His arm was burned, but not so badly it could not hold a weapon. The injuries he'd sustained in his leg and shoulder back at the Burg had reawakened with a vengeance, but not so severely that he could not stand. His lungs were filled with enough smoke to send him into a fit of coughs if he pulled too deep a breath, but not enough to stop him from breathing all together. A spray of rocks had imbedded themselves in his knuckles and forearm, but he'd picked out the worst of them and the rest he could live with. His head pounded, his vision blurred at the edges, and his hearing, though it had started to recover, was muted and dull. Overall, Lautrec assessed his state of health post-explosion as 'good enough'.
"Well?" Tarkus' deep voice boomed beside him, and even the sound of that felt as if it were coming from some distant world, or perhaps some other life. "Can you fight or not?"
Lautrec rose from the blankets the cleric had laid him upon, wincing as his knee screamed in agony. He stuck his hand out, and when Tarkus' brow furrowed, croaked, "Give me a weapon and we'll find out."
The big man grinned. "That's what I wanted to hear." He pulled a shortsword from a bracket at his rear and laid it in Lautrec's opened palm.
Lautrec glanced to the blanket at his feet, where his shotels laid broken, bent, and useless. Only a hint of sadness took him when he realized he'd never wield the things again, then his attention was on the sword. He cut the air before him, taking note of the blades weight and balance. Tarkus made to hand him a shield, but Lautrec waved it off. "I'd rather have a second sword in my off hand."
"There's a reason men don't dual-wield swords like your shotels there," Tarkus told him, "They're too long. You'd have to rebalance your footing after every swing. What you need is a shield."
"What I need is the head of the man who detonated those firebombs early and nearly ended my damn life," Lautrec corrected him. "But, I suppose, this sword and a parrying dagger will do. For now."
Tarkus frowned. "I can get you a dagger, but... you truly refuse a shield?"
"I'm a knight of Carim. We don't use shields."
"Sounds like you 'knights of Carim' have a deathwish then."
"And perhaps we do," Lautrec admitted. "But it makes our approach in battle fierce and relentless. If we don't die, we certainly kill anything left in our path."
"If that wall comes down like Solaire thinks it will, soon enough there will be a whole lotof hollows in your path, knight. What say you to that?"
Lautec shrugged. "I say let them come." He lifted the blade and twisted it so the torchlight caught in its steel reflection. He wasn't thrilled at the prospect of fighting off an army of hollows, but it now appeared-with nowhere left to retreat to-it was them or him that would be destroyed, and if that was the case, he intended to make damn sureit was them. "Let them come... and they will die."
Tarkus handed him a dagger and fixed him with a steely look. "On that, knight, we agree."
The Great Hall that had been so empty and lifeless when he'd crossed it earlier with Abby in tow was now brimming with activity. What was left of the soldiers from the wall were scurrying about, taking up arms, mending broken ones, and piecing together armor from the wounded or dead for themselves. At the rear passage the big man in black armor who'd named himself 'Tarkus' had returned to funnel the last of the women and old men out to join the others in whatever hold they'd made for themselves. Beside him, a group of archers were frantically digging through a mound of quivers to fish out any arrows that could be salvaged. At the longtables that split the room in halves, men stood in lines, shoulder-to-shoulder, shouting at one another, about what, Lautrec did not know. A spearman with a crop of blond hair threw his arms up and marched away from the table, and Lautrec saw the other men there curse him and throw obscene gestures at his back. A group of women, led by the stout little thing Lautrec had nearly lost his life for going back to save on the wall, were huddled in the corner, casting wary glances around the hall and talking amongst themselves. The hall's sole cleric was being rushed from place to place by different men, each in turn looking to see the man's miracles soothe their friends wounds before the next.
At the wall opposite him, the Warrior of the Sun, Solaire, had regained consciousness. The knight was seated on a bench as the cleric was pulled beside him and tended to his wounds. His eyes lifted to Lautrec's own and held, squinting with, perhaps, some vague remembrance of their conversation atop the wall; the one they'd had just before Lautrec had knocked him unconscious. Let's see just how much you remember, friend, Lautrec thought, holding the man's stare. And if it's too much, I suppose we'll see which of us is the better warrior.
He limped forward, shouldering past an arguing couple and giving a wide berth to the rather angry-looking men at the longtable whose eyes alsoheld on him. He made his way down the length of the hall to stand before Solaire, who had watched his approach and now rose himself.
A quiet moment passed between the two knights as they surveyed one another; only the distant rumblings of the relentless siege of hollows quaking both above and below as they stared. Lautrec broke the silence. "Tarkus says you think they're going to batter down the walls."
Solaire nodded. "That's right."
He doesn't remember, Lautrec thought with some sense of relief. He wasn't particularly looking forward to combating the man. "I suppose you have command here...?"
"I do," Solaire said.
"Then I must request your permission to leave."
Solaire raised a brow. "Leave? There's nowhere to leave to. The castle is surrounded, the entrances destroyed or buried in rubble. And we need all the capable men we have to defend this hall should the hollows break through. You look capable enough, though I'm told you sustained injuries when they detonated the firebombs." He took a breath, his eyes flicking across Lautrec's body. "And... I suppose you have my gratitude, Lautrec of Carim. Tarkus told me it was you who came upon me when I fell to the hollows and that... that you risked your own life to save Winnie over there."
Saving her life was not my intention, Lautrec thought, but held his tongue on the matter. "I ask leave not to flee the caslte, but to search it. Abby was taken by the crossbowmen, Chester. I need to find her."
"Chester?" Solaire questioned, his look darkening. "If the poor girl is back with that vile man, she is as good as lost. He knows this castle better than anyone. It's likely he's taken her and hidden the two of them away." He grimaced. "I wouldn't put it past a man like that to hide until the fighting is done with so he can come crawling out to pick through the pockets of the dead."
"It was Abby who sent me to save your life," Lautrec told him. "You owe her. Send a scouting party out to search the-"
"That I cannot do, Sir," Solaire interrupted. "My priority, our priority, must be to defend the Great Hall. If it falls, we all fall with it, and Abby will be lost anyway. No. Stay and fight. If we live, we'll find her."
The wooden doors that closed off the hall's side passage burst open to their left. Both Lautrec and Solaire turned to see two soldiers marching forth; in between them was the Knight of Thorns, shackled at the wrists. Kirk did not look in great shape, his mouth bloody and his eyes darkened around the rims, but there was a sardonic smirk on the knight's ugly face anyway as the soldiers thrust him forward to his knees before Solaire.
"We caught the bastard, Solaire," the younger soldier said. "Like you ordered."
"Aye," the older one added. "He was sneakin' around in the mess hall."
"Just looking for some food, friends," Kirk explained with a chuckle.
Solaire pulled a sword from the sheath at his hip, and Lautrec's brow lifted upon seeing it was Kirk's own barbed blade he held. Solaire laid it upon the man's shoulder before him and fixed Kirk with a stoic look. "Knight of Thorns, I charge you with the murder of Siegmeyer of Catarina, amongst other atrocities I've witnessed you commit, and I therefore sentence you to death."
The smirk never left Kirk's face. "Piss off, Solaire. I should have murdered you that night in the cave. Go 'head 'n kill me. My ghost will come back to wrap your neck in barbs while you sleep and I'll piss down your throat. Ha!"
Solaire nodded, seemingly refusing to let the man's words reach his anger, and wrenched back the sword.
"Wait," Lautrec said, and both Solaire and Kirk looked to him. Kirk, perhaps noticing him for the first time, furrowed his brow. "This man killed Siegmeyer?"
"Aye," Solaire said. "I bore witness to the malicious act myself. It was unprovoked and in cold blood. He is truly a treacherous craven, this one."
Lautrec looked to Kirk. "I request this man's life," he said.
Kirk laughed. "Ha! Looks like the knight of Carim knows talent when he sees it! Smart man, Lautrec. Keep me around and I can kill hollow just as good as any man you've got."
"Why in Lordran would you wish to save this man's life?" Solaire questioned, the sword still held ominously before Kirk's throat, waiting to execute the man.
"There are few things I believe in," Lautrec explained. "One of them is vengeance. This man's life belongs to another. If we live through this madness, I'd see that vengeance is served." Both Solaire and Kirk looked uncertain of what meaning his words carried, so Lautrec went on. "You said it yourself. I saved your life on the wall. In return, I want his. For now."
Solaire narrowed his eyes shrewdly upon Lautrec, turned the look on Kirk, and finally, lowered the blade. "You'd best not make me regret this, knight of Carim."
Kirk's mirthless laughter filled the hall. "Oh, ain't this grand? I may yet get my chance to take your miserable life, Solaire." He turned on Lautrec. "And you have my thanks, friend."
Lautrec ignored him, looking to the soldiers at his sides instead. "Keep the shackles on him and don't let him out of your sight."
The men looked to Solaire, who nodded his acquiescence, and dragged the Knight of Thorns off to the opposite end of the hall. When they were alone again, Solaire faced Lautrec and shook his head. "I hope you know what you're doing."
As do I. Lautrec's eyes swept the room, holding only briefly on each pocket of soldiers and archers that remained. "This is a sorry lot left to defend the castle. Half of them bicker amongst each other, the other half look as if they've already lost. What do-"
"Solaire!" Tarkus' call boomed across the length of the room.
The Knight of Sunlight's eyes moved to Lautrec's, and the message housed within them was clear enough. Lautrec was to follow. He did.
Tarkus had positioned himself outside the Great Hall's main entrance, leaned against a towering slab of grey stone that made up the castle's outer wall. The big man's head was pressed to the stone, his meaty hands laid beside it, propping him up. As Lautrec and Solaire approached, he held a finger to his lips and his bushy brow lowered in focus. "I hear them," he whispered. "Come. Listen."
Lautrec moved beside him and pressed his ear to the stone as well. The three stood like that in silence, and just when Lautrec was ready to dismiss the man's claim as paranoia, he heard it: somewhere, perhaps just beyond the wall, something pounded, as if a giant's hands had clapped together. "What in Izalith..." he muttered.
Solaire nodded. "They mean to shatter the wall."
"Impossible," said Lautrec.
"Who knows what the hollows have with them," Tarkus corrected. "If they have beasts that can fly and drop firebombs on our heads from the skies, it is not unlikely they have something more that can smash stone to bits."
The pound slammed again, and this time, Lautrec could feel the castle tremble in the aftermath.
"The wall is at least two meters thick," Tarkus went on. "It won't be easy to get through, but its far from impossible."
"Praise the Sun..." Solaire muttered.
When the third slam came, bringing with it a light dusting of loosened rock from the upper corners of the wall, Lautrec's doubt had been removed. He spun on Solaire. "Set up a perimeter. This man has the right of it. ...they're coming."
Iron and leather clad soldiers marched forth through the Great Hall's wide and opened double doors once Solaire gave the command. The dejected looks Lautrec had spotted on many of their faces earlier had vanished; replaced with expressions of fear and anxiety. They came funneling out of the doors in a long stream that finally tapered off with the group of women and the archers, who still were busy packing their quivers full as they stumbled forth. Solaire moved about the room, pointing out places to fortify. He put lines of spear-wielding men in a row around the room's rear pillars and situated the archers on the raised stone that flanked them. Lautrec watched the Knight of Sunlight, nodding his approval. Solaire was making all the moves he would have made himself, had he become a general instead of... an assassin. Ana, he thought, his eyes scanning the room. Where are you?
As the pounding at the wall grew louder and more frequent, the soldiers had all been positioned; Solaire taking point with Tarkus and looking over his strategic lines of swordsmen and spearmen and archers, making final adjustments here and there, pulling a weaker archer from the front of the pack and switching him with a more seasoned one, removing a man's blunted sword to fish a sharper thing from the-now emptied-weapon bracket. As he rounded the last leg of the room, two more newcomers joined them. Lautrec felt a stab of rage in his chest upon seeing the first, a woman in white, but when his eyes found her face beneath her hood, the rage faded: it was not Anastacia. He recognized the woman as Rhea of Thorolund, a priestess in the Covenant of White, and at her side was, he believed, the blacksmith from the New Londo Ruins, Rickert of Vinheim.
The two rushed past Solaire and right up to Tarkus. The big man spun on them and a cheerful shout escaped his black iron helm as he bent to scoop the priestess up in a hug. She looked almost comical in his massive arms. Rickert grinned and clapped Tarkus on the shoulder, and the three of them began exchanging words. Lautrec's eyes drifted back to the passage they'd come from, but after a while, realized no one else was coming.
Where are you? He asked again. The entirety of the castle seemed gathered together now, those that were still alive, but several still went missing. Abby and Chester, Quelana, and (laughing, crying, begging) her.
Rhea's eyes found his and she narrowed them cautiously before leaning to Tarkus and whispering. Lautrec could only watch from his vantage point across the chamber as Tarkus looked his way and had his helm filled with whatever tale the priestess was spinning. Rickert took up a catalyst from his belt and kept a vigilant eye cast his way as well. After a moment, movement caught in his periphery, and Lautrec turned to see the final person enter the hall as Solaire commanded the doors shut and barred.
There was flame in the figure's hand, and for a moment, he thought it was Quelana. For whatever reason, the thought brought him hope. Then the hooded man rounded into the hall fully, and he saw it was only the pyromancer, Laurentius, as the man went and gathered himself with Tarkus and the other's in the middle of the chamber.
Lautrec looked from them to Solaire, and he found the Knight of Sunlight housed the same shrewd expression Lautrec likely wore himself. It told him that neither of them were part of whatever little group the four of them had. That was good, because Lautrec didn't care for the way they kept casting their eyes his way and whispering amongst each other. If they stand between Ana and I, he thought. Then I'll kill them too.
It was Tarkus who approached him, breaking away from the group to lurch across the hall, and Lautrec noted the man's greatsword was unsheathed and clutched in his right hand. Lautrec tightened his grip on the sword the big man himself had supplied him with, scanning the suit of black iron armor for a weak point should he need find one. "Listen to me, knight," Tarkus' voice rumbled beneath his helm. "Whatever business you have with Anastacia of Astora, consider it through. You've done favors for us, now I'm doing one for you. You are not to go near her."
His neck. That was the place Lautrec would have to slice into. He could see the man's chin hairs poking out beneath the line of his helm. Of course it was the neck; it was always the neck. "I understand," he said calmly, picturing the man's blood spilling out to paint his black chest plate red. "Where is she...?"
"It's not your concern."
He nodded. "Alright. Then where's the witch of Izalith. She has powers beyond any man here. We need her should we hope to defend this castle."
Tarkus' shoulders slumped just a bit beneath his armor. "The witch... had fled. Rhea informed me they came across a winged crossbreed in the dungeons. The dragon-woman pulled Quelana aside in the tunnels and offered the witch safe passage from the castle. Rhea overheard them. The witch never came back out."
So much for all your talk of abandonment, witch, Lautrec thought bitterly. "A rather large loss, but one we will have to live with."
"Aye," Tarkus agreed. "But, knight... I need your word. You fight alongside us and you kill the hollow. Nothing, and no one, else. Swear it."
"I swear it," Lautrec told him, picturing again the way his sword would fit right under the man's chin if he tried stopping what the last fifteen years of his life had been dedicated to accomplishing. "You don't have to worry about my allegiance," he said, looking around the room. "It's the loyalty of the frightened that I'd worry about should the fight take a turn for the worse."
As if to accentuate his point, the wall beside them rumbled as another slam took it.
Solaire had worked his way through the crowd of soldiers to join them. He pointed at the wall as he spoke, "If they make a hole, it will be, at first, small. This will be the most critical time to hold them, as their numbers mean nothing in a narrow battle like that. Should the hole widen, however... we will be in trouble. We'll have to retreat further into the castle, fortifying what positions we can to slow them."
"To what end?" Lautrec asked. "We can only fall back so far before our asses hit stone. And then what?"
A look of despair threatened to steal across the Knight of Sunlight's face, but Solaire took a breath and lifted his chin to compose that stoic little expression he wore so proudly. "Then we give them a last fight worthy of remembrance. Praise the Sun."
The knight relayed his battle plan to the soldiers and archers standing in attention in tight clusters around the room from a raised bit of stone at the room's center. When the speech was finished, there seemed little left to be said among the men and women who now faced the crumbling wall before them with wide eyes and furrowed brows. An air came across the room that Lautrec knew well. He'd breathed it, lived in it, in his years of knighthood for Carim. It was the calm, quiet, moment before blood would spill and death would come and battle would begin. He crossed the room to find footing beside a pillar, working the stiffness from his bad knee and taking practice swings with the sword to further comprehend the balance points his feet would need learn should he wish to live through the first wave of the fight. Tarkus was pacing back and forth, like a black cloud swimming through the room, his greatsword trailing at his heel and birthing a display of sparks in its wake. The priestess, Rhea, remained close behind him, her talisman at the ready. Solaire stood, chin raised high, with a group of swordsman at his flanks. The knight, apparently, intended to lead the first charge himself. If nothing else, Lautrec had to admit the man was not lacking for courage. When a slam on the wall came so fiercely, a large slab of stone fell and shattered upon the ground, Solaire gave the command for the archers to nock their bows and stand at the ready.
The next slam sent two more chunks of stone from their homes in the wall to crumble apart.
Lautrec's fingers took on that familiar itch that signaled the birthing moments of violence.
The next slam sent a crack webbing out in a spiral around the grey slabs it took.
He pictured Ana's face, letting his hate course through his body, giving him strength, finding his courage, igniting his senses in a surge of energy.
The next slam-
-shattered the wall.
"READY!" Solaire's shout took the chamber; his fist held high above him.
The cold came sweeping in from the black and gaping pit that was formed around the crumbled and broken bits of stone that had once been the wall, and with the cold, the sound of a thousand hollows hissing and grumbling and grunting and hungry came with it. A wind swept forth from the tunnel they'd birthed, and Lautrec watched as the torchlight flickered madly, casting wild and dancing shadows upon the walls. As the flames wavered, he saw many men's courage waver with it. He looked back to the tunnel, but still no hollow came.
"HOLD!" Solaire commanded, taking a cautious step forward with his shield raised.
The knight had made it three more steps before a brown satchel came sliding into the room from within the tunnel. A lit fuse burned from its top.
"DOWN!" Solaire wailed, hurling himself back and shielding his eyes.
Lautrec had just managed to shuffle around the pillar at his back when the bag of firebombs erupted into a pillar of flame and black smoke, the sound of a dozen explosions rocketing off simultaneously threatening to deafen him once again. Someone screamed. Someone else joined the first. Then, only the sounds of the hollows could be heard as they began their assault.
Lautrec leaned out to see a cloud of red eyes coming forth from the black pit in the wall, the firebomb's smoke casting an otherworldly haze around them. At the other side of the hole, Solaire had clambered back to his feet and moved in to meet their attack. Lautrec was taken aback yet again by the man's relentless courage, and found the Knight of Sunlight's ferocity sparking something in himself. He moved out from behind the pillar and sprinted forth to flank the other side of the tunnel. Solaire's eyes met his own briefly, and the warrior nodded his appreciation. Lautrec returned it, and for the first time in a long time, he felt almost like a true knight again.
Then they were upon him.
The first hollow emerged from the smoking pit, hissing like a wild snake and screeching as it lunged at Lautrec with a dagger held high above it. Lautrec lifted his own dagger to catch the blow, parried it, and thrust the sword up beneath the hollow's chin. Its head exploded with the steel and the creature tumbled to its death. Across the gap, Solaire had caught a rain of blows from two emerging hollows with clubs atop his Sunlight Shield. He roared and shoved the attacks back, pressing in to stab a flurry of cuts towards their midsections. Four more birthed from the canal, but Black Iron Tarkus had pressed forth to meet them, wailing a ferocious warcry. Lautrec saw Rhea walking behind him, her head lowered, her eyes closed, and her lips moving in prayer. A golden glow encased Tarkus, granting him with an inhuman amount of stamina. He used it well. His massive greatsword cut through the first pack of hollows as if they were straw practice dummies, slicing and dicing at their limbs and heads until they came sailing free from their decaying bodies. Six more rushed at him from the smoke, but Tarkus brought his sword down in a two-handed, overhead, plunge, and the whole lot of them were laid flat beneath its mighty blade.
Two hollows swam out of the dark, their red eyes fixed hungrily on Lautrec, and charged him. Lautrec batted away one of their swords with his own, backpedaling to give himself some room. The second, eager for death, made to close the gap and stick him with a spear. Lautrec slashed his blade across the creature's wrist, slicing it clean from his body and felling both the hand and the weapon clutched within. The first hollow screeched and tried bashing him with his shield, but Lautrec side-stepped the blow, spun, and cut the monster's head from its shoulders. He drove the dagger in his offhand into the second's neck. When he pulled it loose, it joined the others Lautrec had killed in a lifeless pile at his feet.
Lautrec was catching his wind when a hollow snuck up on him from the smoke. He raised his sword to catch the creature's attack, but-
-it never reached him. A blue bolt of magic struck the thing in the chest. It screeched, grabbed at its wound, and collapsed to its death. Lautrec turned to see Rickert standing before a group of archers, his catalyst raised high above him.
"FALL BACK FOR THE ARCHERS!" Solaire wailed when the tunnel quieted enough to give them a moment of respite.
Tarkus, Lautrec, and Solaire himself cleared the hole's entrance as another rumbling of hollows began their approach. Lautrec dropped to a knee so as not to catch a poorly aimed arrow in the back and watched as the creature's began swimming out from the darkness. The first wave through, he counted eight. All eight were hissing and growling and darting their red eyes around, eager to find a living soul to take. All eight fell almost immediately as a barrage of arrows stuck them in their chests and their bellies, their throats and their heads. One was clipped in the shoulder. It spun forth towards Lautrec, who was quick to bring his dagger across the thing's throat, ending its wailing.
Another wave pressed an assault. Solaire shouted, "LOOSE!", and the castle chamber came alive with the sound of a dozen arrows freeing from their bows. The pointed tips sailed into the smoke and Lautrec heard screams of agony from the hollows within as they came collapsing out with shafts protruding from their bodies and faces. "LOOSE!" He commanded again, and the next wave of hollows were cut down the same as the previous one.
The entire wall shuddered beneath the weight of another slam that rocked its backside, and a downpour of loose rock came crumbling away from the foundation as the hole widened. The firebomb's smoke was beginning to clear enough for Lautrec to squint into the chasm the hollows had created, where he spotted a line of spear-wielding creatures marching forth behind a wall of shields; their red eyes poking up over the tops.
"Phalanx formation coming," he called across the gap to Solaire.
The knight nodded and turned on the archers. "HOLD!"
Tarkus' knuckles went white around the hilt of his greatsword. He stomped forth to the hold, Rhea's hand laid softly on the small of his back as the cleric continued casting her miracle, and beat his chest with his gauntlet. The spear-wielders within the tunnel hissed over their shields and eyed him warily, the big man's presence alone enough to slow their approach. "Come on you craven bastards!" He shouted. "Come and face TARKUS!"
The hollows held their ground, peeking out over their shields. Lautrec squinted, watching commotion stir behind the phalanx line. Something big was coming, large enough to cause a canal to open up in the sea of hollow. He heard the snorting of some great beast. "Tarkus," he said. "Get out of the way."
The big man turned to him and a hearty laugh rumbled beneath his helm. "Nonsense!"
The phalanx formation began to break apart, clearing the way for whatever came behind them.
"Get out of the way now!" Lautrec commanded.
But it was too late. The hollows shifted to the walls of the tunnel, clearing a path for a monstrously-sized boar to come barreling forth from the darkness. It's thick head was adorned in a steel-plated helmet, and its tusks were sharpened to fine, ivory, points atop its snout. The beast snarled and charged from the pack of hollows, and by the time Tarkus saw it coming, he had no time to maneuver out of its way. The boar lowered its head before thrusting it up and into the man's chest plate. Both Tarkus and Rhea behind him were flung backwards; Lautrec watching as the priestess' head slapped against Tarkus' armor. They sailed back to land hard on the stone flooring behind them, crashing with such momentum they slidbackwards into a pillar.
The boar snorted and kicked its hind legs; the beast's head swinging around the room so the beady, black, eyes resting beneath its helm could find something to charge. Lautrec had no time to to even consider a plan of attack against the creature: the hollows had rushed out behind it and were pressing hard on an attack. Both Solaire and himself could do nothing but meet it, leaving the rest of them to deal with the wild boar now loose in the castle.
A spearman jabbed at his stomach. Lautrec slapped the blow aside, wrapped the weapon's pole beneath the pit of his arm, and yanked the hollow forward. It stumbled right into the waiting tip of his sword. Beside him, Solaire drove a jab into the thing's back to ensure the creature's end. Lautrec shoved it aside and the two stood shoulder-to-shoulder as another wave came crashing upon them from the tunnel.
The dark chamber echoed with the clashing of swords as Lautrec parried a blow and Solaire followed up with a riposte. Two more came forth and were slashed down by a flurry of strikes from the Knight of Sunlight. Three more came and fell to Lautrec's blade as he ducked an attack, countered another, and cut his way into the three of their bellies, leaving gaping wounds to leak the black and tainted blood of the dead. He was rising to his feet when another group pressed in, and it was Solaire again who caught the brunt of their assault atop his shield, keeping them at bay long enough for Lautrec to rise, collect himself, and drive his sword into the creatures when they exposed an opening. The thrill of combat was granting him an exuberance he hadn't felt in, perhaps, years. He'd almost forgotten what it was like to stand in combat with a fellow knight at his side. It felt... good.
The hollows choking off the tunnel hissed their aggravation and slashed wildly at the gap between Lautrec, Solaire, and themselves. Over his shoulder, a scream sounded, and Lautrec turned to see the boar dashing across the length of the room, a man's leg pierced and impaled upon one of the thing's mighty tusks so that he was carried helplessly, upside down and wailing in terror. Tarkus had not yet risen, and Rickert had pulled Rhea to safety behind a pillar. He saw the pyromancer chuck a ball of fire at the mad boar, but the thing simply took the blow in its armored side, growled, and charged him.
"That creature has to be dealt with or it will destroy our rear flank," Lautrec told Solaire, keeping one eyes cast vigilantly upon the hollows that filled the tunnel before them.
"Fall back with me," Solaire told him. "And I'll set the archer's arrows upon the tunnel again so that we may put an end to the boar."
The two of them fell back on their heels in retreat. The hollows, perhaps sensing a moment of weakness, rushed to close the gap between them. Lautrec swatted away an attack with the flat side of his sword. Solaire raised his shield to stop a hail of strikes from falling upon his chest. They worked their way back like that, fighting and clawing for every inch, and when the wall fell away on their sides, they spun out of the tunnel and Solaire wailed, "LOOSE!"
The hollows were taken by a barrage of arrows just as they came bursting into the chamber. One arrow, quite poorly shot, clipped the wall right beside Lautrec's head. He craned his neck back and narrow his eyes angrily on the young man who'd fired it, who immediately put up his hands in apology.
When the path had grown so thick with the corpses of the fallen, Solaire gestured him to follow as the Knight of Sunlight spun back to face the boar. The creature was still running rampant around the room, burrowing its tusks into whatever soft flesh it could find. The man whose leg had been pierced earlier had come free, but the wound the beast had left gaping in his leg oozed blood, and it was likely if he survived the encounter, he'd lose the leg. Tarkus had worked himself up to a knee, but the big man still looked shaken. Solaire rushed past him, sword held at the ready, and drove a jab into the boar's plated side as it thundered past in pursuit of an older man in heavy leathers. The attack caught the beast's attention, pulled the black pits of its eyes Solaire's way, and the beast's hooved feet worked at the stone underfoot to spin it around and face the knight.
Solaire bravely held his ground, but when he noticed the archers around him were watching him and not the tunnels, he pointed his sword back towards the wall. "KEEP LOOSING! THE TUNNEL! LOOSE!" He bellowed, and the command seemed to snap the archers from their daze. They returned fire on the tunnel just as a dozen hollow came rushing out.
The boar snorted a contemptuous blast of air from its gaping nostrils, hooves clawing at the ground, and sprinted forward. Solaire feigned a roll to his left, dug his heel into the ground, and leapt right instead. The boar swerved to adjust to the knight's dodge, but it was not agile enough to reach him. It rumbled past, snorting and thrashing its plated head about wildly in frustration.
When it rounded back on Solaire, Lautrec stuck two fingers between his lips and sent a shrill whistle piercing out a taunt at the beast. It's black eyes found him, and the creature adjusted its path to rush Lautrec instead. He feigned left, as Solaire had, but when he saw the beast's approach not take the bait, he actually did dive left. The boar's tusk narrowly missed clipping his thigh as he rolled out of the way.
"Solaire!" A young woman shouted down from the raised bit of stone at the back of the chamber. "We're running out of arrows!"
"Fire til your stock is depleted," Solaire shouted back. "Then... take up arms and do what you can to stop the hollows from gaining further ground."
The woman's face wrinkled with lines of concern, but she nodded anyway.
The boar returned, driving its warpath across the hall so ferociously, its tusk took the edge of a pillar and sent a spray of rock exploding outwards. Lautrec angled the tip of his sword at the beast's snout, challenging it to charge him. The boar dropped its head and made to thrust its tusks into his chest. Lautrec did not roll out of the way. Instead, he dropped to his back and laid flat on the ground. The beast went sailing right over him, and when it was lined up just right, he thrust his dagger up and into the creature's exposed belly. A trail of blood came loose and the creature roared its agony as it rumbled past him. Lautrec clambered to his feet to see Solaire attempting to dive out of the monster's warpath. He was too late. A tusk collided with his shield.
The Knight of Sunlight went spiraling backwards, and Kirk's barbed sword went sailing from his hand. He caught himself on hands and knees and wrestled to his feet, but when he stood, he stood unarmed, and the boar had already rounded on him to charge again, blood leaking from its wounded abdomen.
Lautrec moved forward, shouted for the knight's attention, and when Solaire looked, he tossed him his blade. The knight caught it, spun back on the boar, and sidestepped just as the beast made to take his side with a tusk. Solaire slashed at the creature, the blade sending sparks raining as it ran the length of the plate armor guarding its side. The boar halted, turned on him, and jabbed with a tusk. Lautrec rushed behind it and raised his hand. Solaire's eyes caught his own and the knight tossed him back the sword. Lautrec plunged the tip into the exposed hind legs of the boar. When the boar turned to him, he tossed the blade back over the creature's body to Solaire, who repeated the attack on the creature's backside.
They did this once more, and when at last Lautrec pulled the bloody blade from the boar's hind quarters, the beast groaned a death rattle, stumbled sideways, and collapsed; its plating slamming the floor with such force, it burrowed into the stone beneath in a crater.
"Solaire!" Someone cried.
Both the knight and Lautrec himself turned on the tunnel, where a dozen hollows had breached the entrance-the archer's arrows apparently depleted-and were spreading out to assault the nearby soldiers. Lautrec rushed forward, only the smallest hint of a voice in the back of his head asking 'Why?', and went to work battling the hollows back into the tunnel before their numbers grew too thick to manage. Solaire fell in beside him, the barbed sword back in his hand, and they fought once more side-by-side against the onslaught of the dead.
The chamber filled with the sounds of swords clashing against swords and swords thundering against shields and screams of pain and screams of anger. The soldiers were doing their best to contain the hollows to a tight pack at the tunnel's mouth, but not every one of them was trained well enough to handle more than a one-on-one fight, and Lautrec saw, with a stealing sense of hopelessness, that the hollows were gaining ground, opening the way for the dozens that filled the tunnel behind them to come spilling forth.
His focus momentarily broken, a hollow managed to parry a rather languid strike of his sword, and Lautrec's balance was thrown off. The hollow pressed on him, thundering its shield into his side and sending him tumbling to the stone. He lifted his head to see Solaire losing ground to a pack of three hollows at his side before returning his eyes to his own attacker. Its sword struck out at him and he manged to get his own weapon up just in time to swat the attack away. Four more cluttered around the hollow and fixed their red eyes upon him hungrily, hissing and snapping their rotten teeth at the air between them. He made to stand, but an attack came and all he could do was lie back down and block at it with his sword. They closed in on further. To either of his sides, Lautrec could see out of his periphery every last man around him was being pushed further back, and the hollows were widening their little pocket outside the tunnel more and more aggressively. He tried to stand again, but yet another strike forced him to remain where he was so he could block it. The castle is lost, he realized, watching the hollows cloud his vision like a blanket of death eager to fall upon his life.
Fire came then. At first, the shock of the flames searing forth into the pack of hollows came so sudden and hot, that Lautrec believed another pack of firebombs had been detonated. When his eyes adjusted to the intense and burning light of the flame, though, he saw it was far too controlled to be a firebomb. It was focused, like a burning arrow loosed from Izalith itself, and its target were the hollows. The flames bathed every inch of them in its fury, searing apart their armor and clothing, sending a symphony of tortured and tormented screams from the hollow's mouths.
The creatures fell back to escape the fiery death that was taking them, retreating back to the tunnel, stumbling over the smoldering black corpses of their fallen brethren as they went. Lautrec watched as their pocket collapsed and the soldiers, finding a surge of confidence, pressed inwards to hasten their retreat.
Quelana came marching right past his shoulder, the witch's robes rolled to her elbows and her hands joined at the wrists to spray forth the attack that had very well saved all of their lives. The witch's hood had fallen from her head, and Lautrec saw a fierce determination burning in her emerald green eyes that was filled with just as much fire as her palms. She walked the hollows backwards, commanding her flames to funnel them back into the tunnel, and when they had, she sent one last, massive, wave of fire after them. Their screams from the darkness within was enough to let Lautrec know the witch had bought them a moment of respite.
He clambered to his feet, and when he got there, Quelana was standing before him, her eyes narrowed intensely on his own. Lautrec stood holding her gaze, his breath returning to him in jagged pulls.
"I've saved your life twice now," she said, breaking the silence between them. "You owe me."
He nodded. "Fair enough, witch... fair enough."
"Don't kill her," Quelana said.
"Kill her? Kill..." He snapped his head back to the arched passages of the Great Hall.
Anastacia stood beneath them.
His vision filled with fire. He saw the charred corpses of his parents in their bed. He saw his whole life shattered and thrown away because of a young girl's vile tongue. He saw Ana; saw her motionless corpse and deadened eyes after his hands has squeezed the life from them. Hate wrapped his lungs, his chest, his entire body. He bolted forward.
"No!" Quelana pleaded behind him.
He barely heard her; barely heard anything then. As he neared the woman who'd shattered his life, he saw tears falling down her treacherous face and wanted nothing more than to plunge his dagger between her eyes and stop their flow forever. He'd nearly reached her when Tarkus sprung up between them and took hold of his arm.
"ANA!" Lautrec roared, and there was so much fury in his voice, he could feel his throat strain beneath its weight.
Quelana joined Tarkus on his other side and the two of them held him back.
Focus, he pleaded with himself. Focus and you can break free. He tried, but his vision was narrowed into a single, red, tunnel that ended on his sister's face. He could only thrash against the witch and Tarkus as they struggled to restrain him.
"Please!" Quelana pleaded.
"Oh, Gods no," an archer muttered beside them, the young man's face frozen in horror as he stared towards the tunnel.
Both Quelana and Tarkus turned to look, but kept their grip on Lautrec's arms.
"What is that thing?" Quelana asked.
"A silver knight," Tarkus said. "Bigger than any I've ever seen..."
Lautrec took a brief moment, doing everything he could to suppress the screams of his burning parents in his head, to glance over his shoulder. One of Anor Londo's Silver Knights had came lumbering out of the tunnel. The thing towered over the room at at least seven and a half feet tall. The slits of its helm swept the area around it and the knight pulled a long, silver, sword from its sheath; the burning hollows at its feet providing enough light to cast a shine in the blade's reflection. Solaire stood before the silver warrior, but the man looked like a mere play thing in the knight's massive shadow. He raised his shield, but when the silver sword struck out at it, it thundered against the round surface with such force, it was thrown clean from Solaire's hand. He backpedaled, raising his sword in defense.
"I have to help him," Tarkus said. His helm turned on Lautrec, desperate, perhaps, for some way to knock him unconscious, but when Solaire shouted a warcry, the big man released him and went running off with his greatsword in hand.
Quelana shifted herself in front of Lautrec and put her hands up. "Please listen to me!"
"Get out of my way," Lautrec hissed; it was taking every bit of his strength not to just plunge his sword into her belly right there and then. "You saved my life. I don't want to cut you down. I will, though. So move."
Quelana opened her mouth, likely to protest against him, but movement overhead caught both their attention. Lautrec looked skyward to see the strangest sight he'd ever seen. A woman... thing came flying into the room from the passage leading towards the gardens. She was bigger than any woman he'd ever seen, perhaps almost as big as the silver knight, and wings and a tail were protruding form her furry body. Her hair was wild and as pure white as snowfall; it sailed around her in tangles as her wings carried her through the air. When the archers-horrified expressions locked upon their faces-aimed their bows skyward, Quelana shouted for them not to loose, and, perhaps because it was her who had saved them all, they listened.
The winged woman landed beside them, towering at least a head above the tallest man, and setting her soft green eyes upon Quelana.
"Priscilla... what are you doing here?" Quelana asked. "I thought... I thought you would not stand beside humans."
"I do not come for their sake," the woman said, her voice gentle and childlike. "I come for yours and the kindness you did me by freeing me. You spoke of a Chosen Undead whom which your hopes lied with. A young girl? Brown hair cut short? When I was readying to flee from the gardens... I believe I found her, kind witch. She was lying atop a dead man in the snows outside."
Priscilla lowered herself to a knee, and it was then that Lautrec saw she had been carrying something over her shoulder that looked so small in the sky, he'd barely noticed it. The woman-creature wrapped the bundle gently in her arms and lowered it to the floor beside them. When the blanket fell away, Abby's lifeless face rolled out from within.
"Abby!" Quelana shouted, dropping to a knee and cupping her hands around the girl's chin.
Lautrec stared upon her over the witch's shoulder. There was no blood left in Abby's cheeks, giving her a pale, ghastly, appearance. She did not appear to be breathing. He lifted his gaze back to the arched passage of the Great Hall. Ana was no longer in it.
"Where is she!?" He demanded of the soldiers and archers gathered around them. "One of you bastards answer me or I'll cut every last one of you down. WHERE IS ANASTACIA!?"
"Someone start building a bonfire!" Quelana pleaded, and when no one moved, she raised a hand and sent a spray of fire into the air. "Build a bonfire NOW!"
The attack was enough to send a group of them into action, Rickert, Rhea, and Laurentius, among them. They scrambled into the Great Hall and began carrying broken bits of wood and crumbled stone into the chamber to lay in a circle.
"Where is she..." Lautrec continued, his eyes searching desperately for the throat of the woman he had to murder. "WHERE!?"
"Please," Quelana went on, watching as the bonfire was assembled beside them. "Lautrec, please! Your sister is the last firekeeper in Lordran! If she dies, any chance that Abby could be resurrected dies with her! Can't you see that? Are you so blind by your hatred that you aren't aware you'd be throwing away the Chosen's life!?"
"She's dead!" He shouted at her, pointing to Abby's lifeless face. "Look at her, witch! She's not even breathing! It's over! And I... I have to finish this!"
"She might yet still cling to life! She might still have a chance!" Quelana begged, but the witch did not carry any confidence in her voice, and Lautrec thought she might spill tears if she'd tried speaking any further.
Back towards the tunnels, Solaire and Tarkus were locked in battle with the silver knight, but despite their numbers, the massive thing was winning, pressing its relentless attack and easily batting away Tarkus' blows with its shield.
"Help them!" Rhea shouted to him as she laid a stone to complete the bonfire. "Help them fight that thing you coward of a man!"
Lautrec ignored her. His eyes scanned the growing crowd again.
"Lady Quelana," Rhea said. "It is complete."
Quelana lifted her gaze from Abby, to Rhea, and finally, to Lautrec. He stared down at her, nodding. "Go ahead, witch. To complete the bonfire you need a firekeeper. Call to her. Call to that vile creature so that I may finally make right what has been wrong for an eternity!"
"Please," Quelana begged. "Give her a chance to talk to you."
"She has no tongue."
"She does now. Let her light the fire. Let Abby have a chance. You talked so much when we first met each other about 'breaking cycles' and how important that was to you. Well break this cycle, knight! Break this mad pursuit of vengeance and let your sister live!"
"No," he told her bluntly. "Now call to her."
Quelana pressed her lips together, holding his stare with quiet desperation. When she, apparently, knew no other option remained to her, she turned and said, "Ana. Come here."
Anastacia came walking meekly out from within the Great Hall. Her eyes landed on Lautrec and she took a breath as if she'd forgotten how.
"Light the fire, Ana," Quelana hurried her on. "Light it now."
Lautrec shoved Rickert, who had made his wave between them, aside and marched forth, flashes of red and black clawing at the edges of his vision once again.
Ana pried her eyes from him, ran to a nearby ensconced torch, and chucked it into the center of the firepit, where the wood within began taking flame immediately. Quelana broke a splinter of wood loose and laid it in Abby's blood-drenched and motionless hand.
Another man came between them and Lautrec's fist drove into his throat, choking his air and collapsing him to his knees - and out of the way.
Ana's lip trembled. She backed up right into the wall behind her and pressed flat to it, her eyes wideneing on Lautrec's own and her breath coming in queer, sharp, intervals in her shaking chest. Her knees buckled. Laughing, crying, begging, Lautrec thought as his shadow loomed over her. We had been laughing that very morning away at the ponds and when we departed I did not see your face again until it was drenched in tears-as it is now-crying over our parent's corpses. When I denied you your precious 'forgiveness' you had begged, Ana. Oh, you had begged. His arms shook with rage as his hand clawed forth and reached for her neck. You had begged for the death you deserve. And now I will give it you and set right a lifetime of suffering. For the both of us.
"B-brother..." she croaked as his left hand reached forth and found her throat.
He squeezed.
And stopped.
Something happened then. Something so strange and foreign and miraculous, Lautrec's breath froze in his chest and his mouth fell agape. His hand would not squeeze. The throat it was wrapped around no longer belonged to the woman who'd ruined his life, but to the girl he'd skipped stones with at Carim's ponds. Her tears weren't rivers of sorrow, but trails of love. His anger fled from him, as if all the years of hate and rage and obsession had been wiped clean away, and only the boy who'd loved his sister remained. He pulled a breath that trembled in his throat and felt tears of his own take his cheek. Ana swallowed, her eyes flicking between his own, and a hint of a smile began taking her lips.
"...Lautrec?" She whispered, reaching up to stroke his cheek. "I see you."
He could not speak, could not think, could barely hear. His hand fell from her throat and she stepped closer to him. "How, Ana," he asked, a swirl of emotion so thick in his chest he felt ready to collapse. "How is this possible?" His mind was a blank slate upon which the moment was being written so quickly, he could not stop to comprehend it.
Tears rolled from his sister's eyes. They held upon him before moving slowly to his side. Lautrec's head followed their trail.
Abby was beside him, alive, the color returned to her complexion. She was smiling. He looked down and saw his hand was cupped in her own. She was rubbing her fingers softly against his skin and sending a warmth that traveled from his palm, through his arm, and into his very soul. "I told you," she whispered. "I'd stop you from hurting your sister. I told you I'd set you free."
She'd calmed him. Her... gift. It had calmed him, stolen the anger right out of his body. Lautrec looked back to his sister's face and laughed the strangest laugh he'd ever heard. He reached his free hand to her chin and a smile came to his face that felt so foreign upon his cheeks, he hardly recognized the feeling. Ana leaned forward and kissed the bridge of his nose.
"Lautrec... my little brother," she said. "I see you in there. I see you. The cold knight you became hasn't replaced you entirely. I see my baby brother. Lautrec... I'm so sorry." She broke into a sob.
"FALL BACK!" Solaire's shout broke the bizarre, dream-like, trance he'd been drifting in. Lautrec turned to see the Knight of Sunlight helping Tarkus backpedal from the silver knight before them; a massive stream of hollows pouring out from the tunnel at the knight's rear. Tarkus' side was wounded, the big man trailing a line of blood as they stumbled away.
Lautrec turned back to his sister. His mouth opened to speak, but no words were ready to come. A strange feeling draped over him then that was not quite peace and not quite anger. He turned and saw Abby had released him. Without her gift, the hate was still there, bubbling beneath the surface, but something else had joined it. Some... compassion for the woman he'd set out to kill fifteen years earlier and now could not bring himself to lay a hand upon.
"Ana... you have to get away from me," he said, the red fires stealing into the corner's of his eyes once again.
His sister nodded, her eyes flicked fearfully between his own, and released his face.
"Go. Now," he told her, lowering his head to his hand in attempt to blot the rage from returning.
"FALL BACK!" Solaire's voice came again, closer.
"Where, Solaire!?" Rhea pleaded.
"Logan's prison tower!" He answered. "It is the last hold of the castle we can defend! MOVE!"
Lautrec stood still in the crowd of motion around him like a useless twig protruding from a river stream. He felt a listless depression threatening to send him to his knees.
Then Quelana was at his side, taking up his arm and Abby-somehow still living-fell in at his other side, and the two of them walked him forward.
Lautrec allowed himself to be led, stumbling out of the room and dropping his head to his chest to watch his feet, making sure the numb things did not catch together and trip him. What now? The thought raced through his head and despite his best efforts, could not be shaken. He wasn't even entirely sure what it meant but it raced, round and round and round. Like a circle; like a cycle.
What now? What now? What now?
Behind them, the hollows were close in pursuit.