by Scott Beith
“It must suck being told you were better off with us,” Arlo whispered to me, dropping back to walk beside me while Anara disappeared from our point-guard to check out what lurked around the bend of growing dense shrubbery and well-groomed puffy trees ahead.
My prince was appearing as if he wished to rekindle the conversation we had earlier, even if we had to be careful due to how close we were getting to the suspected military outpost.
“If I knew what I knew now though, I would’ve definitely treated you better,” he added. “So I’m sorry for making things worse than they had to be.”
After apologising, he walked along the left side of me, patiently waiting for a response. Although seeing as I was still too ashamed to talk, I merely nodded in respect to him, unable to trust my voice enough to give him a more appropriate response. Never again did I plan to let my words or actions flow unfiltered like back on that bridge, having unleashed the darker side of myself and demonstrated just how unstable and unreliable I really was to them and the enormous task at hand.
We had exited the desolate dry mud fields and left all the dried up old moors in the distance to finally find a youthful land beside the mountain ridges, the return of jungle greenery and life along the outskirt borders of where our Sunspire’s light ordinarily couldn’t pass. With one lucky last bend to the path, following a rather pristine long avenue of round puffy planted trees that led towards some square torn down gates and an oval lawn that led to a giant run down church hall, we had actually found what we’d spent hours searching for.
“Over here,” Anara quietly called to us, hiding behind a tree and its descending hilly ditch just after the turn before the small forest side entrance clearing.
“That must be it,” Arlo confirmed, dropping down in the same grassy dirt mound. The three of us lowering ourselves one by one so that we could pop our heads up inconspicuously and peer over at the burnt, broken and mossy ruins of a former wisp monastery. The iconic glass stained windows of a half-demolished cathedral hall situated in the middle of four or five smaller barnyard buildings to each of its corners.
“We have to be real quiet from here on, ok?” Arlo whispered. “No more tantrums alright?” he then slandered towards me, putting his finger to my lips and smiling at his badly timed joke, if not trying to make light of our previous discord.
“So what now?” I asked, flicking away his finger as I shrugged off his cruel but silly sense of humour.
“We storm it,” Arlo was quick to announce. The countless golden cloaked guards carrying cleavers, axes and claws somehow not intimidating enough to deter him from thinking every battle strategy had to involve some gallant charge and full frontal running gauntlet assault.
“Or… Why don’t you two just wait here while I do everything,” Anara smugly stated.
Arlo and I turned to her to respond, but she was already gone. The impulsive brat had once again vanished into thin air, leaving only a trail of footprints in the dirt as she scampered out of the ditch and headed somewhere through the forest clearing towards the side of the hall. She bypassed at least half a dozen gold cloaked guards on patrol as a crowd of parading hooded gnolls formed lines and came into the building from a second alternate path down by the front main entrance doors.
Two by two, gnolls were pulling up their hoods and wandering inside the unseen open church doors, marching past Midas’s golden-laced knights, who were loyally counting heads and making sure everyone was accounted for. I had a feeling by the rough manner in which they dealt with those grunt soldiers that deserters were dealt with by the thrust of giant serrated golden pikes from the roaming gold guards who were scouting the outskirt areas away of all paths as we had to keep our heads down to avoid there watchful patrolling eyes gazing upon us.
Arlo and I shared a look of concern as we had no choice but to hide and wait in the small ditch Anara had smartly dumped us under, slumping down deeply as we could hear men and women of the night wandering inwards from various bushland paths unbeknownst to us. Including some scattered few from the very path we’d just come in from – a path we were still partially visible too. Not a stray minute elapsing before we could see a group of gnolls arriving out from the curve of trees that first gave us access to the hall.
From a tranquil calm, we were once again in harm’s way, merely hoping our lack of movement was enough to keep us in the unnoticed darkness and safe from being spotted by gnolls coming down the path adjacent to our small grassy ditch and trees.
Lucky for us, they were too preoccupied chatting among themselves to notice us hiding. But we were pinned down and left to their mercy while waiting between a long pristine tall branchless tree and its tiny ditch underneath, below the oval and along the outskirts of the forest clearing.
Those gnolls were all chummy as they interacted with each other, two families merged as they must have come across each other earlier on the path and were speaking to one another like it had been a lifetime since they’d last met.
I had always known gnolls as creatures that howled and barked like feral carnivorous predators, but it was clear to me that they talked and communicated no different than how we did in our own world. I overheard little snippets of the conversation they were having as that group passed adjacent to Arlo and me, both of us quite surprised to overhear and realise how well they all got along with one another.
“So how’s the leg?” one had said to his friend.
“Yeah still manageable I guess. And what about your father, has he recovered anymore since the fall?” another asked.
“Oh my, I’m so sorry man,” the same gnoll added quickly, the most considerate and remorseful tone to his voice. “They’re gonna’ pay for it tonight,” answered the friend.
Arlo and I peered out of the ditch every so often to catch glimpses of the perpetrators and put faces to the voices we were hearing. They looked ordinary enough, but their conversations went sour very quickly. They spoke of violence and disembowelment like it was casual dinner discussion.
It was sadistic how these men intended to comfort each other by how they wished to get their vengeance. The eldest ringleader was holding and smoking a herbal pipe that he then puffed and passed around as an act of curtesy and friendship hardly befitting the violent savage thoughts I was hearing him begin to talk about.
“Do you want me to be there when you finally find that little…” announced one family ringleader to the other, one mid-sentence cough being all that stopped whatever profanity he wished to preach.
“No I’d rather not have any witnesses,” the other bitter man casually replied.
As I laid crouched beside Arlo, continuing to listen in, I couldn’t help but think in all the prince’s simplicity, Arlo did have a real reason to despise the gnolls. It was true that they had no love or care for us, made abundantly clear by the tone and toxicity of the way they spoke about us like we weren’t living beings.
But it was also made clear they were going to show us no mercy if we were caught in their clutches behind enemy lines.
It seemed the only difference between us and them was the manner in which we acted. We were both the kind to toast to the memories of our fallen sisters, uncles, children and comrades. But unlike us, who were most comforted by building shrines and statues to remember our fallen, these gnolls seemed like the kind who could only receive comfort from knocking those shrines down.
The way they spoke about harm and travesties in such a calm and dispassionate tone was scary to listen to while hiding, as even after they past and I could no longer hear them, it was apparent that those men and women were no longer susceptible to physical pain. They were battle-hardened soldiers with hearts as solid as stone, terrifying to face in battle as they seemed more afraid of continuing a life of struggle than they were of dying from one.
“Kya, if you survive tonight, would you consider forgiving me for the jerk I’ve been to you?” Arlo whispered to me. “For never protecting you when I could have and should have?” he added.
>
“Does that really matter now, Arlo?” I quietly but quickly responded, afraid talking, even softly, might compromise our position, despite the fact the coast looked clear and we were far away from the last soldier to roam the field in routine scout.
“It’s more important now,” he answered. “If any one of us doesn’t make it back, I would like to think none of us would have to live with the guilt of things that could have been done differently,” he mentioned, quite unusual and uncharacteristic of him to say, considering he was never the type to live his life thinking about the possible consequences of his actions.
“Well I’d like to think we will all make it back,” I stated, leaving him in an unsure silence, as surprised by the evident role-reversal as I was.
“Kya... If I challenge Midas, I need you to make sure Anara doesn’t intervene. I can make a big enough distraction for you both to slip through the portal during the fight, if not afterwards, so long as you don’t reveal yourselves,” he said
“No, you’re not,” I snapped at him in protest, slapping his arm with a harsher attitude than what was probably needed of me. “Maybe you belong in their army, because you are literally just as crazy. Stop being stupid, ok? We’re all going to sneak through that portal with the army,” I said. “Midas doesn’t know we’re here, and this isn’t the time to be reckless. You’re the heir to your father’s throne, remember? And that means your countrymen depend on you returning home with what you know now,” I lectured in a quick and heightened fret.
“Kya, how many are going to die on both sides tonight?” Arlo slowly and concisely asked me. “This sword belonged to the last rebel who was going to make a stand. And seeing as I was the one who took that man down, the burden of continuing his fight should fall to me.”
“Arlo, if you try you will die,” I shuddered to say, looking at him as I was left waiting for him to give some typical stubborn response. Caught in a standstill as he had nothing he wanted to say back to me. “You could have been nicer,” I said to him, answering his earlier question. “It was never your responsibility to stick up for me against your friends. But because you didn’t, I thought you hated me, and that I was no longer worthy of my prince’s valuable time,” I said to him unrestrained, the growing fear of death helping me speak freely, despite my reluctance to want to do so.
Arlo kept his head turned from me as his eyes faced the upwards ditch and ground, appearing too awkward or too ashamed to want to look at me directly. “Truth be told, I started being cruel to you because over time it became easier to tease you than it was to talk to you,” he confessed. “Everyday I wanted to be your hero… Yet I wasn’t, and everyday I’d hate myself for it...” he said. “I just got so caught up with everyone’s expectations of me and trying to be the next king everyone ewanted that I lost myself somewhere along the way. I blindly listened and followed rather than led – the very opposite of what I should have done… So, for what little it’s worth now, I’m sorry I abandoned you,” he said.
“Power is both corruptive and controlling, Arlo, regardless of who has it. Often it’s those with the most light who become the most blind,” I said to him. “But when you do end up king, I hope you learn from what your parents did wrong. And that you don’t take the path of least resistance when it comes to making difficult choices… You do that and everyone will be proud to call you their king,” I said.
In all my life, I don’t think I had ever had a more important conversation that needed to be said. Words I could only hope he would adhere to, even if they were cut short by something unseen jumping down into the ditch with us, skidding dirt near our faces as Anara revealed herself.
“Sorry to interrupt, but time’s a bit of a factor,” she said, dropping a giant pile of gnoll cloaks in front of us.
“Jeez, we only needed two cloaks,” Arlo stated to his sister, who was covered under at least two or three more of them.
“I don’t have time to explain, but we can’t go inside the halls yet. We have to go around the back to the stables first, ok?” she said in a rush.
“Why?” I asked.
“Our prisoners!” Arlo then blurted out, working it out well and truly before me. His eyes widening at the very idea of some of our abducted villagers still being alive and locked up, quickly beginning to throw on one of the many cloaks dropped beside him as he began clumping up the rest into a huge cloth ball.
Appearing like all the other gnoll infantry grunts, we past the gold-laced members as they looked at us, checking who we were before letting us past. Unable to see our hair and luckily allowing us to enter thinking we were our counterparts.
“Quickly, it’s just around the back,” Anara whispered, grabbing us both as we disappeared from sight and were shuffled around the cathedral side walls towards the stables around the bend.
I couldn’t see anything, but I knew we had entered some old farming stables linked to the back of the large halls. We stumbled in and revealed ourselves among the eyes of one gold-plated knight checking on an associate who was sleeping on the floor, potentially knocked out.
“Sir, raise the alarms, we have an intruder!” Anara said to the guard, walking up to him upon our entry, looking down at the very man she had clearly beaten unconscious by the thick metal tiara she liked to use as a blunt instrument.
“Where?” the guard officer responded diligently in return.
“Here,” she replied, close enough to him to smack him over the head with that cloaked tiara crown, which became visible as the sound of metal striking his helmet bounced back and forth until the man joined his comrade, sleeping on the floor.
The princess then quickly took the cloaks from her brother and began dropping them like rags beside each stable cage. “You came back,” someone rattled to her, my excitement uncontained when I looked over to see an overweight man out of the cages but chained up in the very centre of the room.
“Radament!” I cried, running over to hug and greet him, his arms restricted in hugging me back as he was dangling loosely by thick spiky golden shackles.
“I knew you guys would come, I just knew it,” he said with both a weak cough and cry, the chains against his suspended arms providing the only strength that was actually holding him upright.
Arlo rushed over to greet his friend, drawing his sword as he swung and cleaved off the chains one side at a time, only to catch his friend who fell down upon his own hefty weight and fatigue.
As I looked around, I could see at least five other valuable men and women were stuffed into stable cages along the left side row, watching us patiently and quietly.
“Free them all,” Anara decreed, looking to her brother as he put Radament against the wall to rest, only to walk over and grab each lock and forcefully rip each buckle from its steel bars, warping and bending the bars under the intense sound pressure he exuberated upon the loud opening of every cage door.
“Everyone take a shroud,” Anara preached, handing out the shrouds, giving away her own one to an old frail grey-bearded man who honestly looked as if he had been a prisoner there for decades.
“I betrayed us, Arlo. I’m sorry,” Radament whimpered to his friend, trying but failing to regain his ability to walk without his prince’s personal intervention. “I gave them oil to light their torches in exchange for our food. They told me it was just to keep them warm, but they now have stockpiles of it – enough wooden drum barrels of firepower to get past our gates and through our spiders… I think I’ve doomed us all,” he confessed, coughing again as he struggled to speak and stand after having been chained up without movement for days.
“Just be still, ok,” Arlo said to him reassuringly. “You’re not to blame. Your kingdom betrayed you,” Arlo then responded to him, pulling him up by his right bulky and armour-less shoulder as he walked him towards the doors.
“He has scorpions!” exclaimed that frail old nymph Anara had given her shroud to. “He kept them in these cages before they us,” added that man. “Half a dozen of them at lea
st – all imbued with impenetrable gold scales. They could overrun any village with just one of those things,” he warned us.
“Luckily, he’s not heading for the villages this time,” Arlo responded to that man. “He wants to raid the Capital.”
36
Litany
Under the thick-hooded shrouds of our enemy, eight of us walked among them unseen. Two by two we secretly turned the blackened side corner of their scorched cathedral complex and bravely embraced an upcoming family of gnoll grunts and peons that stood in queue behind the huge front foyer path and main church doorway. All of us lining up behind them in pairs as we waited to be inspected and judged before being granted access inside the half burnt down building an entire army had been piling into.
I was doing my best to keep my head down and avoid any wild stares, although I did give a quick glance up towards the greatly dilapidated exterior roof of the centre cathedral. It felt more like we were walking into a former prison fortress rather than a humble and respectful church hall. But all the same, we together waited in unspoken angst, amidst the small chatter of voices and commotion coming from the short queue just ahead of us, only to be approved entry inside by two tall gold-cloaked guards who let us in without even the slightest quarrel or hassle.
In pairs, each guard had waved at us to go up their three short steps and meet them before the door, wielding terrifying sharp silver claws that stuck out from the darkness of their large hidden armholes, using each hook like a separate finger as they expanded and retracted the artificial claws no different than any animal could. All while gesturing for us to hurry up and get inside already so that they could finally close the doors and allow the meeting to begin.
Fortune had favoured us bold, seeing as those tough elite guards, who were armoured under a mix charred black animal bone and golden serpent scales had no proper means of distinguishing nymphs from gnolls whilst we all remained silently and cleverly covered up under their own torn and weathered animal-skin caped shrouds.