Windcatcher: Book I of the Stone War Chronicles

by A. J. Norfield

  “High-General Corza requests your presence at the south end. We’re here to take over,” said Sebastian in his most fluent Kovian, while pointing over his shoulder with his thumb.

  Hearing the shouts and yelling coming from the south end of the harbor, both guards knew better than to second guess a High General’s order; they took off, right away.

  Raylan waited until they were both out of sight, and then pushed open the door. The room was dark, with just a bit of light coming from two oil lamps in the corner. Two soldiers looked up at them. They appeared to play some sort of card game; a third, who ignored all of them, was busy sharpening his sword.

  Looking at the face of the third soldier, Raylan’s heart skipped a beat as the adrenaline kicked in. It was one of the soldiers with his face marked as a skull. As if a dark shadow had fallen over the soldier’s face and ripped the skin off. It was not so much the look of the soldier that jolted Raylan’s alertness; he could feel an ice-cold murderous vibe coming off him. The same came from the other two at the stone arch. Back then, he had been lucky enough not to end up face-to-face with them, but that would not be the case, this time.

  Being so close to the soldier, Raylan saw a lot more detail on the marked face. His white eyes stared out of black rings around the eyes, and his nose was completely blacked out to match the look of a skull; but his mouth was the eeriest part.

  It must have been tattooed on. Raylan could not imagine a person being alive, if what he saw was truly the case. From afar, it had seemed the two soldiers at the stone arch had no skin below their nose, showing a row of teeth and muscles on the jaw. Now that he was closer, he saw that it was indeed a tattoo, too real for comfort. The tattoo design completely covered the jaw and cheeks of his face. It gave the impression the soldier was always slightly smiling, without lips or skin. The back and top of the head was completely colored black, as if a liquid shadow seeped over his face, like tar.

  “Who’re you?” said one of the card players.

  The question was lost on Raylan, being too occupied with the only armed soldier in the room. Besides, during the day he had quickly learned not to react, at all, to any foreign language directed at him. Sebastian would answer in his place, which would be the only time he needed to close the gap to this highest threat.

  He heard Sebastian stutter some words. He looked back and saw Sebastian’s face locked on the skull-faced soldier. Raylan saw the fear in his eyes. It disrupted his concentration and blatantly revealed any inexperience in the Kovian language. Instead of quelling the guards’ suspicion, it instantly raised their alertness for this surprise visit.

  Raylan expected it would not matter. He closed the distance to the armed soldier. The others would need to get around them, to reach their swords, although he did notice the dagger on the table. They would easily take control of the situation.

  As he reached for his sword, he heard Sebastian speak to him in the Terran language, shattering any of the ruse that they might have had left.

  “Raylan, no. We need to get out. He’s one of the Darkened,” his friend yelled.

  But it was too late to turn back now. Raylan had already reached for his sword and began to draw. Turning his back on the man, and fleeing, would mean instant death. He just needed to cut down the skulled soldier, after which he could focus on the two lesser threats.

  Unfortunately, the sound of his sword being drawn was a well-trained trigger for the Darkened one. With lighting speed, his enemy blocked his incoming horizontal slash. Pushing off to the left, the dark one let his chair tumble backward, away from Raylan. With ease, the soldier rolled across the floor, getting to his feet in one fluent motion. He grabbed another chair, close by, and swung it sideways into Raylan’s left flank. The chair shattered from the force, and Raylan felt instantly grateful they had put up with this heavier armor for the night. A sword attack followed from above, which Raylan parried to his left. Exchanging blows, back and forth, the two of them danced around the room.

  In the meantime, Sebastian engaged the other two soldiers. Inexperienced in combat as he might have been before his capture, Sebastian had trained rigorously for many years, though not under any skilled supervision. The result was that his fighting style had very little structure, which made it lack focus; but also made it very difficult to interpret at the same time. In his first three swings, he cut down one of the two soldiers; unfortunately, the second soldier knocked away his sword, by using a chair. The fight looked more like a bar brawl than two soldiers trying to take each other out.

  It was a good thing Galirras was outside, doing his best to make as much noise and chaos as possible. It kept the soldiers outside occupied, and hopefully, drowned out any of the loud noises their fight created.

  Raylan, using two circular upward slashes, drove the Darkened backward, a few steps. The Silent Shadow immediately retaliated with a stab, turned backward, and slashed as he struck out with his sword. The reach of the backward turn, made Raylan take a step back; but as the slash passed his body, he quickly stepped in and moved passed the Darkened, slashing his left thigh on the edge of the armor. The wound was not deep enough to do any real damage, there was still too much armor in the way, but it was a start.

  Unexpectedly, the Darkened lashed out with his left fist, hitting Raylan straight across the face. He felt the force of the blow as a tremor through his skull. Another slash came from above…too little time to dodge, so Raylan blocked it, locking himself to the Darkened by grabbing his wrist, as his enemy did the same with Raylan’s wrist. Raylan felt a sharp pain in his lower back as his kidneys were pushed into one of the higher tables.

  Raylan stared into the Darkened’s face, barely four inches from his own, that was clearly meant to intimidate and terrorize the opponent. To his horror, Raylan saw that the mouth of his opponent was sewed shut. The tattoo hid most of the strings from view, when seen from a distance; facing him head on, the stitches were clearly going back and forth between the upper and lower lips. The Darkened opened his mouth, a crack, stretching the strings between his upper and lower lip, and made a hissing, gurgling threat which sounded inhuman. The smell of his breath was nauseating. It felt like Raylan was staring death in the eyes.

  Raylan’s instinct kicked into overdrive, every fiber in his body wanted to get away from this dark entity. For a brief moment, Raylan even wondered if he would rather fight a ghol’m, but he quickly shook off his distracting thoughts. Raylan pushed back with all his might, before releasing all tension. Quickly shifting to the side, he used the force of his intimidator’s weight to slam the Darkened one’s head into the table.

  It seemed to have little effect. The Darkened launched another parry of attacks, coming in low to the knee, followed by two slashes that marked a cross on Raylan’s torso armor. A third slash, across the chest, was dodged by Raylan as, once again, he moved in to take advantage of the small opening that was created.

  As he stepped forward, he felt the soldier’s foot impact straight into his stomach. The Darkened had quickly adapted and fully expected Raylan’s attack to the other leg. The kick to his stomach sent Raylan crashing against a door, which flew straight open. Tumbling backward, Raylan rolled over his shoulder, getting directly back on his feet. The Darkened was already running at his full speed, but instead of blindly trying to strike straight through him, the soldier came at him with a diagonal upward slash to the left. It made it impossible for Raylan to destabilize his opponent’s footwork.

  Sebastian was not making much progress either, exchanging blows with the soldier, using anything he could get his hands on to either throw at, or swing at, the enemy’s face. Regretfully, the enemy soldier had the advantage in size, being bigger and more muscular. The blows that Sebastian landed only served to give an opening to receive one or two counter blows. Most of the furniture had now been overthrown. Circling around a table, eyes locked on each other, the enemy guard flashed his eyes to the ground as he felt his foot hit something. With a grin, he quickly crouched and g
ot back up; in his hand, the long dagger that had been stuck in the table during the card game. Sebastian’s sword, being useless at the other end of the room, there was little else to do but use the leg of a broken chair to shield any of the dagger’s slashes coming at him.

  Raylan looked at his left arm. A stream of blood ran down his fingers from a blade cut across the back of his hand. Both he and the Darkened were panting heavily, while studying each other from a distance. Only now, did the change in surroundings seep into Raylan’s head. The door they crashed through led to the row of cells in which the slaves were kept. In the corner of his eyes, he saw the silhouettes of those who were locked up. Squirreled as far back into the corner as possible, the groups of prisoners looked no more than flat shadows in a dark cage. There was the smell of feces and urine coming from the cages, which had little more than straw on the ground.

  The Darkened moved sideways, watching him like a hawk. It was studying his movements, learning from every move, exploiting Raylan’s every mistake. If he did not finish this quickly, he might not survive at all. He had to do something unexpected.

  Once again, the Darkened one took the initiative. Two slashes Raylan dodged, another stab, he deflected, but he felt his wrist grabbed by the soldier, its grip felt like an iron clasp. The movement of the soldier prevented him from directly slashing the sword back toward Raylan, so he used the back of the sword and hit Raylan’s arm with such a force that he dropped his blade. Raylan gave a quick left hook and pushed his opponent away. He briefly glanced at his sword……he would never reach it alive, besides, the soldier was already coming at him again.

  Having the advantage, the Darkened did not wait for Raylan to recover. He jumped forward, coming at him with a strong downward slash. In the blink of an eye, Raylan reacted with his own forward motion, completely closing the distance between them. Passing the blade’s cutting path, Raylan grabbed his enemy’s shoulders and threw himself backward. He increased the momentum by rolling backward and pushing off hard with his feet; throwing the Darkened into the steel bars of one of the cells. A loud clang sounded, like a ringing church bell on a silent morning. He heard the whimpers and surprised yelps from the slaves inside the cells.

  The attack had less effect than Raylan hoped for. The Darkened got to his feet in a flash, ready to launch his next assault. Raising his right arm, with sword in hand, he stepped forward. He looked determined to make a more precise and calculated slash. All of a sudden, his movement was stopped when his hand was pinned to the steel bars. Two skinny arms held the Darkened’s entire arm, tightly, against the cell. Raylan saw the dirty, swollen face of Marek behind the bars.

  Have they beaten him even more?

  “Your sfword! Gewt your sfword,” shouted Marek, whose lips had now swollen so much it was hard to understand him.

  Raylan looked around and spotted the metal instrument, instantly diving for it. By now, the Darkened one turned around and grabbed Marek by the back of his head, crushing his face against the steel bars of the cell. Raylan heard Marek grunt because of his face being forced against the bars. With the already present swellings and bruises, his face had to be in terrible pain. He tried to fight the powerful arms of the Silent Shadow, using all his strength to keep hold of the sword arm he locked his arms around.

  Raylan saw the Darkened let go of Marek’s head and go for the dagger on his belt. He leaped at his enemy, before he had time to use the dagger on poor Marek. There was no chance of escape for the Darkened. As Raylan’s sword sank in the side of the soldier’s neck, the blade pierced straight down into the Darkened’s chest. He saw Marek stumble backward as he released the Darkened, who made a last attempt to save his own life. The soldier’s hand felt the blade grip that stuck out of his shoulder and tried to give it a pull. It was as if feeling the blade grip only made the fatal wound more of a reality for the Darkened soldier. Raylan saw the tension leave the soldier’s body as it slumped to the floor and stopped moving.

  Sebastian barely saw anything between the blood and the sweat pouring down his forehead. He was losing this fight and he knew it. The soldier had more experience and had a better weapon. While he fended off the dagger, it cost him several blows to the head, and he was starting to feel numb.

  The soldier stabbed again, forcing Sebastian to move away. Suddenly, he felt his left foot get stuck on a tipped over chair, resulting in him tripping backward onto the ground. The guard was on him in a moment. With a dagger coming straight at him, Sebastian used both hands to block the incoming attack. The weight of the soldier pinned him to the ground as he tried to use his weight to push the dagger down into Sebastian’s heart. Luckily, Sebastian still had some strength in his arms, which had been trained by traveling through the trees for years. It was enough to stop the initial attack, but now, he felt his arms grow tired as he tried to push off the full weight of the soldier. He saw the dagger inch toward his chest, going for the spot just above the edge of his armor. He felt his arms turn sour, unable to keep up the intensity of the push…another inch. The tip of the blade slowly passed his armor, he felt the tip of the dagger put pressure on his skin—the first sting of broken skin, as the dagger drew its first blood. His mind yelled out, since he had no power, no breath left to actually shout for help. This was it, he would die on this rotten continent, after all these years, unable to change anything……unable to be an influence in the world…unable to help.

  Raylan! Where are you?

  The soldier straightened upward for one final push, when suddenly the tip of a sword pierced straight out of the front of his neck. The shock on the soldier’s face was accompanied by his last blood-gurgling breaths as Raylan put his foot on the dying man’s ribs and pushed him to the side. The dead body crashed heavily onto the ground, dagger still in hand. Sebastian’s hands were still clamped around the dead soldier’s wrists, unable to let go after such a lengthy and forceful push.

  Sebastian lay panting on the floor, Raylan crouched next to him.

  “You okay?”

  Sebastian’s eyes, wide open, looked to the side to meet Raylan’s gaze.

  “I thought for sure I was a goner. You saved my life, thank you.”

  “I guess that makes us even now,” grinned Raylan. “Come on, we have to keep moving. This already took a lot longer than I thought it would, so we need to hurry.”

  “What about the Darkened?”

  “He’s dead,” said Raylan, pulling a heavy Sebastian to his feet.

  “That’s incredible…I’ve never known anyone to survive a Darkened one. They’re like death itself…”

  “Yeah well, I wasn’t sure I’d survive, either…thankfully, I had a little help. Grab some of that soldier’s armor, I’ve got the keys.”

  They ran back into the hallway with the slave cells. Raylan unlocked the door of Marek’s cell and threw in the armor.

  “Quickly, put this on. We need to move.”

  Marek put on the armor. He was slower than Raylan would have liked, but it was clear his body was hurting from the beating. It did give them a moment to catch their breath again. Raylan looked around and saw the other salves in the cells; he carefully checked them out to see what they were doing.

  “Why are you the only one alone in a cell?” asked Raylan.

  “I’m noth, butf the guyfs in my cell had a falling outf. The guardfs came and tfook tfhem away yestferday morning…If notf fseen tfhem fsince.”

  Marek hopped on one leg to put on his final boot.

  “Readfy…”

  “Alright, follow me,” said Sebastian, as he disappeared through the door.

  Marek followed him. Raylan started to move, but hesitated near the door. He looked back and saw the other slaves looking at him from their cells. He walked back and grabbed the keys.

  “I don’t know if any of you speak Terran and can understand me…there are a lot of things going on outside, but you might be able to make use of this and make your escape…I hope you all make it…”

  And with that
, he threw the ring of keys into the hands of a young female slave, and then ran out the doors after Sebastian and Marek.

  Galirras looked around the bay. He felt Raylan out there, but it was hard to pinpoint him in all the turmoil; he had no time to focus on his friend, lost in the fray. He darted to the right, moving away from a number of crossbow soldiers. It was becoming increasingly difficult to move around. At first, he had the element of surprise. He enjoyed not having to keep a low profile, anymore. Moving from one place to another, spreading his wings for all to see, it was his job to attract their attention after all.

  After his announcing roar and flight across the shore to draw attention to himself, he had first focused on the piles of resources he could find. He located crates and barrels, picked them up and threw them down at soldiers or buildings or—if that was too complicated—just knocked them over; that often worked fine, too. He flew low to scare livestock brought in for the slaughter. He took the opportunity to frighten some horses, in an attempt to let them break out, but they were too well secured. He swooped in and picked up a small pig, which he ate as a snack in the air. It was the first time eating while flying, as well as his first time eating a pig, both of which he very much enjoyed. It took some getting used to, reaching down to take a bite while keeping himself from crashing, but he was skilled enough by now to quickly adjust his wing beating to compensate. Unfortunately, part of the pig was wasted, when he lost his grip on it, as he made evasive maneuvers to avoid a thrown spear.

  He managed to knock over an oil lamp which spread a pool of flammable oil. The surrounding wooden structures quickly caught fire, and in no time, a couple of small sheds in the south end of the harbor were ablaze.

  He shifted his attention toward the ships, where soldiers had just started coming to deck, woken by all the commotion. He tried to tear at the sails, but it was difficult to get close with all the ropes and masts everywhere. Thankfully, his dragon eyes had excellent vision, not only in the dark but also in the twilight hours. He saw the air flow around the objects, so he had no trouble steering clear of obstacles.