Rise of the Champion (The Sword of Kirakath Omnibus #1) (39 page)

“But won’t this implicate this person in this endeavor?” Katie asked with a frown.

“This
friend
is not a person. It is a magical construct. It’s alive in a sense, but it lacks emotions and is only capable of following orders. It possesses all the knowledge that is required to get you out of here too,” Lance replied.

“I’m going to punch you in the face,” Caleb said as he suddenly glared at Lance. “I thought I destroyed it.”

“He already realized what we’re talking about. That’s good to know,” Eric said with a grin. “And you seriously damaged it, but it is capable of repairing itself.”

“Of course,” Caleb muttered under his breath.

“What are you guys talking about?” Katie asked, confusion clear in her eyes.

“It’s up ahead,” Caleb said as he pointed down the tunnel into the darkness.

Within a few moments, the light from the torch Lance was carrying revealed a tall statue that resembled a man and appeared to be made from marble.

“This is Statue,” Eric said as he poked it in the center of the chest. “And it is a golem.”

Katie looked at Caleb in alarm.

“Yeah, this is the one that I fought when I went missing,” Caleb said as he looked at the golem. The only change in it since he had last seen it was that it had a black hood cloak draped over its shoulders.

“Caleb, it will listen to your commands,” Eric seriously. “It will not do anything unless you tell it to. So if you get into a fight and you need its help, tell it what to do. It will not even repair itself without being commanded to do so. As such, you don’t need to worry about it being captured. In fact, I give you permission to have it stay behind and hold the guards off when you make your escape. But don’t do that unless it’s necessary. Golems are very rare, and the ones that are capable of regeneration are even rarer.”

“I understand,” Caleb said as he looked over the golem. “Lead the way to the northeast dungeon tunnel.”

The golem immediately began to walk down the tunnel at that.

“Take this,” Lance said as he handed his torch to Caleb. “Try not to get yourself killed.”

“I’ll try,” Caleb said with a nod as he took the torch and followed after the golem.

“You said the escape tunnel can be entered through a hatch underneath the count’s chair in the audience chamber, right?” Katie asked as she looked at Eric carefully.

“Yes, that’s what I told you earlier, wasn’t it?” Eric asked with a raised eyebrow.

“Yeah, but I just had to make sure I heard it right,” Katie said before she ran after Caleb, Nicolas, and Statue.

* * * * *

“So what’s the plan that you came up with?” Caleb asked once he was sure they were far enough down the tunnel so that Eric and Lance could not hear.

“I couldn’t come up with a good plan,” Katie said with a frown. “The biggest issue is archers. If we’re spotted outside of the castle, they’ll shoot us full of holes. If we’re discovered after we’re inside the castle but before we get inside the keep, they’ll shoot us full of holes when we enter the courtyard.”

“We can’t be too quiet because we have a six foot tall man of stone with us too,” Caleb said with a sigh.

“That’s true,” Katie said with a frown. “So why did you specify which prison tunnel earlier?”

“Nicolas told me that he was kept in that one, and he also said that it had been empty when he was brought there. I figure we might get lucky and find that there are no prisoners or guards there,” Caleb explained. “To be honest, I’d prefer that the only life we take today is the count’s, but I know that there will be others. This will be impossible if we try to only incapacitate our enemies.”

“That’s an intelligent decision,” Nicolas said. “I understand that you hate killing. It’s not something particularly enjoyable for any decent person.”

Katie nodded in agreement with her friend.

“I know,” Caleb said as he looked at Statue. “You know, I think I have an idea. Statue cannot be destroyed with arrows. He’s fast and pretty tough. If we are spotted, we could have him run out into the open, and I could shoot the archers when they try to take him out.”

“It’s better than anything I’ve come up with,” Katie admitted. “Since when have you learned to think tactically?”

“It’s a new thing I’m trying,” Caleb said with a light smile. “But anyways, the hardest part will be getting to the courtyard unnoticed. If we’re spotted entering the castle, we’ll have to deal with an army.”

“I guess the best option would be to sneak into the castle without alerting anyone, kill or incapacitate anyone we run into inside the castle, take out any and all sentries in the courtyard as fast as possible, and run as fast as possible to the keep, where we kill the count and escape through his escape tunnel,” Katie said.

“It won’t go like that, but yeah, that would be the best option,” Caleb agreed.

“Yeah, I can definitely agree that it won’t go like that,” Nicolas said with a nod. “We’re going to get caught at some point. It’s a given.”

Katie did not look like she disagreed with him at all.

“So is anyone going to say anything about this
golem
or not?” Nicolas asked as he looked warily at Statue.

“What’s there to say?” Caleb asked, genuinely confused by his friend’s question.

“Am I the only one nervous about it turning on us?” Nicolas asked with a sigh. “I owe Eric and Lance my life, but I don’t trust them. Maybe I should. I can’t see why they’d betray us now. But I’m not the type to trust someone I barely know… except for you, of course.”

“Don’t worry too much,” Caleb said as he looked his friend in the eyes with a reassuring smile. “We don’t need to worry about Lance or his father. They’re the least of our concerns.” He then looked onward. “Besides, I think I understand their reason for letting us borrow the golem.”

“Whatever you say,” Nicolas said with a shrug.

They left the matter at that as they continued walking in silence.

Chapter 17

The first part of their plan, it seemed, went off perfectly. They had gone all the way through the prison tunnels and were currently at the bottom of the stairs that went to the surface.

Judging by the lack of anyone up at the top of the staircase, they could tell that it was night time. Nicolas had told them that it would be well past sunset by the time they reached there, but it was even more comforting to see more accurate proof of it.

“Follow my lead,” Caleb said as he looked at his two friends and the hulking golem. “Move quietly, and don’t attract anyone’s attention.”

“Understood,” Nicolas and Katie said as the golem nodded its head once.

With that, Caleb crept up the stairs and moved to the door.

Pushing it open slightly, he took survey of the area. There were guards at the entrance the gate that separated them from the rest of the city, sentries on the wall that surrounded the castle, and guards at the entrance of the castle.

“Can you kill them all before they can alert anyone of our presence?” Katie asked quietly.

“No,” Caleb said as he eased the door back. “The sentries are spread out, and shooting several hundred yards at a dozen different targets that have the higher ground is beyond me. If Hector was here, he could do it, but I’m not even half as good as he is.”

“Who is Hector?” Nicolas asked. By the look on Katie’s face, it was clear that she did not know either.

“Hector was my teacher,” Caleb said with a soft smile. “He’s still alive, but I haven’t seen him since a few months before the Massacre of Kirakath.”

“What should we do?” Nicolas asked, changing the subject. “There are more guys out there than I expected.”

Without answering, Caleb pushed the door open, walked through it, and held his bow out in front of him.

Nocking an arrow and drawing it back so that one of its soft black feathers touched his cheek, Caleb took aim and released the bow string. A second arrow was nocked and drawn back before the first met its target. He proceeded to fire the second arrow a split second later.

Caleb immediately slung his bow across his shoulder, moved to the nearby grass, and dropped to a crouch with his black hooded cloak wrapped around him. Two soft thumps were heard as the guards on the sides of the castle entrance fell against the front wall of the castle and slumped to the ground. Due to their proximity to the wall and the soft leather of their armor, they made very little sound.

With his above average vision in the dark, Caleb could see that they appeared to have fallen asleep on the job, but he knew the truth. Each one had an arrow in their throat, and they had a large amount of blood covering the front of their clothes.

After a few minutes of staying under the cover of his cloak, he took a look at the sentries and saw that they were facing the rest of the city.

The odds of a group of people getting into the castle walls without them seeing would have normally been very unlikely, so it made sense that they would not think to look inside for a group.

Fortunately, the lighting was bad enough that very few people would have actually seen any more than a rough shape of someone inside the castle walls. And even more fortunately, Caleb could see clear features and shapes in the dark. His eyes were well adjusted to it, after all.

He glanced back to the door where his companions were still hiding behind, and he waved them forward. He could see Katie nod before she turned to tell Nicolas and crept through the door.

Caleb approached the castle in a crawl, his black hooded cloak dragging across the grass and hiding his form from anyone that may have looked his way.

Every now and then, he glanced back to check on his companions, and he saw that they were all following his example, even Statue. None of them would have been clearly visible had anyone thought to look for them.

As he came closer to the castle, he spotted his way into the castle.

As with many castles- or so he had heard in stories over the past six months- Castle Caldreth had a servant’s entrance. It was not too far away from the main entrance, but it was a smaller door that would not attract the attention that opening a pair of thick, eight foot tall wooden doors would.

He moved to the cobblestone walkway that went from the main walkway to the servant’s entrance seamlessly and only stopped moving once he reached the small wooden door.

A grimace crossed his features as he heard Statue and Nicolas walking on the cobblestone pathway. Katie was as quiet as he would expect a thief to be, but the other two were not skilled enough at silent movement to escape the attention of any nearby guards.

Thankfully, he had already taken out the only two guards that would have been close enough to hear them.

“Stay quiet,” Caleb whispered once they reached him. “Follow my lead, and don’t kill any servants. I don’t want to kill anyone without good reason, but it’s one thing to kill any enemy and another altogether to kill a bystander, especially when we can incapacitate them.”

With that, he eased the door forward and entered Castle Caldreth.

Caleb peered through the darkness of the servant’s passage as he slowly moved forward. It seemed that the servants had retired for the night already.

Something about the whole situation bothered him more than he expected. It took him a few minutes to understand what was bothering him, but he figured it out nonetheless.

It was too quiet.

He eventually stopped sneaking and simply started to walk through halls of the castle, following the directions to the courtyard that Nicolas had given him when they were back in the tunnels.

“Something’s wrong,” Katie said as they reached the doors that led to the courtyard. “There should be guards here. It almost seems like they left this part of the castle completely empty.”

“It’s a trap,” Nicolas said with a frown.

“Statue, rush the courtyard and kill anyone that attacks you,” Caleb said as he took a step back. “We need to set off their trap.”

Katie and Nicolas shared a look that hinted at their dislike of the idea, but neither one of them actually said anything about it. It was easy to see that they did not have any better ideas than Caleb’s.

The instant that Statue rushed through the doors, dread filled Caleb. Through the doors, he saw a dozen archers surrounding the courtyard, at least three dozen regular guards surrounding the court yard on the ground, and ten armor clad knights guarding the keep.

“Shit!” Nicolas cursed. “I don’t have any ranged weapons.”

“I have the archers,” Caleb said as he stepped through the door with his bow drawn and an arrow nocked. Neither of his friends had even seen him grab his bow, let alone arm it. “Take out the guards if you can. The knights will take all of our attention.”

Time seemed to slow down as Caleb pulled back his bow and released an arrow. By the time it hit the first archer, five more were airborne. Within a few seconds, all of the archers on the left side of the courtyard fell from the roof and hit the ground. A few seconds after that, the ones on the right side fell as well.

“Whoa,” Nicolas said as he saw the display. “You weren’t using the Blood of Kirakath either, were you?”