Into Oblivion (Book 4) (12 page)

Soon, he thought, the Raja of Pashir would be freed.

Garret appeared at the top of a tower amidst a beautiful island night. He peered over the edge of the battlements, looking over the complex that lay below him. It was a prison, he was told, that housed many of the enemies of The Lifegiver; those that could be used as tools in his favor.

His mission, the Great Mother had told him, was to provide support for a rescue attempt led by the rightful heir to the throne of Khem. There would be a powerful darkness here, and his task was to eliminate the threat so that Hamal and the priests of Imbra could perform their mission successfully. Without Garret’s aid, the mission could fail.

The assassin decided to take another approach.

Being an opponent of any kind of breech of freedom, Garret would eliminate the Jindala presence completely, and liberate the entire prison. It was doubtful that any of the prisoners belonged here anyway.

Do not stray from your task, Garret.

Garret was surprised to hear the Great Mother’s voice, but responded almost immediately.

“I will not,” he said. “The prisoner will be rescued, but the rest of them will be released as well. And I will kill every Jindala on this island.”

I fear your choices will bring darkness to your heart. I need you to remain pure in spirit.

“I understand, Mother,” he said. “But my heart is already hardened. You brought me back for a reason, and I will do your bidding. But I have my own will, as you have granted me, and I will follow it.”

The Great Mother was silent for several minutes. Garret waited patiently for her to respond. She did, finally, saying only one word of warning.

Enkhatar.

Garret knew the word; he knew the creature. The Enkhatar had been on Eirenoch, and had killed many people around the world. They were ruthless servants of darkness.

If they were here, he would destroy them.

Hamal stumbled upon a row of prison cells. They were three foot high, as long as a man, and stacked three high along the walls of the chamber he found. He held his sword out before him, following its guidance to find the object of his mission.

Lying casually on his side in a middle cell was a dark-skinned, wavy haired man. He was chewing on something that looked rather unappetizing, and staring at Hamal with curious eyes. Hamal smiled, moving closer to the cell to get a better look at the man.

“Jadhav?” he asked.

The man nodded. “I am,” he said. “Who are you?”

“My name is Hamal. I am here to set you free.”

The man said nothing, but pointed to the cells around him. “I am not leaving unless they, too, are freed.”

That was exactly what Hamal was expecting to hear. Imbra had said that Jadhav was an honorable man, and would attempt to free the other prisoners. But Hamal had never guessed he would do so at the cost of his own freedom.

“Tell me how to open the cells, and I will do so… all of them.”

Jadhav leaned toward the bars, pointing to the door on the opposite wall. “There is a lever on the other side of that door,” he said. “But you must be sure you are ready to fight if you are to pull it.”

“Why is that?” Hamal asked.

“You don’t think the Jindala are just going to let you run around their comfy little prison pulling levers, do you?”

“I suspect not,” Hamal replied.

“Good. Because once you free this block of prisoners, they will riot and all Hell will break loose. Are you ready for all Hell to break loose?”

“As far as I am concerned,” Hamal began. “All Hell has already broken loose.”

Jadhav chuckled. “Then pull the lever, my friend.”

Hamal immediately went to the door, opening it without hesitation. The lever was right there where Jadhav said it would be. He pulled it without thinking. The bars on each cell fell open, and the prisoners stirred with the noise. Jadhav casually hopped out of his own cell, stretching his back and legs.

“Ah!” he said. “It feels good to stand up again. Out, you fools!”

The prisoners dropped out of their cells, each one stretching and chattering in glee.

“This is Hamal,” Jadhav said to them. “He has freed us. Thank him.”

The prisoners gathered around Hamal, thanking him in their various languages. He saw people of Khem, Pashir, Thyre, and even a few Northmen.

“Do you have weapons?” Jadhav asked.

“I do not,” Hamal answered. “But there is a weapons rack outside the door.”

Jadhav nodded, leading the freed men through the door. Hamal heard the clank of weapons being drawn from the rack, and the excited chatters of the men as they prepared for their insurrection. Jadhav poked his head through the door.

“Shall we begin?” he said. Hamal smiled.

Garret crept through the corridors of the prison, keeping to the shadows that were seemingly abundant. Throughout the incursion, the assassin had felt the presence of the great darkness, and kept his route away from it for the time being. The prisoners would come first, he felt, and then the enemy could be dealt with.

As he rounded a corner, a doorway along the wall further caught his attention. He heard hurried footsteps and some chattering in the Jindala language. Drawing his saber, he rushed to the side of the door, waiting for the guards to come through. When the two men entered the hallway, Garret sprung from the shadows dispatched them quickly.

His saber was a flash of steel that danced around the guards, severing their spines in two quick strikes. Before their bodies even hit
the floor, the assassin was on the move again.

Too easy,
he chuckled.

“Sound the alarm!” a Jindala soldier said, seeing the crowd of prisoners rushing at his post. Their faces were twisted in rage, and their howls echoed their mounting insurrection.

Jadhav and Hamal led the charge, picking up their pace as the guards scrambled to close the heavy steel door. Hamal’s bow went into action, taking down the two men who attempted to block their path. The door was practically knocked off its hinges when the men impacted it.

As they crowded through the door into the main area of the prison, the sound of bells was heard in the distance. Now the entire prison was alerted to their pending escape, which would make things more difficult for them.

“Split up,” Hamal said. “Free as many as you can. You all know where the rest of the prisoners are. Liberate them! We will meet on the south side of the island!”

The men howled in agreement, Jadhav taking half of them down the left corridor, Hamal taking the right.

“Gather the weapons of the fallen,” Hamal commanded his men. “Give them to the able-bodied and protect those who cannot fight!”

The Enkhatar looked at the prison courtyard below. The grounds were a bustle of activity, with guards rushing everywhere in a panic. A riot was ensuing, and the chance of prisoner escape was imminent. Glaring at each other, the two dark knights silently conveyed their plan. They would split up and quell the rebellion from opposite sides of the island.

None would escape.

Garret heard the bells in the distance, sighing at the inconvenience of the new development. He preferred silent infiltration over outright battle, but now the plan had changed. He would have to find the cell blocks as soon as possible and free as many men as he could.

The more prisoners he freed, the more chaos he could cause.

He followed the sounds of chanting prisoners who were still in their cells. Along the walls of a larger hallway, he saw, there were several heavy doors with barred windows. To their left were levers that the assassin assumed would control the cell doors. He peered into the window of one of the doors, seeing the stacked rows of cells that contained the prisoners in cramped quarters.

Garret rushed along the hallway, pulling the levers and opening the doors in turn. The excited shouts of the men inside rose in a crescendo as he freed each cell block.

“Go!” he shouted. “Fight for your freedom. Leave none alive!”

Hamal’s troops charged another group of guards in their quarters. The prisoners mobbed around them, pulling them to the ground and stomping them to pieces with angry shouts. Hamal cheered them on with howls of his own.

The victorious prisoners looted the bodies of the guards, delegating the weaponry among them and urging Hamal to move on. The prince led them through another set of doors, and the group came upon another cell block.

It was empty. Someone had freed them.

“Jadhav could not have come this way already,” Hamal noted.

“Perhaps there is another,” a prisoner offered.

Hamal shrugged, leading the group into the next block. Here, there were few cells, but they were larger. Large enough to accommodate prisoners of another type.

As Hamal approached the only inhabited cell, the face of a horrifying man stared back at him. The man, nearly twice the size of a normal man, was scarred, deformed, and his face was a mask of deep sorrow. Feeling empathy for him, Hamal grasped the bars of the cell to get a better look at his eyes.

They were the eyes of a broken man; devoid of hope, and glazed over with the stench of pain.

“My friend,” Hamal said. “What manner of creature are you?”

The giant leaned in closer, his large hands shielding his eyes from the light of the blocks torches.

“I am but a man of Thyre,” he said. “Once a farmer, now a prisoner.”

“Why did the Jindala imprison you?”

The man sighed, gesturing at his own visage. “Simply because of this.”

Hamal nodded. “No more,” he said, nodding to his men to open the cells. “I am Hamal, true heir to the throne of Khem, and I proclaim you a free man.”

He stepped back as the lever was pulled, allowing the bars to fall away and the giant man to step out. When he rose to his full height, Hamal could see that he was at least three heads taller.

“What is your name, friend?” he asked.

“I am Gordius,” the giant said. “And I thank you.”

Jadhav and his men had reached the stairway up to the prison’s wall. To the west, they could see the reception area, complete with a port for accepting prisoners. The docks were occupied by three ships; enough to carry all of the prisoners of the island back to the mainland. Jadhav felt the excitement of his men as they saw the ships… and their freedom.

“We must not forget our brothers,” Jadhav said. “We will all be free, or we will die in the process. But we die as free men.”

As he looked to the men behind him, he saw the passion in their eyes. They would have their revenge, and they would bask in the glory of their deaths, if it came to it. They would fight to the death, and take as many of their captors with them.

“Onward!” Jadhav shouted.

Below, in the prison courtyard, the bustling of Jindala activity was chaotic and deafening. Jadhav’s group, having acquired bows, lined the walls and took aim.

Guards dropped like rocks as the arrows rained down on them. Jadhav directed them to fire at the most important targets; those who worked the gates, and those who manned the ballistae.

“Take them down,” he shouted. “Kill them before they fire their weapons!”

But it was too late.

A section of wall was shattered as a huge steel bolt impacted just below the battlement. Men screamed as they were scattered, many of them landing broken and lifeless.

“Run!” Jadhav shouted, snatching up a bow.

He looked down at the massive crossbow that had fired, seeing its marksman loading it for another shot. He drew back his bow and took aim, firing his arrow just as the soldier began to crank back the weapon. Jadhav’s arrow caught the man square in the chest, knocking him back into a lifeless heap. Jadhav followed with more arrows, firing on the run as he led his men to the outer stairway.

It seemed most of his men would escape.

The priests of Imbra had met up again at the opposite side of the prison. Their ability to blend into the shadows had afforded them more time to free prisoners, as their presence went unseen. Now, they felt the presence of not only a vile darkness, but a divine light as well.

They entered the courtyard as the battle was taking place, focusing their attention on a cloaked man who dashed among the enemies, taking them out with lightning speed. They watched as he pursued two officers along a sunken channel. Ahead of him, a small bridge crossed the channel, and two more officers were preparing to run across it.

As the Jindala passed over the dark man, he leaped onto the bridge, landing squarely on the railing. His bow, fired in two successive shots, took out the officers, and then he disappeared into the channel again to continue his pursuit.

“Impressive,” a priest said to the rest. “I wonder who he is.”

“It matters not,” another replied. “He is on our side. Let us continue.”

Garret fired two more shots, hitting the fleeing officers in front of him. He shouldered his bow, then leaped out of the channel onto the main courtyard to enter the battle.