Rami couldn’t hold it in any longer. The wretched cough building up in his throat after inhaling possibly a few tons of soot had begun to make its way up and force itself out of his mouth. Yet he gulped it back down, adjusting the red scarf covering half his face as he pushed through into the garrison court yard with his men by his side.
He looked to his right and nodded at half his men who were in charge of finding and releasing Venom’s men held prisoner at the garrison. They nodded back parting from the gang and sliding their way to the East of the garrison pushing away the men and women desperately trying to run out.
The rest of the men to his left parted ways to find Venom’s contraband held at the garrison disappearing into a cloud of smoke passing by. At that moment Rami caught the glimpse of a garrison soldier noticing the newcomers. Noor was about to chase after the feeble man when Rami held on to him watching the soldier stumble his way and run back into the fort's walls.
“It’s fine. We need to find Sir Tucci…,” Rami said, wiping his eyes that were beginning to tear as a wave of heat passed by.
“...Or have the guards find us first?” Noor questioned Rami’s logic but eventually folded. They needed to stick to the plan.
“The main halls are this way,” Yulhan hurried them, bringing his elbow to his face in a desperate attempt to keep the smoke away. And within a second they were up the stairs and into the main garrison building pushing down the doors apart.
“We need to make as much noise as possible. Let them know we are here,” Rami repeated the very words Dolovan commanded him to. She needed Rami to act as a member of the Circle. He needed to show his dominance.
The fire traveling through the two towers on either side of the main building certainly looked like war coming down on the North Western garrison tonight.
A few terrified servants passed by screaming their lungs out as they entered the place. It seemed the majority had evacuated leaving nothing but a silent main building waiting to be consumed by the fires drawing in.
The loud noise of a side of a tower falling took over for a moment before Rami directed them down through the hallways and into the main hall just like Dolovan had asked him to do. There were giant engraved doors with a palm-sized lock dangling at its handles. Without a moment to spare, Noor brought down the hammer on it. The lock barely dented itself. He went at it a few times before Yulhan stepped in.
“No! Don’t you dare pull your fairy dust out now,” Noor growled at him pushing Yulhan aside.
“Why not?! I can help–”
Yulhan only got so far before Noor managed to shatter the lock open and the chain fell to the floor. Rami helped push the doors open as they entered the main hall. They ran up to the altar passing the large decadent tables crowding the room. The altar had three chairs, one large and bold, and two smaller in size. Rami paused putting his hands on the main table on the altar as he stared at the majestic chair imagining a figure of a man he thought Sir Tucci would look like, ready to have his head snapped in half.
Rami snapped out of it quickly. He couldn’t afford to go down a path of questioning his morals, now that he was in the middle of it all.
His eyes swept to the little crevice hidden at the intersection of the walls to his right. His footsteps approached it with caution as he found the little door hidden behind a shadow just like Dolovan had said. He held the door knob, his hands shaking in question. A glance at Noor and Yulhan only made it worse. Rami had to do it, he had to get the head of Sir Tucci to survive the cesspool of a mess they had gotten themselves into.
In a second, he had opened the door and was already up the tiny spiraling staircase and into the bed chamber of Sir Tucci, who loved to cram himself into a small chamber during the night with his cat, Raven, undisturbed by the world outside.
The chaos outside of the walls muffled itself as Rami stood at the edge of the last step taking in the tiny chamber amazed at how well it managed to keep the noise out of the room. The tiny window by the top barely let any moonlight in. The giant bed at the center filled up most of the space as the bed curtains lay majestically layered.
He took his first step making a creak as the floor board released pressure. His hand automatically held on to the hilt of the sword sheathed at his side as if he was actually prepared to fight if something were to come at him. The little lessons Noor managed to give whilst on the journey here was only to practice him chopping a head off. And to Rami’s annoyance those were Dolovan’s clear instructions.
“Just teach him how to chop a head off and that’s it,” Dolovan had said to Noor.
Rami’s heart was beginning to pound louder as he drew closer to the bed where he managed to see the shape of someone sleeping in it. It was truly an uncanny resemblance of a person sleeping soundly under the blankets. He knew then that this was Dolovan’s plan. He needed to behead the body asleep in the bed. She was simply presenting it all on a platter that it was as easy for him to come in and chop the head off and take it home proving his loyalty. Rami wondered what it was she wanted from him so desperately she was willing to go to such great lengths.
Such great lengths that she was willing to sacrifice her dearest mentor, Sir Tucci? Rami thought as a shiver ran down his spine seeing that he actually had to behead someone with his own two hands now.
A deep breath helped him unsheathe his sword and hold it up making the glint of it in the barely there moonlight bounce across the dark room. He wondered for a moment how it had all come to this. He was beheading a man in the hopes of keeping his own head attached to his body.
“Nope, now is not the time for a panic attack,” he whispered to himself as he desperately wished he was back in his apartment, heck even back in Derek’s office begging for a promotion for a third time in a row. The grip on the hilt tightened as he desperately tried to disassociate himself from the morality of it all. The sword moved higher just like he had practiced but he could only think of how morally wrong it all was. He just couldn’t blatantly behead a man. He just couldn’t do so to save his own neck.
A pair of small paws suddenly appeared from under the corner of the sheets startling Rami. His sword slipped as he jumped, yet he was lucky enough to catch the sword in time before it fell on him.
His eyes immediately scanned the bed to see a small black cat sitting pretty on top of the sleeping body of its owner. The green vibrant eyes of the creature shined as it titled its head to observing its visitor curiously. Rami pressed his racing heart in hopes to calm it down while staring back at the cat that had possibly saved its owner from a beheading for the time being. He smiled at it quite unknowingly only to realize something then.
Whatever was under the sheets was not actually breathing. It was completely still.
Rami's eyes widened in fright. With his sword to his side, he leapt forward to grab the end of the sheets and tug. The cat stepped aside in time for Rami to pull the sheets open to find a body burnt close to ashes lying there in complete stillness. Rami jumped in shock, sending the cat running off.
She burnt him?!
He questioned in fright when upon a closer look the body did not seem to take the shape of an older man with a broad stature as Sir Tucci was described to be. In fact, it looked more like a frail figure, ashen in its entirety. Rami paused for a moment wondering if Dolovon truly burnt someone else in an attempt to be presented as Tucci sleeping in his chambers ready to be consumed by the fire right after Rami would behead the body.
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He understood then why Dolovan had set the garrison on fire. And that it was he who must now tell the Circle that the sudden fire that erupted at the North Western garrison bordering the Kingdom was of his doing. And that it was also the primary reason he would bring home Tucci’s head burnt in its entirety.
The cat jumped back onto the bed drawing closer to Rami as it looked at the dead body tucked under the sheets.
Your owner must be safe, then?
Rami thought almost wishing the cat would understand him. Its sweet purrs as it sat next to his shadow made Rami let his sword rest on the sheets and reach out to it. He barely touched its fur when suddenly the sound of metal slinking broke the silence in the room.
“Don’t you dare touch him!” a sharp whisper sounded as cold metal touched Rami’s back and pressed on it. Rami immediately threw his hands up shouting, “I won’t.”
Another tug on his back and he suddenly caught a cloaked man from the corner of his eye.
“Raven, here.” A small toy bounced onto the floor and the cat instantly cleared the bed. Rami stayed hands raised catching a glimpse of an old man with a heavy beard and towering height appearing on his left.
“She told me you’d be here,” he addressed Rami.
“Are you Sir Tucci Bari?”
The metal pressed harder on Rami’s back, “Hush when I speak! What do you want?!”
Rami thought for a moment on what his answer should be, “I–I don’t think I can say–”
“What do you want, boy! You must want something of value that Yara has me faking my death!”
Rami felt the sword of Tucci tremble as if his old age reverberated through his weapon. He wondered why Tucci was here. It seemed Dolovan had planned this well enough that the burnt body currently lying in Tucci’s bed should have taken Tucci’s place. Rami would have beheaded it and would be seen taking the burnt head of Tucci and walking out of the garrison doors and there would be no dispute that Rami did in fact kill the Knight tonight by all accounts. Heck, there would even be a burnt headless body lying in the soon to be scorched garrison halls accounting for Tucci’s demise. It was the perfect plan. But what was Tucci doing here?
“What did she tell you? What did Yara tell you?” Rami asked partly out of curiosity.
He felt the positioning of the sword move as Tucci drew closer to Rami and whispered in distaste, “That you want my head on a stick, as if I would be afraid of such a threat.”
At that moment Rami knew Tucci would have never agreed to have a burnt body replace him. He would have merely agreed with Dolovan’s plan only to break his promise and appear at the right moment to truly fight his enemy.
“Does she know you’re here?” Rami blurted out.
“All she needs to know is that I am exactly where I should be, boy!”
Something happened then, as if Rami had been practicing secretly his whole life. As soon as Rami realized that Sir Tucci was about to swing his weapon to slice him in half, Rami’s reflexes kicked in, making him grab his sword laying at the bedside in one swift move. And before he knew it he had whipped the sword straight out and clashed against Tucci’s heavy blow from above stopping the knight’s sword from driving into his head.
Rami pushed his sword up and away, sending Tucci stumbling to the floor.
The sudden ruckus sent footsteps speeding up the stairs. Noor had appeared just in time to have Tucci tucked to the floor once more. But Tucci was strong. He wasn’t a typical soldier Noor had fought in the Army. He was a whole Army in one.
Noor was easily thrown against the wall in a moment as Tucci stepped up to grab Rami by his throat. Rami struggled trying to kick the knight as much as possible as his throat began to shut with the pressure crushing against his neck.
A chair came flying at Tucci as they both fell to the floor with a loud thud. Rami was gasping for air, heaving on the floorboards when Yulhan pulled him up and began forcing him down the stairs in rapid progression.
It was not until they were back in the main hall did everything finally register in Rami’s mind. He glanced back to see Noor following them.
“We are aborting the mission. Let’s get out of here–” Noor only managed to get a few words out when a giant chest came rolling down on him knocking him to the floor.
“Noor!” Yulhan yelled only to bite back, seeing Tucci appear to finish his business stepping over the chest, freezing Rami and Yulhan in place. Tucci slinked his sword out and began to charge at them.
Almost instinctively Rami pushed Yulhan away. Tucci only needed him. He grabbed his dagger to the side hoping whatever he did earlier to fight back would come through as a reflex once more. Yet when Tucci brought his sword down at Rami, Rami pushed it back with his dagger only to leave his dagger broken into pieces and fumbling onto the floor.
Rami fell to his side grabbing a hold of the altar table in a desperate attempt to save himself from a second blow from Tucci. But Tucci was fast, he tripped Rami, trapping him under his shadow as he stood over him in dominance bringing his sword up high.
“I’ve been waiting for one of you to come find me for so long. From what you imbeciles did to Yavan Dolovan, you deserve nothing less than death!”
Rami’s eyes widened in shock. There was nowhere to run to. There was no Noor to save him. And in a split second he would be dead by the hands of some guy he just met. He would be dead and gone for good. Will dying here and now make him wake up back in his apartment? Will dying here and now send him home? Or will he be dead for good with no way to say his last goodbyes to his mother?
The sword came down making him crouch as he braced for impact. He waited for it to pierce his body. He waited for the pain to finally hit but it never did.
The sound of metal clanking on the floor sent Rami shooting his eyes open. And with a loud thud, he saw Tucci’s body fall to his side with an arrow stuck to his back piercing through his heart.
Rami looked up to Yulhan a few feet in front, equally shocked as he was, the only person who could have intervened. But Yulhan had no crossbow that could have shot an arrow. In fact, Yulhan never even knew what the first thing about a crossbow would be. Such a perfect shot in the blink of an eye would only be made by a trained professional. A professional that was perhaps a bit too quick at taking their shot, a step ahead at all times.
Rami’s eyes found a figure standing at the entrance to the hall hidden by a heavy shadow. Faulting footsteps sounded as the figure came into the moonlight peeking in through the stained glass windows. And there she stood as she watched Tucci finally fall on his back with his face revealing itself in the moonlight. She froze in shock. Her crossbow loosened, falling from her fingers, clanking down to the floor as deep regret flooded her being. Her feet stumbled as she began running from the entrance of the main hall towards the altar at the opposite end.
By the time she reached the altar she was a crying mess. Her tears streamed down her cheeks as she pushed Rami aside to grab onto Sir Tucci, his blood pooling the altar floors.
Tucci squirmed before his eyes recognized the woman desperately holding onto him. A smile crept up his lips.
“Wha–what are you doing here? You were supposed to be in the safe house,” she sobbed as her tears began trickling down her chin and onto Tucci laying on her blood soaked hands.
He attempted a chuckle before whispering, “I don’t belong in a safe house, Yara.” It made her sob harder as she began quivering, realizing her mistake, realizing it was only a matter of moments before he would be gone forever, “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry. I didn’t—I didn’t know it was you…”
Tucci only smiled looking at her before whispering, “You are not at fault, dear. It’s all mine to bear. I too would do anything for Yavan. So do what you need to do, Yara. F–Finish it properly. And now, I get to meet an old friend, after all this time. Thank you—thank you for ending my agony…”
The gut wrenching last breaths of a man clawing for life was far worse than Rami had ever imagined. He realized then he had never actually stayed in the same room as a person’s soul left their body. It was heartbreaking to see a man who was one moment on his feet in all his stature, now bleeding on the floor as air completely left his body. With his last breath the light in Tucci’s eyes dimmed forever. His body dropped motionless as Dolovan’s cries grew to a wail.
Rami looked to Yulhan, who had managed to help Noor up from being crushed by the chest that had him pinned to the floor. They too were shocked at the outcome. Dolovan having killed her beloved mentor was never in the books. Another wail from Dolovan sent shivers down Rami’s spine as he watched her cradle the dead body. He caught the eyes of Tucci once more, looking more at peace than he had expected, almost as if Tucci had already forgiven Dolovan before he left for good. And as he stared into Tucci’s peaceful eyes, Rami, for the first time ever, wondered if that was what his father felt the day they learnt of the news of his passing. Rami wondered if his father felt finally at peace that day, the last day he would ever see him alive.