Chapter 32

Sephira screamed as she caught sight of Rel leaping from the shadows with his metalvine aimed at Kestrel. It was Sephira’s cry that gave Kestrel just enough time to move his head out of the way of the oncoming metalvine.

Kestrel winced as the blow made a loud cracking sound, the hard wood making contact with the collarbone. Still he stood his ground, and rather than backing away from the blow, he stepped in and slid his foot behind Rel’s.

He planned on taking the guardsman down, but Rel was ready.

The one-eyed guard wrapped his lead arm around Kestrel’s opposite shoulder and, with a violent twist, sent Kestrel slamming into the ground. Rel wasted no time and followed the throw with a heavy kick to Kestrel’s side that nearly knocked the wind out of him.

Rel had cocked his arm back to slam the metalvine into Kestrel’s exposed temple when Sephira launched herself at him. She landed a devastating stomp kick on the side of his knee that wrenched it and caused Rel to collapse.

“You sow!” Rel cursed at Sephira.

She would pay for that.

Rel and Kestrel regained their footing simultaneously and rushed each other. Kestrel knew he had little chance against the more experienced guardsman, but maybe he could overwhelm the man with the ferocity of his attack.

He swarmed the man and landed a barrage of blows that buckled the berserker guardsman, but the larger man quickly regained his footing.

Rel growled and swung his metalvine downwards towards Kestrel’s head. He was too close. Kestrel didn’t have time to dodge it, so he stepped in and blocked it with his forearm. The force of the blow staggered him and it was only the saving grace of the awkward angle that kept his arm from shattering at the impact.

Kestrel cursed as pain exploded throughout arm, but still he pressed the attack. He would protect Sephira.

He wouldn’t lose her to this monster like he’d lost poor, beautiful Cillia.

He would die before he let that happen.

Rel smiled when Kestrel went for a kick to his midsection and he caught it. With an inside step the one-eyed guardsman levered his body against Kestrel’s and sent him flying into the dusty blue wall of one of the buildings, knocking the breath out of the young man.

“I’m going to splatter your brains across the alleyway,” Rel he stepped forward to slam his metalvine into Kestrel’s face.

Kestrel’s eyes widened as he saw his inevitable doom approaching.

Time slowed as he saw Rel’s hips twist, cocking back for a powerful backhanded blow. He closed his eyes, ready to take the blow, but opened them in surprise when Rel let out an agonized scream.

He looked up to see what had happened and saw Sephira’s angry face splattered with blood, and a crimson soaked rock the size of her fist cradled in her hand.

Rel was down on his knees letting out a series of the most vile curses Kestrel had ever heard. The disgraced guardsman was cupping the same eye that Kestrel had previously injured. Even with the hands covering his face, Kestrel could see the damage that Sephira’s blow had done. The laceration from the stone had ripped a streaming gash that extended from Rel’s eyebrow to midway down his cheek.

“I’m going to rape you to death!” Rel screamed, the hate he had been holding in check finally boiled over. His voice sounded primal, as if he’d swallowed a pail of glass shards.

“Watch out!” Kestrel cried out between agonized breaths, when he saw Rel reach into his knee high moccasins and pull out a six inch long blade from its hidden holster.

Kestrel had never felt so helpless watching Rel lunge at Sephira, knife extended, about to pierce her gut.

Sephira screamed but it was too late for her to react. She watched as the knife steadily made its way forward to pierce her insides.

Both Kestrel and Sephira were in shock when a burly guardsman appeared, as if coming from the air itself, intercepted the blow, and slammed Rel’s face into the garish light blue wall with such force it splintered the wood.

The one eyed man slumped slid to the ground, out cold.

“Are you okay miss?” the young guardsman, a short, but powerfully built dirty blond man called Treall, asked Sephira.

Sephira didn’t answer. She was still in shock at what had happened.

“You’re bleeding!” Treall gasped.

Sephira looked down and saw her green dress had been sliced open just above her hip and she had a shallow, but long scoring that ran from just under her bellybutton to her right hipbone.

“Let’s get you fixed up,” Treall pointed at Sephira’s cut. “Kestrel, help Sephira, I’ll take care of him,” he pointed at Rel’s comatose body.

Kestrel nodded and gathered himself. He came and shored up under Sephira’s uninjured side. Not bothering to ask the guardsman where he had come from. Aris had obviously had someone guarding his niece whenever she went out and of course he would keep it a secret from her.

“Follow me,” Treall instructed the duo after shackling Rel’s limp body and slinging him over his shoulder.

The stocky blonde led them through the alleyways, heading towards the nearest guard station.

Within minutes they arrived at the small, but well maintained pine-green guard-shack that consisted of a reception room, three empty holding cells, and a small room that held five cots.

The guardsmen housed there were playing Shells, a betting game popular among the fishermen, where one rolled a pair of die and, for every three consecutive sets of pairs, you would open a freshwater clam and get the pearl inside as the winnings, or if you had three non-pair rolls, you would everything.

It was becoming so popular that many were now full-time clam farmers.

“Unlock the cell,” Treall commanded the small group upon entering.

Rel was beginning to wake up and he wanted to move as quickly as he could before his captive started thrashing.

“Yes sir,” a young thin redhead with a face full of freckles, but a wiry grace to his step, saluted and retrieved the keys then opened a cell the second he noticed the rank on Treall’s jacket.

“Hand me another set of shackles,” Treall commanded the red-head while he flopped Rel’s body on the ground.

When he’d received the second set of restraints he latched one end to the pair already around Rel’s wrists and the other to the cell’s bars.

Treall had no sooner finished locking the shackles than Rel had regained full consciousness.

His demeanor was feral. His head jerked too and fro in a mixture of rage and terror.

“What’s your name?” Treall said, his commanding voice had morphed into a caring one in seconds. He sounded like a concerned father figure desperate to help a lost child. It was unsettling how quickly his demeanor had changed.

“Do you really think that I’m foolish enough to fall for your tricks?” Rel’s mocking voice sounded as if it were straining to break free into a yell. “You’re gonna act like you’re my friend in hopes that I’ll slip up and let out information as I get comfortable. It’s not gonna work. I personally prefer beating the information out of those that I interrogate.”

Treall looked over to Kestrel. He had liked the boy from the first moment he had laid eyes on him. What the boy had said was true. He had believed Kestrel from the moment his story had made its way about the Ravenscroft barracks, but having the monster from those stories before him was different.

Rel made his stomach roil. He was a shame to his profession.

“Where did you take Cillia’s body!” Kestrel let out a guttural roar at Rel, stepped in, and hit the captive with a backhand that loosened one of his molars.

Rel looked up at Kestrel and laughed. “That’s more like it,” he said as he spit a wad of blood from his mouth. “That’s how you get information out of someone. You beat them half to death. You destroy them like I destroyed that little whore’s spawn of yours!” he giggled like a madman.

Kestrel snapped.

He rained down blows on the defenseless guard. Each one fueled by the hatred and pain he’d endured his whole life.

Rel’s face rearranged beneath his fists.

It was Sephira’s call that brought Kestrel back to reality.

When he returned to lucidity he was covered in Rel’s blood and three of the guards were straining to keep him from the disgraced monster laying at his feet. Rel’s breath was a wet gurgle of blood.

“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry,” Kestrel said seeing the horror and disgust in Sephira’s eyes. “I’m sorry,” his voice became a whisper. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry…”

Kestrel went limp and collapsed to the blood-splattered ground. He felt deflated. Kestrel was shocked by how capable of hate and violence he was.

He had nearly killed a defenseless man.

He didn’t dare look up at Sephira. He was sure she was looking down on him in disgust. He was no different than Rel. He’d let himself be consumed by hatred and had twisted himself into something hideous.

Was he really the monster he saw reflected in Rel’s blood?

The small band was taken by complete surprise when a sickly sweet voice broke their reverie, saying, “Thank you. You’ve made my work easier. I barely need to do anything to make the body unrecognizable.”

Kestrel whipped his head up to find a heavily cloaked individual standing in the corner, smiling through twisted lips. A hood obscured most of the man’s features, but it couldn’t hide the scars on the bottom half of his face, nor the ones that laced across his hands and forearms.

When did he arrive? How had he entered the guard-shack?

“Who are you?” The words had barely left Sephira’s lips before she fell to the floor screaming. The weight of a million tortures cascaded into her mind.

“Wha…” the rest of the group collapsed. Visions of horror danced through their minds. Their words were stilled in their mouths.

“I’m sorry that this has to be the last thing you see before you die,” the man said and rushed forward, whipping a knife across the throat of young redheaded guard.

The guard who’d been joking and gambling just minutes before was dead before he hit the ground, his throat completely torn through by the impossibly sharp knife.

His hand whipped out and another dagger flew through the air towards Sephira.

“Watch out!” Treall screamed and shoved Sephira out of the path of the Inquisitor’s oncoming knife.

The dagger pierced though the meat of his forearm where her chest had been moments before.

Treall shouted in pain as he ripped the knife from his arm. In the time it had taken him to remove the dagger, the Inquisitor had already jammed long metal spikes into the eyes of both Rel and the second, blond haired, guard with blinding speed.

Both died in seconds.

“Run!” Treall’s voice barely broke through the memories of unspeakable agonies that the Inquisitor was flooding everyone’s minds with.

The Inquisitor crushed the throat of the third guard, leaving him gasping for breath, his throat rattling as he died.

Treall pushed through the memories of having his arms sliced open with hundreds of tiny cuts, then having them forced into a vat of hot pepper sauce and rushed at the Inquisitor with a blinding flurry of swings from his metalvine.

The cry and Treall’s furious attack gave Kestrel just enough clarity to rush to Sephira’s side to grab her hand and pull her to her feet.

The pair stumbled out of the cell making their way to the door…

Then another wave of memories assaulted them. It was worse than the last one. The fingernails…The broken bones…The weeks without sleep…

Still Treall and the Inquisitor danced a deadly routine as each searched for an opening and parried, dodged, and slipped blows with astounding speed.

“Go! GO NOW!” he shouted at Sephira and her companion who’d fallen to their knees near the entrance of the guards station, overwhelmed with the misery and horror that the Inquisitor was pouring into their brains.

Treall’s call brought Sephira back to a semblance of sanity, giving her enough time to see him to use his metalvine to deflect the large obsidian knife that the Inquisitor had aimed at his chest.

The Inquisitor used the momentum from the parry to bring his arm around in a twisting motion, scoring a deep gash on Treall’s already injured right arm.

Treall cried out in pain and dropped the metalvine into his open left hand. His right arm had been taken out of commission by the stone blade, but he was a Falis master, nearly as deadly with his left as he was with his right hand.

Sephira could barely track Treall’s motion as he dropped his center of gravity and the metalvine whipped towards the Inquisitor’s ankle, connecting with a shattering crack. She was sure that would incapacitate the man, but in blink of an eye, the memory of the pain that Inquisitor had just felt now overwhelmed the trio.

Kestrel’s eyes went unfocused, he was drowning in the mental agony the Inquisitor was flooding them with. Blood began to trickle from his nose.

The Inquisitor growled at Treall and stumbled forward on his injured ankle. He swiped at Treall, but was easily sidestepped by the guard who spun and aimed another blow at the Inquisitor’s already injured ankle. This time the blow shattered the bone and the hooded man fell to the ground in agony.

As the hood slipped from the Inquisitor’s face, Sephira could see that the man was barely older than her and Kestrel. Though scars covered his face and body, youthfulness radiated from his features.

Almost as if the unhooding had lessened the young Inquisitor’s power, Sephira looked to her side to see Kestrel coming out of the stupor the Inquisitor’s attack had caused.

Whatever had happened to them, it seemed as if it had effected Kestrel much more than it had Treall. She was still shaking from what she’d seen. How much worse had it been for Kestrel? He was covered in a sheen of sweat and vomit trickled from his lips. Blood still leaked from his nose.

Treall leaned over the assassin, snatching him and hauling him back to his feet.

“Who are…” Treall’s question was interrupted by a small punch dagger that the Inquisitor had hidden in the fold of his robes. The young assassin fell with Treall, who collapsed, dead, the dagger blooming from his chest.

“Nooo!” Sephira screamed as she watched the blonde soldier drop to the ground, gasping for air as his body failed him.

Kestrel screamed a guttural cry as he looked at the fallen guard. Treall had been one of the first of the guardsmen to treat him as an equal.

The Inquisitor rolled over and fished for another hidden blade.

Kestrel didn’t see it. He was too focused on Treall.

He was going to die.

Sephira screamed and dove at the Inquisitor, the force of the blow drove his head into the ground.

The loud cracking sound snapped Kestrel’s attention back to the two who were now tangled together on the ground, battling for control of the knife that the Inquisitor had dropped when his head had rebounded off of the hard wooden floor.

Kestrel launched himself into the fray, desperate to keep the knife from plunging into Sephira and ending her life as its brother had done to Treall mere moments before.

The Inquisitor ripped the knife from Sephira’s hands, and lunged towards her stomach with the blade. Kestrel slammed into the man hurtling him to the side. The knife barely missed digging into Sephira’s stomach and bounced off the hard floor as the Inquisitor’s face slammed into the nearby cell bars.

Kestrel was flooded with memories upon touching the Inquisitor.

He recalled himself as a young child, before all the misery that had overpowered everything he had ever known.

Somewhere, buried deep in the Inquisitor’s subconscious, he had happy memories.

He had been the youngest child of a loving family of well to do bakers. He hadn’t wanted for anything and those memories were bathed in a golden light, the happiness hidden there felt almost unreal.

It was if it were someone else’s life. Not this monsters.

But he knew it to be true no matter how he ran from it. There had once been joy.

“You were happy once,” Kestrel whispered, his hands shoving the Inquisitor’s face into the bars.

“What!?” the Inquisitor looked at Kestrel, stunned, his form rigid in shock.

“You were taken. They grabbed you when you were a child. You had a beautiful life before all of this,” Kestrel gestured over the fallen bodies with a nod of his head.

The scarred young man looked at those he’d killed.

Pain burst in his cerulean eyes.

“They were a threat! They could cause the downfall of my savior!” he shouted, as if trying to convince himself.

“What savior?”

“Evrain! He saved us!”

Kestrel’s stomach twisted. He thought he might vomit again.

He had seen the man’s memory. It had been brief and foggy, but he had heard it clear as day. The people who had abducted the Inquisitor when he was a child had invoked Evrain’s name too.

“You know that isn’t true. You remember what they said when they took you,” Kestrel said, letting go of the young man and backing away. “You held on to that memory. You hid it. You buried it so deeply that everyone thought it forgotten. Still, you and I both know who took you. Who made you this way. We both know,” Kestrel’s voice trembled with a shared pain.

The Inquisitor looked around the room. Rel had spikes sticking out of his eyes. Bodies littered the small shack.

Blood pooled on the floor, sickly sweet and still warm.

He had murdered so many…

It couldn’t be true.

But he knew it was.

It was true.

He had clung onto the lie that Emperor Evrain had been the one who saved him. It was the only thing that had given him a semblance of sanity.

Hut he had always known, hidden in the depths of his soul, that it had been a lie. He had slaughtered so many in the name of his torturer…

He couldn’t live with that.

He didn’t deserve to live.

The Inquisitor dove and snatched up the knife…

…Then drove it through his neck.