Chapter 47.
Those who were not running stared up at the sky. I did the same, craning my neck from below the outpost’s overhang. The sky was smoky and dark, but there were no dragons as far as I could see.
People ran all the same, panicking and screaming. The alarm bells continued to ring.
Then again, I didn’t need to see a dragon to believe in it. They breathed fire, and oh, there was certainly fire somewhere. At a loss for what to do, I ducked back inside.
“There’s a dragon!” I blurted loudly, making everyone turn to me. “The bells, and then people are shouting dragon,” I babbled.
The mercenaries hurried outside to see what was afoot. Galine wasn’t quite so courageous. Good, I would have stopped her if she had tried. You didn’t run towards a fucking dragon.
“What do we do?!” I asked, pathetic and scared.
Galine shook her head in disbelief. “I don’t know.”
“I don’t sense any dragons,” Candy piped up, for once actually comforting.
“Candy says no dragons.” I frowned. “Why are people panicking about a dragon then?”
“I don’t know,” Candy grumbled. “Maybe there is a dragon, and it’s just sneaky. Or maybe it’s a prank.”
“It’s not a fucking prank,” I scoffed. “People are scared.”
“We should get up to the castle,” Galine spoke up. “If there is a dragon, that’s the best place to be.”
“Okay,” I nodded; that sounded pretty good to me. I took a bite out of the chunk of cheese I had retrieved from upstairs.
Galine gave me a look. I handed her half of the piece, but she just dragged me towards the door. I stuffed my face with the rest of it as I followed her back outside, gaze nervously fixated on the smoky sky.
The bell had stopped ringing. The quiet was weirdly eerie, unsettling in its own capacity. I frowned. Actually, it was entirely silent. I tried to call out for Galine, but no sound came out.
I could speak just fine, I could breathe and move just fine, but everything was deafeningly silent. What the fuck?!
Galine was ahead of me; I couldn’t verbally get her attention. I scurried to stay close.
“Candy?” I asked.
“Yeah?” She answered.
I breathed a sigh of relief. At least I wasn’t going crazy. Though perhaps it was a little ironic that a disembodied voice was proof of sanity. “Why can’t I hear anything?” I thought in her direction.
“I… that’s very strange,” Candy replied unhelpfully.
Fuck. I tapped Galine on the flank, making her jump and spin in my direction. She was already saying something, maybe yelling at me for surprising her, but then she realized what I had. We were stuck in silence. She was frowning now as she took my hand firmly and tugged me down the street.
She may not have been able to say anything to me. But her thoughts were written on her face. Something was wrong, something was very, very wrong.
We hurried down the cobble street and peered out from around the corner towards the southern gate.
Oh fuck.
I noticed the blood first. A whole trail of the bright red stuff splattered across the street. I had to swallow a gag at the sight, my insides recoiling in horror.
Not far beyond that was the body. An actual dead body. Of a person. A thing that had once been a person. Dead and lifeless.
I knew what was happening to me. The tunnel vision, the pounding in my ears, the numbness in my fingers. Shock. Distantly, I noted I was in shock. Yet I stood here all the same, breathing while this man did not.
Jesus fucking Christ.
Galine caught my arm, gesturing wildly, trying to communicate something I couldn’t remotely begin to understand. But when she moved, I moved with her. I knew she would keep me safe.
Safe from what? I craned my neck, staring back towards the body. What had killed him?
Given the pool of blood slowly running along the cracks of the street, blood loss. But what had caused that blood loss?
Galine tugged me again, dragging my attention forward. Everything was still so quiet. How many screams were being deafened? The silence weighed everything down like the heaviest of blankets. No, that comparison was too gentle. It was the pressure of a plane’s cabin, not quite stabilized and slowly smothering you.
I couldn’t shake the dead man from my mind. So much blood. I had never seen a dead person before. That wasn’t entirely true; I had been to an open-casket funeral once. But great-aunt Hilda had looked more like a mannequin than the woman I barely remembered.
This was different. That body was still warm; just moments ago, he would have been walking about, loving and caring, eating, sleeping, living just like the rest of us.
My hand was shaking. Galine had looped her arm through mine and was practically dragging me along. My legs felt clumsy and clownish as I tried to keep up.
Galine jerked to a stop, causing me to stumble into her. I saw what she saw immediately. The two soldiers in blue padded gambesons held sharp, pointy sticks, not even proper spears. But as the further man was demonstrating, it was more than effective to run a man through.
Where had they come from? Who were they? How could they? I had a multitude of questions, all of which made me feel dizzy.
Both men noticed us.
Oh fuck.
Yet one gestured to the other before they hurried off in the other direction. Maybe they hadn’t wanted to mess with Galine; regardless, I was grateful for it. I tried to rush to the injured man, but Galine stopped me. Again, she tried to say something to me, but I was too panicked to play fucking charades right now. I pulled my arm free and ran to the man. There had to be something we could do.
Blood stained the wall from where he had slid down it. He was slumped, not moving. With a shaking hand, I reached out to check for any signs of life, to try and shake him out of this state. Prodding him made him fall over, splaying out on the hard stone ground, his head landing with a sound that haunted me despite the silence. I tried to scream.
Galine put a hand on my shoulder. She couldn’t say anything, so she just shook her head.
I let out a pained sigh. There was nothing we could do. We continued up towards the castle. Roofs were ablaze, adding to the smoke thickening the air. Windows had been smashed, carts overturned, barrels punctured, and the town of Agocester had been decimated. Vandalized and destroyed. Fires continued to spread, and the civilians we passed were fleeing in the same direction we were. The soldiers we encountered were also heading in the same direction, kicking over signs and smashing things as they went. A few even carried torches, setting things on fire.
This was a raid. We were undoubtedly under attack. Not by dragons but by people.
The bubble of silence popped, spilling the cries of panic and violence down the street. My ears popped, making me wince. Oblivious as I was, Galine punched a soldier in her face, yanked her spear from her and twirled it. We didn’t even stop moving as Galine drove the spear right through her neck below the chin. A spurt of blood coated Galine’s tunic.
“Holy fuck,” I mumbled, nearly tripping over my own feet.
“Come on,” Galine told me firmly, “we need to make it to the castle before the gates close.”
I didn’t look back at the soldier Galine had just killed. I was already too tired to be horrified. Now I was focusing on just putting one foot in front of the other, awkwardly hopping over another body in the street.
So much for the Geneva Convention, apparently targeting civilians wasn't a war crime here. If anything, it seemed to be an intentional tactic, driving a panicked mob up to the castle. It was horrible. The screams and tears of one family as their son fell behind, snatched by the collar by a soldier and dragged off. Those not killed outright were being beaten and kidnapped. Homes were looted. A woman was pinned to the ground, soldiers tearing off her clothes.
This was hell. Maybe I had actually died and gone to hell.
But still, Galine dragged me forward, half off my feet. Despite the horrors, she was focused on getting us to the castle. And all I was doing was slowing us down. Yet she didn’t leave me. She dragged me instead, and I was ever grateful for it because if not, the pursuing soldiers would have absolutely caught me.
This wasn’t hell; this was war.
Same difference.
Emerging through the thick smoke behind us on an imposing white war horse was a woman in gleaming silver armour. She wore no helmet, her blue cape billowing in the chaos her soldiers wrought. In one hand, she held the reins, her sword sheathed at her hip. In her other hand was a long chain, attached to the collar of the monster which followed at her heel.