Cearbhail:

Finally! I was so busy with finishing Rogue Shadowscale that I couldn't sit down to do this. I practically had to reread the whole story to figure out what on Earth was even going on. But.. it's worth it. Here you go.

Enjoy ^^ ...

[Malik]

Man… I was going to need a nap after this. I mean… a really long nap. Maybe a week off. Perhaps go to a warmer country, like my own, find a stretch of sand, like my country, and… maybe just… I don't know… lie down, take a deep breath, bury myself, and wait to be discovered several centuries later. Now, that would be a good nap. I'm so doing that once we finish up here. I'll be a relic before I wake up.

Why am I so tired? Why is the mighty Malik Ishtar, master assassin of the Nottingham Den, tired? I just charged through a few hundred knights: all dressed up in various amounts of chainmail, plate mail, and postage mail. Carrying various weapons such as: broadswords, halberds, regular swords, shields with spikes on them, armored fists, armored knees, elbows, faces, swordfish, catfish (I really hate cats now), and probably the scariest weapon of all… a wooden cross with a naked feeble man judging me with his glazed over eyes. I'm so going to the fiery pit for that.

Behind me were nothing but bodies of all the knights I had to take down. Some of them were still moving around, still groaning about my methods of rejecting their offer to lie down and die. Struggling to catch up to me was my sister, who was limping pretty badly. Ahead of me were possibly several more waves of knights all rushing to meet me. Archers were firing what they could at me, trying to kill me before I reached the command tent; but the witches flying overhead were doing what they could to make sure the arrows would never reach me. Their spells included a certain deflections spell, one that blasted arrows back at the archers with explosive results. It works, and it's a great deterrent. No more archers were trying to hit me anymore. They were reaching for their swords. I'd rather take on their swords anyway.

"Brother!" Laila called as she limped/jogged up to me. She was pretty breathless. "Wait for me!" She paused once she came across one of the groaning knights. She quickly stabbed him in the throat with her hidden blade. The man jerked once before dying. Laila quickly stood up, almost buckling over in pain, before she rushed to catch up to me.

I looked ahead to the advancing knights. They were coming into my zone now. I pointed to the lead advancer. And just on cue a second or two later, his head snapped back as Hood and his men launched a barrage of arrows at him. Tied to the arrows were fresh bottles of fear mist. The arrows landed all over the knights armor, shattering the glassed vials of poison across the scattered battlefield. The bottles were mead bottles too, pretty big for condensed fear mist. I watched as it rolled across the field, making some of the knights delusional. The attack forming up on me was cancelled as members of the attack group quickly turned on their own, attacking with a ferocity I could not match.

I wonder what it felt like… to see a fellow warrior suddenly turn on you, screaming in bloody murder, trying to kill you with the same sword he vowed to protect you with. Some knights refused to fight back and tried to reason with the manic sword slashers. Others did what needed to be done: to kill the raving lunatics. It had to be hard, to kill someone you considered an ally, a comrade. A brother.

My sister finally caught up to me, bending over to catch her breath. Some of the knights were pushing past their raving brothers to come fight me. I counted three or so. Not enough to trouble me. I nodded to my sister. "About time you caught up." I started walking towards the three knights. One at a time, I will send them down.

She growled as she pushed herself back up. "You try fighting with a thigh wound… one given to you by your dumbass brother."

I laughed as I turned my attention to the slasher screaming at me as he raised his sword over his head. Did he really plan on bringing that sword right down on top of me? Did he have to scream before he did it? Why was he being so obvious about his attack? Oh well. I lunged forward, coming up underneath his armored waist. I knocked him straight up and over my shoulders. His war cry turned into a wailing scream as he fell face first into the bloody mud. Or… muddy blood? Oh, hell. You know what it is.

Laila was right on it. Instead of letting the poor teenage pretender live; she bent right down and made sure she ran her blade into the back of his exposed neck. "Jeez, will you at least try to kill them?"

I shook my head. "I'm not here to kill random knights; I'm here to defend this town from Wolfe. I will kill Wolfe, but these kids are children to mothers and fathers. Husbands to wives, fathers to children of their own. Each one I kill… I rob an entire family of a member. We've let a lot of them die already… why should I continue to rob this land of its heroes?"

"Because they're not heroes." Laila answered back. "These knights respond to Wolfe. They've killed families, burned crops… taken over towns… an so much more if you stayed back home. You would have seen what they did with some of our families in the name of their King and God. They deserve no quarter from us, any more than they would give to us. And… they've done nothing but try to kill us. We're Assassins! Let us do what we are trained to do… cleanse this world of those who would do unto it what we do unto them."

I sighed as the two other knights walked up to me. I nodded to Laila, gesturing to the second one. "You take him. I'll take the other."

She rushed the knight before he could even turn to face her. She evaded his slash, but… something was wrong. Her right leg crumbled under her, and she cried out in pain. She ended up falling on top of one of the already dead knights. I could see her bandaged thigh bleeding through the white robes we wore. Ok then… she was down. The knight she was facing was turning to her, bringing his sword down to her chest, getting ready to finish her off. I couldn't let him do that.

The knight in front of me was already lunging. Good choice of attack. He had about a few steps before he got to me though. I snapped up my crossbow and pulled the trigger. I hit him in the kneecap. It didn't do much to hurt him, but it did distract him. I flew up into his face while he glanced down to see what I hit. By the time he looked up, I was already punching him in the face with a throwing knife. I somehow got through his helmet, maybe a slit or something. I wasn't really paying much attention. I just wanted past him to help my sister. I rushed the knight stabbing my sister, tackling him off of her.

We landed pretty hard. We're on a battlefield… surrounded by swords and bodies of all the dead around us. My tackled knight landed on a mace. And… I sort of bashed his helmeted head against that mace over and over again. By the time I was done, his helmet was leaking out all sorts of blood and other fluids. I think the knight was dead, but I wasn't sure.

I turned back to my sister. She was clutching her side, groaning. "Fierfekla…" She mumbled as she started to push herself up. I reached out to take her hand. She nodded her thanks, taking my hand. I pulled her up, but she didn't look too happy about it. She looked… well… just horrible. Her right leg was refusing to take any weight… her side was turning red… just everything about her looked paled. She was making that face where you know you're in pain and you can't stand it.

I looked behind her to see a knife sticking in the mud. It was covered in blood. I wonder if it was Laila's. "Are you ok?"

She looked up at me with the same eyes she gave me when I asked her if she was ok the day she blew up our house with her alchemy experiment. "Do I look ok?" She almost screamed to me. Well… she can't be that hurt if she can still scream at me. She groaned after saying it, rocking her head back. "How close are we?" She managed to ask while glancing up at the sky.

I looked ahead. Wolfe's tent was just near the top of the hill. We were at the last stretch of the battlefield. I could see Wolfe looking right at me. His advisors were packing up their plans, grabbing their weapons. I could see a knight coming up to Wolfe with a horse. Was he going to try to escape? Not if I could help it. "Maybe 30 yards. Think you can make it? We will have to hurry though. He's about to escape on horseback."

"Can we please just use Red or Vicky to kill him? She can fly right overhead and blow him up or something." She mumbled as she collapsed into my arms.

I looked to the battlefield. The witches were doing what they could to keep the knights off us, as well as defending the town. "I think they're a little busy at the moment."

"And we're not?" She looked even less aware of what we were doing. Was she slowly dying in my arms?

"We need to get you to a healer." I looked back at the witches we had just finished defending. Jill was still healing her brother, and Lucy was still covering them with her fire magick. They were pretty far away though. And between us were a lot of knights. Too many for us to fight through. Especially if I was carrying my sister. And by the time I could turn around, Wolfe would already have retreated. There would be no way to catch up to him.

Laila's eyes were beginning to droop. "No… no time." She pushed herself out of my arms, stumbling around. Her leg gave out again and she ended up on her knees. "No time." She nodded to Wolfe. "Go…"

I nodded to her, pulling out a red vial Red gave me. "Here, healing medicine. Drink this." I handed it to her. "Just… relax. I'll take it from here."

She smirked. "You better." She popped the lid and started to drink.

I watched as Wolfe climbed up onto his horse, turning to look at me. He smirked, even stuck out his tongue at me, before taking off on his horse. I snapped my finger out at him, and I hope Locksley gets my message. He did. I saw the horse crumple as a few arrows pelted him. I took that as my cue. I charged off after Wolfe. Knights were forming up all in front of me, trying to block me off. I waved my entire arm over the battlefield. I wanted a straight pathway to Wolfe. I needed one.

Arrows fell down in a big straight line. Arrows filled with the fear mist. They crashed one after another, all leading in a straight line towards Wolfe. These bottles produced a thick cloud that seemed to cover a whole area, more than enough space for me to traverse through. Any knights inside the mist were instantly consumed. And… I had to charge through the mist. Since I was still wearing my mask, I didn't have to worry about the smaller things like breathing in a poison that would turn me into a raging mess. But… mask or not… I had a problem. I couldn't really see anything.

That's why we practice with the Sight. I took a second to focus my thoughts before it snapped on. All the knights appeared through the mist as a red aura. I could see them just fine now. And so… as I raced through the fear mist, I ran into the raving knights. The first one I came across, he was glaring at me with blood-shot eyes. He had somehow lost his helmet, bleeding gash across his cheek, and surrounded by six other dead knights. He screamed at me as he charged forward, wielding two claymores like they were nothing. Jeez… this poison. It's something else. Turns everyone into a hulking lunatic. Talk about something so powerful it should never be used.

I looked to my equipment. I lost my sword somewhere along the way; short swords were broken; out of throwing knives; my crossbow need reloaded; and… I'm out of fear poisons. Wait… I'm standing in a fear poison. Duh… I couldn't even use it if I had it. I still had my hidden blade. I'll just use that.

The raving knight charged right at me, waving his swords around like an idiot. I sighed as I walked up to him. I tracked his sword movements, how much space I had to get through him. I didn't see any openings for me to slip my blade into, excluding his face. I'm so sick of stabbing people in the face. For once I'd like to run my blade up someone's butt or something. Keep it interesting. Oh well. I waited for the knight to come near me. I just needed a good plan. Looking down at the few scattered knights littering the ground… I think I had a pretty good idea. I walked over towards one of the fallen knights, standing right behind him. Ok… I'm really smart.

The raving knight charged right for me… but as he came to the corpse, he paused, looking down at the guy. The raving knight smirked at me, pausing to step over top the knight. Wait for it…

Another raving knight came out of nowhere, crashing right into my raving knight. Both of them hit the ground pretty quickly, killing each other with a couple stabs to their faces. Good… just like I planned it. Make him slow down enough so that another loony person could crash into him.

I wasted no time and began racing through the mist again. I evaded all sorts of raving knights. Most of them were paying no attention to me, too busy killing each other and… eating the flesh of the dead? What? What the hell kind of fear was that? One person stripped off all his clothes and pranced around screaming, "You'll never get me!" That was weird.

So, after a minute of scrambling around in the mist, I finally immerged out of the cloud. Witches were flying around overhead, shooting whatever magick they could muster at the knights. The knights were pretty much on full retreat at this point. They were running away as fast as they could. I could see tiny Vicky standing near the front of her formation of witches. She looked at the retreating knights, screaming, "Yeah! You better run! Run home and tell your mommies an eleven year-old girl spanked your butts!"

There were a few knights still standing but… they shouldn't be considered fully aware of what was going on anymore. They looked pretty comatose of everything. They must be what was left of the raving knights, pushed to the point where their brains shut down. And… of course.

"Get off me…" I could hear Wolfe curse to his dead horse. I could see the man; he was stuck underneath the horse he tried to escape on, pinned from the waist down. His sword was stuck under the horse too… his crossbow too far for him to reach. He was all alone now. Just him… and my army.

"So…" I said as I walked up to him. "We finally meet again, Wolfe."

Wolfe stopped struggling as he looked up at me. "You… you're that Assassin, right?"

I nodded. "Would you expect anyone less at this point?" I waved my hand across the battlefield filled with the corpses of his comrades. "I think no one else could have possibly pulled this off."

Wolfe shook his head madly. "There are a few other people who could have… who would have. You…" He started laughing. "You have no idea what you're getting yourself in the middle of. The things moving around behind your back… things right in front of you." He glanced up at Vicky. When I looked up at her, she was glaring down at Wolfe with some amount of indifference. Wolfe glanced back down at me, smirking. "You… I bet you don't even know why you were sent here."

I bent down closer to him. "Then why don't you tell me?"

Wolfe laughed. "The arrogance, the ignorance…" He shook his head. "To think she'd use me like this. To… send that witch to kill me." He shook his head. He finally looked up at me. "And…to set you up… to put you here, to talk to me… to make the move she wants you to make." He was starting to smile like a madman… and I wasn't able to make any sense of this.

"Who? Who's using us? Who's making these moves?"

Wolfe only shrugged. "Who do you think? It's-"

"Wolfe!" Red screamed as she walked up to him. "You've said enough!" She placed a flaming palm down on his throat. "You hurt my sisters! You hurt my family! You hurt…" She looked around the battlefield, finally looking at the town. "I'm guessing you've been hurting everyone in this town! You're nothing! Nothing but a weak, pathetic… dog! And now… I will make you pay for my family's pain. May the universe punish you with whatever it is you deserve." She pushed harder with her flaming palm, cooking Wolfe's throat closed.

Wolfe gasped for air, trying to talk to me. He gestured to me, pointing up at Vicky, trying to tell me something. I glanced up at Vicky, seeing her still glaring down at Wolfe with as much indifference as anyone could possibly get. What was going on? Was there something between them that I didn't know about? Someone so powerful she could do whatever she wanted? Vicky? She set all this up? This was her plan all along? I couldn't believe that. She never moved me in any direction. She didn't even know about the war I was setting up. She just ended up here with her coven after I already started it. It's not like… she did all this. Did she?

Vicky glanced over at me for a second, waving once before turning to face her coven. "We're done with our offensive. Let us set up a camp and begin healing our wounded. Everyone, get some rest. I suspect we'll be here for a day or two."

If Vicky was at all what Wolfe hinted she might be… what exactly was I getting myself into? She exactly was she planning? And… I would have to keep a closer eye on her than I thought. If she was planning something bigger than what I was doing… was it for the good of the nation… or the bad?

I looked back down at Red. She was kneeling over Wolfe's corpse. His eyes were still glaring up at Vicky. He looked very scared of her. Not so much of me. When he saw me, he looked more mildly annoyed. But when Vicky floated over him, he suddenly became more resistant, antsier. And he was trying to tell me something in his last moments. He wanted me to know something about Vicky. Perhaps it was a last ditch effort to save his life. Perhaps it was because he wanted some amount of revenge for her sending him to his death. Perhaps… perhaps… perhaps. 'Perhaps' gets me nothing; tells me nothing. Just suggests a thing that might not even be true. I hate perhaps, or maybe, or possibly.

"You ok?" I asked Red.

She was still staring down at Wolfe. She had tears rolling down her eyes. "It's… it's over. I did it. I killed Wolfe."

I nodded. "Yeah, you did. Before he could tell me anything important too."

Red rolled her eyes. "Oh, please. Like he would have told us anything anyway. Plus, he would have done nothing but lie to us… make us suspicious of each other. It's what you should expect from Wolfe, nothing less." She spat on his face before standing up. "Anyway…" She reached for her forehead. "I've got a massive headache from drinking all that adrenaline. I need to go crash."

I nodded to her. "Sure, go rest. I'll go meet with my sister, see if she's ok, and then… we'll meet up with Phatty and Woody, see if we can talk to their brother. I hope we can talk them into letting us stay here for a while. I think we need to stay out of Nottingham for a bit."

Red nodded. "That would be best. I heard from Olin the knight captains found out Brian is with us. They're probably storming our pub by now."

Great… another problem. If they knew where we lived, I'm guessing they've already broken into the pub and found everything we had. Now, we needed a new place to stay even now more than ever. "I guess we don't have a choice now." I looked to the walled city. I guess this might end up being our new home for a while.

…

[Zorro]

"Ma'am, sir! We found a room behind the bar!" One of the nameless guards named Georgie saluted us as he reported his findings of the Assassin's hiding place. I cannot believe we ended up here. The one spot where we could hide… and the knights knew about it now.

I looked at the little boy that knew about this place. That one hid that hated Brian. Jonathan was his name. I didn't know he knew where we were this whole time. And, it should have been easy enough to dismiss as impractical for our Assassins to be hiding here but… whoever was here last forgot to close the hidden door leading to our armory. Must have been one of the kids or something.

Anyway, walking around the bar, watching as knights took things that belonged to the witches, to Malik, even a few things that belonged to me… I was a bit quieter than usual. I didn't know what to say. I couldn't speak up and take something, claiming it was mine. That would just single me out as one of the Assassins, like half of them expected.

Ashley, my little uptight knight, nodded to Georgie. "Good work, knight. Show me to the room."

Georgie quickly led us through the bar over to the slid open doorway leading to the back room. "In here ma'am."

I nodded my thanks to him, making it seem like I approved. "You did well in finding this."

"Oh… I didn't find it." He pointed over to Wilson. "Captain Wilson did."

I looked over at Wilson. He stood next to the Jonathan kid, patting him on the back congratulatory. When Wilson's eyes met mine, he smirked… nodding at me like he knew what I was thinking. He was mentally telling me 'I won this round.' I wonder just how much he really knew. How much did he really know about us? He gestured to Ashley, as if warning me of something.

"Diego!" Ashley screamed. I turned around to see her carrying what looked like my training robes… and… one of my training sabers. "Is this… your sword? The same one you fought with during the tournament?" Oh… I forgot about that.

"Um…" That was all I could say.

She threw my training robes into my chest. "And those robes! They smell just like your cheap cologne!" She drew a sword, pointing at me. "Diego Vega! You are under arrest, pending the investigation of your involvement in the Assassins' plots against Nottingham."

I looked around at the other knights, all drawing their weapons to aim at me. They looked scared at the thought of fighting me. I didn't blame them. I just rolled my eyes and dropped my training robes. I placed my hands into the air, looking at Ashley. "Can I please explain before this happens?"

She smirked. "Can you? Can you really explain this away?"

I nodded. "The girl I wanted to meet… Isabella? She's a witch working for me. She's infiltrated the Assassin's Order, giving me valuable intelligence as to what they're planning to do. I was going to see her today to see what everyone was up to. So far, they've stayed pretty quiet since the bombing incident. But… she wasn't there today."

"And how does that explain your saber and the robes that smell like you?" She demanded. And… here comes the fun.

"Well, you know how fast I attract women. One minute, we're discussing her betraying her friends, the next… she's jumping me into bed, rolling around with me under the sheets. In the morning, she's gone… and so is my old sword. She must have brought it here to keep as a memento. Or leverage. Perhaps she wanted it to look like I was with the Assassins to shut me down. I thought she was on my side, and she hasn't really done anything to hurt me so far so… yeah. There you go. I'm going with the crazy fangirl thing I mentioned earlier. Keeping mementos of me… not washing her clothes after having sex with me. You know… crazy fangirl stuff."

We all stood still for a few seconds before Georgie lowered his sword. "Wow… I actually believe that."

"Yeah…" Ashley said next. "I wish I did too." She shook her head. "We still have to do an investigation."

I nodded. "I understand. If you were an Assassin, I'd want to know about it too." I looked over at Wilson. "Wilson too."

Wilson only smiled. "You already know what I am, Vega. I'm a murderer… plain and simple." He looked down at Jonathan. "You did a good job today, Jonny. I think I will reward you with some ice cream for helping us shut down these…" He looked over at me. "incompetent idiots." He nodded to Ashley and me. "Now, if you two will excuse me."

Ashley looked from me to Wilson. "Hey! We're not done with that boy yet! We still need to ask him some questions."

Wilson shrugged. "It's not like I'm going to kill him or anything. Just… talk." He smirked as he exited the bar.

Ashley cursed. "Dammit! I'm so sick of that bastard undermining my authority! Every time!" She looked over at me. "And I can't chase after him. You're stronger than a normal knight. I can't take the chance that you'll just run off before our investigation is concluded."

I nodded to her. "Ash… you can trust me! Go make sure the boy is all right."

She stared at me for a few seconds, her sword hand wavering. "I want to trust you… but I can't. Not with this…" She gestured to the items at my feet; my training robes and my old saber. "I can't just blindly forget about this. We need to take you to a holding cell in the castle while we finish investigating here. And unfortunately… I have to be the one to take you." She nodded to the other knights. "Finish finding whatever you can and secure this perimeter. I will be back shortly to finish my investigation." She nodded to me. "Diego. Move too quickly or try to make a run for it and-and…I will kill you. Now, place your hands over your head and start walking for the door." Great… now I get to walk to the castle.

Cearbhail:

So, Red killed Wolfe, Wolfe tried to tell Malik something. I'm sure everyone who reads this know who he was really referring to. And... Malik is under arrest. Perfect! Only one to two more chapters left in this arc. Maybe three. Perhaps.