Sentinels: Forsaken Knight (22 page)

“But I…”

“You sell yourself short too often, Anye,” Amadi interrupted. “You are quite skilled at using magic along with your martial prowess. You simply favor defensive spells over offensive ones. Do not lose your confidence. We’re going to need it.”

Anye continued to be dumbfounded left and right. Everything in the past few days had been something she never would have expected. If it wasn’t enough that she found herself to be the inheritor of a talking sword, she was the blood descendant of Armonde Schultz, which meant that the name Lord Taggart had given her about her birth parents wasn’t a coincidence, much like Glenn’s surname.

“Wait,” she said and stopped in her place on the stairs. Glenn and Amadi looked up at her questioningly. “If Glenn and I are both related to heroes of the legendary war, and their weapons can only be wielded by their descendants, then Amadi must be a descendant too.”

Amadi smiled and nodded his head slowly. “Indeed I am, Anye,” he told her. “Legeia was wielded by Bethany Lightstone, and I am her descendant, though I was not fortunate enough to inherit her name like you two inherited yours.”

“This can’t be a coincidence,” Anye commented.

“It is not,” Darius chimed in. “Though Master Glenn did not realize it when he laid eyes on you, the three of you coming together was foreseen long before your births.”

“What?” Glenn asked. “Why didn’t you tell me this, Darius?”

“The dragon has the answers,” the spear replied. “Speak with him. He shall tell you everything.”

“Eisenzahn?” Glenn asked, but the weapons remained silent. “Darius, tell me,” he demanded, but still the lance’s spirit did not speak. “Bah, stubborn old man…spirit.”

The trio continued in silence. Anye contemplated the circumstances that led to their current location and situation more seriously, and on a grander scale of thought. Simple coincidence was no longer a viable explanation, with their situation having been preordained. Such a revelation worried them all whether they wanted to admit it or not.

The silence broke when they reached the ground floor and saw the open door pouring sunlight in to the darkened chamber. The sound of the great dragon’s breathing echoed up to them. Anye worried about the trial she was to face. Alistair revealed no details about it or what it would entail, but she suspected it would present itself when they reached the door.

It was like the dragon sensed their presence behind him. As they approached, he stood and turned to face them, lowering his head to be eye-level with the humans, and glared at Anye as if looking in to her soul.

“Child, I see you have recovered the arms of your bloodline,” the dragon said to her. “Well done, but now you must prove your worth.”

“And what must I do, dragon?” Anye asked. She wasn’t happy about having to do
anything
more, and she wasn’t going to pretend to be.

“Step outside. You shall see,” Eisenzahn told her.

The creature spread his wings and took the sky before she placed a foot on the dirt outside of the tower, kicking up a dust storm around her. Anye closed her eyes and put an arm over her mouth to keep the dirt from getting inside as she took a step forward. She felt the effects of the trial begin just as her foot fell.

“What!?” she yelled. Anye turned to look to Glenn and Amadi for some kind of explanation, but as the dust settled she saw that they were nowhere to be found. “What is this? What’s going on!?”

Anye spun and looked everywhere, but neither her human companions nor the giant dragon were anywhere to be seen, even in the air above. The sound of stone cracking and breaking in front of her caught her attention. She looked out through what had once been the decrepit garden at the base of the tower to see that the figures placed all about were shaking free of their pedestals, shedding the gray stone skin and revealing the unnatural red flesh underneath.

“What is this!?” she cried out as she drew her new sword. “Alistair, what’s happening!? Where are Glenn and Amadi!?”

“This is your trial, Master,” the sword answered. “They cannot help you here. This is something you must do alone. Emerge victorious against your foes, and the rite of succession shall be complete. Fail, and perish.”

“Oh, that’s comforting…” Anye replied sarcastically.

The high pitched wail of the creatures in front of her chilled her to the bone. She had never heard such a hellish cry, and a lesser person would have wet themselves and tried to flee. She
wanted
to flee, but something inside her wouldn’t let that happen.

The first demon flew at her from the crowd quickly, using its small thin wings for momentum. It was brandishing a small axe in its hand that looked like it was made of bone and rock. Anye’s reflexes kicked in and she managed to block the attack with her shield and cut the creature down from the air quickly, but instead of spilling blood and falling to the ground, it disintegrated in the air, turning to dust and dispersing in the wind.

“What…what just happened to it?” she asked.

“These creatures are…not natural to this world,” Alistair explained. “They do not have the same characteristics are man or beast. They are beings of nearly pure magical energy. Cutting them down severs the magic keeping them alive, and turns their bodies into dust.

“How is that possible? Magic needs to be controlled,” Anye persisted.

“And so it is, to a point. But these creatures have lost conscious control, and mindlessly serve their master, Stragus. For that, they must be destroyed.”

The explanation didn’t make much sense, but there wasn’t any time to think about it. The creatures obviously wanted her dead, which meant she needed to kill them. She was a knight, trained in the way of the sword and had taken lives before. This would be no different.

Anye moved through the small horde of demonic creatures with ease, enchanting her sword with magic that helped it cut through an opponent’s protective spells, and her shield with a charm that would help push them back. Both uses of magic were spells she already knew, but Alistair’s memory infusion, coupled with Amadi’s training exercises, boosted their potency remarkably.

“Very good, Master,” Alistair said as she sliced through another of the foul creatures. “You tap in to your ancestral skills quite well.”

“I’ve had some practice,” Anye remarked. She jumped away after killing a couple more of the grotesque creatures to survey how many remained. There were only three left, each standing in front of her and screaming angrily as she stood there. She assumed it was because she was still alive and their friends had all been cut down.

“I’m getting tired of this,” Anye said to them. She used as much magic as she could gather and effortlessly entered the state of enlightenment, feeling the overwhelming power come over her. Her eyes glowed white as the air around her swirled and kicked the dust up. The strength, speed, power; all of it was just as exhilarating as the first time she felt it, only without the fear and lack of control. She felt omnipotent, invincible even.

The demons each moved against her, but the state of enlightenment made them look as if they were moving in slow motion. She could tell what they were intending before they did. With her sword held high, she struck. She moved through the first of the demons, cutting through its chest like butter, using the same momentum to spin and decapitate the second, coming around to reverse-stab the third from behind her. She removed the sword and turned again, kicking the creature away from her with such force that it tumbled to the ground. Anye jumped on to the creature’s chest and swung the sword’s blade low across its neck, turning her last opponent to dust.

“Impressive…” Alistair commented.

Anye released the magic she was using and felt her head go dizzy for a second. “I guess even with this newfound strength, that’s still difficult to manage…”

“Indeed, such capabilities require much discipline, but you have performed admirably. The trial is concluded,” Alistair answered.

Anye stood as the dust around her swirled again, similar to how it did when Eisenzahn took to the sky, but this time it only lasted a second. When it settled, she looked around to see that Glenn, Amadi, and Eisenzahn had reappeared where she last saw them near the tower’s entrance. The statues of the demons were all in piles of rubble where they originally stood as well, as if they had crumbled upon themselves instead of what she saw happen.

“Anye!” Glenn shouted as he ran towards her. “You disappeared…what happened to you?”

“The trial happened,” Anye answered without going into detail as she placed Alistair back in his sheath. “But I’m fine…hungry, and very thirsty, but fine.”

Glenn sighed in relief. “Good,” he said, relieved. “The sun is starting to set. We should go to the village and rest. There’s much we should talk about.”

"Yes, there is," she replied. "But how about a ship instead?"

Anye and Glenn sat themselves down in a set of chairs within her cabin aboard
The Empress.
Small flames danced in the darkness from the candelabras on the walls of the cabin. A single candle stood on the small wooden table between them. Amadi, in his youthful wisdom, noticed the desire for the pair to converse alone, and decided to spend the evening with the crew below deck and uncharacteristically indulge in some ale and storytelling. The way he figured it, he’d been through more than most elderly people in a lifetime and he deserved to unwind a little bit, although Legeia didn’t agree and nagged him the whole way down.

Eiesnzahn thought it would be best if he remained on the shore so as not to frighten the crew. They saw him, of course, as he flew the trio down from the mountains and across the desert back to the rowboat Anye and Amadi had taken ashore, but they assured the captain and crew that he wasn’t a threat. Glenn’s promise of an additional sum of money for the extra passenger also helped the captain make the decision to trust the newcomer, and he welcomed him aboard.

Lookouts in the crow’s nest of the ship had spotted Tao Long’s naval fleet move back in to position through the use of their spyglasses, and it appeared that the islanders hadn’t noticed the ship’s presence near the desert shore and remained some distance at sea. It was either that or they believed the crew to be dead from some curse or sorcery due to their superstitious view of the landmass, however accurate the stories turned out to actually be.

Alistair and Darius were placed near the beds Anye and Amadi had slept on during their voyage across the sea. Neither presented any argument to being placed away from their owners as they conversed with each other, opting instead to go to sleep or a state of meditation. Anye wasn’t particularly sure
what
it was the spirits did and Glenn didn’t provide an answer, but they kept quiet and that was all she wanted.

“It really is good to see you again,” she said to him. Her heart raced. “But what happened to you? What happened in Delrich after you helped me escape?”

Glenn looked away as he searched through the memories. Anye saw that the thoughts bothered him, but she wanted to know. She needed to know what had happened to him and their home.

“The night of your…disappearance, did not go quite as I had planned,” he began to explain. “I’m not entirely sure how he knew, but Amador showed up at the castle’s dungeon as I was making my exit after you went through the old passageway. I, of course, fed him my story of you surprising me and fleeing, but he saw right through me. The next morning he had already told the king about your escape and I was having doubt cast upon me by the man who raised me as a son. I don’t know why he listened to him or how Amador gained His Majesty’s unwavering trust so quickly, but he convinced him that my loyalty to the crown was debatable.”

Glenn paused as he looked out through the window at the starry night. “Amador was suggesting that I not only be stripped of rank and title, but be tried for treason and thrown in the dungeons. Thankfully King Justin isn’t
that
big of a fool, and he recognized what Amador was trying to do; remembering our past quarrels with each other over the years. But he believed he had a point. I was sent to Toran, alone, and stripped of my link with my dragon to investigate reports a feral dragon that had been attacking herders while in the mountains. Honestly, while I didn’t want to leave, it turned out to be the best thing that could have happened.”

“What do you mean?” Anye asked. “You look like you’ve been through hell and back, Glenn.”

“Well I’m not proud about it but I was almost sent there,” Glenn replied. “I visited your family before I departed. Have you heard from your father? He was quite worried about you.” He looked like he regretted asking the question as the words finished exiting his lips.

Anye nodded her head, remembering the letter she had received. “He wrote a letter. Lord Taggart, in Bridge Port, delivered it to me.”

“Lord Taggart is a good man,” Glenn replied while looking surprised. “I’ve met him before…even escorted Prince Robert, rest his soul, to attend his yearly tournament. Quite a show he puts on for his people.”