DING !DING! DING! The chiming of the church bells interrupted my rest and brought me to my feet in an instant. I ran out of my room and nearly collided with Reggie. “Watch it!” he shouted just before Katherine and Gus met us.
“Bandits!” Brother Lyon shouted, more in anger than fear as he made his way down the hall. “The insolence! And at this hour!” Gus rushed over to him, “We’d be happy to help,” he offered.
“That would be appreciated, we doubt they’d be able to get through our walls, but they make quite a ruckus and we just redid the gate!” Replied the monk.
We quickly made our way to the wall and saw a motley crew of about 40 or so bandits.
THUMP! THUMP!
They slammed a massive log into the gate over and over.
“Come on ya lazy runts! Put yer backs into it!” shouted a voice I never thought I’d hear again.
The unmistakable voice of Krun.
How did he survive Trodthrew? Why is he here? Why am I so afraid? He is just a common bandit and I’m an adventurer now! But a horrible pit began to grow in my stomach and my mind began to drift towards…
“Come on Mak! This is no time to daydream!” I heard Reggie shout. As he ran past me and fired a couple of crossbow bolts at the ram-bearers.
“Oh! Uh, right!” I stammered as I broke out of my daze.
I took position on one of the towers that looked over the gate. I tossed several small portals in front of the assailants, placing the other side next to Katherine.323Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡJw4drcRO6O
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“Heads, err, feet up!” I shouted as the bandits lost their footing.
Katherine reacted instantly, relieving them of their displaced limbs with several quick sword slashes.
“GAH!” they shouted in pain as they fell over, crashing into one another, blood pouring from their stump legs.
“What sort of sick-minded monks are ye!?” Krun shouted in terror at the carnage.
The sleepy-looking monk from before began shouting orders.
“Reinforce the gate!”
“Prepare the healing salves!”
“Make sure our wards don’t falter!”
The monks attended to their tasks with a familiar efficiency, but at the same time, it was very different. It wasn’t terror that was driving them, neither of the monk giving orders nor of the bandits at their doorstep.
But I didn’t have time to ponder such things at the time.
“There’s just so many of them!” Gus said as he took cover from a volley of arrows.
“At least they can’t seem to get through,” I replied,
“Perhaps we could convince them to retreat?”
“And how would we do that?”
“I’m not sure, a compromise?”
“I think that went out the window when we started chopping limbs,”
“Then we take out their commander,” said Reggie, interrupting as he fired a couple of crossbow bolts into the fray, “It’s that Orc near the back with the messed-up tooth,”
Of course, it was.
“Could you use a portal to get close to him?” Gus asked.
“Well…”
“Exactly my thoughts,” Reggie said, “Use your portals to get in and grab him,”
Naturally, it is now of all times for Reggie to have confidence in me.
“I…”
“You can do it, Mak,” said Gus as he put a large hand on my back, “He’s no match for you!”
“Thanks,” was all I could stammer out as my nerves continued to build.
I peaked over the side of the wall to see where Krun was standing, his crooked grin was unmistakable. After a quick glance at Katherine, who was unleashing a volley of magical projectiles at the attackers, I steeled myself.
“Here goes,” I said as I tossed my portal two feet from Krun and dove through.
Carrying my momentum, I rose to shoulder level with Krun and extended my claws into sharpened strings.
He turned around just as I moved in for the attack.
“Hmm, you lived?” he said as he dodged out of the way.
My strike landed on a nearby grunt and I quickly retracted my strings to pull myself towards him to avoid Krun’s blade.
“So, you can move after all? Hah!” he said as he nearly cut off my tail.
“I’ve known a lot of cowardly lil rats in ma day, but never one too scared to even run, but I s’pose you must’ve to here now!”
I jump back from the crowd of bandits, who had now turned their attention towards me.
“Gonna run again I see?”
Why did I think a plan from Reggie would work? “Things couldn’t possibly get worse,” I thought to myself.
Never something one should think to themselves.
As I got ready to use another portal to get back to the castle, I spotted Katherine running on the walls towards the field.
Green energy flowed into her legs and the stones of the walls pushed out to send her flying towards me.
She landed in a loud CRASH of her armour, “don’t start without me,” she said.
Turning towards Krun, her eyes narrowed and she pointed her sword towards him.
“Long have I waited for this moment,”
“Have we met b’fore?”
“Think quickly butcherer, before I cut out your foul tongue,”
“Heh, now I remember. That unmistakable glare… so ya survived Trodthrew? Ya got yer mother’s dumb face and ya father’s pansy eyes!”
“And you’ve got mere moments to beg for your life,”
“Bring it on lass!”
I stood in shock.
How could I have not realized it until now?
It was so obvious.
Those people Krun killed in front of us.
Were Katherine’s parents!?
I’m a profound idiot.
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