by Winfred Wong
Flushed crimson, thinking of what he could have done alternatively, and revolved his eyes away from Dulais’s gaze, “You’re speaking too loud. Come on in. We should talk inside,” Desman said, in a relatively calm tone, turned around and hurried back into the station.
Composed himself, feeling ashamed of himself because of the fact that he was indeed the only reason they assailed the village, “Have you seen Chavdar? Is he anywhere around?” Dulais asked, alertly and quietly, with a dagger in his hand.
Sticking his head out, looked left and right at the open street, Desman ignored his question and said, “Come quickly. It’s safer inside than out.”
But Dulais kept standing still, deep down he didn’t trust him.
“Hurry up. They’ll be here any time.”
Staring at Desman’s fickle eyes of distrust, Dulais began to suspect that this was another fatal trap. So, he visioned to create a tiny pair of physical water arrows by merging water droplets in the air together, triggering light emission off of the sapphire, and threw them into the dark hallway, clearing his way in, before he strode cautiously to the entrance.
Astonished as it was his first time witnessing the power of visioning, “My god,” Desman said.
“Now tell me what happened inside. I heard you talking to a man inside about the staff, and he was about to kill you. How did you make it out?” Dulais questioned aggressively.
“Um...I dodged it,” Desman said, slurring his words like a drunk. “Come. You’ll see.”
“I trusted you,” Dulais said angrily, but with an emotionless face, and made a motion with his hand indicating that he should go first, glaring. “After you.”
As Desman finished half of the journey down the hallway, he squatted down at once as if he knew in advance that something bad was coming, and, promptly after he squatted, there was a fast-moving bald eagle with brown, gigantic wings that each flap of it would seemingly cause a destructive tornado, winging its way out of the hallway, swooshing by Dulais’s head and the pillars. It then flew up high into the blue sky before it swooped back down on him belligerently with its claw-like talons lunging forward, ready to peel off his flesh and blood, scalp and forehead.
Knowing the horny nails of it was deadly, Dulais ducked his head down intuitively to avoid being lacerated and tried to fight back by propelling his staff and dagger skyward persistently when it flew by, he later found that attacking blindly wasn’t a very effective tactic though. Maintaining altitude, trying to clench in forward, the eagle looked formidable as its burnished talons sheened in the sun.
With superficial gashes on both of his arms he suffered while attempting to knock down the bird and his clawed cloak, he tried to vision a lethal water arrow in the hope of terminating the fight as soon as possible, but the incessant, unremitting drive of the eagle trying to impale his temples with its hooked beak was too pestering that he just couldn’t gather his wits.
So, instead of a whetted water arrow, he feinted a stab with his dagger and simply visioned to accumulate moisture on the wings of the eagle, to dampen the brown feathers of it, hoping that the weight of the water would ultimately pull it down to the ground, however, it didn’t seem to be bothered by it as there was an invisible coat on the outer layer of feathers that would keep it from being moistened, not to mention the thrashing and threshing of wings, which acted like a natural fanning machine.
Inevitably, the unstoppable raptor then undertook a counter-attack by thumping and thwacking its pinions at the mind-wielder’s head, gaining the upper hand as Dulais can no longer held his ground. He was forced to take four big steps backward until his back hit a pillar before he could lash out a wild punch, which was unavailing, and there were more and more apparent wounds on his arms.
The fact that he would get whacked seriously if things went on like this was easily foreseeable, so he decided to go all-out. He deliberately dropped the staff and stretched out his vulnerable left arm defencelessly as a bait, and the raptor fell for it. It flew over agilely and gripped his forearm very tightly with its talons squeezing into his skin, blood leaching along his fingers, almost fracturing his fragile arm like cracking a log.
The pain was inconceivably unendurable, but, considering this as his best chance, biting his lips, he still managed to move his fingers to grasp its wings, firmly and violently, crushing it out of shape, with his left hand, to hold it still, and he thrusted the dagger in his right hand at it forcefully, with every ounce of strength he had. Piercing through the air, the keen dagger penetrated into its thick layer of feathers on both of its wings like skewering something, depriving it of its ability to fly, and, on the second stab, which he went for the round head, it died almost right away.
The fierceness and bloodiness of the human-eagle fight wasn’t as brutal as the massacre that took place at the same village, but it was as unforgettable as when he saw Chavdar for the first time. With his fatigued fingers, he extracted the talons that went deep under his skin gently and let the carcass fell. There were eight puncture wounds bleeding profusely. He took out his waterskin, poured water on it, bound them up with his broken cloak, gathered the staff up and looked around for Desman, who had already edged his way away. Thus, alertly, Dulais visioned a physical water arrow and headed to the entrance of the station while applying steady pressure on the wounds.
When he began tiptoeing forward, a man, wearing the same clothing as the man ambushed Dulais on the wagon and had the same eagle tattoo on his neck, stormed out of the dull hallway suddenly and yelled, “Die!!!” He charged at Dulais boldly with a sword upheld, but, unfortunately, right at the exact moment he strode out, he was hit by the water arrow, which went through his right shoulder completely, making a hole about the size of a silver coin, causing him to kneel down and moan because of great pain.
Glowering at the man with his dimmed blue eyes, “Where is Pancho?” Dulais asked weakly, as the bleeding made him feel faint.
Pressing his hand against his freshly injured shoulder with an agonizing look, “I’ll kill you! You bastard!” said the man, hoarsely, gritting his teeth.
“Of course you can, but I’m not going to kill you. Just go! Go back and tell Pancho I am going to kill him the next time we meet.”
Then, unwillingly, the man rose slowly and limped lamely on his way out of his sight.
“This is bad,” Dulais inspected the wounds and said to himself, leaning against a pillar, when he noticed the black cloak used to wrap up the wounds had already soaked red, bloody red, and he entered the station, slid down the hallway to the subdued hall, found the only intact chair and sat on it slowly.
As the pain was radiating and he was about to raise his sore arm above the heart to slack off the bleeding, he heard a queer sound, a sound you could only make when you were gagged in the mouth. It was barely perceptible, but he still decided to track it down. He stood, listened to the desperate sound that resounded against the four walls in a muffled way and tilted his head side-to-side in the shoulder-to-shoulder direction. He then walked up to a dining table far on his right, turned right again, proceeded to another dining table, where he believed there was someone below it, and hunkered down.
There he saw a gorgeous girl, who was gagged in her mouth, with all four limbs restrained by ropes, gazing at him and wriggling her body, with a pair of round, watery eyes, helplessly as if she was a doomed deer caught by a famished tiger wagging its tail. Delicately cut the ropes with his dagger, he set her loose and involuntarily hunched over, his pale forehead kissing the floor, feeling intensively dizzy.
“Hey, how are you?” The startled girl held his head in her palm tenderly when she was freed and realized he was losing a vast amount of blood as there was a raw, acrid smell drifting in the flow of air, his gashed arm smothered in gore.
“Argh...” He tried to speak, but he passed out before he could even move his tongue.
∫∫
“Hey! Where are you going?” Althalos whispered to Dulais, who was slithering along his
way through the village entrance, with a hand cupped to his mouth. “Hey!”
As Dulais went out of his sight, he was left alone again. For the first time, he felt a touch of mortifying loneliness while gaping at the field of ruins that was once a robust village he resided in, realizing there was no place for him to go back to any more, and then he thought of Chavdar, he thought of Keira, he thought of everyone he knew. The good old memories of his life in Ayrith emerged and streaked through his mind like a cantering horse pacing in a kaleidoscope, though he didn’t really feel anything about it.
But still, he was clueless about how to deal with this situation. The farthest place he had been to was the maple tree he used to nap under, and hence, by no means he could reach a city nearby or something without a guide. The only person he could count on was Dulais, and, as he realized that, he moved away from the fence hesitatingly, detangling his matted hair confusingly, looked about meticulously as if he was trying to find something concealed in the short bushes around, and, as he finally decided to proceed into the village, following Dulais’s footsteps, he felt a queer gust of breeze from behind.
Thus, he turned, and there was a man, who was carrying a sheath in one hand, at very close distance, ploughing toward him madly like a crazy dog. The man knocked Althalos over by running into his chest wittingly and shoving him hard into the ground, and he even tried to punch him in the face with his giant fists, but he halted at the moment when Althalos jolted and moaned, hitting the back of his head on the ground, resulting in a nosebleed, blood from his nose staining his teeth, the saline taste of blood clogged his throat.
“You again!” said the man, fist hanging in midair.
In pain, Althalos screwed up his green eyes and said, “Who are you? What’s wrong with you?”
“I’m Warner. We have met before.”
“Do I know you?” asked Althalos when he saw a mole on his right chin. “Yes, I think I know you.”
“I am very sorry.” Warner helped Althalos up. “But I thought you’re one of them.”
“Them? The bandits? You’re fighting them? Alone?”
“Not really. In fact, you’re the first man I have clashed with since last night,” he lamented melancholically. “After you left the abandoned cottage, some bandits rushed in and tried to set fire to it. I killed them all, and then I stomped out from the front door, but there were too many of them. We were immensely outnumbered. So I went back, barricaded the door and rushed out from the back door.” He paused and sighed. “The odds were bleak for victory. I took off my armor, clambered over the fence, camouflaged myself with netting and branches I found in the field and hid until they marched out of our land this morning. Then I decided to walk along the fence to reach the entrance, and then I saw you trying to sneak into the village from behind.”
Staring at him, “I can’t believe a man like you would abandon your post. And why are we still hiding if they have already left?” Althalos said, as he was wiping the blood on his face.
“I didn’t really have a choice, but thing is different now. Some of them stayed behind in the station. I saw it. We should move stealthily to the station and give them a surprise attack, maybe able to catch them off guard,” Warner said seethingly as he set eyes on the piles of dead bodies in the middle of the street. “They have to pay for it! All of them!”
“But I don’t have a weapon! I don’t know how to fight!” Althalos claimed with an innocent look.
Warner drew a silver sword from the sheath, making a metal gliding sound, and threw it to Althalos casually, “Use this.”
Holding it ineptly with one hand, “What about you?” Althalos said.
“I don’t need a weapon to kill,” said Warner, determinedly, and he quickly pattered toward the wreckage of the cottages and beckoned to Althalos, who was struggling within himself.
It wasn’t easy to him, but eventually he acquiesced in his decision and followed his footsteps.
“We could use the wreckage as cover,” Althalos whispered when he caught up.
Regarding at the staggering heaps of bodies, “I was supposed to protect the village,” Warner mumbled slowly with a gloomily grim face, pursing his lips slightly. “They deserve the grace of a proper funeral.” And he became rigid for a while.
“Hey!” Althalos tapped his arm, smashing his trance-like state, forcing him to pull himself together.
Then he, instinctively and instantly, tucked his fury away behind a cold grin shyly. “Let’s go!” Warner said, and they scurried along the muddy way toward the station behind the crumbled buildings.
As they arrived, they moved furtively to the pillars in front of the entrance and tried to look inside.
“Look at that!” Althalos whispered, almost soundlessly, pointing at the eagle carcass on the main street, lifted up his legs, one at a time, and placed his feet on somewhere clean without blood after he saw the puddles and trails of fresh blood on the ground. “A dead eagle and blood everywhere!”
Warner replied by pointing to himself, then to the entrance, to Althalos, then to himself again. A pair of unprotected clenched fists was all he got, but, prompted by anguish, he then recklessly charged along the hallway at full throttle before Althalos could reply.
“Hey!” Althalos said in a hushed tone, his eyes fixed on the running Warner.
At first, after the first glance at the unlighted hallway, Althalos didn’t want to go in. He was frightened and didn’t want to get involved, but then he realized that Warner had given him the only weapon he had as he suddenly felt the gravity acting on it, and he inspired nervously.
He held the sword upright with his both trembling hands, and, when he was striding through the entrance reluctantly, a curdling scream that was so primal that it chilled him down to his toes broke out from inside. It was a voice that was reminiscent of the savage scene of Malo’s death, and it was a familiar voice, a voice of his helpless sister. He was perturbed, and, as an exasperating impulse crawled up in his heart, he sprinted down into the hall when tears were automatically surging to his eyes through his burning throat.
“WARNER!” he bellowed out his name like a roaring lion again and again on his way.
When he finally made it inside, he saw Warner grudgingly strangling Keira with bare hands around her throat. She could feel the heat rising from her neck, face becoming red, gasping uselessly for air, squirming, and, in desperation, she swiped, slapped and punched Warner’s face for multiple times in an futile attempt to break free, but it was of no use. As seconds went by, she finally choked, retched and gave up struggling for breath, laying her arms straight down her sides, as she was about to suffocate from the air of hopelessness that engulfed her.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
* * *
Trembling involuntarily, “Warner! Stop! Let her go! She is my sister!” Althalos cried out at the moment when Keira stopped windmilling her arms, then she averted her eyes to one side to look at her brother and extended her arm toward him.
But it was like Warner was deaf. Blinded by resentment that lashed him into a frenzy of rage, he just won’t listen.
“Don’t make me do this!” Althalos levelled his sword at his face, sobbing. “Take your hands off her. Now.”
And, all of a sudden, Warner fell to his knee as a water sphere that loomed out of nowhere magically hit him in the back of his knee, compelling him to release his hands on Keira’s throat.
“Come to my side,” Dulais, sitting on a dining table with both legs hanging on the edge of it, said to Keira weakly, and she listened.
“Althy, come here!” yelled Keira.
Looking at the kneeling man, Althalos lowered his sword and remained silent until Warner got up slowly with a bemused look on his sweating face, “Warner, are you okay?”
“I...I have done what!? What have I done!?” he sputtered and looked back at Althalos.
Frowned slightly, “You tried to strangle me,” Keira accused calmly, lifting her head up to show him the deep red mark that encircle
d her fair-skinned neck.
Turned around his head to find out who spoke, he literally stopped breathing when he recognized her as the nice-looking girl he met outside the guard station. “Look, I’m really really sorry for what I have done to you,” Warner apologized sincerely and bowed down, rubbing his chin nervously. “I didn’t know what I was doing. Please accept my apology. I would do anything to make it up to you.”
“You fool! You impetuous fool!” said Dulais, his voice raspy, coughing. “You were possessed by hatred. And you almost broke her neck.”
“I won’t make the same mistake again,” replied Warner confidently, and pounded his chest. “But I wonder where the bandits have gone. I am certain that some of them stayed behind in here when the others were leaving before dawn. I saw it with my own eyes.”
“I have already taken care of them before you two came in, but they managed to escape,” said Dulais. “There were two of them. One of them has a strange eagle tattoo on his neck, and the other one is your grandfather.”
Warner mocked instantaneously. “Really?” he said.
“Yes. I spoke to him.”
“And what did he say?” Warner said, in a dubious tone, like he was wondering why he would fabricate such a ridiculous story. “Do you not know he is a honourable man who was once the village head? I don’t believe you.”
“I know that.”
“Then what makes you think I would believe you, traveller?”
“I saw him standing right there.” Dulais pointed to the hallway. “Talking to me.”
“Stop insulting and defaming him!” Warner warned him, glaring at him. “Why would he do that!? Why would a man of honour betray us? It doesn’t make any sense, let alone the fact that the village rule forbids it.”
