Keethro felt his heart thumping, but he was not winded. They’d come to within a hundred paces of the blonde-haired warrior who was himself now a mere hundred paces from the dragons. His mane danced behind him as he moved with increasing speed. One fired, missing him completely. It puzzled Keethro until he glanced behind to where the arrow had landed and saw the one-armed man had been killed. What gall, he thought, but he then saw the source of their confidence.
Four warhorses galloped through the far doors, prompting the man who had been running with Keethro and Titon to stop midfield by one of the fences. A strange man who fears horses but not dragons, thought Keethro.
Three of the horses rode past the fiery contraptions, their riders each carrying a massive ball and chain. The horses were covered in black armor that glistened as if wet, and the men atop were armored in kind, looking like greedy reapers. The effect was lost only somewhat as the fourth horse reared, frightened perhaps by the flames, and began trampling the nearest dragon’s crew with its unseated rider still caught in a stirrup.
The weapons of the horsemen may have been daunting, but Keethro soon noticed their long chains made them ill suited for joint attacks. The third horseman was forced to break from the other two as they charged the dual-wielding warrior from either side. The warrior dove and rolled at just the right moment toward one of the horses, avoiding the spiked balls of death while managing to slice the exposed ankle of one of the beasts. The horse fell forward, digging a trench in the hard-packed sand with its body.
The horseman that broke away came at Keethro and Titon. With the best-balanced of his axes in hand, Keethro stopped to throw. When the rider was at twenty paces he sent the axe with all his force, and it flew through the air with enough rancor to split steel. The axe blade found the vertical slit in the man’s helmet and forced its way through. His body went limp and fell backward on the horse as it galloped past.
When the single remaining horseman circled for a second attack on the blonde-haired warrior, Keethro made a silent wager that the rider would be the one to die. But before the two made contact, fire leapt forth from one of the dragons. The arrow caught the warrior in the lower back and passed through, just barely missing the horseman, who then stopped and began cursing at the dragon’s keepers. Keethro took the opportunity to better their odds and heaved his axe. He watched as it curved through the air, an impressive distance even for a man without an injured wrist. The axe head glanced off the side of the man’s helmet and buried into the neck of the horse. The animal whinnied and rose high on its hind legs, causing the rider to slip. The horse then collapsed lifeless to its side, completely crushing its rider in the process.
Titon continued forward and reached the horse that the blonde warrior had maimed, motioning for Keethro to catch up. Good, a living shield, thought Keethro as he sprinted to oblige. The horse’s front legs were both badly broken. Red-stained bones protruded as it pushed through the sand, trying to right itself in what must have been agony. With one slice from his mighty axe, Titon took the head off the unconscious rider, and with another, Titon brought an end to the horse’s suffering, eliciting a collective gasp from the audience.
Titon slammed the side of his axe against his mammoth shield as if to provoke the three dragons that remained, and the crowd broke again into cheer. It made little difference to Keethro that they may now have the crowd on their side. It will not change how this ends.
Keethro caught up to Titon and remained behind him. They now had fewer than a hundred paces between them and the dragons. A glance to the rear revealed the thick swordsman further behind—again moving forward, albeit slightly crouched as if to jump and roll at any moment.
As close as they now were, Keethro could tell exactly what the men were doing with their arrow-hurling contraptions. The devices themselves looked to be enormous bows placed on their sides and mounted upon wheels. With the exception of the dragon farthest left which had acquired two extra crew from the broken dragon, three men in light armor worked each device. One readied the arrows, one tensioned the bow with a lever, and the third aimed and fired. Keethro was sickened to see all three dragons were now ready to fire, two of which pointed at him and Titon, the other at the lagging swordsman.
“Stand tall and thin,” Titon instructed as he himself turned to his side, crossing one leg in front of the other while continuing his sidelong advance. Keethro stayed behind him and did the same, though he saw no point in trying to make themselves smaller targets. The machines skewered a pig at over three hundred paces. They will have no difficulty hitting the side of a giant soon to be at fifty.
The swordsman behind them must have felt the same and broke into a sprint, not straight forward, but alternating diagonally left and right. A deep “thwunk” sounded as the dragon aimed at him fired. Keethro watched out of the corner of his eye as the flaming bolt caught the spike of the man’s buckler held to the side. The impact spun him—so violently that he slammed into the ground and began the horrid, moaning inhalations of the unconscious and gravely injured.
Titon continued his methodical advance as they closed to fifty paces. The five men of the recently fired dragon yelled at each other while frantically struggling to re-arm their machine—their extra members seeming only to add to their hysteria.
“They will not miss,” Keethro said to Titon.
“I am hoping they do not.”
He’s lost all sense. But Keethro saw no better option than to trust him. He supposed it would not be so bad to die upon the same dragon arrow that impaled the mighty Titon.
The dreaded sound of the dragon’s release was heard. Keethro braced himself for death as he watched the trail of flame scream toward them. The tip of the arrow that should have punctured Titon’s shield instead scraped against the surface with a spray of sparks. Titon had angled the face sharply, deflecting the arrow’s glancing blow, but the force of impact was so great that it smashed his shield into his body and staggered him. The crowd erupted into a frenzy of ovation, but there was no time to celebrate. Keethro saw the fearful determination of the crew of the only dragon ready to fire. He also saw what they were planning.
“They are aiming—”
He did not have time to finish. Titon squatted just as the machine fired low. The impact with his shield was similar to the previous one, though this time it knocked him to his ass. The arrow deflected downward into the ground, spraying clumps of sand into Keethro’s eyes as he remained standing and dumbfounded. Titon righted himself, threw down both his shield and heavy axe, and charged, letting out a war cry so fierce that each of the eleven men manning the dragons visibly balked.
Keethro wasted no time. He sprinted as well, blinking his eyes free of grit. His target was the five-man crew that was closest to being ready to fire another arrow. Despite their extra members, they had neglected to light the tip of their projectile, and the less-impressive arrow was placed into the waiting machine, ready to be fired. Keethro let his final axe fly at the man responsible for aiming the wooden beast. The axe handle slammed the intended target on the top of the head, dazing him. The other men fought to fire the weapon, but with the semi-lucid man vying to do the same, they botched the attack, firing with the machine pointed at an awkward angle and missed completely. Keethro only had a moment to congratulate himself for achieving such a throw while half-blinded and running at full speed. He turned his attention to the next group of men who were trying to finish loading, but Titon was already on top of them as they fumbled with the heavy arrow.
Keethro jumped over the machine that last fired, and its crew scattered and ran—only to find that the giant doors behind them had been closed after the crazed warhorse had run back inside with rider still in tow. He grabbed the first man he could, who shrieked—not unlike a Dogman—as Keethro grappled with him to remove his helmet, then used it to cave in his head. Titon launched an assault on the other men and managed to grab two at once. With one in each hand, he raised them in the air by their throats, choking them
until their windpipes caved. Keethro continued to give chase to the men one by one, still using the helmet to end them, while Titon had decided to use a giant dragon arrow as a spear.
The only ones screaming more loudly than the men they killed were those in the stands. The sound was like nothing Keethro had heard before, and knowing that it was in celebration of his victory felt not much different than when he was with a woman. To have gone from almost certain death—a death that was so eagerly anticipated and cheered for by a horde of bloodthirsty strangers—to winning the support of those very masses that had craved his humiliating defeat… It was something that even the thrill of victory in a battle against incredible odds simply could not compare.
Three men had managed to escape the lower ground between the dragons and the doors and ran to midfield. Keethro expected them to arm themselves with the weapons that had been dropped, but they did no such thing. They merely continued to run, and Keethro spat in the dirt in disgust. “Titon,” he called. “Over here.”
Titon finished his kill by cranking the neck of a man under his arm so savagely that his head would have surely come off if not for the unbroken skin. He came to Keethro and appeared delighted when he saw what he had in mind.
“I watched them do it. You arm it like this.” Keethro demonstrated on one of the machines and Titon quickly followed suit on another. The spearmen on the other side of the field must have remained, not allowing the dragons’ keepers to escape into the safety of the lower ground. It took Keethro and Titon some time to impale all three men—eight shots in total—and it was as enjoyable for them as it must have been for the onlookers who celebrated each success.
The cheers slowly morphed into a chant. It was difficult to make out what they said as it echoed and reverberated, but Keethro soon heard it clear.
“Northman! Northman! Northman!” sounded the chant of countless voices. It is not Northmen they say, it is Northman. But Keethro was not about to pity himself. It was good just to be alive, and more importantly, to have been with Titon as he achieved his glory. You deserve it, my friend.
The chanting stopped with a suddenness that foreboded danger. A single man draped in a large cape stood in the lowest seats of the midfield—not the one who had done the earlier announcing—and with a single raised finger he had brought the entire arena to silence. Keethro’s elation was snuffed as he recalled his thoughts about the men powerful enough to create such monstrous walls, and he feared being crushed by such a man more now than ever.
ALTHER
Drip…drip, drip…drip, drip. That erratic sound was all that could be heard since Cassen’s strange and quiet departure. He’d looked almost morose to Alther, a look that Alther might have been able to take pleasure in under other circumstances, seeing that pompous man in mourning, but certainly not after he’d just begged the man to protect his wife and daughter.
Back and forth Alther rocked on the floor—not out of some madness that had taken him, but because the motion was the best he could do to soothe his mind. And nonetheless, back and forth his mind went, replaying Cassen’s words and expressions, attempting to decipher their true meaning. When that failed, Alther then resorted to assigning blame to those most responsible for this tragic state.
The dungeons had not been so quiet his entire stay, a duration that he had lost all reckoning of. Sometime before Cassen’s visit a man had been dragged into a cell, screaming and fighting. The man was irate, if not gripped in full by lunacy, and he yelled endlessly for hours approaching on days. His voice filled the vaults, echoing off the wet walls and gliding with freedom through the bars of every cell, preventing Alther from being able to think or sleep. Finally, some men clad in coin purses or chainmail, probably the latter, came to silence him. How Alther missed that man, whose insanity would now be so welcome a diversion.
All that was left to do was throw names and scenarios haplessly around in his mind, none of which were any good, neither past nor present. His father and Cassen were the two that plagued him most, aside, of course, from himself. Alther could not deny that he had a hand, either in action or deliberate inaction, in every event that had led to this: a meaningless existence that would stretch for eternity in this cell. Ethel’s life would be in peril just by her close association to him as her stepfather, and his wife remained imprisoned for all he knew. “The Mighty Three hate a coward, boy.” It was a lesson his father had tried to drill into both him and Edwin. A lesson learned far too late, in Alther’s case.
Even if Stephon did release Crella, Alther knew their angry, fickle son might send her right back to confinement once she overstepped his new authority as king. Angry and fickle, thought Alther. Those words are a kindness to the boy. How was it that he and Crella had raised such a charming young woman and such a cold, detached boy right beside her? Again, it seemed to come down to Alther’s own contribution: half the boy’s blood. Ethel, the product of incest, had better breeding than the one Alther had sired.
Something grabbed hold of Alther, a distant sound. A sweet, alluring aberration from the monotonous dripping. He strained to listen, cupping his hands around his ear and pressing hard against the iron bars.
There were men approaching, many men. Heavy men by the sound of it. Alther thought he could feel their steps through the ground, the vibrations traveling up the bars to tingle the ridges of his hands. It would be foolish and gravely disappointing to hope they were here for him, but perhaps they might have come at least for someone in a nearby cell, or better yet, to bring in a new arrival. Maybe the person would be housed in a cell farther down than Alther. It was yet to happen, but it would be a treat: to actually see another prisoner, to put a face to the man before he began his childlike pleas for lawful justice. It was too much to ask for, Alther knew, but he could not shake the hope that the man brought might be crazy like that other one, requiring not just jailing, but confinement in chains to a cell wall, a perch from which he would sing to Alther for a few blissful hours.
Alther’s spirits lifted further as he heard pieces of some sort of disagreement brewing down the end of the long hall.
“…I assure you I had no idea… I was merely doing my job…”
The voice had worry in it…grave worry…mortal worry. But it was not the voice of a prisoner; Alther could tell that much from the sound of it. It was an older man’s voice, a familiar one. Alther had heard it before and while down here, he believed. It never spoke many words, but the words had always been spoken with some level of authority or humor. Alther wished he had been more attentive when they’d first brought him here. He’d been so consumed with anguish that he had not even made note of those he passed—not prisoners, not gaolers, not guards.
“Your Grace, I beg you…for over thirty years I’ve served…”
Your Grace? Is the king here? Could it be Stephon?
“Your Gr—”
The man’s pleas were cut short by pained grunts, but little else could be heard over the sound of moving chainmail.
The men came now, marching down the hall, bringing with them answers and more entertainment. Alther buzzed with excitement, tainted only ever so slightly with the concern that their visit could somehow worsen his current situation. It was hard to fathom.
“Your kerchief,” demanded one of the men. Alther knew that voice without question.
Stephon was the first to step into view, wiping his foil clean of what could only be blood, mentioning something to one of his many followers about a scabbard of exotic leather.
To see his face was enough to crush Alther, to put him on his knees. Stephon had not always been contemptible—that realization swept Alther as he saw him. He had been no worse than any other boy in his younger years, and father and son had enjoyed their time spent together. His memories with Stephon play-fencing with wooden rapiers and building shelters in the forest gardens of Adeltia were far better than any he could remember sharing with his own father. How had I forgotten? And has Stephon remembered as well? It was suddenly conce
ivable that all Stephon had needed was the authority that he’d always craved, and after having it, could have become a fair man, if not a bit overzealous with the pursuit of his own form of justice.
“Father, I have come to free you.” It was all Stephon would need say to give Alther a chance at redemption. Stephon would have his throne and Alther would have his wife and daughter. Truth be told, it would be little different than when his father yet lived—a thought that sobered Alther.
“Alther, get up.”
How many times Stephon had given him the command, Alther could not determine, but his son looked far from happy having to repeat himself. Alther stood and instinctively stepped back from the bars.
“How does it feel to be a prisoner?” asked Stephon.
He looked healthy in spite of his time spent imprisoned. The boy has a certain fortitude to him, Alther thought with pride. To know his son had endured the dungeons without withering to the decrepit, rocking man he himself had become was a relief on some level. I should have come to visit him. He’d had his reasons for not doing so—it would have only angered him more, it would have hurt his chances of ever being freed, and so on, but Alther always had reasons to justify his inactivity. Now I know how much he must have craved a familiar face.
“I know the feeling well,” continued Stephon. “I spent a good many nights in such confinement. Much longer than you have…thus far.”
Alther looked at the men surrounding his boy. Seven men, heavy clad in plate and mail, but no helms. Their expressions ranged from deadly serious: those who looked to be members of The Guard, to smirks: those who looked to be recently appointed Adeltian knights, and the Adeltian knights outnumbered those of The Guard.
The Axe and the Throne (Bounds of Redemption Book 1) Page 44
