Soul Relenter (Soul Saga #3) (29 page)

Accacia turned around and surveyed
the battle and saw the gleam of dancing swords as they clanged together in their throes. She heard the audible sounds of metal being scraped against metal as the attack waged on through the street. Accacia realized this fight was taking longer than they planned. They hadn’t anticipated so many guards to be awake and prepared for battle. Accacia saw Zyle stare at her while he swung his sword with this opponent, checking her surroundings for her safety. He decapitated the guard then kicked the corpse aside. He stepped toward Accacia and looked at her in horror. A man had risen from behind her, bleeding from the chest, and he had a sword held in his hand, ready to stab Accacia through the back. Zyle reached for his dagger and was about to throw it when the man was impaled with an Asquithian sword through the stomach. He fell to the floor, lifeless. Accacia saw the ancient blade fly past her face and vanish behind her. She turned around to see the target and saw the dead guard on the floor. Accacia hadn’t noticed he was there. She thought she killed him. She looked up and Roxian nodded to her. Roxian withdrew another blade from her belt and pursued the man next man who came at her. Accacia watched her for a moment then turned away, hearing the sound of progressing soldiers down the cobbled street. Accacia gripped her sword as she saw them approach. It was never going to end. Zyle ran to her and held his blade at the ready. “Do you need some help, m’lady?”

Accacia smiled at him. “No. B
ut it would speed things along.”

Accacia ran to the first man and parried the blade aimed at her heart. She returned his attack with her own vicious strike and killed the man within seconds.
Two men advanced on Accacia. One man engaged her from the front while another approached her from the left, hoping to attack her while she was engaged with the first soldier. Accacia was completely aware of him and she moved away from the swing of his blade with grace while she struck at the soldier, wanting to kill him first before she destroyed the nuisance to her side. She beheaded the soldier then turned to the man aiming for her side, but he dropped his sword suddenly and his body became rigid. He fell over with a three-bladed throwing dagger carved into his neck and he choked on his own blood as he tried to breathe. He stopped shaking and died with his eyes open, lying on top of the already sizable mound of bloody corpses. Accacia pulled the dagger from his neck and appraised it. She recognized the blade. Aleco ran up from behind her and took the blade from her hand, wiping the dagger on the clothing of a dead guard. “You need to be quicker,” he said as he dashed off. Accacia ignored him and returned to the fight.

More soldiers flooded
into the streets and Accacia didn’t understand where they were coming from. She looked at the walls of the fortress and watched the men fire arrows into the crowd, killing Asquithians and distracted guildsmen, and an idea came to her. She grabbed all the fallen arrows she could gather from fallen bodies and stuffed them into her already full quiver and climbed the wall, using the ledges and indents in the stone to hoist her body up. Zyle and Aleco spotted her movements and watched her closely as they engaged their opponents. They couldn’t reach her in time to stop her. She pulled herself over the ledge and was standing on the walkway. She could see everything from this position. The guards noticed her approach and stopped unleashing their arrows, turning their aim on the Asquithian Queen. Accacia withdrew her blade and blocked the arrows as they rained on her. She didn’t have a shield. She stepped closer to them and kept stopping their arrows with her glowing green blade, slashing at them before they reached her. She inched her way to the guards and they fired more arrows at her, attempting to kill her before she reached them. Their arrows bounced from the emerald blade and fell at her feet, severed in the middle of the shaft. Accacia decapitated the men when she reached them then sheathed her blade. She withdrew her bow and fired her arrows into the crowd, executing the guards in the street below. Accacia killed every man she impaled, aiming her arrows to kill with a single shot. She had a limited inventory and every arrow need to inflict the most damage. She picked the guards off one by one and killed the approaching soldiers before they could even make it to the street, protecting the warriors under her command. Zyle was engaged with a soldier when a guard approached him from behind, preparing to stab the King in the back. Accacia shot him down before he could thrust his sword into her life partner. The guard fell to the floor. Zyle didn’t notice. Accacia sighed in relief at the death of the soldier. Zyle could have died if she hadn’t looked at him just then. Aleco was executing the men he fought with ease, making a pile of bodies around him, and Accacia stared at him for a moment. Aleco killed seven guards in the few seconds Accacia watched him.

All the bells of the realm were ringing frantically, alerting the entire province of the attack on the city. Ever
y gated entryway had a set of alarm bells, and the sound of the unified music was a cacophony of noise in Accacia’s ears. Paso Robles was a huge realm. The streets were full of merchant shops and homes, and the palace in the corner of the city was large enough to rival the size of Aleutian Keep. Accacia prayed the entire city wasn’t saturated with Drake’s men. They would be easily outnumbered. The Queen felt the wind blow through her hair within the hood of her cloak as she fired into the crowd below her feet. The wind picked up and she felt her body stiffen in alarm. She looked up and saw the catapults launch from the inner district of the city.

Acca
cia ran to the left of the wall, trying to dash away from the falling boulders aimed directly for the landing she was standing on. Accacia assumed the guards were frightened by the attack on their realm if they were willing to destroy the city to keep the intruders away.

S
he slung her bow over her shoulder and sprinted down the walkway. She felt the floor tremble under her feet as she dashed across the landing and further to the left of the walkway. The foundations of the ground were loosening and the stones were crumbling before her feet, turning into pieces of boulder and stone that caved in. Accacia looked down at the roof of the house ten feet away. She felt the wall swing forward after the collision, falling toward the street of the city, directly into the war zone within the realm. Accacia jumped from the broken wall and landed on the roof of the house, rolling across the tile top of the structure. The momentum of her body hurled her forward and she couldn’t stop herself. She slid down the roof until she came to the edge of the second story building. She was holding on by both hands.

The house creaked as the wall slammed into it and she
knew the structure of the building wouldn’t stand the weight of the stone walkway. She released her grip and fell to the lower roof then dropped to the ground. She sprinted away from the falling house and was out of the way before both the wall and the house collapsed into the street, making an impassable wall fifteen feet into the air. Clouds of dust billowed from the site of the crash and rose into the sky, blocking the view of the gleaming stars in the summer evening.

Accacia felt th
e panic course through her body. She was trapped on this side of the wall. The rest of the city was in her direction but her kinsmen and her companions were restricted to the other side of the mass of rubble. They could climb over the barrier but it would take hours. It would be quicker to find another way through the winding streets of Paso Robles. Accacia prayed her life partner was safe, that he survived the fall of the wall. She couldn’t even contemplate his death without fainting on the spot. Aleco’s face rose into her mind and she felt her heart squeeze. The loss of Aleco was more than she could bear. Accacia forced the thought from her mind. There was nothing she could do about it now.

Accacia ran up the street and
leaned into the side of the wall, hiding her body in shadow. The city had sunken into an eerie silence after the collapse of the wall. The guards were listening for the sound of any survivors. She continued up the street, heading toward the palace in the corner of the city, the one she had seen on top of the gated walls. Accacia didn’t have a plan and she wasn’t sure what to do next. Aleco’s expectations for the siege of the city had fallen far below his hope. Accacia feared they wouldn’t survive the encounter, let alone escape with the prisoners and return to Orgoom Forest in a timely fashion. She sprinted up the street and avoided the detection of the guards. Their attention was focused on the collapsed wall at the western gate of the city. They assumed everyone was dead. Accacia hoped they were wrong. As she passed by the houses and buildings on either side of the street, she saw men and women dressed in filthy rags walk away from the shadows of their tents, looking down the street to identify the source of the commotion. Accacia pitied the look of fear on their faces but she knew she couldn’t assuage their fright now. She couldn’t even control her own.

The number of guards increased
as she approached the palace of Paso Robles. They were standing in front of the keep, directing groups to head to the western wall and kill the traitors who had attacked their city. Accacia unsheathed her green sword as she approached them out of the darkness. She knew there was a commander of the city, a man who orchestrated the guards and the events of the province he supervised. She hoped by capturing or killing him she would be able to take control of the realm.

The guards noticed
her appearance as she stepped into the light of the torches. They pulled their steel blades from their scabbards and turned to her, ready to engage the singular opponent. Most of them wore no armor, unprepared for an uprising on their city. Accacia was outnumbered at least twenty to one. She wasn’t frightened of the odds. She withdrew her guild blade from her belt, holding both swords in her hands. Accacia was thankful Laura had forced her to become proficient with both palms. It would ensure her survival in the upcoming fight.

One man approached her with his hand raised
. “Step down and surrender,” he commanded. “Give it up.” He stepped toward her but did not attack. The soldier was tall with thick muscles covering his body. His brown eyes blended into the darkness of the night. Only the shine of the torches was reflected in his eyes, glinting in the light of the flames. He tried to see the face of the intruder, determine any features he could, but it was useless in the blackness. The burning torches along the walls suddenly extinguished and left Accacia and the soldiers standing in the darkness, unable to see more than a few feet ahead of them. The flames of the torches had been extinguished by a sudden breeze of wind, and Accacia felt her heart relax. Aleco was alive. The Nature Priest must have called upon his power of elemental control through the connection with the Lorunien Tree and manipulated the air, blowing out all the lights of the city, giving the Asquithians an even greater chance of annihilating the soldiers. The man flinched at the sudden lack of light but he stood his ground. “Who is foolish enough to attack one of the largest cities on the Continent?”

Accacia walked toward
him and stared at the worried expression on his face. His neck muscles were strained under the tension of his frame. His veins were throbbing in the skin, coursing with the adrenaline swirling through his body. Accacia pitied him. She didn’t want to kill him. “If you surrender I will spare your life and set you free. I will not imprison you or torture you. Please lower your weapons.”

The guard flinched at the voice of the aggressor. It was feminine; beautiful and strong and contained a commanding air. The stress of his bod
y melted away at the revelation. It was a woman. He shook his head. “I really have no interest in killing a woman, but I will if you force me to. Lower your weapons and come to me.”

Accacia sighed. “I apologize in advance.” She raised both of her swords and charged him.
Before he could react, she stabbed him through the chest, penetrating his ribs and severing his heart in half. She moved away from him with no emotion. “Who’s next?” she asked. The guards attacked her, unafraid of the savage way she had executed their comrade, and she directed her blades for their necks. Two of them attacked her at the same time, but she blocked their strikes with both of her blades. She kicked the man to her right in the knee, breaking the kneecap, and he buckled to the floor in agony. She killed the man to her left with the swipe of her sword then stabbed her blade deep into the neck of the already compromised man. Accacia moved forward to the next guard and killed him without blinking. The last two men dropped their swords and fell to their knees, hands in the air.

“Please spare me,” one man begged. “I surrender. I surrender.” Accacia lowered her weapon and turned away, looking for ro
pe or string to restrain their hands. She bent over to grab the thick rope she found on the side of the street when she heard the audible swish of a steel blade through the air. She had almost been decapitated. If she hadn’t kneeled down at that precise moment she would have been killed. Anger coursed through Accacia’s body. She had offered the men mercy and in exchange they tried to kill her, taking advantage of her empathy. She kicked her leg out behind her and the man toppled to the ground. She grabbed her sword from her belt and stabbed him through the stomach, the most painful wound she could administer. The man cried in agony as she savagely pulled the blade from his entails, spraying blood into the sky. He grabbed his severed stomach and felt the blood gushing from the wound. Accacia wiped her sword on his arm, cleansing the blade from bits of flesh. “Please?” the man whispered. Blood seeped from his mouth and dripped down his lips, making his words inaudible. Accacia knew what he was asking. He wanted her to end it quickly, as painless as possible. She stared at him for a moment and felt the empathy leave her body. She had no pity for him. Accacia walked away.