Chapter 17 - Blood Sacrifice

Skyle ran his fingers along the taut bowstring, an absent minded gesture while his eyes followed the two guards marching along the perimeter of the wall. They were both wearing full armor and open faced helmets with a nose guard that allowed a wide area of vision. Their eyes were alert but calm, which was quite the feat considering all the commotion within the camp. Identical looking longswords were sheathed at their sides, and from their belt hung a small, circular horn - likely for sounding the alarm in case of an attack.

“Their intervals are just too tight. Burn me, but they have been trained well,” Leon muttered with a strange mix of anger and admiration in his voice. “There, the next patrol is rounding the corner just as this one’s about to march off our line of vision. No gap at all.”

Skyle eyed the twelve foot tall palisade wall and frowned, lost in thought. It had been cut from thick tree trunks smoothed out of branches and other irregularities by quick, efficient chops. Each log was fairly uniform in size and shape, being about twice as thick as Skyle’s own waist. Glancing sideways at the length of the wall, Skyle couldn’t help but shake his head in admiration. There must be thousands, tens of thousands of logs in this side of the wall alone.

A narrow wooden walkway had been erected behind the wall, and it was along this platform that pairs of guards made their rounds. They always kept within sight of the next patrol, neither hurrying nor dilly dallying. Also, at regular intervals especially fortified towers that rose a few feet above the wall itself had been placed. Several men armed with bows could be seen manning these towers.

All in all, it was an impressive fortification effort, and it truly made one wonder just what this army was trying to defend against.

“It is unlikely that the threat is humanoid,” Leon murmured, almost as though to himself.

Skyle pondered at that.

“How do you know that?” he asked quietly.

“Wooden palisade walls are always vulnerable to fire,” Leon explained patiently. “And a capable commander would be remiss to invest this much work and resources into building a wall this big unless it was purely temporary, or they didn’t need to fear fire to begin with.”

Skyle nodded thoughtfully. It made sense. No matter how green a trunk was, it would still go up in flames under prolonged exposure to fire. Then it would become a liability rather than a protection.

“What interests me for now is, how do we get out of here?” Skyle grumbled.

Leon glanced down at Skyle’s leg and pursed his lips. “Well, climbing is out of the question for you. I judge that gallery stationed behind the wall to be at least eight feet above the ground. That means we need to use one of the ladders.”

Skyle nodded. “There are several that we can see, they all have guards stationed on top of them. Even if we manage to somehow subdue the guards, with the time it will take to climb up the ladder, then over the wall, a patrol is sure to see us.”

“Too many patrols,” Leon growled.

“We need a distraction,” Skyle glanced towards the closest torch, which lay a mere ten feet from the wagon they were hiding under.

Leon followed Skyle’s gaze and snorted lightly, “The idea is to draw their attention away from us, not to light up a flaming beacon on top of our heads.”

Skyle tapped a finger on his bow, but Leon’s face twisted in distaste.

“I’ve seen flaming arrows before, and they will draw a hell of a lot of attention, especially in the middle of a pitch black night like this one,” Leon muttered, looking up towards the sky.

Skyle followed his gaze, but all he could see was one of the clearest and most beautiful night skies he’d ever seen. True, the complete absence of any moon or stars was slightly unsettling, but somehow he doubted that was what Leon was referring to.

Stilll, Skyle decided not to take up the topic of the strange illusions filling Leon's vision, and instead opted for a more practical and down to earth approach.

“Come here and see,” Skyle said slowly, pointing with a finger in the direction they had come from. “If we part that tent flap there, and move a couple of those crates..”

Leon scrunched over to look in the direction Skyle pointed, and his expression turned from one of healthy skepticism to serious consideration.

“Look, I know you’re a good shot. Hell, you’re probably the best archer of your age I’ve ever seen. Still, there’s just that one thing I just mentioned: Your age,” Leon sighed, openly looking Skyle up and down with a look of honest disbelief. “You won’t be able to arc a flaming arrow without drawing attention, and that only leaves a flat shot.”

Leon slowly turned away from the other boy to look at the target once more. It was the tents in the area they left the old man’s body at. From where Skyle lay, there was coincidentally a small gap about three feet off the ground that ran through all the tents, crates, and other obstructions.

Leon shook his head firmly.

“Even for a veteran archer, such a small target wouldn’t be an easy shot. If you’re talking about a flat shot, I’m not sure even a crossbow would be able to accomplish it, let alone a bow that either you or I can manage to draw.”

Leon was right to express serious doubts. Skyle knew that the heaviest bow he had been able to properly draw had a pull of about seventy five pounds, and a single shot from that bow would leave him exhausted, to say nothing of his accuracy with it.

In order to make a flat shot of two hundred yards, his father’s bow would be able to accomplish it with its 180 pound pull. However, Skyle wouldn’t be able to made such a bow even budge, let alone hit the target.

Still, Skyle experimentally gripped Moonshadow in one hand while taking a deep breath and pulling the bowstring with the other. Even prone as he was, the motion was shockingly easy to manage, and though he had yet to reach full extension, he was confident that he would manage an accurate shot.

He would be underdrawing by a good twenty five percent, perhaps more. Still, Skyle got the strangest feeling from his fingers, arms and most of all, his heart, that this would be his most powerful shot yet.

“I can do it,” Skyle said seriously. “Trust me.”

Leon scowled at Skyle, but the other boy only stared right back at him.

Leon Draxas was resolved not to give in this time. He was, after all, the heir of House Draxas, born to command and lead. His opinion would always be regarded as the golden standard, whether it proved right or not. Even low ranked army commanders could only raise indirect concerns and voice idle speculations, but never would they so firmly oppose him. Only his direct teachers or the most senior officers could truly disregard his opinion, and even then it was a rare event.

With a string of muttered curses, Leon broke off eye contact, as he found Skyle’s quiet, placid gaze strangely convincing. That only infuriated him all the more.

“Fine,” Leon growled under his breath. “Now where do we get a flaming arrow?”

Skyle grinned like a happy child and instantly produced an arrow from his quiver. The arrowhead was made of a brittle material and had a hollow channel carved within. Before Leon could raise the next question, Skyle pre-empted him by taking one of the potion bottles out from within the pouch.

“Sure it’ll catch AND hold?” Leon asked gruffly.

Skyle only raised an eyebrow, then shrugged helplessly. “It should. We’ll find out soon enough.”

Thus, after finding an empty tent nearby, Leon found himself parting the tent flap just a few inches. According to Skyle, that would be enough for the shot.

Skyle himself was standing on one corner of the tent, his eyes closed as he regulated his breathing. The arrowhead had been filled with the liquid from one of the bottles Skyle held, one which he remembered as being particularly reddish in hue under his True Sight. Red usually meant an abundance of the fire element, and the smell had strongly corroborated this hunch.

“Remember, as soon as I open my eyes, get the torch and light me up,” Skyle instructed once again, and Leon barely resisted the urge to roll his eyes. Instead, the bigger boy nodded gravely and glanced at a big earthen jar lying by the ground. Light flickered from the torch they had hidden within, in order to draw the least amount of attention until the last moment. In fact, they had taken a precious few moments to find a tent from which they could still find that angle to make their intended shot. The advantages of making the shot from within the tent would be the ability to make the shot covertly. After all, this was no longer a deserted area like the one where they had fought the old man. Guards were still patrolling all around the wall and the nearby areas, and only darkness would keep the boys safe.

“Ready?” Skyle asked softly, nocking the specially treated arrow.

“Get on with it, farmboy,” Leon replied with feigned indifference, but he licked his lips anxiously.

Skyle took one final breath, and slowly began to exhale through his mouth. At this point, Skyle finally opened his eyes and again entered the True Sight. Slowly, a myriad colors dawned into existence all around him. Much more experienced with it now, Skyle quickly filtered out the unimportant details, and instead narrowed his sight towards his target and brought it to incredible focus just as Leon reached into the jar and lit the arrowhead with the torch.

At the same moment, Skyle’s lungs finally settled down and his heart seemed to almost stutter to a stop. Immediately, the muscles in Skyle’s arms bulged as he swiftly drew the bowstring as far back as he could. At first, the motion was smooth and easy, but towards the end Skyle could feel the resistance growing exponentially harder.

Skyle hadn’t expected this, and indeed, the few practice draws he had made on the bowstring a few moments earlier hadn’t been like this. Still, Skyle knew he was beyond any extra thoughts or doubts.

He needed to make the shot, and by the Gods he would make it if it was the last thing he did!

Thusly armed with a fierce determination to succeed and the fine focus to channel that will into results, Skyle’s face showed none of his emotions. Only his eyes narrowed ever so slightly as he finally released the bowstring and loosed the arrow.

It was only now that Skyle noticed that Moonshadow’s limbs had bent in a strange fashion, curving three times in total. He noticed this only as the bowstring propelled the arrow with an impact that was far beyond what he had expected.

With a loud twang, the arrow soared into the distance and only the briefest of flashes could be seen before it completely disappeared from sight. Not even the trail of the burning arrowhead could be seen, such was the incredible speed of the projectile. For a brief instant that seemed to stretch endlessly, both Skyle and Leon stood frozen, staring blankly ahead in vain hopes of spotting the errant missile.

Finally, far in the distance the smallest flash of orange fire lit up the night, drawing a faint line of sparkling light that was, incredibly, almost completely parallel to the ground.

In fact, it drew a perfectly flat line!

Both boys stood staring at the arrow in utter stupefaction. Let alone Leon, not even Skyle had expected such incredible power from the shot. In fact, Skyle hadn’t expected a perfectly flat shot and had arced his shot just slightly in case he undershot his target. This led to him actually overshooting his intended target. Thankfully, the gap along the course of the shot only narrowed downward, leaving an even wider gap the higher the shot went.

Leon seemed to relax slightly, but Skyle still stood perfectly still, staring after the arrow with his enhanced sense of sight.

Ironically, he was now worried about whether he would badly overshoot his target. Moreover, with the speed with which the arrow was hurtling through the air, Skyle was no longer very concerned about whether anyone would spot it, and instead began to worry about whether the fire would be snuffed out by outrageous acceleration.

Indeed, the arrow looked like it would shoot straight over the tent for which Skyle had aimed, but at the last instant it seemed to dip just enough that it managed to catch the very top of the highest tent pole.

Moments later, a bright blaze burst into life and both boys let out relieved breaths. Leon quickly threw the torch he was still holding into a bucket and covered it with sand, instantly putting it out. Complete darkness engulfed the tent, and both boys safely snuck toward the wagon once more. Then it was another waiting game.

They did not have to wait for long, as loud cries of “Fire!” began to resound through the camp, each cry being repeated and spread over a wider area.

Skyle and Leon both cautiously slunk back into the darkest shadows under their wagon as they watched the booted feet of the pair of guards who had been patrolling the section of wall closest to them rush in the direction of the fire.

“Let’s go!” Leon cried out as soon as the guards turned around a corner, getting to his feet and pulling Skyle up after him. “The next shift may or may not go to help with the fire!”

Skyle nodded and immediately placed his arm around the bigger boy’s shoulder while holding Moonshadow in his other hand, keeping a watchful eye with his True Sight. Leon stared straight ahead while he wordlessly reached around Skyle’s back in order to support his weight, and they began to rush towards the wall at top speed.

Thanks to the commotion caused by the fire, they arrived at their destination without raising any alerts. The section of wall they had aimed for was placed furthest away from any torches nearby. It also had several long wooden boards lying next to the wall, perhaps to be used as wall supports in case of an outside assault. Skyle swiftly slung Moonshadow around his back and grabbed one end of the board with both hands, while Leon used his good hand to do the same from the other end.

Moving in such coordinated fashion, within moments they had placed three of the boards end to end. Skyle took out a bedroll and placed it on top of the intersection between two boards. Leon stepped forward and brought down the flat side of his axe head on top of the bedroll.

Surprisingly, a muffled metallic clang was produced by the impact, and a satisfied Leon repeated the movement while Skyle unslung another bedroll from his shoulders and placed it at the intersection between the next two boards.

In fact, the boys had removed a few of the pins nailing the tents to the ground, then had wedged them into the bedrolls. Having practiced the motion beforehand, Leon was able to secure the pins into place on the board with a single blow, and thereafter needed only three to four more to completely drive each bundle of three pins through both wooden boards.

In less than thirty seconds, they had nailed together three boards roughly five feet long each, effectively producing a fifteen feet long board. Bracing the bottom end of the first board against the pile of boards, they pushed the other end toward the nearby wall.

The boards now made a natural ramp to the eight feet high wooden walkway situated behind the wall, which would have been otherwise unreachable without going to the brightly lit and well guarded ladders. Thanks to this particular spot’s distance from any torches, the boys were able to swiftly climb up their improvised ramp. As soon as Skyle set foot off the ramp, Leon pushed it off the edge of the walkway and it fell down with a thump.

The sound didn’t attract any attention as cries of “Fire” were still resounding through the camp.

Overjoyed at the success of their plan, Leon moved to the edge of the wall and looked at the other side.

“As expected, they dug the outside perimeter to increase the height of the wall. Good thing I found us that rope inside the wagon,” Leon exulted as he swiftly looped one end of the rope he had slung around his shoulder on top of one of the wooden logs making up the wall. “Time to go!”

Leon turned around to motion to the other boy, but then he had to furrow his brow as he once again spotted Skyle staring into the distance, towards the center of the camp. Leon followed his line of sight but could see nothing in particular thanks to the deep gloom of the night.

“Skyle?”

Skyle didn’t answer, as his attention was entirely consumed by whatever he was seeing.

Leon lifted a hand and reached out towards Skyle, but then hesitated as he now knew beyond doubt that Skyle’s extraordinary sense of sight was very real and extremely important for their survival. What if he interrupted Skyle while he was identifying an important threat, or some clue as to where their situation? Then again, up on this wooden walkway they were clearly illuminated by several torches, and they would be easily spotted should anyone turn their eye in this direction. Should he wait, or carry Skyle away, forcibly if need be?

Then, as Leon still wrestled with the difficult decision, the matter was taken out of his hands altogether.

***

Blood.

It was the smell of it, strangely enough, that first drew Skyle’s attention back towards the camp, instead of the wall and the freedom that lay just beyond it.

The salty, coppery smell of blood.

Skyle frowned deeply as his nose scrunched up, involuntarily inhaling but finding nothing amiss with the air. Then he focused his attention on the True Sight, and was instantly shocked.

A great vortex of a deep, bloody red was spinning in the middle of the camp. It rose a good fifteen feet in the air, even taller than the walls of the encampment, and seemed to only grow in mass by the second. Like torrents of blood rapidly whirling into a terrifying twister, it seemed to send a deafening howl into Skyle’s soul that chilled his veins.

Just what is going on? Skyle couldn’t help but wonder. Where is this terrifying energy coming from?

Just then, as if to answer his question, a thick stream of bloody red rose from the ground and was instantly absorbed by the vortex, once more increasing its size.

Skyle followed that last stream of red to its source, and narrowed his eyes as his supernatural sight slowly brought what would otherwise have been a mere indistinguishable blur into sharp contrast.

The first thing Skyle saw were the sacks. There were literally hundreds of them, all hanging dangling in the air from ropes above a vast cauldron. Dark robed men stood underneath, holding a hook on one hand, and a knife on the other. They deftly used the sharp tips of the hooks to pierce each sack, bringing it closer to the center of the cauldron. Then the knives in their other hand would flash briefly, after which the bags would be torn open and pour their contents into the steaming cauldron below. Meanwhile, the men would flick their hooks and the loose flap that had been cut off from the sack would be discarded in a rapidly growing pile surrounding the cauldron.

Then Skyle’s face drained of blood, and if he hadn’t been so horrified by the sight that greeted him, he would have surely doubled over and puked all over himself in horror and disgust.

The sacks, they were not sacks.

They were people.

Naked people, hanging upside down by chains that ended in wicked hooks that pierced their ankles. Grim faced executioners indifferently used their steel hooks to catch on their victims’ heads. They didn’t seem to care whether it was eyes they gouged, or mouths they tore, or skulls they pierced. In the end, they would slowly drag their madly twitching victims towards the rim of the cauldron, then with a single flash from the curved blades in their other hand, yet another head would be detached and sent flying to join that macabre pile while blood poured forth in a grisly shower into the hissing cauldron.

The terrified victims were gagged and bound, but to Skyle their eyes were far louder than any words could have been.

Some eyes were squeezed completely shut, as though to deny the reality of what was about to befall them. Others were streaming an endless torrent of tears, begging to be spared all the while realizing the utter futility of their actions.

One particular set of eyes caught Skyle’s attention. Not because they were particularly brave, nor even composed. In fact, the eyes had long ago lost any hint of sanity within. Instead, the irises had shrunk until the eyes looked almost completely white.

Still, they immediately drew Skyle’s attention because of one reason, and one reason only.

Skyle knew this man.

He didn’t know his name, age, or any other information regarding him. However, Skyle knew this man because he had spotted his calm, intelligent gaze regarding him from the other side of a cage when the boys had made their escape.

Back then, Skyle had acted on impulse and had thrown the key to the cage doors to the man. While he had known that it would be almost impossible for the man to actually make his escape, still Skyle had drawn at least some measure of comfort in knowing that he had given the man a chance, as minute and insignificant as it seemed.

It had been a sudden decision, reached as much out of Skyle’s own naivete and lack of experience, as of a sudden rush of adrenaline during which he had dared to hope for the impossible.

What was the worst that could happen, after all? Skyle thought he had been ready to deal with the consequences of his own actions, but as he looked into the unknown man’s eyes and saw within the reflection of that evil edge flashing on its way to cleave his neck, Skyle finally understood just how unprepared he was.

How woefully inadequate his every preparation had been for the massive cost of his actions.

Indeed, how could a boy like Skyle possibly be prepared to pay such a steep toll?

Thus, the man would pay the price, and with a quick flash of steel and a burst of arterial blood, he did.

As Skyle’s will began to crumble and his vision began to lose focus, the final sight that he saw clearly was that of one of the executioners.

More precisely, it was his lips.

They were constantly moving, their speed always increasing, but still chanting the same word over and over until the words they were uttering echoed deafeningly in Skyle’s own mind.

“SACRIFICE!”