Chapter 11: A Way Out
THERE’S a lotta good things about torches, but what I’m especially fond of is that they don’t blip out right away if you drop ‘em on the floor.
“Go figure.”
I run smack dab into a problem right when I’m almost outta this damp and moldy underwater tunnel. Sheesh, they didn’t even gimme time to get too comfortable.
Someone steps on a single acorn ♪
Bathed in the light of my torch stands a troop of silent, shadowless men. I spotted their feet first. They lumber towards me, the light illuminating their knees to their waists, their stomachs to their chests, before finally revealing their faces. I know every single one of these faces. The allies I once trusted to protect my back. Now they don’t speak or breathe out white mist or suffer like me in the icy cold of the tunnel. I kick the heel of my boot against the floor to break the silence.
“…I knew it.”
The corners of my lips turn up. The sound echoin’ between the walls and pillars informs me that this passageway doesn’t have far left to go. The exit’s right in front of me—if I can break through these guys!
I raise the torch. In total, there are nine knights in five rows. One stands at the front, while the remaining eight are lined up in rows of two. They’ve formed a dense protective wall. The knight at the vanguard has the role of holding the enemy back at first.
“That’s right. That’s your position.”
Fighting a drawn-out battle with an enemy who doesn’t feel pain or exhaustion is disadvantageous. They know that too, so they intentionally went for a defensive formation.
“Ain’t that right, Captain Robert?!”
I run. Brandishing the torch, I chuck it at them. With my now free right hand, I draw my sword.
✦ ✦ ✦
ROBERT repels the incoming torch with his sword. Even after it hits the ground, the torch’s light does not extinguish. Gideon takes the chance to get within range of his blade.
“Oorah!”
Gripping his unsheathed sword with both hands, Knight Gideon slashes down. CLANG! Steel blades clash against each other, sparks flying with each impact. Though evenly matched, Gideon has a slight advantage from wielding his sword with two hands. At this stage the textbooks say Gideon’s next move should be to push or pull back! Then unleash a two-pronged attack to take control of the distance and cripple his enemy. Well, that would be true if Gideon ever paid attention in training or played by the rules.
“Urrah!”
Gideon goes for a kick. Keeping his long sword locked against Robert’s sword with all his might, Gideon raises his foot and kicks Robert hard. It’s a complete surprise attack. But only as much as one can be landed from the front. It’s an erratic move, but not foul play. Robert falls backwards and is sent tumbling across the floor.
The rest of the knights behind him get a late start in taking action due to Gideon’s nonsensical offensive. This is where a living knight would have been taken aback and sighed disdainfully before making a bitter smile.
“Oorah! Oorah! You’re slow to react, guys!” Have some of their past memories and experiences remained, even after they were raised from the dead? “Yer freakish adherence! To takin’ everything too seriously! Is still there!”
Gideon lunges to cut down his enemies before they can switch from defense to offense. But the tunnel is narrow, and he doesn’t secure a hit good enough to turn his opponent to dust. Thrusting with a series of jabs is by far the most suitable fighting technique in confined locations, but it simply takes too much time to draw the sword back before thrusting again for another hit after landing the first one. What happens in that gap is critical.
Holding the sword near the tip of the hilt, Gideon makes full use of the muscles from his elbow down to shove the weight of the sword behind each hit. He’s aiming for their arms. They might not feel pain, but they can’t hold a sword without fingers. If their wrists aren’t stable, they can’t swing their swords.
Muscle severs; skin splits open. The sounds of fingers falling are like drops hitting the ground. An arm is dangling the wrong way after being slashed. Two Shadowless Knights in the first row drop their swords. The scraping sound of metal slamming into metal continues without delay.
Gideon pivots and blocks the third attacker’s slice against his back. Shadowless Knights can only reproduce and imitate their former skills. One can no longer hope to find a knight’s nobility in them.
“Sorry, Greg.” He leaps back for a boost and slams into the passageway wall, using the recoil to quickly get to his feet. “Spare me from gettin’ cut down the back a second time.”
Gideon knows every single face here. They look exactly the same as the moment when they had parted ways over a year ago. Their appearances are exactly as he remembered, all the way down to the clothes they were wearing that fateful night they fled from the castle.
“I’m happy to get to see your ugly mugs again…but…” Was he capable of being sarcastic now because he’s moved on? Or was he pretending, just so he could push through this macabre reunion? The dead can be recalled as many times as desired, but the living change. “I can’t live in the past forever.”
His right hand brandishes his sword as his left shoots towards the small pouch on his belt.
He pulls out a square flat ale bottle. Filling it to the brim is Dragon’s breath; the bottle almost seems to be glowing. It’s as if the breath itself is alive, swirling around inside the transparent bottle.
“I’ve got somebody waiting for me.”
Gideon absolutely won’t apologize to them. Nor will he complain or whine. Once he starts talking to them like that, he won’t be able to stop. For in a blink of an eye, the seam will burst open and tear throughout him until he breaks from the inside. Mourning their loss can be done anytime. But now is not the time.
Gideon, once a knight at this very castle, stands straight right in the middle of his enemies. He pulls the stopper out of the bottle with his teeth and puts it in his mouth. Immediately after, he reverently tilts the bottle.
His stubble-covered mouth spasms; he grits his molars tightly. His eyes, from the inner to the outer corners bulge, and the skin around his eye sockets sharply retracts. His Adam’s apple moves up and down as he swallows Dragon’s breath.
In an instant, his narrowed eyes stretch open to the furthest limits. His pupils contract, suspending his pale eyes in white.
Suddenly, he flicks his wrist and throws the glass bottle to the floor. Without any resistance, it shatters into tiny fragments against the stones.
FLASH! ROAR! WHOOSH!
His gray-streaked black hair and his silver-embroidered black cape whip up.
Fire bursts forth.
Thrusting his broad double-edged sword into the ground, Knight Gideon goes down on his knees.
And from around his body crimson flames roar.
It spirals outwards around the broken bottle and engulfs the stone passageway. The flames lick the stone walls, generating tremendous heat.
Swallowed whole by the unleashed ferocity of the Dragon’s Breath, the Shadowless Knights instantly disintegrate into dust. All but one.
Gideon had held nothing back with his kick, which threw Captain Robert’s body back into the depths of the passageway. There, the maelstrom of flames narrowly missed him.
ROAR!
Scarlet flames surge right in front of Robert’s eyes as he jerkily gets to his feet.
“Urrah!”
Robert is cut down without warning—by a mundane sword, that lacks any inscription, legend to its name, or embellished decorations; by steel, forged through the dedicated toil of a master blacksmith; by flames, which dwell in the slashing blade. In a sweep from left to right, Gideon threw his momentum into a slash by releasing his left hand’s grip and focusing all his weight with his right hand, in a smooth spin of his body...
The flames trail into a helix behind his blade following the elliptic of his spin.
From the deep green of the forest to the purple of dawn, to the occasional light pink of flowers, Knight Gideon’s aquamarine eyes reflect varying colors of all he’s seen.
Before shifting to red—the vivid red of raging flames.
…His right hand is joined by his left at the very last moment as his body completes a 360 degree turn, drawing on all his strength and the momentum of the turn for a deft, brilliant shift—a seamless integration following the rotation of his body behind the sword’s weight. Exerting every ounce of his strength, he swings the sword diagonally from the upper left to the right. It’s a stroke without hesitation.
“I won’t forget you guys. Ever.”
The blade runs through Robert’s forehead, face, chest, and torso. For a brief moment under the aslant blade, the slashed and the one who slashed him stare into each other’s eyes.
“But…you…aren’t him.”