The Story of Evil: Volume I - Heroes of the Siege (5 page)

Out of the four races, Steve belonged to the Human race. Humans were known for their good communication, public speaking, and leadership abilities, but were prone to sicknesses if they were not physically fit. If there was a race considered to be the opposite of Humans, it would be the Elves. Elves did not have the aptitude for being great leaders or having a silver tongue like Humans. You would rarely see a person of Elven decent leading warriors on a battlefield. They understood tactics and strategy as well as anyone else, but it was not their fortitude to draw them out and enforce them. The strength of Elves was that they had good metabolisms, were very healthy, and were not easily infected with disease.

Giants and dwarves were exact opposites. Giants were known for their size and physical strength, but they lacked the talent of building and blacksmithing that the Dwarves were renowned for. Dwarves were the exact opposite of Giants in that they were the smallest of the four races and were not as strong as Giants. Usually the weaknesses of each race were the butt ends of lighthearted jokes told by members of opposite races.

All four of the races had different lifespans. The lifespan of an Elf was the longest at about 150 name days. At 75 years, Giants had the shortest life expectancy. Dwarves (sometimes called halfmen) tended to live until around the age of 125. Humans had an average lifespan of 100 years. Steve knew, in his line of duty as a warrior, that his life expectancy was much, much shorter than the one century average. Still, a day did not go by that he would have been willing to trade in his adventurous life for anything different.

Standing tall at 6’4, Steve was still a head and shoulders shorter than the minotaurs he and Ty just defeated in the arena. He had heard of some Giants who stood over the heights of minotaurs at eight feet tall. However, unlike the monsters who seemed to survive longer the larger they were, Giants had a short lifespan for their size.

Steve’s years of training as a warrior had taken him to his peak physical fitness level. He had a strong upper body. His arms were well-toned and muscular, due to having to carry a sword in his right hand and a shield in his left every day. He could run with all that extra weight for three miles before having to slow his pace.

As he made his way towards the castle, it seemed like Clyx was moving, but their destination never got closer. He wished he was already inside the castle because every couple of blocks it was one heartbreaking sight after another.

First there was a screaming man engulfed in flames rushing out of his burning house. He stopped right in front of Clyx yelling, “Help me! Help me!” There was nothing Steve could do as the man stumbled into the Fluorite River, burning alive. The cold, refreshing water could not save him from the severity of the burns he had already received. Steve watched as the man fell into the river. He saw a puff of smoke and heard a sizzle, but the man was motionless, floating, face down in the water.

Next, Steve felt a lump in his throat as he saw civilians standing in the street, pointing up at a burning building. Two people on fire jumped out of their windows from the top floor of their four story apartment to end their scorching pain. Their bodies hit the hard street with a sound that should never be allowed to enter ears. Steve felt like he was spending an eternity staring at each death he saw, when in reality he was looking away or closing his eyes from the gruesomeness as soon as it happened.

The sound of bells ringing snapped Steve back into the chaos ensuing at regular speed. The bells were coming from the castle, meaning that its draw bridges would be going up in five minutes. The job of the warriors in the event of an attack was to hold off monsters as long as they could so that as many civilians as possible could flee to the castle or to the warriors’ watchtowers for shelter. Located in the center of the city, the castle was considered the safest place to be. However people felt safe enough to go back to their homes and bolt their doors.

The sudden ringing of the bells meant the monsters had successfully breached and advanced far enough into the city that the warriors now had to retreat into the safety of the castle or the watchtowers. Steve had only heard the sound in city-wide test drills. Hearing the bells now and knowing it was not a test, made everything so much more real.
Retreat.
Steve hated that word.
It means giving up. It means failure.

The castle bells must have inspired Clyx to run faster because he started sprinting as if his tail was on fire. Steve ducked down behind Clyx’s head, creating less wind resistance and making himself and the horse more aerodynamic. The only time he would sit up was when he was using Brightflame to slice open monsters.

The enemy’s numbers grew smaller and smaller as more and more people appeared in the streets closer to the castle.
The monsters have not advanced this far yet.

Steve was heading through a large merchant section of Celestial. Sellers were packing up their merchandise, bundling up their tents, and heading home or to one of the watchtowers, whichever was closer. There were even more vendors and shoppers than usual because of the weekend’s events. Everyone was trying to act as calm as possible.

In the practice drills held once a year, civilians were walked through what to do and told not to panic. The drills worked well, because everyone Steve saw in the scattering crowds was being civil to one another. There was no pushing. People were not selfishly trying to save themselves at the cost of others. There were even brave Celestial natives who stood at street corners and collected tourists who were visiting the city and did not know where to go.
They are leading them back to their own homes for protection.
Steve also noticed that the quick-thinking crowd had left an aisle in the street open so that warriors could quickly get to where they needed to be.

Clyx was sprinting as fast as he could, considering he was wearing heavy jousting armor. The buildings were quickly whizzing by when a huge flaming boulder was launched behind Steve. He never saw it coming until it was too late. The boulder stayed in one piece as half of it crashed into the front of a building, sending stone debris flying through the air. The other half of the boulder smashed through the cobblestone street, creating a crater in the ground only a few feet from Steve.

Even though Steve was on his horse, he felt the shock of the impact through his saddle. The blast launched Clyx and him upwards, sending them barrel rolling through the air. Steve was ejected from the saddle in midair. He briefly saw the blue sky, with little colored dots of flying monsters among the clouds, followed by sideways buildings. Then his head smashed hard into the stone street.

If he hadn’t been wearing his red jouster’s helm, his brains would have painted the street red and purple. He removed the broken helm and angrily cast it aside. The impact made a sharp metal edge cut open his forehead. Blood was running down and getting into his eyes.

Steve was surprised he hadn’t been knocked unconscious, but almost wished he had been because he felt horrible. The ground was swinging back and forth as he was on his hands and knees, trying to get his bearings. It slowly began to adjust beneath him, but now Steve felt like his stomach was swinging back and forth. A rush of nausea ended with him throwing up a vile greenish color from his stomach.
There’s the breakfast I had this morning.
He watched between his hands as it slowly spread around the stones of the cracked cobblestone street. Steve tried to remain as still as possible until the unstable ground finally came to a rest.

There was a high pitched ringing in his ears. Every fifteen seconds, when the castle bells rang, the chime bounced around inside his skull, making the ringing even more painful. Steve realized he could not hear anything out of his right ear. He reached up his right hand and touched it, only to find his fingers covered in the blood that was pouring out from inside his ear.

Steve lifted himself up slowly and looked around, trying to get reoriented to his surroundings. Next to him was a huge boulder. A third of it was sunken into the cobblestone street in a huge crater. The building it had hit was already a raging inferno. Steve could feel the heat coming from it, even being on the far side of the cracked street. Many other people had been launched by the impact of the boulder. Some were starting to stir, but most lay motionless. Broken wood, stone, and glass from the building were scattered all across the damaged road.

As Steve’s eyes continued to scan over the wreckage, they darted back to where he saw the sun gleaming off moving blue armor, struggling to move under a pile of rubble.

“Clyx!” Yelling the name sent a jolt of pain through his head. Steve dizzily stumbled over to where his horse lay on his side. He was badly injured, Steve could tell, by the rapid rising and lowering of his abdomen and a steady stream of blood flowing down his side. Clyx was snorting in pain while he struggled to get up, wildly moving his head and kicking his legs. But the center of his body didn’t lift off the ground. Steve quickly brushed off the debris that covered his horse, trying to find the source of injury.

Then he saw it.

Clyx had been impaled straight through, from shoulder blade to shoulder blade, by a sharp piece of splintered wood.

The horse’s eyes looked back at his master. They were watery from the pain he was feeling. Despite the pain, the stallion was struggling to get up, wanting to continue to serve his master. Steve gently petted Clyx’s head to relax him. The horse began to breathe more calmly, and stopped trying to move, as if Steve’s touch had let Clyx know that he didn’t need to suffer much longer.

“You were a great horse, buddy,” Steve said. Memories flashed through his mind of seeing the colt born in the stable, naming him Clyx, training him, taking him into battle against monsters on countless missions, having children feed him carrots, and then winning the Celestial Qualifiers and advancing far into the abruptly ended tournament. Steve had known Clyx before he even met Ty. Clyx was his oldest friend and best companion. The stallion took in one long breath, and then slowly let out all of the air from his lungs.

The adventure filled life of Clyx, the carrot loving warhorse, had come to an untimely end.

Chapter 5

The head-aching sound of the ringing castle bells let Steve know he had no time to mourn over the loss of his animal friend, even though that was all he wanted to do. The constant buzz in his left ear had subsided, but remained in his right ear, where blood continued to flow out of. He tried to open his mouth as wide as he could. Sometimes he could feel his ear pop by doing that. But it didn’t work this time. He could hear nothing in his right ear except for the annoying buzz.

As Steve sat on the ground, he took off all of his lower armor except for his low cut, red steel boots. With the set of greaves protecting his shins and the cuisses protecting his thighs both removed, Steve would not have to continue traveling with the extra weight. It didn’t matter when he wore it while riding Clyx, but now that Steve was walking on his own, and on a time limit, he needed to be as light as possible. He wished he didn’t have to remove the defense providing armor in case he was attacked by monsters, but it was a worthy compromise, all things considered.

Steve also unclasped his blue warrior’s cape that hung from the back of his plate armor. Capes were an optional part of the warrior outfit. Steve usually didn’t wear one, but he was today since he thought it would look cool flapping behind him as he jousted on Clyx. Now, as he realized, it only felt like a tight encumbrance, annoyingly chaffing his neck.

The warrior staggered as he walked. Everything was blurry. He had hit his head very hard on the stone street, and was feeling the effects of a concussion. It was the second one he had had in his life. They were not fun. Buildings seemed to grow tall and then short, wide and then narrow. He walked over to the buildings and put his right hand up against them, dragging his fingers along their sides. Touching something stable seemed to help his balance and stopped everything from jumping around.

Out of his good ear, Steve could hear the thundering impacts behind him as flaming boulders continued to slam into buildings.
How have they launched so many?
Twenty had crashed down since the attack began, and that was only on one side of the Circular City.

Monsters have never had that kind of ammunition, let alone the artillery to fire it.
Celestial had twelve of their own catapults, spaced evenly around the city, just inside the inner wall. No matter what direction an enemy invaded from, Celestial always had every catapult ready and loaded. Steve heard the snap of a catapult somewhere from the east. The sound was a sign of hope for Steve. Warriors were still fighting.

Maybe monsters haven’t broken into the city from the east. Either that or some warriors are not retreating.
Even though the castle was sounding the call to retreat, warrior commanders were given the option to have their clans continue to fight if they could still do damage to the enemy without risking too many of their own men’s lives.

Between how far Steve had traveled on Clyx and the distance he had dizzily stumbled, he had made it far enough towards the center of the city to get himself out of range of the monsters’ flaming projectiles. That meant that there were no more burning buildings, which meant no more smoke. It was easier to breathe as he picked up his walk into a jog and his jog into a run.