Windcatcher: Book I of the Stone War Chronicles (50 page)

“His attacks appear very random, sir…but surely the beast wouldn’t know what it’s doing?”

“Don’t be an idiot,” said Corza, and then continued, to himself, “why not go for the smaller ships, if you’re attacking anyway? They’re easier to take out. He seems to attack the south end only…something isn’t right.”

Corza thought it over and decided to play it safe.

“Go to the barracks and form a few small-sized patrol squads. Make sure the east and north end of the harbor are kept under watch and have them sound an alarm as soon as they see anything suspicious.”

“In the meantime, I’ll go and catch myself a dragon.”

And with that, Corza strode off to the stables, accepting one of the crossbows that were offered to him. Two other soldiers quickly followed him toward the south side.

Chapter 16

Chaos

Raylan and Sebastian quickly approached the slave cells, but both halted at the corner. They took a deep breath to ease their panting.

“Alright, just like we discussed. Use nonlethal force, if possible,” said Raylan.

Sebastian gave a short nod.

“Here goes nothin’.”

As they turned the corner, they walked over to the two guards at the door. Both Raylan and Sebastian gave the impression to come over in a hurry, but internally resisted the urge to run, not wanting to draw any attention.

“High-General Corza requests your presence at the south end. We’re here to take over,” said Sebastian in his most fluent Kovian, while pointing over his shoulder with his thumb.

Hearing the shouts and yelling coming from the south end of the harbor, both guards knew better than to second guess a High General’s order; they took off, right away.

Raylan waited until they were both out of sight, and then pushed open the door. The room was dark, with just a bit of light coming from two oil lamps in the corner. Two soldiers looked up at them. They appeared to play some sort of card game; a third, who ignored all of them, was busy sharpening his sword.

Looking at the face of the third soldier, Raylan’s heart skipped a beat as the adrenaline kicked in. It was one of the soldiers with his face marked as a skull. As if a dark shadow had fallen over the soldier’s face and ripped the skin off. It was not so much the look of the soldier that jolted Raylan’s alertness; he could feel an ice-cold murderous vibe coming off him. The same came from the other two at the stone arch. Back then, he had been lucky enough not to end up face-to-face with them, but that would not be the case, this time.

Being so close to the soldier, Raylan saw a lot more detail on the marked face. His white eyes stared out of black rings around the eyes, and his nose was completely blacked out to match the look of a skull; but his mouth was the eeriest part.

It must have been tattooed on. Raylan could not imagine a person being alive, if what he saw was truly the case. From afar, it had seemed the two soldiers at the stone arch had no skin below their nose, showing a row of teeth and muscles on the jaw. Now that he was closer, he saw that it was indeed a tattoo, too real for comfort. The tattoo design completely covered the jaw and cheeks of his face. It gave the impression the soldier was always slightly smiling, without lips or skin. The back and top of the head was completely colored black, as if a liquid shadow seeped over his face, like tar.

“Who’re you?” said one of the card players.

The question was lost on Raylan, being too occupied with the only armed soldier in the room. Besides, during the day he had quickly learned not to react, at all, to any foreign language directed at him. Sebastian would answer in his place, which would be the only time he needed to close the gap to this highest threat.

He heard Sebastian stutter some words. He looked back and saw Sebastian’s face locked on the skull-faced soldier. Raylan saw the fear in his eyes. It disrupted his concentration and blatantly revealed any inexperience in the Kovian language. Instead of quelling the guards’ suspicion, it instantly raised their alertness for this surprise visit.

Raylan expected it would not matter. He closed the distance to the armed soldier. The others would need to get around them, to reach their swords, although he did notice the dagger on the table. They would easily take control of the situation.

As he reached for his sword, he heard Sebastian speak to him in the Terran language, shattering any of the ruse that they might have had left.

“Raylan, no. We need to get out. He’s one of the Darkened,” his friend yelled.

But it was too late to turn back now. Raylan had already reached for his sword and began to draw. Turning his back on the man, and fleeing, would mean instant death. He just needed to cut down the skulled soldier, after which he could focus on the two lesser threats.

Unfortunately, the sound of his sword being drawn was a well-trained trigger for the Darkened one. With lighting speed, his enemy blocked his incoming horizontal slash. Pushing off to the left, the dark one let his chair tumble backward, away from Raylan. With ease, the soldier rolled across the floor, getting to his feet in one fluent motion. He grabbed another chair, close by, and swung it sideways into Raylan’s left flank. The chair shattered from the force, and Raylan felt instantly grateful they had put up with this heavier armor for the night. A sword attack followed from above, which Raylan parried to his left. Exchanging blows, back and forth, the two of them danced around the room.

In the meantime, Sebastian engaged the other two soldiers. Inexperienced in combat as he might have been before his capture, Sebastian had trained rigorously for many years, though not under any skilled supervision. The result was that his fighting style had very little structure, which made it lack focus; but also made it very difficult to interpret at the same time. In his first three swings, he cut down one of the two soldiers; unfortunately, the second soldier knocked away his sword, by using a chair. The fight looked more like a bar brawl than two soldiers trying to take each other out.

It was a good thing Galirras was outside, doing his best to make as much noise and chaos as possible. It kept the soldiers outside occupied, and hopefully, drowned out any of the loud noises their fight created.

Raylan, using two circular upward slashes, drove the Darkened backward, a few steps. The Silent Shadow immediately retaliated with a stab, turned backward, and slashed as he struck out with his sword. The reach of the backward turn, made Raylan take a step back; but as the slash passed his body, he quickly stepped in and moved passed the Darkened, slashing his left thigh on the edge of the armor. The wound was not deep enough to do any real damage, there was still too much armor in the way, but it was a start.

Unexpectedly, the Darkened lashed out with his left fist, hitting Raylan straight across the face. He felt the force of the blow as a tremor through his skull. Another slash came from above…too little time to dodge, so Raylan blocked it, locking himself to the Darkened by grabbing his wrist, as his enemy did the same with Raylan’s wrist. Raylan felt a sharp pain in his lower back as his kidneys were pushed into one of the higher tables.

Raylan stared into the Darkened’s face, barely four inches from his own, that was clearly meant to intimidate and terrorize the opponent. To his horror, Raylan saw that the mouth of his opponent was sewed shut. The tattoo hid most of the strings from view, when seen from a distance; facing him head on, the stitches were clearly going back and forth between the upper and lower lips. The Darkened opened his mouth, a crack, stretching the strings between his upper and lower lip, and made a hissing, gurgling threat which sounded inhuman. The smell of his breath was nauseating. It felt like Raylan was staring death in the eyes.

Raylan’s instinct kicked into overdrive, every fiber in his body wanted to get away from this dark entity. For a brief moment, Raylan even wondered if he would rather fight a ghol’m, but he quickly shook off his distracting thoughts. Raylan pushed back with all his might, before releasing all tension. Quickly shifting to the side, he used the force of his intimidator’s weight to slam the Darkened one’s head into the table.

It seemed to have little effect. The Darkened launched another parry of attacks, coming in low to the knee, followed by two slashes that marked a cross on Raylan’s torso armor. A third slash, across the chest, was dodged by Raylan as, once again, he moved in to take advantage of the small opening that was created.

As he stepped forward, he felt the soldier’s foot impact straight into his stomach. The Darkened had quickly adapted and fully expected Raylan’s attack to the other leg. The kick to his stomach sent Raylan crashing against a door, which flew straight open. Tumbling backward, Raylan rolled over his shoulder, getting directly back on his feet. The Darkened was already running at his full speed, but instead of blindly trying to strike straight through him, the soldier came at him with a diagonal upward slash to the left. It made it impossible for Raylan to destabilize his opponent’s footwork.

Sebastian was not making much progress either, exchanging blows with the soldier, using anything he could get his hands on to either throw at, or swing at, the enemy’s face. Regretfully, the enemy soldier had the advantage in size, being bigger and more muscular. The blows that Sebastian landed only served to give an opening to receive one or two counter blows. Most of the furniture had now been overthrown. Circling around a table, eyes locked on each other, the enemy guard flashed his eyes to the ground as he felt his foot hit something. With a grin, he quickly crouched and got back up; in his hand, the long dagger that had been stuck in the table during the card game. Sebastian’s sword, being useless at the other end of the room, there was little else to do but use the leg of a broken chair to shield any of the dagger’s slashes coming at him.

Raylan looked at his left arm. A stream of blood ran down his fingers from a blade cut across the back of his hand. Both he and the Darkened were panting heavily, while studying each other from a distance. Only now, did the change in surroundings seep into Raylan’s head. The door they crashed through led to the row of cells in which the slaves were kept. In the corner of his eyes, he saw the silhouettes of those who were locked up. Squirreled as far back into the corner as possible, the groups of prisoners looked no more than flat shadows in a dark cage. There was the smell of feces and urine coming from the cages, which had little more than straw on the ground.

The Darkened moved sideways, watching him like a hawk. It was studying his movements, learning from every move, exploiting Raylan’s every mistake. If he did not finish this quickly, he might not survive at all. He had to do something unexpected.

Once again, the Darkened one took the initiative. Two slashes Raylan dodged, another stab, he deflected, but he felt his wrist grabbed by the soldier, its grip felt like an iron clasp. The movement of the soldier prevented him from directly slashing the sword back toward Raylan, so he used the back of the sword and hit Raylan’s arm with such a force that he dropped his blade. Raylan gave a quick left hook and pushed his opponent away. He briefly glanced at his sword……he would never reach it alive, besides, the soldier was already coming at him again.

Having the advantage, the Darkened did not wait for Raylan to recover. He jumped forward, coming at him with a strong downward slash. In the blink of an eye, Raylan reacted with his own forward motion, completely closing the distance between them. Passing the blade’s cutting path, Raylan grabbed his enemy’s shoulders and threw himself backward. He increased the momentum by rolling backward and pushing off hard with his feet; throwing the Darkened into the steel bars of one of the cells. A loud
clang
sounded, like a ringing church bell on a silent morning. He heard the whimpers and surprised yelps from the slaves inside the cells.

The attack had less effect than Raylan hoped for. The Darkened got to his feet in a flash, ready to launch his next assault. Raising his right arm, with sword in hand, he stepped forward. He looked determined to make a more precise and calculated slash. All of a sudden, his movement was stopped when his hand was pinned to the steel bars. Two skinny arms held the Darkened’s entire arm, tightly, against the cell. Raylan saw the dirty, swollen face of Marek behind the bars.

Have they beaten him even more?

“Your sfword! Gewt your sfword,” shouted Marek, whose lips had now swollen so much it was hard to understand him.

Raylan looked around and spotted the metal instrument, instantly diving for it. By now, the Darkened one turned around and grabbed Marek by the back of his head, crushing his face against the steel bars of the cell. Raylan heard Marek grunt because of his face being forced against the bars. With the already present swellings and bruises, his face had to be in terrible pain. He tried to fight the powerful arms of the Silent Shadow, using all his strength to keep hold of the sword arm he locked his arms around.

Raylan saw the Darkened let go of Marek’s head and go for the dagger on his belt. He leaped at his enemy, before he had time to use the dagger on poor Marek. There was no chance of escape for the Darkened. As Raylan’s sword sank in the side of the soldier’s neck, the blade pierced straight down into the Darkened’s chest. He saw Marek stumble backward as he released the Darkened, who made a last attempt to save his own life. The soldier’s hand felt the blade grip that stuck out of his shoulder and tried to give it a pull. It was as if feeling the blade grip only made the fatal wound more of a reality for the Darkened soldier. Raylan saw the tension leave the soldier’s body as it slumped to the floor and stopped moving.