by Winfred Wong
“Ernald!” Galahad, riding his white charger, holding the rein of Ernald’s horse in his hand, said when he was close enough. “Barnett is taking our men back to Kloster. We did it!”
“Fire!” Ernald said when he heard a distant bugle of a brass trumpet, and, as the Austhun men started to move backward, he realized that it was a signal to retreat. “Halt! It’s time to go home.”
Clambering on to his horse when the sun was peeping out of the mist, Ernald puffed out a sigh of relief. “Galahad, how’s your wound?”
But there was no response.
“Galahad?” Ernald quickly darted a glance at him and saw him bending over his horse’s withers, his body stiff and his face pasty, blood dripping off of his fingers, as if he was dead.
CHAPTER TWENTY THREE
* * *
Bounding around aimlessly in the encampment, feeling fraught as irritation began like turbulence ruffling and rippling the surface of a still pond, Chavdar never stopped visioning to gain an all-round vision in order to find Althalos. He had already been to the stable Rogen mentioned, but there were only terrified, hitched horses and nothing else, not even Ausber, and as impatience surged within him, he panted and began to feel the heaviness of the armor that had become a burden for him to bear while whizzing around, so he slowed down, lifted up his left leg and tried to remove them.
As he took off the first piece of armor clumsily, he suddenly saw a pinched, faltering man’s voice, which was so faint that he would have missed if he had blinked.
“Help,” it said.
Startled, Chavdar immediately dropped the thigh armor and held his sword up alertly, and he then realized there was a man staring blankly at him with his hairless head sticking out of the entry flap of a small yurt on his left.
With his vision, he didn’t even need to turn around his head, and he gripped his sword tighter and asked as if talking to himself, “Who are you?”
“Help us. Help us out of here,” the man said. “You’re an Austhun soldier, right?”
Hesitated for a moment, “I am,” Chavdar admitted reluctantly, stopped visioning, looked into his desperate eyes and approached him as he felt weird when he said us. “How many more are inside?”
“Ten, but three were killed by arrows. We have been chained up for days, and there is no way we can break free of these chains,” he said, with an imploring tone that went to his heart, swinging his chained legs to emit a ringing sound. “Please help us.”
“Why did they trap you here?” he asked when he crouched next to his head. “Are you criminals?”
“No, we aren’t. And honestly, I don’t know why. We’re all from the city of Valais. On one night, when we were hauling wagons of supplies to the castle, they crept up on us, captured us alive, chained us up and brought us here. We don’t want to die here. We just want to go home. Please,” he pleaded in a way that it reminded him of the original owner of the pendant on his neck.
“You people are working for the army?”
“No. Not really. They marched into our city and forced us to help. They had their spears pointing at us. We didn’t have a choice,” he bleated.
“Are there more people like you ? Trapped in this camp?”
“I think so. I did hear someone yelling and groaning when the arrows came down, but I’m not sure where they are.”
Then Chavdar stood, flipped open the flap that rested on that man’s head and craned his head forward to take a look inside. The yurt was basically empty except some arrows and a long wooden pole in the middle with six men sitting around it and three lying dead, with their ankles all chained up tightly by some series of linked metal rings hitched to the pole, making them unable to walk.
“Help us,” the man pleaded again and grabbed Chavdar’s leg with both hands.
“Take your hands off first. I don’t want you to get hurt,” Chavdar replied as he frowned his face because of the three dead innocent men and went straight inside with the tip of his sword gliding along the ground that was slippery with sludge when he let go of him.
With multiple strikes and a clattering of metal amid the tumults of battle, he cut off the chain round the pleading man’s ankles, setting him free, and he eventually freed everyone alive in the yurt.
“Thank you so much. Thank you so much,” the freed men babbled excitedly and even knelt before him to express their gratitude. “Thanks for giving us hope.”
Floundered, Chavdar tried to think of appropriate words to utter, but he found no suitable words at all, and, for a minute, he thought about the people of Ayrith, he thought of the men he could’ve saved and didn’t, at least he thought he could. So, he said, “Go now.”
“Thank you,” the men grinned one last time at the same time, and they ran into the free world one after one.
After they had gone, Chavdar gazed at the three corpses and gulped. He didn’t know them, but he felt an urge to bury them, to give them a decent place to rest. However, on a whim, he changed his mind and decided to check on the other men in the yurt behind first, considering the possibility that they might still be alive, and he stepped out with a complicated feeling when a flock of eagles flew by in the air. The drab sky was still as depressing as the ceaseless battle that was still going on, Althalos was still nowhere to be found, the obnoxious smell of blood was still present, there was nothing cheerful, but deep down there was a mild delight that dwarfed other defeatist feelings developing strangely.
Reached the yurt behind, gently cast aside the entry flap and scanned inside, there were some arrows, some buried itself into dirt, some lying still, a pole and ten chained men around it, all lying still as if having sweet dreams, which the setting was exactly the same as the previous yurt.
“Eh...” Chavdar tried to draw their attention, but there was no response.
So he squinted to have a better look, and it took him no time to realize that all of them were actually dead, their eyes, noses, chests, toes and arms were all impaled on dozens of arrows, their faces and bodies were mangled beyond recognition and rotting from their wounds. It was a repulsive scene that resembled what he had seen in Ayrith, and, impulsively, he darted toward another yurt behind and rushed in. Luckily, there was no one there. It was a yurt used to accommodate soldiers. Heaved a glad sigh, Chavdar retreated out of the yurt when the resistance soldiers began withdrawing from the front line, and, as about a score of them spotted him while fleeing, they halted dramatically with their blades pointing at him and encircled him slowly.
“What do you think you’re doing here?” one of them threatened in a snobbish tone. “We’ll flail your skin off.”
“Why? Why didn’t you unchain them before leaving? Why didn’t you give them a chance to live!?” Chavdar said, eyes fell, as indignation thrilled through him, and he glowered at the speaking man and saw him tugging the man, who he had just freed, by his hair violently. “What are you doing? Release him!”
“Tying up loose ends,” the man said and stabbed the innocent man in his head before the man can even implore his mercy.
For the man he just rescued from the dim situation to die right before him, it was a purely heartbreaking spectacle that he had never imagined. His heart missed a beat, and he couldn’t breathe, couldn’t hear, couldn’t smell, and was bereft of speech, bereft of thought, bereft of emotion, except infuriation that deprived him of everything.
“You...” Chavdar mumbled inaudibly.
Having no idea what he was talking about, the man parted his lips in a hesitant smile and murmured, deeming Chavdar as just a crazy man, “Kill him.”
Then they pressed in on all sides menacingly, and the enraged Chavdar had his eyes shut and visioned, but it was different this time, not even quite like what he had experienced while confronting the bandits in Ayrith. It was more primitive and straightforward. It was like his vision had taken over his body, and his body was solely just a vessel of his vision. Steeped in tornadoes of anger, he could no longer distinguish between his vision and the real w
orld. He literally transformed into an embodiment of imagination.
As one of them charged forward with a spear and thrusted it at Chavdar’s head, his head suddenly separated from his upper torso and landed with a roll as if he was decapitated by the air, Chavdar didn’t even move a finger though. It was like a natural phenomenon that just happened, brutal and barbaric.
“Mind-wielder,” the man whispered with his eyes gawking when another fearless soldier ploughed blindly toward Chavdar with a long sword.
But, when his slash was only inches away from Chavdar’s throat, he became paralysed as if disabled by a stroke, and he fell down, with his severed head turning round and round on the ground until it stopped at the foot of Chavdar, his blood spurting out from his neck. No one saw what happened, but, when it happened, some of the resistance men were overawed and even choked back their tears nervously, considering it as the most spine-chilling experience they’d ever lived through.
“Run for your liv...” the man ordered right before he was beheaded, and the others dispersed frantically at the moment the Knights came by.
“Chavdar?” Rogen said with Haddon’s body on his shoulder and twin trails of tears on his cheeks.
Chavdar was just standing still, eyes shut, no movements, like a rigid tree.
“Chavdar, we’ve got to go now,” Rogen said when he happened to see the headless corpses on the ground. “Chavdar?”
Then, dubiously, Rogen walked up to him, reached out to grasp his arm and tried to jolt him out of his stillness, but, when his hand touched Chavdar, he fell down unconsciously onto his breastplate.
“Come help me. He’s passed out,” Rogen asked for help, and Nuada strode forward and carried Haddon on his shoulder when Rogen was doing the same to the mind-wielder.
“This way. We’ve got to get on our horses,” Levi commanded when they were ready to move, and they headed downhill.
Legate Gladwynne was leading a phalanx of his one thousand men uphill into the battleground anointed with gizzards when the Knights were pounding down the slope, and, with his eyes focused on them, Gladwynne shouted, “Centurion Levi! Where are you going?”
They didn’t reduce their speed, and Levi said while stamping down on some pebbles, not even casting a look at Gladwynne, “See you later, Gladwynne!”
And they finally reached their horses and climbed upon them when a bugle of a brass trumpet sounded, and they saw an army of about five thousand soldiers marching toward the rising ground from the castle.
“I know we have to leave this place, but where should we go?” Calssen asked.
“Kloster,” Morph came out of the edge of the slope, descending down the slope, and said, staring at Chavdar. “The resistance’s base is in Kloster, and they must’ve brought the staff with them when they flee.”
“It’s decided then,” Levi said and spurred his horse when a new day dawned bright and sunny. “I’ll lead the way.”
After some time of galloping, they had already left the area of Valais, and they kept riding south along the borderline of Austhun. The morning breeze was alleviating the soreness in their limbs, dishevelling their hairs, rubbing against their weary-looking, dirty faces, and was reminding them of what they had just been through, and, when a shaft of sunlight from the crimson sun shined on Chavdar’s eyelashes and dazzled him, he blinked and winked unwittingly. Awakened by the glittering light, he opened his eyes and, once again, found himself lying on the back of the centaur.
“What...” Chavdar pulled himself up and sat bolt upright. “Morph?”
“How are you feeling?” Morph said.
“Not good. Exhausted.”
“Stop here!” Levi ordered, realizing Chavdar was roused, slightly drawing in the rein of his horse. “We’ll take a rest here.”
“Centurion, how long will it be until we arrive?” Calssen asked.
“Five days of riding, at least,” Levi replied when they came to a halt and dismounted.
Immediately walked up to Chavdar and reached out his hand to help him get down, Rogen said, “What happened back there?”
Setting his two feeble feet on the ground, Chavdar felt drained of energy, his face ghastly pale, and he can’t recall anything except the fury that had already petered out. “What do you mean?”
“We found you passed out in front of a yurt, but somehow, strangely, you were still standing. So I have been wondering what have happened to you.”
“I don’t know. I don’t remember,” Chavdar drawled in a coarse tone.
“Never mind. Just take some rest. You don’t look good,” Rogen said and walked away.
“Hey, Rogen,” Chavdar called when Rogen turned.
“What?”
“I want to join the Knights.”
After a moment of shock, “You want to join!? Why!? I mean, you’re a mind-wielder. You can do anything you want to do. You can be anything you want to be. Why would someone like you want to join us?” Rogen said, feeling puzzled.
“I want to protect our people, to protect the people we love, and joining the Knights would be one of the quickest ways,” Chavdar said, his eyes glowing with growing determination. “I’ve seen too many innocent people die for nothing. The people of Ayrith, the people of Valais, and god knows how many innocent men and women have been killed by Pancho. When I first came here, I just wanted to avenge my family, but now I feel like I am obligated to protect all the defenceless people. Didn’t you sign up for the same reason?”
Rogen’s heart thumped as Chavdar spoke. He almost blushed red with embarrassment when he caught the gaze of Chavdar’s admirably purposeful eyes because he can empathize with him very easily and had to avert his rolling eyes away in order to breathe normally, he himself didn’t feel the same way any more after what he had been through though. He thought of persuading him to give up, but, every time when their eyes met, he felt a sense of guilt that would freeze him like a haunting curse.
“Do you want me to tell Levi?” Rogen said after struggling mentally.
“I think I would better tell him myself. I just want to say thank you, thank you for telling me your story.”
∫∫
Cantering Ausber non-stop, Althalos didn’t even slow down until the racket of battle was no longer lashing the ear-splitting clanging in his ears as Ausber’s tread of tramping on pebbles on the hilly ground completely replaced the uproar of confrontation, and, when he curbed Ausber to slow down, he examined his surroundings, clenching the staff in his hand, looking around, trying to figure out where he was, and all he saw was a massive range of hills running from the borderline to the horizon, which he never discovered until now only because he hadn’t looked beyond the encampment, in the direction of where he was going, on the left bank of a river on his far left side.
Bestriding his horse with the simple elegance of a born horseman, Althalos then found himself on the lower part of a shallow slope, not as steep as the one in front of the resistance’s camp, but much longer, and looked to his right, regarding at the clifftop of the insurmountable Vramus Mountain that he had once attempted to find.
“Uzuri in Luton,” he cast a causal look at the staff and murmured as he suddenly thought of what he was entrusted with.
Knowing that he was proceeding into a mysterious, mountainous region, where the soils were soft and stony, he dithered about what to do and dallied uphill until he eventually came to rest with a flustered look because he didn’t have the courage to move on alone, nor the knowledge to accomplish his mission. He had never come across the name of the place called Luton, let alone the name of a previously unencountered man. He needed help, so he strained to look back on the lake that was shimmering in the fine sunlight and realized he could still see the lines of trees and Barnett’s yurt from where he was, but, as his eyes were staring steadily afar, they swerved to an approaching object down the slope.
Initially, the object seemed to be like a few shovelfuls of of dust waltzing its way along a warm breath of wind, but, as it gradually i
nched closer, it appeared to be a horseman, which its hooves kept geysering up a spray of dirt and sand-sized stones, and Althalos grinned cheerfully as he was able to recognize the horseman’s metallic left ear that twinkled like the dog star in the benighted sky.
A Note From The Author
Thank you so much for reading. If you like it, please take a minute to leave a review at the book page on Amazon.
I am currently working on the second book of the series, The Fraternal Duo, and it will be released very soon. I am happy to receive feedback from readers. You can contact me via email.
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