Lifemarked (The Fatemarked Epic Book 5)

by David Estes

  Annise felt the urge to rush down the causeway, to help the very men and women who fought so bravely for her, but she knew war wasn’t about that. As Sir Metz liked to preach, war was about discipline and courage. So she bided her time, even as all along the wall barbarians threw themselves over the lip, slashing and pounding.

  Inevitably, one of the enemy fought its way over the part of the wall where Annise and Zelda stood, waiting. It was the enormous female with the arrow protruding from her bony scalp.

  With a growl, she launched herself at Annise.

  Christoff

  The sound of battle reached Christoff’s ears and he picked up his pace, leading his reinforcements directly through the castle gates, which swung open ahead of him due to a pair of vigilant soldiers who had noticed their approach. Once they were inside, the gates immediately began to close again, but Christoff waved them off and the thick oak doors juddered to a stop. For all he knew, the barbarians had already breached the castle—he didn’t want the sanctuary to become a prison for the innocents sleeping within.

  Christoff continued on, first verifying the positioning of the guards at each of the main castle doors, but then realized the foolishness of such an act. If the barbarians had already managed to climb the walls, surely they wouldn’t enter the castle by conventional avenues.

  The walls, he thought. Defending them was the only way to stop the enemy.

  Turning sharply to the right, he ducked inside an enclosed spiral staircase that led to an east-facing guard tower. He’d studied the layout of the castle and city a dozen times. He’d walked the streets and climbed all the staircases. At the top, he knew there was a door that led onto the wall itself.

  The steps fell away beneath him, his pulse pounding, sweat pooling in the small of his back beneath his polished armor.

  He flew from the guard tower, gruesome images immediately assaulting his eyes. One soldier’s arm had been ripped free, the arterial spray like a crimson rainbow. Another was screaming as a barbarian sank its fangs into his neck. A third was fighting gallantly, unaware of the barbarian that had climbed the wall behind him. Christoff was about to shout a warning, but then another barbarian appeared, springing over the ramparts with an athletic ease that spoke of incredible strength and prowess in battle. Relative to its female counterparts, the male was small, though it still would’ve stood more than six feet tall if it wasn’t hunched over, its thick, powerful muscles nearly scraping the ground as it stalked forwards. While some of the barbarians’ skulls showed several knots of bone bulging beneath the skin, this particular foe had just one, a round hump crossing the line where forehead met scalp.

  Christoff’s sword was out in an instant, though he couldn’t help but to back away slightly. All the pretty swordwork in the world would be useless against a creature like this.

  The barbarian reared back on its haunches, preparing to strike, but then the air was filled with zipping sounds as the creature was struck in half a dozen places—shoulder, gut, chest, leg, throat, and finally, mouth. It reeled back, blood as dark as night trickling from each wound.

  Still it came, and Christoff marveled at its strength, though its movements were more sluggish now, like it was moving through water. Christoff strode forward in three large steps, dodging its blow as it tried to slash its claws into his chest. He drew his sword across its thick neck in a lateral cut and it squealed, clutching at its throat. The blood was flowing faster now and it dropped to its knees, gurgling growls erupting from the back of its throat.

  One more slash and it was done.

  One down, Christoff thought, turning back to his loyal archers, who had, perhaps, saved his life. But they were already swiveling side to side, locating new enemies, which seemed to appear on all sides, soaring over the ramparts and landing on all fours.

  The enemy charged the pocket of archers and Christoff. Arrows flew. One flew into a barbarian’s mouth as it opened it to reveal sharp fangs. The sharp head burst from the back of its neck and the female fell, slide-rolling all the way to Christoff, who brought his sword down on her chest as she spasmed.

  That’s when the strangest thing happened.

  One large female broke through, taking an arrow to the cheek, but wrenching it from her flesh in one swift motion while throwing her entire body at the nest of staunch defenders. They toppled over in a pile and she landed atop them, clawing and scratching with both hands and feet. Christoff raced to their rescue, raising his sword and preparing to stab her through the back.

  But then she was gone.

  She didn’t vanish into thin air—simply rolled away, loping across the wall with a dozen of her brothers and sisters behind her. They paused only briefly at the edge of the wall before leaping through the empty air between the ramparts and the first of the castle’s structures—the roof over the stables. They landed in quick succession—whump whump whump!—but didn’t stop, bounding across the stables and transitioning onto an inner wall before launching themselves airborne once more. This time they dug their claws into cracks in the mortar of a small, round tower, disappearing into a cut out window placed at one of the staircase landings to provide light.

  It had all happened so quickly that Christoff barely had time to process it.

  The innocents, he thought, icy fear rushing through him.

  “Move!” he shouted, even as the archers tried to extricate themselves from each other to stand. “Make for the northwest corner!” He didn’t wait to ensure his command was heeded, already following the same path the barbarians had taken, jumping recklessly from the ramparts, feeling a thrill of exhilaration as the stable roof seemed to rise to meet him.

  As he landed, he buckled his knees and rolled to deaden the impact. Even still, a twinge of pain lanced through him. Pain that he ignored as he used his momentum to regain his feet, sprinting for the opposite side of the roof. He knew the next jump the barbarians had made was impossible for him, so he swung himself over the edge and hang-dropped to the ground, his right ankle twisting on impact, shooting more pain through him.

  He gritted his teeth and ran on, favoring his left leg. The first door he reached was open wide, the guards having abandoned their posts to face the demons inside. Brave men, he thought with the slightest bit of pride in his soldiers.

  The thought was dashed away as screams burst from deep inside the castle.

  As he charged forward, he could only hope the people were awake and aware enough to remember the plan he’d concocted for this very eventuality. The area they were housed in had multiple exits—four to be exact—and in the event of a direct attack on the castle, the idea was to flee for the path of least resistance while the guards positioned inside the castle created bottlenecks at the other exits.

  More screams, each like knife-stabs to Christoff’s brain.

  He tore down the corridor that led to the very tower the barbarians had entered through, nearly slipping on a pool of blood at its base. The blood was smeared, the gruesome trail rounding the next bend where Christoff found a soldier trying to drag his body forward.

  Every instinct told Christoff to stop and help the soldier. Leave no soldier behind was his mantra under normal circumstances. “I’m sorry,” he breathed as he ran on, more screams assaulting his ears.

  He reached the first of the four archways leading into the inner courtyard. There was no bottleneck, just three dead soldiers, their throats slashed open viciously.

  Christoff jumped over the bodies, refusing to give in to the dread that filled him. Refusing to give in to his own past, which seemed to press in on every side.

  Still, his lost brother’s name became his heartbeat, echoing through his chest. Jordo. Jordo. Jordo.

  No, no, no!

  He stumbled, almost losing his balance as his well-ordered world felt full of chaos, his tenuous grip on control slipping away.

  No. No.

  Christoff was a knight of the north. He had saved two hundred and thirteen lives since he failed his brother all those
years ago. It wasn’t enough to atone—would never be enough—but that didn’t mean he would stop. Not ever.

  He sucked in a deep breath and regained his balance, racing onward, finding a courtyard filled with death. Women. Children. The elderly and infirm.

  So many.

  My fault. My fault.

  The world threatened to spin once more, but he focused on those who might still be living, the screams that always seemed to slip further away. He angled across the courtyard, dodging the bodies, noticing three more dead soldiers who had taken two of the barbarians with them to the grave, a heroic feat that would never be sung of by a single bard.

  Christoff took their sacrifices into himself, armoring himself with it. He would die on this night, too. It was the only way to save them.

  The exit at the opposite corner of the courtyard was littered with more bodies, some piled up beneath the archway. They were mostly soldiers, but there were another three barbarians too, which meant that, at most, there were seven enemies left.

  Too many, he thought.

  He climbed the bodies, pretending they were rocks, vaulting over on the opposite side, entering a corridor of the dead. Most were soldiers and barbarians, but there were civilians too. Christoff focused on counting the enemy. One, two, three, four…

  Three left. Three. There is still hope.

  He tried not to think about the more than a hundred foes Annise and Tarin faced at the gates. If they were to break through…

  Christoff shoved the thought away, because around the next bend he saw a flash of pale skin, screams echoing to his ears.

  There was a shout and a grunt, and the barbarian slowed slightly. Another soldier fell, the last of the castle guards, the barbarians bounding over him in pursuit of the screams.

  The northwest exit appeared beyond the beast, and Christoff saw two other loping forms making for it, even as dozens of survivors tried to push and shove their way through to safety.

  Christoff hoped his archers had been swift enough.

  He wasn’t one for war cries, instead relying on his precise and practiced swordwork to win the day, but now he released a guttural scream that surprised even him. It was a tactical, rather than emotional, move, and he was satisfied to see each of the trio of barbarians slow their gait to look behind them.

  It was just enough time for the remaining civilians to squeeze through the exit and into the rear courtyard beyond.

  Seeming to realize they’d been fooled, the barbarians snarled and spun back around, charging away from Christoff. They were fast and he was exhausted, his joints aching from the impact of the two heavy landings he’d absorbed thus far, but he pushed his lungs to their burning limits as he sprinted after them, shooting from the exit and barely managing to duck as arrows flew overhead.

  Two of the barbarians were less fortunate, jolting several times as they were hit, their eyes rolling back in their heads. The third skidded to a stop and dodged sideways. Hundreds of civilians fled north and west, a wall of archers separating them from the last living enemy, the huge female that had knocked them senseless before.

  One of the civilians, however, had stopped and was frantically searching about her. “Katee!” she screamed. “Katee!”

  The archers prepared to fire upon the barbarian once more, but instead of charging them, it suddenly darted toward the east, taking long bounds. And that’s when Christoff saw her.

  A young girl, no older than eight name days, looking back as she ran, her eyes wild with fear. She vanished inside one of the small towers.

  “No,” Christoff breathed, oblivious to the risk of being hit by one of the arrows the archers were shooting at the barbarian as he gave chase. The barbarian took one arrow to the back of its shoulder and another to its calf, but it never slowed, diving into the tower.

  Any weariness or pain Christoff had felt before was washed away in a surge of adrenaline as he sprinted into the tower, jumping over the first four steps, pushing off, reaching the first landing on his second stride, moonslight pouring in through the window.

  He cut left and took the next flight in three strides, hearing the snuffle of the barbarian just ahead as it struggled to navigate the narrow stairwell.

  By the third stretch of steps, Christoff could see his quarry just ahead.

  He flew up and up, his foe always slipping just out of sight. Christoff’s chest heaved, his lungs gathering air in huge gulps though it was never enough to satisfy them as they burned.

  As he rounded the last flight of stairs, he saw the barbarian lope through the arched doorway leading into the tower’s apex. I’m too late, was all he could think, even as he vowed to end this hideous creature no matter what the cost.

  He steeled himself as he entered the small space used by castle watchmen.

  One heartbeat. No blood.

  Two heartbeats. No broken child being ravaged by the beast.

  Three heartbeats. The barbarian wheeled about to face him, his fangs glittering savagely.

  The creature attacked, but Christoff was ready, spinning to the side like a dancer, his balance perfect, his steel arcing out, slashing across his foe’s arm at the elbow, slicing cleanly through skin and muscle and tendon and bone.

  The clawed hand and pale forearm flopped to the stone even as the barbarian released a bellow of rage and pain. But Christoff wasn’t backing away, wasn’t regrouping…

  No. He was attacking, launching a series of perfectly executed strikes that even a master swordsman would’ve found difficult to defend against. And the barbarian was weaponless, its advantages stifled in the small tower.

  Christoff didn’t gloat at his victory, didn’t watch his enemy die.

  No. That sort of savagery had never been in him, not even in midst of the darkest, most violent battles. For him, it was all about the living, not the dying.

  He turned his back on the massive corpse and ran to the tower’s edge, looking down, holding his breath as he searched for the body of a young girl who had jumped to her death without so much as a scream.

  However, all he saw were his archers, who were gathering and organizing the surviving civilians. One of them held back a woman, the very same who had alerted Christoff to the plight of the young girl who had led him to this point, presumably the woman’s daughter. She was screaming and pointing up at Christoff.

  No, wait. She was pointing up, yes, but not right at Christoff, her finger aiming at a point further along the edge of the tower where—Christoff’s eyes followed her gesture—the young girl crouched on a small ledge that encircled the tower, an architectural feature that was meant to be aesthetically pleasing to the eye without any functional purpose. Once Christoff might’ve scoffed at such an inefficient use of stone and mortar, but now he silently thanked the designer, who was likely long dead.

  “Child,” Christoff said softly, not wanted to frighten her. Her eyes darted up to him as he moved closer. Her hands were clamped over her ears, as if trying to silence some horrific sound only she could hear.

  Her gaze flitted away, to the ground, and he saw her wobble slightly, one of her feet slipping from the edge, loose stones skittering.

  Christoff was transported to another time, another place, another child.

  His brother, Jordo, at the bottom of a well. Being lowered into the darkness. The feeling of helplessness as he found him already dead.

  That feeling of utter failure. That feeling of despair.

  Christoff never wanted to feel that way again.

  “Give me your hand,” he said, reaching out, leaning out over the edge.

  The girl’s eyes were still trained on the ground far below, one foot hanging awkwardly into open air.

  “Look at me,” he said. “Not down there.” Still she stared downward. Christoff’s eyes were drawn to a spidery crack in the ledge, one that seemed to be webbing outward. An architectural feature, he thought again. Not meant to hold weight. He thrust aside the thought and said, “What you see down there isn’t real,” he sai
d.

  Finally, her eyes flicked back up to him, uncertainty flashing across her face. “Only I am real. Just me. My hand. I am strong, a knight. I have saved many children like you. Just like you.”

  He reached further, stretching as far as possible without losing his positioning. If he fell, he knew all would be lost for this girl.

  “Truly?” she said. “You are a knight?”

  “Aye,” he said, forcing a smile onto his face. “One of the greatest knights in the realm.” Christoff was never boastful, but he sensed this was what the girl needed to hear now.

  “Like in the stories?”

  “Just like in the stories. I slew the monster. And now I’m going to save you.”

  Her eyes were alight with wonder, but still the fear pinned her to the ledge. He glanced at the cracks, which were growing by the second. The girl reached for him, but at least two feet separated their fingers.

  “You have to stand,” Christoff commanded.

  Her bottom lip trembled. “I can’t. I’ll fall.”

  “There’s nothing to fall to,” he said. “Like I said, everything down there isn’t real.”

  “Like this is just a dream?” she asked. There was hope in her tone. Beautiful, innocent hope.

  Christoff hated lying. Once, he might’ve thought himself incapable of it. But now…her life trumped all else. “Yes. Like a dream. Now stand and take my hand, my lady.”

  He saw the moment that courage bloomed within her, her jaw firming up, her eyes flashing with her decision. She stood, the cracks widening more swiftly, her hand reaching for his, their fingertips grazing, Christoff feeling his own feet skitter off the ground as he leaned over too far, using his other hand to grip the edge, balancing himself, the ledge beginning to break away, a chunk falling into the abyss even as the girl rose onto her tiptoes and he grabbed her hand just as a massive portion of the stone cracked and plummeted to the distant ground.