by Winfred Wong
“Simple. Because,” Rogen interjected, faking a cold smile, “he wants me dead.”
“Why?” Dulais enquired after a slight pause of surprise, both gaping at him oddly. “He is on your side, isn’t he?”
“Consul Pancho wants the Knights and Consul Morph dead,” Rogen uttered nonchalantly, his hands swinging on his sides freely. “I’m one of the Knights.”
“The Knights? Consul Morph? The centaur?” Althalos blurted out.
“The Knights is an elite group of cavalry, and yeah, Morph is a centaur. I’m surprised you know that,” Dulais quipped, and Althalos replied by shielding himself with a beam. “But why are you telling me this?”
“I’m tired,” Rogen sighed with profound resignation and paused for a moment before he continued with a gloomy look. “Do you even realize I’m one of them who chased after you for the staff in front of the Flipside? You don’t, do you?”
Dulais nodded slightly embarrassedly.
“On that day, you killed Lee, a good man, a man who made me who I am today,” Rogen drawled sorrowfully, unwittingly recalling his good old days with Lee. “I wanted to revenge his death, to kill you, but I no longer want to do it now. You’re not a despicable man as I imagined, and I am now confused. Very confused. The man who are supposed to fight alongside me wants me dead, but the man who I wanted to kill, the man who are supposed to be my enemy saved my life from a man I was supposed to trust. I am uncertain about who my real enemy is,” he snorted and chortled until he choked hysterically.
Bereft of speech, Althalos regarded at Dulais, who was listening concentratedly, sillily with puzzlement in his green eyes.
“I have always wanted to become a man like him. He is a hero who would rather die than yield, a hero who would sacrifice anything for the people in need,” he continued and gulped as more and more glinting tears overflew his lids. “But now I’m really confused. I don’t know what is right to do.”
“Then help me find my brother,” Althalos entreated abruptly. “Please. I promised my sister I will find him if he is still alive. You want to be a hero like him, right? Then help me.”
Drying his eyes, searching for the tattered remnants of his rational mind, “He came with the centaur yesterday,” Rogen answered, staring blankly skyward. “I don’t know much about him. I don’t know why he came or how he met Consul Morph, but I am certain that he is your brother just by his look.”
“You are saying that he is in the castle, and he is fighting for Morph?” Dulais queried, his peering eyes rounded with wonderment, realizing that Morph had discovered Chavdar’s talent in visioning and was trying to use him.
Cast a glance at Althalos, Rogen merely nodded and uttered, “Yes. I’m sorry, but your brother is your enemy now.”
“No, no,” Althalos rebutted, twirling a lock of his hair around his finger. “I’m not one of them! I’m not one of the resistance!”
“You’re not?” Rogen shook his head. “Why are you here if you’re not?”
“Does he look like a soldier to you?” Dulais questioned, and Rogen looked him up and down, scrutinizing his feeble limbs, recalling the shivering he had.
“Well, on second thoughts, you don’t really look like one,” Rogen admitted. “But your brother is really a brilliant warrior. His every moves are impeccable. It’s like he can anticipate what his enemy is going to do. So I thought you would be like him.”
“A warrior? Chavdar?” Althalos wondered.
“A top-notch one, unarguably,” said Rogen. “Why do you look so surprised?”
“I have never even seen him wield a sword!” Althalos squeaked when an arrow was unerringly streaking in a slight arc toward Rogen from behind, its white trail thieving the darkness, and Dulais discovered it when it reached its peak in the air.
“Look out!” screeched Dulais, as he leapt over and shoved Rogen down onto the ground.
It was close, but they were uninjured as the arrow only flashed by Dulais’s cloak.
“What...?” Rogen faltered, lying beside Dulais on the dirt ground, looking at the lethal arrow that slammed at a small rock and bounced off, as Althalos was bolting away toward the closest yurt he could find.
At the moment he realized he was attacked, “Andon,” he grumbled and reached his hand to his empty sheath on his back, totally forgotten that he had dropped his sword while fighting Andon. “Damn it!”
“Don’t stand up, you’ll get shot. Whoever is shooting at us can’t see us from that far,” warned Dulais, squinting in the direction that the arrow came, looking for Andon.
“Where are all the night patrols?” Rogen mumbled, looking around with deep consideration. “There were many when I first got here.”
“Sleeping. I guess,” said Dulais.
“Look at those trees over there.” Rogen pointed squarely at some lines of scattered trees. “He might be hiding among the trees.”
As they were focused on searching for Andon, another arrow whistled through the air, sailing toward where they were lying, and, prompted by instinct, they rolled in opposite direction to dodge it.
“Did you see?” Rogen asked when Dulais rose, exposing his position, and visioned, conjuring up something. “What are you doing? Get down! You’ll get shot!”
Before long, a mysterious water spear, which was only twice the length of a dagger, suddenly appeared over Dulais’s head, and right as he wanted to counter-attack by propelling it toward where the arrow came from, he halted and set his eyes on Ernald, who sprang down from a tree sprouted up near a tall candle stand and was sprinting toward a thick tree with a dagger on each hand.
“Ernald! Catch him alive!” Dulais yelled as Ernald disappeared into the trees. “We need him alive!”
Then, some clinks and clanks of metal being struck together lingered across the silent sky, and it didn’t take long before the sounds grew dim and eventually faded away. Ernald walked out of the trees unscathed victoriously, dragging a groggy Andon behind him, leaving a trail of blood, and Dulais and Rogen ran over.
“It’s him,” Rogen murmured, as Ernald stopped and withered him with a hostile glance, though his baby face made him look strangely naive.
Took a step forward, “He’s not a threat to us,” Dulais said. “Take Andon to the yurt first. I’ll come right away.”
“He isn’t dead, is he?” Althalos, who rushed all the way from the yurt to them after the sound had vanished, whimpered, standing behind Rogen, as if he didn’t want to get too close to Andon.
“We need him alive,” Ernald crowed and carried on with his dragging.
“Kreon, Althalos,” said Dulais. “You...”
“Rogen,” Rogen corrected. “Rogen, my real name.”
“You two have to go now,” Dulais continued.
“You are letting me go!?” Rogen wondered, regarding at him vaguely. “For real?”
“Yes. Althalos, go with him,” said Dulais, firmly and wistfully, deeming this as a redemption of his sin. “Find your brother and bring him home.”
“Home? I don’t have one,” Althalos lamented.
“This is your home. You can come back to us whenever you wish,” replied Dulais. “Get to the stable now and bring two horses here.”
Feeling slightly odd as he didn’t really have a sense of belonging to this place, Althalos forced a smile, nodded and scurried away.
“Don’t get me wrong, Rogen,” said Dulais, glowering at Rogen, his eyes gleaming balefully. “I’m not letting you go because I want to. It’s because of Althalos. Help him find his brother, and you’ll still be my enemy as long as you’re still fighting for Iain, and I’ll kill you if we meet on the battlefield, without hesitation,” he emphasized. “Do you understand?”
Feeling blessed and stressed, “I owe you one,” Rogen answered, as some high-pitched arrow flying sounds suddenly echoed from above, and he looked up, but the moon wasn’t there, nor the stars, nor the clouds, but instead a rain of arrows that completely impeded the view of the dreary sky.
&nb
sp; CHAPTER TWENTY
* * *
Long after Rogen had left with Andon, Haddon began pacing around with an itchy unease evoked by a torrent of anxiety within him, and he just couldn’t pull himself together, and his hasty footsteps resounded against the castle wall.
“Haddon, come and sit down,” Nuada called, sitting on a rock, dangling his legs.
“Don’t you think he has been gone for way too long?” Haddon grumbled.
“Stop worrying about him,” Nuada giggled. “He is a grown man. He can take care of himself!”
Hissed, “He is Lee’s son! How am I supposed to stay calm, knowing that he could get himself killed?” returned Haddon.
“Haddon is right,” said Levi. “He has been gone for too long. Even if he can’t find a way to escape, the enemy should have arrived by now. It’s clear that something must have gone wrong.”
“Maybe they caught him,” Randel suggested.
“Think he blew his cover?” Chavdar asked, staring blankly at the stars in the sky, thinking about his brother.
“Maybe,” Randel said and shrugged, as Haddon’s pace became even faster.
“But if he was caught, there is no point in continuing to wait, isn’t it?” Calssen said and turned at Levi. “Centurion, what should we do now?”
“Um...” Levi uttered.
“If they’re not coming, we should take the initiative to attack,” a mysterious man, who rarely spoke, suddenly said intelligently, his big, heavy-lidded eyes glinting like he can look into the future; his untamed, fuzzy hair that had become a distinguishing feature of him was lustrous and chestnut-brown. He was short and scrawny, but his monstrous face looked intimidating.
“Johann!” Nuada shrieked in astonishment. “You speak!”
But Johann never said another word again.
Replayed what Johann had said in his head, “Calssen,” Levi called. “Go find Legate William and Legate Haylan. Inform them of the current situation and ask them to launch an all-out attack on the resistance’s camp. Tell them it’s a once in a life time opportunity to crush them, and if they concur, ride with them.”
“What if they don’t?” Calssen replied.
“Then pull rank,” Levi answered and looked at the centaur. “Consul Morph is on our side, right?”
Morph nodded in approval, and Calssen ran to the pole, mounted his horse and galloped away.
“Quickly come back after it’s done!” Haddon yelled worriedly at Calssen.
“Randel,” Levi turned at him and commanded. “Find Legate Gladwynne, tell him the same thing, and bring him here.”
“No problem,” replied Randel and immediately sprinted away.
At the second Levi’s voice just dwindled off, a huge bald eagle with a white chest and tail, short toes but long talons, fluttering, descending from the sky, suddenly appeared in his eyes, with a small roll of paper, fastened in place with a very thin hemp rope, encasing its left leg, and it hopped over toward Morph purposefully after it had landed.
Realizing that it was one of the Pancho’s beloved birds, all of them frowned, and Morph looked down at it doubtfully.
“A letter from Pancho,” Edward, who was cleaning his leather-made quaver, murmured.
Then Morph bent down and cautiously unfastened the knot of the rope, and, when the rope was detached from it, it beat its wings non-stop to hover with a lowering of the head, rising up into the air very quickly until it was at a position higher than the top of the ramparts, and it flew its way back into the castle right away.
As upon him alone all eyes were riveted, Morph rolled the letter, which was a very small piece made of linen rags, open and started reading it aloud with his sonorous voice, “Attack.”
“That’s it?” Nuada blurted out when there was a clatter of hooves as Calssen, who should be on his way to the other legions, was coming back.
“Perhaps the other legions have received the same letter,” Levi, staring at Calssen, biting his nails as in deep thinking, mumbled, as Calssen got himself off of the saddle and rushed to him.
“They’ve already set off before I arrived,” Calssen panted, as the tread of the soldiers of the legion behind them echoed, drawing their attention, and they saw Randel and Legate Gladwynne walking side by side in front of the foot soldiers, lightly armored, equipped only with a long sword, prepared to swim.
“Get on the horses!” Levi commanded, and they obeyed. “We’re riding out!”
Upon arrival, Randel went for his horse and mounted, and Gladwynne greeted Levi and said, “Centurion Levi, didn’t you receive the message from Pancho?”
“Yes, Legate Gladwynne, I received it right after I ordered my man to find you,” Levi said. “Legion one and two have already begun advancing toward the camp.”
“Let’s go,” Morph suddenly interjected impatiently and tossed away the letter angrily.
Then Levi mounted his horse and began galloping toward the rising ground, and the others trailed after him in two lines.
“We must find the staff before the others do,” Morph, arms crossed, whispered to Levi, galloping at a pace faster than their chargers with his four horse legs. “Look for that mind-wielder named Dulais. He must be carrying the staff with him. What does he look like?”
“He has a metallic left ear and a beard that wrapped around his chin.”
On behind the centaur, “Haddon, I think I can help you,” Chavdar suggested. “I’ll keep an eye out for Rogen, and, in return, you will keep an eye out for my brother, and I promise I won’t tell him Lee is his father. I don’t know why, but he doesn’t know, does he?”
Shot him an astonished glance, Haddon said, “You better not tell him.”
They rode all the way down to the foot of the rising ground, where a gust of howling wind pelted their faces, and dismounted.
Unable to crawl with his huge trunk, “I’ll wait here,” Morph said.
And then they began trudging up the slope single file with Levi walking up front.
Midway up the slope, Levi, peering farther up, halted, turned around and said to Haddon walking behind him, “Go up there and make sure we aren’t walking into an ambush.”
“Sure thing,” Haddon said and scurried up, and, as he almost reached the top, he crawled the last few inches to avoid being seen and to gaze out at the camp, though the tightly fastened armor constrained his movements.
He looked left and right, from the tiniest dirt on the flat ground to the thickest branches of the tall trees, which obstructed him from discovering the camp, from the farthest enormous range of mountains to the most undetectable ants marching right in front of his nose, but all he saw was just an uninhabited plain, and, right as he looked back at Levi over his shoulder and shrugged, he happened to see a man, wearing the standard bronze armor of a Austhun soldier, waving his hand at him from the far right, on the other side of the slope, and he pointed to that man, signalling Levi to look at him.
Glancing away, Levi vaguely saw an army of about six thousand soldiers, who he had overlooked in the dark, advancing stealthily, some going on all fours, some climbing over rocks, on some uneven small hills farther behind the waving man, and so, automatically considering them as legion one and two, he commanded, in a whispering tone, “This way.”
On approaching, about a hundred archers, carrying long bows, suddenly left their legions and hastened toward where the waving man was, and, when they arrived, they formed a line behind him, crouched, and stayed still.
“Aren’t they going to shoot?” Chavdar asked.
“They’re waiting for us to pass,” Randel said, as they scuttled faster with light steps with Haddon straggling behind.
And, as they passed by them and joined the legions, the archers glided out arrows from the cone-shaped quivers tied firmly on their back, their movements deft and beautiful as a result of incessant training they had undergone, nocked it, raised the bow, drew the bowstrings toward their faces and waited steadily for order.
Then, Legate William, star
ing at the man in front of the archers, nodded in approval and whispered, “Do it.”
The man then swung down his arm determinedly as a silent signal to fire, and the archers all released their fingers, letting go their chords, at the same time, sending the deadly arrows into the sky, and the dense clouds of arrows that shielded the moon rained down on the camp mercilessly in a rainbow arc and lacerated many of the inattentive soldiers resting laxly inside the yurts and tents.
The synchronized rumblings and vibrations of the bowstrings striking the armguards of the archers intermingled with the tormenting screeches and barking yawps of the injured resistance’s soldiers, evoking Chavdar’s distressing memory of the destruction of Ayrith, and, an unendurable wave of queasiness swamped him, crashing through his stomach, threatening to bubble up from his belly. He almost yielded to it, but, knowing that Althalos was so close, he somehow smothered it and visioned to turn all the audible sounds into visible words, doing what he had done in Ayrith before to alleviate the nausea.
Then the archers released a second wave of arrows, maximizing their impact on the battlefield, but, as the arrows plummeted down on the ground like a sprinkle of drizzle, this time there were no more screeches and yawps, instead were sharp clinks of deflected arrows and squelches of shafts hitting the ground.
Crept his way to Legate Haylan and Legate William, who were slouching against the same big rock and munching on some toasts, Levi said, “Heard the sounds? We should begin our attack now. Now is a good chance.”
“They’re deflecting our arrows, and you call that a good chance?” William rebutted provocatively.
“Their attention are now wholly drawn to the arrows that drop randomly from the sky, which means it’s highly likely that if we sneak in and creep up on them now, they won’t be able to spot us and react quickly,” Levi explained calmly. “What do you think, Legate Haylan?”
“Well, you’ve got a point there,” Haylan replied. “William?”
William didn’t give a verbal response. He furrowed his brows, crawled up the slope with his legion behind him, hardly making any noise, and crouched as he walked toward the camp frustratedly when he reached the top, taking the lead.