“Four archers, hm?”
“Yeah. I couldn’t see inside, so there may’ve been more guards. There seemed to be a bell they could ring for an alarm, probably if they see anybody coming. That was near the main gate.”
Thursday grumbled. That’d make things a little more complicated.
“How much distance between the treeline and the ramparts?”
“Maybe… ten feet? Fifteen? Not a lot. It was not designed to be defended on all sides, I don’t think. Maybe just there for resupply or prisoner storage. The road leading to the main gate branches off a rather obvious trail. It probably leads to the capital or something.”
“That’s fine. I hope he appreciates what I’m about to do here. Won’t be as easy as magicking everybody away,” Thursday said with a grumble. Standing at the edge of the torn away floor, she watched as the tumultuous sky flashed and threatened, but seemed to be all dried up, the rain having stopped suddenly. Not being soaking wet would make things at least a bit more pleasant.
“What we’re about to do. I want to help,” Daisy said, her expression resolute.
“Absolutely not. No,” Thursday growled, looking at her sternly. “You’ve come far too close to death in the past few days, I’m not risking losing you.”
“Oh, and I can risk losing you?! That’s not fair! You aren’t invincible! What if you die, what will I do then?”
“The same thing you’d do if I was here. Sack this town for any valuables you can find and leave. I am sure you can find somewhere nice to settle in if-”
A loud, sudden crack filled the room as Daisy’s right hand struck Thursday’s cheek. Blinking in surprise, the homunculus simply stared back at the woman, letting the blow sink in.
“You hit me,” Thursday hissed, her upper lip curling. Daisy shrank away, cringing at the thought of repercussion.
“I’m sorry!” she blurted, suddenly seeming so afraid of the person she had seemed so excited to see not but minutes before. With a great sigh, Thursday shook her head, starting toward the door of their partially demolished room. As she opened it, she looked back at Daisy, her expression cold.
“Hope I do make it back, girl. I shudder to think of the guilt you might feel if that was the last thing you did to me.”
“Thursday, wait…”
She didn’t. Outside of the room, she hurried down the stairs and across the rain soaked dining room out to the streets. Haven seemed eerily tranquil. As the world sank into darkness, the town felt truly empty. There was not a person or animal in the entire area save for her and Daisy, who she could feel watching her from their room’s great hole. She didn’t look back. Shrouded in her dark cloak, she started off into the woods, going in the direction she was told would lead to the wooded rear of the fort Melo had been taken to.
Thursday stalked quietly through the verdant forest that surrounded Haven, noting the lack of wildlife that would normally be scurrying or prowling about. No doubt they were scared from the area, animals being more in tune with things such as the magical annihilation of an entire town’s denizens. Even as she had the time to reflect on what she had done, she felt no remorse. In her eyes, what she did was justified. Humans in general were such horrible creatures to one another, as clearly evidenced in how they treated Daisy. Eradicating Haven, Thursday believed, was no great tragedy.
It wasn’t long before the human-made glow of contained fires began to shine through the trees, the orange hues giving the recently emptied patch of nature a fittingly abnormal glow. The nearer she got to the treeline, the more careful and quiet she became, stalking toward the edge warily. The walls were in sight, and so, too were the archers posted about the ramparts. Only two archers were up, most likely a skeleton crew left simply for the sake of some security. With Melo clearly in their captivity and Thursday gone in their eyes, what threat was left for them other than the occasional group of highwaymen and foolhardy thieves?
The bowman closest to her side of the fort had turned toward the inside, fumbling with his weapon as he tested the string. Seeing this, Thursday took the opportunity to clear the distance, running quickly to the massive, pointed logs that composed the wall and crouching in the darkness they provided. There was no rustling above. No ringing of bells or cries for help. A cold trickle crept along her forearms and hands as the metal that composed her claws formed over her skin, the knife-like tips gleaming menacingly in the light of the partially shrouded moon.
Facing the wall, she pressed her fingertips into the wood, pushing them into the wall deep enough to maintain her body’s weight before starting upward. She moved one hand at a time, and quietly, making sure to dig and press the claws into the rain softened wood with gentle pressure. Nearing the top, she was glad that her strength was magically imbued and did not match her form, or she’d have never been able to accomplish what she just had.
Dangling by her left claw, she opened her right, a slender metal spike forming in her palm that she gripped tightly. Grinning faintly at her own deviousness, she rapped the thing upon the wood near the top. A surprised grunt followed, and a bearded face peered over the edge, eyes widening in shock before the spike was thrown upward into the bowman’s forehead, shattering skull and piercing brain. Dead instantly, the body slumped to the ramparts. Hearing no sound of alert or surprise, Thursday knew the other archer hadn’t noticed, and quickly pulled herself up and onto the wood.
Looking immediately into the fort, she took in all it held. Three buildings in a faint crescent shape toward the exit all seemed to stare at a single, bloodstained stake in the middle of the fort, the dirt around it even brown with people’s fluids. Thursday noticed, however, that the fort was still, seeming almost uninhabited if not for the dousing of candle light coming from a second story room in the largest building.
Across the way, the remaining archer was steadily at his post, looking keenly into the forest on the other side to spot intruders. Thursday knelt and picked up the slain bowman’s weapon and an arrow from his quiver, nocking it and taking aim. She was never big on archery, she believed there was something deeper to seeing a man’s face and eyes when you killed him. However, she knew how to use a bow, and at the range she had, she didn’t need to know how to use it too well. With a faint whistle, the arrow streamed across the fort, and as silently as it fled her bow, it struck her intended target in the back and subsequently the heart. As his body collapsed to the ramparts, she tossed the bow onto the corpse beside her and crept along the ladder leading downward.
On the ground, she tried to make out what every building was. The largest, clearly, was to be Shadow’s dwelling. But it was flanked on both sides by smaller structures, both of which were composed of cemented stone with wooden roofs. Neither had real windows, only mere slits in the walls, so she’d have to be adventurous to figure out what they were.
She started with the one to her left, stepping carefully as she neared the front wall. At the door, she pressed her ear against the wood, listening for a sound, any sound, and got snoring. With a mischievous grin, she opened the door slowly, greeted immediately by the figure of a rotund man leaning against the wall, fast asleep. Judging by the sword he had laying across his waist, and the ring of keys at his hip, he was assigned to guard the cells that lined the little building’s interior . He was doing marvelously, as well. She grabbed his sword and unhesitant, drove the blade into the man’s chest swiftly. He did not awaken, but merely exhaled a slow, gurgling breath, and went still. Briefly, Thursday found herself wondering if, when killed in your sleep, you simply kept dreaming. She pushed the romantic idea aside and stepped further in, running a black set of sharpened claws against the iron bars of every cell. In the cubicle that was in the middle sat a crumpled heap of bloodied silks and gray hair.
“Damnation,” she hissed, wrenching the keyring from the slain guard’s belt and hurrying to the door. Rushing, she fumbled with the keys, trying a few that did not fit before tossing them aside in frustration. In a sudden flash of blue, her hands were normal. She clutched the cold metal of the door’s lock and infused it with her own magical essence, melting the entire middle section of the door away almost instantly. Lightheaded, she blinked and shook her eyes. It was a power she had not quite become accustomed to using, and left her feeling strangely off balance.
“Melo?”
Stepping swiftly into the cell, she knelt by the older gentleman and turned him onto his back, her eyes shutting in quiet disappointment. A painful wound had been dealt to his lower abdomen. Not one he’d die from immediately, but it looked as though it had been inflicted most likely a day or two after his capture. The man looked pale, shivering in a fitful, and restless sleep.
“It’s Thursday! Hey!” she yelled in a whisper, shaking him forcefully. The elder gentleman’s eyes fluttered open, regarding the homunculus with a gaze of familiarity.
“I’m here to break you out, old man,” she told him reassuringly, helping him to sit up. He groaned as he did, seemingly barely able to hold his own head up to address her.
“I see… you’ve gotten better then?” he asked. Confused, Thursday looked at him blankly until it snapped to her.
“Oh, yes… that. Yeah, I’m better.”
Melo smiled faintly and his head bobbed as he attempted to look at her steadily.
“Your woman is safe now, yes?”
“Uh huh.”
“And… the town?”
Thursday looked down at the far gone old warrior as he shivered with obvious infection, and nodded her head slowly.
“Haven is safe now, Melo. I’m sorry this had to happen. I should’ve been there.”
With a groan of pain and a growl of rage, Melo seemed faintly energized, a bit of life having returned to his eyes as he looked up at Thursday.
“Don’t blame yourself. It is the traitor and the… sniveling coward who would lock me up, wound me, and watch me die like an animal! He refused to face me in combat. Refused to settle our feud once and for all.”
“Looks like he is,” Thursday added coldly, unable to resist grinding her teeth. Melo, however, did not seem offended, and actually gave a ghost of a smile at the comment.
“So he has,” he lamented, “I need a favor.”
Nodding, Thursday rose and stepped back slightly.
“You may think I am going to let you die now, Melo, but I can’t. Not when your revenge is so close to being realized.”
A pained chuckled escaped the prone man as she pressed himself against the wall to stay upright.
“Will I live to hear his anguished cries?”
Grinning maliciously, Thursday merely started toward the door. He had no idea.
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