Chapter Twenty Five: Fool’s Luck

In an instant time became tangible. The seconds ticked by slowly. The guard was mere feet away from him. Footsteps thudded closer and Calin almost gasped at the panic that swarmed through him, but then there was the sound of a wooden chair being dragged back and the creaking of it as the guard sat down.

Gradually Calin let his breath out, as silently as he could and slowly placed weight on his elbow against the wall. He lifted his head up to the edge of the bed.

The guard was different than Feron and Pror, a much darker skin. The sentry sat at the small wooden table picking at something, which must have been edible, with a thing that looked relatively like a fork.

To Calin’s surprise, the man had ridges protruding from under his smooth golden hair. It moved like a ‘v’ into the man’s broad neck and disappeared over his shoulders under his armour. The sight of it was enough to make him take a double take and look again.

He wanted to try to figure what those ridges were, they looked like scales. But Tyas’ head popped up on the far side the room. The man was gesturing something to him.

Calin squinted, not entirely sure what Tyas was trying to tell him.

A frustrated frown split Tyas’ face. With his hand Tyas pointed at Calin and then to the guard and motioned in a chopping motion.

A grunt split the air and Tyas disappeared behind the small bed on the other side of the room. There was no mistake in what Tyas had shown him to do. But how?...

Calin frowned deeply, the very thought of how to go about knocking someone out has never even occurred to him, but he was the closest to the guard. It was the only way. He tried to ask in hand signals how to do it, but what resulted was a series of hand signals that didn’t make sense whatsoever. Calin gave up and threw up his hands up as if to say, ‘Okay, okay let me do it.’

He slowly turned his body around in the small space, holding his breath before he got to his knees. He held his muscles tight and gradually stood up, before tiptoeing around the bed. Calin stepped foot for foot closer to the guard. The alien v-like scales on the guard’s neck mocked him like mini disfigured smiles.

When he got to within striking distance of the sentry, he just stood there, lost. No idea of how to do the deed. Then he remembered his sword and he softly fished for the hilt.

The moment he got hold and drew the blade out, the sure scraping of metal against metal sounded in the room. The guard’s head looked sideways at Calin and sprung to his feet.

Without thinking, Calin jumped on the man’s back before the guard could turn. And roughly grabbed hold around the man’s chin. He tried to get his arm down; but the sentry wrestled his arm free and all Calin could do was hang on for dear life, as they spun around and around. The chair and small table tumbled to the floor loudly as the guard tried to dislodge him.

Finally, he could not hold on any longer and he crashed to the ground hitting his head against the side of the bed. He looked up and the guard’s dark armour glinted in the light from a lantern on the table.

The guard grinned evilly at Calin, drawing his sword. “You shouldn’t have done that boy! Now I’ll have to gut you where you lay.” The man lifted his sword to stab him.

His attempt to crawl away was foiled with the bed blocking him in striking distance. The moment the dark sentry stabbed forward, there was a loud crack and wood flewaround the man’s head, dropping him unconscious to the floor.But not before the blade cut a gash in Calin’s exposed shin. He yelped out in pain, but the pain was soon forgotten as he glanced up at Evany standing there with a broken chair in her hands.

There was a wild look of disbelief on her face for what she had done. She was panting madly while still holding the broken chair aloft.

Calin leaned back against the wall and scanned the room. Tyas was there with sword in his hand, but there had been too much distance to cover to have joined the fray in time.

With a grunt Calin stood up, the sting in his shin announcing itself prominently, but that would have to wait. He tenderly placed weight on the leg.

Satisfied it could carry his weight, he walked to the shell shocked Evany, she hadn’t moved a muscle and her lungs were heaving for air. Calin got to her and she started.

“I had ...I had to...”

Taking hold of the broken chair in the girl’s hands, Calin said, “It’s alright. It’s alright you can let go now.”

Evany shook her head uncertainly with quick jerks, but after a moment she let go, Calin dropped the chair to the ground and took the confused girl into his arms and hugged her. “Thank you for saving my life.”

Her head nodded gently against his shoulder and he drew her tighter to him.

Through his peripheral vision, he spotted movement from the side and let go of Evany just as Tyas was aiming his sword against the guard’s neck. Calin jumped forward just in time to stop the man from killing the guard. “What are you doing Tyas?!”

“He would have killed you and don’t think he won’t raise the alarm the moment he wakes up. We need to kill him.”

Calin grabbed the man’s arm hard and hissed. “No! We don’t. He can’t even defend himself.”

“Let go of my arm Calin,” Tyas glared at him, but Calin didn’t let go as he said, “No, we are not killing this man.”

The tension was building as he stared hard at Tyas, but then Jerry came from the small corridor. “Whoa, easy there Tyas, I agree with Calin. Let’s get Kara out and lock the man in there.”

The tension only ebbed when Evany chipped in as well. “Guys, let’s go get Kara, please you guys?”

Stepping back, Calin lifted his hands in surrender, but kept his eyes locked on Tyas.

After a moment the man hesitated before doing the same, but he said, “I don’t like leaving evidence like this, I’ll go with your plan now, but remember we’re not on your side of Earth anymore. These people are ruthless hunters and worse they kill without mercy, Calin you of all people should know. Remember Jim from the gas station, they didn’t hesitate to set their creatures loose to kill a bystander.”

“Yes I know...” Calin said with a sour taste in his mouth. “But we are not like them. I’m not going to stoop down to their level and lose who I am.”

A silence settled. Tyas had a hard look and didn’t reply.

Calin let it go at that and dropped to his knees and searched the man for a key to the small prison. Close up the guard looked strange. The ridge like scales was part of the man. Calin’s first thought had been disfigured, but he wasn’t sure of that anymore, the guard was ... different. It only brought more questions to the already considerable amount he wanted to know about the strange place they were in now.

With some effort Calin started to flip the guard, the dark armour weighed heavy while he pressed the man over.

Then Calin spotted the same blood like red sun on the chest plate. It was like a slap in the face, but he pressed on and brushed around the guard’s waist to finally find a ring full of keys.

He got up and walked towards the small prison and started testing each key. But the keys didn’t fit. He caught Jerry’s eye and the boy was tapping his watch.

“Hurry Calin,” Jerry said. “I know the distraction you sent me to do won’t last long. There was only one horse and it wasn’t easy to set running.” The boy hesitated and with some fear in his voice continued, “Calin, but they have a—”

Calin flung up his hand up and with a pointed stare interrupted the boy immediately and said, “I know! Just ... give me a second. There!” The right key slid into place at last.

“But Cal—” started Jerry.

“We will worry about that when we get there,” Calin said through gritted teeth, he didn’t want Evany or Kara to get too worried, especially with that creature, or Nighthound, as the guards had called it, outside.

There wasn’t much time left. With a swift flick of the key, he unlocked the door and walked in tentatively, not sure if Kara would assault him or not.

The next moment wine red hair came flailing around the door and the girl leapt into his arms, with the air whooshing out his lungs as she hugged and said, “Thank you, thank you!”

With a smile, Calin let go. Her green eyes were bright with joy.

He was startled the next moment as out of nowhere Evany appeared between him and Kara and was embracing her lost friend in a big hug. They were laughing and crying, but Calin glanced at his watch, their half hour was going by much faster than he would have liked, they only had ten minutes left to get out of the fort. He moved forward and gently pushed the two girls apart as he apologetically said, “Sorry girls, but we really need to get out of this place now.”

Kara inclined her head resolutely at him. “Good riddance, I can’t get too far from this place.”

The girl stepped out of her prison and the moment she laid eyes on the unconscious guard she took an intake of breath before striding towards the guard with loud stomps. Calin wondered for a moment what she was up to.

Kara hissed and kicked the man hard.

She yelped in clear pain from kicking the armour, but it had vented some of her anger. “Let’s go,” she said finally.

He wanted to get out of there too. But first they had a small job to do, so he turned to the others and said, “Jerry, help me drag the guard into the prison. I don’t want him to make it harder for us to escape.”

Calin grabbed the guard under the shoulders and Jerry under the man’s ankles. The weight of the armoured figure brought forth a deep grunt, but soon enough the man was in the small cell.

After dropping the guard Calin couldn’t help but look at the man’s black and red gauntlets. It had deep red metal knuckles and sturdy but soft leather as gloves inside the metal outer shell. And after almost being skewered, the decision was an easy one. He crouched down and removed them.

It was a strange process to get the armoured gauntlets strapped over his hands and forearms properly. He never would have imagined he would be in this position. After some pulling and shoving, Calin succeeded in securing the gauntlets to his arms.

They were a tight fit and the weight very unfamiliar, but what he was planning to do required every precaution he could muster.

As he finished, he locked the door and was about to put the keys on the table when Kara said, “Wait, no need to leave those behind.”

A sadistic smile met his gaze as he glanced at the girl. He couldn’t help but chuckle, she had a point. With some amusement he stuck the keys back into one of the pockets inside his cloak, but the girl stopped him again. “Oh, sorry can I have the keys quickly,” She asked sweetly. “I need to get my gear from these buggers, check the coast and I will be right with you.”

Calin was somewhat impatient at getting a move on but he handed her the keys before she slipped into the next room. But then again, it gave him the time he needed to address a certain problem. Watching for a moment longer he called. “Jerry, Tyas can I quickly have a word with you two.”

Not surprisingly Evany was quick to respond. “Why not me?”

“Evany...um...” Calin started, unsure of what to say to the girl. “Just a second will you, go and help Kara, please?”

She eyed him levelly, but finally nodded and disappeared into the next room.

Not wasting a second, he turned back to the guys. They had questioning looks, but Calin looked to Tyas and said, “We have a big problem.” The man frowned slightly.

“They have a Nighthound,” Calin said almost as a whisper, not wanting to alert the girls to the significant problem.

“A what?” voiced both Jerry and Tyas.

Quick to answer, Calin said, “One of those black creatures that chased us.”

Jerry had the look of realization, but it was Tyas who exclaimed. “WHAT?!”

Calin threw up a hand to keep Tyas’ voice down and he was about to speak when Jerry got serious and said, “Yeah, I also saw it, when I went to the stables.”

“This is bad, you know as well as I do, just how well those things track,” Tyas stated in pure worry.

“I know...” Calin said and took a deep breath. “But I intend to kill it, while Jerry gets the girls to safety.”

“What?” Jerry asked in confusion to his part, followed by Tyas’ incredulous, “How?”

It was a very good question, but with slow intake of a breath Calin raised his hands to calm both the guys.

“If you would listen then you would understand. The creature is much smaller than the ones that chased us halfway here, it looks very young. I think we can take it. While we do that, I need someone to get the girls away safely, Jerry.”

“So you need me to help stay and hunt?” Tyas asked after a moment of thinking. With a nod Calin agreed and was about to say something more, when the girls came back into the room. Kara had a brown raincoat in her hands. The raincoat was overly large, probably intended for carrying rucksacks beneath it, or in her case the same knapsack she had while in Mesa Versee.

She quickly tossed the rain jacket over herself, her knapsack making a big lump under it from the supposed gear she was taking with her.

To Calin’s surprise, both girls had daggers in their hands. He raised an eyebrow at that and Kara said, “Some souvenirs for the trip. Oh and we got a local map ...I think.”

He tried to comment, but Jerry chipped in and said, “As much as I like to hang around in a hostile barracks and relax, I think we really really need to get the heck out of here.”

“Agreed,” Tyas and Calin said on the same time. He motioned for Tyas to take the lead and he made sure everyone was in tow.

As he ran to the next house, Calin realized there were three guards running with a rope in hand parallel to them on the other side of the courtyard. They weren’t looking their way, only focused on catching the big war horse Jerry had set loose.

But Calin didn’t want to risk it. With a surge forward, he alerted Jerry and slipped behind the closest cover.

The next few houses Calin could occasionally get a chance to scan outside the gate, all the guards were running like wild chickens in the field to get the massive brown horse under control. But the muddy expanses were giving them a hard time. Calin smiled.

“Nice going with the horse. What did you do?”

The boy chuckled over his shoulder and said, “Oh, poker to the butt sent him reeling out the stable doors. The captain won’t be happy with this lot. I felt bad for the horse though, I even said sorry as it ran out into the rain.”

A chuckle escaped Calin at the picture and it was clear Jerry was also trying to hold his laughter in as they ran towards the gap in the palisade’s wall. Tyas was already busy helping the girls through and telling them to make off towards the place they had come from. Jerry quickly followed.

Standing there before the gap, Calin was already apprehensive of what needed to be done. Jerry looked back through the wall and asked more than said, “I could help you two?”

Calin shook his head. “No, I need the girls to be safe, but um... stay out of trouble.”

“What if something happened to you guys?” Jerry asked with apprehension. Calin steeled his face and said, “There won’t.”

With that he started back towards the house where Tyas was already waiting.

There couldn’t be any doubts now. It had to be done, even if it scared him.

While the two of them started towards their quarry, from behind Jerry asked in a low voice. “Fine, but what should I tell the girls?! Calin they are going to skin me ali—”

But the rest was lost as Calin cornered the building, off to go hunt a hunter.