Rise of the Champion (The Sword of Kirakath Omnibus #1) (40 page)

“No,” Caleb said with a shake of his head. “But I’m down to six arrows.”

“Use them while you can,” Nicolas said as he unsheathed Caleb’s old sword.

As it turned out, Caleb did not need to be told that.

Of the forty guards that had been waiting in the courtyard for them, Statue had taken out ten of them. Six more were taken down within the next few seconds by Caleb’s bow.

Even if he had more arrows, Caleb knew that he would not have been able to use his bow anymore. The muscles that he only used to fire a bow were throbbing painfully. Instead, slung it over his shoulder and drew his sword.

Knives began to fly through the air towards the guards. A quick look revealed that Katie was the one who threw them.

The sound of steel against steel rang throughout the courtyard as the three friends met blades with the guards.

A hiss of pain was heard from Nicolas as a blow went through his guard and struck him in the stomach. The only thing that saved him from a severe injury was the banditine cuirass, but not even that could stop the blunt force that was exerted.

Caleb knew that he was in over his head as he parried and blocked most of the blows that came near him. Like Nicolas, several blows passed through his guard and struck him in the stomach and chest.

He knew that he could easily turn the tide of the battle if he used the Blood of Kirakath, but he was afraid of what he would do under its influence.

He could deal with the death of a close one. He had done it before.

But the death of a close one that he caused… that was another matter altogether. There was no doubt in his mind that it would destroy him.

And then it happened.

The sound of rock shattering filled his ears.

Looking to Statue, he saw that a knight stood behind the fallen golem with a flail in his hand. Spinning it in his hand, he brought it down on top of the golem again, reducing the magical being to pieces.

Looking around him, Caleb saw that the knights that had been guarding the keep, along with two more that he had not seen earlier, were surrounding them and the fifteen remaining guards.

The knight that held the flail spoke with a tone that carried a sense of finality.

“Surrender now and you shall live. Refuse and you will die. That is a vow.” Though the knight’s helmet hid his eyes, Caleb suspected that they held anger. “What do you choose?”

Caleb closed his eyes and lowered his sword, shocking Nicolas and Katie.

“You have perfect timing,” Caleb said calmly as he opened his eyes. “I’ll do it… but only if you can help us get out of this alive.”

Standing in front of the keep’s entrance, the spirit of Sir Edmond allowed a smile to cross his features. “Smart choice.”

With those words, he faded from view.

Chapter 18

Statue rose to his feet, shocking everyone present. His stone body began mending before their very eyes, but he looked different took.

In fact, he looked like an older version of Caleb.

Did he just possess that golem?
The thought was actually somewhat comforting.

Statue- or rather, Sir Edmond- spun around and punched the flail wielding knight in the face with enough force to snap his neck.

“Things would have been easier if you had accepted when we last met,” Sir Edmond said as he looked at Caleb. “But I must admit that having a body- even a stone one- makes it worth the wait I endured.”

With that, he picked up the fallen knight’s flail and began to spin it.

“You know… the whole talking without moving his lips is a bit creepy,” Nicolas commented.

“Kill now and talk later,” Caleb said with a shake of his head as he dashed forward and cut down one of the remaining guards.

With the loss of the presumed leader of the knights and the resurrection of the golem that they had been pitted against, along with a sudden boost in martial skills in it, the morale of the guards and knights was shot. It showed too.

Within a matter of minutes, the fight was concluded. Sir Edmond had personally killed all of the knights, while Caleb, Nicolas, and Katie all played a part in the deaths of the remaining guards.

“We need to get to the keep now,” Caleb said as he looked at Sir Edmond.

“I suspected as much,” he said as he looked around. “So long as you fulfill your end of the bargain, I will help you carry this quest out.”

“Why should we trust you?” Katie asked as she looked at the golem warily.

“You shouldn’t,” Sir Edmond said as he began to walk towards the keep. “If you trusted me already, I’d call you a fool. But what matters is that we get out of here as quickly as possible. If you wish to die here, then you may stay.”

“He has a point,” Nicolas said.

“I know,” Katie grumbled.

They all began to run towards the keep at that point, though only Sir Edmond was able to actually move fast. The others were still quite sore.

As they reached the doors, Katie said, “I don’t mean to interrupt, but there are at least fifty guards entering the courtyard.”

A cursory glance confirmed her words.

“In that case, I’ll bar the door until you finish your business,” Sir Edmond said as he opened the doors to the keep. As soon as they were all in, he pushed the doors shut and held them there. “If you’re looking for the count, he is alone in the audience chamber.”

“Thanks,” Caleb said as he rushed forward to the large doors that stood before them.

“We’ll stay here in case he needs help,” Katie said as she gestured to Sir Edmond, but Caleb understood that she was actually worried about him letting the guards into the keep voluntarily.

“Right,” Caleb said as he continued to the doors.

Upon opening the large doors of the audience chamber, Caleb saw that Count Clovis was sitting in his chair with a sword laid across the arms of it.

“Nice place,” Caleb said as he looked around the extremely plain room. It had absolutely no decorations in it, and the only piece of furniture in it was the chair that his foe was sitting in.

“I never liked it,” Count Clovis said as he rose to his feet and gripped the pommel of his sword. “This is only the tenth or eleventh time I’ve ever been in here. I prefer other places, but this is a wide open room with nothing to get in the way. If I’m to kill you, I might as well go all out.”

“Before we get to business, I have some questions for you,” Caleb said as he gripped his sword in both hands. “We won’t have time for questions after the fight is over, after all.”

Count Clovis chuckled at the suggestion. “If you can defeat me without killing me at the same time, I will answer all of your questions.”

“Fair enough,” Caleb said as he dashed forward. A few yards before he reached the count, he jumped and swung his sword in a vicious downward arc, forcing the older man to block it.

It was clear from the look on his face that Clovis had difficulty blocking Caleb’s attack.

“It’s easy to see why you hired someone else to kill me,” Caleb said as he jumped back. “You’re not good enough to do it yourself.”

“For all the good your youth does you, you still lack wisdom and good judgment,” Clovis said as he looked at Caleb analytically. “Why else would you come here to kill me? It would have been much safer for you to just find a place to hide.”

“I’m young,” Caleb said with a dark smile. “The young have to leave being cowards to older folks like you.”

“If you were half as clever as you are, you would be twice as clever as you actually are,” Clovis said as he moved forward and thrust his sword at Caleb’s chest.

Caleb spun around and parried the attack with his sword, disarming the count. He then proceeded to deliver a powerful kick to the older man’s midsection, knocking him to the ground.

“It looks like you defeated me,” Clovis said without any sign of worry. “I guess you really are a Son of Kirakath. This makes my defeat even worse though.”

“Stop your crazed blabbering and tell me what I want to know,” Caleb said as he took a step towards his enemy. “You promised me an answer if I could defeat you.”

“I did… didn’t I?” Clovis asked as he pressed his hand over his injury. “It’s only right that I spend my last moments being a man of my word.”

“Why did you order the Massacre of Kirakath?” Caleb asked with anger brimming under the surface. Controlling his anger at that moment was harder than he had ever expected.

“I didn’t,” Clovis said with a smile.

“But you ordered our assassinations,” Caleb said, completely caught off guard. “I assumed….”

“You assumed wrong,” Clovis said with a bitter laugh. “I tried to have you two assassinated because the Massacre of Kirakath was a failure, and I agreed with my master’s belief.”

Caleb had to fight off the desire to kill the man right there.

“What belief?” he asked cautiously.

“My master learned that the Blood of Kirakath flowed through two individuals: you and your father,” Clovis answered as he closed his eyes. “For the end of
his
bloodline, sacrificing a small village was worth it.”

“You’re talking about the last wielder of the Sword of Kirakath,” Caleb said with a frown.

“Sir Kirakath,” Clovis said with a nod. “He changed the world in ways that you could not even begin to imagine. His greatest sin outweighs all the good he did though. So long as his blood flows through the veins of a single person, the wrong that he committed cannot be fixed.”

“You’re despicable,” Caleb said as he lifted his sword. “You would sacrifice so many just to fix something that happened over four centuries ago?”

“Yes,” Clovis said. “Unless that wrong is made right, the world will be plunged into darkness.”

“The future is not set in stone,” Caleb said as he shook his head. “Now answer two final questions. One, why did you try to have Katie killed if you wanted me dead too. Two, who is your master?”

“If she learned that I had you killed, she would have tried to kill me herself,” Clovis said with a snort, no doubt taking the current situation into consideration. “As for the second… you will not learn that of me. I am no traitor. Everything I have done has been for Arcadia.”

“I hope that thought comforts you in the abyss,” Caleb said as he swung the Sword of Kirakath and decapitated him in a single swing. “Because if my father finds you on the other side, he’s going to show you just how merciful I am.

He sheathed his blade once he was done speaking and began to think about what the noble’s words truly meant.

Chapter 19

Caleb looked down at the corpse of Count Clovis for what felt like an eternity. The implications of what the man had said were not something he could just brush off. He finally had the first part of the answer as to why Kirakath was massacred. The only problem was that it was not an answer he had wanted.

He highly doubted that Clovis considered someone inferior in station to himself to be his master. The man spoke of loyalty to his country in his last words, not loyalty to his master. That seemed to imply that his master was someone superior to him in the hierarchy of Arcadia.

Could it be a Duke or something?

That thought did not sit well with him, but he preferred it to the possibility of someone even higher than a duke in terms of authority. After all, there were not that many people higher in terms of authority than a duke, and one of those was the king.

“Caleb, we need to get out of here.”

Caleb looked up at Katie as she stood in the doorway.

“Our new friend won’t be able to hold the doors shut for much longer,” Katie said.

“Right,” Caleb said as he walked over to the count’s chair and kicked it over. He then opened the hatch that had been beneath it.

“Nicolas, Edmond, we’re getting out of here!” Caleb said as he jumped through the hatch and landed on the ground of the escape tunnel in a crouch.

Barely taking in the surroundings of the straight, plain tunnel, he took off running.

Katie dropped down after him.

A few moments later, Nicolas and Sir Edmond did as well. Within seconds, the door to the keep appeared to be busted down.

That would have motivated Caleb to run even faster, but Sir Edmond’s words stopped him.

“I have an idea.”

Caleb looked back and saw Sir Edmond suddenly smash his fists into the walls of the tunnel. Within a matter of moments, he caused a cave in between them and the hatch that they had went through to get there.

“I guess being a golem isn’t all that bad, eh?” Nicolas asked with a chuckle.

“Anything’s better than being a spirit,” Sir Edmond agreed.

“The whole being able to talk without opening a mouth is still creeping me out,” Nicolas muttered as he took a step away.

“Enough talking,” Caleb said as he turned away from them. “We need to get out of here and do it in a hurry.”

“You have a plan?” Katie asked. “We’ll be hunted by a lot of people for killing a count.”