RE: Monarch
Chapter 24. Crossroads VII

I slipped out the window and into the night. Some part of me had wanted to wake Cephur or Tamara, but by the time I got them up and moving, Desiric would be long gone. It would have been wiser to communicate my intentions earlier, perhaps one of them could have slept in my room instead, but to be honest, I was exhausted from the emotionally draining element of the day and not thinking entirely clearly. It had felt like paranoia, staying up all night in the house of a fellow noble, suspecting foul play. But now, of course, that paranoia was vindicated, and I was once again on my own.

The streets of Kholis were strangely empty: it was not uncommon for small towns like these to have little to no nightlife, but in Kholis, apparently even the taverns closed early. There was next to no one on the street. A low full moon reflected off slick cobble and there was a chill in the wind, whispering of a looming cold front. More discomforting, now that I thought of it, there were no beggars at all. In my experience, that was either a good sign for the health of a town, or a very bad one.

Following the Duke in Kholis was very different from tracking Barion through the forest. While it was much easier to keep sight of him, by the same coin, there was significantly less cover. I had to follow at a much greater distance, moving between barrels and darting into the small side streets between houses. Every time I moved, all he needed to do to spot me was simply turn around. My heart hammered in my chest.

After a few minutes, he stopped, seeming to pan the surrounding area. As he turned to check his back I dashed left to stay out of his sightline, rolling into the open mouth of a nearby storm sewer. A cluster of rats squeaked and darted away from me, further into the drain. I counted out five seconds and then peeked out, revealing as little of my head as possible.

The street was empty.

Duke Desiric was gone.

I frowned. There was no way a man that big simply vanished into thin air. I kept low to the ground in a crouch, slowly walking up to the spot I’d last seen him, approaching a decrepit-looking house. From within, I heard voices. I crept up to one of the lit windows, spying beneath the curtain.

"I’ve had enough." The Duke’s voice. He was talking to a tall, spindly man with slicked-back hair.

"Relax," the man said.

"I will not relax," the duke thundered. "You told me you would get my son back. That all I had to do was keep an eye out for anyone new on the road.

"And lo’ and behold, your son has returned to you," the man said, his voice dry and mocking.

"Returned by Prince Valen himself!" The Duke hissed. "Do you have any idea what will happen if he calls his father down on our heads? Forget about the town and my son. I’ll be lucky if I leave this place alive."

"My benefactor accounted for this possibility," the man said condescendingly, "and it will take more than a kidnapped child to move Oath-Bane himself from Whitefall."

"Why are you speaking for her, anyway?" The Duke griped. "Why doesn’t she say anything? She’s just sitting there." He turned to someone out of view. "Well, girl, what do you have to say for yourself?"

There was a blur of movement. One second, the Duke was standing in the center of the room; the next, he was slammed up against the wall, a familiar dagger to his throat. A woman in banded leathers with white hair pushed the knife forward, letting it bite into his flesh.

"Who, exactly, do you think you’re talking to?"

Thoth.

I clamped a hand over my mouth. The ringing in my ears returned, full force, as Thoth’s aura darkened the room. She was here. She’d been here the whole time. On the wrist that held the knife, I could see the tattoo, an inverted butterfly pinned by two swords.

"Please, have mercy." The Duke shook like a leaf, all bluster and arrogance gone from his face.

"My lady," the spindly man said, "Desiric still has a part to play. It would be wise to leave him be, if only for the moment."

"We don’t need him," Thoth smirked, pressing the knife in further. The Duke’s neck was bleeding. Both his massive hands clawed at her wrist, fight or flight response taking over, but she was utterly immovable. "We already have a perimeter. There’s no need to drag this out any further."

"As you wish." The man said. "But if you keep leaving bodies-"

Thoth slit the man’s throat. Blood spattered the wall and floor. Desiric fell to his knees, gurgling, hands pressed against the wound. It was like trying to hold water in a sieve.

"-someone is eventually going to take notice," the man said with an irritated sigh. His gaze flicked to the window and I ducked down, my heart racing. No. No. I just got away from Barion. There was no way I was doing this again.

"We take them at dawn. Pay off the guards. Make an example of one, so the rest know what happens if they talk."

"If it isn’t broken, I suppose there’s no meaning to fixing it." The man sighed.

That was more than enough. Carefully, barely even breathing, I snuck out to the street, counted to five, then started sprinting back towards the Duke’s house.

Cephur’s room was closest to the door. I burst through it, my shoulder smashing into it clumsily and burning from the impact. The door hit something, and was immediately smashed back towards me, sending me tumbling back into the hallway. My back impacted the wall with a hearty thump.

Cephur stood before me shirtless, his cavalry saber pointed out the door, eyes blazing. He saw it was me and immediately lowered his sword. I noticed the pillow and blanket on the floor behind him. It was an old mercenary trick. If you’re in enemy territory or the town seemed strange, sleep on the ground with your feet jammed up against the door. Smart.

"We gotta go. We gotta go right fuckin’ now." I whispered furiously, pointing repeatedly towards the door. There was the sound of footsteps coming up the hallway. Likely one of the servants had heard the commotion. Cephur glanced inside his room and back at me, hefting me up under the arms and dragging me into the room before the servant arrived.

Being easily picked up by another person was such a weird sensation.

"What’s up, kid?" Cephur asked. I found myself surprised. He didn’t tell me to fuck off, didn’t ask me if I’d had a bad dream; he took me seriously from the start. But that didn’t matter for shit if Thoth caught up to us.

"The woman who came looking for me in the caravan is here. Her name is Thoth, and she just killed the duke, and if we don’t get out of here she has men in position to kill us at dawn."

In the background, I saw a person rise from the bed. I nearly jumped out of my skin but it was just Tamara.

Oh.

She slipped into her tabard and I looked away, blushing.

Cephur studied me and made a snap decision. He released me and began to dress. I noticed that both his and Tamara’s bags were still packed.

"How’d you replace out?" Cephur asked. Short. Clipped. The same way his voice changed when we were training.

"I saw the Duke leave and followed him. He met with her-"

Smack. Cephur’s open hand slapped me across the top of my head.

"Ow!"

"You can have me executed later, your majesty," Cephur said coldly, "But that won’t matter if you’re dead because you did not do something as basic as communicate. Understand?"

"Yes."

"Cairn, bow." Tamara said. I grabbed it off the nearby dresser and tossed it to her. She caught it in one hand and prepared it quickly, her fingers nimbly threading the gut-string and tying the knot. "Wake Orben. Tell him to get three of the horses and not be seen, then get Maya up."

"Got it."

I knew the rangers were good, but I didn’t know how good. Within five minutes we were packed and leaving the Duke’s home. I whispered a silent apology to Lucius—he would be getting that promotion to City Lord sooner than expected.

There was a single guard at the gate. Cephur moved like liquid silk. He snuck up behind the guard and grabbed him in a chokehold, pulling his other arm back with what looked like a black sap with a wider, swinging weight on the end and smashed it into the guard’s skull.

Elphion. He’s not waking up anytime soon.

Orben heaved the gate open as quietly as possible, but it was an old construction. The hinges complained loudly, creaking echoing across the cobblestone. We all froze, waiting for guards to shout and torches to appear.

Nothing.

Maya and I doubled up with Tamara and Cephur, respectively. We had only opened the gate enough for the horses to go one at a time. Orben squeezed through first. Across the street, from the house closest to the door, a lantern appeared. It illuminated a little old woman wiping sleep out of her eyes.

"Rufus?" She called out. "Rufus? Rufus, I heard something." Then her bleary eyes locked on to us, darting between us, then to the guard on the ground. For a moment, there was total silence.

Then she started screeching. It was more of a harpy’s call than anything one would expect from a human throat. One after another, lanterns in the nearby houses were lit.

"Aw hell." Emphasizing the second word, Cephur kicked the horse. "Go, go, go!"

We were off, galloping into the night in an upward trek, following the road more by feel than vision. Behind us, there was a perfect view of Kholis coming alive. But something was bothering me. I tapped Cephur’s arm. "What about the perimeter?"

He shook his head grimly. "Can’t worry about that now. The guards back there are gonna be on us any second. Slowing down while our mystery men are still ahead of us and the guards pushing up from behind is a great way to get pincered. No choice but to punch through.

He was right.

The horse grunted, galloping at breakneck speed, the only source of light the stars and the moon. From Tamara’s horse, Maya glanced back at me, eyes wide with fright. I tried to give her a comforting smile, but it probably looked as false as it felt.

There was a whisper in the dark. Tamara stiffened, turning back to shout.

"Archers, get down! Get off the path-"

There was a rapid series of whizzing sounds, followed by half a dozen sickening thumps. White-hot pain blurred my vision as something sharp and fast took me in the shoulder. Our horse toppled, sending us flying into darkness. I landed on the gravel and slid, skin scraping against it. The wind was knocked out of my lungs. I laid there panting, trying to get it back but it wouldn’t come. A series of seven torches lit up in the field to our left. Ten men rushed in our direction. One of them, a short man with an evil smirk was heading straight towards me.

Get up, Cairn. You have to get up.

My hearing was deafened with the sound of yelling and dying horses. I saw Orben in the back, the only party member that had remained on his horse, being peppered with arrows as he took off a man’s head with a savage one-handed swing of his zweihander.

A bit closer to me, Tamara pulled her bowstring back and took six shots in the span of ten seconds. One of them sank into a bandit’s throat, and he went down. The rest of the arrows connected but bounced off. It looked like they were wearing leather armor—but there was something stopping the arrows from penetrating.

The short man was almost on me. I pulled myself to my feet weakly, still gagging on air, ignoring the arrow shaft emitting from my left shoulder. I managed to get the sword out of my sheathe but still couldn’t breathe.

At once, Cephur was there. He vaulted over my head, landing in front of me. The man swung. Cephur battered the sword away ruthlessly and stepped inward, hooking his leg around the other man’s ankle and bashing into the man’s face with his shoulder. The bandit went down. Cephur followed up with two downward strokes that sent blood flying across the gravel.

"You okay?" He shouted, grabbing my shoulder.

"Just winded. Go, help Tamara," I wheezed.

Cephur nodded at me once.

My breath was slowly returning. I summoned the flame and it came easily—then stopped, horrified. I didn’t know how to use it in this situation. With Barion it was a question of simple firepower. But I didn’t know where Maya was, and the grass was tall. Friendly fire was a real issue.

An arrow impacted near my feet and I jumped.

No choice. I’d keep it as controlled as possible until I knew for sure that Maya was safe. On and off. No brushfire.

I set the grass on fire and pulled.

The fire filled me—and then something inside me tore. I howled, driven to my knees. My vision doubled. The color seemed to go out of the world around me. The orange of the torches turned dull monochrome gray. It hurt worse than being stabbed in the stomach, worse than being set on fire.

What was wrong with me?

Wait, I’d felt this before. After killing Barion I hadn’t felt well, like I over tapped myself. I’d assumed it was just temporary.

And that assumption was going to kill my friends.

I staggered towards the battle like a reanimated corpse, pushing my body to pull it together through sheer willpower. Four bandits chipped away at Cephur. He could have handled three, I think, but four was one too many. He would dodge, and block, and parry, and the fourth sword would hit him, drawing blood.

It was the same as Alten, brutalized in front of me while I did nothing.

No.

I staggered towards them, circling so I approached from the same direction Cephur backed away from. In the background, I could see Tamara fighting two men with her short sword, tearing them apart.

Time. Cephur just needed time. Tamara could help. Just buy time.

I reached the closest man. For this to work, I couldn’t risk hitting him anywhere that was armored. I drove my sword upwards in the gap between his upper thigh and ass. The blade went through disturbingly easily, vibrations resonating through the handle as tendons snapped. Blood spurted down the black-green metal of my blade. He let out a sharp shriek and collapsed. I fell on him, driving the tip of my sword into his terrified face. On the third strike I felt the tip scrape against the back of his helmet on the other side.

I still couldn’t see straight. In my double vision, two Cephurs fought six men, using my temporary distraction to dispatch one. My vision started to normalize. There weren’t that many left.

We could do this.

An arrow hit one of the remaining bandits in the neck. Tamara.

Another arrow flew straight towards the last man—but it curved. There was a strong gusting wind and the flight path altered unnaturally.

The arrow slammed into Cephur’s eye. He just stood there for a moment, surprised. He reached up, his glove brushing against the shaft, then fell to his knees. The spindly man I’d seen with Thoth earlier emerged from the shadows, hand outstretched.

I saw Orben topple, his horse finally brought down, four men with spears stabbing downwards at where he landed.

Tamara’s scream was heart-rending. She fired arrow after arrow, each movement a blur, shooting faster and faster. But the spindly man held his hand out and simply caught them.

Slowly, they rotated in the air, points turning to face Tamara. She dropped her bow, chin raised. There was the sound of whistling arrows again. Her body flailed as they struck her.

But still, she stood. Slowly, she turned away from the mage, as if dismissing him entirely. She lurched towards Cephur. The thin man seemed to lose interest, and dropped his remaining arrows. For a moment she wobbled, then fell to her knees. After several halting sobs, she put her hand to her chest, withdrawing what looked like a small orb of light. It didn’t look like a spell, or anything else I had ever seen. She reached out, about to hold it against Cephur’s heart.

Then the arrow took her in the side of the head. Tamara fell over limply.

"Elves. Such idiotic superstitions," the spindly man said, his voice smug and superior. Hate flooded me. I could feel it circulate through my veins like an acid. Dying was awful. It never stopped hurting and it was excruciating and traumatizing. But I could survive it.

This was something else.

He held his hand out, plucking two arrows from the ground nearby and pointing them at me. "Put the sword down, prince."

Sure thing, pal.

I dropped the sword.

"That’s a good prince." He walked towards me with a silky gait. "My benefactor has waited a long time to see you. You’ve been quite difficult to replace."

I staggered towards him.

"Oh, what have you done to yourself? What a mess."

I tripped and stumbled

The spindly man caught me.

I pulled the sword breaker from behind my back and stabbed him in the gut. It sank deep, and he gasped in a pain I knew well. I knew exactly how it felt and I wanted him to feel it. Even as the floating arrows pierced me, I pulled my arm back and stabbed, over and over again.

Somehow, he managed the strength to shove me away. I fell, the arrows in my back shoved deeper by the ground. The spindly man held one hand to his stomach, the other outstretched towards me. "I don’t know what she sees in you," he growled.

The wind itself picked me up. I had the sensation of floating on clouds before it slammed me against the ground, headfirst. Somehow, I stayed conscious. It slammed my legs down a second time and I felt my ankles break, the bones pulverized. Then it lifted me up in a spinning tornado, even higher than before and slammed me down one final time. I landed on my spine. Everything cracked. My left retina detached, the eye filling with blood. And then there was nothing.