The Story of Evil: Volume I - Heroes of the Siege (28 page)

Two loud thuds on the door made all four of them jump. KNOCK! KNOCK!

Ty gave one last word of encouragement to the group. “None of us are going to die today. Don’t look at them. Don’t do anything other than walk the straight line to wherever they lead us. We are going to make it through this.”

KNOCK! KNOCK!

Chapter 23

Ty opened the door and was immediately grabbed by the collar and thrown down onto the street by a cyclops. Cyclops’ were gigantic monsters, larger even than ogres. Because of their size, putting a weapon in their hands was an easy way to guarantee destruction. However, who or what was damaged was anyone’s guess. The one-eyed brutes were incredibly dimwitted. Whatever was in their way was what they attacked. Their range of targets could consist of anything from a person, to another monster, or even to a tree.

Cassandra and Lucan cautiously filed out after Ty. Lucan almost bent down to help his uncle up, but a quick, strict glance by Ty made him reconsider. Ty picked himself up and joined Cassandra and Lucan in the crowd of about one hundred civilians that this group of monsters had gathered. There were twenty armed monsters surrounding the group.

Ty could feel the heat emitting from a house that had been set on fire just three buildings down. It was already fully engulfed in flames. He heard the wooden floor of the second story come crashing down to ground level.

Kari walked out holding the bow with her arms outstretched, trying hard not to show that they were shaking. Two orcs and a minotaur pushed past her and began searching through the house for any people, armor, or weapons. The huge cyclops roughly ripped the bow out of Kari’s hands and handed it to a horse mounted, pale yellow orc.

Ty thought he recognized the black horse the orc was riding. It looked like Sampson, a massive percheron warhorse. Sampson was one of the largest horses in the warriors and had belonged to a warrior from Ty’s watchtower. He knew the man’s face, but could not think of his name. The warrior belonged to a large family who was known for breeding horses for warriors. The family was attempting to create a purebred line of the strongest horses ever seen. Each generation would be stronger than the last. Sampson was a sixth generation purebred. He was incredibly large and as strong as three regular-sized horses combined.

The orc admired the bow in his hands and spoke to Kari with only the few basic words he knew. “Where you get?” he asked her. When Kari didn’t answer, the yellow orc nodded to the cyclops. The large monster backhanded Kari across the face, knocking her to the ground. Kari stood up and glared into the single, oversized eye of the giant cyclops. The entire side of her face was numb, but at the same time she could feel the sting from the blow. A trickle of blood fell from a cut across her cheek.

Ty was about to charge the cyclops who was over three and a half times his size. The only thing that stopped him was Cassandra’s gentle hand on his arm. Ty hated seeing women get hit, especially Kari, who he was starting to like more and more. It didn’t matter if they were hit by monster or man; women were meant to be honored and treated with respect. Seeing abuse awakened a fierce thirst for violence in Ty against the abuser.

As a warrior, he had dealt with the situation a couple times. A man (usually intoxicated) would get in an argument with his girlfriend or wife and talk with his fists rather than his words. Needless to say, when Ty was through dealing with him, it would take the man almost two full months to heal from his broken arms or hands.

“Where you get?” the pale yellow orc repeated, getting angrier.

Again Kari did not answer. Ty knew she was trying to show no fear, but there was a fine line between being fearless and intently stirring up anger. The orc nodded to the cyclops for the second time. This time Kari prepared for a closed fist punch that would likely break many of her bones wherever it landed.

Before the fist struck her, one of the monsters who had gone into the house came out with Kari’s quiver of arrows and handed them to the orc. The orc took the quiver and put it around his shoulder, but only after he drew an arrow and notched it. He pulled back on the bow string and aimed it at Kari’s head.

Kari stood bravely, awaiting death, just like she had done with the fire phoenix. Ty watched helplessly, unable to get to Kari because of the surrounding crowd. He reached down and picked up a stone and chucked it at the large butt of the massive horse. The horse bucked in surprise at the same time the arrow was released. It flew into the mighty shoulder of the cyclops. The giant monster felt the arrow enter into his body, but for him, it was only comparable to a bee’s sting. Still, he didn’t appreciate being shot. He angrily turned to the yellow orc.

The orc threw down Kari’s bow and waved his hands, showing he didn’t mean to shoot him, but his plea was futile. The cyclops grabbed the orc with one hand and squeezed. Kari heard an awful cracking and popping sound that made her wince as she imagined the pain she would have felt in the orc’s position. The cyclops opened his fist and the orc fell motionless to the ground.

The minotaur who had brought the quiver out of the house laughed at the death. He walked over to the dead yellow orc, bent down, and took the bow and arrows from his lifeless body. He put them over his shoulder, mounted Sampson, and motioned for Kari to join the rest of the crowd.

The four of them made it out alive. None of them knew how much longer they would still be able to say that, but they held onto that truth nonetheless. They were led down the street, surrounded by monsters. They added about sixty-five more people by the time they finished off the rest of Cassandra’s street and the adjacent one. The monsters set six more houses on fire in just those two streets.

The minotaur wordlessly declared to the other monsters that they had finished their designations and would head towards the center of the city, following the many other groups of people headed that way.

No one talked as they walked. One man had tried to strike up a conversation, but was pulled out of the crowd and killed for that action. Along the way, the group stepped over dead bodies, mostly of people, but some were monsters. Ty motioned to Lucan not to look down at them. The smell of burned flesh filled the air, making many in the crowd gag. It combined with the smell of smoke that had taken over the entire city. The Fluorite River was tinted red with blood, some sections a little more than others. Ty noticed many bodies floating in the slow-flowing river.

They exited out onto the main road and combined with a larger group of people. There were more and more monsters towards the center of the city, providing a guard in case there was a revolt with so many of the civilians together. None of the people had weapons other than their hands and feet, so the monsters weren’t expecting any problems.

The group walked over Commander Ostravaski’s tower, which had fallen across the Big Square Plaza. Many people fell and twisted their ankles on the uneven rubble. Ty mentally told himself not to look down at the bodies of the warriors they were stepping on and over. The last thing he needed was an emotional breakdown in front of these people and the monsters if he saw the dead body of his brother Darren staring up at him.

Instead, Ty looked up in horror at an equally haunting sight: the once magnificent castle of King Zoran. It looked like someone with a god-sized hand had torn off the top of the King’s Tower. He could see where pieces of debris had crashed down into and around the castle.

The monsters had gotten through the iron portcullises of the castle wall and the castle itself. How they did that, Ty had no idea. He thought it was impenetrable.
They must have gotten someone to open it from the inside by lowering the drawbridge, allowing the monsters to enter.

There were four drawbridges in total leading into the courtyard outside the castle. Just like the four outer warriors’ watchtowers, there was one on the north, south, east, and west sides. The group was led over the south drawbridge, the main one that led to the face of the castle.

Lucan looked down at the intimidating moat as they walked past the incredibly high castle wall that separated King Zoran’s castle from the rest of the city. They were led into the large circular courtyard.

The courtyard’s south side was where the general public would gather to hear the king give a message or announcement to the city. People were free to walk along the beautiful gardens with flowers of every color imaginable and shrubs cut into the shapes of animals. All of this beauty had been trampled or destroyed.

Each group of people formed a square and was placed into a section of the courtyard. Squares formed into larger squares and soon the entire courtyard became one huge mass of people.

Ty’s legs were sore. All he wanted to do was sit down. He couldn’t believe that only this afternoon he had been laughing, joking, and enjoying the celebration of the Warriors’ Tournaments.

Oh how things have changed. How many people have I seen die today? How many people died today that I didn’t see?
He didn’t think he would be able to emotionally handle the number of civilian deaths in Celestial if someone gave him the true count.

The Elf looked upwards. The sky was now a pink and orange mixture. The day was winding down. Monsters had already lit torches and stuck them in the ground throughout the courtyard. In another three or four hours, it would be completely dark. Ty felt physically sick when he noticed a huge pile of at least three hundred dead civilian bodies piled on top of the courtyard’s stone platform. A monster lit the pile on fire with a torch and added one more light for the onset of night.

Apparently the people in front of Ty could not hold in their stomachs’ contents at the sight that Ty had just seen. He heard their retching, and it wasn’t long before another putrid smell was added to the air.

People began to talk sporadically. Monsters had no way of enforcing everyone to shut their mouths. The chatter grew louder and louder as more people grew brave and used the ability that had been taken from them. Half of the people in the courtyard were broken down, crying over their lost family members and close friends. The other half were talking about the things they had seen and wondering about what was to become of them.

Ty heard crazy rumors everywhere around him: that the entire world was completely overrun by monsters and every city had fallen, that King Zoran was dead, and that they were all collected together to be executed. He tried to eavesdrop on as many stories as possible. Warriors were trained to listen intently and then piece together the information as best they could. But with all the noises and sounds, Ty was having trouble focusing. It was too much in one day for any man to be expected to handle.

He stood with Kari, Cassandra, and Lucan. They had worked hard not to allow themselves to be separated. Ty and Kari stood quietly. Kari was sneaking angry looks at the horse-mounted minotaur holding her bow. The monsters that had led their group into the courtyard stood around the people they had brought in. Cassandra was comforting Lucan even though the boy hadn’t shed a tear since they left the house. Perhaps that was because he cried himself dry after finding out his father died. Whatever the reason, Ty was proud of his nephew for the strength he showed.

Monsters continued to bring cart after cart of dead bodies to add to the burning pyre of people. Ty wondered if they were killing people just for the sake of the fire. He eyed everything suspiciously, trying to take in all of the information presented to him. There was what looked to be twenty thousand people in the courtyard.

After the courtyard was filled, Ty began to hear the chatter of people beyond the circular castle wall.
Monsters must have gathered people all along the moat.
If there was a revolt, the monsters could just drive the people backwards where they would fall to a death of drowning, being impaled by spikes, or being eaten alive by vicious alligators.

The monsters had gathered everyone in the city as close as they could to the castle.
Maybe they are going to kill us after all.
The civilians on the other side of the castle wall would be able to hear, but unable to see whatever was going to happen in the courtyard. They were louder than the people on the inside.
There must be more people out there than in here; maybe twenty thousand in the courtyard and maybe thirty thousand on the outside of the castle wall
, Ty estimated. Celestial had a population of about eighty thousand.

He couldn’t say for sure about how many casualties there had already been, but the number was probably as many as there were people in the courtyard, and that was being optimistic. Ty couldn’t begin to estimate how many visitors were in town for the weekend of celebration.
Whatever the number is, most of them are probably dead because they had no idea of the defense protocol or where to go for shelter during the attack.

Ty also thought about Celestial’s force of 5,000 warriors.

I wonder if there are any left
? Ty would miss the laughs and company of his warrior brothers who had passed on. He hoped his brother Steve Brightflame had somehow survived, but reality told him to bet against his hope.

When he had first entered the courtyard, everyone had been packed in tightly, but now the space around him was even more compact. He felt like he was being pushed in from all sides. Kari was having trouble breathing next to him. Ty could tell she had a fear of tight spaces. She was focused on the emptiness and open area of the sky instead of the people surrounding her, crushing her ability to breathe.