The Secrets of Brymar (The Elitherian Fragments Book 1)

by James Coy-Dibley

  “What would you have us do?” William asked as he struggled to sit still.

  “We must leave Orwell,” Elizabeth asserted. “The caverns attached to this house will safely lead us out of the city.”

  Max scoffed. “You can’t expect us to leave our father here,” he exclaimed and his brothers nodded. “For all we know, he could be walking right into a trap!”

  Victoria raised her hand to silence the others. She appeared to listen intently, her eyes alternating between looking at the front door and the ceiling. “I can hear movement around the city streets,” she said, “and along the rooftops. This place is swarming with the enemy. You must understand, the city isn’t safe to travel through.”

  “How can you hear that?” Rachel shot back.

  “My hearing and sight are heightened,” she explained quickly. “And I know we cannot leave this house.”

  “No,” Max declared, giving her a curious glance at this revelation with her senses. “We won’t leave our father here.”

  A thud from the roof echoed in the room, followed by silence. Elizabeth stood quickly, withdrawing her curved sword and looking up. The sword glistened in the candle light, glowing and illuminating the fine vines that decorated the long blade. The others stood, too, drawing their weapons and watching the doors. But Victoria remained still, listening to every move. She finally stood and motioned to the back and front doors.

  “They’re preparing to attack,” she whispered.

  “Who?” Max demanded. “Who are preparing to attack?”

  The shattering of glass made them jump. “They’re in the house upstairs,” Victoria whispered, though at this point the footsteps were audible to everyone. She withdrew two long silver blades from beneath her robes. “Prepare yourselves,” she ordered.

  “They can’t have the stone,” Elizabeth declared under her breath. “I won’t allow it!”

  “We must run,” Rachel advised. “We don’t know who or what we fight.”

  “You will not make it past the doorway,” Victoria shot back and glanced at Max. “You would die.”

  He could see the conviction in her eyes. He believed her. “No, we stay,” Max said as he hovered close to his brothers. “We must fight here. If this house is surrounded, then trying to escape would be foolish.”

  Victoria nodded and glanced at the rest of them. “Keep your distance from me in this fight,” she said. “You will soon see why.”

  Max and William exchanged looks.

  The creaking sounds continued above while the quiet mumbling of inaudible voices from outside approached. They could hear quiet whistles, too, and the patter of footsteps loudening. It was time. William looked at Richard. He was no warrior. He had seen his first battle only earlier. William glanced at Orthol and Gringal, who stood close to Richard with their bows drawn and an arrow ready. They’d look after him like they always did. Rachel hovered by Max and William while Elizabeth stood close to the front door.

  Victoria quickly rolled up the map on the table and securely placed it into a hard, conical tube, placing it against the side of the room. She moved to the back door and everyone took a few steps away from her.

  Moments of unsettling silence followed and Victoria listened. She glanced at Elizabeth, who hovered at the front door, and held up one hand with five fingers raised. After clenching her fingers, Victoria held up another four. Max prepared for nine to come from the front; he could only hope she didn’t imply fifty four. They were outnumbered, of course, but nine he could deal with. He motioned for William to stand away from the doors. He wanted him to stay near Richard and the Arraci. Rachel stood beside him with a bow and arrow readied. Her skill with the bow and blade put her at the top of the Arracian guard in Orwell, and she would no doubt prove it today.

  In the final moment of silence, Victoria listened and pointed to the front door.

  “They are coming.”

  Chapter XIV

  War cries pierced the silence.

  The front door split open and crashed to the floor, splintering as Elizabeth quickly dodged backwards out of the way. A foul creature with menacing red eyes charged in with a long, curved blade. A white mask covered its face, which contrasted with the strong black armour across its body, a different being from those in the courtyard and forest. It charged at Elizabeth first, screeching a chilling shriek with its curved blade raised, but an arrow flew from Orthol’s bow within moments, embedding itself through the white mask and silencing the creature. It tumbled to the ground in the doorway.

  Rachel’s arrow dispatched another one in the front, but a third one engaged Elizabeth. They poured through the front door and charged at her. Max rushed to meet them, driving his blade through the chest of an unsuspecting victim, sending another chilling cry into the room. Rachel withdrew her blade and joined the fight at the front while Orthol and Gringal continued to release arrows. But Victoria remained at the back door, waiting for the incoming flank and struggling to listen to their advances through the clattering of metal in the room.

  But then she heard them, all of them, gathering a force behind the back door. Richard watched her as she waited, as if stalking her prey, her eyes fixated on the long wooden boards while following the sounds with her eyes. In one fluid motion, she drove both of her long, curved silver blades right through the old wooden door, as if piercing through water, until her silver handles crashed against the door. The thud and following affirming yells as her swords made contact caused Richard to hug the corner even closer. After quickly withdrawing her blades, the back door ruptured open with a fresh wave of the creatures pouring through, pushing the two dead ones forward with them. Victoria quickly killed one with a strike to the throat before parrying an attack from another one.

  Gringal dropped his bow to the ground and withdrew two small blades. He charged to aide Victoria while Orthol covered them with his bow. Orthol struck Victoria’s attacker in the back of the neck with an arrow and Victoria powerfully kicked the creature towards the back door, tripping two more behind it. Orthol returned his attention to the front of the house, where several creatures now viciously fought with ominous snarls. He released arrows as quickly as he could, creating a body barrier at the front entrance.

  “There are too many!” Max shouted as he plunged his blade through another’s chest, its dark green blood pouring onto the floor.

  “We must protect the stone!” Elizabeth shouted back.

  Orthol withdrew his battle axe as one of the creatures charged towards him. The axe crushed the creature’s skull in two. “What do we do?” he shouted to them.

  “Fight!” Victoria exclaimed back.

  And no one questioned it.

  One of them directly engaged Max. It wielded impressive skill with the sword and relentlessly struck away at him, their swords releasing sparks with each impact. Their red eyes peered through the white mask, constantly searching for weak spots in his defence. Their skill concerned Max as he thought about the enemies in the courtyard; these were different, skilled and disciplined rather than amateurish: a different foe entirely, and one he struggled to defeat. With each attack the creature parried, only to return with another attack.

  Rachel saw the dangerous duel and intervened, awkwardly overextending to reach the creature and managing to scrape her sword along its leg just long enough for Max to deliver the fatal blow to the face. But the distraction left her vulnerable as she tried to recover her stance. She glanced over to Max, who tried to point towards an incoming sword, the cruel, curved black tip approaching her, but it was too late. With one final, desperate motion, she tried to dodge the creature’s blade, but it impaled her calf muscle, the black tip appearing on the opposite side. She screamed in pain before retaliating with a definitive blow to the creature’s neck.

  Her stance faltered as she struggled to walk.

  Max hurled himself towards her attacker, providing just enough time for her to move. He pushed her away from the fight, where Orthol helped her stumble behind him bef
ore moving forward again in defence. Rachel quickly sheathed her blade and withdrew her bow and arrow, dispatching a couple more at the front door before focusing on the back of the room, where Victoria and Gringal fiercely defended.

  Another wave of them from the back door allowed a couple of attackers to pass into the room, Victoria shouting out a warning for the rest inside. With Victoria and Gringal focused on their own fights, the two attackers charged towards Rachel and the two brothers, who stood behind Orthol. Seeing that Orthol would need help, William raised his sword to block the attacks of the two foes in defence of Orthol behind him. Though he managed to bloody the creature’s arm, seeing dark green blood slowly dripping from the wound, he was not quick enough to escape the sharp blow of a foot to his stomach by the other. The excruciating pain sent him tumbling to the ground, winded and gasping for breath. Both creatures hastily moved towards William, but one was intercepted by Orthol. The second, however, continued to focus on William, but it hesitated at the last moment. It stood there looking at him, almost analysing him.

  Richard capitalised on the creature’s pause and stabbed it through the shoulder. It recoiled backwards before attempting to retaliate. William lunged forward and impaled the creature’s chest, kicking it back before standing to fight again. Rachel pulled the two brothers behind her.

  “Don’t move!” she ordered before pulling back another arrow and releasing it.

  The endless clattering of metal – a dissonance of sounds – blotted out the silence. The flames around the room danced shadows along the walls and ceiling as the sickening smell of death filled the air. Elizabeth fought three at a time, her nerve unbroken, yelling a war cry as they converged upon her. Orthol helped her with one using his war axe while Elizabeth continued to fight the other two. Max spotted another advancing through the front door and charged; he thought a bottleneck might even out the numbers, preventing a large force from entering through the front door at once, but was punched in the face with the hilt of a black blade and fell backwards.

  His head struck the ground hard, the world blurring and grogginess disrupting his focus. He’d dropped his sword, which slid across the ground and beneath the table to the side of the room. After looking up, an attacker’s blade approached him, but stopped mid-air as an Arracian arrow from Rachel’s bow struck the creature’s chest, penetrating so deeply that even the orange feathers almost entered its chest cavity. Max glanced behind him, seeing the fear in his brother’s eyes as they watched him lying on the ground. William tried to charge past Rachel with his sword raised, but she held him back, firing another arrow towards Max’s attacker and striking it in the chest a second time.

  Max felt a small stream of blood running down his head, his arms like lead as he weakly tried to move. As Max looked up again, he saw a black blade from the attacker falling towards him, the fatal blow – the one that would end it all – wielded by the creature with Rachel’s two arrows already embedded in its chest. The creature savoured this kill and prepared to embed its cruel blade into his stomach. Before facing his fate, Max gave one last glance to his brothers, seeing them desperately trying again to charge past Rachel towards him.

  But in an instant, Victoria’s long, curved silver blade flew through the air and pierced the creature’s chest, sending a chilling shriek that momentarily interrupted everyone’s fighting. Another blade silenced the scream through the creature’s mouth, the tip jutting out of the back and spewing dark green blood across the wall. Max’s attention snapped to Victoria, who now fought with one of the curved black blades of the enemy. As the creature fell from above him, Max summoned all the strength left in him and struggled to his feet. After gathering his bearings, he withdrew one of Victoria’s swords from the creature’s body and drove it through the side of another attacker at the front. Their numbers dwindled as fewer entered through the front, only a few of them left, but the back of the room remained teeming with enemies – Victoria had clearly meant fifty-four rather than nine.

  Max rushed to the back, driving Victoria’s light sword through a creature’s side, so deep it bloodied even the hilt, and then charged to help the fight in the doorway. Several more poured through, too many for Victoria to handle alone, and Gringal moved to the back door again to intercept them. Victoria killed another one before throwing one of the enemy’s blades into a running attacker. She looked to Gringal and Max with widened, burning eyes and a savage glare.

  “Keep your distance!” she exclaimed and the two of them moved away from the back door. “Further!” she ordered before facing the back door again.

  Max hesitated. “But…”

  “Move away, now!” Victoria shouted as she kicked an attacker in the chest, sending it to the ground and knocking over a few more in the doorway.

  During the pause, she hurled another sword towards them, impaling one creature through the chest, and raised a hand in front of her with her eyes closed. The assailants charged once more, all seven of them, through the back door and lunged towards her. With only moments before their blades connected, Victoria opened her eyes and clenched her raised hand into a tight fist. The creature’s swords struck an invisible barrier and disintegrated, shattering into burning hot red fragments. Max saw her eyes smoulder a brilliant dark blue. He could hear her shout something and within moments, a bright flash of light lit up the entire room.

  There was a booming impact to the air, a clap of thunder rippling through space, as a fine, dark blue sphere of burning energy surrounded Victoria. The seven foes squealed in pain only briefly as they flew through the air, propelled by the fiery energy of the glowing sphere, their bodies bloodied and mangled. The sphere’s waves of energy pulsed and extended slightly past them into the doorway and continued to wreak havoc. The wall beside her violently blew outwards as the light force passed through it, leaving a gaping hole in the back of the house. The victims fell to the floor with wide chasms throughout their bodies, their armour and weapons crumbling before they’d even reached the ground.

  The light disappeared and the room momentarily fell silent.

  Two attackers still stood at the front of the room, their morale and courage devastated upon seeing their comrades’ gruesome fate. Elizabeth hastily killed one of them with a clean slash across the neck, sending it choking to the ground, while the other attempted to flee. It ran past Max, who stood beside the door. With one swift motion, he cut off the creature’s leg with Victoria’s blade, sending a mist of blood into the air and an agonizing moan from the attacker. Max decisively drove his blade through its neck to finish it off.

  Silence.

  Elizabeth’s hand quickly reached to check on the stone within her dress. She grazed the surface of the bulge beneath her dress, relieved to feel it safely there inside of the bag. She set her sword on the table and glanced at her friend in the back of the room. Many bodies surrounded them on the ground, the floor soaked in dark green blood and the stench of death lingering in the air. Elizabeth looked to Victoria, who stood still beside the hole in the back of the room slightly panting and hunched over.

  The quiet unsettled Max, who still felt the ringing of metal in his head and the coursing adrenaline through his veins; it contrasted with the bombastic grating of battle and the chilling cries of war and death. The disconcerting silence provided Max with a daunting pause for reflection; the reality of killing and death set in. He looked around at his brothers before inspecting all of the bodies.

  William approached Max. “Are you alright?” he said, breaking the silence.

  “Yes,” Max answered. “My head hurts but nothing fatal.”

  Rachel limped over, the blood pouring from a deep wound in her calf. “I can’t say the same,” she weakly grumbled. “You must leave the city immediately,” she commanded.

  “You mean we,” Max corrected as he helped her to a chair.

  “I can’t walk,” Rachel said. “I’ll only slow you down.”

  Elizabeth moved towards Rachel and put a hand on her arm. “Stay sti
ll,” Elizabeth ordered. “Your superficial wound is easy to heal.”

  Her eyes irradiated a vibrant light green.

  William approached them to watch and saw green streaks of light passing from Rachel’s arm into Elizabeth’s hand. His focus turned to Elizabeth’s face, which remained calm at first before he noticed her cringing. After only a few moments, she removed her hands and staggered back, catching herself on the table behind her. William lunged forward, but she refused his help, instead walking away towards Victoria again.

  “My wound is gone,” Rachel calmly stated as she stood up straight and inspected her calf, though she slightly stumbled.

  The brothers observed in wonder.

  “But your strength will take time to fully return,” Elizabeth instructed from beside her friend.

  Rachel shook her head. “There’s no time.” She paused. “But thank you.”

  Elizabeth nodded.

  “We’re lucky to be alive,” Max said, still staring at Rachel’s healed calf.

  “Yes, we are,” Victoria called from the back of the room. “Those were followers of the Laskil Order.”

  “What’s that?” Rachel asked.

  “An order of assassins,” Victoria answered, “an order of well-trained fighters.”

  “Assassins?” Max snapped back. He looked to his brothers before returning to Victoria and Elizabeth. “What mess have you brought us into?” he angrily declared. “Why…”

  “The stone cannot stay here,” Elizabeth interrupted.

  “I can agree with that,” William chimed in with an exaggerated shrug. “Clearly Orwell is compromised.”

  Victoria walked up to Max and extended a hand towards her blade. Max handed her sword back, and she wiped it on a body’s rags before returning it to within her robe. “More will come,” she said.

  “What exactly did you do back here?” Max asked her as he pointed to the huge hole in the wall. “You can’t expect us not to ask about that little detail you forgot to mention when you said stand back.”