Through the Flames (23 page)

With that, Cain hung his sword from his belt and rose to his feet, prepared to observe the situation and to act accordingly.

* * * * *

 
“How did you do that?” Katie asked as she saw the final arrow hit its mark. “That last shot was a good hundred yards away.”

“Hitting a stationary target is easy. The moving ones are the hard part,” Caleb said with a shrug.

Let’s ignore the fact that I hit the last guy in the chest instead of the head, which is where I aimed for.

“I said the same thing to you once,” Katie said quietly. “It was back when I first showed you my skill with knives.”

“I remember,” he said with a small smile.
As if I could forget.

Caleb carefully hung his bow on a low hanging branch and removed his quiver, which he proceeded to set aside.

“What are you doing now?” she asked.

“If you watch, you’ll find out,” Caleb answered as he took off running down the hill towards the open gates of the camp.

He could only barely hear Katie say, “He’s insane.”

It only brought a smile to Caleb’s lips. He knew all along that his plan was a little insane. That was why he tried so hard to convince her that he did not have a plan.

Sorry about lying to you, but it was for the best.

With that, he cleared his mind and slowed to a walk as he cleared the forest and entered the open.

It was time for him to put his plan into motion.

Caleb was not the smartest person around. He could not come up with very complex plans, and he had no knowledge of military strategy.

All along, his plan had been rather simple: walk in and kill everyone. With all the sentries dead, it seemed like it could work.

Naturally, Caleb had planned for something to go wrong. Ever since his mentor disappeared, his best friend left to join the King’s Army, and his village was massacred, he had come to expect bad things to happen.

So while his plan did not include Katie, he had made sure to keep her around just in case he miscalculated.

I hope she knows to jump in if I need it. I probably should have brought it up before I left her.
He mentally shrugged.
Oh well.

Caleb walked straight through the open gates of the camp, his palm resting on the handle of his knife as he did so. He kept his hands away from his sword, as if he had no fear about walking into the lion’s den unprepared.

How’s this for bold?

Had it not been for the anger filling him at seeing the men that massacred Kirakath, Caleb would have smirked at what he was about to do. But the anger was nearly overwhelming.

One of the brigands, a short, bald man with arms as thick as his legs, rose to his feet as Caleb approached. He had a slightly glazed over look in his eyes, making it clear that he was been drinking a little already. The way he stood steadily made it clear that it he was still sober enough though.

“Are you the Black Crows?” Caleb asked loudly, catching the attention of the fifteen men that had been situated around the campfire.

“You’ve heard of us, eh?” the bald man asked with a wicked grin. “You’ve got some nerve, showing up here. We don’t play nice with strangers.”

“My name is Caleb of Kirakath.” The sudden introduction threw the brigand off, but the knife that Caleb unsheathed and threw had an even greater effect. It sunk to the handle in the man’s abdomen, forcing him to scream loud enough to wake the whole camp up.

The scream only lasted a moment, however.

Caleb had drawn his sword, dashed forward, and brought the blade around in a swift arc, beheading the bald man with a single stroke. His head flew a few feet away, where it hit the ground and rolled into one of the nearby tents.

“I’m the one who’s going to kill you,” he said plainly, his eyes shifting between the men that stood before him. Out of the corners of his eyes, he could see men begin to come out of their tents.

Caleb quickly jumped back as all of the drunken brigands drew their weapons and charged at him.

Seeing the somewhat coordinated attack directed at him made him worry. He was not too worried about fighting a single person at a time, but even he could see that he would lose if he tried to fight too many at once. He would have to kill every one of them, but there was only one of him for them to kill.

“Duck!”

The sudden shot made Caleb drop to the ground without a second thought. He had immediately recognized the feminine voice as Katie’s.

It seemed that he had dropped to the ground just in time too.

A knife soared through the air where his head had been and struck the nearest brigand between the eyes with incredible force.

Another knife followed the first.

Within the space of a few moments, Katie threw all of her knives, striking the brigands with the deadly accuracy that she seemed to excel at.

Once the final knife was thrown, Caleb jumped to his feet and began to strike at the distracted brigands. He only showed how unnecessary skill with a sword was as he decapitated the drunken men and stabbed the men that were half asleep through their hearts.

It only took a few minutes for the battle to come to an end, and Caleb was the only one standing amongst them. His goal had been met, it seemed. They were dead, and he was alive.

Caleb took a deep breath as he looked around at the twenty-five corpses that were strewn across the ground of the camp.

The sun had already begun to rise, making it much easier to see everything than normally. That was what allowed him to easily see Katie begin to retrieve her knives from the bodies of the men she had killed out of the corner of his eye.

He was not disillusioned. He knew that he could not have defeated them all without Katie’s help, despite the fact that he thought he could earlier.

Apparently, the odds that he had been faced with were even more overwhelming than he had initially thought.

“Next time, you might want to come up with an actual plan,” Katie commented, rolling her eyes. “I’m pretty sure you’d be dead if I wasn’t here.”

Caleb looked at her with a small smile. He could not contest her words. It was the truth, plain and simple. He was just thankful to have someone like her on his side for such an endeavor.

But… I still need to do this on my own.

He took smiled grimly as he looked at Katie.

“Katie, I need you to go get our horses and bring them to the gates.”

The redhead looked more surprised at those words than she had ever looked before. It was quite understandable that she would be surprised as a result of him suddenly telling her that she could not see the end of his quest.

“Why?” There was no doubt about it. She looked, and sounded, furious. “Why do you send me away after I helped you get this far? It just doesn’t make sense to me.”

“I know,” Caleb said with a frown. “It’s not fair, is it? I’m sorry, but that doesn’t change the fact that I have to do this on my own. I need to confront him by myself.”

“And you think you can win on your own?” she asked with a raised eyebrow. “You also thought you could handle these guys on your own. You obviously don’t know your limits.”

“I know what I’m doing,” Caleb said as he glanced at his sword. “I can handle this. It’s what I have to do.”

“But Caleb-”

“If you come with me and you kill him, then I’ll always wonder if I could have done it. I’ll never feel like my quest was completed,” Caleb interrupted. “So please… let me do this.”

Katie looked down at the ground at those words. She seemed to think about what he said for several minutes before finally said something in response.

“Fine, I’ll go and get the horses then. But if you’re not done when I get back, I’m going to go after you.” Kate crossed her arms as she looked at him with her penetrating gaze. “Kill him before then… or I’ll do it.”

With her words spoken, Katie began to walk away, headed to the gates of the camp.

Caleb, on the other hand, began to walk towards the tent that had been set up in the center of the camp.

Halfway to the tent, he paused. He could see its canvas opening be moved aside from someone inside of it. It seemed that someone was coming out of it.

A man with short dark brown hair and a goatee walked through the opening. He was clad in brown leather boots, brown trousers, and a dark green tunic. The most striking thing about him, however, was the longsword that he held clutched in his right hand.

“Well… you’ve put me out of a job, it seems,” the man chuckled darkly. “You now have my rapt attention. What can I do for you?”

“Your name is Cain Fell?”

The man grinned at the question and nodded.

“You could die,” Caleb said as he drew the Sword of Kirakath from its scabbard.

“That doesn’t sound like much fun,” Cain remarked. “I half expected you to ask me why I did it.”

“Does it matter?” Caleb asked angrily. “You slaughtered them. There is no excuse for that.”

“And you honestly think you’re any better than I am?” Cain asked, gesturing to the bodies near the campfire.

“Yes,” Caleb said, looking at Cain as if he just said the stupidest thing in the world. “I only kill those who deserve it.”

Cain laughed at the remark. “That’s rather callous us you. Who are you to determine who deserves death?”

“I only get to decide who deserves death when we’re talking about someone who killed unarmed men and women just for the fun of it,” Caleb said angrily. “Now shut up and die.”

“You’re welcome to try,” Cain said as he began to run towards Caleb.

Time seemed to slow down as pain engulfed Caleb. It felt as though his blood was on fire again, but it had a completely different effect on him than it had any of the other times.

Anger and the desire to kill Cain consumed him, completely outweighing the pain.

Time seemed to suddenly return at its normal pace, but not everything was as it would have been normally.

A single horizontal arc of Cain’s blade nearly caught Caleb off guard, but he angled the blade of his sword to the ground and caught the full front of the strike with only a little bit of effort. Sharp pains shot through his hands at the sensation, but it paled in comparison to the pain that he felt coursing through his veins.

Caleb closed the distance between him and Cain with greater speed and slapped him across the abdomen with the flat of his blade before jumping away.

Cain groaned, but he resisted the urge to hunch over to catch his breath.

“You’re fast,” he panted before he took off running towards him again.

Cain immediately began to assault the blond with a series of fast arcs, but Caleb seemed to be able to see them before they began and to parry them accordingly, causing the brigand to frown the entire time.

The pair jumped away from each other as their strikes failed to get through once again.

A look of desperation appeared in Cain’s eyes all of the sudden, catching Caleb’s attention and fueling his desire to kill the man even more.

Cain dashed forward and thrust the tip of his blade towards Caleb’s chest, but a sense of worry never let itself be known.

Caleb sidestepped the thrust and slammed the blade of his sword down on Cain’s, sending it crashing down to the ground. The action sent Cain off-balance, but it also presented something that Caleb had not expected. An opening. And it was as clear as day to him. He was amazed that someone as talented as Cain supposedly was would leave such a gap in his defense.

Taking advantage immediately, Caleb turned the tip of the Sword of Kirakath and thrust it forward. It sliced through the man’s wool tunic far more easily than he had ever expected.