Blood and Scales

Chapter 13 – Escape the Prison

Aelia awoke to loud bells ringing and shouts of the guards about an invasion. She shared a look with Grunna from across the cell. Had her father really made it all the way here so fast?

“We need to get out of here,” Grunna said, “none of them stand a chance against your father.”

“Sure, let’s just snap our fingers and escape,” Aelia retorted with all the sarcasm she could muster.

“There must be something we can do,” Grunna growled back.

Grunna started trying to bash the door down by running into it over and over again. Aelia grabbed his arm and managed to stop him just before he hit the solid iron door again.

“You’re too weak. Even I can feel that. You need to eat, and regain your strength.” Aelia said to the frustrated lizigoth.

“Eat what?” Grunna spat back before realizing what Aelia was saying.

Aelia looked away as she used a nail to cut open her wrist. Grunna didn’t even hesitate at the sight of the blood and began drinking the warm liquid dripping from her wrist. Far sooner than he would have preferred, Aelia pushed him away weakly. He could have easily resisted but he managed to regain his senses and stop himself from completely draining the Vanardis woman.

“That’s enough,” she said, before collapsing to her knees and applying pressure to her wrist, “That’s all I can afford to lose. You should be able to pull the door from its hinges now.”

Grunna found that he was able to do just that. It had been easy, like pulling the bark off of a tree. If this was the strength of the Vanardis, his people were in a lot of trouble. One of the guards stationed at the end of the corridor of cells heard the commotion and came running at him with a spear.

The man almost seemed to be moving slower than was really possible. Grunna deftly avoided the jab with the spear, and grabbing the haft, flipped the man over. Grunna winced as he heard a sickening snap behind him.

“Sorry!” He tried, but the man was dead.

Aelia crawled over to the man.

“Don’t look, Grunna,” she said before she bit his neck open with her teeth, and drank her fill. It was awful. While she could eat from the recently dead, the taste was terrible and there was a time limit before it turned rancid and would make her sick.

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“I’m sorry. I needed to eat if I’m going to be any help,” she tried to explain.

“I… understand,” Grunna said hesitantly, somehow looking even greener than usual to Aelia.

Grunna grabbed a sword from the rack at the end of the corridor, before leading the way up the stairs that she assumed led to the exit. He passed her the spear he had taken from the guard. She didn’t know how much help she would be. She had no idea how to use a weapon beyond that you were supposed to hit the other person with the sharp end.

They managed to not run into any more guards on the way out. She was certain that they would pop out at every junction and attack, but they never did. They ran through a maze of corridors that Aelia was sure she would have gotten lost in. What was it with the lizigoths and maze-like pathways?

She was not prepared for the chaos and mayhem that she saw as they left the building. Everywhere she looked there were desperate fights between large groups of lizigoths, and a handful of Vanardis. The streets were littered with the bodies of slain lizigoths, and only the occasional Vanardis. It was a slaughter. She felt her stomach turn at the sight of the carnage, but her desperate thoughts turned to the child that she and Ardera had saved.

“We need to go to the nursery,” she yelled to Grunna over the sounds of combat and the downpour of rain that instantly soaked through her clothes.

“The nursery?” he questioned, clearly wanting to jump to the defense of the lizigoths struggling in front of them.

“The child we rescued! I need to make sure she’s safe,” Aelia screamed, “I don’t know the way, so I need you to show me.”

Grunna was conflicted for a moment. On the one hand, every fiber of his being wanted to jump to the defense of his brothers and sisters who were struggling against the invaders, but on the other, the bond he shared with Aelia nagged at his mind, and the thought of making sure the children were safe made sense.

“Okay,” he finally shouted, before running off to the left, “follow me!”

Grunna was unbelievably fast. Aelia barely managed to keep up with him, as he dashed and dodged through the fights. He occasionally pitched in with this group or that as he waited for Aelia to catch up. He was able to turn the tides on more than one fight, the lizigoths he helped immediately joining other groups and doing their best to push the vanardis invaders back.

After what seemed like forever of running along the reed paths, some of which were smashed to pieces, they reached what looked like the center of the town. There was a horde of lizigoths surrounding a much smaller but clearly more victorious force of vanardis.

At the center of the wall of vanardis was a man yelling orders, heavily armored and covered in blood. Grunna helped the lizigoths break through the wall of spearmen that were blocking their way, though he was the only one left at the end of the onslaught.

The man turned and looked at them, raising his sword but then pausing.

“Aelia?” the armored man before her said. It took her a moment to realize who was standing in front of her. When it hit her, she shuddered.

“Dad?” she said in disbelief.

Seeing Count Antipolis covered in blood, and the pile of dead lizigoths at his feet caused a burning fury to take over Grunna, and he charged the Vanardis man without a second thought.