He carefully motioned up a ladder. His head remained just an inch or two beneath a wooden hatch. He could hardly see anything as he and the others prepared to officially enter the lower sector of the city.
Something began to poke his ankle. He looked down spotting Abigail on the ladder beneath him.
“Hey,” she whispered, “hurry it up already and get going.”
“Give me a second. I’m just waiting to see whether I hear any movement up here.”
He listened with intent trying to hear any movement. Sounds quiet enough. All he could hear was the heavy rainstorm and thunder.
He signaled to everyone beneath him to get ready to go up the ladder and then he began pushing the hatch up with one hand.
Nothing appeared to dwell within the abandoned home. Except a rat of course. It scurried away as his fingertips pressed down on the dusty floor and pulled himself out of the hidden basement that had a secret tunnel that they were utilizing.
While everyone else came up, he wandered over towards a boarded up window. Through the slits between the wooden boards, there was nothing of particular note out there that he could see. Just lots of rain flooding down the sloped streets and the occasional flash of lightning.
“It looks clear,” he whispered. “But it is a little hard to tell.”
Felmir stepped where Kiran once stood to take a gander for himself. He eventually pulled away from the window giving them all a stern gaze now that they were all inside the cramped dusty home. “Once we exit this building we need to stay together for a short while until we’re ready to split. Just try to be as quiet as you can. At least this storm should make it harder for them to notice our presence. Just be very aware that we can’t afford to get spotted this early on. We need to position and ready ourselves, so if we do end up alerting them of our presence too early, we’re going to be in serious trouble and likely not succeed in this endeavor.”
“So don’t get caught then,” Abigail stated. “What’s so hard about that?”
He imagined some rolled their eyes, but he couldn’t see well enough to tell even with the sight enhancement potion doing some of the work for him.
Felmir approached the closed door wrapping his hand around the doorknob. “Ready?” he said softly.
Everyone nodded their heads.
Knowing what they were throwing themselves into, his heart began to beat faster and his grip of his freshly unsheathed sword only strengthened. I must remain strong. No matter what we come across, that gate must be secured and this city liberated.
The door began to open. The sound of the heavy rain storm became far louder. One by one, they stepped into the rain becoming drenched within just a few seconds of being outside.
His hood kept some of the water off of him, but it wasn’t the most rain-resistant cloak in existence so it quickly absorbed it all.
A strike of lightning revealed much of the city ahead of their position. Not a living thing appeared to be down this curving street. The couple dozen of them just kept pushing forward step by step, knowing that they could potentially be spotted or noticed at any moment.
So far, nothing appeared to have taken notice of them. His eyes gazed down a dark alleyway. Nothing was there, as had been the case in all the others previously.
They began to reach an intersecting street with paths leading in different directions. Felmir had them all pause. “This is where we’re splitting off,” Felmir said with the rain making it hard to hear him. “Keep heading in that direction and wait until you see us begin to go up towards the wall to begin going up as well.”
Kiran nodded his head and signaled for everyone on his team to follow him. They headed down an eastern street doing their hardest to remain unnoticed. Rather than remain on this more open street, they began taking some tighter less navigable routes. He spent some time memorizing a map of this city for this particular area earlier which helped them move through it more efficiently.
We should almost be in position. As they all waited briefly for him to make a decision on which route to take, Lar began to respond to him telepathically. “I think we take the path to the left.”
“I could’ve sworn we were to take the right.”
“They might both lead to the same destination.”
Since Lar seemed to think they should go left, he chose that route. The further down it they went, the more correct he thought this one was. However, as they kept traversing down this street, he gestured for them all to rush into an alley to their right. They ducked down and put their backs against the walls.
The rain not only hid themselves quite well, it hid the banespawn much the same. A group of them walked down the street appearing to be on patrol. They were fortunate to hide when they did. Had he not noticed their presence, they would’ve ran into them and been forced into a conflict.
After waiting for another minute, he poked his head out looking in the direction they came from and the direction they were headed towards. With no further signs of a patrol or another patrol, they all continued on.
The wall surrounding the outermost part of the city began to appear. From where they were currently positioned, they would quietly assault the wall from the western part of the city while Felmir’s group would take the east. They were to in effect, assault it from all sides at the same time so that they could do a clean sweep of the banespawn.
Kiran looked out across the spacious area that he had fought Drexo at initially. Unlike when they fought, it was entirely dark with every brazier and torch having gone extinguished. The banespawn were too busy trying to break through to the middle section of the city to care about whether these areas were lit or patrolled as heavily.
Even if they wanted to keep the braziers lit, this amount of rain would make it quite futile or so it seemed.
He watched and waited for the lightning to let him see Felmir’s group going up the wall. As one bolt of lightning stretched through the sky and revealed their figures from far away appearing to go up it, he knew it was time for them to go up as well.
They used the cover of the nearby buildings to keep themselves unseen. He poked his head out spotting a banespawn nearing the bottom of the steps. They were entirely unaware of them which he supposed was a good thing for them. They’d grant them a quick and instant death.
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Kiran gave the signal for a member of the coalition known as Welman to wait below the steps and be ready to grab their body. Once they were there and he gave him a thumbs up, Kiran pointed towards an archer who was ready to loose an arrow.
The arrow went flew out and penetrated straight through the lizard like banespawn’s skull. Before their body could fall and make tons of noise, Welman grabbed their limp body and pulled it off the steps and placed it down carefully on the wet ground.
“Nice job,” Kiran said quietly to Welman. The younger coalition member smiled to his kind comment. “And good job Jorge,” he said towards the archer who quickly made it back to them.
They all began heading up the steps. Lar remained right behind him along with Juna, Hoghdar, and Zorge.
The steps began to go towards their left up to the wall. He took each wet step carefully looking in both directions. There were a few banespawn atop the wall to their right and then a couple to their left.
With a few hand gestures, he signaled for Lar and Zorge along with several other members to take out the ones on the right while the rest of them would take the ones to their left. As they waited for them to look away, he prepared himself to go in for the attack.
His grip tightened, and he began to go up and then carefully sprint towards the two. The slick surface made such a maneuver treacherous, but his boots managed to keep him grounded well-enough. His sword swiped the closest one’s head killing them instantly while Hoghdar’s sword swiped through the other banespawn’s neck before either of them realized what was going on.
Blood ran down his sword with the rain trying to wash it off. When he got the chance to look over towards Lar, she motioned her fauchard in such a way to try getting the blood off of its blade.
They had taken out five banespawn within just a few seconds without them yelling out or anything. Their coordination had been truly immaculate so far.
So far so good. This is all working out as we planned. Now we just have to eliminate a few more, and this gate will be ours once more.
With their side clear, they approached the open arched entrance leading into the gatehouse. From the opposite side of them, he saw Felmir’s group approaching that entrance as well.
Kiran stepped beneath the arch and saw Felmir raise a hand warning him from going in any further quite yet. He looked off to the right spotting a couple small groups of banespawn having a discussion over mundane topics.
Their jeers and somewhat drunken behavior made him think they wouldn’t be too hard to eliminate. They drank to their delights from a barrel they likely had procured from someplace within the city. He doubted they had hauled it here from elsewhere.
Since they had a few archers with them, he had them position themselves and get ready to strike them from a distance.
With the right signal, they entered, took up positions, drew their arrows, and launched the arrows into the air.
Two banespawn immediately went down with the other group going down quickly by the archers accompanying Felmir’s group.
“What are you louts doing down there?” a voice said from an upper level. Their footsteps could be heard as they motioned towards the ladder. “You were told to take it easy on the alcohol. Now I’m going have to reprimand you.”
Jorge readied his bow. The moment this banespawn’s feet hit the ladder and their face appeared, they found an arrow straight through their mouth. Whilst they fell and plummeted off the ladder, Frederek caught them before they would make an even louder noise alerting whoever else might be up there.
Abigail began going straight up the ladder while several others went up as well to seize the upper floor that was supposed to have the lever to open or close the gate.
For a brief moment, he heard a couple of thuds hit the floor above them.
Kiran remained below taking a gander outside the arched entrance they came through.
“Hey!” Abigail shouted down to them.
“What is it?” Felmir asked from down below.
“We’ve got a big problem. Come up here and see for yourself.”
Without any delay, Kiran went up the ladder. He approached Abigail and Frederek who were standing by the lever, or rather, the place where the lever once existed. Well, this isn’t good.
Felmir muttered something to himself.
I didn’t expect that we’d find this. They had made it here without any real problems and successfully eliminated the ones guarding this location only to end up realizing that it was all pointless. No wonder they don’t have more banespawn guarding this location. They don’t have any reason to if we can’t open or close this gate even if we wanted to.
“Guys,” Welman said looking out one of the arrow slits that looked towards the inner city. “We’ve got company!”
They all quickly headed down the ladder and found themselves outside in the rain atop the wall. Dozens of banespawn came marching towards them and headed up the wall.
“We have to run for it,” Kiran said.
Their options were limited forcing them to run down the eastern wall to take an alternative route from their prior plans. However, it became quickly apparent that up ahead, another few dozen banespawn marched towards them as well. Of course there’s more of them. There’s always more.
Abigail clicked her tongue. “I never believed these abominable creatures had enough intelligence to pull off a maneuver like this.”
“Perhaps we should’ve,” Frederek said as they all paused for a moment to figure out what to do next.
If we head back, we run into banespawn. If we head forward, we run into them as well.
“Here,” Felmir said. “We can make it to this rooftop from here.” Felmir launched himself off the edge of the wall. He landed on the sloped roof with several more following suit. They began heading in a northernly direction while he stayed back.
The banespawn ran for them from both directions. Lightning reflected off their armor and wet faces. They were eager to satiate their blood lust for them. There were many more of them and with the position they currently held, getting in a fight with them would be far from ideal. They could’ve used the tight entrances leading to the actual gatehouse to their advantage, but if they had stayed there, then they would’ve prevented themselves from any sort of escape.
Thankfully they were far enough away, that they could hop off the wall in time. Zorge gestured for him to go before him so he did.
Unfortunately, Kiran’s foot slipped a little. His body managed to reach the sloped roof, but due to not being able to launch himself appropriately, he landed on it awkwardly. His body twisted around causing him to lose his footing.
Crap!
His body kept sliding down it and before he could try to grab anything to potentially keep him atop it, he fell entirely off the roof and headed for the ground.
His head hit something hard and he gazed up towards the eternally dark cloudy sky.
A sharp pain ran through his head, particularly the backside which felt a bit sticky and wet due to having hit the ground.
He tried to pull himself up, but instead found his vision disorienting. He fell back down to his stomach.
“Kiran!” Lar said telepathically.
He wanted to respond, but the injury to his head caused him to be unable to. All he could do was remain there and hear the approach of someone coming for him.
With his consciousness slipping further away, he forced his eyes open spotting someone standing right in front of him. All he could see however, were their dark brown leather boots. He wanted to look up to see who they were, but he couldn’t even manage that as his consciousness finally faded.