by Kyle J Cisco
His face seemed paler than usual as he looked back at the group.
“There was said to be a large inferno that took out most of the army of darkness—something that had never been seen before nor since that day.”
Virgil thought to himself that either the man was truly special or the story Popavich was told as child had been embellished in some areas. Tall tales like this couldn’t be good for morale.
“Hey, Pop, this isn’t story time. We need to keep focused on our surroundings,” Virgil said.
Popavich turned and looked the other way like a child being scolded for not eating his greens.
Satisfied, Virgil scanned the forest for movement while they moved on.
“Over here,” came a whisper. Natasha glanced back at Virgil and Rex who joined her.
“There,” she said pointing to a leaf that was smeared with blood. “It seems we are on the right track then.”
Virgil began to walk up to the leaf, then stopped. A weird tingling sensation hummed in his senses.
Rex held up his fist to stop the party in its place and gave the hand signal to ready weapons. Swords swished from their sheaths and all hell broke loose. Arrows zipped past them, slicing the undergrowth. An arrow grazed Virgil’s lower arm, nicking the skin and sending a thin stream of blood down his arm.
“Duck! Follow me and stay low,” Rex said as he raised his hand and materialized a blue luminescent defensive shield around the party.
One of the outlying battle brothers tried to make it into the protective bubble but was cut down by two arrows hitting the back of his chest plate and a third striking the critical unarmored area beneath his neck. Blood started flowing from his mouth as his lungs and his throat filled with blood. He slowly dropped to the ground, pushing the arrow in his neck out the other side when he hit the ground.
Bile rose in Virgil’s throat as he saw his brother fall. He rushed to Rex’s side to keep him safe. Virgil and Rex moved as quickly as possible to get their people out of that forested kill box. Hiding behind a group of trees, they regrouped and tried to catch their collective breaths, but their time was up.
Two specters charged out of the trees followed by a horde of shrieking undead villagers. In a heartbeat, the team was engulfed in combatants.
Virgil spun on his heels and threw his dagger at one of the specters and with a measure of luck, he hit the thing dead center and it doubled over. Virgil leaped in and swung his battle-ax, cutting down, but his blow was intercepted by the other specter who moved in to cover his fallen ally. On Virgil’s left, Jack came up swinging at the specter that had now recovered from the knife wound, allowing Virgil to focus his attention on his new foe.
Letting loose with his anger once more, he reached out and grabbed the specter with a tendril of light and gripped the specter around the bottom of the hood.
But the specter only chuckled.
Then it flung its arms, breaking the tendril of light with a crack, and hurling Virgil into a tree trunk. The crash must have drawn the Natasha’s attention for she let loose a salvo of bolts at the specter’s chest, dropping him, a wisp of smoke rising from where the bolts stuck into its chest.
But still the specter rose. With a cry, Virgil charged in and lopped off its head.
Two tattered pieces of cloak fell bodiless to the ground.
With his foe defeated, he looked to the others and Rex in particular who was about to be completely surrounded by reanimated villagers. Bounding over the distance between them, he hacked off the arm of a man posed to strike with a pitchfork and kicked him in the gut. Rex nodded his appreciation and together they cut down the undead villagers one by one.
They weren’t much of a challenge as far as martial skill, but with the weight of their numbers and the diverse type of weapons they used made the tactics soon wearied the battle brothers.
“They are a never-ending horde,” Virgil said. “How many people did the village of Tervir have?”
“Somewhere around five hundred,” Rex said, running another one through, “from what I saw in the plans.”
“Great. Seven against five hundred.”
“May we find the Light this day!” Rex said and released a burst of energy that sent most of the villagers before him crumpling against trees, shattering bones and skulls in an instant.
Only six members of the party were left. Natasha and Popavich joined Virgil to fend off the strikes that came in from all sides. Jack stood back-to-back with another battle brother, bashing away pitchforks and shovels.
“Jack, bring your man over here and we’ll form a defensive circle around Rex. He must not fall,” Virgil said. As he said that, he pushed out with his hand, throwing back as many of the foes as possible from the path that lead straight to the defensive circle. As the two began to move, the hole filled in too fast for the battle brother at Jack’s back, and he was lost in the horde of villagers.
When Jack arrived, Virgil noticed his friend’s hip was once again bleeding, probably from the shard of knife still lodged in his leg.
“I am fine, brother. Focus and make a plan to get us out here. Let’s survive and worry about wounds later.”
Forming the defensive circle may well have given them some time, but they were still facing certain doom. They needed an answer and fast.
“On the count of three, release a blast with as much power as you can put into it, Virgil,” Rex panted. “We need to make a hole big enough for us to run through.”
Looking into his mentor’s steady gaze, Virgil knew he must not fail.
“1 . . . 2 . . . 3—”
The blast of light that came forth was enormous; it incinerated most of the villagers touched by the wave and sent the rest colliding against the trees. Virgil and the party began to run toward the opening that was made by the blast of energy, jumping over dead bodies and past pools of blood. Nearing the exit they had made, Virgil stopped to see Jack standing with his back to them, waiting as the rest of the horde slowly closed in on where he was standing.
“What are you doing? Come on, Jack, we can make it out!”
“Not this time, brother. You need time to get somewhere safe. This is my sacrifice to the Mother of Light. With my wound, I’ll just slow you down.”
Streams of expletives screamed through Virgil’s mind. “Don’t do this, brother—I can mend your wounds once we get away from them.”
“Just remember to think of me when you get shot in the ass one of these days, will you? Keep Rex and Natasha safe, and find out what’s causing this and kill whatever it is for me. Got that? Now go!”
Virgil turned, reluctant to leave, as Jack swung his great sword, cleaving enemies down in single swings.
“Virgil, GO!”
And Virgil ran. Tears streaming, he ducked through the forest. If he had looked back, he would have seen Jack surrounded on all sides but still holding his own. Then it came. An arrow struck his arm while he was trying to make an overhand blow with his great sword, sticking in his shoulder and freezing Jack’s arm in midair. He dropped the great blade and forced his arm down, snapping the shaft arrow off. Which left the head inside his body. He drew his shield in the nick of time before a scythe that would have decapitated him caught the shield, ripping it from his hand. His broadsword went to work, but he was soon struck again and again. Jack fell to his knees, but not before he took out another of the foes.
The final blow came when his knees hit the ground. Directly behind him a villager caught his unarmored head with the business end of mace. A pink mist of blood flew into the air, covering the assailant’s face. Jack struck out one more time and severed the leg off another foe before a flurry of makeshift weapons battered the wounded man at once, ending his last battle cry mid sentence. “For the Ligh—” was all he could get out before falling to the shear brunt of the enemy force.
Virgil ran blindly until he caught up to the rest of the group.
“Where’s Jack?” Natasha asked. “He’s not—is he—?”
Virgil
could feel the tears welling up in him again but knew he must keep them down, as to keep the others from losing all morale.
“H—he fell . . . gave his life so we could make it out safe . . . and they cut him down like a dog.”
Anger saturated his words. A deep fire burned in his soul against those who were responsible for killing half of their team and his best friend.
“Whatever Darkness has caused this will pay tenfold for what they have done!”
“You must remain calm, my son,” Rex said, approaching Virgil and laying a hand on his shoulder. “Remember that the followers of Light do not act in revenge; that is for those who have fallen to the Darkness.”
“But we should fight fire with fire.”
“That is not our way, Virgil, and you know that Jack would not have wanted this path for you, not if avenging his death means falling to the Darkness to do it.”
“You . . . you’re right,” he grudgingly admitted after a few seconds of thinking. “It is the sting of losing someone close to me that has twisted my mind for a moment. My apologies.”
“None are needed. We have all been there before. That is why we must be there for each other, especially now.”
They could hear the sound of cracking branches behind them and knew the time for grieving was not now. Virgil led the group through a thicket of heavy branches and underbrush that would conceal them as the horde moved on by. The group lay silent as enemies lurked through the trees. Luckily for them, the reanimated villagers did not make for a very attentive search party.
“I want them found,” said a cold voice. “They are in these woods somewhere. We must find them and kill them. Or else his plans will be ruined.” The graveled voice came from yet another specter.
The group waited. But the specter began to sniff the air. He neared a bush feet away from where Virgil hid. The specter sniffed closer. Virgil held his breath.
“We found a ranger near the village,” called out another voice. “Looks like they were camped there overlooking the village for at least a night. Perhaps they sent word for aid?”
When the second specter came into view, he carried the unconscious body of Miko Demeroff. His face was lumpy and beaten; he must have put up a fight before they were able to take him. Virgil did not want to lose another man, but at this point his mission was to evade the enemy. Protect the High Chaplain.
“Let them send their petty soldiers. By then we will have raised an army that has long rested in this place.”
Heavy footsteps crushed ferns and saplings as the two specters carried Demeroff deeper into the woods. Virgil waited until the sounds of forest life returned before giving the signal to follow the path taken by the specters.
They followed the route for a while until they stumbled upon a cave on the side of a rise where the party could hear voices of the enemy.
Turning to Rex, Virgil whispered, “Let’s stop here for a short rest and see what more we can figure out from what they are saying up there.”
Rex nodded.
“Natasha, Popavich, you get as close as possible to the voices above us, and listen in on everything they say.”
The two snuck off through the heavy underbrush. Seconds later, they disappeared into the foliage.
9
Evon Krich looked out on the training yard where he had spent the last twenty years since joining the Order. Till now, he never felt right when he wasn’t there training his men for the inevitable fight ahead. Times had changed. Last night an assassin got in through the gates, acting as a survivor from the village which was set ablaze. The Brotherhood had shown him all the customary hospitality of the Order based on the religion of the Mother of Light. But they had all been deceived by the tenants they held so dear.
The assassin took out almost all of the high-ranking chaplains of the Order, including the High Executor. Only two remained—if they were still alive. Evon knew that the rescue mission to the nearby village must surely have been another trap.
The gate guard fidgeted in Evon’s presence, the weapons master’s gnarled face doing little to allay his concerns. Evon’s useless white eye looked out unseeing, and the guard tried not to stare.
“Why hasn’t Rex returned?”
“I don’t know, Master Krich.” The man spoke in a hushed voice.
“Damn you, Rex, you stubborn bastard.” Turning to face the guard who brought him the news, he said, “Gather all the rangers who are not on patrol and have them meet me in the training yard in one hour.”
“What if the rider we sent did not reach the group? He could have been taken out on the road.”
Evon glowered at him with his one eye.
“I shall go and gather the rangers,” said the guard, scurrying out of the room.
Evon returned to the administrative office and sat at the desk that adorned the office of the High Executor. This was now Rex’s office. If the man was still alive. But the wheel of the world did not stop turning just because one man was out on a suicide mission. Duties must be seen to. Evon grabbed a stack of fresh parchment, a feather pen, and an inkpot and began writing to the various lords of the levy units he needed to gather for war.
Alone, the Order only had about five thousand fighting men, but with levies raised, their number were bolstered to almost twenty thousand. He wrote as fast as he could, sealing each message with the stamp of the High Executor of the Order in Rex’s stead. Once finished, he summoned the fastest riders he could find and gave each one a letter to deliver to a lord or lady under the vassalage of the Covenant of Man.
“Ride with all haste. These letters must be delivered in the next two days. Make sure it is abundantly clear that these lords and ladies must quickly muster all the levies owed to us in times of war.”
As the riders made their respectful bows and left, Evon stood at the window once more. Looking at the reflection in the glass pane, he saw the gnarled scars from battles long ago. His milky-white eye stared back at him.
In his mind’s eye, he could still see the blade slashing at him as it caught his face and ripped through his eye. He gutted the soldier who did it, but that would not heal the wound he had suffered in battle that day. Evon shook off his self-pitying thoughts and headed out to the training yard.
He crossed the yard where some of his new students practiced their sword movements on the dummies. The sight brought a bit of hope to the older man. He headed to the barracks and moved toward his office in the back of the building. Weapons and armor hung in racks along the walls.
Evon opened a chest in the back of his office and began to pull out the plate armor that had sat polished and unused for years. Emerging from the barracks, the sunlight glinted off his steel armor. At the crunch of his footsteps, all the trainees in the yard turned and stared at such a magnificent warrior. He stepped up to customary podium in the training yard, looking about at about fifteen rangers in total all geared up and ready to go.
“You will be going after the party that set out yesterday. Something may have gone ill in their travels. You are to head to their base camp with all haste. Now ready your mounts.”
“Sir, will you be accompanying us?” a ranger at the front of the group asked.
“No, I am not. You will travel on your own. You will link up and find out what happened to High Executor Rex and Chaplain Virgil. You will not come back empty-handed.”
Then without another word, he went back inside to prepare for the coming war.
Evon tramped toward the office of the high Executor as quickly as possible in his plate armor. Hearing the steps of the young scribe who was almost running to keep up with Evon, he said over his shoulder, “I want every battle brother not on assignment in the grand hall in twenty minutes.”
The boy’s footsteps got farther and farther away as he went to relay Evon’s message to the captains of the various battle brother companies.
As Evon approached the door, an odor stopped him in his tracks. He changed course and headed down to the lower levels of the fo
rtress where the initiates trained near the caverns. Rounding the circular stairs leading down, he felt a cool draft of dank air rising from the stairs. The same as he had smelled in the hallway before entering the High Executor’s office. Something had opened the door and gotten into the fortress, but what? Light glowed from the row of braziers filtering through the chamber. As he turned the corner, a torch flame on the wall flickered.
Evon jumped back and a large two-handed ax sparked upon the rock of the chamber wall. Drawing his sword, Evon saw a large man wearing an executioner’s hood staring at him and hefting the large ax from one hand to the other.
“We were hoping someone would join us down below. How unfortunate for you, old man.”
“You are human. Why do you work for the Darkness?”
“Do you not know your history, old man? We were all human once. Some change their bodies over time; others prefer the human form and change in . . . other ways.”
Stepping forward, the brute swung the ax in a looping fashion, using the weapon’s momentum to keep the strikes coming. But his technique was foiled by the weapons master of the Order who struck out with his sword. Old man though he was, Evon caught the executioner’s ax on the handle, and the sharp edge his blade and the momentum of the weapon’s revolutions were enough to break the head off the ax and send it flying off into the corner of the room.
Blade-less, the man lashed out with the broken end of the handle, intending to stab the weak spots in Evon’s heavy armor plating. Countering the blows was easy for Evon nonetheless until he heard someone run up behind him. With practiced speed, he dodged and countered and spun, driving his blade into a pale-skinned man wielding a mace in one hand and a dagger in the other. The younger man was wearing the leather armor and robes of an initiate of the Order.
