What’s going on? Why is the Keep on fire? Is this our fault? What do we do?

Arakh and Kione stood frozen in place as dozens of questions sprinted through their minds. The flood of sudden, unexpected stimuli locked them there, barely giving them time to process one new piece of information before the next curveball hit them. Each time one of them tried to move, speak, do anything the weight of the scene before them crashed back in.

It wasn’t until the creature on Arakh’s back let out a piercing screech to the sky that either moved. That brief, tangible lurch was enough to knock them back to their senses, but even with the freedom to act, their path wasn’t any clearer.

“What do we do? Should we try and make it back into the Keep,” Kione asked, her voice trembling.

A true Jarl inspires courage and hope, even when they are unthinkable.

Nakata’s words rang in Arakh’s head. That line was one of the staples that came alongside the stories of Jarl Utam. He’d heard it so many times that it had become white noise – words that took shape in his mind without meaning.

That was the moment that their true weight finally clicked.

“We need more information,” he said, straightening his back and lowering his voice, trying to hold an image of his father in his mind to let that drive his movements. “If we can find a way into the Keep, that should be our highest priority.”

The act didn’t calm him down, but it did seem to steel Kione’s nerves a little.

“Whoever is attacking, they had to have launched their assault while we were in the labyrinth, so they shouldn’t have gotten too far yet. It sounds like the fighting is in the direction of the front gate, so they probably haven’t made it all the way up the hill yet. We should look for an opening. If there are any townsfolk who aren’t safely inside yet, we’ll rally with them and fight our way there.”

With every word, he felt doubt creep into his mind. He’d spent his whole life training for situations just like this, but actually seeing war break out in front of him, he suddenly felt completely unprepared. He searched his memory for stories of his father’s conquests, desperate for a solution to the problem before them, but nothing quite fit.

He had no clue whether this was the right call or not, but it was the best he could come up with.

“Alright,” Kione said, nodding solemnly. She was smarter than him, and she didn’t point out any obvious flaws in his plan, so he took that as a good sign. At least, until she got a panicked look in her eye and started patting at her belt.

“What’s wrong?”

“I don’t have a weapon.”

Normally, any time they left the Keep’s walls, they made sure to bring along something for protection, even if it was just a knife. Since the two of them had left so quickly to get ahead of the official patrol, she’d forgotten.

Arakh was still holding the odd, curved sword from inside of the labyrinth. It was heavier than he was used to, but it would work for himself.

“Here,” he unsheathed the long dagger that he always wore on his belt and handed it to her. It was wide and ornate. It was his mother’s, so he normally kept it on himself for sentimental purposes, but it was still a suitable weapon.

Although he wore it daily, she had never actually seen him draw it for use. She took it solemnly, recognizing what it meant for him to give it up.

“Let’s move,” he said and lurched forward. Almost immediately, he staggered. He had been so focused on finding an answer that the weight of the creature on his back had blended into the background of his mind. He’d practically forgotten it was there until it interfered with his movement.

“Uhm…,” the creature craned its neck forward and around to look him in the eye as he tried to figure out how to handle its presence. “Could you… get off of me?”

Before he even finished the question, it started clambering down the front of his chest and onto the ground. It circled back around to look him in the face again, like it was waiting for his command. Something instinctively told him that this creature could be useful, but he still had so many questions about what it was and why it was treating him that way, that it just added another unknown to the already complex calculations in his mind. He felt himself start to freeze again, before he caught that hesitancy and decided he would deal with it later.

“Stay at a distance and try to stay out of sight. Follow our lead,” he said, uncertain of whether or not the creature would listen. It quickly darted over toward a tree, scrambling up into the higher limbs, seeming to disappear into the new leaves of spring.

That’ll have to do for now.

They started moving for real.

Keeping low and moving slowly through the brush, they wrapped around the base of the outcropping and toward the edge of the village. When the outermost huts came into view, the severity of the situation only became clearer. The orange hue of the setting sun mixed with the deep red of the flames tearing their way through the buildings. Even at a distance, they could make out the silhouettes of people locked in combat with each other. The blinding light behind them made it so they couldn’t even make out who was an attacker and who was a villager. Occasionally, gouts of flame would erupt in the distance, blasting high into the air above the rooftops.

It was a full-blown battlefield.

All around them, people were fighting and dying without sense or order. As Arakh scanned the scene in front of them, his plan started to seem so naïve. There was no easy way through this. They could try to join the fight and rally the townspeople, but he couldn’t even tell who was friend and who was foe.

It was too much.

He wasn’t ready for this.

He needed Nakata and his father to tell him what to do, but they were on the opposite side of it all.

“I-is there another way in,” he asked Kione, desperate for an easy answer. He personally didn’t know of any secret entrances or exits to the Keep, but if someone did it would be her.

“There used to be an emergency tunnel that connected the outside of town to the Keep, but I know it was sealed up by Jarl Atan during his decline.”

That was better than nothing. If just the entrance was sealed, they could try to find it and clear a path. That would get them back into the Keep at least.

“Where is-“

He was cut off as another pillar of flame tore out from the town directly over them. Even dozens of feet in the air, its heat scalded their exposed skin, like they were standing next to an open firepit. It grazed the treetops that they were hiding under, setting them aflame and casting light all across the little thicket they had taken up refuge in.1

This time, the source of the flame was visible.

A single naked man strode out of the blaze, gaunt and pallid amongst the chaos. His palm was outstretched, sputtering a few final cinders onto the ground in their direction. The light of the flames around him flickered, casting sharp shadows all across his body, finding every little crevice in his bony form and exaggerating his skeletal appearance.

In that moment they saw death. As his eyes locked onto theirs, they had the cold realization that death had seen them too.

“Run,” was all Arakh was able to mutter before the naked form let out a ghastly wail that carried over the battlefield, cutting through the clamor.

There are more in the woods. Leave no one alive.

They tore off in the opposite direction as they heard the pounding of heavy footfalls break through the tree line behind them. They gave no thought to anything other than putting down one foot in front of the other as fast as possible. Branches snapped at their faces and slashed their skin, but they barely even noticed.

They only ran.

Unfortunately, the heavy steps only came closer. Arakh realized that just running wouldn’t be enough. They needed something to give them an edge.

The two of them had spent their entire lives playing in these woods. This land was just as much their home as the Keep, and they’d have to count on that to save themselves.

Arakh wracked his brain trying to come up with anything that’d help as his mind flashed back to a memory in a distant childhood of him and Kione running, just like they were now, only racing each other instead of a brutal death. He recalled tumbling through the brush without a care, until the ground disappeared from underneath him, sending his world tumbling.

The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.

The terrain around the Keep was craggy and unpredictable. There were countless little drop offs and pits in the earth. They’d found plenty through trial and error, but most were hidden by undergrowth.

“This way,” he shouted, grabbing Kione by the arm and pulling her along.

“Wha-,” she started to question him, but as the familiar path they were taking triggered her own memories, she figured out his plan.

They carried on, tumbling through the brush, letting themselves falter and allowing their pursuers to slowly gain ground. Just as it sounded like the closest could reach out and touch them, they barreled through one last little shrub – the same they had crossed in Arakh’s memory – but instead of running normally, they leapt as soon as they emerged on the other side.

Without missing a step, they cleared the abrupt five-foot drop off, landing heavy at the bottom. Arakh grunted in pain as his ankle rolled slightly on impact, but he pushed through the pain and they took off again at full speed.3 Behind them, they could hear shouts of surprise and the heavy clamor of armored forms collapsing in a heap. They didn’t look back. Taking an unexpected fall like that could kill or injure a person if they fell wrong, but they knew that wouldn’t be enough to get rid of their pursuers.

They’d bought themselves time and space, but the footsteps picked back up . They’d have to try something else, but they had plenty of space to work with.

They kept running, just trying to put distance between themselves and the Keep, looking for opportunities to shake up the people behind them – slow them down, trip them up, break their pace – anything to buy a little more time.2

It worked, to a certain extent. Slowly, the sound of the pounding charge grew distant. They never got a good idea of how many people started on the chase, but they could tell that some were falling off of their tail with each little trick. Unfortunately, their own stamina was faltering too.

Eventually – it felt like both minutes and hours at the same time – Arakh knew that he’d have to stop soon. His lungs were burning and his legs pulsed with little aches every time his feet slammed into the ground. Looking over at Kione, he could tell that she was starting to falter too. They couldn’t keep running forever. He quickly risked a glance over his shoulder and could tell that there were about 5 people still nipping at their heels – all warriors in full armor, weapons drawn.

The sight sent a chill down Arakh’s spine, but he knew with certainty that they had to turn and fight. The few that were left had made it this far were wary now. They wouldn’t be able to shake them off that easily and if they kept up this pace, the two of them would be too exhausted to resist when the group did finally catch up.

“Kione,” he said through pants. She saw his face, understood his meaning, and nodded; her own eyes wild with fear.

They kept up the chase, looking for an opportune moment to turn and fight. The time came as they burst out into a small clearing and immediately turned, ready to hold the raiders in the waist high brush.4

They had to take every advantage they could and Arakh recalled the story of one of his father’s greatest victories, holding back the Kira army that had slain his grandfather as they attempted to push on to Gamman Keep. He defeated a force more than twice the size of his own by facing them as they crossed the Brackbarrow river to the east.

It wasn’t quite the same, but it was the best he could come up with in the moment.

“We need to move quickly,” Arakh whispered to Kione between heavy pants. “Focus the first one… take as many out of the fight as possible… while they can’t move freely…”

She nodded back frantically, his dagger shaking in her grip. They’d both been trained to fight by Nakata, but for her it always took the back seat to her training as Steward. She was a decent fighter, but she was always more comfortable spending her time working inside the Keep. That preference was becoming all the more visible now that the stakes had been raised.

She was panicking and Arakh was too lost in his own mind to notice.

When the moment finally came, she froze.5

Just like he said, as the brush shook and exploded with the form of the huge raider, he charged forward to meet him. Arakh brought his massive, curved blade down, aimed at the raider’s throat. The blow didn’t find purchase, as the raider brought his own battle axe up to catch the blade. Arakh had expected as much. His hope was that in that brief window where he was occupying the raider’s attention, Kione would find an opening and strike a definitive blow, but it never came.

He glanced back to see her standing still, feet locked in place and instead of creating an opening for himself, that momentary lapse in his focus gave the raider a chance to move.

The air in Arakh’s lungs exploded outward as a foot landed in his stomach with so much force that he was knocked off of his feet. As he sputtered for breath, it took all that he had just to dodge the axe that split the ground where he had just landed. He couldn’t do anything to help as the rest of the pursuers spilled into the clearing, steadily surrounding him and Kione.

Once blades started coming at her, it broke the hold that the panic had on her, but she was too late. She backed up, dodging the first few swipes, but rapidly losing her stance. She cried out in pain as she realized the longsword aimed for her throat had found an opening. She managed to move her arm in the way at the last second, letting the blade cut deep into her forearm instead of her torso. Blood splattering across her chest as she just managed to buy herself a few more seconds.6

In that moment, Kione and Arakh’s eyes met again as they realized that this was the end. The panic they had been feeling broke and a serene calm swept over them as time crawled to a standstill. There was no way out. He was stuck on his back fighting just to live a few more seconds and she was surrounded, injured, and completely demoralized.

This is it.

Kione was ashamed. She could hear every one of her father’s lessons in her mind – a wealth of knowledge and advice that could have prevented this situation entirely – all of it wasted. She listened and followed instructions, but in the back of her mind she had always felt certain that it wouldn’t matter. Her father and Jarl Utam relished in their stories of war, but she had no desire for the battlefield. All she’d known was peace and she was content to stay holed up in the Keep with her scrolls and records.

I took it all for granted and got us killed.

At the same time Arakh’s mind slowly ran itself through every decision he had made to lead them there. He painstakingly parsed through everything he’d seen or heard for the last few months, looking for any clue or flag he had missed. Question after question filtered through his mind, but it only confirmed that it wouldn’t have mattered. Even with hindsight, he still couldn’t find an answer. The problem was him.

This is probably for the best. If I had become Jarl, this would’ve happened inevitably anyway. At least dad can find a real successor.

His father was still in the Keep. It may have been too late for them, but so long as he was alive, Gamman Keep would hold.

It was a small consolation, but he decided to embrace it.

The axe that had been frozen in space above him started to speed up as time began to catch up to him. There wasn’t any time left to dodge, it was over for him. He let his eyes linger on Kione and felt the panic close back in.

His stomach sank and the brief calm that had come over him started to evaporate. He assumed it was shame, but as the blades cut closer and closer to her, he realized it was something else. She was his best friend. Fuck his duties as a Jarl. For a moment, he forgot about himself, his father, the raiders.

He didn’t want her to die. He didn’t care about anything else.

“Nooooooo,” he roared, letting the sheer desperation drive him.

With that shift in perspective, he was no longer willing to accept his death. The respite granted by resignation was broken, time snapped back to normal, and he was left to flail and struggle for an answer.

He didn’t know what it was, but he still had to move.

He kicked upward into the raider, knocking his blow off course. The axe cut a glancing blow into his shoulder, but it was hardly lethal. He kept screaming, as loud as he could. He hoped it sounded intimidating, but it was pathetic above all else. Still, the raiders balked.8

Not because of him, but because of the creature mirroring his cry which dove out of the treetops toward the raiders surrounding Kione. They hardly knew what had happened before the lizard from the crack tore into the nearest raider’s throat, leaving them to flail and gargle for breath. The others were only barely able to bring their weapons to bare on it before it had launched itself at the next.7

In a single move, the beast turned the tides and Arakh wasn’t about to pass up that opportunity. With the raider’s attention split, he scrambled to his feet and charged, swinging wildly. Like a wild animal, he let sheer instinct drive him, hoping that desperate ferociousness would be enough.

The raider faltered, struggling to regain his composure now that he had been put on the defensive. Arakh didn’t give him the chance. Blow after blow fell, pushing him back. He blocked some, but more landed. Lost in the frenzy, Arakh kept swinging until the raider staggered backward and lost his footing. He saw victory, stepping forward and plunging his curved blade down into the raider’s chest. He gurgled a single spout of blood, cutting his hands to ribbons as he tried to pull the blade out of his chest, but it was too late.9

Arakh didn’t waste a second, pulling the blade from the body and turning on the rest of the party. Kione was on the ground, watching the beast with wide eyes. It had already felled two of the raiders. Only two were left.

The beast leapt for one as the final raider turned to flee.

Arakh refused to give them the chance. They had lost the will to fight, but he knew there was too much to risk by letting them go. Arakh struck a single blow into their back as they tried to scramble into the brush, followed by a second quick blow to stop their squirming.10

The clearing fell into deafening silence, the pounding in their ears slowly fading as the adrenaline drained and left them both feeling exhausted. Kione was still on the ground, staring at the massacred bodies in front of her. It was more blood than either of them had ever seen and the beast was tearing into its final victim, splattering more across the ground.

The body was already dead. The creature was done killing and had begun feasting.

Kione and Arakh both felt their stomachs turn over as they realized what it was doing. Kione couldn’t hold it back and scrambled away before emptying her stomach onto the ground in sobbing heaves. She started just a second before Arakh had expected to do the same, but seeing her start caught him off guard and he forced himself to swallow instead.

He cast his gaze down at the crimson-stained blade in his hand.

He’d hunted before, but this was the first time he’d intentionally injured another person, let alone killed them. A cold numbness swept over him as everything started to feel distant. The single thing keeping him grounded was Kione’s retching.

They weren’t cut out for this. For the first time in his life, the voices of his father and Nakata were silent. He was shocked that they had even lived through that. He didn’t give a fuck about what was happening at the Keep. The numbness left by the sudden calm muffled the instinctive shame he felt at that thought, but he was able to relish in the weight that he felt suddenly disappear from his shoulders.

All I need to worry about is us.

“Come on.”

He extended his hand down to pull Kione up from the ground.

“What do we do? Where do we go now,” she asked frantically, her eyes only able to leave the beast in quick flickers, terrified of what it might do if she stopped looking.

He knelt down, blocking her view and taking her uninjured hand in both of his. She was the only thing keeping him going insane and he saw that she was on the edge of her own spiral, seconds from falling in on herself. He needed to anchor her the way she had done for him.

He didn’t know what he needed to say to make that happen, so he just said what he needed most in that moment.

“Somewhere safe.” 11