Chapter 58

The crossbow bolt flashed through the short space like lightning. Kestrel didn’t have time to process what had happened before the screams started.

“You bastards! You shot him!” someone erupted in volcanic anger. “You tried to murder him just like you let those rebel animals murder so many of our own!”

“You killers!” came another shout. This one was followed by another rock.

The stones that had been tossed at them sporadically now came in waves. One the size of his hand Kestrel leaving a bruise in its wake.

Kestrel grimaced.

He saw another soldier raise his crossbow to fire, the man torn by the same loss and filled with rage at the fools below him who thought that they had cornered the market on suffering, acting as if they were the enemy, acting as if they hadn’t lost anything.

“Don’t!” Kestrel shouted in unison with the small company’s commander, an ugly stocky man, who looked nothing more than an oaf, but was one of Aris’ most brilliant and dedicated men.

Too late.

The bolt burst out from the crossbow. The strict weapons training that each new guard daily undertook had unfortunately paid off and the small arrow embedded itself in the chest of the man who’s stone had hit him in the side of the head, leaving a trail of blood trickling its way down his cheek.

The homeless rabble-rouser died before he hit the ground, the arrow having slipped between his ribs to pierce his heart.

There was a short, but infinite pause as the world around the pierced man seemed to stop. Everything crystalized around the falling of his body. It was as if the falling of the body had ushered in a new epoch, and everyone in the crowd felt it, but didn’t know how to form their thoughts. This death changed everything. The man they thought to be their savior was their enemy. His man, and therefore by extension he himself, had killed one of them. He was no protector at all. He was a killer.

A murderer.

And, just as quickly as everything had paused, chaos reigned anew. The changing of destiny was forgotten amidst shouts of justice. The cries of those who’d lost everything and desperately needed someone, SOMETHING, to blame. Someone to direct their hatred at.

Blood had been spilled and blood was needed to pay the debt of a life taken.

A makeshift pike was hurled, it pierced the man next to Kestrel, impaling his gut. He fell to the ground, writhing in agony. The barracks healer would have to be a deity to heal that wound.

He had seen the damage a pierced gut caused. The guard was as good as dead.

The battle had begun.

*****

William raised his crossbow, sending its deadly bolt whistling through the air and into the eye of the man who’d thrown the pike.

The crowd rushed the massive metalwood gate.

Another pike hurtled past Kestrel so close that he felt the wind in its wake brushing his hair as the deadly piece of timber sailed past him and into the courtyard.

“Please let them be safe,” he thought as he spared a quick glance to the empty courtyard. He needed to keep Sephira safe.

His mind was consumed with keeping the Ravenscroft family from harm. He owed it to them. He would not let this crowd past the gate. Not now. Not when they were in an animal frenzy, only hungry for blood and destruction.

He had seen this type of mindless fury before. He wouldn’t allow the raging beast that the group had become to destroy Aris’ home as the fire that had incited the rage had done to the mob’s homes.

He would protect them.

But how could he fight them? He knew exactly what they were facing. He had lived on the streets. He knew how cold it could get in the winters. He had seen the young and the enfeeble fall asleep on a cold night, never to wake again in the morning, having frozen to death during the harsh night. He intimately knew the harshness of living on the streets and these pampered masses stood no chance against that and they knew it.

He would protect the Ravenscroft family, but he wouldn’t raise a hand to fight the crowd either. There had to be something else he could do.

The company commander took the decision from Kestrel’s hands.

“Shields!” he yelled, and the guards fell into a tiny phalanx position, two deep. The ones in the front raised their half-shields to guard their bodies while the rear line formed a shell above their heads, protecting them from any death that may rain down from above.

The phalanx held nowhere near the same affect as those of the infantry who were trained to use shields nearly as big as them to form a protective shield for their musketeers who fired from behind the safety of their shield-wall. Still, the majority of the hurled stones and makeshift weaponry bounced off the turtle like wall that protected the small company guarding the gate, while the rest of the soldiers grabbed their shields and metalvines and formed a larger phalanx near the gate, but just out of reach of the hurled missiles should the rioters break through the heavy metalwood entrance.

“Watch out!” a guard standing next to Kestrel shouted, leaving his ears ringing.

He looked down to see what the man was pointing at.

At the back edge of the riotous crowd a small group had gathered. They held clay pots alight with oil.

They rushed to charge the gate.

“Fire!”

A wave of crossbow bolts fell from the sky at the word of the commander. The five men holding the burning clay pots fell to ground, each man pierced through by multiple arrows. The burning pots fell at their feet. The bodies were consumed by the fire that spilled from their hands.

A few of the unlucky rioters that’d been too close to them were engulfed by the fire’s deadly gaping mouth.

The fires hemmed the rioters in, threatening to consume the small, violent group. What had seconds ago been fury had shifted in an instant into panic. The band of rioters who had been ignited by wrath morphed into a panicked herd. Terror ate away at them.

The panicked rioters instantly turned on each other. The flames from the fallen men nipped at their backs, they tore at each-other in an attempt to escape from the consuming flames.

A woman was pushed into the fire and her screams pierced the air, filling it with agony and horror.

In their mad attempt to escape from the flames, the burning woman was pushed further into the flames. Her flesh sizzled and melted her clothes to her body.

William, filled with piteous horror at the sight, ended her suffering with a crossbow bolt that took her in the forehead, killing her instantly.

“We need to let them in!” his shout woke Kestrel from his disbelieving stare as he watched the panicked crowd destroy each-other in an effort to escape from the consuming tongues of the flames that had stoked their terror.

Everyone turned to their commander. What was he going to do? These people, just seconds ago, had tried to kill them. They were their enemies. They were thirsty for destruction. They would just as easily kill them the moment they opened the gates to the crowd.

But they couldn’t let them die. They were trained to protect the masses even if the crowd wanted them dead.

What were they to do?

The squad commander made his mind.

“Ready arms!” he called to the phalanx of troops inside the gate behind them.

Their leader relayed the order.

He turned to the men on the wall. “Abandon your positions. Go to the kitchens, get every last bit of salt you can find. We’re going to have to smother this fire. Grab that and every bit of sand that you can pile into our fire pails. The moment there’s room enough to break through the fires, go raid any nearby home for anything to help put out the flames,” he commanded his smaller squadron.

They obeyed without hesitation and rushed down the ramparts, running to the barracks, kitchens and the training yards, filling hands with blankets, buckets of salt and sand.

They flanked the large doors, waiting on each side, ready to rush out as soon as the panicked mob rushed in.

Two of their number stepped up to each side of the metalwood gate, feeling the shutter of the large door as the crowd pounded against it.

“Now!” their stocky captain commanded the duo.

The first of the three enormous planks that guarded the main gate was removed. The shocks to the door drew heavier.

The second plank was removed.

Now the gate was bending slightly with each push from the panicked mob.

The third one was removed and no sooner had the timber fallen to the ground than the crowds rushed in, many stumbling over the beams and being trampled by the panicked crowds in an attempt to escape from the flames that were a mirror to the destruction that’d destroyed so many of their lives mere weeks ago.

The crowds slammed against the phalanx’s shield wall, being forced back by the militarized guards.

Kestrel’s detachment slipped out from the sides of the gates the moment that the crowds broke through. They rushed towards the fire the panicked crowd ran from.

Buckets of salt, sand and blankets assaulted the blaze, smothering the portions of the oil fire that it touched. In seconds, a small path was cut through the flames and Kestrel and three other guards ran through the mouth of the flames who’s heat prickled their necks and threatened to steal all the moisture from their skin.

They didn’t have time to think as they broke down the doors and raided the nearest houses for anything to help kill the fires, desperate to stop the growing flames before they inched their way to the nearby wooden buildings, consuming them in a reflection of the previous fires that had destroyed so much of their town.

Kestrel didn’t even grimace as he was hit by terrified neighbors screaming at the violent intrusion. Soon though, enough had seen the flames and the guards hurried attempts to put it out that they too joined in on the efforts.

In less than five minutes the neighborhood had banded together and while some were busy creating barriers, the others made a smaller, controlled firewall that stole the oxygen from the oncoming flames.

A loud cheer rose up when the oil fire stopped its encroachment. The joy of the people was palpable, the complete opposite of the hatred and frustration of the mob that had been attacking Aris’ estate mere minutes ago.

The mob!

Kestrel had forgotten about them. He rushed back into Aris’ estate. Terror at what might be happening seeping into his heart.