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“It is unnaturally quiet.”
Val lifted her eyes to the tops of the trees, looking for birds that had up to this point played in its branches - sometimes dropping to the brush below only to rustle through it and fly right back out.
Marat nodded, following her gaze.
“They may sense a storm.” He told her.
Val had known animals to tell of changing weather long before a cloud appeared in the sky. In her village, they had relied on the nightingales living in the trees to foretell of heavy snowfalls and the chickadees to signal when in the fall they would receive their first frost. But it was their behavior that changed, it was not as if they had disappeared altogether like they had now.
They were ill-prepared for it, and in the flats where they now traveled, there was little cover to be had. The thin groves of trees would hardly shelter them from a summer downpour. And were it to last hours, they would be caught drenched in the coming evening.
Although there was not a cloud in the sky, they’d both felt uneasy of the looming promise of disaster.
“There’s a farm ahead,” Marat said, and Val saw the tall rising roof of a barn to the left and far off the road. “It will cost us a few hour’s ride, but I would rather risk that than be caught out in the downpour.”
There was no visible road that led to the two structures in the middle of the field. Perhaps once there had been one, but it had overgrown. Such abandoned places had become a regular part of the landscape.
The farmhouse was low to the ground, built half into the earth to withstand the harsh weather and likely deadly colds of the winters. Like many such homes in the North, the half-dugouts were easier to heat, and the roof less likely to cave in under the weight of heavy snow. Unfortunately, its small ground level windows and door so short even Val would have to duck to get through - were all nailed shut.
“Aditi would not fit,” Marat said, considering the amount of effort it would take to break down the barrier.
“I’m not sure you would either…” Val looked at the three steps leading down to the thick log door.
They walked to the barn, which stood tall against a background of what used to be a wheat field with a half ring of trees on the horizon. Half of it had been brought to ruin, the wood posts under the roof likely rotting away. Where it fell, a wall of rubble and what remained of the stone base had created a tight barrier against the elements - and it would do.
As they approached, the rhythmic, evenly paced beats of something repeatedly drumming on wood came from the window on the upper level of the structure.
Both looked up to see a black woodpecker sitting on its sill.
Tap. Tap-tap-tap-tap-tap.
Tap. Tap-tap-tap-tap.
Val smiled. She had not seen a woodpecker in so long. They did not live in the East nor the West. The little bird had made her feel so close to home, although she’d never seen a fully black one before. She looked at Marat, but he was not smiling.
His face was dark, the corners of his mouth downturned. She saw the tension in his jaw where his teeth had been clenched and the wrinkles around his eyes that looked more pronounced with even the slightest squint.
“What’s wrong?” She asked, but he shook his head.
“Nothing. Don’t care for that sound.”
“The woodpecker?” She asked as he turned and walked toward the tall double doors, giving no answer.
The barn once had two sets of doors, but the other had been where the wall and roof collapsed. These, two times taller than Marat, had been thick and heavy - and once they looked to be nailed shut as well, but the shifting of the structure, when the roof fell, had knocked the boards and nails loose.
“We gotta figure out a way to close these,” Marat said, examining them from the outside. The barn had no windows aside from the one facing outward from the platform above the main floor. The doors would be the only thing leaving them exposed.
“They bar from the inside!” Val called. She’d walked inside and behind the doors themselves was a wooden bar lock. Four iron hooks sat across the inside of the two doors, and the bar itself leaned up against the wall. Marat shook it, and it had some give, but when he lifted it up, it still came with great difficulty.
“Hardly worth it,” he said, “but I suppose the wind will not disturb them now.”
The inside of the barn was large, seemed this is where the wheat was once stored - and hay for the animals, although it had long rotted away into the spongy floor.
Pillars rose from their stone bases and into the roof above. Once, a system of pulleys would allow the farmers to stack the hay bales almost all the way up to the ceiling using the horizontal beams crisscrossing the space. There must have been a time when this had been a very successful farmstead. Now, mere whispers of its former self.
They left Aditi below as they climbed up on the landing and laid out blankets. Thunder rumbled in the distance, and the first gust of wind whistled through the opening.
The winds in the North were tempestuous companions. They picked up suddenly, flattening the grasses to the very ground, thrashing the sparse trees about and stripping them of their branches. They filled the air with dust and sharp bits that stung and burned if one was to get caught in their path.
Now, the forceful stream of it beat against the boards and logs of which the walls had been constructed. The skies darkened so that one wouldn't be able to guess it was a late afternoon - it looked as if night had already taken hold. But, no rain had come.
They sat inside, Val’s head on Marat’s lap, and listened to its anger dash against them. Below, Aditi had been nervously pacing around. She did not seem to find as much peace with all the commotion of the elements trying to make their way in.
“What?” Val asked when she heard Marat say something under his breath.
“Hm?” He looked down at her questioningly.
“You said something?” She insisted, getting irritated that he was playing games.
“I did not.” He narrowed his eyes, and she sat up with hers on him.
Then they heard it.
The wind had carried a man’s shouts. And, again, it picked up the sound and whistled it through the air.
Val clasped her mouth shut, her eyes wild. Marat prompted her with a hand to get against the wall and to stay low. He slid on his knees to the windowsill and, leaning on the frame, peered out into the dust-filled mayhem.
At first, there was nothing but the darkness of the dirt and filth filling the air. The still-high sun barely filtered through it, casting a deep red and purple hue on everything around them.
Then, shadows began to take shape.
First one, then three, then more and more. They appeared as gray silhouettes coming from the thickness of the winds. They’d been all around. Tall, first looking like monsters but then taking the shape of men atop horses. They’d been meticulously evenly spaced out, spanning wide in a half circle around the barn. This was intentional.
They did not advance.
Marat counted twenty-five from where he crouched, more, he was sure, out of sight of the window. His quiver had held thirty arrows in all, and you could tell by the way they sat atop their horses that these men had been armored, and his arrows had not been made for that.
He tried to slow his breathing, but it seemed his lungs had been emptied of air. These ghasts remained unmoving as the wind whipped their horses’ manes and tails all about.
“Take the bags.” He instructed Val quietly. “Take all the oils, anything that we can use, take the firestarters out.”
Her hands shook as she hurried. Her bag had contained little of these things - but as she spilled his out onto the floor, the many concoctions came rolling across the floorboards. So many things she’d seen time and time again throughout their travels - unused. She grabbed for them now with a certain desperation.
The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.
He watched the small bottle of yarrow oil, only a little bit left at the bottom, roll to his feet. How many times had this saved him? How many times had it warded the evil away? It was useless now against the evil of men.
A couple of things here and there. In some he dipped the arrowheads, some he had ceremoniously smeared across Val’s cheeks. Val did not think that he even knew what most of them were for - relics still left over from Erlan.
The firestarters, he split the remaining four between them.
“If they get in, you drop it below and command it to burn.” He told her. “It won’t be easy for them to get through the door, if they even manage. So save it until you have to.”
“If I have to.”
“Now is not the time for your optimism.”
He tore one to pieces, taking the bits of the vane and tying them onto the fletchings of his arrows. It made ten.
Again, he edged along the wall and peered outside. They’d closed in by a few steps but were still too far for him to aim with the lashing winds.
“All-Father preserve us…” He muttered, and, for one moment, he felt something in those words. He looked to Val, who, scared, was scrambling around trying to push the less useful items out of the way. And yet, something had radiated from her. It was not visible to the eye. It was just a… warmth. The feeling that his own words held more weight than they had before.
“Marat!”
The word, shouted in the wind, came echoing between the walls.
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Marat’s blood cooled and a shiver ran up his spine. He edged to the window, only barely leaning over to find the general’s whereabouts.
Tall, distinguishable even in the darkness of the dust storm, it was the golden figure atop a white horse. He had not bothered to hide, to stand off and away from his men. He had not meant to order them to go ahead of him. Instead, Johannes was in front of all - the lack of weapon in his hand boasting his confidence in his position. He was near enough that Marat could see the gross smile on his face.
“Marat!” He called out again, his smile showing all teeth, like an animal baring them in threat.
“Don’t!” Val whispered.
He looked at her, small, huddled in the corner. Her cheeks wet with the alchemical potion. Her hand clutched a firestarter, and in the other was Erlan’s hunters knife. He knew, looking at her, that the knife she held would do no more damage than if she held a pen. He wished he’d had more time. More time to teach her to use it, more time to insist she try.
He leaned, and again counted how many shadows he could see. The wind was slowing, settling, and as it did and slowly fell away he could see even more - thirty by his counts.
Thirty, against two. Thirty soldiers against a disgraced nobleman and a pregnant village girl.
“Let’s make a deal!” He shouted down. The pause he received after his words he knew to be Johannes’ chuckle.
“The time for deals is over, brother!” The general shouted. “I’d offered you one when we stood, like this, with you atop a hill and not a barn! You spat it in my face, and now the deals are done!”
Frantically trying to buy more time to think, Marat passed over everything he had ever known of his old friend.
“There was a time when you swore an oath with me, Johannes!” Marat shouted, his eyes flickering closed as if in prayer for the words that he spoke. “We both stood and were anointed with the holy waters. For that sake - let her go. Your contention is with me!”
“A holy man, are you Marat?” The laughter was now in Johannes’ words. “If only I heard anything from you but despair. It’s over. You know you are going to die today, but send her down so that you know she won’t get caught up in the crossfires of your pride!”
He heard the squeal of wood as pressure came against it. They’d snuck up and were at the barn door. Marat squeezed his eyes shut, again focusing on steadying his breathing even though his heart threatened to shatter his chest.
“Burn.” He whispered into the fletching of the arrow as it passed by his lips and took flight.
The arrow burst in the air, sending a hundred flaming slivers into the wind where it rained on the men and horses. It had not harmed the men, but their horses felt the cutting burns and reared - and ran - sending their riders to the ground or dragging them off still in the saddle.
“Burn.” He called after an arrow that had already been loosed and enveloped in fire it pierced through a man’s neck and sent flaming embers scattering across the dried grasses. The remains of the firestarter caught them quickly.
“Press!” Johannes’ voice boomed, and it took only two beats of a heart for the remaining men to advance.
Marat reloaded, and another arrow stuck halfway into the breastplate of a mounted soldier.
Again, and it had gone through and out the back of a head.
He took them down one by one before they had the chance to press up against the building where he could no longer see. Ten lay dead, but they’d taken seventeen arrows.
Johannes was gone from sight.
“There!” Val screamed. A soldier had pushed through the rubble of the collapsed side. Marat nocked an arrow. The man fell. But another took his place. In the dim lighting it was difficult to tell what was man and what was shadow.
Something shifted.
Another had gotten inside - perhaps two - and the bar on the doors had been lifted.
He reloaded the All-Father’s Reach faster than he ever had, and they fell - one by one. There were only five arrows left, and many, many more soldiers. His eyes scanned - he’d killed one that had tried to climb the ladder to the landing. Four rushed at them - seven had entered and hid behind pillars and against walls below.
All-Father only knew how many more - there were far less men lying dead than alive, and advancing toward them in a constant current. Bodies running and climbing. One had made it up the ladder and Marat took the hunter’s knife to his throat. Another came from the side, and when Marat swung for him he’d dodged it, countering the next strike and slashing Marat across the face - the deep wound flowered open sending blood cascading down his cheek and dripping onto his collar and chest. The man who’d done it fell to his knees as Marat’s blade caught him in the gut, and then again in the neck.
Val screamed.
A soldier had caught her, but it was clear that they were not to hurt her as his blade had been discarded as he struggled to keep hold. Clumsily, she plunged the knife into him - and the look of a man caught unexpectedly crossed his face before he fell.
Five arrows. He let one loose on a man crossing a beam and reloaded as he fell. It was not a lethal shot, and may as well have been wasted.
Behind him, a figure rose in the window. So large that it had blocked out the already limited light. It lunged for Marat, and a great sword came crashing down - crushing the All-Father’s Reach into bits and sending Marat off balance to the side - the four remaining arrows now useless and a cut across his left forearm.
“Worthless whore’s son.” Johannes breathed through his teeth, raising the sword again.
“Burn!” Val let go of her firestarter as the draft caught it and sent it right to Johannes. The feather caught light and, within a second, turned into a ball of fire, which seemed to eat the air around it. Johannes roared in anger as they singed his skin. Val used this moment to pull Marat to his feet. Her hands closed against something wet and sticky, and when she pulled them back they’d been covered in dark blood. Marat did not seem to notice this, and as the fire caught the ladder they both went flying to the level below.
Val felt the breath had been knocked out of her lungs as she landed on her back into blood-soaked ground, and only a foot away, a slain man lay with his eyes still open wide and pointed downward.
Smoke rose around them, where it was already difficult to see; it had now become near impossible to tell a pillar from a man or a shadow from a tongue of flame.
“Burn.” She heard behind her as Marat’s last feather had sparked and expanded - two men caught by it shrieked and cried out as the Nothing-touched flame consumed them.
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The screams around him and the thundering roar of the flames had been reduced to only the blood pulsing in his ears. He was vaguely aware of a numb ache in his cheek and the cold wetness running down his face and arms. He felt the fire’s stinging heat, and the darkness around them swallowed everything in a chaos of dancing flames and shadows.
She was near, and her presence radiated back to his mind a sense of calm. A sense of… trust and truth. He would not lose her in the dark.
But still, there were too many.
He heard the men from all directions. They came slashing at him from the smoke and embers. He heard the distinct thump of a heavy man landing on the ground and at once knew it was Johannes at their back.
The open door.
There was a single man who rushed toward it, he was twenty feet ahead. Marat’s hand found Val’s and he pulled her forward.
He heard the panicked neighs of the horses outside, he could not tell if they were near or far.
There were too many.
An enraged battle cry of the general rose above that of the fires.
There were just… too… many.
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They broke through the threshold of the doors.
She went as far as she could, away from the building, until she coughed, holding her sides as the smoke threatened to tear her throat apart. She stumbled forward, calling behind her as she did not see him at her side.
“Marat!”
She turned, and the wind whipped her hair into her face. She pushed it down, and she saw him.
He stood at the threshold, drenched in his blood. It poured down his face, his dark hair stuck to his cheek and against his neck. His left arm hung strangely at his side. She could see he was breathing slowly, but hard. Before him lay a man, just slain, and Marat pushed his body out of the way with his foot - reaching forward and gripping the hot iron handles of the heavy barn doors.
They bar from the inside.
It only took a moment. She screamed and lurched forward, but it was too late.
“NO!”
He held her eyes as his arms strained and shook with the weight. Those eyes, she’d known them to be amber. She’d known them to be unexpressive, yet even from so far away she saw their apologetic look. He held her gaze right up until the gap between the doors closed.
“NO!!” She crashed against them, beating on them with her fists. She felt the heat of the fire escaping from underneath them and it burned at her feet. “NOO!!”
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He pulled the heavy bar across the iron hooks and felt it settle in with a shaky thump. He would not let anyone near enough to remove it.
The fire burned, and no clean air was left to fill his lungs. With no outlet for the smoke to escape, it enveloped the space so thickly that he could not even see the fire anymore –just darkness.
There were screams of dying men looking for a way out and finding none, their flesh melting among the phoenix fire.
And, just then, a moment before his own world went dark, a vision of Dimos standing over him in the night at Midtrade City flashed across his mind.
You will have a chance to prove your faith, yet. Templar.
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