Phoenix Rising (11 page)

“Come,” he said, and beckoned towards the door. There were women in danger somewhere in the night. One had screamed only moments ago. He could not allow the weak and the feeble to go unprotected; he had sworn to himself in the south – in his beloved Wickland – that he would never again stand aside whilst those unable to protect themselves died needlessly. The screams of his people, as they were hunted on their way north, haunted him still; they had been swept away but their pleas for help still echoed in the night.

Without another word to Metrotis, he left the cell. An open door at the end of a corridor led to what looked like open space beyond. He moved quickly towards the door, his back against the wall, alert for the sound of other attackers. There was at least one more – the man with blond hair – and there could be others. He hefted the short sword in his hand; it felt more like a toy, a long knife, than a real weapon.
 

“Wait!” Metrotis shouted from behind.

 
He froze.
The man is an idiot
. Perhaps Metrotis did not wish to live after all. He turned his head quickly and beckoned the little man to follow.

Metrotis shook his head, eyes wide. “No.” He pointed in the opposite direction towards an open door further down the corridor. “Wulf, come.” Metrotis scampered down the corridor and disappeared within the room.

Every fibre of Wulf’s being urged him to abandon the fool and escape to freedom, but just as he committed to do exactly that, a strangled gasp from Metrotis stopped him. He found his legs carrying him towards the door, following inexorably in Metrotis’s footsteps.
 

He entered the room alert, his sword held ready, expecting to find Metrotis a bloody mess on the floor.
 

He was greeted by carnage.
 

Two grey-clad bodies lay on the floor, their limbs contorted at impossible angles. One stared, vacant eyed towards the door over his own shoulder blades, his blond hair straggling across the floor.

Metrotis stood inside the room on the left. He held both hands to his mouth. A green tinge coloured his sallow skin.

In the centre of the room, towering over the tangled corpses stood a man without a soul. His expression was blank, but his body suggested murder. It was as if his eyes focused on some object in the space between him and Wulf.
 

Although the man wore no chains, Wulf guessed that this was the other prisoner he had heard Metrotis speaking to.

“Who this?” Wulf said, and pointed his sword at the man. There was something disturbing about his eyes. Eyes like that did not, could not, belong to any normal man.
 

This man would be a challenge to beat in battle
, a part of him thought.
A challenge many would sing of
. A challenge to build a legend that might be retold for aeons.

“This is Optuss.” Metrotis spoke softly, a slight tremor in his voice. “I think he killed these men.”

Wulf grunted.
Do you think so?
“Kill men, good.” For the time being there would be no profit in challenge. A man who could cause such havoc might be useful; the future could wait. He moved towards Optuss and picked up one of the fallen assassin’s swords. “You know fight?” he asked the man.

“He doesn’t speak,” said Metrotis. “Careful, he’s not supposed to be dangerous.” Metrotis’s eyes were wide. “But I think he killed these men; yes, I think he killed these men.”

Wulf glanced at Metrotis. The little man was developing a talent for stating the obvious, and he was beginning to slip into the fear after battle that many tribesmen suffered from. Men who would run screaming – heedless of death – into battle, would later sit shivering, shaking, sometimes crying out for no reason. Wulf could not understand why this happened, but Metrotis would be no help in a fight.

He reached out and presented the sword to the black haired prisoner. “You take.” The man’s arms glistened in the lantern light, smooth as marble.

Metrotis tutted. “Optuss won’t follow your orders. I don’t think he’s even here with us, in any real sense.”

It took Wulf a second to translate the sentiment. He tutted in return.
The man has no soul,
he translated. “He kill men. He know.”
 

He presented the sword hilt to Optuss again. The man’s eyes seemed bottomless, like the very pits of hell.
 

Optuss continued to stare into the middle distance. But, slowly, his hand rose and he grasped the sword hilt.
 

The man’s hand touched his own and Wulf shivered.
No soul.
Then he turned and stalked rapidly from the room. He didn’t look back – the image of Optuss seared through his mind – but he heard movement from behind. Something, a memory perhaps, rattled the door of his consciousness – seeking desperately for a way in, for recollection and acknowledgement – but then faded as quickly as it had arisen.

“Optuss, come,” said Metrotis.

Wulf smiled. Somewhere outside there were men to fight, men who had a chance of fighting back, men who would present a challenge.
Wulf and Optuss are good dogs for Metrotis.
 

But sometimes dogs would bite, tear and rend.
 

They reached the end of the corridor; it opened onto an enclosed space that was two stories high on all sides.
 

More figures, dressed like the others, were attacking an older man. Wulf recognised the man who had come into his cell almost every day, in the beginning, and stared at him with unblinking black eyes. The man looked like Metrotis, Wulf guessed they were kin.

The black eyed man could fight, that much was clear from the body that already lay at his feet, but Wulf doubted he could overcome the three that remained. He paused momentarily and considered running to the man’s aid. Another piercing scream echoed from a room on the second level. The man had a sword; his fate was with the gods.
 

Wulf ran to the nearest staircase. He mounted the steps three at a time. At the top, he risked a glance back. Optuss stood immediately behind him, impassive as a rock, his breathing steady and slow.
 

Below, in the quadrangle, Metrotis advanced fearfully towards the old man engaged in battle, his dagger held before him like a shield. The assassins had not seen him but it was likely that, when they did, he would be killed quickly.
 

There is no shame to die like a warrior, with a weapon in your hand.
Perhaps Metrotis would die with honour after all and be welcomed into the halls of Alarus.
 

Wulf quickly turned away and moved along the upper balcony towards the sounds of struggle that emanated from an open door.

He rushed inside. Two men wrestled with a girl who shouted and kicked viciously in a vain effort to push them away. Another, older woman, lay motionless on a bed, a trickle of blood oozed from the corner of her mouth.
 

Two boys stood, swords raised, facing off against a pair of assassins who feinted and retreated, looking for a weakness in the boys’ defence. One lad had a wicked gash in his left forearm that bled freely, his blood trickling to the floor.
 

Wulf let out a great shout and rushed at the men attacking the girl. He slashed through the neck of one as the man turned – a shocked expression on his face – and cannoned into the other, sending him sprawling to the floor; a sickening crunch followed as the second man’s head smacked into the wall.
 

Two down.

He turned quickly. More grey-clad men rushed into the room and fanned out.
 

The newcomers paused as they spotted him.
 

Optuss, who must have followed him into the room, stood next to the girl. She knelt on the floor, her hair hanging around her face, gasping for breath.

He glared at Optuss. Support would be useful: there were too many to defeat alone, he would not be able to fend off all of their blows. He would not be able to stop them from overwhelming him through weight of numbers. Optuss’s expression had not changed; he held his sword loosely at his side and appeared blissfully unaware of the danger, not even facing the enemy.
 

The newcomers, appearing to judge Wulf and Optuss the greatest threat, ignored the others, who continued to harry the boys, and rushed forward.
 

Alarus,
Wulf prayed in preparation for death. He stepped towards the attackers, his little sword ready. There would be no return to the people for him, but at least he would be with his ancestors, feasting in the halls of the great god for eternity.

The first man lunged. Wulf grabbed his sword arm and pulled him off balance, then butted him in the face, and swept his own sword in a tight arc as the man stumbled back. He missed the man’s throat but sliced up through his chin. The sword mashed into the attacker’s palate and stuck fast.
 

Wulf yanked the blade hard to withdraw it but the man came with it, and fell into him. His right foot slipped in blood and he stumbled back and fell, slamming into the floor. The attacker twitched as his weight fell on the sword buried in his face, driving it into his brain.

Wulf tried to push the corpse away but slipped again, his feet unable to find purchase. His head cracked back into the wooden planks of the floor. As if in a dream, he caught sight of Optuss moving away, fast.
 

Somewhere in the distance, angry shouts of alarm sounded.

He twisted and scrambled but the floor, coated in blood, had become like ice.

A hooded man loomed over him, arm raised back, sword ready to strike the killing blow.
 

Wulf rolled instinctively, his arms scrabbled for purchase. He tensed for the killing blow that was sure to come.
 

Do not let me die with my back to the enemy
,
do not let me die without a weapon in my hand
.
 

He gained traction and tried to rise and turn, determined not to die a coward’s death.
 

A concussive
thump
sounded behind him.
 

He felt a blow to his shoulder and wondered why the assassin had not aimed for his head... for the certain kill.
 

There was no pain, but he knew that it would come – fierce blazing pain would come – if he lived long enough to feel it.
 

Something fell to his left, caressing his arm as it passed.
 

He looked down into the open eyes of an assassin, whose lips moved with no sound whilst his eyes blinked rapidly. Below the man’s chin was a clean cut – it was as if a butcher had removed the head – the spine glinted white through the exposed meat of the neck, then blood seeped out and dyed it red.
 

“Secure the room!” A man bellowed commandingly. “Andiss, through the window. Get to the street. Alert the militia. No. Wait. Get to the Third; tell Father Conlan we are in need of his assistance. He is to come with a cohort at once. Then alert the militia. Go, now.”

“Yes, General,” said another, breathing heavily.

Wulf looked around, a man stood over him, the old man with black eyes, a white pommelled sword grasped in his hand.
 

Another man ran to the back wall, opened the window and lowered himself out, his hands releasing the frame as he dropped to whatever lay below.
 

Metrotis sat on the floor just inside the door. He clutched the dagger Wulf had given him in his right hand. His left hand pressed against a gash in his leg that oozed thick, dark, blood. Two other men stood facing the door, swords drawn and ready.

The man they called General looked down at Wulf briefly. He inclined his head in recognition, his dark eyes shone in the candlelight. Then he moved quickly to the woman lying prone on the bed. “Ella,” he cried, his voice breaking, “Ellasand!”

He shook her gently, then held his ear to her chest before withdrawing, a grim look on his face. “Metrotis,” he said, his voice calmer than before, and perhaps more commanding for it. “If you can walk, your aunt needs your attention.”
 

Wulf shook his head, still in a daze. Two more bodies lay at the foot of the bed. Optuss stood over them, he held his sword loosely at his side, blood dripped slowly from its tip.
 

The two boys stood in front of Optuss.
Twins
, Wulf realised. They looked shocked and exhausted but defiant. Their chests heaved with the aftermath of their exertion.

The black-eyed man called ‘General’ turned to face him “You are called Wulf?” he said, one eyebrow raised.

Wulf stood slowly. Blood dripped from a wound in his shoulder. Stinging pain surfaced in his consciousness and he welcomed it. Pain meant life. “I am Wulf.”

The man paused, seeming to consider something carefully. “I am Martius,” he said. “You saved my family. I am in your debt.”

Wulf gazed around. The room was as bloody as a charnel house. His eyes came to rest on the decapitated head at his feet. It blinked its eyes slowly as if to confirm his thoughts.

You are in a dream,
his subconscious concluded.
This is the shadow land that follows death.
 

But it couldn’t be true. It felt too real. The pain in his shoulder flared as if to confirm it. He looked at Martius. The man’s eyes bored into him as if they sought his soul. “I owe you life also, Martius.”

<<<<>>>>

Afterword

Dear reader,
 

I really hope that you enjoyed this episode. I welcome constructive feedback so please do feel free to reach out through the internet and let me know what you thought.

I feel like I should apologise for the cliff hanger ending, but it was necessary as the ‘Adarna chronicles’ are episodic in nature (I said this at the end of book one, but it never hurts to repeat yourself!). Book three (by far the longest in the series up to now) is due out in October 2014, so if you liked this book, then please do feel free to pop into your nearest book store or book vending website and buy a copy when it is released. It is also worth noting that book three will complete the first volume of the Adarna chronicles (so it will not end on such a cliff hanger).