פּצּפּצּפּצּפּצּפּצּפּצּפּצּפּצּפּצּפּצּפּצּפּצּפּצּפּצּפּצּפּצּפּצּפּצּפּצּ
Chapter Twenty-Eight: Most TrustedThe blade glimmered dully in the candle light, its once virgin sheen now etched and covered with years of use and age. Stef slowly turned his wrist, keeping a stiff grip on the well-worn leather-wrapped hilt. He rotated the plane of the sword and nodded satisfactorily at the new-learned control in his right arm.
"How does it feel?" Tayren asked, glancing up from the card game with the other gate guards.
"It's the oddest thing. Feels like I'm missing my left hand… oh wait, I am. " Stef grumbled, keeping his eyes on the blade. "I've strengthened my right arm, but in a battle, I do not know how it will fare. I need more time in the practice yards."
"Well, now you can hold a sword the proper way, you southie. I'm sure you also liked having that little nurse of yours ogling you too."
"Zira. Her name is Zira." Stef turned an eye toward Tayren. "And it's purely professional. She's not what you make it out to be."
But Stef knew that wasn't quite true, although it had been somewhat innocent at first.
His first time in the yards, Stef was stripped to his waist as he tried to relearn all the skills he had stored in his left hand. And he was failing. He was born a left-handed man and would continue to be one, regardless of the existence of the limb in question. The sword did not even feel the same way; its weight and touch was alien and out of place. He held and swung the blade awkwardly, stumbling through novice exercises that he would once have scoffed at. After an hour with seemingly no progress, Stef threw his gladius to the ground with disgust.
"You shouldn't give up so soon." Stef raised his head to the speaker. Zira was sitting on one of the benches lining the yard, watching him with those big eyes of hers. She wasn't wearing her nurse's smock and her long hair now framed her face. She reached beside her and tossed him his shirt.
"What brings you here, Zira?" He reached out to catch the shirt, but it fell through the missing hand, drifting to the dirt. He sighed, plucked up the shirt with his right hand, and wiped the sweat from his face, tossing it onto his shoulder. "No patients?"
"For some odd reason, soldiers don't like being confined to the bed. As soon as they have regained a semblance of thought, they're out the door, even if they have to drag themselves."
"You don't say." Stef retrieved his sword.
"Come on up and let me take a look at you. Anyway, you shouldn't give up so soon." Zira repeated. "You just need to build up the strength in your right arm and coordination comes with practice. Healing isn't fast. If it was, we would not have the opportunity to learn from our mistakes."
Stef took a seat beside her, "And this comes from personal experience?"
"I am a nurse after all." She raised his left arm, studying the point of amputation. It was largely healed, covered by a smooth skin. "I have known many amputees. Too many, if you ask me. Many of them would have preferred to have been killed rather than live 'less than whole' or 'lacking Means' as they call it. But, then there are those who grow stronger. You look like one of the latter, Sergeant Stef Stef. You look like a survivor."
"Let's hope so." Stef replied. "Do you always give such attention to every one of your patients?"
"Perhaps I'm just bored. You remind me of someone I had once known. I hope I'll be seeing you around, sergeant." She kissed him on the cheeks, straightened her skirts, and hurried away.
Everyday after, she came to watch him practice his blades. His sword-handling began to improve, as did his mood and demeanor. He showed her how to hold the sword properly, more as an excuse to be next to her. She was a fast learner, and would soon best him one out of three, even with him trying. She also showed him a few tricks with dagger throwing; it turned out she was quite a knifesharp.
But beyond that, sometimes Zira even managed to persuade him into a walk into the Palace Gardens. And well, after years of looking at mud and more mud, the trip to the gardens wasn't exactly torture. But Stef wasn't going to endanger his image by admitting it. At least in public.
"So I hear the Band is setting out for the Manetherendrelle." Zira remarked on one of the walks, clutching tightly to his arm. They were sheltering under the boughs of a large greendrew tree, caught by surprise by the breaking of the rain clouds.
"Aye." Stef stared glumly at the streams of water already forming by the pebble path. "Just our luck to be walking into this. This'll be like Jaramide all over again, in the spring when all the snow melts and becomes shi…brown…um…colored mud."
"We will win, right?" Zira pulled him closer, "You will come back to me in one piece."
"We cannot lose. There is a rightness in what we do."
"Just because you're right does not mean you'll live. The most judicious man of the world is no more protected from mortality than the vilest. Go away with me, Stef. Run away from all of this. There are still places untouched in this world." She pleaded.
"That I cannot do."
She pressed her lips fiercely to his, and they were lost in their embrace. And for a moment were lost in that place untouched by war. And for a moment-
"Hey, Sarge." Tayren grinned, "Thinking of the Miss? Mayhaps she pay us a little visit tonight? Cause if she's into you, then she's gonna love me. After all, I have twice as many hands."
"She'd gut you like a fish. Her skill with the dagger is no joke. Mind your business." Stef grunted, laying his sword on the table, and began to clean it with grease. "None of your light forsaken business."
A bird suddenly fluttered in through the tower's only window slit, dripping and spraying droplets everywhere. Tayren snatched it out of the air, smoothly keeping his cards hidden in hand, and turned the pigeon upside down.
"Looks like some messages from the scouts." He pulled the bone container out and tossed the bird away, which scrambled onto the mantle of the fireplace, its head cocked as if looking for seeds.
"What, we lookin' at some company tonight?" One of the card players muttered, his eyes glancing at his remaining tokens forlornly.
"Nah, it says here that all's well. Figure they'd send something completely useless like that." Tayren crumpled up the paper and tossed it smoothly into the fire. "Come on, let's take a looksee at your cards. Well, look at that. I got the Dark One's own luck tonight."
There was a general grumble as Tayren raked in the pile of tokens. With a practiced hand, he sorted out the useless promissory notes from the cold hard coins, occasionally biting down on a dubious disc.
"Alright, folks, just to make sure there's no hard feelings, a free round for everyone." Tayren reached down and plopped a full wineskin on the table, "Got it straight from the Markey. Cut off my own hand –no offense, sarge- trying to get someone dumb enough to accept those paper fodder they pay us."
Stef chuckled softly. Tayren could swim through a mile of sewage and come out smelling like a flower. Already, the mood in the room was lightening as full mugs began to replace empty pockets. Perhaps, they might not notice the cards Tayren was slipping from his sleeve into his pouch.
Only one of the guards refused a drink. A private named Sanak or some sort, his face looked perpetually like he was chewing on a lemon. He had the same pinched look on his face as he barked, "No drinks on guard duty."
"Aw, come on, son." Tayren cajoled, pushed a mug towards him. "Just one."
"No, be glad I do not report you." Sanak tipped the mug on to the floor, then turned his eyes to Stef, the only sergeant in the room, "And you should know better, sarge."
"I certainly should, shouldn't I?" Stef remarked mildly, catching the mug that Tayren slid across the table. He drank it down in two gulps. It left his mouth feeling numb and a trail of fire down his gullet. Tasted a little vinegary, but considering the circumstances, he wasn't complaining. He'd been dry for so long that just one drink left him a little dazed and slightly disoriented.
"Blood and ashes, that has a kick." Stef murmured to himself, and shook off a second offer. "I think you got cheated, Tayren, because someone sold you cat piss."
The numbness in his mouth did not fade away slowly as he was expecting, instead spreading like a web of coldness that permeated every inch of his being. Alarm bells began ringing in his head. He lunged for his blade, lying close on the table, but his arms didn't seem to want to respond. He clipped the table, and hit his chin on the surface, but he didn't feel the collision.
A mug shattered to the ground, and a guard slipped from his chair, pawing futilely at his belt sheath. Sanak, the only person who did not drink, stood up, his eyes widening and drawing his gladius.
Tayren was faster. Before Sanak could move a step, Tayren's sword was buried in his chest, and the Private toppled like a sack of bricks.
"No respect these days." Tayren's voice was far darker than Stef has ever remembered him being. He walked quickly to the door and lowered the iron bar, sealing the tower from the world.
Stef tried once more to grapple at his sword with an unresponding hand, but only succeeded in pushing it off the table. No! This couldn't be happening! With all his will, he forced himself to fall after the sword.
Then Tayren was standing over him, casually kicking the gladius away from his reach. "Sorry, friend. Can't let you have that." The face glowed sinisterly in the candlelight, and a dull gleam was in the eyes of the sergeant's most trusted friend.
The traitor seemed to have read the look in Stef's eyes. For a moment, there was a crack in the surface of the ugly mask, and there was a pleading tortured man trapped in a prison.
"I cannot stop it. They're in my head. In Jaramide—I didn't escape—They caught me. I am so sorry." Tayren stood up, and Stef followed his movement to the massive winch and chain that controlled the Inner Gate. That was insanity! It takes both towers around theInner Gate to raise it. And two more controlling the Outer Gate. What makes him think-
There was the muffled rattling of chains being loosened, but Tayren had not yet touched the winch, simply waiting. But hearing the same noise, Tayren closed his eyes and began to cycle through the winch.
Stef closed his eyes in despair. They were everywhere, even in the home of Manetheren. If he could have made a Darkfriend his friend, and his confidante in his own foolishness and blindness, where else could they have nestled, simply waiting for the time to strike. But how was it possible? He shivered in his drug-induced state. He could already hear the creak of the Drawbridge of the Outer Gate falling across the moat. Four towers, with armed guards each, and they got them all.
Then came the sound Stef dreaded the most. The clop of heavy footsteps crossing below the tower that did not belong to any human source. The pigeon that Tayren caught, Stef realized, was the warning that they were supposed to receive. Now, it was too late, the message intercepted by treasonous guile. And the Horde was marching into their homes in the dead of night.
The sergeant part of Stef screamed at him, pounding into his head. This was not going to happen on his watch. If he could either overpower Tayren or raise a warning, there was a chance to still stop it! Stef shuddered, his consciousness floating in the sea of whiteness. He sent the tendrils of willpower outwards, forcing contacts into his paralyzed muscles, urging them to work.
There was a distant cry of alarm, and the sound of scuffle just within the gates. A horn tone cracked through the storm, quickly taken up by more. There was still hope. If they could close the gates in time.
He strained against the numbing pain, moving his left hand inches by inches towards the field knife on his belt. He closed his hand on it, gritting his teeth as he tried to maintain a semblance of grasp. If it slipped out, he had no doubt that he would not be able to reach it again. There was no strength in his arm to throw it, let alone wield it with any potency. But he was going to go down fighting, the only way he knew how.
The roar of battle outside now drowned out the roar of the storm. Stef felt the draw of the clash of steel and iron, and wished he could be there, instead of lying helpless and impotent.
Then the tower door shivered with a heavy blow. The bar and lock were both solid iron, but the door frame itself was only reinforced wood, and buckled inward, cracks spider webbing through the casing. There could be two forces outside, either the Shadowspawn coming to secure the gate, or Band defenders. As the frame buckled and bent, Tayren continued to stand by the winch, glazed eyes staring into space and head cocked to the side, as if he was listening to something distant.
Then just as the doorway was to be breached, Tayren flowed into action. Picking up Stef's gladius -his own was still buried in Sanak- he darted towards the side of the door, no doubt to wait in ambush.
This was Stef's chance, and he clumsily swung his knife as the traitor passed. It was a terrible strike, both excruciatingly slow and lacking power, but something seemed to guide his hand, grazing one of the Tayren's thighs before the dagger fell from his dull hands. It left only a shallow wound, but caused the man to flinch and stumble. At that moment, the frame finally splintered and the iron door tipped over. Tayren jerked aside, taking a glancing blow to his shoulder. But his element of surprise was lost.
The first soldier blocked his lunge, forcing Tayren backwards to allow the rest of the men to enter. Tayren gave a lurch as in surprise, his head twisting halfway as if to look at Stef. And the sergeant knew why. He was fighting none other than his father, Jorj Reimos. The mixture of smoke and dust and the uncanny resemblance must have indeed shaken Tayren. But he recovered after the first stroke and fought like a man possessed, with wild and furious swings, intending to force them back, to stall them.
But Jorj was a wily and practical man. He caught one of the swings in his sword's guard, twisting and trapping the blades together. He pulled up, and two soldiers swung around and skewered Tayren through the torso. A kick to the abdomen and the turncoat stumbled back and crumpled to the floor.
The soldiers wasted no time on the various bodies on the floor. His father glanced down to see him at a quick scan of the room, his eyes flickering on Stef's prone form for just a second, before returning to an appraisal of the room. Sprawled in his repose, Stef had all the semblance of death.
"Get the winch! Two guards on door. Let's hope we got through the other tower." Jorj called, jumping over bodies as he rushed towards the gate-controller. Two soldiers quickly flanked the door, while the three others rushed to help Jorj with the winch.
There were more footsteps below them, and one of the guards called out, "Company. Hurry! Oh a fa-" The man twisted and fell, clutching frantically at what remained of his shattered throat. The second guard slashed out without a thought, and was thrown hard across the room, his head cracking against the stone wall with a wet thump.
Darkness covered the doorway, resolving into the image of a Halfman and its Trollocs. The Myrddraal surged across the room with deadly liquid grace, but the soldiers within did not hesitate a second. A chair was already airborne, but the Fade smashed it aside in a shower of splinters. The two soldiers engaged, their swords swiping in time, but the Fade batted the blows away casually. Then it drew a second ebony blade in its left arm. It struck like a whirlwind with the dual blackswords, slicing through steel and flesh, leaving shreds of red fabric floating in the air, and a fine spray of crimson beaded onto Stef's face. It stormed down upon Jorj Reimos, a giant prepared to crush an ant below its tread. It pushed aside the table from its path, and turned its eyeless visage towards its target.
The last man standing stood calmly, a look of utter acceptance in his face. He did not raise his blade to ward off the raised blades. His gaze was steady and his arm was steadier.
His sword arched out. The Fade struck.
As Jorj was cut down, he slashed through the chains of the Gate winch. As his knees collapsed, the chains flashed up through the walls into the Wheel hub, disappearing. When his head rolled to a stop before his prostate son, there was a massive lurch and a shiver of the floor as the Inner Gate slammed down with an explosion that rattled the walls. Mortar rained from the ceiling and half-empty mugs shattered to the floor. Staring into the lifeless serene eyes of his father, Stef struggled hard to not vomit, for in his state, he would be apt to choke on it like a drunk.
The Fade hissed its dismay at the receding chain. It jerked to the sound of further footsteps on the stairway, spitting out incomprehensible venom commands to the Trollocs in the room. It grasped the massive iron pulley where the chain had once hung and ripped the entire contraption from the walls, leaving a massive jagged hole. It tossed the pulley aside and slipped out into the storm, leaving its cadre of Trollocs behind.
The human reinforcement poured into the room, swamping the leaderless Spawns. The battle was fierce but short, and when the last Trolloc fell, the sound of battle below began to fade and recede. The Outer Gate rattled closed as its two Towers were cleared. The stem of Spawns had been cut and the battle was over.
But the level of activity in the room remained unabated. The wounded needed to be transported and healed, the dead needed to be covered and buried, and the missing found and counted. And there was the matter of how they were betrayed.
A soldier stood above Stef, glancing down as if in debate. The sergeant forced his mouth to open, croaking, "Alive. I'm alive."
"Nurse!" The soldier called out, and suddenly a very familiar face was leaning over him.
"Stef!" Zira cried, kneeling over him. "What? What's wrong?"
"Poison," Stef felt her hands clutching his tightly. He felt like laughing and crying at the same time. "I think. Temporarily." He could already feel the effects waning. Or perhaps it was only his mind playing tricks on him. The white numbness was now the gentle and soothing sensation of agonizing pain. But why would Tayren use such a mild poison? Could it be possible that even as a Darkfriend, he did not want to harm the friend he was betraying? Stef remembered the trapped look in Tayren's eyes. Perhaps there was a part of him left. Part of him that wanted a way out.
As Zira helped him sit up, Stef stared at the carnage unleashed, and could only imagine the aftermath of the battle at the Gates. Then he felt strong hands on his shoulders and he was propped up against the wall.
"My lady, if you will excuse us." A rumbling voice like a growling sandcat said, and a gnarled face was peering into Stef's eyes. "If he's a survivor, we have some questions we need to ask."
"He's sick. Poisoned. What possible questions do you need to ask at this time of night?" Zira tried to move towards him, but was stopped gently by two guards.
"He is the only living witness of what happened tonight. We were betrayed and we will find the source before it is too late." The man stood up, and a black mantle and band revealed that he was a royal inspector.
"You can't possibly believe—"
"I will release him into your care, Madame, after I am done. My apologies in advance." The man turned on his heels, and Stef was lifted lightly by two dark-mantled men. In his trance, he felt as if he was floating.
"Wait!" Zira's last cry slowly faded as they descended the tower stairs with him in tow.
פּצּפּצּפּצּפּצּפּצּפּצּפּצּפּצּפּצּפּצּפּצּפּצּפּצּפּצּפּצּפּצּפּצּפּצּפּצּ