Rise of the Order 2.2

< < Back to Rise of the Order 2.1

Gallet continues her march toward the heart of Kanton, while the Matriarch considers the debt she owes to her sister. Thanks, as always, for reading!

She couldn’t be absolutely sure of tonight’s outcomes, even with the use of her Pineal-gate – each interaction created a complex set of variables that could lead to a different future. She simply found an outcome that suited her, uncertain as it was, and she planned to follow it to the end.

She made her way to the stairwell near the bell tower.  The winding passageway would shelter her from the moonlight briefly and so long as she heard the Matriarch’s wings she needn’t worry.  The skirmish had created plenty of commotion above the city square. A patrol would likely be closing in on her position. 

She made her way from corner to alley, alley to doorway in her quest toward the heart of the city.  The rust hew of the buildings slowly gave way to more granite ornament. The closer she moved to the heart of the city, the more the solid stone composed the majority of the buildings.

She rounded a corner as she started making her ascent up the hill towards the old keep’s high walled gates when she caught sight of a patrol.  Two guardsmen walking through the night shoulder to shoulder.  Their centurion helms gliding with a practiced march.  They wore ring mail, the kind a duelist might wear; protecting from slices but worthless to a blunt weapon. Now is as good a time as any, she thought.  Their swords were still in their scabbard and their eyes didn’t waver from their path; she could have easily slipped past them but she had been waiting for this opportunity.

Darting out of the shadows just as they passed, her unsheathed her dagger plunged deep into the guardsman’s neck.  He gasped silently as the knife pierced artery and esophagus, blood sprayed her hand but the man was already falling to the ground as she reached her hand back to grasp the short sword at her hip.  She drew in time to see a boy, just past his sixteenth dawn, sword drawn and shakily staring at her. He’d not even drawn his sword into guard position; he just stood, shocked.

It was recognition she saw in his face. She slammed the flat of her blade across his – dropping  it with barely a start, he never took his eyes from hers.  She knew him, of course; he had left the Ministry less than two months ago, drafted into military service.  The men who volunteered younger we told grand stories of spreading light and order to a land engulfed in chaos.  Like most his age, he jumped at the chance to make a name for himself in a war he would never know the true meaning behind.  Staring at the panic in his eyes, she knew he would have died not even knowing what it meant to live if she weren’t the one to catch him off guard.

She opened her root gate and grasped him by the chain tunic, lifting him off the ground.  He sputtered softly but was too stunned for anything more.  The stinging smell of urine wafted from the lad as she stood staring up at him.  She let her sword hang limply to her side; the wound in her shoulder had bled completely through the bandage and now burned with renewed vigor.

His mutters began to get louder and Gallet was forced to shush him with the tip of her blade to his ribs.  The boy nodded quickly in understanding, tears formed gently around his eyes; any moment he might start sobbing and pleading – she needed to make this quick.

“Run to the gate. Find the captain. The Lord’s Keep is under attack by legions  of chaos.  He must disengage from the target and retake the Keep.” She paused, waiting for recognition but saw none, the boy must have been in shock.  She lowered him to the ground slowly – the strength in his legs failing him as he fell directly to his knees.  She knelt down softly in front of him.  She knew Kayne well.  He was such a happy child, even in the face of the brutality of factory life; it was impossible for Gallet to see him as a solder. He would always be one of her children. 

“Kayne, you must do this.  Take my message to your captain, you’ve seen at least fifty with your own eyes and fear for the Lord’s safety.” A spark of recognition lit in his eyes and he nodded curtly before she went on, “Once you do this, run, to the west.  If you reach the base of Sunder’s Peak my friends can help you.”

His wide eyes looked up at her with shock, “Mist-st-st-ress Gallet, I can’t do that!  I’m a p-p-part of the Order now.” Anger made its way into his blubbering.

She stood then, her full shadow casting over his weeping face and murder shown in her eyes. “You’ve made an oath that you cannot possibly comprehend.” She said with the rage of a mother disobeyed. “Flee now. Reassert your life as your own or you will have me to contend with.”

He balked back from her with a sob.  He nodded then, not in acquiescence, but in relief.  He was a child, after all.  She hopped that he would have a chance to find his will before others tried to take it from him again.

She backed away and pulled the knife from the other man’s neck, wiping the blood off on her leather bracers before handing it to Kayne, hilt first.  He flinched back from her as she pulled it free, covering his eyes. “Show this to the Matriarch.  She will know what it means.” The rough iron of the hilt was wrapped in cloth stained from years of blood and grime; on the hilt bore a simple, rough carved sigil stamp: a circle around two over lain letters, GV.

He reached out, accepting the offering between sobs.  When he looked up to apologize to the only woman he’d ever wanted to call mother, he found himself alone in the moon lit bathed street.

*

The archer’s assault upon the sky had come in waves but the Matriarch knew Gallet was wreaking havoc in her wake.  Her wing song emanated into the night, and though she was little more than a shining black smudge in the night sky, the song  gave the solders a target.  She couldn’t maintain an altitude greater than the arrow’s range for the chill and lack of atmosphere would begin to suffocate her, and the children.  The Order’s recurve bows were only as accurate as the men firing them, but she dared not test them further than necessary.  She had avoided enough close calls thus far to respect the training the Order gave their men.

She hadn’t seen Gallet armed since they were children.  In the days before her wings began to sprout, the Matriarch had been sickly – they told her later it had been her body storing energy to bud her wings upon adolescence – Gallet had been the one to gather food, to interact with the world. Gallet brought so many of them together, sharing scavenged resources and creating a sense of family – of safety – for the first time in the Matriarch’s life.

That knife had been her first impression of Gallet. The street-toughs had pinned her down, taking her shoes anything else that was loose. If not for Gallet they may have raped her and left her for dead. She had been a child, just past her sixth dawn. Gallet had appeared, sent by the creator himself, her avenger barely older than she with that knife in her hands. She was so small back then, it had looked like a sword. It had been a hard life but Gallet had given her everything. That simple knife had been the champion of their entire world. Weeks later, she had seen the initials on the base of the knife from its sheath in her belt asGallet was tucking her into bed. “What does G.V. stand for, Gallet?”

“It stands for Gallet and Venara, little sister,” she said with a smile. “Now it’s off to bed, I need you to find your strength for me okay?”

It had taken years before the Matriarch did find her strength. When it came so did her clan and she abandoned her sister in her time of need. Time had hardened Gallet and the Matriarch felt a tinge of guilt. Gallet had honed herself into a deadly duelist – the way the sword looked at her hip was all the evidence the Matriarch needed of that.

The past must be left in the past, she thought. All I can do is repay a debt that can never be repaid. It was an uneasy thought and the details of Gallet’s plan, or lack-there-of, worried the Matriarch.

If there were as many solder’s as Gallet had asserted, her distraction would not be enough for the Matriarch to escape unpursued, and the Order finding their roost was not an option.  It had taken her two days to approach Kanton by foot through the forest.  The road from Kanton that led to Sunder’s Peak went north for miles, circumventing the forest before turning south east.  If they planned to march on her it would take days.  A clever captain, however, would set patrols out into the forest; not expecting a Daeva of course but for the culprit to flee through the woods.  Whatever the future held, she could not let herself be pursued.

In that moment, she longed to have Gallet’s ability to glimpse into the future.

The children did not stir in their harnesses. She was approaching the eastern boarder of the town, still at the beginning of her flight, and the burden in her arms was wearing on her.  She remained focused, keeping her eyes turned down scanning the streets and roof tops for archers ready to open fire the moment she entered their view but the streets were empty.  If her experience had taught her anything, it was that no escape was simple and a careless laps in focus could cost her, and the children, their lives.

To Rise of the Order 3.1 > >