AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Mara looked back to the castle. Must be bad inside if they’re taking the king away. He smiled. “C –”
Mara’s legs were kicked out from beneath him. A second kick hit him square in the face, crunching his nose. He slowed time. The glimmer of a blade with a golden handle came at him.
He tried to shuffle backwards, only to find himself being held. He lifted his head as high as he could, but it wasn’t enough. The blade ripped through his ear. The attacker followed up with a knee, smashing it into his face. Dazed, Mara wriggled hard to get free and to his feet.
The twins from his first day in training stared back at him. They both smiled, the scarred twin with no front teeth. Mara let time return to normal.
“Fancy seeing you, ’ere,” the bent nosed twin said.
Mara touched at his wet ear that dangled from his head, then gripping it, pulled hard to tear it off. The twin’s faces immediately changed, bravery turning to horror. Mara wiped at the blood that dripped from his nose. “Thought you two were dead.”
“You wish, cunt,” the toothless twin shouted.
Mara spat blood on the floor as he drew Silas’s blade. “No. You’re going to wish you were.”
Silas coughed as he came round in a smoke-filled room. “What the fuck?”
The thuds of running footfall passed close by. Screams echoed in the distance. He crawled to the door. His side ached like he’d been hit with a truncheon rather than stabbed. He felt where the knife wound should have been. How is this possible? I should be dead.
A set of dirty, bare feet ran along the smoky corridor, the owner of them laughing manically above the sound of roaring flames. Every bit of him ached as he pulled his way up the door frame. Hunched forward, he felt his way along the wall, coughing hard.
The smoke thinned out as he descended the stairs. His lungs burned nonetheless, and he continued to cough hard and often. People dressed in rags ran around carrying random pieces of art and ornaments. Spring people? Have they overrun the city?
A skinny woman bumped into him, dropping a large painted vase onto the floor, which smashed to pieces. “You bastard, I was gonna get rich off that.”
Silas smashed the woman’s head into the wall, then pulled her down to kneel on her chest. “What the fuck is going on in here?”
The woman struggled, but soon accepted she wasn’t going anywhere. “We got let out the compound. The whole city’s gone mad. Just look out the window.”
Silas reeled away.
The diseased woman sprung to her feet. “You can’t catch it from touching me, prick.” Took a swipe at Silas, missed, then ran into the smoke.
Silas knew the Wane was passed on sexually, but like everyone, he let stigma get the better of him sometimes – after all, they must have kept them segregated for more than containment.
Out of breath, he moved on, descending multiple staircases until he reached the castle’s grand entrance hall. A huge tapestry burned on one wall, while another was being torn down. Chairs, tables, and their decorations lay strewn about the place. Guards, working-class, and peasants alike all traded blows with each other. One peasant had even got hold of a sword and swung it in vicious circles. Many dead or unconscious people lay at the feet of others, faces smeared with blood.
Silas needed a weapon, something small he could use while he passed through the crowd. He picked up a splintered piece of picture frame as he moved toward the rabble. This’ll have to do.
He pushed through the crowd. Warm blood peppered his face. The woman next to him had her head split to the nose with the chop of a guard’s sword. This would be a numbers game. The longer it took him to get out, the more likely he would catch a blade.
A weasel of a man swung a fist in Silas’s direction. An easy slip followed by a counter punch put the man on his arse, plastering a look of confusion across his stupid face. A burly woman came at him next, shiny cleaver in hand. Her first swipe missed, and the second ended up in the back of a man who’d stumbled toward them. Silas punctured the woman’s arm at the shoulder with the piece of frame, butted her to the ground, and relieved her of the cleaver.
He dashed for the open doors, but as he reached them, a large man, face slick with blood, drove a shoulder into Silas’s already sore ribs. Silas fought hard to regain his balance, then, with a backhand swing, planted the cleaver into the man’s neck. The spray of blood forced his eyes shut, and he had no choice but to feel his way through the doors.
Screams of anger and pain gave Silas an idea of the violence awaiting him in the castle’s main square. He wiped the blood from his eyes. He’d thought the fighting inside the castle resembled chaos, but he took it all back. What he stared at now was true chaos.
Smoke and flames covered the buildings. Thousands of people fought in the streets. A battlefield. The dead, bloody and strewn in bent and twisted positions lay on steps, over walls, atop carts, and across the cobbles. Is this all Mara? Is this the work of the demon of death? Is this what I have brought upon the world? He rubbed at his side where Mara had stabbed him, tender but bearable. Far better than what should be a gaping hole. The boy can do good, he just needs to be led down the right path. I need to stop him.
He wasn’t far from the clock tower when the bell within it crashed down through its middle, dust bursting from its windows and doors. He coughed hard and dry as he stumbled through the yellowy white mist of lung-burning fog. People moved around aimlessly, swinging tired haymakers at each other.
He stopped. The twins he’d met in the clock tower only yesterday lay dead, both with bloody x’s carved into their faces. He checked over them, Vespen blades gone. Should have stuck to robbing houses, lads.
Silas took a hard smack to the chin, followed by a kick in the ribs on the other side. He curled into a ball and protected his head the best he could. Kicks thumped against his ribs, legs and arms from too many directions to make sense of. He rode out the punishment for what felt like forever before the people fled, then fell to
his side. His head lay in something wet. My blood? Someone else’s? Piss? He couldn’t stay here, the next beating might well kill him.
A white horse with golden blinkers, stained with blood, reared at a crowd of people jabbing at it with lengths of wood. Silas struggled to his feet, his head throbbing on the wet side. He winced as he touched his stinging eyebrow, his fingertips stained with fresh blood. I’ll die if I don’t get out now. He moved on heavy, unsteady legs to the back of the horse. One chance. If it kicks me, I’m done for.
