FARHAYVEN: VENGEANCE (125 page)

     Clanmaster Venom Collart awakes with a start. His head swirls. His vision blurs. Why
?
What is going on
?
Why are there screams and shouts
?
Why does my head hurt
?
Then a sudden realisation hits him. He turns to his side to see that he is alone. Cotton is not there beside him. She must have put something in the wine, or smeared something on herself, or maybe both; he reasons. He tries to get up, but stumbles clumsily to the floor. Think
!
Focus
!
Get it together
!
The clanmaster crawls on the ground towards a chest. He clumsily unlocks and opens it, and then searches for something inside. After a long agonising moment, he finds what he is looking for. He pulls out a small vial and removes its stopper. He gulps down its contents. He closes his eyes. His head still spins. Relax
!
Relax
!
Relax
!
Wait for the antidote to work
!

     Root and Bud Swerrell come running into the main chamber. They shout orders to their subordinates and their fellow clansmen to set up defences. They notice something odd
!
Their fellow clansmen are stumbling all over. A realisation comes to their mind.

     “Poison
!
” they shout out at each other simultaneously.

     Both Swerrell brothers realise that they are now in a hopeless situation. Only the clanmaster has the antidote and the supply is limited, hardly enough for ten people. They shake their heads in despair. Their frustration is expressed clearly on their faces. Both brothers simultaneously make the same decision and choose the same final ‘solution’. They will not give in. They will fight to the bitter end. Now is the question of how many Fallsian soldiers they take down with them. In their minds, they harden their resolve. Their frustration turns into determination. They grab each other’s hand in a brotherly handshake. They look at each other silently. They say their goodbyes with nods and gestures. They draw their swords, and wait...

     Suddenly, the barricade of chairs and tables the Swerrell brothers and their subordinates had set up, burst asunder. The heat from the multiple fireballs that slammed into the barricade makes them coil back and cover their faces. Striker One has reached the main chamber
!
Heat Burst after Heat Burst slam into the clansmen’s position. The clansmen dive for what few cover they can find. Bud pulls out an Airblade and sends it through the air at Ray. Ray dives sideways and counterattacks with a Heat Burst so intense it shatters the already burning table behind which Bud was taking cover. The intensity of the blast sends Bud soaring through the air. As Bud hit the ground sprawling, Ray rushes forward to close the gap between them. Bud shakes his head to clear his blurry vision. He raises his sword just in time to block Ray’s Vertical Downward Strike. The clash of steel and silver was deafening to an already semi-dazed Bud.

     Meanwhile, Root recovers from the blast that destroyed their barricade. His head still swirls slightly. Then he sees an Airblade flying towards him. He dives sideways and recovers with his own Airblade in hand. He sends it twirling through the air at his attacker, who, to his utter surprise, turns out to be Eclipse Menox. Eclipse parries off the twirling metal with her sword while running forward and follows up with a Left Diagonal Downwards Cut. Root blocks the cut with a one handed grip on his sword while simultaneously stepping forward by turning towards his back and slams the back of his fist into her cheekbone. Blood sprays forth from her mouth as she falls to the ground. Her sword falls from her hand.

     “Eclipse
!
How could you
!?
” exclaims a shock and disappointed Root.

     “No, Root
!
How
could
you
!?
” retorts Eclipse after spitting blood from her mouth.

     Root’s expression hardens. He reverses the grip on his sword and raises it up high. He steps closer and closer to Eclipse. Eclipse tries to crawl backward away from Root. But somehow her legs feel numb and her movements are extremely clumsy. She closes her eyes. She accepts her end. Root stares at the face of the traitor. A mix of anger and satisfaction moulds his face. He raises his sword even higher.
Slam!
Something ferocious and furry slams into Root from the back. Sharp fangs pierce his neck. His sword falls from his hands as the result of the impact. He falls to his knees from the shock and pain. Eclipse, seeing her chance, gets on her feet, pulls out a dagger and stabs Root straight in the heart. Root lets out a loud, desperate scream which adds to Spirit’s low growl. Feeling the energy fade from Root’s body, Spirit lets go of him and sprints off to attack another clansman. Eclipse stares into the eyes of her dying opponent.

     “Root, how
could
you
!?
” says Eclipse, shaking her head in disgust as the essence of life fades away from the quivering body of Root Swerrell.

     Bud stands two paces away from Ray, having managed to kick Ray at the ankles, swept him to the ground, rolled away and regained his own footing. Then he hears Root’s dying scream and his mouth gapes wide with shock and grief and his eyes become red and teary. It is at this moment that he realises he is now all alone in this world. His brother is gone. ‘Wait for me
!
I will join you soon, brother
!
’ whispers Bud in his heart. Ray seizes the opportunity to attack. He executes a Right Horizontal Strike at Bud’s torso, to which Bud could barely block. The force and suddenness of the strike causes Bud to step backwards. Ray follows up with a Vertical Downwards Strike, to which Bud also manages to block, just almost. But when Ray steps forward for another strike, Bud unexpectedly lunges forward and executes a Vertical Downwards Cut, forcing Ray to go on the defensive with a block. Bud screams like a mad man and erratically slashes at Ray with his sword from a multitude of angles. Ray blocks Bud’s frantic strikes and cuts, while patiently analysing Bud for an opening. In his grief, Bud executes another furious Vertical Downwards Cut. Ray, this time being better prepared, side steps to his right, avoids Bud’s cut and smashes the back of Bud’s skull with a Right Horizontal Strike. Unlike his brother, Bud offers no scream of pain or agony, just a spray of blood from his mouth and a very thin smile of relief as he collapses forward to the ground. Within moments, a crimson pool forms on the ground where his head has landed. Ray looks down at his dead opponent, his face impassive.

     Several Heat Burst slams into the barricade at the opposite end of the main chamber. Striker Two pours into the main cavern and joins the fray. Clover sends off a series of Heat Bursts at the clansmen, distracting them and forcing them to dive for cover, which allows Serene, Dawn and several others to sprint forward, close the gap between them and engage with their swords. Serene lunges with her sword and stabs a clansman straight through the heart while he was trying to draw out an Airblade from the inner pocket of his black shirt. Dawn sprints forward and slices the belly of a nearby clansman with a Right Horizontal Cut just as he foolishly lifts his sword for a Vertical Downwards Cut. Then, to Clover’s horror, she sees a clansman sneak up from behind Serene and begin his lunge forward to stab her. With a quick flick of her wrists, Clover sends a Frozen Dart straight into the base of this clansman’s skull. He falls harmlessly to the ground.

     The fighting was over an eighth of an hour later. The remaining dazed and disorientated clansmen dropped their swords, dropped to their knees and pleaded for mercy. Ray issued the command to halt fighting. Strikers One and Two wasted no time in disarming the surviving clansmen and tying up their hands. Then streams from Strikers One and Two spread out into the connecting tunnels to search for any remaining clansmen, while Ray, Clover, Serene, Spirit, Dawn, Eclipse and four streams stayed in the main chamber, looking over the carnage that had just taken place.

     Clover and Serene showed expressions of relief on their faces but Ray, Eclipse and Dawn’s face remained both grim and alert, each for different reasons. Ray had not yet felt the feeling of relief and he had also not yet felt the satisfaction of vengeance, since the identity of Baron Chessmaster had yet been revealed and he had not yet been brought to justice. Eclipse’s expression was grim due to the fact that so many of her clansmen, her friends and neighbours, lay dead on the cold, hard stone floor of her former home. Dawn, meanwhile, was not relaxed because she was the first amongst all to realise that the body of Clanmaster Venom Collart was nowhere to be found.

     Dawn took another look around. She wanted to be sure.

     “The clanmaster
!
He’s not here
!
” she stated out loud.

     Clover and Serene became guarded and alert again. Neither Ray, Clover nor Serene knew what the clanmaster looked like. Only Eclipse and Dawn knew. Therefore, the task of identifying the leadership of the clan logically fell upon their shoulders. They went around the main chambers and identified the remaining Founders, who were all dead. Eclipse and Dawn confirmed that Venom was nowhere to be found.

     “He must be hiding in one of the tunnels” said Dawn.

     “Tunnels _ of these, which is most likely
?
” asked Ray.

     “That one
!
That tunnel leads to his personal chamber and I suspect that there’s a secret exit connected to it,” answered Eclipse instead, pointing to one of the many tunnels that were connected to the main chamber.

     “Suspect
!?
” exclaimed Serene.

     “He was very secretive, even with us,” replied Eclipse.

     “Enough talking, let’s go
!
” exclaimed Dawn and she marched towards the tunnel in question.

     Ray ran after Dawn and so did Spirit, Clover, Serene and Eclipse. But Ray stopped short of overtaking Dawn and allowed her to take the lead. This place was, after all, her home. She would know her way around the maze of tunnels better than any of them. A short time later, they arrived at a fairly large chamber. Except for several locked wooden chests, a poorly crafted table and chair and a stack of extremely large woollen rugs which served as a mattress for sleeping on, the chamber was quite empty.

     “He must’ve escaped
!
” said Dawn in a disappointed tone.

     Dawn turned to continue down the tunnel when Ray grabbed her wrist.

     “Tunnel _ let Eclipse explore further of it
!
” insisted Ray.

     Dawn gave him a dissatisfied look but stood still, nevertheless. Eclipse, Spirit, Clover and Serene proceeded further down the tunnel in search of the suspected secret exit and the elusive clanmaster.

     Ray entered the chamber and walked around, examining carefully its contents. He was quite surprised to find it so sparse. He had the assumption that the clanmaster would drown himself in lavishness, what with his almost totalitarian power and the clan’s vast treasures. He had expected to see a large luxurious bed, a closet full of the finest clothes or perhaps a collection of the finest liquor. Obviously, this was not the case.

     After walking around in the chamber, his attention fell onto the locked chests. He wondered what their contents were. He looked inquisitively at Dawn, but she just shook her head and shrugged. He lifted his silver staff, took aim and hammered its end down on one of the locks. The lock broke easily enough. Then Ray bent down and opened the lid. What he found surprised him. Once again, Ray had expected the chest to be filled with gold, silver or some sort of treasure, but instead, he found vials and bottles of colourful potions.

     “Poisons, and their antidotes,” explained Dawn as she approached Ray from behind, her curiosity equally sparked.

     Ray hammered off another lock and opened the associated chest. He found an assortment of books, covering topics ranging from martial arts to fairy tales to cooking.

     Ray hammered off another lock. This time he found assassin’s uniforms, old clothes and surprisingly, a tattered doll sewn from rags.

     “This must have been his daughter’s. She had died before the clan was born. He had a wife, too. She died a few months after we arrived at The Lair. His son was killed about a year and a half ago,” explained Dawn.

     Ray was beginning to feel sympathy for the clan. But he shook his head and tried to snap out of it. How could he feel sympathy for a bunch of murderers
?
How could he feel pity for those who had murdered his order
?
No
!
He must snap out of it. Though the clan’s story was tragic, their decisions were still wrong
!