by Winfred Wong
Smirking, Levi beckoned at Morph, and then Chavdar and the Knights started following William’s footsteps. However, as William walked pass a sapling in the dark and craned forward to glimpse at the yurts and tents behind the dozens of trees blocking his way, an unstoppable arrow loomed out of the shades of the leaves and struck him at the corner of his right eye, above the root of his nose, and he got down on his knees and howled in agony, his wail rolled across the whole place.
Quickly sprinted to the nearest soldier under William’s command, Levi grasped his arm firmly and ordered, “Go get your legate out of this place! Go!”
However, paralysed by fear, the young soldier with a pair of soulless eyes, trembling, couldn’t react and Levi tried to jolt him out of his panic, but it was too late, as another ruthless arrow had already soared out of the darkness, hurtling precisely toward the forehead of the weeping William, and it pierced into his head and deadened the area completely.
Realizing losing a legate, which meant the soldiers had suddenly become headless, right at the beginning of a battle could lead to a devastating loss that can’t be recovered, Levi rose up boldly, his body unswaying like the trunk of the tree in front of him, and yelled, projecting his voice unswervingly, “Charge!”
Without a second of delay, the Knights stood up from crouching and rushed toward the trees, indomitably and confidently, with their swords upheld, their gaits fast and balanced, demonstrating their unequalled courage, and Chavdar unsheathed his sword and followed after a moment of hesitation.
Motivated by their honourable act, Legate Haylan, who was also shocked by the unexpected death of his friend, regained confidence and composed himself, and he ordered the archers to fire and the rest of the soldiers to charge, heralding the climax of the battle.
∫∫
Impetuously visioned to conjure up a soft, spongy water wall merely thick enough to repel the plunging arrows over his head, Dulais and Rogen hid under it safely until the shower of arrows, which grazed and mutilated a lot of undefended, low-spirited soldiers loafing around their yurts, causing them to yawp, ended.
“You don’t need a horse now, do you?” Dulais said in an ironical tone with his brows furrowed.
“Thank you. I hope we don’t meet on the battlefield,” Rogen grinned, saluted and began running to the trees, to where the arrows came.
And Dulais, worrying about Althalos, turned and scampered back to the damaged stable with many holes made by arrows when Ernald stormed off of Barnett’s yurt amid the swish of falling arrows and dashed like a panther toward the lines of trees that acted as a natural obstacle with his favourite long bow and agilely climbed onto one of the trees for a better spot to shoot, and, as Dulais met Althalos, Galahad, holding a long spear, pushed aside the flap, marched out at a unfaltering gait and shouted, “Shield formation!”
Then the soldiers in the yurts immediately stormed out to the open ground, gathered in groups of five, connected a number of big, round shields together high above their heads to prepare themselves for the next wave of arrows, and, soon as they were all set, the high-pitched sounds of streaking arrows emerged again, and, clenching the handgrips of their shields, they warded off most of the arrows that slammed into it, making a rattling clang.
Safeguarding Althalos from the windstorm of arrows with his figment in the stable, which most of the horses inside harnessed to a long shaft were at least grazed, “He must have come,” Dulais said.
“Who? Chavdar? How do you know?” Althalos asked, ducking down purposelessly and shielding his head with his hands under the water wall.
“To find you.”
“But...but he is your enemy now,” Althalos stammered, as some horses whined and reared up in panic.
“As of now, he isn’t, and, personally I hope he will never be.”
“Don’t kill him please,” he entreated impotently. “Let me talk to him.”
“I’ll try not to hurt him, but if he leaves me no choice, I will do what I have to do,” said Dulais, as the long-range attack came to a halt. “I must go now. Get on Ausber and go! Don’t come back until it’s over.”
Then he left the stable in a flash and darted to Barnett’s yurt when sliding metal sounds and loud war cries were lingering in the dark sky as the Knights was pressing in on all sides through the trees, and he flounced in, saw Barnett putting on his blue armor and asked, “Where is it?”
Pointed to the weapon crate next to a stool, Barnett replied, “Over there. You want to take it with you into the battle? It’ll make you a rather easy target. I think we should keep it away from the fight.”
Tilted his head in deep thinking, scratching his nose, Dulais said when he thought of Althalos, “I know exactly what to do with it. But where is Andon?”
He was apt to think about him as he was the only one ready to ride away from the battle at any time, and he didn’t want to leave his friends to die, though he was very doubtful whether Althalos was capable of protecting the staff or not, but he eventually made up his mind when he came to a conclusion that a coward was always good at escaping and hiding.
“He is gone. I set him loose, no use keeping him around any more,” Barnett said, as he stooped down and picked up the staff and a blue, double-edged sword from the crate. “Let’s get to work.”
∫∫
Panting heavily, Rogen ran into the lines of trees and stumbled on the Knights, and all of them halted at the moment they met.
Gaping at Rogen, “Rogen,” Haddon murmured and let his guard down.
“Welcome back, Rogen,” Nuada said, as the other soldiers were cleaving a path past them.
“What happened?” Levi asked. “Did they catch you?”
“Andon betrayed,” Rogen groaned resentfully with clenched fists. “He tried to kill me, but I escaped from his attack, and he blew my cover as a spy. Knowing that a spy has infiltrated, they decided not to take the risk and called off the attack.”
“He tried to kill you?” Haddon queried.
“Yes, it’s Pancho’s order. His mission is to eliminate us and Consul Morph. He even told them about our position,” Rogen explained.
“Lucky us,” Levi said relievedly. “Look, if Pancho’s plan is to kill us all, Andon must have been told to lead the resistance to our position directly, to make us fight against them until we are all dead, to use us to weaken them so that he can defeat them easily and get the staff, to kill two birds with one stone, but now that he has stupidly blown your cover, which is the reason why we’re still alive, we’re lucky.”
Then Chavdar scurried up to Rogen hastily and asked, “Rogen, did you see Althalos?”
“Yes,” replied Rogen, setting Chavdar free from anxiety, and Chavdar grinned and exhaled deeply through his nose. “He is still here, probably in the stable now.”
“Haddon! Look out!” Nuada suddenly howled when he saw Andon careering toward him with an axe from the direction Rogen came.
Gazing at Andon, Haddon aimed his sword at his wrist and waited until the best timing to swing, and, as Andon came close and lifted up his arm for a thoughtless downswing and pounced on him, Haddon swiftly reacted to lunge his sword at it, penetrating his fragile skin and bone, hammered him in the forehead with the pommel of his sword and finished him off by cutting his throat, his movements not as agile as Morph’s, not as queer as Chavdar’s, but with exact precision and well-considered.
“But what should we do now?” Randel then asked. “I mean there is no one we can trust in this place.”
“We have to find the staff before Pancho does and get out of this place as soon as possible,” Levi said.
“Well, I guess I know where the staff is,” Rogen stated. “In Barnett’s yurt.”
CHAPTER TWENTY ONE
* * *
Cast aside the tent flap, Barnett and Dulais, who was gripping the staff in one hand and a dagger in another, headed back to the stable and found Althalos mounting his horse outside when the axes and swords of their men were clattering and clankin
g into the weapons and armor of their enemies under the turbulent, seething sky. The tips of their glinting weapons sparkled wickedly like diamond flame on the dewy grass, their blood squirted from their deep and shallow wounds, lubricating the ground, and the putrefying stench of corpses just kept rising up.
With Legate Haylan taking the lead, the Austhun infantry were pounding their defence and clobbering against their shield formations while smashing into the throng of resistance’s soldiers, who were able to establish ranks of defence with shields in front of Barnett’s yurt to stave off the advance of their foes successfully under the command of Galahad despite being ambushed by well-prepared warriors and substantially outnumbered, and Legate Haylan’s confidence even began to slip away as the battle dragged on.
“Althalos!” Dulais called and stretched out his staff-holding arm. “Take this with you!”
Gaping at him on the saddle of Ausber, bemused by what he had heard, “What!? I can’t!” Althalos responded.
“You can. The only chance of getting it out of here is for you to take it away now, so take it with you and go to Luton!” Dulais said, as the clangour of the armed conflict escalated and sidetracked him. “Find Uzuri! Don’t come back and don’t look back! We will stall them as long as we can. Ride now!”
As Althalos was teetering between accepting the staff or not, Dulais leapt forward, grasped his arm abruptly, forced him to hold the staff with his fingers, slapped Ausber’s flank with a loud popping sound and scratched his nose, and Ausber neighed and stampeded away in full speed as if he can read Dulais’s mind.
Immediately then, “We should go back now. They need our help,” Barnett said and patted on Dulais’s arm.
Staring at Althalos, who kept looking over his shoulder, eyes unblinking, Dulais then turned back with a pair of resolute blue eyes, and they began striding toward the battlefield that was glazed with entrails, but they ceased midway when Levi suddenly rushed out from behind a yurt, which was situated behind the ranks of defence, and hindered them from going by flourishing his sword.
“It has been some time since we last fought together,” huffed Barnett.
“Thanks for reminding me that we barely survived last time,” Dulais sneered.
“Yeah. We would have been dead, if it hadn’t been for Galahad,” said Barnett, his eyes fixed on the Knights and Chavdar, who was amazed to finally see Dulais again, the amazement transformed into suspicion rapidly though.
“Dulais,” Rogen, still wearing the armor of Han, who walked out last, persuaded, attempting to seek an unrealistic peace only between Dulais and them only because he didn’t want to fight him, “Just hand over the staff and no one needs to get hurt.”
“Shut up, Rogen,” Haddon barked and cast an agitated glance at him, then scowled at Dulais, his cheeks flushing with rage. “Have you already forgotten about Lee?”
“Come and get it if you want it,” Barnett scolded, snickered deliberately and pulled out a long, thin sword, its blade azure, from his side slowly, holding it parallel to that of his adversary.
“Don’t underestimate them. They’re the Knights, the best warriors in Austhun,” Dulais warned when Haddon walked up front.
“Who want to die first?” shouted Barnett as if he didn’t hear what Dulais said.
“I will be your opponent.” Haddon glared down at Barnett with anger, and then his anger changed to hatred when he set eyes on Dulais.
“Hey, where is Althalos?” Chavdar suddenly shouted hostilely, as Haddon was drawing out his weapon, a katana. “I know he is here.”
“He was,” Dulais yelled back reluctantly, his rational mind telling him not to reveal Althalos’s whereabouts, but the bitter feeling of self-reproach was urging him to.
With his eyes goggling and his tongue hanging out, Chavdar asked, “Where is he now?”
Gulped, he almost let the truth slip free, “Who knows? Perhaps he’s gone home?”
“You really don’t know?” Chavdar said, his voice faltering, but still as hostile as it had been.
“I assure you I don’t. I have never seen him ever since the first blood was shed,” lied Dulais, with a heavy heart.
“My parents were killed,” Chavdar quipped clearly, his heart thumped like a hammer each time he thought of the bodies of his parents as memories flashed by his eyes, and walked up to Haddon, holding his sword amateurishly with its pommel resting on his stomach, “by bandits. By the bandits that followed you to Ayrith to retrieve the staff that you’ve stolen! You are responsible for their deaths, and I am going to make you pay for it. So now, either you tell me where my brother is or I will force you to! In the end, I’m going to find him.”
He then continued to stride forward, heedlessly and overconfidently, as if he thought he could actually defeat the visionary mind-wielder, but, as he went past Haddon, Haddon stretched out his sword arm straight to block his way with the katana.
“Don’t go, Chavdar, you’re no match for him,” Haddon warned and slightly slapped him in his chest with the side of his sword, urging him to stand back. “Just go and look for your brother. He might still be somewhere around. I will take care of him.”
Pressed his lips discontentedly, Chavdar went silent as he was vacillating between staying to fight and leaving to look for Althalos.
“Go find him,” Rogen approached him and said. “It’s the reason why you have come, isn’t it?” And he pointed to the stable, which was about eighty steps behind Dulais. “See that big tent over there? It’s the stable. Circle around. Your brother and his horse might still be there.”
“Wait for me,” Chavdar said, then he left in a haste, heading right.
Right at the moment everyone’s attention was riveted at Chavdar’s leaving, Haddon dashed toward Barnett without warning and made a forceful forward thrust with his katana, trying to take advantage of surprise, however, Barnett easily dodged it with a step backward. His movement wasn’t as queerly quick as Chavdar’s as he didn’t possess special senses, but it was adroit and flawless in a unique way; not a single move he performed was redundant. Every lifting of fingers and toes, every steps he took, every swings of his arm were all connected to form an uninterrupted sequence of arbitrary movements that was particularly useful against an unanticipated strike.
On the heels of the deadly thrust came a horizontal slash streaking squarely toward Barnett’s throat, and, once again, he evaded it painlessly with a flying leap to the right this time; the sharp blade of the katana wasn’t even close. As Haddon was bringing his arm back, Barnett seized the chance to launch a counter attack with a downward slash, going for his shoulder, but, skillfully, Haddon tossed his sword into his left hand dexterously, raised it up to clack it against the incoming azure blade and shoved Barnett away to keep a distance from him so as to disrupt his momentum and an impending attack.
With adrenaline pumping up steadily, they then maintained a distance of at least a couple of sword’s lengths, sizing up each other like wolves defending their territories, staring at the chinks of each other’s armor unfalteringly. Knowing that there were still nine of them to deal with, Barnett wanted to finish it as soon as possible, so he devised a plan.
He feigned nervousness by conspicuously and consciously shooting the bystanders a very swift glance while feinting a feeble, unskillful forward thrust, which was quite the opposite of what he had showcased, at the chest, and Haddon simply parried it with his blade, feeling dubious in his mind. In order to find out whether his opponent was actually that weak or not, Haddon brandished his sword like lightning, thrusting and swinging consecutively, without really intending to deal him a fatal blow very menacingly, but Barnett’s reactions were so predictable and inept that Haddon had already sliced through his defence effortlessly for several times, and his katana, again, swept by Barnett’s frail ear.
So, being tricked into believing that it was his best shot, Haddon decided to go all out boldly. He took a step backward to prepare for a mighty strike that can effectively puncture the ar
mor like a sting in the skin while simultaneously drawing his sword arm back and slightly turned his body to one side. It was a solely offensive position rarely adopted by an experienced soldier because it would inevitably expose the undefended part of the attacker’s body, but it was exactly what Barnett had been waiting for.
To exploit the opening, Barnett dashed explosively, bashed and gashed his waist with a vigorous slash that cracked his thick armor like slicing a piece of cake, unveiling the keenness of his azure blade. Pressing the crimson wound with one hand, the shard of pain distorted his face and lashed him into a furious frenzy as he felt like being deceived, but there wasn’t much time left for him to accept the agony as Barnett was springing forward for a second slash. He tilted his katana so it was at almost the same angle as Barnett’s and barely warded off the blow by holding his katana in a perpendicular posture and letting the azure blade sliding by. The collision of steel against steel threw dazzling sparks in every direction.
Then, as the cross guard of the azure blade touched the katana blade after sliding, Barnett immediately pressed his sword against Haddon’s, trying to overpower him with tremendous strength, and it worked as the injured Haddon was forced to bend his legs shudderingly due to the distracting torment of the cut that deprived him of most of the strength of his lower body, and he staggered, swaying, and eventually fell down.
In order to disarm him, Barnett struck out with his foot, hitting Haddon under his left arm, causing him to lost grip of his weapon. The katana bounced off on the ground and came to rest in front of the bystanders as Barnett extended his arm to push the tip of his blade into his shoulder violently, and he let out a smothered wail of anguish reluctantly in spite of his unwillingness to.
