by Winfred Wong
Before he finished speaking, the guards had already begun pulling out some weapon crates from the base. Javelins, spears and long sabers were being handed to the discouraged farmers in an orderly fashion when the lanterns hanging on the front wall of the cottages were lit up one by one. Facing such a crisis, nobody were talking or making any sounds, except for the guards, who were giving orders. The unfamiliar silence that enveloped the village induced an atmosphere of melancholy that swallowed the liveliness of the village up and the mood among them shifted dramatically like sailing in a volatile breeze.
“We should go home,” Althalos said to Keira, voice trembling, twirling his hair unnaturally. “It’s not safe out here.”
“I am worried about mom and dad,” Keira said, rubbing her hands together. “They may not be aware of the red flag out in the field!”
“Don’t worry.” Althalos comforted her. “News travels fast. Even if they do not notice the red flag, someone will. They should have gone home by now.”
“What about Chavdar?” Keira said, scratching her face. “Will he be safe? I should have asked him where he was going!”
“Calm down, Keira,” Althalos said, as he grabbed her hand to stop her scratching. “I need you to stay calm.”
Keira looked into Althalos’s eyes bewilderedly and let out a long sigh when a panting guard, who had apparently been running, suddenly screamed out Galot’s name and rushed into the guard station through the crowd clumsily.
“What happened?” Keira asked.
“Bad things, I suppose,” Althalos said, scratching his head. “Look, we need to get home before the situation deteriorates.”
“Get home?” Keira piped. “I thought they could use someone like you. Didn’t you hear what Galot said?”
“Me? I honestly don’t think they need someone like me,” Althalos said and grabbed Keira’s arm and began to pull her away from the crowd.
“Hey you!” A tall guard, who had a mole on his right chin, patrolling the road with a long spear in his hand yelled at the two of them. “Where are you going?!”
“Please let me go, please let me go,” Althalos murmured to himself repeatedly, grabbed her arm tighter and walked faster.
“Hey, stop right there!” The guard snorted and advanced toward Althalos, pointing to them. “According to the rules, every grown men must join the temporary citizen guard during the time of an emergency.”
As the guard was about to stop the suspicious pair from going with his long spear, Keira suddenly looked back at the guard and blinked her captivating watery eyes. It was not her intention, but the guard did become paralysed when their eyes met in the middle of the despairing air.
“Warner! Take the third squad and follow me to the east entrance!” Galot stormed out of the station and ordered.
After a hold-up to pull himself together, “You heard the man!” the tall guard, Warner, bawled and turned away from Keira as slowly as he could, with his eyes fixed on her until she was completely out of sight.
∫∫
As Warner was gone, Althalos and Keira left the crowd in a hurry with anxious looks. They scurried back home on the empty street brightened up by lanterns. Both of them were perturbed to death, but the thing that was bothering them was different. There wasn’t another word passed between them until a man running toward them from the far side caught her attention.
“Who is that?” Keira asked, pointing her long, slender finger forward.
So Althalos peered forward as a green-eyed man with a familiar broad shoulder peeped out from the horizon.
“Chavdar?” He began to run toward the man with Keira.
The three of them didn’t stop running until they were close enough to give each other a long time no see hug.
“Where were you?” Keira said on the verge of crying. “We’re so worried about you.”
“What happened?” Chavdar asked. “I was at the west entrance when I realized the street was a bit too quiet, you know, the street was usually overcrowded and rowdy. And then I saw the red flag in the sky. So I ran all the way back home at once. But nobody was at home. So please just tell me what happened.”
“It’s a long story,” Keira said and turned her head to Althalos, signalling him to speak.
Recalling the nauseating memories, “I…argh…happened to witness a murder out there near the river,” Althalos said reluctantly, playing with his hair. “Then I ran along the river, ran all the way back to the guard station, found Galot there, told him what I saw and helped him to pull the red flag up.”
“A murder?” Chavdar repeated after him in a high-pitched voice.
“Umm-hmm. Some bandits did it, I guess,” Althalos said calmly when his eyes were turning red. “They killed Malo. There was nothing I could do to help. There were just too many of them.”
“Huh!?” Chavdar said, with a pair of lifeless eyes, when his heart ceased to beat.
“Argh…” Althalos uplifted his head and exhaled deeply, preventing tears from rolling out. “I was just too scared. Maybe there was something I could have done to save him.”
“Yeah, that’s what happened,” said Keira, trying to change the subject. “And then he came back home for me. We went to the station together, and we found you.”
For a moment, Chavdar didn’t even know what to say, experiencing a mixed feeling of intense rage and traumatic grief that whirled his mind away. A look of terror flashed across his face, and, when his mind came back, he spread his fingers out and stared at his empty palm like there was something on it.
“Whe..Where is my book!?” Chavdar repeated, as if saying some mystic words in a panic, and began looking around madly.
“What book!?” Keira enquired.
“The book Malo gave me this morning!!” Chavdar shouted, head down, shielding his gloomy face with his hand. “I must have left it on the carriage.”
“You have seen him this morning?” Keira asked.
“Yes! YES!!” Chavdar sobbed in rage, sniffling loudly. “I happened to meet him in front of his store after I went out this morning. I didn’t know he was back until he called my name when I passed by. And he gave me a book he brought in Sellin because he thought Althy and I would love it! I can’t believe I just left it behind!”
“Malo won’t blame you for this,” Keira said tenderly, trying to ease his pain.
“I’m sorry, but there is no more time for crying,” Althalos said suddenly. “It’s not safe out here. We have to get going now.”
“Didn’t you hear what he said?” Keira argued. “Dad and mom aren’t at home. There is no point in going home now if we are going to find them!”
“I bet they are also looking for us right now,” Althalos said persuasively, as he saw Chavdar staring at him with an annoying look. “And I’m pretty sure the first place they will look for is home. I say we should get home as soon as possible before they do.”
“This is nonsense,” said Keira.
“Knock it off!” Chavdar broke in, wiping off the tears that dampened his eyelashes. “I say we have to go our separate ways. Althalos, you come with me to the guard station. I’m sure that they will head for the red flag if they happened to see it. Keira, go home. Light up the lantern and stay there until we return.”
After he poured oil on troubled waters, he immediately took a big stride forward, giving them no chance to squabble. Unwillingly, Althalos followed his brother, with a vaguely acquiescent look, as his sister went home.
The twin brothers walked along the empty main street, where some formless shadows of people moving in the cottages can be seen, and made it back to the station.
“Where is everyone?” Althalos murmured, staring at the deserted open ground before the station.
“Over here.” An armed, feeble-looking guard standing in front of a weapon crate near a pillar of the station waved his hand and called them.
“Where is everybody?” Chavdar asked when they got close. “I thought we are supposed to gather here whenever the red fl
ag is pulled up.”
“Yeah, and you’re supposed to be here a lot earlier. The other guys have already gone,” replied the guard. “Some of them are on duty patrolling outside the fence, some followed Galot to the east entrance.”
“East entrance?” Chavdar asked.
“Yay,” said the guard. “There’s an emergency there, but, don’t worry, as far as I know, we are still safe in this village.”
“What’s the emergency about?” asked Chavdar.
“It seems they have encountered some non-human trespasser there,” the guard said, shrugging. “Ridiculous, right?”
“What does it look like, the non-human trespasser?” Althalos suddenly took a step forward and asked, with his emerald eyes glittering, twirling his hair.
“No idea,” the guard replied. “You may go and have a look yourself if you really want to know.”
Althalos then darted away from them abruptly as he came to a realization that he might know who the non-human trespasser was. And he went down the road to the east entrance before his brother could react.
With the slapping sound of his cloak hitting against his leg in the chilly wind in a sprint, he reached the east entrance, where Galot, Desman and four lines of guards were packed together, in no time. Tiptoeing behind the last line of guards, he tried to see what was going on beyond the fence, but he was just too short.
“You must…let me in if...” Althalos heard a familiar, muffled voice.
He knew he was right about this when he heard this gruff voice, so he elbowed his way through the throng, craned forward between two guards standing in his way, and saw Warner and three other guards aiming their long spears at a centaur hostilely.
“Identify yourself, you creep,” Warner roared, feinting his spear.
“As you can see, I am a centaur!” Morph answered cockily, stamping his horse foot on the graveled ground. “I’m here for a friend of mine, Dulais. He wears a black cloak, and he always carries a rare red staff with him. I know he is now staying in this village. So would you just let me in, or are you going to tell him I am waiting for him out here?”
“I did meet someone who fit your descriptions this morning,” Warner said, as he squinted while thinking. “But even though what you said might be real, you’re still not coming in.”
“Then perhaps you can ask him to come out.” Morph smirked weirdly, with threatening eyes, when Desman proceeded from the left flank of the first line guard to his grandson. “I’m quite sure he will be happy to come out if you tell him a centaur is waiting for him.”
“We would very much like to help you with this,” Desman said behind the three guards in front of Morph. “But Mr. Dulais has already left at noon. I hope most sincerely that you may find him at somewhere else.”
“Where was he headed?” Morph asked and swallowed his lips to show an irritated look.
“Valais,” Desman answered, faking a smile to avoid further unwanted conflict. “That’s all I can tell you, Mr. Centaur.”
Desired to obtain the staff before Pancho did, Morph suppressed his furious impulse to give vent to his resentment by spending a day or two to obliterate the entire village. Instead, he trampled the graveled road, sending the stones flying, as if the stones were guilty of aiding Dulais in leaving the village while the guards from the village slowly moved back.
∫∫
It was a depressing night with lanterns glimmering like a reflection of shimmering stars in the somber sky while guards were patrolling everywhere.
Area beyond the range of the flame of the lanterns was supposed to be submerged in total darkness, though, strangely enough, the pagan-black, northern sky was suddenly brightened up, and a guard noticed the change.
“Look!” a guard patrolling the outskirt of Ayrith said to his partner, with a perplexed look, pointing at the northern sky. “The sky is on fire!”
The other guard goggled skyward, with narrowed eyes.
“What the…” He murmured when they started to hear some heavy tread.
And then a vague, fast-moving silhouette appeared in their eyes suddenly.
“Somebody is coming,” the perplexed guard said, with an even more perplexed look.
Then gradually, the one silhouette became two, two became four, four became eight, and, when they got closer, the silhouettes became tens of hundreds of bandits, and the illuminated sky the withering flaming torches in their hands.
“Oh, no,” the two of them said together, regarding at each other.
CHAPTER NINE
* * *
With a full set of iconic brown leather armor he obtained from the feeble guard on, Chavdar rushed to the east entrance along the emptied main street, with a sheath on his back, yet he came to a halt suddenly midway down the road when a tinkly bell sound, which turned the gloomy ambience in the air into a staggering distress, resonated across the village.
To hear better, he took off his helmet and prayed earnestly in his heart, hoping what he just heard was nothing but his silly imagination. However, after a split second, the sound echoed in the sky again, cruelly shattering his hope.
When the sound occurred for the third time, his heart almost stopped beating as he knew that three successive bell ringing meant war. In desperation, he went into an almost meditative trance and stayed still until some faint jingling and tinkling can be heard under the sunless sky. He then rubbed harshly against his face to clear his mind, put back on his helmet and sprinted toward the east entrance, but, as he went closer, he discovered that a sense of discouraging fear in his heart had been stealing his determination to rescue his brother since the chinking and chiming of preparation of weapons became more unambiguous and more unambiguous in his sweating ears.
Every steps he took became smaller than the previous one as he began to feel uncertain about what he could do. Then the terrifying battle sounds were suddenly displaced by some even more horrifying shouts and howls from bandits charging in. Every beat of sound was refraining him from moving onward and reminding him of the danger he was facing, but, when he thought of Althalos, who may be hopelessly waiting for someone to help him, he just couldn’t sit back and leave him alone. And he knew that, to save him, he needed his strength back. He wanted to get rid of the disturbing sounds, and so, he came up with the best idea he could ever think of.
He took off his helmet again, dropped it onto the ground and visioned, interchanging his vision and hearing, and, as a result, his world became entirely soundless because the function of his ears had been altered. Through his ears, he could still see the metal sounds, which were as clamorous as it had been, but the fear in him had already been defeated by his faith in the tranquility of his imagination. With his crystal-like, emerald eyes, he marched forward again.
∫∫
It was gory. The sliding sounds of hundreds of swords being unsheathed on a lagoon of gore beyond the fence were endless. Undistinguishable groaning and keening of hundreds of men drenched in blood were all over the benighted sky. Guards were trying to reestablish a line of defence in front of the entrance, but they were obviously outnumbered as they were being driven back into the village.
“Hold them off!” Galot bellowed while plucking out his sword from a dead. “Either we die with glory or our family will live the rest of their lives like a slave!”
Buoyed up by him, the guards began fighting with an over-my-dead-body spirit while roaring out loud like the last breath of a monstrous beast. Every time a man fell, the one at the back would step on his dead body and take over his place to protect their homeland. Oozing blood kept coming out from their deep and shallow wounds while they were dripping down onto the ground from their elbows. A sickly stench of perspiration plus gore arose from the ground and attracted some deadly vultures inhabited in the Flipside.
While the vultures were milling about in the stinky sky and the guards were being slaughtered, Althalos was hiding himself in a large wardrobe, with a breaking leg, in a ramshackle, abandoned, lantern-less cottage situat
ed right by the fence. He had already been there ever since the first bandit loomed.
Through the thin front door of the cottage, the yowling and wailing of the soldiers were always loud and clear to him, but he never even thought of giving them a helping hand., and, as he was just waiting purposelessly for the end of the conflict, a door-opening, squeaking sound followed by a resounding smack and a groaning of a man appeared inside the cottage and caught his full attention.
“Don’t come in here, don’t come in here, don’t come in here…” he murmured terrifyingly, his upper lip aquiver.
Heart beating vigorously, he held his breath like he was sinking below the surface of the ocean to avoid being heard while habitually twirling his hair, but unfortunately, the treacherous wardrobe betrayed him as it wobbled intentionally and made a noise.
The groaning man noticed that shake when he sat down at a table in the centre of the cottage. Carefully, he removed his chest armor and helmet with his bleeding right arm and unsheathed his sword with the other hand, clinking.
“Whoever in there,” the man said while pointing his sword to the wardrobe. “Just come out.”
He waited for the hiding man to come out, but nobody showed up. Therefore, the man used the tip of the sword to crack open the wardrobe door and craned his neck to look into it cautiously.
“It’s you!” he blustered out in a surprising tone, dropped his sword hand and let out a breath when Althalos’s face came into view through a chink. “Why on earth are you hiding in a wardrobe?”
Shiveringly, Althalos peeped out through the chink and recognized the man as the guard, who forbade him from leaving at the station.
“Come out!” Warner commanded with the slightest anger in his quavering voice.
Feeling embarrassed, Althalos slithered out of it like an eel and hid himself behind a forced smile, picturing how things would have been if a bandit had come in instead cowardly.
