Draven

Draven was rushing down the road while bells rang behind in the distance. The smell of gunpowder spread through the streets like a cloud of black mist. The screaming of babies and the shouting of the guards behind them echoed through the air.

His band of warriors had by now reduced to a size of 15, or rather 14, as an arrow pierced a man's neck. His brother was excluded from this number, for he had fallen behind, looking for something he didn't know where to find.

Guards, Knights and Military officers were approaching them from both sides of the Great Road, but also from the alleys that connected it with the entire city and the port.

Downhill, he could see the crew of her brother's ship, now under the command of his sister, Cresselya, fighting against the Guards and Soldiers that tried to board it. This made him wonder why they used their cannonballs in the first place. But before he could dwell in his thoughts, he had to survive.

Unlike most ships in Cartago, the Golden Terror was one of the few that had embarked on the far land of Asakawa. A land upon which the blacksmiths made firearms instead of swords and the ships wore cannons instead of ballistae. And it also had the privilege that its captain knew a good smith, whom he had brought along with him, to create cannons for all of the Rebellions ships, few as they were.

Down the Road, three guards in red armour and two knights with their House's sigil carved on their plate armour ran towards them, eager to meet them and battle. As they ran, Draven's eyes fell upon the sigil and its meaning. It was a silver anvil on a cloud of darkness. And something told him that he had seen this before.

Draven threw an eye upon his men, their round shields and swords, axes and morning stars in hand, before getting the utmost marvellous idea of the day.

"SHIELD WALL... CHARGE" he shouted and his men came closer together, banding their big round shields into one giant wall. For a moment, some stopped running and attempted to make an actual shield wall, but then they realised what he meant. They charged down the road, to give the Queensmen a good bash on the head.

And that they did. From up close, he could see the steel chainmail under the red cloth with the royal black crown sewn on it. He could feel their helplessness and fear as they kept going forward. Draven knew that they were thinking about the countless punishments the Queen could put them through if they didn't cut them down. Or, at least, if they didn't die while trying.

10 meters. He could now see the desperation in their eyes. He could look into their near future, one that both groups understood. A future that was covered in blood. Draven felt the impact burn through his right arm, on which he carried his sword.

He didn't know how it happened and had no time to think.

He awarded his enemy with a yelp of pain and pierced one of the knights between two of the plates of his armour. This was enough to allow his sword to cut the right side of his neck, before kicking him away. His men did the same and, soon enough, all 5 men who stood against them lay dead on the ground. Their pursuers were now closer, too close for comfort.

He and his band of loyal warriors broke into another run, to avoid the fate that had consumed so many on this day.

They ran in front of the Black Naese, a temple dedicated to the worship of the New God, Naem. If Draven had the time, he could've stared at it for hours. The temple was enormous, with its black towers reaching up for the clouds.

There were five such towers, four on the edges, taller than any other tower he had seen, with statues of Angels on top, pointing to the sky.

The middle of the temple was circular, with a spherical top made of gold. A black statue of the Eye of Naem, with its giant black eyelashes and the heart gem in the middle, towered over this top. This was representing the two main aspects of the god, the Sight and the Love, attributes that all of his followers lacked. But even more fascinating was the fact that in legend, this eye was the entrance to the Kingdom of Heaven.

He had never cared about this God, Naem, but the more he looked at the temple the more intrigued he was by it. He had been running beside it for a plentiful of time now and it still kept going on and on, as if it had no end. It was made of something that looked similar to marble, with golden stripes engraved to it, creating patterns of runes and pictures of the various prophets of Naem with their wings on their backs, books in their hands or three swords above their heads.

The Gates reached higher than the tallest house in the city. They were thought to have been built by giants who came from the Kingdom of the Sky. Yet, no such kingdom ever existed and as always, the smallfolk was wrong to assume it did. To reach the gates, any man, woman or child had to climb a few hundred stairs and then take off their shirts, in order to be allowed passage.

Draven thought of all the people coming to this temple every day, just to be fooled by some Angels, whom smallfolk thought were immortal. His heart was beating like a drum of war, slowly and loudly. So focused he was on his hate that he realised he had been lost in his thoughts for a while and had passed the temple without even paying a look at the final tower.

He was running faster now, making his way over the bridge that separated the main town and the port. The bridge was lined with pigeons and crows and other birds he couldn't recognise, who all flew away in his presence. He could still feel the pain burning through his arm as he ran, forcing him to drop his sword behind him. And he didn't have the resolve to go back and pick it from the ground.

In the distance, he could see the bay, now red with blood and filled with corpses, wooden planks and crates. He could wee ballistae and swords shining in the water, waiting to be collected and sold by scavengers. More importantly, Draven could now see the ongoing battle on the ship more clearly.

Crimson sails moved along the wind, ropes spasmed here and there and two anchors kept it in place. He was facing its aft and right wing, watching the three rows of cannons peering through square holes engraved in the golden hue of the ship.

It had been made specifically to be identical to the Red Stallion, the very first ship with cannons, which had been the flagship of the former Alexandrian King. His brother had spent an entire fortune to buy that ship. Until now, it had never failed him. Nor did it seem like it would anytime soon.

Aesther had destroyed the king's flagship in battle and drowned all the survivors of the fight in their own blood before assuming their roles, one of the few things the Rebels could do very well. Well enough to not be spotted by their enemy until the last moment, at least.

He saw his sister kicking a man into the water and onto a wooden plank. He could see her black cape flowing in the air behind her, its ends ripped and cut. He saw her grab another man with her ironclad hand and pierce her sword into his right eye while smiling at his screams. He could see her white hair as he ran towards her. They were caught by the wind, shaking and flying under a black hood.

The girl kicked the man off her blade and then swung her right hand onto another. She drove the Dark Steel claws along his face, letting his blood paint the outside of her Dragon-inspired armour.

He was a mere hundred metres away from the fighting, with the guards of the castle on his heels, their feet stomping on the stone floor. Guards of the city were forming up around the ship, trying to board it. Knights and Lordlings were being slaughtered for trying to enter and his brother was still nowhere to be found.

He and his men didn't have much of a choice. They had to flank the guards and hope they weren't flanked themselves. He looked around for Saint, thinking to her if she had any magic left. Nowhere to be found.

As he ran, his right arm still pained him from the previous impact. His wrist and forearm were repeatedly sending a warm shriek through his bones, telling him to stop.

Draven needed to think on his feet while sighing at how much easier this would have been if he had magic. "CHARGE!" he said, for the last time, pulling his shield in front of his face and hoping for the best. A hundred metre charge down a hill should do the trick he needed.

His men were tired, though, as well as himself. He didn't know if they could pull off another charge without someone just falling on their knees, letting the blood drop from their mouth along with the exotic foods they ate on the ship all the days it took them to reach the city. He could feel the sweat all over him, soaking his armour and his clothes underneath. The air was getting stronger now. The light of the sun wasn't enough to warm him as the gusts of air swirled under his armour and chilled his bones, making him feel like an old man laying on his bed, ready to name it his deathbed.

Yet, Draven knew that he had to push the men to their limits. They were supposed to be the best of the best, warriors of the Tribes of Axe. They were supposed to make it to the other side alive. And yet, so many had died up until this point.

He didn't remember what this bay was really called, but it was a beautifully haunting sight, with all the sailors drowning, their armour carrying them down to the seafloor. But the blood was surely the true attraction. He could see it even more clearly now, the whole area around the Terror was the colour of the sky between night and day, turning darker with each corpse that lost its way into the abyss that was the water.

300 metres away from the enemy, they were moving fast, ready to drive them off their ship and board it themselves. Ready to help his sister with the defence until their brother arrived with what he wanted.

But what did he want? He heard the warcries of his men, but he kept his mouth closed, concealing the urge to shout the name of his home, the Golden Terror, into the guard's faces, even if it would scare them.

That was the question that was running through his mind when his group of Rebels crashed against the mass of guards, slowly pushing them into the sea. The guards were standing very close to each other on the platform next to the Terror. This meant that a light push could throw the people up front, the ones who didn't notice him, into the sea, letting them drown in their heavy armour, trying to swim upwards. That is if they knew how to swim.

Draven was pushing at his shield, while avoiding the slashes of steel swords, trying to cut a piece of him and bathe in his blood. One of the guards made a push, to that, Draven smiled. He swiftly strode to the left, making him fall on his face before his men closed the gap and let him take care of him. Swift as an arrow, he kicked the man on the back of the head, hearing the cracking of his bones while he did so. And all the man did was fall to the ground

He didn't deserve to die, none of the men here did, but he had to, in order for Draven to survive. He could hear the screams of the men falling and the guards now a mere 100 metres away, but he couldn't help but linger for a few seconds. He could see himself in that guard, trying to protect something he knew was lost. Draven felt the same way. He never cared about the Rebellion, mainly because he didn't understand its ways, but he still wanted to help his home reach its destination.

The guards were now only 70 metres away, his men shouting his name, while he lingered. Then, he snapped. He turned around, quickly took his shield in hand and, as his men let him pass, pushed the line forward with all of his force. This time, it went better for him. They started falling off the dock like flies, unable to push back. The fighting on the ship seemed to have stopped, as his sister and thirty of her men stepped out of the ship and pushed the remnants of the guards into the sea.

Draven realised that they were helping them, when he bumped into her, feeling the dark steel burning against his skin. He looked into her bright eyes, which were the colour of clouds in the summer sky and then ran his own down her long white hair, which chose to form waves every now and then, and her black armour, which always felt smooth, yet at the same time, could cut him just by touching its sharp edges. Edges which sat upon each other, representing the scales of a Dragon, or any reptile for that matter.

She glanced behind his back, saying no word. He looked around, at the soldiers of the Kingdom, now lined up behind a man on a black stallion. He was tall, with a war hammer strapped on his back and a shield in his hand, depicting a knight stabbing a dragon with a spear in front of a field of blood.

The Knight wore a shiny silver armour and a helmet with the shape of a spider's legs in front of the area of his mouth.

He looked at his sister and for a moment, she did nothing other than part her lips to bring the cold air inside her lungs. For a few moments, she stared at him, before throwing a quick glance at her ironclad glove.

"I see you have come to my rescue, only for me to save your soul from destruction", she said, before looking at her men. "BACK ON BOARD!", her eyes flared with anger as she yelled, making all of her brother's men run back to the ship. "We are leaving".

"We can't leave, Cresselya!" Draven answered as he grabbed her arm and pulled her closer to him. "Aesther is still out there..." He could barely even speak, due to being overwhelmed by all the running, but he had to defend his brother. His breath was heavy and his chest ached, but he needed Cresselya to listen. "If we leave him now, he will either be captured or killed, let's go back with our full force and save him. And Saint!"

"Aesther is strong enough to take care of himself. As for Saint, I could care less if she ended in the bottom of the ocean. Now listen to me. We have to leave now before any Wizards arrive and sink our only way out of this port into the Scarlett Bay. Come on, hurry!" she commanded, as she freed her arm from his grasp.

Draven turned around and dropped his shield onto the ground. He reached for his dagger and almost fell to the ground before taking a deep breath as the knight rode towards him. He could now see his red eyes shining under his helmet and his scars running over his mouth.

He could feel the Lord's aura marching with him and reaching into his insides. This warrior was the very thing Cresselya was so afraid of. He was the wizard that would bring the Terror to the ground.

He looked at the sigil that rested on the man's shield and smiled, before closing his eyes. He took another deep breath and raised the dagger to the hight of his eyes, smiling at the possibility of dying soon enough.

And then, all masks came off.