Ruins Falling

by A. R. Peters

  “Have you seen any enemies?” Graedin demanded, grabbing his belt and tightening it.

  “Fog rolled in sometime after midnight.” The lieutenant gasped in breath as he wiped his forehead, pushing his peppered brown hair out of his eyes. He picked up Graedin’s cloak off a chair and tossed it to him. A long, stitched cut from his upper lip down to his chin pulled his frown deeper than it already was on its own. “It’s loud, but there’s nobody out there!”

  “Thus far, you mean,” he replied, throwing the cloak around his shoulders. “Come on!”

  They raced out the door and down the stone hall toward the stairs. Earren reached the stairs first and ran up it, his chain main glinting in the torchlight. Graedin heaved himself afterward, stumbling up with his stiff, aching knees. They occasionally passed by servants who’d left behind cleaning or cooking duties, shrugging awkwardly out of aprons on the run, being commanded to go to their quarters immediately by insistent marshals. They passed by warriors throwing on cloaks or pausing to wriggle into mail as all raced outside and onto the battlements.

  Graedin coughed when the chill air hit his lungs. As he looked through the dim light over the parapets toward the ground, he saw frost on the stone. He followed Earren to the wall above the gate. Below was a sea of fog, pierced here and there by spear-like trees in the distance, and hazy mountains looming over them all. Only occasional patches of ground were clear, yet dim in the early dawn. For the moment, the screams become weeping. What he heard instead was the labored breathing of hundreds of men, from seventeen up into their fifties, and their eyes looked like children witnessing some ancient horror.

  “How could it be so loud?” he heard a young warrior murmur. “It hurts my ears.”

  He stopped with Earren over the ledge above the iron gate and peered out. To either side of the wall were cliffs too dangerous to scale. They formed a canyon where a narrow trail led from the land of Ye’shurun to its south eastern borders, and where a fortress had been erected to block entry. The wall faced a large field, just long enough that the furthest tree could still be hit by a longbow. Beyond that, a forest stretched out over the mountains. The fog was dense enough that the nearest trees could just barely be made out, unless the wind bit out holes into the cover.

  The screaming man, however, was nowhere to be seen. A few boulders were visible in the thin patches near the middle of the field, and the wind forced the fog to reveal a little more, thinning again as it grew closer to the wall. Graedin shivered. Even if the man were at the gate itself, screaming upward, it shouldn’t have sounded so piercing.

  “Where’s the marshal of the night watch?” Earren roared.

  Graedin looked over. A grizzled, middle-aged man ran up to them and saluted, a hand on his heart and the other crossing his body to grip his sword hilt. He was big in every aspect—big beard, big shoulders, almost as tall as he himself was—but his eyes were disproportionately wide. Great beads of sweat were rolling down his temples as he heaved in breaths in his broad chest. A red-tailed hawk sat on his shoulder, its feathers ruffled. It kept moving his head around, as though it could see through its hood. It stretched its wings out a little, as if hungry to fly.

  “Marshal,” Earren demanded, “did any of your men go missing tonight?”

  “No, sir,” the marshal gasped. “I checked every man twice an hour.” He heaved in a breath. “Never stopped walking during my watch.” Another breath. “When we heard screaming, I ran and checked again.” Another breath. “All are accounted for, sir.” The marshal glanced at Graedin, and looked quickly away. A shudder shot through the man’s shoulders.

  Graedin glanced over, and the scar seemed to deepen and stretch on Earren’s face. When he’d arrived at this fortress a fortnight ago, he’d been told by Earren and his officers that nine men, over the course of a week, had disappeared. There was no warning. None of them had given the officers any suspicion of desertion. They’d all been seen by their marshal within an hour of their disappearance. No food stores, no horses and no equipment were missing. There were no shouts of alarm and no blood trails. The only sign of their disappearances was that about half of them had dropped their swords on the ground. And none of the scouts had reported any sign, before the attacks or after, of potential enemies in the area. The men just vanished.

  The problem was, suspicious occurrences seemed to be following Graedin. He and his company were traveling to each fortress on the borders of Ye’shurun to do inspections, attend to any needs they had, and take concerns back to the Twelve Princes who ruled the country. And the whole trip, they had been bothered consistently by their animals. Their horses and the scouts’ hawks kept waking them up in the night by screeching, whinnying, and trying to flee. Nothing had happened, but he and his men were constantly on edge and exhausted.

  But the fortresses gave no relief. Six of the fortresses Graedin had inspected had been attacked while he was there, or shortly after he left. The enemy wore no military uniforms or distinguishing features from neighboring countries. Each attack consisted of a small group of assassins who’d slipped in at a strategic place and moment, attacked a target, then fled—half the time, successfully. The other half of the time, they’d stuffed handfuls of poisonous mushrooms or berries into their mouths. Even when one assassin was punched in the gut so hard he vomited, he still fell too deep into a sickly sleep that he couldn’t be woken, and died a few hours after capture. But what frightened the lieutenants most was one fact: all the targets of each attack were tall older men, with beards and long gray hair. Men who looked something like Graedin did.

  He didn’t admit until after the sixth attack that he could be their target. After that, he’d deliberately visited the final fortresses out of normal order. This turned their six-month trip into a nine-month trip thus far, and it wasn’t over. He arrived and departed randomly, saying nothing of his plans to anyone. He’d forbidden the men of his traveling company to write letters home the rest of their trip, too, just in case anything revealing was intercepted.

  He regretted having told the officers here what was going on, though. The expression the marshal had just given him was flat-out scared. Resentful, even. Graedin sighed, knowing he was probably going to make the man a little more resentful. “Marshal, give me your far-sight.”

  The man’s jaw clenched, but obediently unlatched a leather piece from his belt. He handed it first to Earren and looked away quickly. Earren scowled at him, and handed it over to Graedin. The leather was stiff and cold in his hands. It was a new technology—valuable and well-guarded, given only to an honored few in each fortress. Graedin had insisted to the Twelve Princes that every fortress be given at least one. It was a leather cone wrapped tightly around two glass pieces at either end. One end was wide end and the other narrow. He lifted the narrow end up to his eye. The hazy trees were brought closer. He searched branches and through the thinner patches of fog.

  The scouts’ hawks began to shriek, causing several men to gasp. Graedin whipped around. Even hooded, they fought to fly away—all but the marshal’s, who looked bristled for a fight.

  “Captain! Lieutenant!” someone hissed nearby. “Someone’s in the fog—to the west!”

  Graedin looked, but this time, he had no need of the far-sight. The dark figure of a man was stumbling around at the edge of the forest to the south west. He was just within the shot of the long bows, yet sounded as if he were within an arm’s reach. Occasionally, the man disappeared, then reappeared in the haze, screaming like he’d been set on fire. Graedin lifted the far-sight up. The hazy figure was already dark enough with the dim light, but half of the man’s face looked black. The outline of his tunic and pants were ragged, too.

  “Scouts!” Earren barked. “Get your hawks to the eyrie!”

  Graedin turned back to the field. He lifted his eye from the far-sight, then pressed it back. The fog swirled on the edge of the forest, far from the edge of the foggy field. A hazy form—was it a wolf? No, it was too small. Maybe a coyote?—walked up
beside one of the trees, watching as the man as stumbled around. It made no attempt to attack. Its head seemed to glance at the fortress, then back to watch the man.

  He lowered the far sight and offered it to his lieutenant. “Look at this.” Earren accepted it, looked toward where Graedin was pointing, and held it up to his eye. A moment later, he grunted. “What do you think that coyote is up to? I’ve never seen one act like that before. It’s not attacking, or avoiding him. It’s just…watching.”

  Earren took the far-sight from his eye and handed it back. “I don’t know. But never mind that. We need to get that man back into the fortress, whoever he is. It’s just…” He looked away to the field again, then stepped close, and whispered, “Doesn’t this look suspicious? That man in the field, all alone…it looks like he’s being thrown out there as bait.”

  Graedin looked at the man, wailing now as he knelt on the grass, a little closer to the fortress. He was tearing at his hair, especially around his ears, keening as if he were watching the deaths of all those he loved. He glanced around him at the men on the wall, all watching, and several glancing at him, waiting with wide eyes. “I guess we’ll find out.” He noticed a few of them had shaking hands on their arrow shafts. He hoped they were just cold.

  “I’m ready for your command, Sea Hawk.” Graedin turned to scrutinize his lieutenant’s grim, expectant face. Then he turned away to size up the men, thinking wildly of what to do, feeling like he wasn’t able to live up to his call sign at the moment.

  When Graedin had been a young marshal, Ye’shurun was in open war with her neighbors. And while he was fierce and swift, he used unusual, spur-of-the-moment strategies. At the time, his superiors would either scoff at them or criticize him. But over time, between the number of losses he minimized, battles he won, and lives he saved, Graedin’s creative ingenuity earned him the rank of First Knight of the Realm, commander of the army of Ye’shurun. He’d become the most powerful man in the country under the Twelve Princes, and the youngest recipient in Ye’shurun’s history at only thirty years old.

  But it wasn’t until years later, after witnessing that ingenuity, that a young friend began calling him “Sea Hawk.” It was one of Graedin’s favorite birds of prey. A bird known to be fierce, swift, and live by its unusual nature. This bird regularly dove beneath the surface of rivers and the sea, because it survived almost solely on fish. “It’s a perfect call sign for you,” he’d been told repeatedly. Thaine had been so pleased by that…

  Graedin squeezed his eyes shut, forcing himself to refocus. Then he reopened them. Inhaling, he leaned over to a man on his right and whispered, “Archers, ready! Spread it down the line!” Whispers spread along the parapets to the east and west. Eventually, all the archers pulled bows off their shoulders, notched arrows, and held them to their chests, ready to draw back. Meanwhile, Graedin turned to Earren and muttered, “I’ll be right back.”

  A few minutes later, Earren stood silently beside him as Graedin explained his plan to a group of thirty hand-selected men. They looked confused, but obediently and quietly followed him to the gates. Just as he was about to signal the gatekeepers, he felt a hand grip his arm. He turned back to Earren’s exaggerated frown. “What is the commander of the realm’s army doing leading a rescue mission?” he whispered. "Every man here is going to wonder.”

  “Maybe the old man wants some action sometimes,” he replied, smiling. “Besides, the Princes know I want to retire. Maybe if I die, they’ll finally be convinced that it’s time.”

  “That isn’t funny,” Earren snapped. His scar gave him an almost feral snarl.

  Graedin paused. “…No. No, it’s not. Sorry.” He leaned closer. “But if I’m truly the target, someone might attack. They may not reveal themselves for you.”

  Earren scowl deepened. “The marshals know the risk you’re taking. What will they say?”

  He stared for a moment into his friend’s stern gaze. “I’d rather die on the field than by assassination.” His friend’s jaw clenched, and his lip twitched as if it had memory of its own. A decade ago, in that same massacre, Earren had received that scar. But his eyes were boring into Graedin’s as his brows knit together. “If they want me desperately enough to attack—and I hope they do—they’ll have to engage all these men to get to me. Depending on what happens, I may send a few away, to try to tempt them.” Earren’s eyes narrowed. “You know I’m not reckless. Haven’t you sworn to me, over and over, that your scouts haven’t found any trace of an enemy out there? These enemies are bands of assassins. We’re trained warriors. We have the advantage on the field, and I’ll be protected. Plus, you’ll be guarding us whenever you see movement. It’s not like I’m walking into an enemy camp. An army can’t hide from your scouts.”

  Earren shook his head. He looked away across the darkness, his jaw still clenched. “No. But this isn’t…there’s something wrong.” Then he turned back, gave a stern and determined look, and gripped his hand. “I’d rather you didn’t go.” They held their bond for a few moments. Then Graedin let go, shook his head with a sad smile, and gestured for the gate to open. Slowly, the gate rumbled and squeaked open. The archers above were scanning the fog, their bowstrings drawn. He looked around in the fog, listened for a few moments, and gestured behind him. One by one, thirty men joined them. Then the gate clanged and shuddered as it was pulled shut. He gripped his shield on his arm, drew his sword slowly, and glanced up once more. He could see Earren striding along the parapets toward the sliver of dawn in the east. He turned away. The fog lay before him, the ground unusually dry and cracked where mud should be. There was even a huge puddle out there, frozen over, that they would have to cross. With a whispered command, his men clustered tightly together in a circle, shields faced out. Their shoulders touched, and their shields covered all of their bodies but their eyes. They paused only long enough for Graedin to move them around in a second but smaller ring of men behind the first ring. But it was still wide enough that he could swing his sword freely in the center. “Now, slowly,” he commanded in a whisper, “move!”

  Together, they shuffled slowly, awkwardly, but tightly together, toward the wailing man. Graedin wedged his way between two men, sticking his own shield out, and shifted his attention between the man on the ground in the distance and around his men through the fog. Once in a while, he caught glimpses of what he thought was the coyote—only for the brown to be a tree trunk, or a bush. Over and over again it happened, but he could never be certain.

  When they were ten feet away from the man, Graedin commanded, “Split apart!” The circle opened just wide enough to surround the man. “One circle!” The circle reconnected, and the men in the second circle stepped forward to make a single ring. Then they tightened up again, each man shoulder to shoulder, swords drawn by their sides but their shields out.

  Satisfied, Graedin drew back and ran to the man they’d come for. The man knelt on both knees in the grass, mumbling incoherently. His clothes were filthy, wet, and ragged, like he’d been running through the forest for months. His hands were covered in blood. Then he shrieked, “Stop! I don’t want to see any more! I don’t wanna see!” Then his face turned up. Graedin jerked to a stop, then stumbled backward, unable to stop staring despite his horror.

  The man had torn out his own eyes.

  Forcing down the bile rising in his throat, he pulled two men out of the circle, commanding the circle to step back a pace. Then he turned the two warriors toward wounded man. “Who is this?” he demanded. “Can you recognize him?”

  In reply, the burlier one turned and began gagging. The other, a large man but more lean, grew so pale he could’ve melted into the fog. “Parthenion,” he whispered. “He was a marshal.”

  Turning back to the man, Graedin called, “Parthenion!” The man didn’t stop weeping. He tore at his earlobes also, waving his hands before his face, as if he were still seeing something evil. Graedin grit his teeth. This man was going to be difficult to bring back. He would have to be carr
ied, probably. He probably would have difficulty walking blind. And he seemed to step gingerly. His feet looked wet with dew, but the dew looked red stained. Where had his shoes gone? His feet looked wrong somehow. He studied them a moment in the dim light. Yes—they were covered in cuts. “Parthenion!” he repeated, extending a hand to touch the man’s shoulder.

  It was the kindest gesture he could think of. And a mistake. The man’s screams became snarls, and he burst into a flurry of swinging fists. Graedin’s reactions came through years of ingrained training, of dedicated and perfectionistic practice. He blocked the blows thrown at him, but only barely. Soon, he was in a wild struggle with the blind man. One of his men dove over the screaming man, attempting to pin his arms. “Parthenion!” he shouted in the man’s ears. “It’s me, it’s—” With a roar, the blind man had turned on his friend and, after a brief and ferocious wrestling, began choking him. The warrior’s eyes bulged, and in his panic, didn’t react the way he ought to have. Graedin jumped back in with the burlier man, slamming his elbow down on the inner part of Parthenions’s outstretched arm. The wounded man screamed. Then Graedin slammed his elbow into the wounded man’s face, and blood gushed from his nose. But in a moment, he was fighting again. Even the three of them together couldn’t hold Parthenion down.

  “Captain!” one of the men on the outer circle shouted. “Captain, we’re under attack!”

  Graedin grit his teeth. Again, the bile threatened to come up, but he forced it down, drew back his fist and slammed it between the man’s missing eyes. Parthenion crumpled to the ground. The two men began tying him up, glancing at Graedin with a mixture of grudging understanding, contempt, and fear in their frowns. The larger of the two slung Parthenion over his shoulder, and Graedin turned back to watch the ring. He counted seven bodies lying at the feet of his men.

  With a growing roar, enemies began pouring in from the fog. For a moment, Graedin stared in open horror. In the dim light, they looked like spiders or rats swarming out from holes in a blanket, rushing toward his men. Forcing himself out of his stupor, he shouted, “Stand your ground! Two circles!” His men braced themselves, their circle beginning to draw tight together as the flood burst against them. The enemy surrounded them, immediately pushing on their shields, trying to pull the circle apart. A few men, screaming the whole time, even tried to jump up and over the shields. Graedin thrust his sword past two of his men’s heads, jabbing at the throat of an enemy that had jumped up. “Two circles!” He whirled around, glad to see that the other two men inside the circle were following his lead. Even the one carrying Parthenion.