by S E Zbasnik
“Oh,” was all Marco said in response.
“But…” That obstinate drive inside of her, the rash of certainty that would burn hotter than any flame, suddenly evaporated as she realized her plan. She was going to climb up a well, leap into an open battle, and try to save not only her knight but everyone else. It was truly madness with no chance in hell. “I’m glad you came,” she admitted. Marco was huge and probably skilled. Even if he wasn’t, people’d turn and run in terror at the sight of him.
He seemed to laugh over the trembling surf, the boy’s toes nearly trodding into Hayley’s when his fingers slid right over hers. Marco moved to yank his hand away, but Hayley gripped onto them. Her arm screamed at the weight tugging back on her as she maneuvered him back to the safe handhold.
“Don’t fall,” she said, spitting out musty lake water that sprayed into her mouth. Her face drifted close to Marco’s as the pair hung tight to the cliffside. A second large wave splattered clean up their backs, causing Hayley to nearly face plant into the rocks.
“Got it,” he said. Together, they both made it around the final bend in the rock to sneak inside the cave. Or whatever it was called. Cove? Did lakes have coves? It didn’t matter. The area was covered on two and a half sides. A small opening beside them and a larger across the way let in just enough moonlight for Hayley to realize one tiny little flaw in her plan.
There were no more rocks to lead to the rope.
“We’re gonna have to swim,” she said, her body slowly easing in a circle until she could face their objective. “Please tell me you can swim!”
“I can,” Marco shouted.
“Thank god, ‘cause there’s no way I could carry you.” She drew her hands down her soaked pants and reached for the sword at her hip. Just stay inside that scabbard. If she lost that, then…this plan already had ten thousand chances of going sideways, what was one more?
Tucking her knees, Hayley moved to leap in, when Marco spoke, “You would try?”
Swiping the last of the lake spray off her face, Hayley turned to the barely visible form beside her and she snickered. “Course I would.” With a cheeky smile, and a hand pinning her cap in place, she leapt clean into the freezing cold water. Impenetrable blackness overtook her, the chill trying to chew apart her flesh but she fought through. Her arms paddled against the draw of the lake spirits. Every yank from them downwards encouraged Hayley to give two up. Kicking her legs fast, she felt a parting over the top of her head.
As she breached the surface, her entire face froze solid. “Shit!” she cursed loudly, “stupid, so stupid. So, god damn stupid. Next time I do a water rescue in s-s-summer.”
Luckily, the rope was easy to spot, like a fat snake hanging off a tree knot. Hayley paddled her way towards it with ease when she paused and glanced around. Where was Marco?
He didn’t lie about being a swimmer, did he? Or did he get confused in the darkness and swim down? Shit! Hayley lifted up a hand and shouted, “Mar…”
A great mass erupted from right beside her. She yelped, her treading form shattering in shock as Hayley slipped further into the water. When a somewhat warm hand gripped onto her shoulder to yank her back up, she gasped.
“Christ, Marco,” Hayley whipped her head back and forth to try and clear away all the water that clogged her ears. “You damn near scared me soulless.” Her heart was like a pile of drums hurled down a staircase, each beat throbbing down to her aching toes.
“Sorry,” he muttered.
“Just…let’s get to the rope,” Hayley tried to command as if she was in charge. Why was she in charge? Reaching for the great line, Hayley got a grip, stared up into the long dark tunnel with a hint of light at the end, and froze.
It was a straight climb to the well, a straight climb without anything she could use as leverage.
“I…I can’t do this. I can’t climb this,” Hayley insisted. “You go.” She tried to hurl the rope towards Marco but it was locked to an anchor or something under the water.
“What of you?” The boy seemed worried about her as if she’d be in danger. She was forcing him to head into that quagmire all alone because…because she didn’t do like Gavin told her.
“I’ll be fine,” Hayley shrugged. “Swim back to the shore…” Both glanced towards the rocky cliff, realizing that without help there was no way they could reach the top to climb up. “It’s a nice night to stay in the water?”
“Climb,” Marco ordered and Hayley pickled her face. She was tired of people telling her what to do. Tired of boys acting as if they knew what was best for her. Tired of… “Please?” He pleaded and she swung her head back to it.
“Fine.” Hooking her first hand around the rope, Hayley launched her body out of the water as far as she could. The next grab inched her maybe a foot higher, but it was something. “When I fall and take you down with me, it’ll be all your fault!” she shouted, her hands making quick work to finally free her feet from the freezing water.
Thank god the rope was wide enough she could about just slide the tip of her shoe on it to help get a grip. Scrabbling against the pull of the earth, Hayley kept putting one hand over the other. She heard Marco emerge from the water, and as he climbed, the rope swung away from her.
Shit, shit, shit! Her fingers slipped, Hayley sliding down the rope. Pain burned up both palms as she dug in tight, clinging with everything inside of her to keep from falling. At least it’d be water under her and not ground. She’d probably not die if…when she fell.
“Hayley?” the damn boy’s voice sounded way too close. How far did she fall down? How much did she lose? How was she so bad at this?
Not at climbing the rope — though she was god awful at it. How was she so bad at all of this living shit? Whenever she tried, it just…fell apart. What was the point of trying?
“I can’t do it!” she screamed, wet hair dripping down her cheeks as she burrowed her face tighter to the rope.
“Yes you can,” stubborn ass Marco insisted. Maybe he wanted to watch her fail. Maybe it was funny to him. “Hayley, look.”
Maybe he liked it when her puny heart crumbled in her chest.
She was mad at herself for being weak, for walking the only person who ever even tried with her into an ambush, and for thinking she had some answer to fixing her mistake. Clinging to the rope until dawn and bawling seemed to be all she was good for.
“Please look up,” he was pleading, his arms straining in the climb.
Something in the tone struck through the wallowing, Hayley angry that he wouldn’t let her be. Spitting venom at the world, Hayley did as commanded. She planted her chin into the rope and gazed up. The light looked far in the distance still, but there was something dark and solid not even four feet above her.
“You’re almost at the ground. You can use that to help you get up,” Marco kept cheering her on.
“Thanks,” she whispered, snot building in her nose. Rather than wipe it away, she climbed higher. The reach was small, Hayley screaming at her shoulders to pull, waggling her legs to push off with a leap. When her foot kicked into a wall of mud, she smiled widely. “I hit it!”
Taking all her anger and frustration out on the wall, Hayley formed her own kicking ladder. Each bash of her foot raised her higher up the rope, her hands hanging on but the deadly strain in her shoulders abetting. “How are you doing down there?” Hayley called, her tone back to normal now that they were making progress.
“Good,” Marco called out.
“I can see the edge of the well better. There’s a few slats over it we can use to climb out, but nothing directly impeding it,” she shouted down to the boy she pulled into this.
“Hay…Hayley. There’s…” Marco’s voice stuttered as if he was frozen. She tried to peer down, but only darkness and a glint of moonlight on rocky waves was visible. “A thing. Something that I kept wanting to…in the letters to you.”
“Uh huh,” she said to fill time. Her ears strained for the sounds of battle. While it fill
ed her veins with dread to hear metal bashing into metal and people gasping and grunting, it also meant they weren’t too late. Just have to get out of the well and find Gavin. No problem. Not as if he wasn’t dressed the same as every other knight there. Not as if it was a pitch black night and there were swords swinging every which way.
“I just…I think that. What I need to say is…”
Christ’s nails, get on with it. He was much better in written form, probably because he’d take the time to cut out all the um’s, uh’s, and restarts. Hayley dug her feet in deep to the side of the wall and strained to reach a wooden slat above her head. She almost had it, just one more go.
Marco’s bellow echoed through the tight space, “I think you’re pretty!”
Hayley’s fingers fully swiped past, nearly pitching her shocked body right off the rope and into the water below. “You…huh?” she gasped, her rope-burned palms struggling to get a grip while her mind tumbled in a circle. He thought she was pretty? Why? In what world would she be considered pretty?
“I wanted to-to tell you, but it…it seemed like…”
“Marco,” Hayley clung by her nails, trying to fight the urge to upend her meager dinner from how her body spun around. “I think you’re…” Shit, she’d never thought of him as anything. He was a squire. He did squire shit. She barely saw him save a few moments here and there over the past six months.
He wrote to her. He came with her. He stood up for her. “You’re nice, and I…” For a flash, Finn burst through her brain as if she should be loyal to him, as if she owed him anything. “I like you,” Hayley kinda sorta lied. She did think he was okay, his letters were pleasant. She just…needed time to sort through all of that boy stuff. When did it get so stupidly complicated? “But we need to get out of this well.”
“Got it,” he called from below, but his voice sounded jubilant, almost as if he was about to break into song. Not gonna bite you in the ass at all there, Hayley.
Nodding her head like mad, as if she could find sense within the nonsensical, Hayley inched higher and finally got a good grip onto the wooden slat. Splinters burrowed into her fingers, but she ignored the pain as her palm lashed further on. Her small body dangled off the hammered-on plank, legs kicking wildly through the air until Hayley managed to scrunch up her knees.
Scrabbling with all the scrabble inside of her, Hayley tugged herself from the pitch dark well lit only by moonlight and out…into hell.
Shadows of wicked red licked the walls, screams beckoning them onward to eternal damnation. The air stank of iron, both rusted and fresh, along with the ever-present stale sweat and fear. Metal crunching sounds punctuated every waft of the light as if the fires themselves were carried by creatures made of steel. Digging her fingers into the cold stones of the well, Hayley dragged her stomach across the splintered wood and rolled into the wet grass.
Dear god, she made it. Pain radiated up her calves as if she hadn’t used them in a week, but she was standing. She moved to unsheathe her sword when a hand bashed into the wooden planks.
“Um, Hayley,” Marco mumbled from below. “I can’t fit through.”
“Hang on!” Waving her cheap ol’ longsword through the air, Hayley dug it under the first plank and began to wedge it up higher. A crack erupted through the air, both bolts popping free. Yanking the board to the side, Hayley let it collapse back onto the other half of the well as she reached a hand out for Marco’s.
Together, they both hauled him up into the hellish starlight. Her eyes bugged out of her head and biceps screamed at the strain until he managed to hook a knee to the stone lip and pulled himself the rest of the way. In stumbling free, his great foot caught on a stone and Marco nearly fell face first onto Hayley.
She couldn’t make out much in the darkness until a sweaty forehead bashed into hers. “Damn it!” Hayley tried to shake away the pain and burst of white sparks in her eyes while Marco staggered up to his full height.
“Sorry, sorry, I…” he muttered, a hand curling over the point of contact on his forehead. By the murderous fires, he looked as if half of his skin was crispy and burnt.
“It’s fine,” Hayley mumbled, trying to shake it off when she caught a hint of his teeth by the weak light. He never seemed to smile much, but he found plowing into her funny? God, was he just like Finn?
Marco’s eyes darted around her face, his huge frame bending over towards her. Really close towards her. Way too close towards her. Shit. She shouldn’t have lied to him, sort of lied. This was not the time to-to…what the hell would she do if she had to kick him too? Still, Hayley didn’t dodge away, her confused lips pressed tight together in the off chance they suddenly needed to purse.
His overwhelming shadow eclipsed the light, rendering Hayley into nearly total darkness. For a breath, she shut her eyes, waiting for the inevitable, when a breeze blew past her face. She found Marco stooped over, picking something up off the ground.
“You dropped this…” he muttered, placing the lost cap into Hayley’s grateful fingers.
“Th-thank you,” she gasped, a hand drawing through her naked hair in shock. She hadn’t even felt it fall. Jamming the cap back where it belonged, she inched closer towards Marco.
“You’re always, well not always but, to me always, um, wearing it. Thought it must be…” his words faded to an empty whistle and she smiled her thanks.
A bloody scream, complete with foaming pink sludge and gurgles erupted from behind her. Hayley spun in place, edging away from the safety of a bush that grew near the well. As her eyes adjusted to the glow of firelight, her heart stopped dead in her chest.
It was a massacre. Bodies lay crumpled in the mud, bootprints splattered across the dull metal of useless armor as people ran back and forth over the corpses of their comrades in arms. Some weren’t dead, their mouths agape and eyes aghast as they screamed for help that wouldn’t be coming. Everywhere was blood, standing pools of it unable to leech into the oversaturated dirt. The sheen of moonlight gave the ground a crimson opalescent glare. It looked like it’d been raining blood from the very heavens.
“What do we do?” Marco boomed behind her as if she had a plan. As if this was a good idea. Why didn’t they try to stop her? Why didn’t anyone with half a brain grab her arm and keep her from running straight to her own death?
Hayley’s lips popped apart, a gurgle burning up her throat as fear crackled through her veins. She wanted to go home. To climb into her pantry bed, pull the blanket over her head, and forget the puddles of blood leeching from gaping mouths.
“Hayley?”
“Find Gavin. Get him to call the retreat,” she repeated her thoughts with her eyes slammed closed, breathing through her mouth. One more blast of blood and shredded offal would send her leaping back into the well.
“Okay…” Marco nodded, as if that was easy, as if they had any chance of figuring out who was who below all the clanging metal. Some were in full plate, others three quarters. A few wore just leathers, though those seemed to be soaking into the ground to feed maroon daisies. Hayley stared around the mess when she caught a flash of the familiar. One hand dangling limply by the side, the other defiantly swinging a sword. Bloody hair plastered to the forehead, and the legs trying to slide back from the attacker who wouldn’t give an inch.
Hayley’s legs fell numb, her fist tightening around the grip of her sword. She should be scared, all she knew was fighting a wooden dummy in the middle of a forest. But anger bubbled over the terror — both mashing together in a discordant harmony to drive Hayley shrieking forward.
“Tish!” she screamed, her eyes upon the squire about to buckle to an enemy’s blows. In the cacophony of battle, Hayley’s cries were drowned out in pain, but she powered on through the blood puddles. Gore sloshed up her legs and splattered into the frozen lake water as she lifted her sword up.
Her back smashed to a wall, Tish’s entire side rattling. She screamed in agony when the sword finally fell out of her hand. The monster attacking h
er eyed up the easy kill, raised his weapon high to win the day, and…
Three feet of metal slammed into the back of his ribs. Hayley kept rushing forward until the point of her sword jammed into the interior of his breastplate. She expected a scream, or for him to shriek in rage and rip her away. A small gasp, like she accidentally kicked a man in the shins, was all that rattled out of the attacker’s lips.
Tumbling to a knee, the monster pulled Hayley with, nearly wrenching her sword out of her grip. She stumbled to keep up, accidentally twisting the blade around whatever guts she stabbed through. Blood gurgled from the hole in his flesh, weeping up to the surface of his doublet. The man kept gasping, breath rattling around from his nose, down his throat, and out the hole Hayley punctured through his ribcage. She watched in fascinated horror as white bubbles began to rise in the blood swarming her blade.
You need your sword back. You need to fight. You can’t keep staring at this dying man. This man you killed.
Placing her palm directly into the sticky, pulsing-hot blood, Hayley wrenched back with her sword arm. A great sucking noise erupted out of the hole, and as blood rushed to fill the empty space, the man flopped over onto his stomach — unlikely to ever rise again. Her face paled, Hayley’s lips turning blue as she stared down at the dead man. She flexed the bloody palm over and over as if she needed to rub all the gore back into the hole. Fill him up like an empty bucket to feed the geese; that’d fix the problem up.
Hands grabbed onto her shoulders, twisting her in place. She lashed out with her sword, but Tish was quick to dodge. “Hayley?” the girl gasped. “What are you doing here?”
“Th-th-there’s a,” she swallowed deep and walled away the scared little girl in the mud. “I need to find Gavin.”
“Why?”
She flinched. There was no way anyone else on this battlefield would believe her, no way anyone else would blow the retreat. She knew only her knight would do the right thing. Hoped.