Ancients

by Riley Keene

  As Ermolt closed the door behind them, Elise took Athala’s dagger and unsheathed it. She drove the blade diagonally into the door on the side with the hinges, angling it so that it bit through the wood and then also into the frame. Elise stepped back from it and looked to Ermolt, obviously anxious that it wasn’t enough. Ermolt drove the meat of his palm into the pommel, sinking it another solid rhen into the wood.

  The two of them stepped away from it, and Elise gave a satisfied nod. It wouldn’t hold the door against a concentrated effort, but it would slow down pursuit.

  They were instantly grateful for it when the alarm bells behind them drew more guards to the hallway from one of the side doors. As soon as they caught sight of the escaping group, they shouted and spread out, blocking the hallway. Athala stepped back to the door as Elise and Ermolt stepped up to meet the guards.

  Ermolt growled as he readied himself for combat again.

  There were six guards total, all armed with their standard padded armor, helmet, and baton. Collectively, the guards looked a little tired, as if they’d been up a considerable portion of the day. Ermolt decided Elise was likely wrong, and that the guard didn’t change before breakfast. It was only a few hours later, sure, but these men and women looked as if they were dragging. Had the guard change happened before breakfast, these guards would be fresh and bright eyed. Perhaps Ermolt could use that to his advantage.

  With a ferocious howl that echoed off the walls and rang in his ears, Ermolt sprang forward. He lowered his head into a bull-rush charge and put his arms up to protect the sides of his head. The result was that he endured a hail of batons on his arms and shoulders. The padded armor absorbed the brunt of the impacts, and he shouldered his way through the line of guards.

  Ermolt grinned as he emerged on the other side. Trapped as they were between he and Elise, the guards now had to break formation and split their attention.

  Three of them closed in on Elise. Ermolt hoped she would be alright over there, protecting Athala as she was. She just needed to hold out and bide her time.

  Two of the three guards closed the distance and took easy swings at Elise’s head, allowing her to duck and weave to avoid the blows without too much effort. The third guard, however, circled to her side. He penned her in towards a wall with a swipe of his baton, forcing her to dance back. She didn’t have much space before the guards would be within striking distance of Athala.

  Instead of retreating she stood her ground, dealing with the next volley of attacks by parrying with her daggers, knocking the batons aside. She swiped blindly with both blades to try and drive the guards back, giving them second thoughts about rushing in and trying to take her down.

  In contrast to Elise’s defensive actions, Ermolt used the advantages of his physical strength and borrowed armor to get extremely aggressive with the three guards he was up against.

  As they approached he smashed his baton into one of them, almost breaking it on the guard’s upraised forearm. The impact jarred the guard’s own weapon out of his hand. Ermolt stepped in close and grabbed the guard’s shoulder with his free hand. He hooked behind one knee with his foot, tripping the guard and sending him to the floor in a flailing mess of limbs.

  Ermolt sidestepped away from the other two, forcing them to overextend to land relatively feeble blows against the padding of his armor. He reversed direction, slamming bodily into one of them, sending the guard stumbling back to collide with the wall.

  The first downed guard began to struggle back to his feet. Ermolt hurled his baton at him. The weapon impacted with the man’s helmet with a loud crack. He fell back to the floor, clutching his head. The sound had been loud from the outside. From inside the helmet it must have been deafening.

  Ermolt turned, grabbing the last standing guard’s wrist as she tried to take a swing at his head. He reached under her chin, deftly unsnapped the clasp that held her helmet on, and tore it off her head. She ripped her hand out of his grasp, backing away with her baton raised in defense of her unprotected head.

  Ermolt looked past her to check on Elise and Athala. Elise had managed to hold the three guards back. It looked like she had taken a few bruises on her forearms, likely where her daggers failed to catch their attacks. She began to push forwards when the guards began to notice the poor luck of their companions against Ermolt. Her attacks were more honest attempts to strike them instead of just wild swings to hold her ground. She was trying to distract them so that Ermolt could continue to have free rein over his own opponents.

  The guard Ermolt had sent into the wall came back at him swinging his baton wildly and Ermolt was forced to refocus. The guard’s attack tried to force Ermolt back while the other two recovered, but Ermolt stood his ground. He took the first two swings on his forearms and let a third land on his ribs. As soon as he felt the impact against his side, he snapped his left elbow down, pinning the weapon to his side and throwing a straight punch into the guard’s face with his right hand. The guard stumbled back again, clutching his bleeding nose with both hands as Ermolt recovered the guard’s abandoned baton from his armpit, ignoring the sore spot on his ribs.

  The other two managed to rally and charge before Ermolt could follow up on the bleeding guard, forcing him to take a defensive stance as they came in with batons ready. Ermolt parried the first strike from the helmet-less guard, and let the other one bounce off the padded armor on his shoulder. He winced slightly at the impact to the joint.

  Ermolt attacked the guard who successfully struck him, first with the baton in a way that forced a hasty dodge, and then he followed up with his fist, driving it into the guard’s gut.

  As soon as the guard doubled over, Ermolt brought his knee up, driving it into the man’s face. The impact was redoubled by the guard’s own downward momentum and it sent him flopping over. Ermolt winced reflexively as the guard hit the ground hard, his weapon clattering from his hands as he clutched at his face. The man rolled onto his side as blood spewed from his shattered nose.

  The helmet-less guard tackled Ermolt, pinning his left arm to his torso with her grip. She pushed forward and down, trying to force him to the ground. He kept his feet, unbalanced but still standing. His superior size was once more to his advantage.

  He brought his baton down hard on her shoulder, and she flinched at the impact, but the awkward angle made it difficult to strike with force. She kept her grip, forcing him to strike again. This time he aimed for her elbow, where the padded armor was thinner. The strike loosened her grip enough for him to wriggle his left arm free. He punched her across the face with his freed hand.

  The impact caused her to stumble back, clutching her jaw. Ermolt stepped up and grabbed her arm before she could get out of reach, and spun quickly, flipping her over his hip to slam into the floor, knocking the wind out of her.

  Ermolt had all of a moment to catch his breath when the guard he’d left with a bloodied nose, instead of a shattered one, came back at Ermolt in a rage. The man yelled as he swung his fist at Ermolt’s head.

  Due to his rested state, Ermolt was slow to turn and caught the blow on his borrowed helmet. He turned with the attack to reduce the impact as much as possible. It still hurt, but it made his ears ring decidedly less.

  Ermolt swung blindly, trying to get some space before a follow-up attack. Instead of attacking, the guard grabbed Ermolt’s arm, catching the blow. The man immediately set upon Ermolt’s fingers, tearing the baton from his grasp. Ermolt let the weapon go and backed off, shaking his head to clear it before the guard could come at him with the baton.

  As the guard charged in, Ermolt stepped towards him and caught the clumsy overhead swing with his hand, carrying his attacker’s momentum over his shoulder. He turned and flipped the guard all the way up over his head. With the momentum of the guard’s own attack Ermolt slammed the man into the ground, and he lay still, eyes fluttering on the edge of consciousness.

  With the three that had come for him all on the ground, motionless, or just twitching,
he turned to help Elise.

  The Conscript was trying to push forward, slashing wildly at the three guards. She accepted one of their strikes to the ribs in exchange for keeping their attention as Ermolt came up behind them. She grinned as he grabbed the one who had struck her, settling one hand on his shoulder and the other taking a hold of his belt.

  Ermolt bellowed as he lifted the guard off the ground and then slammed him down over his knee. The man cried out in pain. Ermolt rolled him off his knee onto the floor, leaving him clutching his ribs and writhing on the ground.

  Using the distraction of Ermolt’s attack, Elise lunged in on her other two opponents, driving both daggers into one of them. One dagger sank into one guard’s shoulder, but only a quarter-rhen, most of the blade’s impact stopped by the padded armor. The other dagger pierced the guard’s bicep, drawing a yelp of pain as the guard dropped her baton and backed away. She grabbed the wound as she retreated—right into Ermolt.

  Ermolt grabbed the guard by both shoulders and unceremoniously threw her into the wall. Distracted as she was by the pain, she didn’t try to catch herself at all. She slammed into the wall shoulder first, followed by the side of her head. The woman slumped to the floor, an obvious daze clouding her eyes.

  The remaining guard backed away against the wall, holding his baton defensively. Elise came in high with both daggers, drawing his guard up to protect his face. She drove her knee into his groin so hard Ermolt swore the man’s eyes crossed. He immediately dropped to the floor, making a pitiful high-pitched noise. Ermolt winced, grimacing in sympathy as he bent to pick up the man’s discarded baton.

  “Nice job,” Ermolt said appreciatively. “Let’s keep—“

  “Ermolt! Behind you!” Athala cried out.

  On instinct, Ermolt turned, pivoting along his back foot. He barely registered the presence of the guard before he swung. Surprise and fear drove the weapon forward with a speed that seemed almost impossible.

  He felt the blow connect before he realized his mistake.

  The guard that had been approaching him was the woman he’d relieved of her helmet. With barely enough time to register Ermolt’s ungraceful pirouette her only reaction was to gasp and drop her weapon. Ermolt’s baton struck her cleanly in the temple with all of the strength of his turn behind it.

  There was a sickening cracking noise, and the guard hit the ground hard. She took one visible, hitching breath, and then no more. Her open eyes glazed over as blood poured freely from a large wound on the other side of her head, the displaced bone of her cracked skull visibly deforming the skin.

  From behind him, his companions gasped.

  Ermolt dropped the baton, staring in horror at what he had done.

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Elise stepped forward and Ermolt fell to his knees. He stretched his hands out towards the fallen woman as if he thought she needed a rough shake to wake up for service at the Temple.

  “No,” Ermolt said, his voice barely a whisper. “No, no-no-no, no.” He retracted his hands just before they reached the woman, and instead put a trembling hand to his mouth. “I didn’t mean—I shouldn’t have—”

  The woman’s cooling corpse was all the three of them could see. Elise had seen death before—she had witnessed it and had tried to comfort or heal others through it—but this was different. She’d never caused death, not directly. Her chest constricted as she looked over the deformed features of the woman’s face. Would Ydia, God of Life, reject her and her companions for their involvement in this?

  Noises from down the hall snapped Elise back to the moment at hand. They were still escaping. They’d have to deal with this later.

  Pushing aside her worries and fears, Elise prepared to help her companions do the same.

  “Ermolt,” Elise said, speaking gently. “What is done is done. Nothing can be done for now. We have to keep moving or we have to give up.”

  He looked up at her, tears fresh in his eyes, and nodded. But he didn’t move. Elise grabbed his arm and pulled him away from the cooling corpse. Once she got him a few steps away, he seemed to be more willing to keep moving. But he was plodding, head down, as if he were going off to a distasteful destiny he couldn’t stand. To see him so made Elise’s heart ache, but there was no time for consoling.

  She stepped forward to follow him, but then stopped and grimaced, and turned back to grab Athala as well. A gentle hand was placed to the wizard’s cheek to draw her gaze away from the body. Athala looked up at her with wide eyes, and Elise only nodded in understanding before pulling her along.

  “I didn’t mean to scare you that much,” the wizard murmured as she and Elise caught up to where Ermolt waited for them. Athala had gone pale, but she didn’t look half as nauseous as Ermolt. Elise wondered if her own cheeks reflected the same glossy pallor of fear, or if her determination was winning.

  “Don’t worry,” Ermolt finally said, his voice sounding distant, with a disgusted tone to it that Elise had never heard. “I know it was my own fault.”

  With a determined glared he took the lead again, striding meaningfully towards the next room. Elise’s heart broke at his lost expression. If there was time, she would have loved to pray over the woman’s body. As Ermolt would have said—and as he likely repeated to himself over and over—the woman was just doing her duty. She may have worked for a corrupt and negligent prison, and had maybe even complied with horrible orders once or twice during her times here, but ultimately the woman had woken up to do a job that morning, and now she was no longer living. All because of a mistake.

  Elise followed Ermolt instead. There just wasn’t enough time for prayer now—it would have to be done later.

  As they moved through the hallway, Elise remembered that the next room was where their personal effects had been stripped from them. It was also where Elise and Athala had the binding rings attached.

  Once they got to that room, they’d be able to return to full fighting strength. Ermolt would have his hammer. Elise could finally reunite with her shield. And if they could spare the moment to figure out the contraption, Athala would have her magic returned.

  Ydia, however, had other plans.

  As they entered into the room, the far door opened. Armed guards burst through the open door and spread out. It was not the mere six they’d taken on in the hallway. There were at least twelve guards here, and the room was large enough for the lot of them to swarm and overwhelm, rather than bottle-necking the group so that Elise and Ermolt could take on a few at a time.

  These guards were also not outfitted with the sparse padded armor and batons of the guards inside the prison. In fact, these guards wore suits of splint mail and bore swords and shields. They formed ranks like disciplined soldiers rather than charging like barely-trained prison guards.

  “Surrender!” one of them barked. “I will not ask a second time!”

  “Um, uh, well, hrm,” Athala said, her sputtering noises almost unintelligible.

  “We can’t fight here,” Elise said to Ermolt, keeping her voice low. It hurt her to admit it, but she saw no other option. “Maybe we can backtrack and find another—”

  “We surrender,” Ermolt said, ignoring Elise.

  “On the ground! Now!” one of the guards shouted as they approached. “Drop your weapons!”

  Ermolt dropped to his knees, pulling the leather gauntlets and metal bracers off his arms.

  “What are you doing?” Elise cried in panic, tentatively looking from the oncoming guards to the daggers in her hands.

  “Trying to not die,” Ermolt said, trying to keep his voice calm and level. “If we had more time we could have grabbed our own weapons and stood a chance, but even then, I can’t fight twelve armed and armored men at once without killing them in the process.”

  “Weapons on the ground! Now!”

  Elise looked at the weapons once more before throwing her daggers to the ground. Anger and disappointment settled into her chest. They were going to have to return to their cell. Ingmar
would have them watched closely. There would be no other escape. Athala wouldn’t get her spell and Elise wouldn’t get to help Ydia and everything was just terrible. A bitter voice reminded her that she had known they were doomed to fail. That she’d tried to convince Ermolt they were risking too much. But Elise couldn’t blame him for this, any more than she could ever blame Athala for them getting arrested in the first place. It was only that losing so much effort hurt.

  “Down, Athala,” Elise said, gently grabbing Athala’s elbow as she dropped to her knees, dragging the wizard down with her.

  The guards kicked the daggers away and sheathed their swords. They grabbed each of them individually and separated them from the others. Ermolt’s helmet was yanked off and they peeled the armor off over his head. It clung to him like a second skin. Elise and Athala were roughly patted down for any other weapons and Elise was relieved of the belt with the empty sheaths.

  Once they were disarmed and stripped of their stolen gear, the guards bound them with manacles. As they were being bound, a few guards in the more standard padded armor rushed in from the hall, and a few whispered words were exchanged between the two groups. The lead guard’s head snapped in their direction and his face grew cold.

  “Hold,” the lead guard barked to the rest of them as they began to drag the three prisoners away. “That way,” he said grimly, pointing to the door on the right side of the room, instead of the door they had come in through. The guards’ expressions hardened and they grew rougher with their handling of the prisoners.

  “Hold on!” Elise protested. “What’s going on? Where are we going?” When no one answered, she squirmed under their rough grip. “We’re not even supposed to be imprisoned here!”

  “Yeah, I’m sure,” one of the guards spat back at her. “I never heard that one before.”

  “No, really!” Elise struggled against the guards’ gripping hands as they were forced through the door. “Try and find us in the records! We aren’t there, and we’ve done nothing!”