by Jamie Davis
As she reached for her dagger, she felt something sharp press against the small of her back.
A familiar voice whispered in her ear. “Cari, my dear, you should put that dagger away. I’m afraid there’s not going to be a daring rescue to save anyone this time around.”
Cari started to turn around but Major Novachik pressed the point of his blade harder against Cari’s spine until she felt a trickle of blood running down her back and she froze.
“That’s better. Now I think its best we stand here and watch the festivities before we take you to see His Grace. He’s very eager to see you again.”
Cari’s head darted to the left and then tried to look across the scaffolding to find Rodrigo. Behind her, Novachik chuckled.
“We have your friends well in hand. I told you, there will be no rescue. You were all spotted as soon as you arrived in the square.”
Cari’s heart sank as she saw what he said was true. Two men stood behind Helen. Judging from the blank stare on her face, someone held a blade against her back as well. Rodrigo was flanked by two men and Cari saw the point of a blade from one of them pressed against his ribs. There might have been another one or two behind him. She couldn’t be sure. Francesca was probably captured as well.
Cari searched her mind for some thought or idea that could get them out of this. She wasn’t worried about herself. She’d escaped the Duke’s prison before and she would do so again. She was worried about what was about to happen to the Dragoons.
No matter how many different things she considered, there was no option that presented any chance of success. Even if she were to begin to fight back against Novachik and he didn’t manage to skewer her with his blade, fighting him would not get anyone near the scaffolding to rescue the Dragoons in time. The Duke would undoubtedly continue with the execution regardless of what she did. She couldn’t save them on her own anyway.
Cari called up her stats menu scanning down the list of attributes and her various skills, trying to find some other combination of moves or other option open to her.
Her eyes scanned up and down then stopped on her luck stat for some reason. She rarely considered luck to be of much benefit in real life. Her father always said he considered luck to be something a person made for herself. Here in Fantasma, however, it appeared to help in some limited ways, but she’d never really used it before as a stand-alone skill or attribute.
She couldn’t think of anything else, though, so she concentrated on her luck score hoping against all hope there would be some kind of response. To her surprise, she heard a strange rumbling sound in her ears. Cari couldn’t quite figure out what it was. It sounded like something mechanical was spinning in the back of her mind.
Cari didn’t know what it was since she’d never tried pressing her luck like this in the past. Nothing was happening, though, just the strange rumbling sound in her head. She was about to give up as the Duke called out from the balcony once again with his magically enhanced voice. “Guards, carry out your duty.”
As soon as the Duke said the words, the whirring, spinning sound in Cari’s mind stopped and there was a chime as if a tiny bell had rung. At the same instant, the hangman stepped forward to grasp the lever that would open the trap doors beneath the Dragoons.
Then it happened.
Cari would never have believed it if she hadn’t seen it all occur right in front of her. Out of the corner of her eye, a flashing blur drew her attention.
A spinning knife flew through the air, striking the hangman directly in the center of his chest.
It was followed by three more throwing knives, spinning through the air. Each struck the thick rope dangling from the top of the gallows above the condemned men.
At the same instant the three throwing knives sunk into the gallows and sliced through the ropes above the condemned, the dead hangman slumped forward over the lever he held, triggering the mechanism and causing the condemned to fall.
Cari stood frozen in place, her mouth gaping as each of the Dragoons dropped safely to the ground below. The whole sequence of events could only be described as unbelievable.
She tried to pick out where the thrown knives came from and spotted a figure wearing a hooded cloak spinning his way through the troop of guards lined up at the base of the stairs.
His movements were precise and exact. They were fluid, decisive, and lacked any extraneous effort or movement at all. Each action was timed to cause the most damage possible before moving on to the next guard.
The cloak fluttered open in front as he spun around, and Cari saw what looked like gleaming, translucent armor, almost as if it was made of blue glass.
He turned at one point and shot blue-white darts the same color as the armor straight out of his fingertips into the throat of the guard in front of him. He then raised his booted foot and kicked the dying guard into one of the other guards who was about to strike back at the mysterious attacker with a sword.
The mystery man’s hands disappeared inside the cloak and reemerged with a dagger in each hand.
A strange thought occurred as she stared at the events unfolding before her, triggering a memory. Those daggers looked familiar to Cari.
She didn’t know why and tried to place where she’d seen them before but was distracted by a new commotion to her left as the crowd surged away from a small explosion.
The blast wasn’t large and wouldn’t have caused much damage. It sounded more like a small firecracker going off. But it served its purpose and the crowd backed away from the startling noise opening a space in front of the ring of guards on the opposite side of the gallows.
Another hooded figure stood there, smaller than the man fighting at the gallows. Cari realized after a few seconds that the newcomer was a woman.
She couldn’t make out the woman’s face from within the shadows of the hooded cloak she wore. The newcomer raised an oddly shaped crossbow, holding it at hip height, and pulled the trigger.
A crossbow bolt flew out, slamming into one of the guards who started to raise his musket to fire at the hooded man on the gallows. The guard pitched over, a bolt embedded between his shoulder blades.
Then Cari saw another crossbow bolt, and another, and another, until five more crossbow bolts had flown out from the strange weapon without reloading, each striking one of the guards at the base of the scaffolding in the chest, throwing them all backward to the ground to stare with lifeless eyes at the sky.
More guards from around the perimeter surged in the woman’s direction and she dropped the crossbow to dangle by a shoulder strap while reaching to pull something from her belt. She flung the small object forward and it separated into five smaller objects in midair.
The smaller items spread out as each of them flew through the air to land on the ground in front of the charging guards. The guards ignored the tiny objects and ran directly over them. As soon as they did a fine mesh net sprayed upward, tangling feet and hands, capturing four of the guards. As they tripped and fell to the ground, sparks flew from the shiny mesh netting. The captured guards’ bodies jerked and spasmed as they were electrocuted by the charge stored in the tiny devices on the ground.
Who was this woman?
For that matter who was this man on the gallows? They fought with such intensity, with such efficiency in each of their motions, almost as if they fought as one person, coordinated in some way despite the distance between them.
The woman charged forward pulling two round objects from her belt and threw one to the left of the scaffolding in the direction where Rodrigo and Francesca were being held. She threw the other ball in Cari’s direction so that it landed in the open space where the guards were trying to decide whether to turn left or right. They had foes in opposite directions.
The two golf-ball sized objects landed and there was an explosion in each place followed by billowing streams of smoke. The initial explosions, though small, felled a few of the guards. The rest became confused and disoriented as the smoke continued to spr
ead upward and outward until it filled the air on both sides of the scaffolding with a thick gray cloud.
Cari could no longer see the other side of the scaffolding and could barely make out the hooded man or woman fighting forward towards the prisoners crouched beneath the platform.
The hooded figures raced forward, dealing death to the remainder of the guards who stumbled coughing and blinded from the thick smoke around the gallows. The two ran beneath the scaffolding, disappearing into the thick smoke.
A few seconds later, the duo raced out of the smoke to the left with the three Dragoons right behind them. Chance laughed with total abandon in a manner she had never heard from the reserved elf before.
As the five escaping figures ran through the smoke heading back towards the edge of the square, the hoods on the two lead figures fell back from their heads revealing their faces.
Cari gawked at them in amazement as they disappeared into the crowd with the three Dragoons.
“Mom? Dad?”
* * *
Quest completed — rescue the Dragoons
20,000 experience awarded
Chapter 35
Cari’s startled brain struggled to reconcile these two death-dealing rescuers she now recognized as her parents, with the two people she’d grown up with all her life.
They couldn’t be the same people, could they?
She’d been so distracted, she didn’t realize the dagger no longer pressed against her back. Cari had forgotten all about Major Novachik during the daring rescue. The whole thing happened in just under a minute from start to finish, with a series of events most would call improbable at best.
Novachik must have been similarly distracted and amazed. He quickly regained his composure and pressed the dagger forward again. “I see you had a contingency plan, but it will do you no good. Whoever those two scoundrels were, we still have you in custody as well as your other friends. We will—”
The Major’s words cut off. The point of his blade fell away from her back.
Cari glanced over her shoulder to see the Major collapse to the cobblestones behind her. A smiling Stefan Claridge stood over him holding his pistol by the barrel and using the butt as a club.
“Hello, Captain. I bet you’re happy to see me again,” the young lieutenant said with a grin spreading from ear to ear.
“You have no idea, Stefan. Hurry we have to go rescue Helen and the others.”
Stefan shook his head and pointed a finger across the crowded Palace Square. People were now running in all directions, unsure if there were going to be more explosions or smoke. Cari could barely see anything through the smoke. “What? What am I supposed to see?”
“We have friends with us. The others should be safe as well. Come on, we must go while there is still a chance to get away. The Duke will have more soldiers here very soon.”
Cari looked down for a moment at the unconscious major lying on the cobblestones. Then was pulled away as Stefan grabbed her elbow and jerked her towards the square’s gates her parents had used moments before. Cari stumbled along sideways for a few steps before turning and regaining her balance. “Let go, I’m fine.”
Before Cari had gone ten yards through the panicked crowd, Helen joined her along with two men she’d never met before. They had a red ribbon tied to their lapels and each carried a pistol in one hand and a sword in the other.
A little farther along, as they reached the gate leaving the square, Rodrigo and Francesca caught up to them in the company of three other men. Each of the newcomers also wore a red ribbon pinned to their lapels. Cari realized it must’ve been used as a way to identify friend from foe in the midst of the rescue.
As Cari ran along, she tried to come up with answers to the questions spinning through her mind. She turned and directed one of those questions at Stefan. “Are you here with my parents?”
Stefan grinned at her again. “Of course. They are quite remarkable people.”
“My parents? How are they remarkable?” Cari realized how ridiculous that question was given what she had just seen her parents do. They’d pulled off perhaps the most spectacular rescue in history. The escape plan they enacted had come off without a hitch. Cari shook her head. It was the luckiest chain of events she’d ever seen.
Stefan pointed to a line of buildings across the street. “Come on, we need to head down that alley to the left. We want to get off the main thoroughfares as soon as possible.”
“You lead the way,” Cari said. “I’m right behind you.”
Helen, Rodrigo, and Francesca, along with the five other people in their group, followed behind her. They all darted through the thinning crowd towards the gap between the two buildings Stefan indicated.
They reached the shadows of the alleyway and ran along it until they came to the rear of the buildings facing the Square. Stefan stopped, breathing hard from their rapid escape. The others came to a halt next to him.
Cari looked around checking to make sure no one was injured. “Is everyone OK?”
They all nodded, even the five gentlemen she didn’t know. “Good, where to, Stefan?”
“There’s a catacomb entrance somewhere along the back alley that crosses this one. It runs behind these buildings. I was told there’s a basement entrance leading downward. That’s what we’re looking for.”
“You don’t know where it is?” Cari asked.
“No, I’ve never actually seen it. I only had it described to me by the man who sent these others to help us break you free. His name is Merrick.”
Cari laughed. Merrick said he’d find a way to help her if he could. She was sure he knew many of the underground passages around the city. It was a good plan to use them. They needed to get off the street and out of view.
Cari looked up and down the alley to the left and the right. “Everybody spread out.” She pointed to the five gentlemen with the red ribbons on their lapels. “You five go that way and try to find the entrance. We’ll go this way to the left and check in this direction. If you find something, call out.”
One of the men, who must be the leader, nodded and pointed the others down the narrow street to the right. Cari, Stefan, Helen, Francesca, and Rodrigo turned and went down the alley to the left. She wasn’t sure what they were looking for, only that it was some sort of basement entrance.
One-eyed Francesca was the one who found it. She called out and Cari and the others ran over to join her. There was a sloped doorway leaning up against the rear of a tall brick building. Lifting the wooden door and propping it to the side, Cari saw stone stairs leading down. “This must be it. Stefan do you have anything to use for a light?”
“Merrick told us there would be a lantern inside the passageway just beyond the entrance.”
“Go down and check. Make sure there is one. We don’t want to be stumbling around in the dark down there.”
Stefan ran down the stairs, disappearing into the darkness for a minute or so. Francesca and Helen watched the open end of the alleyway. Crowds of people were streaming past the main thoroughfare at the other end. No one came down the alley, however.
As Merrick’s men returned from the other end of the alley, Stefan reappeared holding a small oil lantern. “Come on,” he said. There’s another lantern down here so someone else can grab it and bring up the rear.”
Stefan disappeared back into the dark tunnel and Cari pointed downward for Francesca and Helen to follow him. Merrick’s men went next and then it was just her and Rodrigo standing there.
“After you, Cari.”
She could argue with him but decided now wasn’t the time. She let him have his gallant gesture and headed down into the tunnels. Rodrigo came right behind her, pulling the wooden door closed, sealing the entrance.
It was extremely dark in the tunnel, even with the two lanterns. One of the men in front of her handed Cari the second lantern and she passed it along to Rodrigo since he was bringing up the rear. Stefan had already started moving forward down the narrow passageway.
They could only proceed single file down the tunnel. The floor was smooth, which was lucky because the lamplight didn’t provide very much illumination for those in the middle of the group. They continued along for about five minutes before the passageway opened into a larger junction running to the left and right. Cari heard running water and knew they had entered part of the city’s sewer system. Somewhere down here, there were also some old catacombs. She knew of them from a previous escape she’d made here in the Crystal City. She wondered if her parents and the three Dragoons were now moving in a similar passage nearby. She wanted to see them. She wanted to ask them how they got here.
Stefan waited at the T-junction until everyone filed out of the smaller passageway and spread out on a ledge above the sewer waters flowing below. He pointed to the right and Cari joined him at the front of the group while they moved down the ledge of the larger sewer passageway. They were able to walk two abreast on the raised walkway that bordered the open sewer drain beside them to the left. As they walked, there were periodic branches off to the left and right, leading, she presumed, to similar tunnels to the one they’d used throughout other portions of the city.
They continued walking for about fifteen minutes, passing by several intersections, turning down others. Stefan led the way, following a set of directions he must have memorized.
After a few twisting turns, Cari realized she could try and orient where they might be using her Earth Sense skill and she called up the skill menu and activated the map overlay. With a little practice, she was able to look at the tunnels through which they passed with the city above for reference.
She couldn’t see tunnels she hadn’t yet walked through, but she was able to put the city map over top of the tunnel system to see which direction they traveled underground. They were heading west away from the Palace Square in the direction of the Caravan Gate and the Last Retreat Inn. That was good. They had to retrieve Jaycee and Percy from the tavern. If Novachik somehow figured out where they’d been staying. She might be in danger and already captured.