The Story of Evil: Volume I - Heroes of the Siege (31 page)

Stephen Brightflame was alive.

Ty rode Sampson right onto the platform. Steve was patting the backs of the people who had risked their lives for him as he made his way towards the horse. Some of the people reached out and patted him back too, encouraging him to continue on and hopefully escape. They all wanted the hero of Celestial to survive.

Before Steve got halfway to the horse, he stopped and turned around.
Brightflame. How could I forget?
Steve turned back to get it, but one of the civilians must have known the story of the magnificent sword’s creation. The man had already wrestled it away from the horned minotaur and was handing it down the line of men to the warrior it belonged to. Steve was handed Brightflame by the people who saved him.

This sword has never felt more comfortable in my hands.

Because of the pain from the beating and torture Steve had sustained, Ty and Kari had to lift him up onto Sampson while the men on the platform helped push him up onto the horse. They sat him in the middle part of the saddle, facing forward, in between Ty and Kari. Kari handed him the shield. Steve felt ready for a fight now that he was holding his typical battle weapons: Brightflame and a shield.

Ty turned around and charged back the way they came. From the top of the platform, he saw everyone. The entire crowd was before him, moving and fighting like tens of thousands of ants crawling over scattered pieces of broken bread on the ground.

Kari turned around on the back of the horse and was sitting the opposite way of which Sampson was sprinting. Once again she equipped her bow. She fired at the archers, since the people on the ground had no way of attacking them. Even for being on a sprinting horse, she was incredibly accurate. Archer after archer fell off the wall after she shot an arrow. If the arrow didn’t kill them, the crowd below did.

Steve had his back against Kari’s. He was deflecting arrows with the shield in his left hand and swinging at any monsters that the crowd pushed towards him with Brightflame in his right hand.

Ty sat in the front, ducking low on the horse’s neck to avoid the arrows Steve couldn’t block.

Stephen Brightflame, the Human; Tyrus Canard, the Elf; and Kari Quinn who shared both features of their races escaped through the revolting crowd. The crowd was still parted down the center as the three heroes rode through the easy lane they created. People cheered all around them, spanking Sampson’s muscular rear as he charged past.

“BRIGHTFLAME! BRIGHTFLAME!” The chorus of chants for Celestial’s jouster and his two companions was the single ounce of hope everyone in the shattered city could put their faith in. What happened in the courtyard was a small moment of victory on a day of utter defeat and destruction.

The monsters all abandoned their attack on the civilians and instead moved to attack the three riders on the black warhorse. They knew if they killed the people in whom everyone placed their hope, they would regain control. A large group of around one hundred monsters emerged from inside the castle and chased after the three heroes. The crowd was able to slow the monsters down by coming back together in the center where they had parted.

More monsters came out after the first hundred. These ones were all mounted on horses, dire wolves, and other four legged beasts. For them, it was much easier to power through the crowd, but they were still not as fast without the open pathway the three heroes were charging through.

A crack of thunder followed by lightning smashed into the crowd right next to Sampson, sending people flying in every possible direction from the center of the blast. No doubt the Hooded Phantom was directing his attack at the rebel leaders.

Another blast came down right in front of Kari (behind the horse), blinding her vision and causing her to see bright spots. Two monster archers were spared because of her temporary handicap.

The lightning was followed by a wall of fire as a phoenix and a gryphon swooped down from opposite sides and ignited seven rows of people with their element. The attack failed to contain the heroes as Sampson showed off his amazing strength by jumping over the seven rows in one gigantic leap. The people had collapsed down onto the ground, screaming from being burned alive.

When Ty heard the loud sound of the drawbridge being raised, he snapped the reins and verbally encouraged Sampson to press on faster. Two more arrows plunged into the purebred’s body to join the five that he had already been impaled with. The pain made Sampson angrier, which also made him accelerate. For bearing the weight of three people, Ty could not help but be amazed at the speed of the amazing horse. The percheron went even faster as he raced to make it over the rising drawbridge in time.

The monsters were trying to trap them inside the castle wall. Had they known how to remove the locks of the portcullises and raise the draw bridge, they may have already achieved their goal. But it was beyond most monsters’ abilities to understand mechanical procedures. The drawbridge was not so difficult; it only required the two spokes on either side of the drawbridge to be simultaneously cranked. This they had managed to figure out.

The heroes passed the castle wall, but five monster archers were standing on both sides of the path before the rising drawbridge. In close quarters, they launched eight more arrows into the side of the horse. Ty caught three on his shield. One cut open a gash in Steve’s leg, matching the one Kari had received a couple minutes prior.

Sampson’s knees instantly buckled, but the strong willed horse regained his composure and continued sprinting up the rising wooden drawbridge. When he got two-thirds of the way up, there was a dramatic slowdown in the horse’s speed from the increasing slant. The three riders felt like the horse was going to rear and bail them all off. They would slide back down the drawbridge into the awaiting arms of the monsters.

But the mighty horse had an inner strength as strong as his muscular appearance. He slowly pulled himself and the weight of the three people on top of him to the tip of the drawbridge. The hard, cobblestone street on the other side was twenty feet away and eighteen feet down. Without wasting time to let the fear of the consequences of failure stop him, Sampson jumped across the spiked moat.

He cleared the massive jump successfully.

But it was the landing that wasn’t successful. The moment he decided to jump, Ty, Kari, and Steve knew what would happen when the horse landed.

All four of Sampson’s legs snapped. The horse whinnied in pain as he fell to his side and spilled the heroes onto the cobblestone road. It had taken fifteen arrows and four broken legs to kill what was arguably the world’s strongest horse.

At least he didn’t suffer in death,
Kari thought.

Ty thought just as positively,
He died a hero, an inspiration.

Then Ty got a better look at the horse as it lay on its side. He had thought that Sampson was the horse owned by a warrior he knew who’s family had been breeding warhorses for generations. Ty was only partially correct. Sampson did belong to that warrior, but the horse lying dead in front of him was not Sampson. It was Sampson’s sister.

The crowd on the outside of the castle wall was also revolting, although not as successfully because they were backed up against the moat. A couple people ran over and helped Ty and Kari get to their feet. Ty and Kari then helped Steve get up.

Now that Ty was able to see his brother up close, he noticed how extremely pale and weak he was. Steve had a line of dried blood from his right ear to his jaw. One eye was badly swollen shut and he had dirt, bruises, cuts, and blood all over his face and body.

Steve saw that Ty and the woman were staring at him with a look of concern. “I’m fine,” was all he needed to say. As soon as they helped him up they were all off and running. The three of them sprinted through the streets as monsters converged on them.

The drawbridge was re-lowered, so the hundreds of monsters from the castle and courtyard could join in with the monsters already on the chase. Dozens, if not half a hundred flying monsters were starting to come down from high in the skies to see what was going on.

Ty took the lead, Kari followed behind, and Steve was the caboose. Behind them was every type of monster (and more) that each one of them had faced in the siege earlier. It was hundreds of monsters versus three.

There was no way to lose the monsters, despite taking every turn and back alley they could to lose them. The only advantage that the heroes had was that Ty, Steve, and Kari had memorized most of these streets from all having grown up in Celestial.

“Do you have a plan or are we just winging it?” Steve called out to the warrior in front of him.

“Do you really think I thought this far ahead?” Ty looked back as he talked to make sure Steve heard him.

Suddenly, they found themselves caught on a road with monsters chasing them from behind and monsters coming at them in the direction they were running.

“Get down!” Kari yelled to Ty in front of her. She strung two arrows as Ty ducked, and Steve stopped behind her. Kari let the two arrows fly at the same time. Each one of them impaled the monster they were aimed at through the head. Steve’s mouth dropped wide open.

Ty looked back at Steve and nodded with his eyebrows arched as if to say, “Yes, it’s true. She can shoot with incredible accuracy.”

Kari ran past the Elf, hurdling over the monster bodies with arrows sticking out of their heads. “Come on! What are you waiting for?” she said, grabbing Ty’s sleeve and pulling him along.

Some of the faster monsters quickly closed in on them, clearly not as winded as the heroes were. They hadn’t spent the entire day running, fighting, and holding onto their lives by a thread.

Steve slashed with Brightflame at the leg of a cart of pumpkins. The imbalanced cart tipped and spilled its contents, covering the alley floor behind them. “There’s a couple extra seconds,” Steve called out sarcastically, knowing the payoff would barely last longer than the breath it took to swing his sword.

“Every second counts,” Kari encouraged him. “Delaying them makes our escape more possible.” Kari knew her words meant nothing given their chances, but she had to do everything she could to keep up their motivation. The second they gave that up and were captured, would be the second that marked the end of their lives. Deep down Kari was just as pessimistic as Steve.

It wouldn’t matter if we had all the time in the world. We have nowhere to go. We’ll never be able to
create
enough separation to sneak into a house and hide from them. Even if we did manage that, the Shadow Prince will tear this city to pieces looking for us. He always gets revenge when he’s made to look like a fool,
she thought.

A group of ten monsters came towards them in a narrow but long alley. Kari reached back into her quiver. Her hand felt around for an arrow, but there were none. She was out of ammo.

“We’ve got company!” Steve warned the two in front of him. A green phoenix was flying above the building tops behind them. They stopped in the alley, surrounded on all sides. Ty tried budging through a door locked from the inside. After two failed attempts, Steve and Ty shouldered through it together.

They heard the inhaling of its breath as the phoenix unleashed what felt like a tornado ripping through the alley behind them. Kari hadn’t yet come through the door and grabbed onto the sides of the doorframe, trying not to be carried away with the wind. Steve reached out and grabbed her by the front of the shirt. He pulled hard, leaning back, and brought her into the house they had broken into. Steve fell backwards onto the floor, and Kari fell down on top of him. Her chest lay on his. Their faces couldn’t have gotten any closer unless they were kissing.

“Sorry,” Kari said, blushing, but also smiling at the warrior she imagined herself with dozens of times.

“Don’t be,” Steve said back with a flirtatious smile of his own.

As Kari pulled herself off Steve, he kicked the door closed with his foot while still lying on his back. He heard the screams of all of the monsters that had been running towards them as they were carried through the air and blown away.

The monsters that were slightly delayed by the pumpkins would not have been caught up in the phoenix’s element. Since the lock on the door was broken, those monsters could come in at any moment. The three heroes ran out the front door of the house into an empty plaza.

“I suppose you want another point for saving my life?” Steve asked Ty, reaching forward to put his hand on the Elf’s shoulder. The question itself was a thank you to his friend.

This is twice in one day he has saved me,
Steve realized.

“Let’s make it out of this city alive, and then I’ll gladly take the point,” Ty promised. That would give Ty six points while Steve remained at four.

This point will be one I’ll never forget earning,
Ty thought as he still couldn’t believe they were still breathing after the events of the past five minutes.

“Horses!” Kari called out. McGregor’s stable, where civilians could rent or purchase horses to gallop through the city, was located in this plaza. McGregor’s was the largest stable in Celestial. They usually had about seventy-five horses on hand.

Half of the stable was burned down. Between seven and ten bodies of horses lay under its black and gray charred wood. It was hard to give an exact number of the dead animals. The others had probably been rented by tourists and were out in other parts of the city when the siege hit, or they were currently being used by monsters.