Caelin breathed in and out slowly. He did every one of the steps that he was taught from the moment he was old enough to learn; he performed them very intentionally. The Prince clutched the bow tightly at the centre, drew back the string and held the arrow close to his cheek until he found the shot he wanted to take. The elk was grazing and it would not be moving for at least a minute. He released the string. The twang of the bow alone from an overzealous draw was enough to cause the elk to lift his head, ruining the shot that Caelin had lined up. As he missed, another arrow sailed through the air to hit its mark cleanly.
“Dammit.” He uttered as the elk fell.
“Congratulations, your majesty.” His uncle, the man that took the shot, seemed intent on giving him the kill. It was not unexpected. A few men around him clapped, following the act. It was a tradition, since no member of the Imperial family could ever be allowed to leave the hunting grounds empty handed.
“Not my kill, Uncle.” He stated bitterly.
Caelin’s uncle was a tall, blonde man with a tall, lithe frame and angular facial features. He was the patriarch of the Dagda family, his mother’s brother. The Duke smiled accommodatingly. He was quite a bit older, so tended to have a fatherly air about him. He was around Caelin for more than his real father, as well..
“If it was killed in your presence, it is your kill.” Duke Dagda said firmly.
Caelin let out a small huff. “I’m not saying we don’t take it.”
The man smirked at the display of both pride and practicality, pointing to the animal. He addressed a few of the scouts that were around them as guides.
“Go finish it off, then hang it and carry it back” They had a light entourage. It was for appearances. They could not be seen going out with a superfluous number of skilled Knights, lest the Prince look weak in comparison to his brother or his predecessors.
“I still want to keep looking.” Caelin stated insistently. He squinted as he stared long and hard out between the trees, catching a bit of movement that was not an animal in the distance. The woods were not empty so he thought nothing of it. What was on his mind was finding a kill he could call his own.
“See if we can find anything bigger.”
“I understand.” The Duke nodded, patting him on the shoulder. He glanced over to their guide.
“See if you can find His Majesty something bigger. Quickly. Night is falling.”
Caelin laughed. “What a farce.”
“It can’t be helped.” Dagda said, though Caelin could tell by his tone that he agreed.
“The nobles of the Empire try to show that we laugh in the face of Night by hunting beneath a full moon. But we stop before it actually comes out.”
“Appearances are everything, Caelin. Even if it’s a farce, the concubine is aiming to have Nealin best you in this hunt. That boy doesn’t care about winning on his own merits. He will take whatever he’s given.”
“I know that. That’s why I’m accepting the elk that ‘I’-” He smirked, motioning to himself.
“-killed on my own. It is a fine beast, is it not? I simply want to know if we can find something bigger.”
The Duke placed a fist over his mouth, chuckling. “You are so much like your mother. That girl always wanted to do everything for herself. She couldn’t stand to lose, even when no one was looking.” He spoke wistfully, staring off into the woods. He turned his head suddenly as the scout returned.
“Hundred yards. Elder Bear.” The scout reported.
Caelin grinned widely. “At this time of year!?” He clutched his sword.
The Duke was also excited. “That’s lucky! An Elder Bear stands its ground. They can be hunted with swords and spears.”
“That’s all I needed. Lead the way, quickly!”
They raced towards the bear, not bothering to reduce the amount of noise they were making. An Elder Bear was just as likely to run towards the source of the sound. They stopped at the edge of the clearing, looking through the brush to see a woman with deep black hair and silver eyes sheathing her sword as she stood above the felled bear. As Nealin’s procession approached she turned and they could hear her say from afar:
“Congratulations, your majesty.” She stepped out of the way and all of those riding with Nealin clapped.
Nealin nodded uncomfortably, waving to everyone present in his party. “Thanks.”
“Tch…” Caelin gritted his teeth. Ayla turned and stared in his direction as he made that small sound. She paused for a moment, then as soon as her face filled with recognition of who he was the girl smiled at him tauntingly.
“That bitch! That was my chance-” He stopped himself.
“Keep looking. Go, go! Everyone.” Caelin gripped the reins of his horse and began moving towards a section they hadn’t been.
The Duke followed Caelin. “This isn’t like you.”
Caelin seethed. “That girl is the current first student at the Academy.”
The Duke sighed deeply. “Now I understand.”
“A commoner.” Caelin clarified.
“The Concubine must have hired her.” Dagda to be putting something together in his head.
“Smart… I didn’t expect this. Whether she’s a Knight or a squire, or she’s acting like an aid, if she’s a commoner she’ll be treated no differently to our scouts and soldiers by the eyes of the nobility, ” The Duke looked over calmly.
“It’s our loss. We can try for a little longer but we should prepare to return and lose gracefully. That act can also aid your position.”
“Find another bear.” Caelin ordered in a frustrated tone.
The man raised his hands placatingly. “Your majesty, finding an Elder Bear this late in the season was already a fluke.”
Caelin smiled menacingly. “Then let us hope luck is on your side.”
“Yes!” The scout scurried off.
The Duke observed quietly. When it seemed like a good time, he lowered his head humbly, crossing his right arm over his chest to his left shoulder. “I apologise. This was my fault for not calculating the Concubine’s next move.”
“Never mind. That girl is a wild card. You could not have expected it.” He was upset, but already preparing himself for failure.
“Ayla is not worth much, anyway. She can enjoy being at the top of the current class but who is going to care about a commoner Knight after graduation?”
The Duke could tell that Caelin was speaking to comfort himself more than anything. “Naelin winning a single hunt does not win him the crown. That boy is still just a puppet of his mother. All those vultures around him are perched, waiting for a taste of her influence. I follow you because you are-”
“My Mother’s Son.” Caelin interjected.
“Don’t mince words. If I wasn’t my Mother’s child you wouldn’t give me the time of day, Duke.”
“You’re too hard on yourself. You are Madelyn’s Son, but you are also the best one to take the throne after your Father, His Majesty.” As Caelin seemed to remain somewhat dower, the Duke adopted a frank tone, since he knew what comforted his nephew most of all.
“To be perfectly clear, if you were an unworthy child I would have made you my puppet, not my master. The fact that I am following you should be enough to tell you that you have great potential. If you don’t think so then frankly, I’m a bit insulted.” The man shook his head lightly.
Caelin smiled sullenly. “I would be dead already if it were not for your protection.”
“What type of servant fails at protecting their Lord? Seriously. Hah...” The Duke exhaled wearily. The man stared up at the sky, squinting.
“We need to head back.”
Caelin shook his head. “Give it until the scouts return. We still have time.”
“Time until the moon rises, but that’s no time to be out in the woods. We need to return before, not after.”
“I know, dammit!” Caelin shouted. He took a few breaths.
“Until the scouts return. Is that so unreasonable.”
The Duke noticed something. “They should have returned.”
Caelin waved his hand dismissively. “I threatened them. They’re probably scurrying around the forest looking for another bear, still.”
The Duke shook his head. “Those are northern woodsmen. Castezinan’s are too superstitious and warry for this to stand; I hired them for their carefulness. Let’s start moving.”
“Uncle?” Caelin lifted a brow.
“Now!” The man ordered seriously, raising his voice. It was all Caelin needed to tighten his hands around the reins. He nodded and moved to follow the Duke.
As the horses got up to full speed Caelin heard a twang. It was metallic, so not like a bowstring, but it had a similar sound. It was all he could process before his Uncle’s horse tripped forward, it’s front legs severing. Caelin reared up in time, looking down at a now bloodied wire held tightly between the trees. He heard his uncle wheeze as he attempted to get up and draw his sword. The man had been sent flying from his horse and landed on his chest.
“Uncle!” As he shouted, he saw a pair of cloaked figures coming into view and in the back of his mind, from his experience of this same thing over and over again throughout the years he could not help but think:
`Those are just the ones I can see.`
The Duke looked up, but was too slow and far too shocked to prepare himself. One of the cloaked figures grappled him and used his weight to keep the Duke down while the other drew a dagger and stabbed him in the neck and chest several times. If Caelin had any reservations about it being an assassination, that sealed it. In the process of turning his horse around it began to fall. Caelin looked down into the cold eyes of another masked figure that had attacked his horse's legs with a sword. Caelin removed his feet from the stirrups very consciously so as not to get tangled up, and cleared the beast as it crumpled.
Caelin immediately hit the ground running and spirited away towards the edge of the forest without looking back.
`If they’re here, that means they’re confident that they can kill me.` He reasoned while he scanned the forest around him for more movement.
`But that also probably means that they’re confident they can catch me.` As painful as it was, and as counterintuitive as it felt, he turned suddenly at a right angle to his left and began running parallel to the forest's edge.
`Everything they’ve done is planned. If I was them, I would set up men in the most likely direction of retreat.`
“Clever!” A body emerged from the brush off to his right side. Caelin deflected the incoming blow, then kicked the man away.
“Shit! Fighting dirty, your Imperial Highness!?” The sound of the man faded behind him as he continued running.
In a clutch Caelin did something extremely risky, he spent some of his precious Energy to give himself a burst of speed in order to hopefully outrun the assassins that were obviously doing quite well to tail him.
Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.
`If I use my Soma to escape like this I’ll lose any fight for sure once they catch me. I’m already pretty sure that they will win, regardless, so I need to put my resources into the plan most likely to help me live.` It seemed to work. He sprinted ahead with the additional speed he was granted by focusing his Energy into his legs, and began to think about the best path.
`If I head towards the forest's edge they will catch me. They are likely matching my direction and course perpendicularly. This means that as soon as I stop going straight, they’ll be able to intercept me. My real best chance is-” He gulped, staring to the east, deeper into the woods. It was getting dark.
`No choice.` He turned and went deeper, against all his instincts.
`The longer this goes on for them, the riskier it becomes. They won't have pursuers ahead of me in this direction, so I’ll definitely be able to get away. The only problem is-` He stared up at the sky hesitantly. Caelin cringed at every growing shadow around him. Each one was a pit of trauma that was opening up. Every dark corner that could hide an assassin. He tried to fight the paranoia that was setting in.
`They aren’t sitting in the dark. They’re behind me. Calm down, idiot!` As if being laughed at by fate, Caelin immediately saw two glints of silver from the deep shade of a large tree up ahead. The unmistakable shape of the commoner Knight darted towards him with a straight trajectory, sword in her right hand already coiled back over her left shoulder for one of her signature attacks. It was a strike he could barely parry in ideal circumstances. Caelin could not help but smile.
`Of course…She was hired by the Concubine, but it probably wasn’t just to hunt. Though I suppose it was, but I was the one to be hunted.`Caelin ducked out of the way as he shouted her down.
“You don’t get to kill me!”
As he successfully avoided her attack for the first time it dawned on him that it was deceptively simple for him to avoid in that moment. He noticed as it sailed over his head that it was not intended for him. He dove out of the way, turned to draw his sword but the exchange of blows was already taking place between Ayla and the man who was apparently right on his tail, undetected. It was already far too much for him with his spent Energy to interject in the fight. Instead he watched in awe. Ayla was constantly attacking. She would always send another strike from whatever position her sword was in whether the attack was dodged or parried. That was the difficulty of duelling with her; one either needed to match her speed and exceed it or be forced onto the defence, and it was in moments of defence that her form truly began to take shep from a berserk flurry of blows to a calculated dance that was planned from start to finish. The moment the assassin was forced to fully defend, Ayla ceased her storm of blows and prepared a more precise strike to a point that was the most inconvenient for the defender. This was what Caelin faced in sparring. This was what earned her the number one spot.
A calculated strike staggered the assassin and made another opening. It was something that was never expected by her opponent after the wild introduction to whatever her insane sword form was. In his stagger she unbalanced him again, and again, then finally as he tried to retake the initiative she wa When she already moved within his guard and found an angle to try and go for a kill. Surprisingly the assassin barely knocked Ayla’s killing blow off course and began to change up his strategy to try and do to her what she did to him. He began his own flurry of blows in her direction.
Caelin first thought he was seeing her swing wildly again with her own flurry to match but with each of the assassin’s swings that were on target he heard the telltale ching of sword deflecting off sword. She was parrying and dodging while swinging back and matching his pace and each time the man lost ground again. After maybe a hundred small exchanges Ayla found her opening. She stopped her flurry as his sword raised just a bit too high. The girl crouched under it while moving in close. As the assassin tried to bring his sword down Ayla had already positioned herself with his wrist being stopped by her shoulder stopping all momentum. She Grabbed his collar with her left hand, which was already free, moved him a bit more off balance, then rammed her sword up into the man’s chest just just below his ribcage. Caelin saw the trajectory of the stab and could see in his head all the organs that her blade would have passed through to kill the assassin instantly. She twisted her sword as she pulled it free for good measure, then flicked the blood from her sword as he fell. Caelin breathed, shaking. He realised after it was over that the exchange was about 10 seconds or less in total. The world began to move at a normal pace as she approached him calmly, as if she had just come back from the market.
He corrected himself. `She is not calm. She is shaking, but she just isn’t showing it openly. Still, her demeanour and her lack of hesitation… Is killing a normal thing to her? He thought that her way of fighting was abhorrent, and he was right. He just could never put his finger on why. She would spar with the same style, but within those matches, the reality of her cruel, up-close method never dawned on him because she was never allowed to move with such intent to kill. As soon as he finally saw her form doing what it was intended to do he saw it for what it was; A Knight-killing sword form.
“Are you a Knight or an assassin?”
Ayla stared at him blankly, then shrugged and offered with very little emotion or care:. “Whichever.” Before Caelin could respond she lifted her hand to signal for him to stop as she closed her eyes.
`She seems to be listening… using her Energy to expand her senses. Or are they naturally enhanced? She must have used a lot to move like that, so how can she use it again for something like this?` Caelin was still fairly guarded.
“Your Majesty, we need to move further in.” As Ayla said that, Caelin realised she was right. If she wanted to kill him she could have, was his reasoning.
“I was doing that…If we stall for time-”
She shook her head. “Can’t stall and can't fight. This is at the very least a full company of mercenaries. They set up a formation to block the rescuers while the rest gave chase.”
“You’re kidding?” Caelin was stunned.
Ayla ignored his surprise and pointed ahead. “Please move. I’ll take up the rear.”
“What can we actually do against this? They have the manpower to block our rescuers and confidently chase after me.” He began moving at his former pace, regardless. Ayla followed so easily that he wondered where all of her Energy was coming from.
“I’m fine with buying time,but what are we buying time for?”
“We aren’t.” She spoke in an at-ease tone while she matched his sprinting pace. Another sign that she was barely affected by catching up, killing a man, then continuing to sprint.
“You keep using all of your Energy to move faster.” Ayla advised.
“We’re going to lead them in further. Once I give you the signal you’re going to run towards the forest’s edge in a curve. I’ll take the shorter distance between you and them and match the pace.”
“They will need to get past you to get to me.” He observed.
“But will you be able to hold them off?”
“Not sure. But it’s the only way forward.”
Caelin had never properly spoken with Ayla. He was amused that her mentality in planning was so similar to his. Then something else struck him.
“Why?”
“What?”
“Surely that Concubine hired you.”
“I was hired by the Imperial Concubine.“
“Then why? You should be with them.” It did not add up. None of it did.
“My orders were to aid the Second Prince and follow his commands.”
He felt frustrated by her short, direct responses that barely cut to the centre of what he was asking. The worst thing was, he did not even think she was trying to be unclear, she was just bad at communicating.
“That still doesn’t answer why-” He cut his complaint short.
“Nealin asked you to protect me.”
“He did.” Caelin swallowed hard to force down the lump in his throat. He would’ve stumbled but Ayla darted ahead and supported him by grabbing his arm.
“Your Imperial Highness?”
“That moron.” Caelin gritted his teeth, becoming choked up.
“You need to go now!” Ayla barked.
“Urk-!” His body hit the wall. He felt like he was about t o puke but he swallowed the bile and forced himself to bear it for just a while longer. He saw Ayla alter her course slightly, carrying out her end of the plan. She was going to act as interference. He wheezed:
`At least try to win, Nealin.` It was growing dark, at least beneath the thick canopy of the woods. The moon was just about to come out technically, but night would not actually fall for another hour. He did not catch any more movement around him, but after a minute he felt a sensation that shook his soul. It was something he felt only once before.
When he was young a caged monster was brought before the Emperor as a gift. His father liked the present quite a bit but Caelin mostly remembered the feeling he got from merely being in the presence of the creature. It was the raw, simple force of emotion; an emotion that only existed from a predator in response to prey. In more conventional terms it was called killing intent .It was not just for beasts and monsters. It was in humans as well and Caelin felt it very subtly when he was being approached by assassins. He was one who actually learned to sense it quite effectively throughout the years due to continuous exposure to killers but no intent had ever been so great to him as that which was felt in the throne room, emanating from the captured monster. That was the feeling he was getting.
`You have to be kidding me. Now!? It’s so close based on the sensation-` He stared off in the direction he thought it was coming from.
`That should be right on top of the commoner. She can’t handle something like that and the assassins.` Against his better judgement he changed course subtly so that he could try and aid Ayla. He could have tried to escape in the confusion, but escape was uncertain and the fact that she was his saviour was more certain to him than anything else.
`If we both get out of this alive I swear-` He stopped.
What Caelin stumbled into was a scene of calm, quiet horror. Men in pieces. Limbs cut. Some were in the process of dying from slashing wounds to their chest or neck. There were possibly ten or twelve in total. In the middle of it all was Ayla. He would have still been looking for the monster if his senses did not scream in her direction, and if he did not notice her clothing stained with blood. She was in the process of finishing the last man. She pushed her sword down into his chest through the soft spot above his collarbone, since he was on his knees in front of her. Caelin walked forward hesitantly, entranced by the fact that such a monstrous feeling was radiating off of her while, paradoxically, she seemed so calm and in control. He had to correct himself again, just like he had after she killed the first assassin.
`No. She’s not calm. In fact… She’s shaking. Twitching? I feel like I’ll flinch if she moves at all because every inch of muscle on her body is coiled and tense.`
Ayla turned to regard him as he approached, eyes wide. Her black pupils were near pinpoint dots within the sea of her mercury-silver irises. She spoke with a tone that sound so much like a threat that he reached for his sword. Sweat rolled down his face from his forehead, and down his neck from his jaw.
“You should’ve been running.”
He forced himself to not draw. He swallowed hard and stood up straight without fear. A practised ritual for the prince to avoid making others aware of his phobias and paranoia, against what his instincts told him she would do, Ayla nodded to him. He could breathe again with that, and relaxed just enough to speak without his voice shaking.
“What happened?”
“I just fought normally, but all my attacks hit. I wasn’t planning to, but I guess I ended up killing all of them instead. They were probably just weaker than I thought.” She looked towards the forest’s edge and remarked:
“The rest are already being cleaned up by Knights a few hundred yards away.” She reported it as if she could see it from where she was standing.
Caelin was dumbfounded. `They weren’t weaker… You’re just a monster.` A subtle, excited smile crossed his lips.
“You are an experienced killer, Ayla?”
She looked slightly annoyed, as if he had just told her she stepped in a dog’s mess. The woman sighed heavily.
“Just what are you accusing me of, your Highness?” She turned. He could tell she was about to shoot off in the direction of the forest’s edge.
“Where are you going!?”
“Feel a bit itchy. Going to help pick off runners. Don’t get this chance very often.”
Caelin followed behind her with intense curiosity. `She says that, referring to fighting and killing after getting annoyed about me asking.` He paused, thinking about what she said. `Itchy?`