Destiny (Heroes by Necessity Book 3)

by Riley S. Keene

  “Are things still attacking in the night? What are they?” Elise asked, arching an eyebrow.

  There was silence for another moment. “They still attack. As to what they are... it’s hard to say. There haven’t been many survivors. Those who were injured only describe vague shapes in the darkness.”

  Tilke turned hard down an alley between two major thoroughfares. Elise followed, although she was starting to wonder where they were going. Was this still just a random walk? A route the Conscript took often? Or were they actually headed somewhere in particular? Perhaps he was leading them to a bar where they could speak safely but get something to drown out the worries dredged up by this story.

  Elise really hoped it was the later.

  “Jirda isn’t safe after dark anymore,” Tilke said, almost too quiet for Elise to hear. “And the forest around it, even less. Instead of bringing more followers to Her, it’s driving them away. The High Priest spends all his time hiding so he doesn’t have to explain himself to those harmed in the night.”

  Ermolt grunted.

  “We haven’t seen anything attacking in the night,” Elise said, picking her words carefully. “Here we are wandering the streets with no issue. And we traveled at night to avoid having to hunt for our meals on the road.”

  Tilke paused. He stopped halfway down the alley and turned to her. “Haven’t you though?” He looked Elise in the eye, drawing his mace from his hip. “Because we found their bodies.”

  Shadows appeared at each end of the alleyway, and figures emerged from the darkness. There were a dozen, at least. They were all dressed in black with masks over their faces. In hand were swords, almost all of Guard quality.

  Just like those who attacked them at their campsite.

  Elise cursed.

  “For the Prophet!” someone shouted, and others echoed the call.

  In response, Ermolt bellowed a challenge.

  Chapter Eighteen

  The entire walk, Ermolt’s hackles had been raised. He had known something was coming, but he wasn’t expecting this. For Tilke to be working with Ibeyar and the Guards, either directly or not, to bring down Numara was beyond what he previously thought possible.

  Ibeyar was much more dangerous than they imagined.

  Ermolt bellowed in rage, long and low, making the approaching attackers pause. They had expected to surround a single, unarmed woman, not a barbarian with a small armory attached to his chest.

  Tilke, if he survived this melee, would likely be in a bit of trouble with his superiors. Whomever they happened to be.

  Ermolt sized up the group around them. He wished they weren’t in an alley. It wasn’t that he felt terribly threatened by the numbers against them, but the tight quarters would make things difficult. There was also the fact that he was unarmored, and he didn’t have his hammer.

  But he did have around twenty various sharp things strapped to his chest. As the men stepped from the shadows, Ermolt tore a pair of weapons from two of the sheathes that covered his body. He didn’t care which ones he ended up with.

  “Elise,” he hissed, “my back!”

  She looked up at him, incredulous. “I don’t really have anything,” Elise said, but she raised her fists and stepped in behind him. “I’ll do what I can.”

  “No. Arm yourself!”

  Elise paused in a moment of silence, and Ermolt could almost see her bright red cheeks in his mind’s eye. “Oh. Uh. Right.” She snatched a shortsword and dagger from the sheaths on his back. With both weapons in hand they went back to back, limiting the approach of their attackers.

  Ermolt was suddenly very glad for the bells he and Elise had spent by firelight practicing her two-weapon fighting on their trip down from Jalova.

  Tilke took the first strike as the others closed in.

  The flanged head of the Conscript’s mace passed about a rhen off the tip of his nose as Ermolt leaned back away from the swing. The Conscript whipped the mace around expertly and it was very obvious that Tilke was well-trained with the weapon, in spite of the lack of training that was currently going on at the Temple.

  It was just lucky for Ermolt that he was better trained over all.

  Ermolt brought one of his swords down across his body. The tip nicked Tilke’s nose in passing before the blade crashed into the man’s forearm. Conscript Tilke’s weapon was knocked from his grasp before he could follow up on his initial strike.

  He flinched away, the cut on his nose spraying blood with the movement, but it wasn’t fast enough. Ermolt brought his other sword around and smashed the pommel of his weapon against the Conscript’s ear. Tilke staggered away under the blow, but didn’t go down.

  Ermolt was impressed. He stepped forward to strike again, to take Tilke out entirely, but two of the others rushed to his aid before Ermolt could close the distance.

  On the defensive, Ermolt wove a wall of steel in front of him with his swords, arching them left and right and up and down to deflect the oncoming attacks.

  Swords were boring. They were too quick. It made everything too easy.

  He missed his hammer.

  “How’s it going back there?” he asked Elise in a casual tone.

  She grunted in response. A clash of weapons told him she was currently occupied.

  Ermolt stole a glance over his shoulder to Elise. She was in a duelist stance, taking advantage of the narrow alleyway. It was smart. She was less trained with the bladed weapons than she was with her mace, but the stance would allow her to cover the space to both of her sides. The attackers would have to stand side by side and wouldn’t be able to flank her.

  As he watched, one of them charged a bit too boldly and Elise’s sword swept out, parrying his weapon and thrusting into the meat of his shoulder in a smooth movement. The other came in quickly, thinking she was preoccupied, and brought his blade in for a quick thrust at her unarmored belly. Elise caught the weapon with her dagger and turned the attack aside. The blade still caught on her tunic, tearing a small hole.

  Ermolt turned his attention back to those he held at bay with just wildly swinging swords. They had backed off a bit in confusion, not sure how to handle the dancing blades that seemed to be everywhere at once.

  He lashed out with a giant boot, the powerful kick parting his own wall of swords to land squarely in the chest of one of his attackers. They stumbled backwards, crashing into the recovering Tilke. Both men fell over into the wall of the alleyway.

  Ermolt turned his attention to the other man. He parried an oncoming attack, locking one weapon hilt-to-hilt with that of his attacker. With a snarl, Ermolt brought his other sword around, slashing hard at the hip. The attack struck home and Ermolt’s arm vibrated as the sword struck bone.

  The man cried out and fell back. He crashed to the ground in another shout of pain.

  Ermolt kicked the man’s weapon away, shook the blood from his sword, and focused on the rest. He reared back and hurled one of his swords at them. The incoming attackers were forced to throw themselves to the ground to avoid the spinning blade. Ermolt drew another blade off his body and let out a bellow of challenge that filled the alley, reverberating off the walls.

  “Ermolt! You’ll bring the whole of the City Guard down on us with that!”

  “It’s what I do!” Ermolt said impatiently as he brought his weapons into a defensive stance once more. “You know that!” He watched in horror as the far end of the alley darkened again. More black-clad figures. They shouted and pointed and charged forward to join the fray. “However, that said, we need to get out of here.”

  “Agreed!”

  Ermolt turned as Elise drove the pommel of a weapon into the bleeding stomach of one of her attackers. They fell to the ground, clutching at various wounds. The disarmed man next to them raised his hands up over his head. Elise shoved him back against the wall and they ran for the opening out of the alley.

  It was almost too late.

  As they rounded the end of the alley, a new group of black-clad figure
s with naked blades in hand started to close in on the entrance back to the marketplace.

  Elise shot Ermolt a glance and they both broke into a run.

  The Conscript was quick enough to barrel through the cluster of men and blades without enduring any close calls, but Ermolt wouldn’t be so lucky. Instead of trying to duck or run a different way, he brought his swords up in front of him and made them dance again in a wall of steel.

  Those before him abandoned their pressing attack to throw themselves from the path of his charge.

  Ermolt grinned as he passed by, pausing to kick one of the downed would-be attackers in the ribs. Just for spite.

  More black-clad figures appeared to his right, and so Ermolt broke into a run once more after Elise. As he ran, he jammed one of his blades into an empty sheath. Running with one sword was fine. Running with two was a complicated risk he didn’t need. He followed Elise through the forest of empty stalls, banners fluttering as he passed.

  Ermolt caught up to Elise quickly. Even without her armor the Conscript wasn’t built for long-distance running in the way he was. Her power was more in her arms and torso, while Ermolt’s was across his entire being. Ermolt slowed his pace to match Elise’s, and they moved in silence through the streets. They went on instincts, backtracking but also trying to avoid drawing attention to themselves.

  A shout of triumph from his left drew a curse from Ermolt. One of their attackers leapt from the top of a market stall, descending on Elise with his blade drawn. Ermolt reached up and caught the man by the back of the belt. He brought the would-be assassin off course and slammed him into the cobblestones.

  His instincts screamed and Ermolt whirled to meet the charging blade of another attacker. Ermolt parried the clumsy attack and drove his fist into the man’s chin, using the attacker’s own momentum to his advantage. The black-clad man fell to the ground, unconscious before he even hit the cobblestone.

  Ermolt turned to try to continue running, but another black-clad figure closed the distance, coming up on Ermolt’s unarmed side. With a grin, Ermolt dropped his sword to grab the man by throat and crotch. The weapon sliced across his arms in panic, but Ermolt lifted the man over his head and slammed him bodily on his back.

  Elise grabbed Ermolt’s arm and tugged.

  He looked up, seeing the approaching wave of darkness as twenty or so black-clad figures ran towards them, weaving in and out of the market stalls as they came. There was no way to tell if they were Guards, Conscripts, or just random townsfolk that had been drafted to capture the outsiders.

  Ermolt abandoned his fallen sword and ran.

  “What do we do?” Ermolt shouted as they turned down an alley. It wasn’t a dead end, and so they sprinted forward.

  “Keep running,” Elise said, puffing slightly with the effort. “There have to be Guards somewhere. Tilke said they were patrolling at all hours.”

  “You mean the Guards who answer to Ibeyar? The same Guards that are likely mates with the ones following us?” Ermolt had the urge to look over his shoulder to see if they were gaining on them, but he didn’t trust his ability to not trip. Breaking an ankle would be really bad right now. “Those Guards? Because I’m pretty sure that makes the situation worse, not better.”

  “Good point,” Elise said with a snort. She picked up the pace before turning sharply down another street. “Then we’ll just have to lose them.”

  Losing a bunch of potential Guards and Conscripts in their own city, when Elise and Ermolt had no idea where they were going sounded hard. Impossibly hard. But if anyone could do it, it was Elise.

  Ermolt focused on running, trusting the Conscript to not get them lost.

  And to not accidentally circle back into their pursuers.

  There would be no surviving if they did.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Athala was lost in the research.

  She didn’t know how many bells had passed since Sieghard had told her about his research. In all honesty, she really didn’t care. Every moment she spent on worrying about bells or food or sleep or anything was a moment she wasn’t spending studying. She needed to prove her worth as a researcher, but more than that, she was enjoying herself.

  Ascension was a fascinating subject.

  Sieghard purposefully didn’t share any of his findings with her, and told Athala she’d need to put together a short report on whatever she found by that evening.

  So she worked by candlelight, hunched over the books in a way that Elise would have scolded, skimming tomes for mentions of the Gods.

  There wasn’t much.

  Athala grew frustrated by the lack of research others had done into the subject, even when they admitted in text that there was something there. It was almost as if they had feared putting their thoughts into words.

  Maybe Sieghard had some more forbidden tomes elsewhere.

  Athala hoped she could prove her worth so he would share.

  It felt good to work like this again. Athala hadn’t spent much time with her studies since leaving the Wizard’s Tower to pursue Meodryt’s spell, and it was a wholly unique experience that she thoroughly enjoyed.

  “Alright,” Sieghard said with a chuckle, drawing Athala out of the multiple books she was trying to read at once, “let’s see what you have, Wizard Dohn.”

  Athala squirmed. No one had called her Wizard Dohn since her professors at the Wizard’s Tower. It was both welcomed and terrifying. “Is, um, is it evening already?”

  “Yes. A bit beyond it, even.” The older wizard laughed and took a seat in a balding armchair next to Athala’s desk. “I was going to wait until you stopped on your own, but I’ve grown increasingly sure you were on a course to fall asleep face-down in my books.”

  Athala grinned sheepishly. “Perhaps.”

  “And while I can appreciate your stamina, my own is waning and I would love to sleep sometime before first bell.” Sieghard leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees and cupping his chin in his hands. “So, then, Wizard Dohn, perhaps you can share your findings.”

  The older man’s eyes were alight with a mischievous glint that made Athala instantly nervous. Was he hoping she failed, or was he excited to see her success? Perhaps the pursuit of information about ascension was a fool’s errand and he knew it.

  Athala swallowed hard. “Right,” she said before scrambling about the table before her. She sorted her notes into a few different piles, closing books and stacking them to the side. “Ultimately, my research led me to...” She trailed off, flipping through the notes. “Ah-hah! Here it is. The creation myth.”

  “Hm. Interesting place to start.”

  “Well, you see, it was because, ah, um...” Athala paused to get herself under control. Sieghard was an instructor. He made lesser wizards nervous just by existing, and his manner of dealing with her was very much akin to how her instructors at the Wizard’s Tower treated her. She needed to separate this presentation from her overall goal, and just present. There would be time to argue her worth after it was done. “Sorry,” she said in an absentminded tone. “The creation myth was the last recorded time—supposedly—that the Gods were created. So it seemed a logical place to start. If there’s any evidence that they may have, in fact, been mortals, then there may be precedent for ascension hidden in the myth. And perhaps a starting point for repeating it.”

  Sieghard’s face bloomed with a secret smile. “Good logic,” he said, leaning back in his chair. He leaned back to cross one leg over the other and steepled his fingers in front of his chest. “Yes. Very sound indeed. So tell me what you’ve found, Wizard Dohn.”

  Athala swallowed hard again, but kept her resolve. If she could keep her head while Ingmar’s knives played across her flesh, she could share her research without squirming.

  “According to all recorded myths, in the beginning, the world was chaos.” Athala handed him a sheet of notes. It was written in her family’s cipher, as it was the quickest way Athala knew how to take notes, but he said nothing. Instea
d he just listened to her. “There were so few humans, and they were beset on all sides by danger. Death came from the sky and the earth and the darkness. There was little food and humans struggled to reproduce. The myth says there was a lot of doom and very little hope.” Athala waved a hand dismissively. “That part of the story is likely hyperbole, to establish the desperation of the situation for the sake of the story instead of any accurate historical fact.”

  “Of course,” Sieghard said with a callous chuckle. “Continue.”

  “But then the people started to worship the Seven Gods. There’s no real mention of where the Gods came from, but they tamed the sky and earth. They created the day and held back the things in the darkness at night. They brought food to humanity in the forms of plants and animals.” Athala looked down at her notes and scoffed. “They also gave us life, which is meant to indicate that Ydia made it easier for humans to reproduce, but every recorded version uses those specific words. They—the Gods—gave us life.”

  “Why is that relevant?”

  Athala leaned back in her chair and thought about it for a moment. “I believe that phrasing may call back to an earlier version of the story.” She leaned forward once more and shuffled through her notes. “The barbarian creation myth is different than ours. Their myth says that the Gods created them out of rock and snow. It’s possible that an earlier version of our creation myth had the Gods making humans in a similar way.” She stared at the paper in her hands, willing it to tell her something she didn’t already know. “Or... or maybe we couldn’t reproduce at all.” Athala sighed and tucked the page away. “Which would be silly. Ridiculous. If humans couldn’t reproduce, the so-called ‘chaos before the Gods’ wouldn’t have lasted more than a few years. Which, on the historical scale, is negligible.”