by Heath Pfaff
I shook my head in negative reply, at a loss for a better solution. Despite having put a good deal of thought into the matter, I could think of no clear cut way to get across the river, or to make it past the gate. My eyes coursed over the smooth wall of the first gate. It had been designed to make climbing difficult, but Brutal and I were equipped with hands that gave us an advantage over the average person intent upon scaling the border. Our claws could find hand holds where others could not, and could create them in places where they did not exist. The real trick would be making the climb without attracting attention. There would be, by necessity, a good deal of noise involved in the climbing, though we would have the full sound of the rushing Iol Adjot to cover that up. The next complication would be managing to stay unseen while climbing up the wall. Our cloaks and the cover of night would go a long way toward rendering us invisible, but Brutal did not have one of the newer cloaks as I did, and he would be far more visible that I would when framed against the stone. It would take only one guard seeing us to change a difficult task into a nearly impossible one. If we were caught during our climb, we might not make the other side of the river, no matter how fiercely we fought.
"We'll make our attempt two hours after dark," Brutal's voice held a firmness that I knew meant he'd made his final decision on the matter. It was time for us to wait.
The day went fast, despite the fact that our surveillance of the guarded fortifications was unfruitful. No easier path appeared while we waited, but I had not anticipated that one would. A grim feeling of dread was building in my gut, sitting like a lead weight there, trying to pull me down. As the hour of action neared, I began to worry whether or not I would be able to do what was necessary. I didn't speak with Brutal about my fears. The older warrior sat confidently in our hiding place, watching the walls for any opportunity that might arise. As I looked at him, I wondered whether he felt any hesitance at all regarding what we were about to attempt. If anything, I thought, he seemed to have a glow of anticipation about his person, as though he were genuinely excited about the prospect of the battle ahead. I tried to allow his calm to flow into me, but it wouldn't happen. For all that I was already a traitor to the king, I knew that I would soon be taking the most definitive steps in that direction. I was about to embark upon a mission that would put me in the line of the king's men, and probably force me to take their lives. Even if we succeeded in crossing the first wall unseen, what were the odds that the second wall would be so easily passable? The situation was dire.
Brutal stood up from where he had been sitting, stretching his well-rested muscles with all the finesse of a cat after waking from a nap. I stood as well, feeling the thrum of my heartbeat course through my body, providing seemingly ceaseless energy to my limbs. Whether or not my mind was ready for action, my body certainly was. Every muscle and every reflex was acute to the point of agitation, filled with a surging rush of power that was difficult to quell. I knew that it was time to go.
Brutal spoke not a word as he left our hiding place, choosing simply to slip into the cover of the woods, knowing that I would follow. He seemed suddenly distant, and I felt that his good humor had changed. I fell in behind him, choosing my footfalls cautiously despite the roar of the river that deafened all around it, making sure no amount of noise I might make would reach the ears of the guards on the wall. After a moment, I moved closer to the older Knight, trying to better gauge his mood. It was difficult to judge, but I thought, just for a second, that he looked troubled. I wondered if he'd had one of his ill-boding premonitions. I thought to ask him, but decided better of it at the last moment. It was too late to turn back.
Near dark, the guards in the towers had lowered fires down the front of the wall and lit torches hidden in the stonework. These torches seemed to burn brighter than mere wood burners should, casting a large aura of light over the stones and the ground before it. That sphere of light represented our first obstacle. We would not be able to tackle the wall head on without walking directly into that circle of light, and neither of us was eager to be seen before we'd even begun climbing.
The dark-eyed warrior led us to the edge of the intimidating fortification, the furthest point from the light, but also furthest from the bridge. The area was, though, still cast in deep shadow, undisturbed by the exposing gaze of the torches over the bridge. The noise at the wall's edge was a constant roar that would both aid and complicate our task. Brutal and I could move without fear of being heard, but we also couldn't communicate short of yelling at one another. I hoped that wouldn't prove a problem, but I feared that it might. Whether my companion had thought of that at all I did not know, but he moved with a purpose.
Brutal latched on to the wall, his claws digging places for his hands to hold. He reached high up on the smooth surface, clawing his feet in and dragging himself upward with apparent ease. I followed suit, reaching high to get a hold, my claws sharpening in expectation of the work that needed to be done. I found that the stones, while difficult to pierce, were far from impossible to penetrate. I shadowed the older warrior up the steep climb, keeping myself out of his immediate line of travel so that, in the event we were seen, we couldn't both be disposed of in one attack from above. After a short distance, Brutal began to shift directions, leading us to the side, rather than straight up. He seemed to have a destination in mind as he went, and I was more than happy to simply follow his lead. We were above the level of the lights, the wall sconces holding them having been faced downward to shine light on anyone approaching the bridge. The fortifications had been constructed in such a way that scaling, while not impossible, was not a likely form of attack, and that gave us some advantage.
We were three quarters of the way over the imposing obstacle when disaster struck. Nearing the top, my worries about the ascent were just beginning to subside when a face peered down over the wall, a wide smile lighting it, though that smile soon faded as the owner of the face saw the two shadowy shapes of Brutal and myself slinking up the stone surface. I didn't hear the words yelled to call warning, and I doubted Brutal did either, but only a few seconds later the first arrow swept down the side of the wall toward my companion, who tore it from the air and tossed it back up towards his attackers. It didn't cause any damage, but the show of power cowed them, if only momentarily. I saw Brutal dig in his feet and clawed hands, and a breath later, he threw himself vertically across the remaining gap to the place where our enemies waited. As he passed the lip of the wall, his hand shot down, catching the stone and swinging him to the top in a brilliant display of athletic coordination. Even as he landed his body blurred into motion, becoming a haze of death.
An arrow bounced from the stone a few inches in front of me and skittered uselessly from my cloak, and I knew I had no more time to watch the older warrior. I emulated his maneuver, digging my claws into the stone as vigorously as possible. I tensed my muscles, and let my heart rate accelerate, the world seeming to slow all around me. Up above me, two faces watched my actions, fear obvious in their features. The muscles in my legs and arms compressed, I pushed with all my considerable might and sailed upwards. To my surprise, the push was immensely effective. The face of the wall sailed by me with alarming speed as I neared the top. I lashed out with one clawed arm, grabbing for some hand hold as Brutal had done, but I could only do so with one arm as my other limb was forced to rake hard at the faces of my enemies who stood directly in my way, their swords raised in defense. One guard fell back in a gout of blood, though the other stumbled backwards just in time to get outside of my reach. I was close to sailing past my intended landing zone. My right hand finally anchored firmly in the rock of the wall, twisting my momentum with vicious force, and it was all I could do to bring my legs under me before I landed on the platform amidst my enemies. Around me men were drawing their weapons, a slow motion dance of futility, I knew, for with both Brutal and myself standing ready our human opponents stood little chance.
I rode the wave of my momentum, descending upon my enemie
s with every ounce of speed and precision I could muster. I would rip the throat from one, only to have to spin to dodge the blade of another, before righting myself and bringing that new attacker down with a powerful thrust from my razor sharp claws. The men fell about me in a rain of red mist, not even hitting the ground before the man at their side joined them. The killing was a sickening process that soured my stomach, but I reminded myself that I fought for Kyeia, and that if I didn't fight, my opponents would not hesitate to strike me down. There were so many attackers that I barely had time to consider the ramifications of my actions. I was in a position where I had to kill those attacking me, or die myself.
A tremendous ring sounded in the air, reverberating through the world so loudly that it shook me from my quickened state and nearly cost me my life. I managed to draw my sword and parry a well-aimed blow at the last moment, spinning backwards from my opponent with all the skill and grace I could muster. This brought me directly into another group of soldiers, but by that time I had recovered enough to speed myself back up. Even so, as fast as I was, I was hard pressed to turn aside all the weapons aimed at my body. I missed one blade entirely and it skittered across the magically resilient fabric of my cloak, mere inches from my left ear. I turned with a vengeance, striking out hard with my sword and splitting the man who had struck me in two with the force of my blow. The other men fell back at the ferocity, some of them visibly shaking where they stood. Brutal's voice pierced the roar of the water, competing for air space with the river and the dreadful ringing that reverberated all around us.
"They've struck the alarm. The guards from the other side of the bridge will be coming. Get to ground level!" I responded without even thinking about it.
Those guards nearest me dove out of my way as I charged between them, thrashing at any foolish enough to come within range, and threw myself from the gate wall, inward, toward the bridge below. The fall was long and I realized only once it was too late that I probably should have tried to slow my descent somehow. I hit the ground with a jolt, letting my knees collapse into the fall and rolling outward with the force of my impact. I felt the bone in my right shoulder crack as it struck pavement, and my roll turned into more of a lopsided flop. The wind was knocked from my lungs, and the world went dark for the briefest second as my body struggled to overcome the damage I was doing to it. My head was just clearing as I heard the sound of Brutal's feet striking pavement, obviously from somewhere around mid-wall. In a moment he was at my side, hauling me to my feet.
"Expedient path, Noble, but perhaps not the most graceful. Are you ready to fight?" His words were hazy in my brain, though they became clearer towards the end. I nodded dumbly, reaching for my sword only to realize that I had dropped it in my plummet from the wall. "I hope so." Brutal added, and I heard the sounds of a portcullis being raised and swords being drawn.
My mind was sharpening quickly, and the haze faded even as I felt the bone in my shoulder righting itself. Kye's gifts, her magic eyes, were working their magic on my damaged body. There were at least another twenty guards coming for us, and my sharp ears could make out the sounds of a gate being raised at our back. That meant we would soon be surrounded. Time was not in our favor. I charged forward, my heart racing faster and faster, carrying me to the deepest thresholds of my ability to accelerate myself. I crashed into the center mass of guards about to come under the rising portcullis, using my body's weight and momentum to throw them all into chaos. I got a glimpse of Brutal following closely behind me, his sword killing two guards before my impact had even rippled through all of them. I lashed out with my claws, tearing the sword arm from one guard, and grabbing his weapon before it could fall. The blade was too light, but it would give me added range that was necessary in a battle against so many opponents. I pressed my attack, fending off blows that were coming far too slowly to hit me as I moved, but might still pose a problem if I wasn't careful. The sword I was using bent and wavered at the stresses imposed on it by my violent movements. It was not crafted with such speeds in mind, and was showing fatigue in every swing and contact it made.
I dispatched guards as fast as I could, my borrowed weapon being far too flimsy to give me the control I needed to be more effective. Finally, the cheaply made blade had taken enough abuse and it shattered against the armor of one of the gate guards. I let the fragments scatter, propelling myself at the guard whose armor had finished my weapon and ripping most of his head off with one swipe of my arm. Without the added range of a sword, I would have to get closer to my enemies, but at least I wouldn't have to worry about my weapon failing me. There was a shimmer of movement behind me, and I saw a third figure dressed in a shifting cloak, one like Brutal's, join the fight. The figure came in fast and strong, leading with a drawn sword. My first inclination was to think that Silent had come, and was joining with Brutal and me in battle, but the cloaked and hooded figure charged straight for Brutal, coming in for the kill before he'd even known what hit him. I disengaged from my own fight and dove at the attacker. I missed entirely but my motion was sufficient to attract Brutal's attention and distract the other cloaked figure long enough to put them on even fighting ground. I rolled to my feet, dispatching another guard as I came back to a ready position. Brutal was engaging the newcomer, who moved with lethal grace and skill. I had been confident in Brutal's ability to dispatch any opponent one on one, but as I watched the interplay between the two fighters, I began to see that Brutal might not be able to handle this new adversary on his own.
I was about to dive in and help, but the press of guards on us was getting heavy again, despite their slowly dwindling numbers. I shifted my momentum and charged the human guards again, tearing them apart as quickly as I was able. Brutal did not have the time to deal with another threat, so I would have to keep the field of battle clear for him while he battled the Knight of Ethan that was attacking us. We had been foolish not to consider the possibility that the king would have at least one of the Knights stationed at this outpost. It had been a dangerous oversight. I only hoped that it was just the one, and that we would not be overrun by our king-loyal brethren.
My task of keeping the guards at bay was made easier by their hesitance to attack the other two cloaked figures fighting in the relatively narrow space between the two sets of portcullises. They could not be sure, in the confusion of blurring movement and heated battle, exactly which fighter was fighting on their behalf, and they did not wish to injure their own ally, an ally that stood between them and certain death. They kept their distance from the two fighters in shifting cloaks, and I used that to my advantage. I flashed from one to the next, slashing a definitive strike against one before moving on to the next, and they fell quickly, unable to organize a defense effective enough to counter my superior speed and strength. I killed twelve of them before their lines broke and the survivors began to flee back into the fortifications. It was not a proud battle for me, slaughtering those barely able to hold a defense, and not for them, retreating so early in the fight. I heard the sound of a wooden bar being dropped into place behind the door, and then it was only Brutal, the unknown Knight of Ethan, and myself left on the bridge to fight. However, coming from the far end of the bridge, I could hear the sound of armor clinking, meaning that reinforcements would soon arrive, and their presence would probably bring the few guards remaining on our side of the bridge, hidden behind the locked door, back out to battle.
I looked to Brutal and our shifting attacker. They were locked in a fierce battle, blades and claws flashing with murderous intent. I didn't want to join that fight and have a part in the killing of a Knight of Ethan, but Brutal was hard pressed. I could see it in the way he kept giving ground, and the way his attacks were shifting from offensive to entirely defensive maneuvers. Little time remained for the dark-eyed warrior, but I would be no help as I was. I needed my sword. I flashed down the bridge, searching for my missing blade, and found it in short order, near where I had initially fallen. The familiar weight in my hand brou
ght with it a surge of confidence, and I turned back to the battle I was about to join. To my horror, Brutal was on the ground, his sword several feet from him and his attacker looming above him, sword point at his neck.
"Who sent you, traitor?" A female voice cracked from beneath the hood, and it struck me as being immediately familiar.
Brutal spat at the ground, and smiled grimly, "We taught you well, dearie, I'll give you that much, but you'll have no information from me."
She raised her sword to strike, the blade flashing in the summer sun.
"No!" I called out, realizing in that instant whose voice I was hearing. The distraction worked just long enough for Brutal to roll himself out of harm's way and back to his feet. He was going for his sword, but I ran forward, my own weapon in hand.
The figure in the shifting cloak, the woman who had attacked us, turned to face me, and my guess at her identity was confirmed. It was Malice, as hard-eyed and fiercely beautiful as ever. When she saw me, her sword point dipped. A look of shock filled her expression and I saw her mouth form my name, "Lowin." I could not have stunned her any more if I had struck her at that moment.
Brutal was on his feet, sword readied and coming up behind her fast. In her shock at seeing me alive, Malice had completely forgotten about her fallen foe. I charged forward, my body straining against the limits of its potential. Brutal's sword stood poised, ready to unleash death, and I came on, uncertain of the right thing to do, but knowing that I could not allow Brutal to kill Malice. My sword brushed Brutal's, throwing it wide, even as Malice stood in stunned silence, staring on as events unfurled about her. Brutal, too, was surprised, his eyes going wide as his sure kill was turned aside. His black stare fell upon me, full of loathing driven by a deep sense betrayal, and I could see even in my slowed perception of time, the look of pure murder flowing into those black orbs. Brutal had never fully trusted me, and I had just given him all he needed to brand me a traitor. Without another thought I reversed the grip on my sword hilt and struck Brutal down, drawing my blade, with all the force and speed I could muster, across my newest traveling companion's neck. There was a mist of red, a final look of shock on his face, and then Brutal's head and body fell separately, leaving me standing above them, my sword coated in the blood of an ally. There was a surge in the air about me, as though some greater force had been unleashed through my act of murder, and I staggered back.