He grabbed the princess’s hand in one of his own and materialized his sword in the other as he walked down the dark alleyway. He paused briefly at the end and peered out into the street. Even though he had only been gone for a short time, the scene there was radically different from the one he remembered from his stroll earlier in the night.
Bodies littered the street. Most of them were half-clothed like they had been drug from their homes before they had so much as a chance to put their pants on or grab a weapon, and they had each been brutally murdered. A few looked like they had tried to put up some kind of a fight, and those were the most heavily mutilated of all. The only sign that they had ever tried to resist their slaughter was a handful of dropped weapons next to their ragged corpses. There were a few fires burning where someone had tried to light the corpses on fire, and there were already semi-charred remains stacked in places where either magic or some type of accelerant had been used. The rooftops on several buildings were still smoking, lending credence to the theory that magic had been the cause of their death and providing a desolate backdrop to a blood-stained patchwork of gore, bodies, and discarded weapons.
There was a soft gasp behind him as the princess peered out from around him, finally spying the carnage for herself.
He turned almost immediately, blocking her view, and placed a hand on her shoulder. The last thing he needed right now was for her to decide that she wasn’t going to go through with their plan because of a little bloodshed. “Your father has gone insane,” he muttered quietly, tilting her head up so that she had to look directly into his eyes and nowhere else. “This is what it’s like in the streets; the people live in constant fear of this on a daily basis. If you were still in the castle, this would be you as well. Do you understand?”
She sniffled once and choked down a sob as it died in her throat at hearing his words, and he watched as a cold light manifested in her eyes. He knew that he had just witnessed the death of her innocence. He searched her face for any indication that she was going to waver, and when he didn’t find one, he turned and pulled her out into the streets without another word. He hugged the buildings along the left side of the roadway and sped along as quickly as he could while pulling her behind. The blood was running so thickly in some places that it was impossible to completely avoid, but he did at least try to spare her from trouncing through the most gruesome aspects of the night’s work.
The two wound their way up and down streets in a haphazard fashion, constantly working their way toward the docks. They were being forced to take a rather circuitous route in order to avoid the guards who were still at work, and it was a meandering, serpentine trail through some of the seediest parts of the city. He turned an anxious eye up toward the sky every opportunity he had in search of the moon and its position, his internal clock constantly warning him that he was running out of time.
The smell of the sea greeted them at the same moment that he brought them a complete and sudden halt. He pushed her back into the shadows of a building and then crouched down so that he could survey the road in front of him. There was only a single intersection left for them to cross, and there was no way for him to bypass this one. They had already tried all the other possible avenues, and each of those had been more heavily guarded. Truthfully, he considered himself lucky that they had made it this far without being forced into a fight—and that made him suspicious. It had been almost too easy to avoid the groups in the streets, and they had never been forced to turn and backtrack along their own route. He had a bad feeling in the pit of his stomach, almost like he was being herded around like an animal, but there was no way for him to prove it. He had learned to listen to his gut over the years since it was rarely ever wrong, but this was one of the rare cases where he had to grit his teeth and ignore it. The moon had been starting to dip below the horizon last he saw it, and that meant he had precious little time to deliver the princess to the boat before he missed his window of opportunity..
There was only a small group standing around in the middle of the intersection. He counted five members of the town guard waiting there, and he knew that there were at least two others going up and down the streets in every direction. In all, there were likely eleven total in the area, six of whom might be inside houses or too far away to respond in time to do anything.
“Okay,” he said quietly, turning back to the princess. He appraised her quickly, taking in her slightly-rosy cheeks and her quick, shallow breaths. She was clearly getting more exercise than she was used to, but she hadn’t voiced a single complaint the entire night, and she looked ready to continue. “I’m going to create a distraction, and I need you to take advantage of it and slip past undetected when I do. There will be a small coastal runner tied at the far south pier. Tell the man on watch that you are to be taken to Captain Janos. If he plays ignorant, tell him, ‘The oath must be kept.’ Got that?”
“The oath must be kept,” she repeated, her forehead creased with the doubt and worry that was plainly reflected in her eyes. She had no idea what it meant and likely no clue what he was planning, but she seemed determined to pick up on every whispered word despite her obvious fears.
He glanced over his shoulder and saw a single pair of guards returning to those waiting and knew that his time was running out. He rushed through the rest, laying it out as clearly as he could in a hurry. “He will take you to a large ship anchored in deeper water. I don’t care what fuss they make or what bullshit they say, demand to see the captain the moment you set foot on that ship and tell him to set sail immediately. Tell him that I sent you and that all bets are off.”
“And if he doesn’t believe me?” she asked. “What then? And where will you be?”
“Hopefully with you,” he answered curtly, cutting her off before she could ask another question. “If not, then somewhere close behind. I have other ways out of the city, and I’m faster alone. If he doesn’t believe you . . .” He trailed off and winced, making a last-minute decision. He slipped his hand up the inside of her thigh until it was so high that no one but a lover would ever see it and invoked a single spark of magic. Her eyes went wide, and she shivered at his touch, gasping quietly as both he and the magic touched her, but she didn’t complain. “If he doesn’t believe you, then show him the mark. He’ll believe that,” he said, staring directly into her eyes solemnly. “That mark isn’t given lightly, and it’s a death sentence if the wrong person sees it.”
Her eyes managed to grow even larger in the dim light as the realization of what he had done struck her. “You marked me as Legion,” she muttered disbelievingly. “The rumors were true. You—”
“Time to go,” he said, standing up and cutting her off all at once. Her speculations could wait until later. She didn’t yet realize it, but she had already begun her indoctrination into a larger, seedier, and more violent world than she could ever imagine from behind the walls of the palace. Surviving tonight was only her first test, and it was going to get much worse than this. He pushed himself away from the building and calmly strolled out into the middle of the street, and he couldn’t help but wonder how many people would sacrifice their lives for her before order was restored.
“You there!” a guard shouted, pointing directly at him the moment he was visible. The entire group spun around to face him, and several started toward him before the guard even finished speaking. “Halt! In the name of the king, state your business!”
He hefted his sword in front of him, slowed his breathing to calm himself, and allowed the amusement he felt to show on his face. He ignited a second spark of magic, and a sinister black flame appeared at the base of his sword. It wound its way down his blade until it reached the tip, and he started laughing as everything aside from the seven guards in front of him slowly disappeared from his field of view.
He charged forward at an impossible speed, his first swing taking the closest guard on the left side of his stomach. His blade effortlessly sliced through both armor and flesh with equal grace, leavin
g the man with a gaping wound before he even realized that he had been attacked. He brought the sword up and to the right without ever slowing his steps and then brought the sword down at in a diagonal slash. He caught the second guard on his left shoulder, the combination of his force and the attack turning the second man to the side so that the two were facing one another. He pivoted at the last moment and rolled away, dragging his sword down across guard’s chest and instantly moving to the next. The rest were still huddled together in the middle of the intersection, clearly unable to process the unfathomable horror unfolding in front of them. Of those left, only two looked like they were capable of responding in time. He covered the distance with several long strides and launched himself into the air, his held sword high above his head in both hands, ready to cleave the next man in half.
Then he slammed into an invisible wall. He came to an instant halt and hung suspended as if an unseen hand had plucked him out of the air, still feet away from his intended target. He jerked from side to side, but try as he might, he couldn’t move. He watched the guard blink at him without understanding what was going on and then finally draw his sword after several long moments passed. As if rousing from a stupor, the other guards finally drew their weapons as well.
“Very nice,” a sickly-sweet voice cooed from one of the side streets. The sound of heels clicking across the stone pavers rang up and down the otherwise-silent streets, and he strained to turn his head to look in their direction. “I have to admit that you certainly made the chase more interesting than I expected, but every mouse is caught in the end.”
The guards turned to see who was so brazenly approaching, though not a single one made a move to stop her. She entered his limited field of view, and he felt his blood boil as he laid eyes on her. Although they had never met, he instantly knew who she was. She was the reason he had been forced to raise the flag, and she was the force behind the loss of lives and bloodshed tonight and a dozen other nights. Young, blonde, and well-proportioned, she looked like every young man’s dreams come to life. The only problem was that her heart was as cold and bloodstained as the cobbles underneath her feet.
“Yes, hate me,” she said smugly, a slight smirk playing at the edges of her mouth. “It’s too bad that your plan fell apart. And such a good plan it was. If only someone didn’t get to your friends first and convince them that they were better off on the winning side.”
His eyes flickered to the group behind her for the first time, and he realized that there were as many pirates as guards there. The two were a harsh contrast when juxtaposed next to one another, but it made sense seeing them together.
“It really is a shame that we couldn’t find common purpose,” she continued. “You would have been so useful to me.”
She slowly walked over to him and gently ran a finger down the side of his face from his temple to his jaw, and a world of pain erupted inside his head. Sparks of light flashed around the corners of his vision, and he clenched his jaws together tightly to stop himself from crying out. His head felt like it was going to explode, and that was only the beginning.
“It’s time that you were out of my way for good,” she said coldly, though her eyes appeared amused. “You led an army against this town in a desperate bid to overthrow its rightful ruler. You slaughtered the king’s guards and half the town in your quest for vengeance, and you even managed to kill the Princess Vanessa before you were brought down like a savage but cowardly animal.”
The temperature plummeted around him as she withdrew a small black orb and held it up in front of him. Her voice became muffled and distant as she motioned to the guards behind her. They rushed forward with weapons drawn, but the sounds became distant and faded as if they had traveled to his ears from down a long, enclosed hallway.
The color drained from the world as the first blade pierced into his side. The dull greys and dark blacks in the guards’ armor blurred together as the second blade stuck into his stomach. The blonde in the woman’s hair turned lighter as the third sword pierced his other side. He hung suspended, unable to move or scream though he felt every wound, and by the time they were finished, the world was dull, dreary, and monochromatic. Then, like wet ink pouring down a page, everything ran together and disappeared.
Somewhere, in the distance, he heard someone scream his name.
-----
“Wake up! Wake up!” a voice cried.
Madison woke up with a shiver and immediately wished he hadn’t. His entire body felt like it had been pressed through a ringer, and he was acutely aware of the two cuts in his side and one on his shoulder. There was a weight pressing down on top of him, covering him protectively, and the hairs on the back of his neck stood on end, and the goose pimples along his arms prickled at the magic being cast. The memories he had just relived rattled around in his head, and he felt hollow and empty as he tried to sort through them. They were unordered fragments, nothing more than glimpses into a past that he couldn’t remember, and they had little meaning or relevance without the context to go along with them.
“Foolish girl,” Garin Fane’s deep voice boomed. “That man is not even a shadow of his former self.”
“Get off me!” a girl screamed, and he felt her weight press down on him again. Madison sucked in a deep breath of air as the body made contact, and he was greeted with the hard, clean scent of ice.
“Enough!” Garin roared, and the weight was suddenly lifted just as quickly as it had appeared. “The goddess may be expecting you, so even if I can’t kill you, I’ll make your trip as miserable as I possibly can!”
“No! Stop!” Alyanna shrieked. “Damn you!”
Madison cracked his eyes open and stared up at the back of the giant’s bald head as the past was pushed aside, and the present came rushing back to him. He spat out a giant mouthful of blood, gritted his teeth together, and pressed down against the hard dirt as he rolled over onto his good side. Clutching at the lacerations with one hand, he materialized the bottle of healing drought into his other, thumbed the cork loose, and tipped the bottle up to his lips.
“You—!” Alyanna’s words were cut off and reduced to nothing more than a gasp as Garin shoved her out of the way and turned to see what had caught her attention.
Garin kicked the bottle out of his hand just as Madison felt the liquid begin to pass over his tongue, and the vial disappeared into the darkness so far that Madison didn’t even hear it hit the dirt when it landed.
“Maybe there is some life left in you,” Garin growled. He roughly shoved Alyanna away, sending her into the dirt on her rear end, and then turned and swung another kick toward Madison’s ribs.
Madison threw his arm in front of the kick protectively and shimmied backward, sliding across the ground. The toe of Garin’s boot caught him in the upper arm, but it was far better than taking another damaging blow to his ribs. He slid back toward his sword, wrapping his fingers around its hilt as soon as it was within reach. He could feel the healing drought already going to work, but some subconscious part of his brain knew that he hadn’t consumed nearly enough of it to mitigate all the damage that had already been done to him. To make matters worse, he was more or less strung out on Rush, and he had been taking a beating of one sort or another for days. His body was exhausted, he had barely eaten, and there was likely very little left in him for the magic to work with. As they had explained to him at K’yer Utane, no matter what, the magic took his natural strength and energy to speed up the healing process. It had to have something to run on and work with, and there was very little fuel left to power it in Madison’s body at this point.
Madison pushed himself up to his feet, and Garin sprang forward, rushing toward him with a speed that simply shouldn’t have been possible for someone his size. He hoisted his sword above his head as he came, slicing down toward Madison’s head in a vertical attack. Madison reacted at the last possible second, throwing his body to the side and rolling out of the way. Garin’s blade crashed down in the spot he had just bee
n standing, missing him by inches.
Garin slashed at him without even bothering to turn his body, his long sword cutting a route through the air in a backhanded attack that was intended to catch Madison off guard and decapitate him before he could get back onto his feet and into position. Unfortunately for the abusive giant, Madison was too quick, and the healing drought was doing its job. He came up in a crouch, snapping his blade him in front of him vertically, and stepped into the attack. He shifted his body to the side as the blow struck, easily turning it away from him, and then stepped in to attack Garin’s exposed back. His sword arced around in a quick attack, and the tip of his blade traced a line across the man’s shoulder blades before he could move out of the way.
Garin danced around and turned to face him, holding his sword up in front of him with his left hand while reaching around with his right to feel the wound on his back. He grimaced when he saw the bright-red blood on his hand and then flung it away angrily, splattering his blood down into the dirt.
Madison smiled to himself and focused on keeping his breathing as calm as possible. He had spent too much time fighting defensively and taking a beating, and that had made him overly cautious. His heart raced in anticipation of being struck every time the oversized humanoid made even the slightest move, and he knew that he’d never win a fight by overreacting to every small motion.
Unwilling to let up, Madison lunged forward and brought his sword down in a fast chopping motion that wasn’t designed to do anything other than to force Garin to react and move. And it worked. The man dodged to the side, and Madison turned to face him just in time to parry away a thrust that had been aimed at his ribs. He stepped toward Garin and brought his sword around in an arc from a low, underhanded angle. It was a strange attack that wasn’t likely to work in most fights, but the combination of Madison’s long reach and his close proximity made it equally hard to dodge as well.
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