The Story of Evil: Volume I - Heroes of the Siege
Page 23
“BRIGHTFLAME! BRIGHTFLAME!” The chorus of chants for Celestial’s jouster and his two companions was the single ounce of hope everyone in the shattered city could put their faith in. What happened in the courtyard was a small moment of victory on a day of utter defeat and destruction.
The monsters all abandoned their attack on the civilians and instead moved to attack the three riders on the black warhorse. They knew if they killed the people in whom everyone placed their hope, they would regain control. A large group of around one hundred monsters emerged from inside the castle and chased after the three heroes. The crowd was able to slow the monsters down by coming back together in the center where they had parted.
More monsters came out after the first hundred. These ones were all mounted on horses, dire wolves, and other four legged beasts. For them, it was much easier to power through the crowd, but they were still not as fast without the open pathway the three heroes were charging through.
A crack of thunder followed by lightning smashed into the crowd right next to Sampson, sending people flying in every possible direction from the center of the blast. No doubt the Hooded Phantom was directing his attack at the rebel leaders.
Another blast came down right in front of Kari (behind the horse), blinding her vision and causing her to see bright spots. Two monster archers were spared because of her temporary handicap.
The lightning was followed by a wall of fire as a phoenix and a gryphon swooped down from opposite sides and ignited seven rows of people with their element. The attack failed to contain the heroes as Sampson showed off his amazing strength by jumping over the seven rows in one gigantic leap. The people had collapsed down onto the ground, screaming from being burned alive.
When Ty heard the loud sound of the drawbridge being raised, he snapped the reins and verbally encouraged Sampson to press on faster. Two more arrows plunged into the purebred’s body to join the five that he had already been impaled with. The pain made Sampson angrier, which also made him accelerate. For bearing the weight of three people, Ty could not help but be amazed at the speed of the amazing horse. The percheron went even faster as he raced to make it over the rising drawbridge in time.
The monsters were trying to trap them inside the castle wall. Had they known how to remove the locks of the portcullises and raise the draw bridge, they may have already achieved their goal. But it was beyond most monsters’ abilities to understand mechanical procedures. The drawbridge was not so difficult; it only required the two spokes on either side of the drawbridge to be simultaneously cranked. This they had managed to figure out.
The heroes passed the castle wall, but five monster archers were standing on both sides of the path before the rising drawbridge. In close quarters, they launched eight more arrows into the side of the horse. Ty caught three on his shield. One cut open a gash in Steve’s leg, matching the one Kari had received a couple minutes prior.
Sampson’s knees instantly buckled, but the strong willed horse regained his composure and continued sprinting up the rising wooden drawbridge. When he got two-thirds of the way up, there was a dramatic slowdown in the horse’s speed from the increasing slant. The three riders felt like the horse was going to rear and bail them all off. They would slide back down the drawbridge into the awaiting arms of the monsters.
But the mighty horse had an inner strength as strong as his muscular appearance. He slowly pulled himself and the weight of the three people on top of him to the tip of the drawbridge. The hard, cobblestone street on the other side was twenty feet away and eighteen feet down. Without wasting time to let the fear of the consequences of failure stop him, Sampson jumped across the spiked moat.
He cleared the massive jump successfully.
But it was the landing that wasn’t successful. The moment he decided to jump, Ty, Kari, and Steve knew what would happen when the horse landed.
All four of Sampson’s legs snapped. The horse whinnied in pain as he fell to his side and spilled the heroes onto the cobblestone road. It had taken fifteen arrows and four broken legs to kill what was arguably the world’s strongest horse.
At least he didn’t suffer in death, Kari thought.
Ty thought just as positively, He died a hero, an inspiration.
Then Ty got a better look at the horse as it lay on its side. He had thought that Sampson was the horse owned by a warrior he knew who’s family had been breeding warhorses for generations. Ty was only partially correct. Sampson did belong to that warrior, but the horse lying dead in front of him was not Sampson. It was Sampson’s sister.
The crowd on the outside of the castle wall was also revolting, although not as successfully because they were backed up against the moat. A couple people ran over and helped Ty and Kari get to their feet. Ty and Kari then helped Steve get up.
Now that Ty was able to see his brother up close, he noticed how extremely pale and weak he was. Steve had a line of dried blood from his right ear to his jaw. One eye was badly swollen shut and he had dirt, bruises, cuts, and blood all over his face and body.
Steve saw that Ty and the woman were staring at him with a look of concern. “I’m fine,” was all he needed to say. As soon as they helped him up they were all off and running. The three of them sprinted through the streets as monsters converged on them.
The drawbridge was re-lowered, so the hundreds of monsters from the castle and courtyard could join in with the monsters already on the chase. Dozens, if not half a hundred flying monsters were starting to come down from high in the skies to see what was going on.
Ty took the lead, Kari followed behind, and Steve was the caboose. Behind them was every type of monster (and more) that each one of them had faced in the siege earlier. It was hundreds of monsters versus three.
There was no way to lose the monsters, despite taking every turn and back alley they could to lose them. The only advantage that the heroes had was that Ty, Steve, and Kari had memorized most of these streets from all having grown up in Celestial.
“Do you have a plan or are we just winging it?” Steve called out to the warrior in front of him.
“Do you really think I thought this far ahead?” Ty looked back as he talked to make sure Steve heard him.
Suddenly, they found themselves caught on a road with monsters chasing them from behind and monsters coming at them in the direction they were running.
“Get down!” Kari yelled to Ty in front of her. She strung two arrows as Ty ducked, and Steve stopped behind her. Kari let the two arrows fly at the same time. Each one of them impaled the monster they were aimed at through the head. Steve’s mouth dropped wide open.
Ty looked back at Steve and nodded with his eyebrows arched as if to say, “Yes, it’s true. She can shoot with incredible accuracy.”
Kari ran past the Elf, hurdling over the monster bodies with arrows sticking out of their heads. “Come on! What are you waiting for?” she said, grabbing Ty’s sleeve and pulling him along.
Some of the faster monsters quickly closed in on them, clearly not as winded as the heroes were. They hadn’t spent the entire day running, fighting, and holding onto their lives by a thread.
Steve slashed with Brightflame at the leg of a cart of pumpkins. The imbalanced cart tipped and spilled its contents, covering the alley floor behind them. “There’s a couple extra seconds,” Steve called out sarcastically, knowing the payoff would barely last longer than the breath it took to swing his sword.
“Every second counts,” Kari encouraged him. “Delaying them makes our escape more possible.” Kari knew her words meant nothing given their chances, but she had to do everything she could to keep up their motivation. The second they gave that up and were captured, would be the second that marked the end of their lives. Deep down Kari was just as pessimistic as Steve.
It wouldn’t matter if we had all the time in the world. We have nowhere to go. We’ll never be able to create enough separation to sneak into a house and hide from them. Even if we did manage that, the Shadow Prince
will tear this city to pieces looking for us. He always gets revenge when he’s made to look like a fool, she thought.
A group of ten monsters came towards them in a narrow but long alley. Kari reached back into her quiver. Her hand felt around for an arrow, but there were none. She was out of ammo.
“We’ve got company!” Steve warned the two in front of him. A green phoenix was flying above the building tops behind them. They stopped in the alley, surrounded on all sides. Ty tried budging through a door locked from the inside. After two failed attempts, Steve and Ty shouldered through it together.
They heard the inhaling of its breath as the phoenix unleashed what felt like a tornado ripping through the alley behind them. Kari hadn’t yet come through the door and grabbed onto the sides of the doorframe, trying not to be carried away with the wind. Steve reached out and grabbed her by the front of the shirt. He pulled hard, leaning back, and brought her into the house they had broken into. Steve fell backwards onto the floor, and Kari fell down on top of him. Her chest lay on his. Their faces couldn’t have gotten any closer unless they were kissing.
“Sorry,” Kari said, blushing, but also smiling at the warrior she imagined herself with dozens of times.
“Don’t be,” Steve said back with a flirtatious smile of his own.
As Kari pulled herself off Steve, he kicked the door closed with his foot while still lying on his back. He heard the screams of all of the monsters that had been running towards them as they were carried through the air and blown away.
The monsters that were slightly delayed by the pumpkins would not have been caught up in the phoenix’s element. Since the lock on the door was broken, those monsters could come in at any moment. The three heroes ran out the front door of the house into an empty plaza.
“I suppose you want another point for saving my life?” Steve asked Ty, reaching forward to put his hand on the Elf’s shoulder. The question itself was a thank you to his friend.
This is twice in one day he has saved me, Steve realized.
“Let’s make it out of this city alive, and then I’ll gladly take the point,” Ty promised. That would give Ty six points while Steve remained at four.
This point will be one I’ll never forget earning, Ty thought as he still couldn’t believe they were still breathing after the events of the past five minutes.
“Horses!” Kari called out. McGregor’s stable, where civilians could rent or purchase horses to gallop through the city, was located in this plaza. McGregor’s was the largest stable in Celestial. They usually had about seventy-five horses on hand.
Half of the stable was burned down. Between seven and ten bodies of horses lay under its black and gray charred wood. It was hard to give an exact number of the dead animals. The others had probably been rented by tourists and were out in other parts of the city when the siege hit, or they were currently being used by monsters.
There were about fifteen horses left. All were individually tied to one long, half burned, half collapsed wooden fence. They were nervously jumping around, trying to pull free, as they had probably been for the past few hours. All were too spooked or too injured to be ridden.
Kari was sad to see them in such distress. The poor animals haven’t been able to escape the sight of their charred friends lying near them.
At the same time that Ty, Kari, and Steve reached the stables, monsters began pouring in from every exit of the plaza. The three heroes all let out a sigh of defeat.
“We’re surrounded,” Ty said.
“By three hundred,” Steve estimated. It was an optimistic guess. They were really surrounded by more than five hundred monsters. The number grew every second as more and more showed up. Dozens of dragons, gryphons, and phoenixes hovered in the air. Hundreds of archers took positions on the top of every building surrounding the plaza. The rest of the monsters were on the ground. Many were mounted on horses.
All of the exits were blocked: the four roads that led into the large plaza, as well as the two narrow alleys. Extra monsters formed a shoulder to shoulder line around the buildings in the plaza, so the Human, Elf, and halfling could not sprint and break through a locked door and escape out the building’s rear. The colors of every element could be seen around them.
The three heroes all came to the same conclusion. There is no way out.
Steve had Brightflame, but had discarded his shield because of the damage it had taken from arrows and the fact that it slowed him down when sprinting. Ty and Kari both drew their weapons as well, although Kari had nothing to shoot out of her bow. Ty felt half unarmed with only one of his two swords.
The monsters were staring with no emotion at the three Celestial civilians. Steve, just like Ty, would rather go out fighting and die honorably than just give up be killed.
“What are you waiting for?” he yelled at them all.
He got his answer when the Shadow Prince came down into the center of the plaza, riding the green phoenix that had just attacked them and almost killed Kari. He leaped off it and stood in the center of the monsters in the middle of the plaza. Prince Silas’s sword turned blue and into the element he possessed, ice. He was ready to fight.
Every evil thing the prince had done ran through Steve’s mind when he saw the betrayer. If it wasn’t for this man, Celestial would not have fallen into the hands of monsters today. Clyx, Thatcher, the Supreme Commander, King Zoran, and thousands of civilians would not be dead.
Steve started smiling. They may have been surrounded by monsters, but there was nothing standing between him and the Shadow Prince. Steve looked down at Brightflame and then to Prince Silas. All these archers could poke his body full of arrows. These monsters could burn, freeze, paralyze, or poison him. He was an open target that could quickly and easily be disintegrated.
But Steve knew none of those attacks would be fast enough to kill him before he charged forward and plunged Brightflame through the small heart of the Shadow Prince.
The Story of Evil will be continued in...
THE
STORY OF EVIL
Volume II
Tony Johnson
Coming Soon!
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Acknowledgements
Thank you to my editor, Jennifer S. Burrows, JSB Writing, LLC.
Thank you to my cover artist through crowdspring.com, Patrick Kerkhof.
More than anyone, thank you to God. Thank you for sending your son to die for me and take the penalty of my sins. Thank you for allowing me to realize that you are the true purpose and meaning of life. Help me to honor you by trying my best to obey your commands and make the right choices.
This world is growing darker every day. Help me to shine with your light, that through me, people may see the beacon of hope they have in your son, Jesus Christ (John 8:12).
Thank you for making me the person that I am and blessing me with the creative mind I used to write this story and the ones to follow. None of this would be possible without you.
For all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God (heaven). – Romans 3:23
For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish, but have eternal life. – John 3:16
Jesus replied, “Very truly I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God without being born again.” – John 3:3
If you declare with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart God raised him from the dead, you will be born again. – Romans 10:9
Table of Contents
Map of Element
Map of Celestial
Dedication
Author’s Note
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Links
Acknowledgements
Table of Contents
Map of Element
Map of Celestial
Dedication
Author’s Note
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Links
Acknowledgements