by Logan Knight
“We have no choice but to go on,” I said. “If we wait, more soldiers will show up to defend the doppelganger. It’s now or never.”
“We are with you,” Nadia said.
“Let’s kick some ass,” Alena added.
18
We hurried toward the fortress as fast as we dared. We didn’t want to get caught in a trap, but the longer it took us, the more time the soldiers had to set up strong defenses around the doppelganger. If they’d managed to get the creature into one of the cells in the prison while it was still in the cage, they could keep us out long enough for reinforcements to arrive.
Then again the passages in the deepest parts of the fortress are fairly narrow. A couple of fireballs might make short work of that problem.
Alena guided us to a shortcut through the woods. It would keep us off the road and out of sight of any reinforcements which might already be arriving. If there were any soldiers set in ambush, they’d be in the woods as well. They’d be watching the road, which meant our approach through the forest would ruin any chance of surprise.
My companions were smart. Even though none of them had spoken the words, I had no doubt they knew what the stakes were. If we could deliver a large enough blow to the Xorian Empire, we could turn the tide of the war. If nothing else, the remaining troops would have to be reorganized and sent to other armies. It would be a logistical nightmare.
The moment the prison came into sight, someone inside began blowing a horn. I wasn’t sure if it was meant to call for reinforcements, but the main body of the army was at the beach. The distance, combined with the sound of the crashing waves, the chatter of the troops, and the blacksmiths making last-minute repairs would ruin any chance of them hearing the signal. The only soldiers who’d be able to respond were those nearby.
Two soldiers stood guard outside the gatehouse. The portcullis was still raised, but it could be closed at any moment. I killed the one on the left with an arrow. Alena got the man on the right.
The bodies didn’t fall inward toward the opening, so I had some confidence that we hadn’t been spotted yet. We pressed our backs against the warm stone wall just outside the fortress’ only entrance and caught our breath.
I was feeling fatigued from the spells I’d cast, and though I still had a mana potion, I decided to save it. The worst battle, I knew, was still ahead of us. I could go a while longer before I would need it.
I wasn’t concerned about being locked out of the fortress, though—not when we were just outside. The portcullis could be lowered by turning a handwheel, but that took time. If someone was desperate enough, they could cut the rope and drop the gate in a second. But doing so would mean the average person would be stuck in there until someone could repair it or someone brought a ladder.
Right on cue, someone on the other side of the wall began to lower the portcullis. I charged around the corner. The women were on my heels, but I got to the soldier first. There were two others with him, and none had their weapons drawn. A second later, I’d killed two, and the third was lying on the ground, bleeding from both legs, while Nadia stood over him. He died a few seconds later.
“Reinforcements are probably on the way,” I said. “They have to be able to see the smoke from the fire at the beach by now. If not, there will be animals running through their camps soon enough. It’ll alert them to the trouble. They’ll probably send a runner or a small squad before they send anything larger. It’ll take them some time to work out what happened, but they’ll head here next. I’m going to cut the rope that keeps the portcullis up. If you want to leave, now is the time to do it.”
Both women stared at me. I gave them two seconds to change their minds before I cut the rope. The portcullis slammed onto the stone floor with a gong the soldiers might have been able to hear at the beach. If nothing else, the soldiers inside the fortress would know we’d arrived.
“You love making a grand entrance, don’t you?” Alena asked with a smile.
“You’re not wrong,” I confirmed.
Apparently, so did the soldiers guarding the fortress. The heavy, steel-reinforced doors of the keep—the strongest part of the fortress—slammed open and no less than fifty soldiers emerged. They formed themselves into two defensive rows and stared at us like they were looking forward to the fight. It was more than I’d ever battled at once, but I was certain they’d soon change their minds.
The soldier we captured, it seemed, had either lied to us about how many people were guarding the fortress, or he’d been grossly mistaken. Either way, if he returned to the land of Xoria, he and I would have a long conversation about it before I let Nadia finish him off.
“The creature is no longer going down,” Nadia whispered. “It is in there. It is in the keep.”
“That must be why the soldiers aren’t attacking,” Alena whispered.
“The cage must’ve been too big to get down the stairs without risking one or all of the guards being killed by the thing when it started to tip. That’s got to be why they had it on poles. They don’t want it to reach out and grab them.
“The guards must be out here to slow us down,” I said. “It’s a show of force with the blades to back it up if we attack anyway. It means they’re expecting—or hoping for—reinforcements soon.”
“It’s too bad we don’t have any reinforcements,” Alena whispered.
“We don’t need them,” I said.
I decided I’d be the one to start the show and sent a fireball to the center of the first line. I immediately cast another, aimed for the same spot. The first hit, knocking several soldiers on their backs while others sprawled in all directions. The next hit the second line, which had the effect of knocking them around like the first. It also gave the first line a second dose of magical fire, in case any were still breathing.
The survivors who were able to move scrambled to their feet and formed a new line. There were only twenty of them left, but I was beginning to feel ill.
I’d decided I had saved my mana potion long enough, so I uncorked the bottle and swallowed hard, feeling a tingling sensation in my limbs as the fire in my mind was stoked into a bright flame.
One of the soldiers began issuing orders. He wasn’t wearing any regalia which would make me think he was a commander, but he had the heart of one. It was too bad he was the enemy. Nadia would probably remove his courageous heart and show it to him.
“Close ranks!” the man shouted.
The others obeyed, closing any gaps between them.
“Advance in line!” he continued. “March!”
Alena took a shot at the soldier issuing the orders, but he got his shield raised in time and blocked it. She fired again with the same result, but he didn’t see me cast a spell and shrieked when his foot became pinned to the ground.
“Charge!” he gasped.
Alena fired her last arrow and dropped her bow.
I stood ready, flaming sword held at high guard as nearly a dozen of the survivors closed in on me. A magical arrow dropped one. The second died when he discovered his shield had turned to powder and my sword had found its way to his guts. I yanked my blade free, nearly cutting the man in half, and ducked under another attack.
I raised my sword, blocking an attack from another. When he tried to bash me with his shield, I grabbed the top of it, pulled down hard, and stabbed at his face. I missed but got close enough to set his beard on fire. Good enough. It would keep him busy swatting at the flames while I killed someone else.
Two came at me, swinging their weapons from opposite sides as though they’d planned it. I caught the wrist of the one on the left, but when I lifted my blade over my shoulder to block the other sword, I only managed to deflect it a little.
A sharp, biting pain on my back told me I’d been cut. It didn’t feel fatal, though. I rolled backward, still holding the soldier’s wrist, and forced him to stab his comrade in the leg. The second soldier screamed, and I chopped at the face of the first. Hot blood sprayed across my eyes,
blinding me for a second before I could blink it away.
I kept my sword busy throughout the struggle. Someone tried holding my arm in place, but I was able to rotate the curved blade, and the soldier let go. I stood, wiped the blood from my eyes with my sleeve, and blocked a wild swing from the last nearby soldier. He swung again and acted like he expected me to run.
Instead, I created a magical fire shield and pressed it to his face. His scream stopped after a half-second, but I kept adding pressure for another three. When I stopped, his body fell onto its back, his face was gone, and his skull was an empty, burned husk.
I quickly searched for the women and was startled to see Nadia pinned under a soldier, struggling with him as he held a dagger above her face. I couldn’t help her, though, because I had two others charging me.
The first came at me like a crazed barbarian, swinging his sword so wildly, the other had to stop and move away so he didn’t get injured or killed accidentally. He came in high, but rather than block his blade, I closed the distance and smashed his nose with my forehead. Blood splashed over both of our faces.
I kept driving forward, pushing the moaning man toward his partner who was doing everything he could to get out of the way. When the second tripped over a body, I threw the soldier on top of him.
My opponent landed on the second one’s sword, impaling him. The one on bottom struggled, but he was pinned. He held up a hand in a vain attempt to stop me from killing him.
When I checked on Nadia again, her opponent was still on top of her, but he was losing. Blood ran down the woman’s forearms in narrow streams. Based on her expression, the screaming of her opponent, and the position of her hands, I knew what she was doing. She’d buried her thumbs in the man’s eye sockets and was about to show him what his eyeballs looked like.
A moment later, she kicked the soldier off her and stabbed another under his kneecap. When he collapsed, she cut his throat and the throat of the man who’d been on top of her.
The rest of the soldiers were beginning to back away. The smell of burned flesh and the thick odor of the blood pooling around the many bodies in the courtyard had sobered them. They huddled together, raised their shields, and retreated toward the closed door of the keep. It looked like a last stand rather than a disengagement, though.
Alena and Nadia were up and moving. The elf was collecting arrows from nearby bodies, but she looked like she could barely stand.
“Any more healing potions?” I murmured to her.
She nodded and offered me one. “It’s our last one,” she whispered.
“Take it,” I said. “I’m tired, but I’m fine. You need it right now.”
She nodded, swallowed the bottle’s contents, and instantly started to look better.
Nadia had spent all her knives, which were likely buried in nearby bodies. Instead of looking for them, she picked up a couple of swords—one in each hand.
The remaining enemies were a sad-looking bunch. One had only half a beard and a red face where the fire had burned him. The rest were injured in one way or another and looked like they expected to die. It wasn’t my place to disappoint them.
“Is the doppelganger still in the keep?” I whispered.
Nadia closed her eyes for a moment and nodded. “It is still there,” she said. “Not far through the doorway. It is frightened.”
“Good,” I said.
The doors to the keep were covered by a short overhang of carved stone. It looked like it was there to help keep water from entering the building when it rained. It only protruded about a foot, but it would be enough for my purposes.
I cast a fireball, aimed at the junction between the overhang and the doors. When it hit, most of the force was directed downward. The soldiers standing closest to the impact were crushed and burned by the blast. Those a bit further out were thrown to the sides and crashed into the soldiers next to them.
We waded in among them, slashing and stabbing the survivors. Our blades made quick work of the remaining guards. It was all over in a few seconds.
The doors were hot from the fireball but weren’t burning. They looked like they were dripping some kind of substance, which I guessed made them impervious to flame. When I tried the doors, I discovered they were locked. It was what I’d expected.
A male voice from inside the keep began to laugh. It was powerful enough to rattle the stones of the building and the ground under my feet. I sensed a dark, magical force behind it.
“Surrender!” I demanded. “Bring the creature out, leave your weapons, and I will allow you to live. I will not turn away! This is your one opportunity!”
“Why should I?” the man asked, still thundering. “You will lose. Even now, my forces are closing on this fortress. They will show you no mercy. Your women will be killed. Your deeds will be forgotten. Nothing you have done so far will matter. Your remains will be burned, except for your head.
“When my army invades your land, I will see to it that your king is the last to die. I will show him the rotting skull of his champion. I will tell him of your bravery and how you were the only one who managed to cause any damage to Xoria. Yet, even you were not enough. He will know true power, and he will beg for his life.
“You, Reese, are pathetic and weak. You do not matter. You are a nuisance. You are a gnat. I do not fear you.”
Alena shot me a sideways glance. I’d caught it, too. Somehow the general knew my name.
“Are you ready?” I asked my companions. They nodded. Nadia lowered herself into a fighting position while Alena knocked an arrow.
I stared at the door feeling nothing but contempt. I shouted “Sustu Fragili!” and kicked the barrier hard, sending wood tumbling to the ground. We stepped inside.
19
The general stood in the middle of the room. Tapestries hung on both the left and right walls, and behind him, a human-sized creature lay curled on the bottom of a golden cage. It was the doppelganger. It had to die.
“Leave now,” the general said. He was eerily calm as though seeing three armed opponents with a courtyard full of dead soldiers behind them was an everyday occurrence.
“What, no offer of a quick death?” Alena asked.
The general smiled, but there was no mirth behind the expression. He drew his sword slowly. The blade was as straight and as narrow as a dagger—a stabbing weapon.
I didn’t wait for him to finish. Instead, I fired a magical arrow at the same time Alena fired a normal one. He blocked both like they had moved in slow motion.
We charged but stopped only a few steps later when six more Nadia emerged from hiding places within the room. There were seven of her now. They all looked exactly the same, and most of them attacked.
Each carried the same swords Nadia was armed with. Each was equally talented as well.
I blocked a sweeping attack from one, only to be kicked in the ribs by a second. It knocked the wind out of me, and as I staggered, I had to block two more strikes.
Another Nadia kicked me in the leg, leaving herself open for a stab, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it. I cared for Nadia, and even though I knew the general was using the power of the doppelganger, I didn’t want to kill the wrong one.
Instead, I punched her in the face, staggering her, which left me with one attacker. We traded attacks and parries until I saw an opening and stabbed toward her leg. I hadn’t used my full strength, though, because my opponent looked like my beautiful companion. She cried out in Nadia’s voice and limped away.
I spotted the general staring at Alena. He had his hand raised like he was about to cast a spell. I raised a fire shield between them and intercepted a dozen magical arrows he’d fired at her. One of the Nadias was too close to Alena when the shield appeared and was cut nearly in half by the spell. It turned back into its true form—an assassin—a second later.
The general was a mage. He was the priest for the doppelganger.
I tried to remind myself that there was only one true Nadia—the rest were i
mposters. It was the same trick the general had used against my army when we’d landed. It was the trick that had resulted in nearly ten thousand of my people being slaughtered. It wouldn’t defeat me.
I allowed my strikes to become more decisive, and I began using the fire aspect of my weapon to my advantage. When the next opponent attacked, I blocked her sword with the back of mine, twisted the blade so it curved downward, and touched it to her chest. She screamed and swatted at the little fire, which gave me time to kick her weapon from her hand and jab her in both thighs.
The next took a more reserved approach, attacking me with a flurry of stabs, which allowed her to keep her defenses tight. I answered by parrying and countering, each time bringing my blade close to her fingers.
I could have killed her a dozen times, but she looked like Nadia. The stress and constant fighting were beginning to wear on me.
My opponent dodged a magical arrow aimed at her foot and nicked me with the tip of her blade on my forearm. My patience had run out.
I created three arrows, sending one into her chest, and one into each of her arms. The one in the middle barely penetrated, but the other two went in far enough to protrude out the back. Although it pained me, I lopped off her head. I was relieved when it changed into the face of a man as it fell.
There were still four vampires, but only one was real. Three fought in one corner of the room, but their blades and feet were moving too quickly for me to be able to tell which one was being attacked by the other two. Alena was fighting one of her own.
I trusted Nadia. She would not attack her friends. Two arrows brought Alena’s opponent to her knees and allowed the elf to finish the imposter off.
The three battling near the corner were the biggest problem. I had to act quickly, or the real Nadia might die, but I wasn’t sure which one to attack.
I charged forward as the general watched and studied their movements. They all had the same fighting style, but I spotted something different between them. One of the Nadias was more fluid in her motions than the others. Her footsteps were precise, and her sword swings were smoother.
