Rise of the Champion (The Sword of Kirakath Omnibus #1) (16 page)

“Weren’t you one though?” Caleb countered.

“That’s not the point,” Katie insisted. “Pickpockets are amateurs. I am not.”

“And you take pride in the fact that you were a
good
criminal?” Caleb asked sarcastically, earning a frown from his companion.

“If you’re already being sarcastic, you must be in good health,” Katie said with narrowed eyes. “I’m going to get some sleep in the meantime. You can keep watch and make sure that we don’t get attacked during the night. I’m sure you’re not tired anymore.”

With that, Katie walked to the other side of the fire and laid down on her bedroll. All the while, Caleb cursed himself for the way he had spoken to Katie.

I can never catch a break, can I?
He stared into the fire as that thought consumed him.

An answer was not forthcoming.

* * * * *

The next morning, Caleb was leaning against a nearby tree, prepared to get a move on.

“Are you ready?”

He glanced over his shoulder at those words, taking in Katie’s appearance. She, too, seemed ready for the day ahead of them.

“Yeah, I’m ready,” Caleb said as he stepped away from the tree. “Let’s leave the horses here and finish the trip by foot.”

Katie looked at him, surprise clear in her eyes.

“Are you sure about that? It’ll slow down our progress,” she asked, clearly concerned. It did not sound like the type of thing that he would have suggested.

“Knowing my luck, the horses will get eaten if we take them straight there. That would make our trip back even slower,” he said with a sigh. “The horses will be safer in the forest.”

“What if they are attacked here?” Katie asked, still skeptical.

“The forest may have wolves,” Caleb said with a neutral expression as he turned to face her. “But the mountains have griffins.”

“The mountains have griffins?” Katie asked, even more skeptical.

Caleb nodded without a hint of doubt. “Absolutely,” he replied. “My mentor told me about them. They avoid people, but they have no such qualms about horses.”

“You mean they’re real?” Katie asked in disbelief. “I thought they were just something that was made up for the tales that bards told.”

“They’re real,” Caleb said with a small smile. Hector’s face flashed to mind as he remembered all of the tales that his mentor had told him. “They’re not too common anymore though. My mentor told me that the only ones that are still left in Arcadia are in the Skyfell Mountains and the Shield Mountains.”

“Your mentor sounds like a knowledgeable person,” Katie remarked, starting to get over the initial shock of hearing that griffins were real. “If I may ask, what happened to him?”

“We can talk while we walk,” Caleb said, turning back north.

After a few minutes of walking in silence, he spared a glance at Katie.

“My mentor is still alive,” he said with a sad smile. “I don’t know where he is right now though. On the day of the Summer Solstice, he left Kirakath. In the middle of the night, a messenger had come to him. He never told anyone what the message was, but he said that he had to leave to go on a personal hunt. We haven’t heard from him since.”

Katie looked nervous as she asked her next question. “Are you sure that he’s still alive?”

Caleb laughed at the question. The sound of his laughter caught her off guard. She could not remember a single time that he had genuinely laughed since they met. It seemed odd that he would do so at that moment.

“Hector is still alive. I can feel it deep down,” Caleb replied as he managed to gain control over his vocal chords again. “I have faith in him, and I have to admit that it’s nice to be able to have faith in something.”

Katie seemed to digest that information for several minutes before speaking further. When she did finally speak, Caleb winced. “Are you and your mentor the only survivors of Kirakath?”

“No one survived the Massacre of Kirakath. Only people that were not there at the time still live, ,” Caleb answered softly, pushing Gabriel’s image to the back of his mind. “Let’s just get a move on.”

Katie shot her companion a worried look as they made their way through the forest and to the nearby mountains. It was easy to see that she had hit a nerve.

About an hour later, they had reached the mountains. They were walking through the forest, surrounded by mountains on three sides. It was said that the one directly in front of them was where Draesa was built.

“You’re sure that the ruins are built into that mountain, right?” Caleb asked, still a little skeptical of the prospect that a city could be built inside a mountains.

“Yeah, I’m sure,” Katie said with a nod of her head. A moment later, her feet came to a stop, stirring up some of the fallen leaves that she had been careful to avoid until then.

Caleb’s eyes narrowed, still focused on her. “What’s wrong?”

“Is that what I think it is?” Katie asked, pointing ahead nervously.

Caleb looked at where she was pointing and immediately cursed. With the body of a lion and the head of an eagle, Caleb could have convinced himself that it was not what Katie thought it was. The eagle-like wings left no doubt though.

A griffin stood about a hundred yards in front of them and its eyes were trained on them.

“Get your knives ready,” Caleb said as the muscles in his legs tensed and his hand went to the hilt of his sword.

Seeing the griffin’s muscles tense, Caleb immediately dashed towards it with his sword drawn.

What-
His train of thought came to an abrupt halt when he was halfway to where he had first seen it. It was fast, now being only a few feet away from him. It had closed the distance too quick for him to even see, and its wings were spread out at their full length.

Before he could raise his sword to strike, the griffin’s wing came crashing into his chest, throwing him a dozen feet away. He hit the ground in a roll, throwing his sword from his hands and causing him to hit a tree.

As he hit the tree and winced in pain, his eyes went to Katie. She was standing still, motionless as the griffin approached her.

Why isn’t she moving?
The question plagued him as he rolled over to his stomach and pushed himself up into a crouch.
She should be able to at least hurt it with those knives of hers.

He glanced from her to the griffin, anger welling up inside of him as it approached her. The thought of it attacking her while she was too stunned to react set a fire within him ablaze.

Without a single thought in mind, Caleb dashed towards the griffin, grabbing his sword from the ground mid-run. Amazingly, he did not lose his balance as he picked up his weapon.

A mere fifteen feet stood between Katie and the griffin, but only ten feet stood between it and Caleb.

Leaping through the air with the sword held in a back-handed grip, Caleb made his move.

Katie and the griffin both turned their attention to Caleb just as he was a foot above the griffin, bringing his longsword down with both hands.

The griffin let out a loud squawk as Caleb’s sword sliced through its back, imbedding the blade all the way to the hilt.

With his sword pinning the deadly beast, Caleb released the hilt and removed the knife from his belt. As he brought the knife from its sheath and swung it towards the griffin’s head, a sickening crunch resounded through the forest.

His sword buried in the griffin’s back and his knife embedded in the griffin’s skull, Caleb blinked. Taking in the sight before him, he jumped off of the creature and backed away. He fell to the ground as he moved backwards, shocked at what he saw before him. There was no doubt about it. The griffin was dead. He did not need the lack of breathing, the blood covered head and back, or the silence of the griffin to know that.

“Caleb, you saved me,” Katie said quietly, shocked by her own words. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah, I’m fine,” Caleb said. He had no intention of admitting that he was doing his best to resist emptying his stomach at that moment.

What happened?
His eyes were trained on his hands.
Is that what Father was talking about when he told me about bloodlust?

The memories of what he had done were clear in his mind, but he could not remember thinking anything during it. His actions had been mechanical.

No, that wasn’t bloodlust,
he thought with a frown.
I wasn’t driven by a desire to kill. I remember thinking that I wanted to stop the griffin before it, but then it just went blank.

“I’m sorry that I froze,” Katie said quietly, looking at the dead griffin. “I don’t know what came over me. I just saw it and couldn’t make myself move.”

Caleb knew what he wanted to say to that. He wanted to tell her that it was normal for someone to freeze up when faced by a mythical creature. He wanted to tell her that she reacted perfectly natural. He wanted to tell her that he forgave her.

In all honesty, he could not find it in him to say anything but that last part though. After all, he had not frozen up. He had gone straight in and tried to attack it. His lack of tact had almost gotten Katie killed though.

“Don’t apologize,” Caleb said as he rose to his feet. “Just try not to do it again. That wasn’t exactly easy.”

He barely suppressed a frown at that last part. It
had
been easy. Lying was not something that he liked to do. In fact, his father had always told him that it was wrong. Still, he could not bring himself to explain what had actually happened. It was too strange for even him to fathom.

Caleb took a deep breath as he walked over to the griffin’s corpse. He firmly gripped the hilt of his sword and pulled it from the beast’s back, revealing the blood covered blade.

Once the sword was free, he removed the knife with a little more effort and looked towards Katie. “Are you ready to go?”

“Yeah, I am,” she said with a hint of nervousness in her voice.

Nodding, Caleb pulled a piece of cloth out from the inside of his tunic and wiped both blades clean. Once they were clean and sheathed, he tossed the cloth to the side.

“Let’s go,” he said as he began to walk towards their destination once again.

* * * * *

“This is Draesa?” Caleb asked quietly, his eyes focused on the large stone doorway before them. It was carved straight into the mountainside. Like the two large stone doors that it framed, the doorway was made of faded white stone. Somehow, it did not look nearly as old as Nicolas had said it was.

“Yeah, I think so,” Katie answer, her eyes focused on the massive doors. “The legends say that Draesa was built during the wars between the Calian Empire and Tiberia.”

Caleb glanced at his companion suspiciously.
How would she know anything about this place? She was just a pickpocket.

“Why is the city no longer in use?” he asked, genuine curiosity entering his voice.

“Draesa hasn’t been in use since two hundred years before the Arcadian Rebellion, so I’m not entirely for sure,” Katie admitted. “I never heard what happened to the city, but there’s something superstitious about the place.”

“And it doesn’t bother you that there is something superstitious about it?” Caleb asked idly, trying to figure out how to get the large stone doors open.

“I’m not superstitious,” she said as she studied the doors.

“That’s good to hear,” Caleb remarked as he drew his sword from its sheath, immediately catching Katie’s attention.

“What are you doing?” she asked as he began to walk towards the doors.

“Watch and see,” he said as he stopped directly in front of the massive stone doors. And then, he stabbed the sword into the small gap between the doors.

Katie’s eyes widened considerably at the sight of the action. “What are you doing?” she asked in shock.

“Just watch,” Caleb said as he grasped the hilt of his sword with two hands turned so that his left side was facing the doors. Before Katie could process what he was about to do, he pulled on the hilt, using the sword to pry the right door open.

Katie was shocked as the door slowly opened. All the while, Caleb’s sword gave no sign of snapping, despite the fact that no sword should have been strong enough to pry such a heavy door open.

 “That sword is magic,” Katie said quietly, surprised by the revelation.

“So I’ve been told,” he said as the door opened enough to allow him to slip through it. At that point, he could tell that there was no way to use his sword to pry it open any farther. He would have no leverage if he tried to.

“Help me out here,” Caleb said, motioning towards the door.

Understanding immediately, Katie slipped past him into the ruins. Through the sliver of light that passed through the narrow opening of the door, she could see a stone floor, but her focus was entirely on the door.

“On three,” Caleb said as they both braced against the door, reading to push it open when needed.

“One… two… three,” he counted, throwing all of his weight against the cold stone door as he spoke the final number. With Katie’s assistance, the door completely opened, moving slowly but surely.