Death Flag

by Richard Haygood

  Madison tried to shuffle back quickly, but when he felt Alyanna press up against his back, he knew that he was out of room to maneuver with. He dematerialized his sword as quickly as he could, stashing it away in his inventory, and then dropped down into a crouched position as the man with the cudgel swung toward his head again. The bludgeon sailed by harmlessly overhead, and Madison shot up to his feet again at the same time. He caught the man around his chest and shoulder and pushed back. It wasn’t much, but it was enough to throw the man off balance and send him back into the pressing crowd. The fellow collided with several others, giving Madison the opportunity that he needed to drop back down and grab one of the short wooden cudgels that had been dropped. It wasn’t much compared to his sword, but at least he could maneuver it in close quarters.

  Someone struck out with a kick as Madison stood back up, and his face exploded with pain. Garin had already shattered his nose during the fight earlier, and this was just like reopening an old would. He felt a sickening feeling rise up in his stomach, and before he could choke it down and refocus his attention, someone kicked him again. Madison teetered back onto his heels, and he was very afraid that he was going to topple over completely for a moment.

  Somehow, Alyanna was there to save him once again. Her sword flashed out above his head in quick, practiced strokes, and she deftly maneuvered her blade from first one victim to the next with seemingly little rhyme or reason to her attacks. They were all fast horizontal and diagonal attacks, and she moved from one to the next as seamlessly as if she had been doing this her entire life. She caught one man across the forearm, causing him to drop his weapon outright, and she caught another in the upper arm with a slash. None did a tremendous amount of damage, but they were all harrying and efficient.

  Madison pushed himself back to his feet then, coming up to the left a bit so that she would still have room to get out of the way, and picked up where she left off. He slammed the cudgel down into the first man’s head he could reach and was rewarded with a crack as his skull gave way. Someone caught him in the right side with a sword slash that he wasn’t even aware of until he felt it stop dead on to his armor. The bodies were pressed in so closely together at this point that he had very little room to maneuver, but that also meant that they had very little room to attack with as well. The person with the sword jabbed at his stomach again, trying to make it past the armor there, and then someone threw themselves forward from the center of the pack, trying to break through his defenses. Whether it was intentional or just a result of the crowd pressing forward, it was one of the few things he had very little defense against. Madison automatically threw up both hands in front of him at the last possible moment and shrank back away from the attack, but he had nowhere to go. His fingers sank down into the soft flesh of the man’s face, but then someone struck him across his head with a cudgel.

  Little pricks of spinning colors sprang up in his vision, and he staggered to the side before he was able to stop himself. He was aware of what was going on around him, but everything surged by as if in slow motion. The man who had thrown himself forward reached up from the ground, grabbing Madison by the ankles, and someone else drove into him from the side. Madison was driven sideways and off to the right, leaving Alyanna completely exposed to the horde trying to reach her. He crashed down into the same tent he had sent someone into earlier with a man on top of him and a man underneath.

  He felt his anxiety skyrocket when he realized that Alyanna was completely exposed. She had already proven that she was capable with a sword, but standing against an onrushing mob alone was complete madness. He reached up and grabbed the man on top of him by the shirt and struck him across the face as hard as he could with his mailed fist. Madison reached back for a second blow, and the man underneath him twisted to the side, trying to get the weight of both men off of him, and Madison’s punch went wide. He felt a pair of hands wrap around his legs and a weight press down on them, and he looked up just in time to see the crowd press toward him.

  There was a loud roar off to the west then that echoed through the night air above the sound of battle and brought almost everything to a screeching halt. The handful of people in the nucleus of the mob kept fighting, but everyone else in the back and middle stopped and peered around curiously as if trying to figure out what they had just heard. The roar was repeated again, and this time it was punctuated with the sound of men screaming.

  Madison twisted to the side just in time for someone to punch him in the face. The man’s fist crashed down into his eye socket with uncanny precision, and Madison lashed out blindly. His fingers dug into the man’s throat as if he were going to strangle him, though Madison knew better than to waste the time with that. When the man grabbed for Madison’s wrists, he withdrew his hands and then punched him across the face once again. He felt the man’s jaw crack as his fist smashed into it, and Madison saw him spit up a mouthful of blood a moment later. He rolled the now-delirious slaver off with an awkward, one-handed shove and then sat up. The man underneath him shifted again, but Madison was halfway onto the ground at this point, and it did little to upset him this time.

  He reached down and grabbed ahold of the slaver who was lying across his feet, but he couldn’t budge the large man. The man fought back when he realized what was going on, grabbing ahold of Madison’s vambraces and sliding back little by little. Madison’s torso was pulled forward into an awkward position for a moment, forcing all the air out of his lungs, but he managed to twisted around to the side a moment later and pulled his right leg free. Madison slammed the heel of his boot down into the man’s head from above a moment later and then repeated the gesture twice more.

  The slaver released his hold on Madison, and he quickly took advantage of the freedom. He ripped the knife free from his boot as quickly as he could and rolled forward, slashing out wildly. The man threw his hands up protectively in order to cover his face, and Madison watched as his knife ripped through the flesh on the back of the man’s hands. He twisted to the left and stabbed into the man’s abdomen and then rolled over so that he was on his stomach and jabbed the tiny blade down into the man underneath him as well. He kicked the man in the face once again, silencing his screams of pain, and then scrambled back to his feet.

  The roar echoed out again from the west, and people began turning away from the fight in front of them out of curiosity and concern. They wanted to know what was going on, and they apparently weren’t getting enough action here to satiate them. Madison dematerialized the knife rather than replacing it, and he had his sword back in his hands a moment later.

  “Time to go!” he shouted. He leapt forward, clearing the man at his feet, and slammed into several people who had been harassing Alyanna. Two people were bowled out of the way, and Madison turned to the side, bringing down a massive two-handed attack from above, effectively splitting the rest of the mob off from the girls. Erin had moved up to help Alyanna hold her position when Madison was taken out of the picture, and while it didn’t appear that the healer was doing much in the way of offensive fighting, she was able to turn away the crude cudgels and swords with her staff rather efficiently. “Go!” he shouted again. He reached out and grabbed Erin by the shoulder and pushed her toward the collapsed tent, back the way he had just come from. She spun away in front of Alyanna, thankfully before anyone could attack her, and then deftly cleared the bodies there.

  “Hold here!” he told Alyanna then spun around to Shayna and Lord Fox. He hadn’t had time to check on them at all since the onset of the fight, but it didn’t look like they had needed any help. There were a handful of bodies on the ground in front of them, mostly piled up around Fox’s feet, and the two seemed to have worked out a strange system of watching each other’s blind spots. Shayna was playing defensively and turning her attackers into Fox, who was fast enough with the sword that he was able to take them apart bit by bit.

  “We’re leaving!” he shouted just as Fox stabbed into a man’s ribs. Madison ducked behind h
im and Alyanna, grabbed Shayna, and pushed her after her sister. “Now!” He lashed out with a low kick and nailed a man who stepped into the spot Shayna vacated in the shin just as he pressed forward. He then pressed forward with his sword and thrust it into the side of the man’s stomach. He saw Fox spare him a glance out of the corner of his eye as he retracted his sword, and then the older man disappeared from sight. Madison might have had to press Erin and Shayna out of the way, but Fox was clearly as intent on escaping as ever.

  He brought his blade up, intercepting a sword stroke from his right side, and then dodged in the same direction in order to avoid one from the left. He felt a hand on his shoulder, and he somehow knew that it was Alyanna and not an attacker. She slowly guided him backward while he parried two more sword thrusts from the man on his right. The second one was sloppy, and Madison couldn’t pass up the opportunity. He stepped forward and raked his sword across the man’s upper arm. The slaver screamed out in pain and turned away, but Madison didn’t follow it up, instead dancing back and out of the way of yet another attack from his left.

  He felt Alyanna remove her hand, and Madison was finally turned so that both waves were pressing toward him. He stabbed to his left in order to make space there and then immediately back to his right before turning and jumping as hard as he could. He cleared the stack of bodies he knew was in the way and came down near the other side of the crumpled tent, almost landing on top of Alyanna. He stutter-stepped past her, grabbing her wrist as he went, and took off running. The other three were already waiting just ahead, and when they saw him coming, they started moving again as well.

  “Keep going west!” Madison shouted to them. Shayna threw up her hand in recognition of the fact that she heard him and then made a beeline directly toward another campfire.

  It seemed as if most of the people had emptied out of that particular campsite. They were likely the same ones who had been waiting on the road, and the small group was able to streak through the camp unmolested. Madison ran directly through the small campfire, intentionally kicking it up and scattering it everywhere since he was the last to run through, and a shower of sparks and red-hot embers flew up into the night sky before slowly wafting down. His only intention was to make it harder for anyone following behind to keep up by plunging them into darkness and forcing them to protect their face from the cinders and ashes as they drifted through the air. What he got, instead, was the start of another small fire. The embers were carried into an open tent, and something inside caught fire almost immediately. The heavy canvas was thick enough that it didn’t immediately catch fire, likely due in part to the recent rains, but a thick black smoke began trailing out almost immediately.

  Although he never saw the smoke, Madison considered his small feat a success. He risked a glance over his shoulder as they exited the camp and turned west on another road. and he was satisfied when he didn’t see anyone following them. Their impromptu escape was enough to give them a small breather for the moment even though they were still behind enemy lines. The farther west they moved, however, that began to change. There were streams of people heading in both directions, and they were often running with weapons drawn. The ones heading back the way Madison had just come from were wide-eyed and screaming in panic, and those moving west were clearly drunk and looking for trouble. They fell in behind one such group, unable to pass them for the stream of people going back the opposite way, and Madison took a moment to get an appraisal of the situation.

  He pushed Alyanna a bit closer to the others so that he could lean over and talk to them without having to stop or slow down. They were moving at little more than a brisk walk, and it was likely the last chance they would have to communicate before exiting the camp. If something happened between now and then, he wanted everyone to be as prepared as possible. He also wanted to find out how badly they might have been injured during that last scuffle.

  “What’s everyone’s status?” he asked in a low tone that was barely loud enough to carry forward to Shayna, who had taken up position in the lead.

  She didn’t turn to answer, instead choosing to focus on the groups in front of her like a vigilant dog would when watching for intruders, and Fox answered for her. “The young girl took a few cuts to her torso, but I doubt that they are anything too serious. I have a stab wound on my left shoulder, but I will be fine until it can be properly tended to.”

  “Nothing too serious then, I’m assuming. It pains me to say this, Erin, but remember what Burke told us. If something goes awry, you know who to take care of first. I need to make this clear to everyone else as well: If we get separated, keep going west. Find Warren and get to Stargrave. Got it?”

  “Those medicines that you gave me are quite remarkable. Despite my prior abuse I still feel—”

  Fox was cut off when a loud, gravely cry rang out from much closer than before, and a second one echoed it almost instantly just slightly to the north. Madison laughed at the noise before he could catch himself. He knew all too well what it was, even if the others hadn’t caught on yet.

  “What in the world is—”

  Fox was cut off yet again when someone bumped into Madison from behind, pushing him forward into the older man who couldn’t seem to finish a sentence without an interruption. Madison caught Fox and then himself, spinning around almost immediately to find out what was happening. He was genuinely hoping that it was just someone a little too eager to get west as fast as possible, and he growled in frustration when he saw who it was. The man’s eyes went wide in shock, and Madison launched himself toward the greasy-haired drunkard he had left behind only moments ago.

  The man stopped dead in his tracks when he realized who he had run into, and the tightly-knit group behind almost bowled him over, but there was a moment of hesitation before anyone made a move. Madison took advantage of the small lull and surged forward, his sword sweeping through the air in a fast, tight arc aimed at the man’s throat. He had absolutely no idea how this lecherous creep kept making it out alive each and every time they met, but he was ready to put an end to it.

  His aim was true, but someone shoved the man out of the way before his sword could reach him. The man went tumbling forward and off the side of the roadway before crashing into a heap, and Madison’s sword sliced through the second man’s chest. He may have saved his friend, but it was going to cost him his life. Madison brought his blade around without slowing the momentum and then thrust it forward. The man was so shocked by the open wound that had suddenly appeared in his chest that he didn’t even try blocking Madison’s attack. The blade plunged deep into his stomach, and Madison pushed forward with the follow through, driving the man back into the cluster of people there. Men went flying in every direction as they tried to get out of the way, and Madison didn’t stop until the man tripped over backward, pulling his body off of the sword as he fell.

  Madison saw a blade flash through the air out of the corner of his eye, and he twisted away from it just in time. The metal blade bounced off his shoulder pauldrons with a loud clang that made his left ear ring. He growled in annoyance as he turned and slashed at the man who had attacked him. His hearing still hadn’t completely cleared up in his other ear, and now he was going to have to deal with ringing in this one as well. The man parried his attack and tried to step backward, but his heels ran up against a wooden crate, and he tripped over backward, falling onto his back. Madison pounced forward before the slaver even hit the ground, driving the tip of his sword down toward his head. His blade bit into the side of the man’s neck and buried in the ground, cleaving his throat in half. Madison rolled forward with his momentum, pulling his sword free, and then sprang to his feet.

  “Let’s go!” he shouted, challenging the whole lot. “I’m sick of this running around shit! Fight me!” He grabbed a sack and threw it back at them as a means of continuing his taunt, and something that looked like flour flew up into the air, coating the men there. They didn’t hesitate any longer. The group surged forward with the
front row jumping over the same box and past the dying man, and Madison turned and ran.

  Ironically, he had absolutely no desire to continue fighting at the moment. The events of the past few days were finally starting to take their toll, and he could feel the energy sap away from him with every thrust of his sword. Even picking up his feet and running was starting to become a bit of a chore, and he could definitely go for a nice, short nap that lasted for a couple of days. He had lost a ton of blood, and it felt like he had reopened at least one of the three wounds on his side. He had no way of healing himself or to stop the bleeding, and it was only a matter of time until someone else caught up with him as well. His armor had been his saving grace in that last fight. There were far too many people for him to keep in check, and they had rained down several blows before he even realized that he was being attacked. If not for his armor, he would have already been turned into a bloody pincushion already. All his woes aside, his primary concern was getting everyone else out of the camp, and that was currently impossible.

  He had been counting on Warren to create a distraction, and it sounded like the rogue had delivered. He listened as men shouted ferociously, and two creatures roared in the distance. He had no idea how Warren had found two stone golems instead of one, but their cries were distinct and separate. The problem was that the camp was simply too big, and there were far too many people. He had no idea what the destructive potential of the golems was or what their staying power on the field might be, but he knew that it wasn’t enough. Alyanna had already been recognized once, and the pirates knew for certain that she and Fox were on the move to make an escape even if everyone else didn’t. The news would get around to everyone else now that someone had seen her, and it was only a matter of time until that happened. That meant he had to create another distraction. And, once again, he was it.