Chapter 2
“I can’t believe we let her go alone!” A girl in blue riding a buckskin horse yelled over her shoulder.
Another young girl, wearing gray, and mounted atop a smaller white horse, shouted back, “Nobody let her go alone, Jade! Nobody even knew she was going!”
“Bunny did!” Jade shouted, pulling her horse up and cutting off the other girls riding behind her, so that they had to stop as well.
“Jade, what are you doing?!” The girl in gray asked, surprised, having to hold onto her reins tight as her horse bucked up slightly from the sudden stop.
“I’m getting some answers, Skylar.” Jade spat out, “Like, why, in God’s name, would Bunny show Avery some obscure little prophecy, in some archaic little book, found in the very back of our dusty little library, that basically tells Avery to go off and die!”
“I had to show her.” A girl in green, on a dark brown horse, spoke nervously, the beginning of tears wetting her eyes, “Avery’s our leader; we have to go to her first about anything. She had me looking through the books for anything that involved the Emperor, and then I found the prophecy, and I showed it to her, and she begged, she ordered me not to tell the rest of you. Especially, you, Jade.” Bunny began to cry uncontrollably, “I already told you all of this. She gave me an order, and she made me promise not to tell, and I broke both!”
Jade stared at Bunny in disbelief, shaking her head. She couldn’t believe that Bunny had been so weak and so stupid and now, because of that, Avery was in trouble.
“You told us thirty minutes too late, Bunny!” Jade shouted.
Bunny wiped at her nose with her hand, trying to get a hold of herself, “Besides,” she hiccupped, “the prophecy didn’t say anything about dying; it just said that two leaders, one of light and one of dark, shall meet alone and from their sacrifice of blood, peace could be had by both sides.”
Jade’s mouth dropped open, “How is that good?!” She screamed, “Sacrifice of blood, Bunny! Sacrifice of blood!”
“That’s enough!” A fourth and final girl in red, saddled upon a dusky gray horse, yelled angrily, “Bunny feels bad enough as it is, don’t make it worse. Avery knew what she was getting into when she went off by herself. That’s what our leader is best at…doing things by herself and telling us about it later.”
“Sasha, don’t you even start with me.” Jade gave Sasha a stare that would have sent most other people running away crying, “If anything happens to her…” Jade’s voice trailed off. She couldn’t even force herself to finish the thought, “Let’s just ride.”
They kicked their horses into a run and continued down the dark forest path which led to the Emperor’s fortress. None of them were focusing on anything but the road in front of them.
Once the Protectors exited out of the thick woods, the fortress immediately came into view. Until now, they had only seen it from a distance. It was a dark crumbling fortress, permanently surrounded by darkness and mist. Up close, it seemed even more foreboding than it did in the nightmares they had about it in their sleep.
The Protectors rode up to the massive wall that surrounded the fortress. The huge front gates lay open a crack, beckoning them inward. They dismounted their horses and sent them on their way, not wanting them to get hurt.
The gates were old and decaying and made horrible screeching noises as the Protectors heaved them open. Heavy stone gargoyles guarding the entrance to the fortress cried out warning alarms, as the Protectors entered into the desolate courtyard.
The troop of mountain trolls that began to charge them, may have, on another day, been able to hold them back for a while, but not today. Today things were different. Today they weren’t fighting out of duty or power; they were fighting for one of their own.
They drove the trolls all the way back inside the fortress and towards the circular stone steps which led up to the top chamber. They battled them up the staircase and through the enormous doors, into the same darkness that their leader had entered into not long ago.
As soon as they all set foot into the black room, the remaining trolls retreated, closing and locking the heavy doors behind them, effectively trapping the Protectors inside.
The Protectors stood deadly still for a moment, panting and bleeding, listening to the sounds of bulky footsteps and the clink of weapons building up on the outside of the doors.
“What’s that?” Bunny asked, pointing, breaking the tense quiet.
All their eyes followed to where Bunny was pointing at. In the very center of the chamber a dim light was gleaming down from the ceiling, but it was what the light was shining on that captured the Protector’s attention. There, in the middle of the light lay a body, a body with a dagger plunged deep into its chest.
The Protectors stood paralyzed, making the room seem all the more lifeless. In a matter of seconds, everything that had just previously happened seemed like a million years ago to them. The silence in the room was deafening, a pin dropping would have sounded like thunder.
Skylar was the first one to step forward, followed wordlessly by the other Protectors. It wasn’t until they moved closer that they were able to see the full effect of the scene. Avery’s once white corset was now stained a bright shade of red. The red continued to form a wide circle around the body, although, it was hard to make out against the dark stone floor. Avery had always been porcelain pale, but now her skin was a ghostly white, almost translucent, void of any color or life. Her lips were parted slightly and had taken on the color of lavender. The Protector’s had seen enough death to know what it looked like. They knew she was dead; they just couldn’t bring themselves to rationalize it.
When they reached the body, Bunny collapsed down by Avery’s side. Picking up Avery’s ice cold hand, she held it in her own and began to cry.
Jade had gone numb the moment they spotted the body. She felt like nothing in her physically or mentally was capable of functioning, but now watching Bunny crying, feeling was beginning to come back into her body. It felt like the shockwave right before the explosion hits.
“She’s not dead…she can’t be dead.” Jade’s voice was louder than was necessary and quivering with fear, “Pull the knife out of her…hurry!”
Jade looked around to the others, but no one moved.
When Jade realized that nobody was going to do anything, she ran up to Avery’s body, pushed Bunny out of the way, and gripped the ivory hilt of the steel dagger still embedded in Avery’s heart. She pulled with all of her strength. There was the slight scraping of blade against bone as the dagger was dislodged with enough force to send Jade stumbling backwards. The wound had stopped bleeding awhile ago, but the removal of the weapon had caused the body to jerk and fresh blood to spill out of the opening in her chest.
Bunny, who was closest to the body, released a whimper from deep in her throat. She strode towards the back wall and placed her head against the bricks, trying to wipe out the image of Avery’s wound.
Jade caught her balance and stood stone still for a moment, waiting for something to happen, but when nothing did, she staggered back over to the body. Jade fell to her knees beside Avery’s corpse, looking it up and down. The blood was cool against the side of Jade’s face as she lay her head upon Avery’s chest, listening for a heartbeat, waiting for Avery’s body to rise as her lungs filled with air, but there was nothing.
“Breathe…come on, breathe!” Her voice was starting to crack and tears were beginning to sting her eyes, “Don’t you dare leave me!”
Jade lifted her head up and began pushing on her chest, giving her mouth to mouth, but nothing worked. After a few minutes of trying that, she began shaking the body and pounding on it harder and harder with her fists, shouting, “Fight! Damn you…fight!” She picked Avery up into her lap and rocked her for a few moments, whispering into her ear, “Please…please don’t go. We can’t do this without you…please, please.”
Jade lay Avery’s body back down and began beating on it again, but sh
e wasn’t allowed to do this for very long. Sasha and Skylar grabbed Jade by both arms and ripped her away from the body.
“Let me go! I have to help her!” Jade screamed and kicked as she struggled to free herself, “Let me go!”
“You can’t help her,” Skylar shouted at her, as she began to cry herself, “you can’t! She’s gone, Jade…she’s gone.”
A savage scream escaped Jade’s lips and echoed throughout the chamber. She raised her hand to her hair and pulled, still screaming. When her voice had finally worn out, she collapsed into Skylar’s arms, and they fell to the floor together, holding each other and crying.
“How can this be happening?” Bunny uttered, still facing the wall where she was leaning her head, “What are we suppose to do?” Her voice began to get more hysterical, “This can’t be happening!”
“Bunny, calm down!” Sasha spoke for the first time since they entered the chamber. “We’ll figure out what to do.” She walked up to Bunny, grabbing her by the shoulders and turning her around, trying to steady her.
“Avery’s dead, Sasha.” Skylar looked up at her from the ground, still holding Jade, “What exactly is it that you think we should do?”
“First things first, we take Avery’s body back home. We get Gumptin, he might know of something we can do.” Sasha was taking over the role of leader, “Right now, though, we have to get out of here, or we’re going to end up getting killed ourselves.”
“That’s just what I had in mind,” said a voice from the darkness.
They all turned towards the direction the voice had come from just in time to see the Emperor emerge from the blackness.
Their swords were all drawn instantaneously, and Jade was halfway across the chamber towards the Emperor before Sasha stopped her.
“Jade…no!” Sasha bellowed, “We can’t do this right now! We have to get Avery back to Gumptin! You know we do!”
Jade just stood there staring at the Emperor for a minute, and Sasha thought she might not have heard her, but then a shiver seemed to run through the length of Jade’s body and the grip on her sword loosened. Jade and the Emperor exchanged one last cold hard look before she backed down.
Sasha stepped forward, so that she was just a few inches behind Jade, “Today is not our day to fight Emperor. The only thing we wish to do is return Avery’s body back home.”
The Emperor’s laugh rolled over the Protectors like an earthquake, “Do you think me a fool?” He asked, “The last thing I would let you do is drag off your leader to your little magician. Besides, I already have a perfect place on the battlements picked out for her corpse.”
At these words Jade and the other Protectors moved into fighting position.
The Emperor continued to speak without emotion, “The only thing that would make this day more perfect is to have four more bodies to go along with hers. So, you see, you were right about one thing; it’s not our day to fight, it’s your day to die.” He snapped his fingers once and a second later the locked doors burst open and an army of trolls, Demons, and beasts flooded into the chamber.
The fiends moved in quickly. Now that they knew the Protectors were leaderless, they found a new confidence. They were like sharks in the water that had smelled blood and were going in for the kill.
The battle was intense and the Protectors fought hard, but without Avery their power wasn’t strong enough to keep the enemy back for long. They were weakening and the sense that they weren’t going to win this battle began to envelope them.
Bunny was the first one to fall. A Bacci Demon, muscular and wolf-like, trapped her into a small corner of the chamber. She thought she had seen an opening in the Bacci’s defenses, so she raised her sword high above her head, intending to bring it down on the Bacci’s upper arm, but he anticipated this and took advantage. Right before Bunny was about to strike, the Bacci made a lightning quick turn and drove his own sword deep into Bunny’s abdomen. As the Bacci pulled his sword out, he howled with excitement and blood lust, he knew he had just killed himself a Protector.
Bunny fell to the ground, holding her stomach. Blood was pouring from her wound and she knew she was dying. She tried to call out for help, but the words stuck in the blood pooling in her throat and all that came out was a gurgle. She died with the taste of blood overwhelming her senses.
Skylar switched her sword from her right had to her left because the deeply embedded arrow sticking out of her right shoulder made any movement impossible. The next arrow flew towards her from somewhere in the crowd of Demons. It struck her in the upper thigh and forced her to the ground.
“Ugh!” She grimaced in pain.
She used her sword as a brace and struggled up off of the ground. Skylar had just barely righted herself when an enormous ogre, ax held high in his hand, rushed her. She lifted the sword she was using to balance on and plunged it into the ogre’s neck. The ogre fell down dead, and Skylar, now without her support fell back down as well. She was laboring so hard to get back up that she never even saw the thick silver arrow split through the air towards her. The arrow hit her with such force, that she was flown backwards five feet until she hit the stone wall behind her, with a crushing force.
Skylar lay on the floor for a few moments, trying to register what had happened before she attempted to get up. When she finally did try to push herself up off the ground, she realized that she couldn’t move. She couldn’t feel any part of her body below her neck. She was paralyzed. Skylar didn’t know if it was from the force of hitting the wall or the three foot arrow protruding out of her midsection, but she did know that this was the end of her fight. She began to cry warm tears that she could no longer feel once they slid down her neck.
Skylar looked over at Avery’s body, so still amongst the chaos going on around it. She couldn’t believe it had come to this, and then she died.
Sasha had seen Skylar hit the wall and immediately tried to make her way over to her. She took out the troll she was fighting easily. With a quick kick she took him to the ground, and then cut off his head with her sharp sword. When Sasha got to Skylar, she bent down and checked for a pulse, even though, she knew there wouldn’t be one.
She bent down and kissed her fallen friend on the forehead. It was the only way she knew of to say goodbye. Standing up to face the battle she knew would claim her life, Sasha let out a long sad sigh.
There was a large group of swamp trolls rushing towards her. Sasha knew that there were too many of them for her to win, but she quickened her pace to meet them none the less. If Sasha was going to die, she was going to go out fighting.
Her fierceness took the trolls off guard, and she quickly took down the first two. Sasha flipped over the shortest one, severing his head off with her sword on the way down. The second one received her dagger in the back of his skull.
Sasha was so into the battle that she never saw the colossal troll moving up behind her. The troll lifted its massive stone club high into the air and brought it down directly on the back of Sasha’s skull. There was a terrible crunching sound, and Sasha fell to the floor. She lost all sense of everything in an instant. The only thing her brain could focus on was trying to get herself up off the ground. She was scrambling around on the floor, attempting to get control of her limbs, when the troll swung his club down onto her head once again, this time on her left temple. Thick blood poured from her head in a small stream. Her body jerked twice before all movement stopped completely, and she was dead.
Jade glanced around the room and saw that she was the only Protector left. Instead of breaking her, it only made her fight on harder. She knew when they started their journey to the fortress, that if they hadn’t found Avery alive, this was going to become a suicide mission. Jade found herself oddly fine with that, but she was going to take down as many villains as she could before she died, and hopefully, most importantly, the Emperor.
Jade slowly made her way over to where the Emperor was standing against the wall, buried in the darkness. She punched and ogre
square in the face, knocking him out cold. Using her Protector strength, she picked up a smaller Demon, throwing him backwards.
The swamp troll that had killed Sasha ran at Jade, his killing club held high. Jade spun out of his way, slicing across his belly with her sword in the process. She was able to kill the troll, but by doing so she had left her right side exposed to a Succubus Demon, holding a small blade. The Demon drove the blade into Jade’s left side. Jade howled in pain and removed the blade from her body, stabbing the Demon in the eye with his own weapon. She ignored the sharp pain in her side and continued on towards the Emperor, sword held tight in her hand.
Jade heard someone approaching from behind her, so she kicked back hard sending a troll flying. This kept her occupied for only a split second, but that was long enough for another troll to stab a discarded arrow deep into her right shoulder. Without missing a beat, Jade switched her sword to her other arm and swung it around wildly at the troll, severing his head and spilling putrid green blood out all over her.
Jade could feel the blood pumping out from the wound in her side, weakening her, but adrenaline and the idea of revenge kept her going. She was only yards away from the Emperor when two long arrows shot out from the crowd of monsters and struck her in the right hip, tossing her to the floor and making her legs virtually useless.
Once she was on the ground, Jade had her sword knocked away from her and received a swift kick to the face. She grabbed on to the offending foot with her only good arm and wrenched it upwards, effectively discarding her attacker.
Jade turned herself over onto her belly and began to crawl towards the Emperor, dragging her wounded legs and arm with her. She reached down and untied a small crossbow that had been securely fastened to her belt. She lifted the crossbow up and took aim at the Emperor, but before she could get a shot off, a Bacci Demon took hold of Jade’s leg and began dragging her backwards. Jade flipped over and shot the Demon through the heart with one of her crossbow arrows. Right after she took the shot, another large swamp troll descended upon her, knocking the crossbow out of her hand. She grabbed a dagger she had hidden in her boot and brought it up, straight through the troll’s chin and up into his brain.
As Jade rolled the troll off of her, she was able to see at least ten more deadly trolls only seconds away from reaching her. Jade dismissed any instinct she had to want to fight them off and instead rolled back over onto her belly and continued on her path to the Emperor. Knowing she wouldn’t be able to reach him, she stared him dead in his vacant black slits for eyes, and let her hatred show all over her face as she spoke to him.
“I promise you Emperor, one way or another, I will see you again.” Jade growled.
A second Succubus Demon made his way through the crowd of trolls. He reached Jade and stood over her, one leg on either side of her body. The Demon glanced up at the Emperor, and the Emperor, in return, gave him a quick nod of approval. With that, the Demon raised the massive broadsword he was holding high in front of him, and a split second later, brought it down straight through Jade.
Jade made one last reach towards the Emperor, before she let out a final breath and lay on the floor dead.
Outside of the fortress the Emperor could hear the sky going wild. Thunder roared and lightning beat down upon the ground. The scent of damp rain mixed with the coppery scent of blood and made for a heady concoction that seemed, to the Emperor, a perfect perfume for the occasion. The Emperor laughed to himself, wondering if the storm raging outside was the planet’s way of weeping for its lost Protectors. He hoped so; he loved the idea of causing so much pain.
The Emperor’s fiendish army stood covered in blood, some of it their own, some belonging to the Protectors. They stood and waited for the Emperor’s orders, ready to do his bidding.
The Emperor took a deep breath, still savoring his morbid perfume, “Take this garbage,” he waved a dismissive hand towards the bodies of the Protectors, “and place it on stakes along the front gate. Let our enemies see what becomes of those who try to fight us.”
A large number of swamp trolls moved in to carry the bodies away, but before they could even reach the first body, something began to happen. The Protector’s bodies began to emit a warm soft glow, like there was a fire burning on the inside of them. The glow became brighter and brighter until the Emperor and his armies could no longer see the bodies, just five bright orbs of light. Then, in a giant explosion of white light the Protectors were gone.
The Emperor screamed, in a rage, “That pathetic little magician!” He spat out, and then turned to speak to his army, “Go to the Protector’s village and bring their bodies back to me!”
A small Demon with snake-like features stepped forward, “But, my Lord, the Protector’s village is located near King Draven’s territory.”
“So?” The Emperor asked.
“Well, Draven has a large army,” the Demon continued, “and he protects his lands and the forests surrounding them well. He will know if an army of our size is in the area, and he won’t take it well. It would be foolish to risk it just to retrieve a few corpses. I think it would be wiser to…”
His words were cut short as the Emperor plunged a steel sword deep into his stomach, and he fell on the floor dead.
“Does anyone else have anything to say?” The Emperor asked with a threatening edge to his voice, still holding the bloody sword. “Now, go…I want those bodies!”
The Protectors: Book 1 in the Protectors Saga Page 2
