There was a large hole in the final wooden door. Nothing now separated the inner stairs from the cold top of the stone keep. The latch hung useless to the side and gently thumped against the broken frame in time with the windy gusts that clawed against it from the outside. Gonn shoved what remained to the side, slowing only long enough to note the bloodstained splinters scattered across the stone walkway before resuming his dead sprint to rescue his brother. Or whatever might be left of him.
This high up among the cold crenelations, the rolling hills of Ropesh unfolded beneath him, the horizon shrouded by dark sheets of rain whose early siblings now began falling on his own head.
His brother’s blood-trail was being washed away too quickly. He needed to move NOW.
Redoubling his speed, Gonn tore down the eastern causeway in pursuit of the shadow had stolen away the last member of his immediate family left in this world. He spared barely a glance for the slumped and broken forms of the two night-watchman who had been unlucky enough to be patrolling this dark wall. Their bodies were tossed to separate corners of the covered alcove he now sprinted through.
These hunters are skilled and brutal. I’m not the fighter Lindon is, I don’t have the strength, nor the control needed to survive a drawn-out fight.
Gonn’s eyes narrowed against the watery onslaught from above as the rest of the stormy family began to arrive.
Still, I have to try. Maybe Linson and I together can at least take this one.
It was then that a howl met his ears, a visceral cry of pain and rage carried on the storm. Too cut by the wind to place its owner, but Gonn caught the direction.
Up? The spire… Walking-gods, let there be more guards there to slow them down a little more.
Dashing for the keep’s upper east tower, he hit the final set of stairs that would lead him to his brother. Sweat and rainwater mixed, streaking down his brow and blurring his vision as he took the climb three at a time. By now, his body was beginning to feel the strain of his long sprint, hamstrings seizing and knees slowing as he willed himself up the final few yards.
Premeditated grief and adrenaline coursing through his veins, Gonn burst through the top archway of the high tower’s observatory. The well-furnished room normally visited by his grandfather’s scholars and stargazers now played host to a grisly scene of chaos that unfolded in slow motion before him:
His brother was being dragged about by his shoulder, body hanging limp from the vice-like grip of his captor. That tall adversary was nearly identical in stature to the Stranger that had spoken out at the chapel, though this one had his hood thrown back to reveal hair of golden blonde and eyes of piercing silver that seemed to almost glow in the light of the lanterns that had been hung about. Two of castle guards faced off against him, spears leveled warily as they crouched low, cutting him off from the stairs Gonn himself just crested. Both guards looked dazed and blinked rapidly, seeming to be regaining their senses after being knocked about.
Linson was out cold. Maybe even…
No, no time to think; must strike!
With a flying leap, Gonn launched himself at the tall Stranger, eyes wild and teeth bared in a feral snarl. His speed was his advantage.
The Stranger wore a look of genuine surprise as the youngest prince’s nails dug into his unblemished cheekbones and raked across the exposed face. Unearthly, dark gray blood streamed down the Strangers face as he threw up an arm too late to knock Gonn to the side. Blind with rage, Gonn let his momentum carry him into the Stranger’s upper shoulder, hoping to knock him off-balance.
His sternum hit a wall of steel-like muscle and immovable bone.
It took but a moment for the Stranger to steady himself and crack Gonn across the brow with his elbow. The arm came down with a breakneck force, dazing the young prince. Reflexively, Gonn’s hand thrust down and to the side, lashing around the wrist of the hand that held his brother’s limp form and giving him a lever to bring his smaller body around the Stranger’s ankles.
Another slash from Gonn’s nails struck the sinewy giant, aimed this time at the soft flesh and tendons of the knees, ankle, and back of the foot. More gray blood dripped from the Stranger’s limbs, mixing with the puddles of rainwater that each combatant had left behind.
A curse broke past the Stranger’s lip,
“Kav’ath, you little devil; this only prolongs your brother’s suffering.” His voice rumbling like the gentle thunder from the dark clouds above.
Gonn simply snarled and drove his fists into the back of the larger being’s knees with a tight, double-handed strike. He had seen Linson do since a move only once, driving his supernatural strength into the chest of a charging bear, dropping it stone-dead on the spot. He was met with a satisfying crack of the joint popping into the kneecap on the other side, finally successful in forcing his larger foe’s weight towards the ground.
“You‒ Agh!”
Already pushing himself back up, Gonn rushed towards the guard that stood furthest from the Stranger, snatching the soldier’s spear from the bewildered man’s hands in a flash and rushing his enemy with weapon angled for the face. He hoped the blood had trickled down far enough to create a blind spot that he could leverage.
It hadn’t. And the Stranger was already recovering from his stumble, eyes glinting with a hard look, not unlike that of a kennel-master no longer willing to suffer the nipping of the disobedient pup.
“You fight with the desperation of a cornered beast. But if this annoyance is the most resistance your bloodline presents, there is little we need worry ourselves with.”
Then with strong, deliberate strides, he stalked straight up to Gonn, swatting the metal point of the spear downwards from his face and letting it embed into his chest, pushed off target as it met the rounded bone of his rib cage. The force of his approach snapped the wooden shaft in Gonn’s hands; though he brought the broken remnants up in a slashing force to strike the arms that reached for him, he was severely disadvantaged on height against his opponent and couldn’t dip out of reach in time.
He felt the steely grip wrap around his collarbone a lift him up a few inches as the Stranger carried him in an unbroken stride to the tower window. In a panic, Gonn tried to turn his hereditary weapons to bare against the exposed wrist not far from his face, burying his teeth into the weakest point he could find between the forearm and hand, crushing the ligaments and silvery-gray blood vessels in another feral attack.
But he was too late. With a shove of finality, the Stranger hurled Gonn’s body over the edge of the stone sill and slammed the prince’s body against the rain-slicked bricks, breaking his own hand in the process but driving the wind from Gonn’s lungs and forcing him to open his jaws.
The fall seemed to take minutes, the rain slowing to a strange, lazy drip from the black thunderheads above. Gonn caught a final glimpse of his brother, eyes flickering open to see his younger sibling slip over the edge and out of sight. In that moment, Gonn was struck with a terrible pang of sadness for his brother, who would have to die knowing his little brother had not gotten away safely.
His last thought before his back struck the flagstones far below was of his grandfather, wondering if a third, unidentified Stranger had managed to strike down the long-toothed king, or if he would instead be woken soon to come gaze upon the broke bodies of two more heirs he’d outlived.
Then Gonn’s spine struck hard, cold stone and everything went black.
UWC 