards and placed them in linen covering that she held under her arm. Kayten headed off down the streets of the Lower Quarter and got into the queue for the Trade District. Before long, she waved her writ of passage by the clerk and was admitted inside.
As she passed through the arching tunnel, Kayten felt giddy at the thoughts of accessing this restricted area. She was surprised by how the quality of vendors improved as she moved out of the Lower Quarter, and these had even seemed attractive and extravagant in comparison to any she had ever seen at the Southbriar Crossroads. None of the merchants looke
d sickly or desperate, and none of them had dirtied or damaged clothing. She could have stopped and picked through the vendors at her leisure, but she felt she had a job to do, so she proceeded northwards towards the Upper Quarter gates. On her way, she couldn’t get over on how clean, healthy, and friendly the merchants and the vendors were in the district. Kayten mused to herself that perhaps this was a tactic to sell more product, and that would make sense considering she found herself so enamoured by merely passing.
Kayten soon found herself at the most northern part of the Trade District and stood in wait behind a flock of well-dressed mistresses who had their hair up in pomp and their frilly fans fluttering. The gate was far more ornate than the one of the Lower Quarter, for it was decorated with silver and sunsteel throughout its length. One of the Queen’s Aegis in shining plate armour raised his gauntlet and walked in front of the line of guards that secured the gate to the Upper Quarter.
“Halt. You don’t look like one of the upper denizens. Papers, please,” the guard demanded.
Kayten, blushing, looked down at herself. Her cloth wrap did not appear to be run down or of poor quality, and her boots were not frayed and still held a gentle shine. Her hair was not knotted, tangled, or misshapen. She did not know how she compared, but she held the writ aloft anyways. Kayten heard the crunch of the fine paper as the guard seized the writ in his grasp of steel and peered at it through his visor.
“A delivery for Master Cross, I see. Go on in. And behave yourself. We will be watching,” the guard ordered as he peered through the slit in his helmet directly into Kayten’s eyes.
What a chilling warning, Kayten thought before she took the writ back and passed the guards. Another arched tunnel connected to the Upper Quarter, and soon the passage opened up onto a wide road flanked with towering buildings. The street was made up of a purple-blue cobblestone with a rippling roundness that continued as far as Kayten could see. On each side of the street, there were handcrafted dividers that sectioned off the areas for carriages and for walking. On the far sides of the street, nearest to the dividers, were tended sections of forestry and herbal artistry with some planters of flowers shaped in intricate patterns and shapes, and trees that were carved deep with statuesque figures before emerging in leafy bloom. It was almost as if the artisans brought the forest into the city, Kayten thought, and made it their own. The united features of wild and urban were a marvel to her, and they were a sharp contrast to the rocky streets of the Lower Quarter or the diverse pavilion of the Trade District.