Runescape

by T. S. Church

  “There will be no prisoners” Kara said resolutely. “They will be treated with the same mercy they offered those who fell into their hands—only it shall be quick for them.” Her eyes were cold and hard.

  Commander Blenheim looked to his men to see if anyone wished to argue. No one did.

  Theodore struck seconds later. Those riders who had reached Kara’s line were dispatched by the dwarf soldiers, and those who had broken off to confront him were too few to resist for long. Within moments, he had surrounded the last group of horsemen who had attempted to fight back, crushing them against one another so they could not even turn. He and his men struck at their enemy from every direction, outnumbering them three to one.

  None were spared.

  Lord Radebaugh hacked the arm off a Kinshra lancer as an Imperial Guardsman stabbed him from behind, and the same story was repeated on all sides. The Kinshra found themselves trapped, and their pleas for clemency were ignored.

  Nearly two hundred of them managed to flee, however, galloping westward. A Kinshra officer rode swiftly to intercept them, but his shouts were ignored. Without stopping, they rode from the battlefield.

  Theodore watched in satisfaction. The Kinshra will was breaking.

  A few hundred yards away, Kara gave the order to advance.

  The two men were alone in the central chamber, listening for Marius, who stalked the nearby passages in silence.

  “You have no alternative but to reveal yourself” Sir Tiffy said loudly. “I shall send Ebenezer back to the city to return with more men, and then you shall be found. If you surrender to us, we shall not execute you. I cannot promise that if others join us.”

  The old knight exchanged a questioning look with the alchemist. For all they knew, the city might have fallen already. But neither dared say so.

  “I have an idea, Sir Tiffy” the alchemist whispered, raising the lantern as he spoke, and motioning for his friend to come closer.

  The breeze buffeted the lamp again and the light flickered once more.

  The battle was going badly for Bhuler. Sulla’s force had joined the fighting in front of the wall and by sheer weight of numbers had driven the knights back again. Soon they would be trapped in a second horseshoe, larger and more aggressive than the first. Now the Kinshra were fighting for their lives, knowing that Kara and her army would also have to be faced.

  Bhuler knew he had to act. He raised the banner of Sir Amik, shouting to his riders to follow him in a desperate charge to buy time for Kara to come to their aid. He knew it could only result in one outcome, but he also knew with absolute certainty that this was the hour for which he had lived his whole life.

  He wept behind the visor, hot tears of rage and fervour. Saradomin had accepted him. With a cry of determination he held the banner aloft and urged his horse forward at a gallop, charging Sulla’s line.

  But the pikemen were ready, standing shoulder to shoulder in an immovable formation with their pikes facing the oncoming enemy.

  It was a formation no horse or rider had ever penetrated. Yet still Bhuler rode on.

  The light guttered, leaving them in total darkness.

  “Quickly, relight it” Sir Tiffy urged with a hint of panic in his voice.

  “I can’t,” Ebenezer said desperately.

  Now is my chance!

  Finistere was no fool. He moved silently, knowing that if he did run he would reveal himself.

  “What is wrong with it?” Sir Tiffy asked, his voice still unsettled.

  “The fuel is gone” Ebenezer said. “We will have to listen for him in the dark.”

  It was the news he had been straining to hear. Silently he advanced until he stood at the chamber’s edge, listening to the two men only yards away from him as they struggled with the lantern. The darkness was so black that his sight could not grow used to it.

  He clutched his sword tightly, stepping down from the tunnel and into the knee-deep water on the chamber floor. But his foot slipped. Stifling a cry, he grabbed at the tunnel mouth to steady himself, his scabbard scraping against stone.

  Immediately, the chamber filled with a sickly light.

  “Well, Finistere, we have reached the end game,” the alchemist said, smiling grimly as he pulled his cloak away from the lantern and opened a small hatch to allow the air to flow in and fuel the flame.

  The traitor stared in hatred at him as the flickering light grew stronger.

  “Clever trick, old man. Very clever!”

  Knowing that all hope of stealth had gone, he launched himself in a desperate attack on men who had once called him friend.

  SEVENTY-TWO

  The plume of smoke parted in a ragged tear, like an invisible knife cutting down the centre of a silk veil. Through the gap, Sir Amik watched as Bhuler pulled his horse back at the last possible second, then urged it on in a jump that took it over the first line of pikes and into the men behind.

  He smashed them aside, causing a ripple-like shudder to travel along their entire length.

  “You valiant fool,” he moaned, certain that his friend was doomed.

  But Sir Amik was wrong. Even as he wept, he noted a dozen other horsemen follow Bhuler’s example, each crashing into the Kinshra line that was still reeling from his valet’s assault.

  On the city’s ramparts were the foresters who had fled before the Kinshra advance, a people who wielded bows before they could talk. They launched their lethal arrows now, and thinned the pikemen, leaving gaps in their formation large enough for the knights to drive in with all their armoured weight.

  Sir Amik watched as—impossibly—the Kinshra line broke in two, severed at its centre as the knights before the wall rushed upon them, their determination now a fanaticism inspired entirely by one brave man.

  Bhuler continued his merciless charge through the Kinshra rows, his banner adding another enemy to the grim toll as he drove its tip into a Kinshra helm. He urged his horse on, pulling the banner free, finding himself alone on the far side of the Kinshra line.

  Only one enemy dared to challenge him.

  Jerrod lowered his hood slowly, anticipating the fear that his nightmare visage would inspire. He stared at the knight across thirty yards of open ground.

  He saw Sir Amik’s horse neigh nervously as it tugged at the reins in an effort to make his master find another foe. But the knight was steadfast.

  He raised the banner to his head, touching his white helm against the torn four-stared symbol.

  The werewolf paused. There was an absence of the scent in the air that he found on nearly all his enemies.

  It was the absence of fear.

  His enemy was not afraid of him.

  Jerrod hesitated.

  The knight charged.

  The traitor lunged. As Sir Tiffy parried, Finistere stepped past him, intent on extinguishing the lantern.

  I need to hide! I need the darkness again.

  Marius shouted, slogging through the knee-deep waters toward them. Finistere had seconds left. He drew his sword back behind his shoulder and hurled it toward the man who had outwitted him, at the same time pulling a dagger from his belt to parry Sir Tiffy’s blade.

  The sword span toward the alchemist’s face, forcing Ebenezer to jump aside.

  Marius leapt into the chamber.

  The traitor’s spare hand closed over Sir Tiffy’s blade, cutting his flesh deeply. But now, free of the need to parry his foe’s weapon, he thrust his dagger into the old spymaster’s shoulder.

  The room went dark as Ebenezer and his lantern crashed into the stinking waters.

  But it was too late, for Marius was upon him.

  Bhuler galloped toward his unworldly enemy. He understood the power of fear and the evil it could drive men to do, but he knew that he was a Knight of Falador who was chosen by Saradomin.

  Guiding his banner, Bhuler guessed that his unarmed foe would try to jump aside. As Jerrod leapt, just as Bhuler had anticipated, he struck the werewolf. It was only his foe’s incredible sp
eed that saved him from being impaled through the heart. The tip of the banner pierced the werewolf’s right shoulder instead, lifting him off his feet and carrying him several yards until he managed to break free.

  The werewolf cursed violently as his black blood stained the earth. Bhuler turned his horse once more toward his enemy. Vulnerable now, the creature had only one option. With his red robes flailing behind him, he fled.

  Bhuler watched him run and knew that to let such a creature live was to deny others life, for the werewolf would kill again. He readied the banner of the knights that had been passed from one leader to the next for more than a century, blessed by monks of Saradomin and held in reverence by their order. Some even believed that the tip of the banner had been used as a lance by Saradomin himself in the God Wars.

  He prepared for a final charge, but the sound of hooves thundering on the ground caught his attention. He looked up to see Sulla and his thirty-strong bodyguard galloping against the remainder of his men who were fighting before the wall.

  If Sulla rode in, the knights would be destroyed, for they were too few and too spread out to resist.

  Bhuler turned his horse. The werewolf would have to wait. If he could divert Sulla’s bodyguard for a single moment, then Theodore and Kara would enter the battle at his side.

  Sulla’s attention was focused on the knights near the wall. Several arrows fell amongst his bodyguard, fired by the foresters from the ramparts, but it was too little to prevent them entering the fray and demolishing the last of the resistance.

  One of his officers gestured urgently. Sulla looked to his left.

  It was Sir Amik, leader of the Knights of Falador, alone and unguarded.

  Sulla broke off his charge, amazed that so important a man would isolate himself on a battlefield. It was a moment he had dreamed of.

  “Zamorak could not have given a better augur of our victory!” he cried, raising his sword and pointing toward the armoured man. As one, the Kinshra surged forward.

  Incredibly though, and foolishly, Sir Amik readied his banner and thundered towards them, alone.

  The last thing Sir Tiffy saw before the light vanished was Marius leap toward Finistere, his blade lunging toward the traitor’s abdomen.

  He felt the traitor’s blade pierce his shoulder as the hand holding his sword went suddenly limp. With his remaining strength he freed his weapon from the traitor’s grasp and lunged, hearing a gasp in the darkness as his own blade entered an unseen body. He tried to withdraw the sword, but suddenly he was too weak to do so.

  Unable to support his weight, he fell backward with a groan, his head slamming against the brickwork.

  The only sound was a faint wheezing.

  “Sir Tiffy? Marius?” Ebenezer called faintly. “Are you there?” His hand found the lamp in the water. It was broken and he knew it would never light now.

  No one answered.

  He needed light and he knew he would have to use magic to illuminate the chamber. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a fire rune.

  Someone groaned nearby. Still no one spoke.

  With a deep breath, Ebenezer concentrated on the single rune in his hand.

  The thought of retreat did not enter his mind. Bhuler had only one aim now, only one goal to achieve.

  Through tear-filled eyes he watched as the Kinshra rode into him. He focused on the tip of his banner and he thrust it into the chest of the nearest enemy.

  He did not feel the blows of the Kinshra blades as Sulla and his guard surrounded him, hacking at him from all angles and cutting the banner in two.

  Finally he fell from his saddle to the soft earth, putting himself beyond the range of their hatred.

  But the butchery was short-lived. Sulla looked around in growing panic as a thundering shook the earth. It could only mean one thing—Kara’s cavalry had come.

  With a grim realisation, Sulla saw that his indulgence in hunting down Sir Amik had cost him the battle. Swiftly he led his bodyguard away, abandoning his men before the wall.

  SEVENTY-THREE

  To Sir Vyvin, the outcome of the battle was inevitable. The Kinshra were caught between the Imperial Guard and the remaining knights and militia that he commanded. All had witnessed Sir Amik’s fall, and the apparent death of their leader made his men fight with a suicidal frenzy. Even young peons bested men twice their age, ignoring wounds that would have felled stronger warriors.

  They hacked their way through the Kinshra ranks to where they believed Sir Amik to have fallen.

  It was Sir Vyvin who first reached the prone figure. The fallen knight’s head was cushioned on the flank of his horse, which lay dead beneath him. In his hands he held the two broken pieces of the banner.

  Sir Vyvin knelt beside him. As he began to open the visor a pained grunt came from the man within.

  Bhuler was alive.

  “Do not open it,” he said. “The boys are doing us proud. Let them fight until the end.”

  Sir Vyvin knew he did not have long to live.

  “So it is you, Bhuler,” he said. “I have suspected it since you spoke to me under the wall. Where is Sir Amik?”

  Bhuler shook his head.

  “He was too weak to join us. But I was not... and we needed our leader...”

  A rider caught Sir Vyvin’s attention. It was Theodore.

  “Sir Amik!” he cried as he knelt by Sir Vyvin’s side. “Tell me, sir, is there anything I can do?”

  Bhuler stretched his hand out to Theodore, who took it reverently. “Bring Kara to me, Theodore,” he said. “For I am Bhuler, and I wish to see her.”

  Theodore gaped in amazement. Sir Vyvin hushed him before he could speak.

  “Go and bring Kara” he said quietly. “Tell no one of this, for only you and I know the truth.”

  The squire nodded and mounted his horse, while behind him the remaining knights formed a defensive circle around their fallen leader, fighting any Kinshra soldier that came within their reach.

  The rune fizzed brightly in Ebenezer’s open palm, lighting the chamber with a red glow. The small pebble gave off a plume of red-tinted smoke that gave the alchemist a sudden look of power. He had to concentrate on controlling the magic, however, rationing it so it would not burn too quickly—or even explode. The rune would last only a brief time, but he had a dozen more in his pocket.

  “Marius?” he called as he stepped forward slowly. “Sir Tiffy?” He carried the magic fire with him and with each step illuminated more of the chamber’s dark secrets.

  “I am here,” Marius said quietly, looking into the water at his feet.

  There lay the traitor, opening his mouth silently in a muted plea, his hands clutched at a deadly wound in his right side.

  “He is still alive,” Marius said, his face contorted in barely-restrained rage. “This is for Bryant” he screamed suddenly, “and the countless others who have fallen because of your treachery.”

  The squire raised his right foot and placed it squarely on the traitor’s chest, pushing him down under the surface of the shallow black water, ignoring the pleading look in his eyes.

  “Shouldn’t we take him back alive?” Ebenezer said. For a moment his concentration slipped and the rune flared dangerously.

  “There may not be a city left to return to” the squire said flatly, staring down at the traitor, who splashed feebly in an attempt to get some air. “And you should help Sir Tiffy.”

  Ebenezer moved to where the old knight lay, and crouched to place his arm around Sir Tiffy’s shoulders. The knight breathed steadily.

  “I’ll help you when I’ve finished here,” Marius said. Ebenezer noted the tears on the young man’s face. “We’ll take Sir Tiffy back to the city and see what the situation is. If Falador still resists, then we shall join the fight, and if we win we shall return here to retrieve the bodies of Sir Pallas and Sir Erical.”

  “What about him?” Ebenezer asked as the splashing ceased at the squire’s feet.

  “I think this wi
ll be a suitable place for him to spend eternity,” Marius said as he drove his sword into the traitor’s body to be sure his betrayal was ended.

  Together, the squire and the alchemist carried Sir Tiffy from the chamber, their way lit by Ebenezer’s burning rune.

  None could stand against Kara. The blades of her enemies broke against her own, while their armour was useless against the adamant weapon.

  A young Kinshra warrior covered his eyes with his hands as he grasped at his wounded forehead. Kara ran him through with a single thrust, then stepped behind him, withdrawing her sword to deliver a killing blow on the back of his neck.

  With every enemy that fell before her, her rage only increased. She had forgotten mercy and put aside forgiveness.

  Gar’rth fought at her side, without a weapon. He used his speed and hideous strength, clawing and sometimes biting. For he no longer resembled a human. His skin had taken on the grey hue, its thickness turning away the thrusts of his desperate enemies. His eyes were black pools of infinite darkness, and his jaw was grotesquely extended. And while each blow hurt him, none had cut him.

  On her other side was Doric. The dwarf drove the edge of his shield into the stomach of a Kinshra soldier. As the man doubled over he smashed his axe into the man’s face, felling him instantly. The Kinshra will to fight was lost, and he watched with growing sadness as Kara slew men who were trying to flee.

  Riding behind them, Castimir picked his targets sparingly. He, too, noted Kara’s rage. The wizard looked to Doric and the dwarf shook his head bitterly.

  “I’ll seek Theodore” Castimir said. “There is no need for this to continue.”

  With a grim look as Kara ignored a plea for mercy, the wizard turned his horse and galloped west.