I need higher ground to get better visibility. It goes against The Redcliffe Guardian’s unspoken rules, but I decide to climb his tree anyhow. Helios remains consumed with battle. With all the commotion, the apes pay me no attention, giving me the freedom to climb as I need for once. I scour the battle scene and spot Graytu engaged in battle. It’s a zany sight to see the withered old man fight. And fight well.
I drop back to solid ground. “Graytu!” I call. His back faces me, and I watch as a blade appears near his spine where it shouldn’t be. Then it slips away, out of sight. The assassin moves onto his next victim as Graytu falls to the ground. I sprint to him with Helios by my side acting as my bodyguard. Blood leaks from the corner of Graytu’s mouth. He puts pressure on his abdomen where he’s been pierced. There is a large, fresh blood stain on his tunic surrounding the spot at which he’s applying pressure. “Graytu, what can I do? There are too many of them.”
“He’s spoken to you.”
I look at him inquisitively. What does that mean? “Graytu, how do we stop them? What can I do?” I repeat.
“The Animal King.” Graytu puts a frail bicep to his mouth as he coughs. “He’s spoken to you.”
“Wha…” I stop before my question leads to more questions. “We don’t have time for this, Graytu. Look around you!” Pressing the urgency of the situation, I take my eyes off Graytu to look around. Another Redcliffe Warrior falls. The cloaked assassin scopes his surroundings. For his next victim? No. He bends at the knees and tethers the fallen warrior by the ankles. Then he proceeds to pull him away and out of sight. My attention goes back to Graytu as he continues to speak.
“The White Hart. He found you. He’s spoken to you. He’s touched your heart.” Graytu raises a hand to my shoulder as I lean over him. “He’s chosen you, Goose of House Greyson. Goose the Worthy. Goose the Guardian. You are needed.” He tucks his mouth in his elbow and coughs again.
“What?” I can’t refrain from asking this time, despite the blood and declining state he’s in.
“Goose. We don’t have time for your silly questions.” He shakes his head at me, and his fern headdress falls to the ground. A heavy cough escapes him, along with blood splatter. “All men have moments of weakness. The wrongdoing of another is no reason to end their life. You’re calling does not intersect with the Taoiseach. Your calling is much greater, Goose, Guardian of Azure. And don’t fall into his trap. His persuasions are tempting, but malicious in the end. Don’t let him fool you.”
“Who? Guardian of Azure? What are you saying?”
“Who?” He repeats with a mocking grin, then a violent cough erupts from him. More blood. He attempts to wipe it from his mouth, but only smears it across his cheek. “The nut, of course. Who else? That nut will try to tempt you with his nutty acorn flavor, but don’t let it fool you. He bears no nut on the inside. No reward for the hungry squirrel. Only rot and demise. Now is the time to be a smart squirrel.”
Another Redcliffe Warrior and assassin battle near the meadow’s edge. The warrior, donning his grey bark armor pierces the assassin through the chest. Thank Susy. But he doesn’t fall. Instead, he pulls a kukri from his waist and jams it into the warrior’s side. The warrior’s eyes grow wide and he slumps to his knees.
“Graytu, now is not the time for your gibberish. Fairview is dead, and all your kin are falling as we speak. I need some real guidance.”
Graytu gestures for me to come closer. “Don’t worry about me and my kin.” He whispers into my ear. “We are strong and have the grey bark of the sentinels to protect us. You need only worry about you and your kin.”
“What do you mean?”
Graytu spits out more blood. “Be a smart squirrel. Don’t let the bad nut fool you. If you consume it, you will rot from within. If you bury it, it will grow into a forest of rotten oak. You have a choice to make.”
“Graytu!” I yell with absolute anger pouring out of me. “Now is not the time. Give it to me straight.”
“You’re right,” he says calmly and clears his throat, which turns into a viscous cough. “Look around you, lad.” He forces his hand up and points to the skies above. “You’re in a forest. And you are a Sprhowt. It is your ally. It is your fortress, and it is your arsenal. Use it wisely and you are sure to succeed.” He then closes his eyes and gives me a weak nudge with the last of his strength. “Over there.” He points to where the trees border the open meadow. “Go,” he mutters. “I will be fine. We are the blood of his blood. We are the blood of Azure.” Then, his eyes open wide, taking me aback, and the grey bark on his shoulders expands until it consumes his entire body, head to toes, as if he himself has become part of the forest. A grey sentinel.
Before it completely envelops his face, he manages one last instruction. “Goose. I’d like to meet your family someday. Please do inform Stone and Jaymes to come visit our village when they have time.” Then, the bark consumes him.
He leaves me puzzled even with his last breath. Oddly enough, it puts a gentle smile on my face. Crazy old coot.
I look to see what he was pointing at, and there she is, sprinting through the woodlands with one of the assassins on her tail. And on his tail is a large, ungainly ape.
“Helios, can you manage?” I say to the beast as I lift my leg over top of him and plant myself on his back. “It will only be a short distance.”
I gently grab his scruff, and he takes flight eagerly. Even with my weight slowing down his old legs, he proves to be fast enough. We waste no time in closing the gap between us and the chase.
We ride up beside Coloss at the tail of the chase, and he launches a fist of rage in our direction. Helios shifts just in time to dodge it. The behemoth must have tunnel vision in his quest to crush the assassin. Or he’s just an ape with a bad temperament. I ignore his outrage and signal Helios to speed up.
The old cat is losing wind. I must act quickly. As we ride up beside the hooded figure, I leap from the beast and throw my body at the attacker, knocking him to the ground and bringing the chase to a halt.
“Goose, no!” Zoie calls out. I don’t understand her concern. I saved her from being run down by an assassin.
The hooded assassin lies stunned on the forest floor beside me. Suddenly, he rolls closer and forces himself on me with his ice-cold hands clenching my neck. His hood falls back, revealing red, sweeping tattoos around his eyes. This is the same man that murdered Fairview.
“You’ll regret that, boy,” he says in a disgruntled tone. “I’ll make your death much slower than that old wench’s.”
I struggle to slip free from his grasp and fail. His strength is remarkable.
In my peripheral, Helios approaches with caution. He pounces. I wince, closing my eyes, anticipating the force of the regal beast. When nothing happens, I look to see Helios lying on the ground beside the assassin. How? I cry for Helios to get up, but my voice has disintegrated. I can’t speak.
Then, I no longer feel his touch. His hands hold me securely, but I feel nothing. My blood boils, and my breaths get shorter. What is this I’m feeling? Panic? I push and squirm to free myself from his strong hold and fail again. He hardly puts forth any effort to restrain me, yet he succeeds.
It doesn’t take long for my loss of senses to attack my hands as they flagrantly beat against him. He’s making my entire body go numb. And it must be numbing my intelligence too because I’m just coming to realize he’s petrifying me. Taboo! My throat tightens, and my breathing gets tougher. Shorter.
Just when I think my failure is imminent, a dark blur bulls through the enemy and continues raging through the forest without stopping. Coloss! He chases after Zoie now. Maybe he was never chasing the assassin. Coloss scoops her over his shoulder and hurdles through the forest in his ape fashion.
I don’t know who this man is, or what his plans are, but I know I don’t want to tangle with him any longer.
The man rises to his feet several paces away from me, and I follow suit. Except…I stumble right back to the
ground. My entire body is numb. This isn’t right. I can’t let this villain succeed. Great heroes save the day. They don’t crumble beneath the villain.
My will takes over.
I make another attempt while he remains disoriented. I rise to my feet. It feels odd, almost as if I am floating, but my legs are functioning—I simply can’t feel them.
I glance at Helios with a desire to help him. I cannot linger, however. Helios is a resilient beast. He’s not the one who needs me. Instead, I race through the forest in the direction of Coloss and Zoie as fast as my legs will allow.
The assassin, still gathering his wits, is in no hurry to pursue us.
The ape leads us back to his great fig tree, in which none of the other assassins remain. They’ve cleared out. What remains in place of the chaos is even more disturbing. I want to collapse to my knees and wretch the nauseating feeling from my stomach, but I hold strong.
“What have they done?” Zoie exhales as Coloss sets her to her feet. “They’re…dead. All of them,” she whispers.
Zoie allows herself to collapse. A collage of bodies covers the ground. Her kin, an entire village of people, strewn about everywhere. Some, bloodied and dismantled. Others, seemingly intact but lifeless all the same. There is no hope of survival for any of them.
The stairs climbing the cliff are littered with corpses as well, and the wall itself has been stained a chilling dark red. Just as the creep said he was going to do, the wall satisfies its name now.
I shed away my pride, allowing myself to collapse beside her and embrace her. Tears flow freely down her cheeks as I battle my own from breaking loose. I don’t say anything because it will only be worse than the silence. The quiet, chilling aftermath of a village massacre.
Coloss startles the two of us with a sudden burst of rage. He beats his chest rampantly while bellowing a massive howl that resonates throughout the wood. There isn’t any movement in his tree. All the siamangs are perched throughout, but none move. Coloss rushes to his kin and throws his fists at the trunk in a violent fury, sending an unsettling reverberation to the tips of the branches, shaking the entire tree. Two of the apes fall from the branches above, lifeless.
Squirrels frolic about the madness, hopping from carcass to carcass. They’ve lost their family as well. These assassins have destroyed more than the lives of humans; they have taken it beyond the quarrels of man; they have destroyed the entire livelihood of this forest. The Redcliffe Village and the forest were one. All its inhabitants interlinked in some way, and the assassins have stolen that.
“Let me free you from the pain,” a maddening voice offers from behind.
Both of us turn to see a hooded ashen man standing in front of his entire gang of assassins. The same man who was in pursuit of Zoie. The same man who murdered Fairview. Among them are beasts of great mass. Two assassins are mounted on rhinos. Another sits upon a giant brown bear.
How in Susy’s four hells did they manage to tame a bear?
Then, a massive winged beast appears from the shadows and sits like a dog amidst the marauders. Its wings stretch, then curl into its abdomen. But it’s a wolf. With wings.
“How satisfying it is to see the sorrow pour from your eyes.” He pauses for a moment. A sinister grin appearing from within his hood. “You think me mad? Maybe. I have been known to make some radical and borderline maniacal decisions. But—”
“Who are you?” I step in front of Zoie.
“Rude, lad. First you interfere with my pursuit of your girlfriend there, then you interrupt me while I speak. Is there something wrong with you?”
“You murdered an entire village!” I shout back at him. There’s something strange about the man. Something off-kilter. His skin looks cold and clammy. The scarring lacing his body looks fresh like open wounds, but there is no blood. It makes him look like…like a corpse.
“Not yet I haven’t.” His brow scrunches as he looks at me with concern, as if I’m an idiot. “Two remain. Are you lacking your wits, lad? Do you not know how to count? Let me put you out of your misery.”
“Zoie, run,” I whisper. The same way Fairview instructed me when this man first stepped out of the shadows.
I pull her to her feet and nudge her. “But…” She hesitates.
“Zoie, go! I’ll distract them.” She looks at me, her beautiful green eyes leaking sorrow down her flushed cheeks. It’s heart-wrenching. I want to tell her everything will be alright, but it hasn’t been up to this point, and I don’t know if I can make it any better. She knows if she flees the odds of seeing me again are slim. She’s stronger than me. I’ve known that since the day she first approached me. Zoie wraps her arms around me tight, then takes off toward the crossing.
“Let’s finish this. You and me,” I say to him. He laughs. I don’t blame him. I have no idea how to stop him, and he has an entire mob of assassins with him.
“Alright, lad. You and me. Men, your task is complete. Go pilfer the village for whatever your heart desires. I haven’t had my share of the bloodshed this fine evening. I will finish off this young lad and his girlfriend. Then, we’ll retrieve the corpses.” The men don’t question his command. Every one of them retreats into the wood, including the giant bear. That solves about a dozen of my problems, now just one more.
I have no chance fighting him in hand-to-hand combat. The moment he touches me will be the moment I fail. That’s it! If he can’t touch me, he can’t manipulate me with his talents. I scurry to the nearest fallen warrior and attempt to remove his armor.
“What are you doing, lad? That armor didn’t protect him. What makes you think it’ll protect you?”
The armor isn’t budging. Somehow, it’s securely fastened to the warrior’s body, but I don’t see any ties or clamps of any kind.
“It’s grafted into his skin. You really are a half-wit, aren’t you?” the assassin says as he strolls toward me. “You don’t have a clue to the potential around you, do you? It’s that tyrant Harris Martelli’s fault. He’s the one to blame. He keeps everyone in the dark. You’re capable of so much more, but he snuffed out the wick long ago on all the rumors. That’s why I was banished from this land, you know. I experimented. I wasn’t satisfied with what they limited me to. I knew I was capable of more, but nobody in this forsaken land would allow it. Everyone sees it as taboo to push your talents and experiment with them. To achieve the power the Old Races were capable of.”
“What rumors?” I ask while still trying to pry the rigid bark from the fallen warrior’s shoulders.
“The rumors of the athenaeum.”
“Athenaeum?”
“It’s a tomb, really. A tomb of The First Four. It’s in the city. Although, it’s not really a burial site for The First Four. Just their past lives. There are libraries with scripts upon scripts containing all the knowledge and history of the Old Races in there. I was banished because I tried to uncover the tomb. Parliament doesn’t know it exists, and the Taoiseach couldn’t execute me over something that doesn’t exist, so they exiled me to the Blood Plains for a mundane crime. The murder of two arrogant and careless Grims. That was a mistake they’ll wish they never made. By exiling me, it only gave me time. Time to discover my true potential and gather an army.”
“A score of assassins hardly counts as an army.” I scoff at him.
“A score of assassins.” He laughs at me. “Look at that man you’re trying to rob.”
“Huh?”
“You see a corpse. I see flesh and sinew with pure talent screaming through his veins. He is my army. They all are.” He waves his hand out across the bloodied meadow.
Is that what he meant by retrieving the corpses? Not to bury them or burn them, but to literally retrieve them? Collect them as if they’re a treasure to be counted. My jaw drops. I want to scream at him, but it comes out much more subdued. Almost a whisper. “You are mad.”
He responds with a devilish grin. “There is opportunity here, lad. I’ll ask you only once. Do you have enough resentmen
t and hatred for the Taoiseach and Parliament to join me in overthrowing them?”
“You murdered Fairview while I watched. And you slaughtered an entire village for no reason. A village I’ve grown to be part of. The Taoiseach might have my hate, but you’re fucking crazy if you think I’ll join you.”
He nods his acceptance. “It was rather cutthroat, wasn’t it? Men, women, and children. But there is reason for it.” His eyes widen within his hood. “You’ll see…if you join me. I’ve always lacked in the emotional realm. Sorrow, anger, happiness. They just never came to me very easily. But I’m not so far out of touch I don’t recognize the pain here. Pain passes, however. Knowledge lasts forever. I see potential in you, lad. Does your answer remain the same if I could lead you to that athenaeum? You could have all the knowledge and power the Old Races possessed. What say you?”
I let go of the armor I’ve been attempting to pry from the corpse. This man is an absolute lunatic. I can’t trust what he says, but what choices do I have? He is a trained killer. The reward is tempting. Is this what Graytu was referring to? I could finally live up to my father’s expectations if I accepted his offer. It’s too late to prove it to him, but I could do it in his honor. If the athenaeum truly does contain the knowledge he speaks of, I could be great. And I don’t have to like this man or even get along with him. He will merely be a vessel carrying me upon the winds of victory, and in the end, I can destroy him. But what am I thinking? Where is the greatness in that? To join the villain in his massacres would make me a villain. There is no greatness in slaughtering the masses. Even if the result is a more savory, nutty, acorn-enriched existence. For Susy’s sake, between this lunatic and the crazy old coot, I’m going to lose my mind. No. This man is a rotten nut.
Season of Sacrifice (Blood of Azure Book 1) Page 66