by Riley Keene
The guard on the left raised her sword in warning, and she brought her shield up as Ermolt charged. He held his course, ducking his shoulder down a bit before he slammed into the shield. Ermolt pushed up with his legs on impact, lifting the guard off her feet, only her heavy armor preventing her from flying across the room. She came back down on her back, barely keeping weapon in hand.
Ermolt bellowed again, this time focusing on the second guard. He brought his hammer up to ward off that guard, who had moved to the defense of his companion. Elise stepped forward when the second guard didn’t back off.
“Elise,” Ermolt asked in the calm tone of someone simply making conversation, “what’s the plan here?”
“Keep Athala safe,” Elise said, her eyes flicking back and forth between the two guards. “If there are more coming behind these two, we need to hit hard and fast.”
“Carefully, though,” Ermolt warned as he shifted his position to cover Elise. “I’m here to protect you two, not to kill anyone.”
The guards visibly relaxed at that and Elise took advantage of the change. She darted forward, swinging her mace in hard from the right. The guard parried the attack with his sword. He threw a cut back at her, though the parry forced it to be a little wild as he underestimated the weight of her weapon. Elise easily ducked under it. She readied her shield and shoved forward with it, but her opponent set his feet and met her momentum.
To her left, Ermolt was facing off against the female guard again. The heavy head of the hammer slammed noisily into the guard’s shield, denting it inwards with a shriek of protesting metal. She was forced to back away to disentangle herself and discard the shield.
While his designated opponent was busy with her shield, Ermolt shifted his focus. He stepped up, forcing the male guard to shift his stance to protect his own flank. The guard presented his shield to Ermolt and his sword to Elise. Elise came in on his side as Ermolt launched the lower end of the haft of his hammer into the shield. With a quick swing, Elise landed a blow to the guard’s side. He only grunted with the impact, his armor minimizing the damage.
Ermolt began to wind up another heavy attack against the guard’s shield, but was forced to fall back as the other guard approached his side with a flurry of sword slashes. He batted the wild strikes aside, giving ground.
The male guard stepped forward, mimicking his companion’s attacks and slashed wildly at Elise to drive her back. Elise raised her shield against the assault, waiting for a break in the fevered slashes. He finally paused, shifting his stance to bring his shield around to try and push her guard aside. Elise anticipated the move, shoving her own shield forward into his chest. He was unprepared for the shift in her momentum and Elise let out a growl as she connected cleanly with the shield bash. The guard tumbled to the ground, dazed.
Without pause, Elise took the opportunity to lash out at the guard pursuing Ermolt. Her mace deftly caught the guard’s sword and tore it from her grasp, sending it clattering across the floor.
Shouting with triumph, Ermolt lunged forward at the disarmed guard. He brought his hammer around quickly and swept her legs out from under her. She hit the ground, hard, gasping in pain as she curled around herself, grabbing her shin with a grimace.
“Stay down!” Ermolt barked. “If I have to hit you again, you won’t like what happens.” He raised his hammer in warning, but she just glared up at him and held her wounded leg.
As Elise moved forward to pursue the fight with the remaining guard, two more guards rushed into the room from the open stone door.
This pair was better armored, metal plates over their upper chest and legs supplementing the heavy chainmail. Elise noticed that the chainmail sat properly, too. It was clear they’d taken the time to armor themselves correctly while the previous two had opted to hurry into the room.
The still-standing guard of the hastier pair turned to look as the new guards arrived. A critical mistake. The haft of Ermolt’s hammer slammed into the side of his helmet, sending him senseless to the floor.
One of the new guards snorted with laughter.
“Loyce!” the other shouted, and the laughing guard reigned himself in. Elise noted that these guards lacked tabards as well, but the one who had shouted at the other had an ornate golden crest on their helm that seemed to denote a higher rank.
Loyce and his commander approached defensively, and Elise and Ermolt stepped back just slightly to give a bit of room. Without warning Ermolt whirled his hammer overhead, bringing it down on Loyce’s shield. The heavy head of his hammer landed a direct hit on the shield. Elise winced as Loyce’s elbow gave out. The moron had tried brace against the strike, rather than deflecting it. As a result, the top edge of his shield slammed into the front of his helmet. There was a wet snap and blood began to flow freely from a broken nose. Loyce stumbled back under the impact.
The commander engaged with Elise and she obliged him with a feint, knocking the head of her mace against his shield. He smashed the shield forward, attempting to knock the weapon from her hand. Since she had not committed to the attack she was able to whip the head of the weapon around the other side of his shield as his attempted shield bash opened up his own guard. The attack smashed into the armored plates across his chest, knocking the wind from him.
“Elise!” Ermolt said as the only warning before he spun behind her. She moved out of his way and they traded opponents.
She closed on Loyce before he could loose himself from his damaged shield, while Ermolt swept in low on the leader as he gasped for air. The commander managed to leap back from Ermolt’s attempted trip and rushed back in, trying to get inside of Ermolt’s hammer range. Ermolt caught the commander’s sword on the haft of his hammer, and the strength of the attack jarred his hands. Ermolt twisted his weapon, catching the flat of the blade on his forearm. A whirl of the heavy head of his hammer tore the weapon from the commander’s hand and sent it tumbling.
Elise came in on Loyce hard and fast, swinging intentionally on the shield side. Her first strike caught him unprepared and he stumbled as the impact nearly smashed the top edge of his shield into his face again. He was ready the second time, but the dent Ermolt had left in the shield gave Elise far superior leverage, forcing him to lift his shield arm to protect his face from his own shield. She struck the dent one more time. The top of the shield tipped back and knocked a ringing impact into the top of his helmet.
It wasn’t a serious blow, but the twisting of his shield arm opened up his guard below the shield. Elise launched herself forward, driving her knee into his hip. He floundered for a moment, slashing wildly to push her back. It wasn’t enough to deter and Elise brought her shield around to deflect the attacks as she pushed forward to match his retreat. She swiped at his shield again, banging the top of it into his helmet again as the straps affixing it to his arm had begun to loosen from the repeated impacts.
Elise’s pressing attack was interrupted as the commander disengaged from Ermolt and charged her. His shield slammed into her side, and she stumbled away. She kept her feet, somehow, but she was forced away from the bleeding guard.
Rather than follow up, the commander whirled around immediately, and ducked aside from a charging Ermolt. The head of the barbarian’s hammer whirled through the space the commander had just moved out of. Ermolt planted his feet, raising his hammer to strike again.
From behind, two more guards entered the room.
“Elise,” Ermolt said, only slightly out of breath. “We should probably go.” He swept his hammer around himself in two quick swings, driving Loyce and the commander back towards the door as the two newcomers began to charge forward. “I didn’t bring a weapon I could actually swing in a real fight without becoming a murderer.”
“Athala needs more time!” Elise took a defensive stance, moving back a bit to cover Athala’s position. “Could you take these guys with your bare hands?”
“Well, yeah.” Ermolt dropped back to Elise’s side and the two of them begin to slowly retreat.
“But they’re heavily armored. If I wanted to break all the bones in my hand, I could get through two or three of them, but I suspect there’s more where they came from.”
“Alright Athala,” Elise called over her shoulder, refusing to take her eyes off the approaching guards. “If you’re not about to finish, we need to get out of here.”
“Oh. Um,” Athala said, hesitating as she likely saw the approaching guards. “Yes. Let’s go.” There was some shuffling, and Elise hoped it was the wizard putting away her notes. “I was barely halfway again. If we can get out of here, we can come back and try again without setting off the alarm spell.”
“Are you sure?” Ermolt said before he stepped forward, swinging his hammer in a wide arc, giving the advancing guards pause. “Someone else could come in and get it while we’re gone.”
“The missing runes. As long as they don’t get my notes, they won’t be able to complete the spell.”
“Don’t keep them!” Elise said as she backed up the dais to Athala’s side. “Destroy them. Better to not hand them the spell if they catch us.”
“If you two aren’t running yet,” Ermolt called over his shoulder, swinging his hammer wildly from side to side as another pair of guards charged into the room to join the four already there. “You better get started!” The guards began to fan out to try and flank Ermolt to avoid his hammer, forcing his swings to become wider and slower to ward off the entire group.
With a callous sigh, Athala snapped out a few Draconian words and threw a bolt of fire directly into the altar, reducing the pile of notes to smoldering ashes. Elise grabbed her hand and they ran down the steps of the dais to the door, fleeing the room.
“Ermolt!” Elise shouted, pausing at the ruined door. “We’re out!” She didn’t wait before grabbing Athala again and taking off towards the hallway.
“Shouldn’t we wait for him?” Athala said almost stumbling as she tried to look over her shoulder.
“He’ll be fine.” Elise grabbed a torch from one of the sconces as they ran down the hall. She left behind the torch Athala had brought, as Ermolt wouldn’t be able to see in the dark if he followed them. “Our job is to protect you. Ermolt will do his best to catch up, but at the very least he’ll stall so I can get you to safety. If we wait, it just means he fought for nothing.”
Chapter Fourteen
As soon as his companions were safely out of the room, Ermolt bellowed another challenge. The guards visibly flinched, as most humans did at the sight and sound of a barbarian preparing for battle. He hurled his hammer into the air, leaping forward towards the huddled group.
Several of the guards watched the hammer tumble upwards through the air, mouths open wide. They backed away in case it should come down on them.
Ermolt took advantage of the distraction to land a solid kick on one of the guards, isolating the disarmed commander. Ermolt grabbed the commander’s shield and twisted it out of the way. He drove his knee into the commander’s exposed side, doubling him over. While the commander was gasping for air, Ermolt ripped the man’s helm off with one hand, and punched him in the back of the head with the other. A quick shove sent him to the ground in a clatter of metal and mail.
The hammer struck the ground head-first just to Ermolt’s right and he closed his hand around the haft immediately. He sprinted away from the guards as they moved to defend, and then aid, the commander. It was a waste of time. They could have been trying to catch him.
Careening around the dais on the right side, Ermolt leapt on to the stairs and gave the altar a quick glance. Athala’s notes were smoldering, having burned themselves out while he distracted the guards. Coiling his legs, Ermolt pushed off from the stairs in a leap that brought him nearly to the door in one motion, even though it was nearly fifty fen between the two points.
Normally Ermolt would have taken a moment to be impressed with the power of his legs, but he could hear the guards recovering behind him and so he continued to run forward instead.
Ermolt slid to a stop just on the other side of the ruined door. He tossed his hammer ahead of himself down the hall before grabbing one of the boulders at the bottom of the pile of rubble he’d moved aside earlier. It was heavy, and Ermolt struggled to push it after the day of near-constant fighting.
“After them!” came an angry shout from inside the room. Sounded like the commander recovered finally. Ermolt groaned and with a burst of effort he shifted the boulder enough to send the pile of rubble back into the doorway. It only blocked it to knee-height, but it would slow pursuit. He grabbed the extra torch from the wall and started down the hallway, retrieving his hammer as he jogged past.
As he turned the first corner, Ermolt took a moment to look back over his shoulder. He grimaced at the sight. The guards had torches in hand and were almost all through the fallen rock. Ermolt broke into a full sprint, trying to remember the path ahead well enough to not be surprised by the twists and turns of the hallway. The pounding of his booted feet on the stone floor echoed in his ears, drowning out the panic in his mind.
It wasn’t long before he spotted the dot of light ahead that marked Elise and Athala’s position.
“Pick up the pace!” he called ahead, puffing for air. “They’re right behind me!” He caught up to them quickly, his longer strides letting him close the distance easily.
“I don’t see them!” Elise snapped back at him, looking over her shoulder. The glance almost cost her the precarious footing she had, but Athala steadied her with a firm touch. Pride surged in response to the wizard’s cool head, considering the situation.
“Heavy armor,” he said, pausing to catch his breath. “They might have fallen back a bit.” Ermolt was able to match their pace, keeping behind them. “They couldn’t catch me at a dead run, but they might be able to manage this pace!”
“Some of us don’t have inhumanly long legs, you oaf!” Elise shot him a glare.
“Just concentrate on running,” gasped Athala, panting heavily. “If we can get back to the sewers, we can lose them there. We have maps.”
They ran on through the hallways. Their pace began to slow further as Athala started to tire out. Ermolt discarded his torch, pausing a moment for her to climb onto his back. He couldn’t break into a full run with her clinging to him, but he was able to run faster carrying her than she was able to run alone.
It wasn’t long after that the sounds of clattering armor began to catch up to them. Panic redoubled their efforts. Ermolt let Athala down to run on her own again since she’d caught her breath, and their pace improved.
They bolted past the pile of armor and bones that marked their previous place of rest, bells before. Light from the guards’ torches became visible around the corner behind them. Ermolt led the group around the quick corner of the hall and sprinted, hoping to get to the next turn in the hallway before the light was visible again behind them. A broken bit of ceiling caused Ermolt to duck under it.
As they reached the corner, Elise stopped dead, and Ermolt almost slammed into her.
“What are you doing?” he snarled, looking over his shoulder as the torchlight from the guards came into view.
“It’s the dead end!” Elise yelled, pointing ahead.
Ermolt looked into the room and his face fell. It was the refuse-filled room they had encountered when the path had split before. In their rush to escape, they had missed the turn back where they had their lunch. All three of them looked back around the corner and saw the guard’s torches coming into view, distant shadows charging forward.
Elise and Ermolt shared a look. Indecision and panic were written all over the Conscript’s face, and Ermolt squashed his own. There had to be a way out of this situation, but he had to work one step at a time or risk losing everything.
“Alright, into the room.” Ermolt ushered them out of the hallway. “They’ll slow down when they come around the corner here, so they won’t crash into us on pure momentum.” He paused. “Are we going to fight, or are we going to surrender?”
“I don’t know,” Elise said, her voice small. “What are our odds of survival?” She fingered the haft of her mace nervously as she corralled Athala into the room. The wizard came willingly enough, but her eyes were wide and wild, roaming everywhere at once.
“There were six when I ran, but there’s no telling how many more are behind them now.” Ermolt considered his hammer. The weapon was perfect for fighting in wide-open spaces, and was a good utility weapon since it did so well against armored and unarmored targets. But in a compact room like this, he was more likely to overextend or even hit his companions if he tried to use the heavy thing. “If there are any more, then we might be seriously injured or even killed in a fight. If we surrender we’ll likely to be dealt with as prisoners instead of combatants. Odds are decent we’d end up in a cell somewhere rather than dead.”
“I don’t know how much of a fight I have in me.” Athala held her side, leaning against a wall. She was still breathing heavily, and while her expression was much less panicked, she still wore her fear plainly. Her eyes were sunken and there were spots of color high on her cheekbones. Her hands twitched as if she warred between preparing a spell or declaring immediate surrender as soon as a guard crossed the threshold. “After that run, I’m of a mind to surrender and take our chances with the cell.”
“I think we need to surrender,” Elise agreed. The Conscript looked better than the wizard, but her eyes darted around the room as if panic were seizing her mind and telling her to hide. If only there were more furniture, or more time. “As long as we come out of this alive, we have a chance to come back in the future. I mean, we didn’t technically do anything wrong.”
“There was some assault,” Ermolt said, backing up as the sound of clanking armor grew closer. “If these guys are city guards, then resisting arrest. Possibly trespassing.”
“Well, nothing they’d kill us for,” Elise clarified. Ermolt could hear the frustration in her voice, but he wasn’t sure if it was directed at him or the situation in general. “But we shouldn’t just drop our weapons now and hope for the best. We should offer our surrender when they arrive, but keep our weapons on hand. If they mean to kill us, I’d rather die fighting.”
