by Kai Widdeson
Fearing an attack from behind as well now, all I can do is ready myself for the swordsman charging from the front. He makes it a few steps before his feet are whipped out from underneath him and he is dragged upwards into the leaves by thick rope. The trap isn’t finished, as the man launches skywards a thick log swings below. It’s heavy enough that its path is barely disrupted as it carries another soldier with it with a sickening crunch.
The hunters have bought me a couple of seconds. I immediately turn with my spear raised in defence, fearing that the breaching soldiers have managed to get behind us already.
There’s no one. I look down as a bloody trickle pools down against my bare toes. A man lies face down, his back a pincushion for the arrow embedded in it. We’ve got no cover and no real armour. I watch as more arrows fall from the sky on unsuspecting heads, invisible against the dusk sky. The unstoppable projectiles pepper our forces, opening the barricade for the ground troops. Orrian calls to fall back and the men around me begin to retreat, allowing the colony to advance.
My wrist snaps violently. Idiot, I round back to the soldiers as my spear goes tumbling from my grip and into the bodies on the floor the other side. I back up quickly, fumbling into my waistband for my knife as the soldier pulls himself over our defences. He strolls through the gap I’ve left, a predator stalking its defenceless prey. In my panic I stumble, freeing my blade as I fall crashing to the ground. It won’t do me much good now. I stare into the expressionless face of the swordsman who raises his sword high for the finishing below.
An arm wraps around his waist. Faelyn grunts with the effort as he launches the smaller man backwards with his free hand, the man’s sword goes flying out of his grip. Faelyn cuts down his original opponent before swiftly silencing my destined killer.
Faelyn looks down on me. I can picture myself from his perspective, small, unarmed, weak. His eyes pierce right through me and for the first time I feel he sees me for who I really am. I am no threat, no great warrior or saviour, like the rest of them I still need the help and protection of others.
“Run,” says Faelyn, turning his back on me to face the relentless horde. He’s doing this for me, giving me time to get back to the others.
I scramble to my feet tucking the knife back into my waistband and daring to take another second to retrieve the soldier’s sword from the sand. I take off, kicking up sand as I dart between the fallen. I turn to see if Faelyn follows and I come skidding to a halt.
He’s completely alone now, the only one who didn’t retreat with the rest and is holding his post. He draws his blade in wide arcs as the soldiers begin to swarm him, his injured leg struggling as he constantly turns to meet each of his new challengers.
He gets slashed deep in his chest, he swings erratically before another plunges into his side and he crumples to one knee. Even now he fights, thrusting into gaps in the armour, forcing them back to lean against the barricade. More join the fray. He catches a couple in the legs and they go tumbling, they approach him from behind as well now. One last wild look from those sharp eyes, teeth bared as he makes a warrior’s final stand, before the armour closes in around him.
One of the soldiers falls, brought to the ground by some unseen force, another stumbles away from the group hand pressed firmly over a bleeding gut. Finally, the activity stops. The soldiers finally disband, resuming their advancement towards the sea, leaving an abnormally long body in their wake.
With no time to mourn, I obey Faelyn’s dying command. I run.
A thundering begins on my right, Orrian and the others before me devote their attention to the source. Without breaking stride, I glance in dread as a familiar rhythm forms, their cavalry has arrived.
Prince Arron leads the charge, they must have skirted the barricade further down the beach. He rides with perhaps fifty others, almost matching us head-for-head without even counting the infantry chasing towards us from the other side.
I arrive at Orrian’s side, the horses only a few hundred meters away now and approaching quickly. With us between them and the sheer cliff face and the sea at our backs, we have nowhere left to run. We rotate at such an angle that both forces attack our fronts, the remnants of the tribe forming a protective barrier between the colony and the rafts.
“Take the children,” Orrian commands Jaq.
“My king,” says Jaq shocked, “I can’t leave you.”
Orrian turns to his second in command, “Jaq, back there is our future. Take Tharrin and get out of here, that’s an order.”
Jaq hesitates for a moment longer, two different kinds of loyalties warring in his mind. He grabs Tharrin by the arm and they disappear behind us. Tharrin’s prisoner is left by himself in the sand suddenly without a guard. Orrian watches as the spy launches to his feet and darts for the safety of the trees. Clearly Orrian has decided that the spy is unworthy of any more of his people’s time or attention given the situation and watches the man kick up sand behind him in contempt.
Orrian turns to me, “Ready?”
I nod nervously, sticking the sword between my legs momentarily so that I may wipe away the sweat that has gathered on my hands. Orrian takes his remaining three arrows in his free hand, and then without another look back, he steps forward to greet the charge.
The first two arrows take out the prince’s bannermen, the third goes straight through his steed’s eye. The horse topples, sending the prince hurtling through the air. Unfortunately, the spread of the cavalry is too thin to crush him underfoot and through the hazel blur a gold embroidered figure still rises to his feet.
Orrian didn’t stop to check that his arrows hit, he has already discarded the bow in favour of a sword. He charges the horsemen, the fastest of the tribesmen barely keeping up. He ducks as the first horseman swings low and he sweeps away the horse’s feet, separating the soldier from his ride. He doesn’t even wait to deal with the fallen man, leaving him to the charging mass as he heads in Arron’s direction.
Astera wakes me from my daze, pulling me after her as we lead the assault on the foot soldiers in the other direction. I pursue the twins as they join the battle, iron converging on us from all sides. We duck and weave, I slash with my stolen blade and they with their knives. We dance around the soldiers. They may be protected under all that armour, but it makes them far to slow, not agile enough to keep up with us.
Horas and Astera work in perfect harmony. Each covers the other as they litter the ground with bodies. They fight with the same mind, a single united force laying havoc to those that have wronged them. When Horas had confided in me that he hadn’t wanted to be the Akanian I had assumed he perhaps wasn’t as able a fighter as the rest of them, I couldn’t have been more wrong. He may do everything he can to avoid the conflict, but once involved I certainly wouldn’t want to be his target. As I roll and slash between legs and through gaps, I marvel at their movement. The pair move through the crowd as fluidly as water, as if each block, each dodge and parry, was all part of a familiar routine.
Twisting to narrowly avoid an arcing blade I emerge back into the open, slicing behind at the unarmoured backs of the legs behind me and bringing one more into the sand. I’ve come out the other side and now trap the colony men between myself and our forces. Sweat beads my forehead and panting I look down to find several long cuts streaking across my arm, I hadn’t even noticed I’d been touched.
All formations have been lost now, Halpian, tribesman, cavalry, all mix in one single chaotic swarm. For a moment I spot Orrian, his face coated in blood as he tackles a soldier down by the waist before ending his misery. Immediately he launches back into the air to take down two more, before disappearing among the crowd.
It’s not enough. Our weapons are breaking and far fewer of the tribe are left than the colony, despite the ferocity and valiance with which they fight. Broken spears lay next to bodies as others desperately try to reach for a proper weapon. Right in front of me a hunter stoops to retrieve a colony sword destined to never rise again.
> Astera and Horas have made their way through as well now, leaving a much clearer trail than I had, and together we slash from the perimeter. With Horas in our centre, and myself and Astera by his sides, we manage to clear a path back towards the last line, where a shockingly reduced number of survivors still hold the colony back from the children.
All around us tribesman fall. Warriors from both sides cling to our ankles as we wade through the bodies, some pleading for help, others trying to drag us down with them.
Orrian continues across the carnage, facing the never-ending onslaught of challengers as they approach him. There’s movement from behind, even in the low light I can see the glint in the shadow’s eyes as he charges Orrian’s exposed back. I don’t remember moving but the next thing I know I’m weaving back through the pandemonium.
Something trips me, an arm, a head, it doesn’t matter. I roll to one side before throwing myself forwards onto my hands, avoiding the fatal blows as I splutter sand. I’m unbalanced but I make a beeline straight for Orrian’s assassin.
I leap forwards, thrusting as I dive. Fortunately, my blade disappears through a gap in the plating, vanishing so far into the soldier’s side that my knuckles brush his skin. I grunt as I heave the sword upwards, rising onto my knees for support.
The soldier goes limp, fresh dark liquid wets my grip. My breath catches in my throat, the dark closing in around me as I stare at the vague outline of my hands. For a passing second, they are illuminated, painted with my deed. The man shudders at my feet with the sword still embedded in his side. He is no longer real, separated from me by a thick haze, my senses dull as I move into another reality. Cries and impacts are muted, these crimson digits before me surely cannot be my own, I certainly can’t seem to feel them. I just killed a man, it finally dawns on me where I am, surrounded by death and pain. It feels as if everything has suddenly been brought into reality as the warm liquid drips from my fingertips. My blood rushes through my ears, and I stumble as a dark figure brushes past me. The nightmarish hands before me are still facing upwards at the stars, once again they briefly illuminate. Something shifts inside me in recognition that this is wrong, but it can’t quite tell me what.
Different screams penetrate the bloodshed. They cut deep to the bone, filling my veins with ice and bringing me back to reality. As I turn another volley of arrows dart across the night sky, this time flaming, covering the entire beach and thudding into distant wood.
The rafts. The archers are targeting the children. The rafts have been separated into two groups. The first, already someway out into the bay, are led by Jaq and Ryfon. The second is being commanded by the Sage and Tharrin. A few of the stronger archers manage to land arrows into the outer rafts but the majority fall harmlessly into the ocean. It is the latter who has most of the archers’ attention directed towards them.
I am too far away, helpless to do anything but watch as the next volley strikes, finding the young and the elderly alike. The raft is too wet to set alight, but several lit cloths are forced to jump into the depths. Some part of me recognises that a battle continues around me, that part shouts from a long way away. The archers are now ignoring the first group entirely as Jaq and Ryfon paddle furiously to get out of range.
Ryfon ushers the rafts away, encouraging the children to join in paddling against the tide, meanwhile Tharrin and Sage Malach abandon theirs. Jaq is standing and gesturing wildly to the other group, his message gets through as moments later Tharrin hoists the board on his shoulders. The small heads polluting the water disappear from sight as they take shelter beneath it.
CRASH! Something cold and solid smashes into my temple knocking me sideways. My vision blurs, darkness intruding from the edges. In a similar and yet so different way to Jaq and Tharrin, I drift off into inky depths.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
“Get rid of the others, they’ll just slow us down,” a distant voice commands.
“Yes sir,” a different voice obeys.
I strain to force my eyelids open, grey shapes blur in the darkness through the narrow slit. The largest of them stops above another, this one horizontal at its feet.
“Please, no,” a husky voice pleads.
A brighter silver connects the two monochromatic figures with a wet slide before withdrawing again. The husky voice grunts before saying no more.
As blackness creeps back into my vision, rapidly invading from the peripherals, the figure straightens before shrinking towards other laying blurs.
I sink back into unconsciousness.
My head swings and connects with something solid, regular sides imprinting themselves against my cheek. At the same time a droplet collides with my forehead, proceeding to run down my brow. I raise my head as the world shifts into focus.
It’s still night time so I can’t have been out for too long, the shadows are thicker now, penetrated by the blaze of many torches and lanterns.
I am sitting on a large wooden floor which bumps and tilts randomly beneath me. Each corner of the board ends in a grid, rising a few feet above my head into a similar ceiling. A cage.
Orrian sits beside me, necklace hanging freely as he stoops over his knees. His alert eyes are fixed on his bare feet pulled up close before him. Blood is absent from very little of his skin, considerably too much to all be his. I notice that he has been relieved of his weapons, similarly, I realise that Edwyn’s knife has been removed from my waistband. I feel bare without it now, having had the comfort of it since we began our travels all the way back at the den. The knife had been one among dozens chucked into a pile in Edwyn’s outpost, a last-minute grab as I left, and yet I still mourn the loss of this last connection to the fallen hunter.
Several older tribespeople surround us, including Sage Malach, all with babes or young children in arms.
The raft that was under fire, it must not have made it out to sea. The sage’s clothes are clearly still damp, with no sun to warm them and the rain falling upon us it’s going to be a long night. He whispers softly to the young child in his arms, the girl is already asleep and yet he continues regardless. He tells a story, a tale of a huntress goddess at a spring deep in some lost valley. I notice that the other elders listen closely as he speaks, and several children’s eyelids flutter as they struggle to keep their attention. I listen curiously for a few seconds, thankful for the option to escape into another world if only momentarily.
The arrhythmic shuffles of many footsteps sound away from the direction in which we move, accompanied by metallic rattling. The survivors all march behind us, flanked by colony men occasionally cracking whips. They are structured into rows of three, I almost forget to breathe as I realise how shockingly few rows there are. Astera, Horas, and a lady I haven’t yet had the chance to meet lead the group, almost within touching distance of our cage. As I push myself into a more comfortable position, ignoring the stabbing pains in my ribs and hip, I notice that their hands are all bound. Not with rope as I would expect, but with thick metal ringlets connected by a worn chain. I notice several children among the crowd as I scan the ranks for familiar faces. My heart flutters with relief as I settle upon both Medea and Tharrin only a few heads back.
As Jaq’s companion I always expected Tharrin to be able to handle himself, but a part of me wouldn’t expect Medea to come out the other side of our battle when so many others had not. Her skin wraps and hangs off such disturbingly fleshless bones so limply that it wouldn’t come as a surprise if any lifting caused her to simply snap. Still, she must have fought well to avoid falling victim to the bloodshed.
The blood. Piles and piles of bodies, the floor layered in carcasses. My evil, unlocked inside of me as I slashed and killed. I fear for that slice of my soul, of my humanity, that I may have lost in that moment as I stole lives from this world that shouldn’t have been mine to take. A part of me knows that I had to, that it was kill or be killed, but that part is hidden away as I am disciplined by my conscience. The blood still stains my hands, slowly washing away under
the rainfall, but flakes still stick defiantly beneath my fingernails. My fingers tremor as I slowly rinse the evidence from me, continuing meticulously until they have reclaimed their original colour. Even now that they are clean, I don’t know if they will ever look the same again, perhaps the imaginary blood I see now will remain there permanently in memory.
We have lost so many, even before the fight our numbers were few but now, they have dwindled to a few dozen. Edwyn had been only the first casualty, too many more had followed. I remember Faelyn single-handedly fending off the advancing horde and giving me time to regroup with the others. He had always wanted to be the saviour, and he had ended up being mine. Despite his and Orrian’s differences he had fought for his people to the very end, leaving this world a hero.
I look around the cage once again, it is clear why most of us are here. Apart from Orrian and myself everyone is vulnerable, either too old or too young to trail behind us. So why us?
Oh. The answer comes to me as I glance again at the young king by my side. He hasn’t moved at all, still with his head low and distant eyes. He looks defeated. They’re putting him on display, letting his people see that their king has been broken. Here he is separated, isolated on a moving pedestal whilst his people are forced to watch.
What about myself? I suppose I was unconscious but for that reason, shouldn’t I have blended in among the bodies? And even if they had found me, surely they would have killed me like they did the others. Like the voice had said, I would just slow them down. But being in this cage means that they want me to be alive specifically, which means they must know who I am.
I suppose my fears have been confirmed now. Becker must have reported back to the Colony and someone in Avlym must have told Becker, probably Rhys. I can only hope they left my mother and Alice out of this, not that I can do anything from here.
Not for the first time I wonder how exactly I managed to get here, now a caged prisoner at the mercy of our enemies. Our hunters had found Orrian, or Guy as he was then, through luck. He had been healed and brought into my home because my mother happened to be a healer. He was set at the foot of my bed and left in my care because we were of the same age. Had Rhys not followed us into the forest I wouldn’t have even had a reason to leave with Edwyn. So much randomness, so many improbabilities, all spiralling into a life as a hunted fugitive. Is destiny behind this, have I always meant to be carted away to my likely slaughter? Or perhaps my life has just been one huge misfortune.
