CHAPTER 44 – TEAMS OF TWO’S AND THREE’S


    “Then we will split up,” decided Mitakahn.


    Excelsior gave a quick look at Orion and the canine ran out of the room and up the stairs. Excelsior then turned to the rest of the group and said, “I will go with Conroy, along with Humbler and Anilithion to the temple to create a stronghold. Bridger… you and Kunezar go back to the Institute. Mitakahn and Tron go to the Courts. You guys will get to your tower and split up from there. Decoys go to the basements. The others get the pieces of diamond. We will meet at the temple. It is there that we must put the pieces together…if I’m not mistaken, Conroy?”


    “Yes. The pieces must be put together in the main altar room.”


    “What about the piece at the top of this building?” asked Anilithion.


    “We need not worry about that, prince,” answered Excelsior as Orion came out of the staircase with a glimmering rock carefully being held inside of his salivating mouth. Excelsior lifted out his hand and Orion dropped it. Excelsior held out the rock for the group to see.


    “This is what it looks like. Now we must go and be careful.”


    It was a glistening diamond with crooked chunks clearly missing from its sides. The effervescent brilliance of the bright crystal rock was truly something to behold. They all took a second to admire it and then split up. Bridger and Kunezar reached the Tower of Science and Law first. They snuck in the back unnoticed.


    “I shall go to the basement as a decoy.”


    “No, stay with me,” Bridger demanded.


    Kunezar followed Bridger’s lead as he scaled into the rafters. They crawled inside the tower in the shadows. Kunezar would never think to utilize some of the surroundings that Bridger was using for stealth.


    Tron and Mitakahn quickly ran up the main road of the city, from south to north. They did not have the luxury of secrecy. There were very few people out at night. Most wanderers valued the energy they received from a good night’s rest. They only walked during the day. That gave Mitakahn and Tron a clear sprint across the quad. Halfway across Tron stopped Mitakahn.


    “What?”


    “I want to see it.”


    “See what, Tron?”


    “I want to see that thing on your wrist up close.”


    Mitakahn smiled as he remembered they were not yet used to his new tricks. He presented his left arm to Tron ready to snap his fingers in front of him.


    “I have been working on summoning it without the sword.” He snapped and brought the mirror metal stacks of armor forth from his wrist scars. They looked a darker silver in the night time. Tron took a closer look.


    “How did you come upon something like this?”


    “A tale for another time my friend. We must make haste across the courtyard.”


    “After this is all over, I will make sure you regale me with the story over some ale.”


    “You got it, Tron.”


    “Let’s keep moving.”


    The two continued across the fields.


    “You should check out Anilithion’s cloak.”


    Conroy led Anilithion, Humbler, and Excelsior to the temple and immediately started barricading the doors. Conroy locked the doors as Humbler and Anilithion lifted benches and other furniture over to block the doors from being broken down. Excelsior began to scale the tower, and Conroy ran into the closet and gathered all the clothes and oils necessary to perform the ritual.


    Tron and Mitakahn reached the Northern Tower and barged into the front doors. There was no one in the lobby of the building, but there was a light emitting from the upstairs floor.


    “This could be a trap.”


    “We have to go up there either way,” reasoned Mitakahn.


    The two drew their swords and carefully ascended the wide stone staircase.


    These stairs were detached from the other staircases that lead all the way up the tower. Mitakahn and Tron did not know this. This short, one story staircase went only to the Grand Courtroom. Mitakahn pushed the doors open and the light poured out from inside. The two walked in and the door shut behind them. The council was in session, but it did not look like the standard procedure of trials that take place in this city. Something was askew.


    “The courts recognize the two unknown travelers who entered our city yesterday. You walk with no canine companion; therefore, you are not from this city. It has come to our attention that you are looking for the Carbon Terra. Right now, our guards are cleaning up a bloodbath you are responsible for at the Market. You are being charged with trespassing, murder, and kidnapping. You shall lay down your weapons and tell us where the Carbon Terra pieces are,” ordered the Headmaster Judge.


    “I’m going to stop you right there. I’ve already been through a mock trial, and this wreaks of amateur theater. Just who the hell are you people?”


    The false judges stood from their elevated seats and armed themselves with bows and arrows. “Ha! For all your insight you were still foolish enough to just walk right in here. Archers, fire at will,” ordered the head thief.


    The archers lifted up their bows and strung them with arrows.


    From a window behind them, the glass was blown in. A black blur flew through, landing on one of the archers, tearing his body apart. The archers scrambled looking for the unknown threat. Orion rushed at them, from the shadows of the courtroom knocking several over and tackling one. He bit at his ankle and dragged him, kicking, and screaming back into the shadows. Mitakahn and Tron jumped on the opportunity.


    Mitakahn climbed up into the seats and cut down thief after thief with his sword. Tron tackled the closest archer and broke his neck. Another one jumped on his back, the thief’s knife sliced open Tron’s arm. He screamed in pain and threw the sloppy warrior over his head. The thief fell to the floor and dropped his knife. If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it.


    Tron, without hesitation, plunged his broadsword into the face of his enemy. He picked up the bow of one of the fallen thieves and fired an arrow at another archer’s head. He took cover and continued to pick off the other archers. Orion put an unshakable fear in the remaining thieves, and they ran, chaotically, out of the courtroom into the night. The fake Head Judge quivered on the floor underneath the tip of Mitakahn’s sword. Tron came back over with Orion to Mitakahn’s side.


    “It is the same thief who ordered our death at the market, Mitakahn.”


    The three stood tall overhead as the thief shook and groveled in their shadows. Mitakahn put his sword away and knelt down in front of the thief. The conniving ingrate pleaded for his life with his face while he snuck a dagger out from the back of his cloak with his hand.


    Mitakahn tried to speak with him, “Tell me...”


    The thief waited to make his move as Tron and Orion stared fixedly at him. He feared Orion, but he knew the prince was unarmed at the moment and this would be the best opportunity he would have to retake the upper hand. He prepared to make his move.


    “…what is your name?”


    “I was there…” He trailed off to pull Mitakahn’s attention in, “I carried Handsome Jac away after you knifed him in the chest.”


    “What?”


    “The northwestern reach of the epitaph a day after your exile. We knew who you were. Boss Cass loved Handsome Jac like a son.”


    “Warlord Cassius?” Tron said, “You work for the golden city syndicate?”


    “This whole time…” Mitakahn stammered, “That ignoramus with the ridiculous haircut… he cost me everything.”


    “Ridiculous was the way you threw yourself at that empty jar.”


    “You have no idea…” Mitakahn was at a loss for words.


    But as the thief uttered the first syllable of his next word his knife-wielding hand twitched, and before he could even reach Mitakahn with his dagger, Tron’s sword came down as heavy as a sledgehammer through the thief’s mouth into his neck; cutting his tongue half off. His arm dropped limp to the floor brandishing the dagger.


    Mitakahn remained stunned as Tron helped him regroup.


    “How deep does this go, Tron? My kingdom’s perils seem to be getting away from me.”


    “Focus on the matter at hand. The diamond, we must hurry. The others will all be at the temple by now.”


    Before Mitakahn could thank Tron or move to climb the tower, Orion scurried out of the room and found the other set of stairs. He barked at Tron and Mitakahn and then began the ascent up the tower. Mitakahn tried to shake the paranoid thoughts away. There is no way of knowing how deep these implications went.


    “I can’t believe it’s the same crew that nearly killed me up north,” said Mitakahn.


    “You made it out alive and now they are all dead or soon to be. The good news is we know they can’t fight worth a damn. ”


    Mitakahn stared at the gauntlet on his hand while he held his blood stained sword. “I’ll make every last one of them pay for their sins.”


    “Come. Let’s see what the dog has done.”


    The two ran out of the room and over to where they heard the bark come from. A door left hanging on one hinge swung into the wall calmly. Tron started walking up the stairs.


    “It’s no use. He is already on his way down. And I’m sure he has the piece.”


    “How can you tell?”


    “He told us before,” answered Mitakahn.


    “I don’t remember that from our training,” mumbled Tron, as he came back down the stairs.


    “You just weren’t listening.”


    “Recently exiled and already talking like a wanderer.”


    Mitakahn leered at Tron and then gave way to a smile. Orion returned with another piece in his mouth.


    “Good job, Orion. Now take it to the temple and we will be your decoy. Find another exit. We’ll take care of the front.”


    Orion ran back into the courtroom and leapt out of the window he broke into, clearing the dangerous shards of glass still stuck in it. Mitakahn and Tron walked out of the front door, swords drawn. All they saw were a couple of figures in the shadows running towards the Hall of Science and Law.


    “Bridger and Kones!”


    “Pray they are not still there. Come now, prince.”


    “I’m going to help them.”


    “We don’t even know if they’re in trouble.”


    “I know!”


    “Then we go together.” Tron rallied behind Mitakahn and the two rushed after the fleeting thieves.


    Bridger and Kunezar reached the top of the tower, but they had crawled too high and now they sat on top of the beacon room. They found a chute, but before they decided to jump down it, they heard voices talking in the room. It seemed that there were people awaiting their arrival inside the room. Bridger and Kunezar stood hunched over in the crawlspace on both sides of a hole in the ceiling being covered by a wood plank. Bridger took out his bow and a couple of arrows. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. Kunezar watched as he had no idea what to do. Bridger turned to the side of the room where the voices were coming from and went to knock his bow with the arrows.


    He opened his eyes and looked at Kunezar as he exhaled. He took a step forward, the wooden plank snapped, and he plummeted into the room. On his way down he figured out where and how many there were and fired his arrows. As his feet hit the ground their bodies followed. Kunezar jumped down, when he landed he saw Bridger pulling his arrows out of two dead thieves on the floor. There in the center of the room, a glass chamber was constructed, but it looked as though its insides were empty. Bridger and Kunezar walked over to the compartment and scanned it for an opening. Kunezar rubbed his hand on a side of the glass and pushed inward. The sheet of glass slowly slid down into the floor.


    “Come look at this, Bridger.”


    The two peered in at a quiet treasure, shining bright into the mirrors that they thought were glass. Bridger carefully removed it, wrapped it in a cloth, and tied it to his belt. They closed the compartment and made their way downstairs. When they got down to the ground level they ran into the main lobby where nine more thieves were waiting.


    Bridger pulled four more arrows out of his quiver and quickly loaded all four of them into his bow. Two arrows blew back one opponent, and the other two each brought down an enemy.


    “Well, that takes care of three of them,” scoffed Kunezar as they drew their swords and charged at the remaining foes.


    They battled back and forth in the hall. Bridger took two of them into the library of record where they dueled between the book racks. Meanwhile, back in the lobby, Kunezar now faced four thieves. He jumped off the stairs onto two of them. Cutting one of them down and quickly getting to his feet as he kicked the other in the head unconscious. The remaining two charged at him. He ducked in between them while blocking their sword strikes.


    Bridger, still in the library, turned a quick corner and climbed up the book racks. The two turned the corner after Bridger but stopped when he was not there. He jumped down at them holding two arrows in his hands. The two unsuspecting opponents looked up at their enemy: a fatal flaw. They hit the floor and Bridger landed on his feet. He slowly rose with the bloody arrows still in his hands. The two thieves lie dead on the floor with punctured skulls. Bridger ran back through the hall in haste to return to Kunezar’s aid.


    Kunezar charged at the remaining foes and sliced directly in the middle of the two of them, attracting both of their swords to his. He dropped down and spun around to take out their legs, but one of their swords knocked him in the back of the head. Kunezar stumbled and tried to keep himself from blacking out. The pain was overwhelming, but his Silver Den training kicked in. Kunezar jumped back just in time and escaped the other sword’s slice. The thief’s sword strike got stuck in the floor. Kunezar shook off pain and rolled over the crouching thief trying to pull out his sword from the floor and dodged the other’s sword strike.


    As he rolled, he kicked the thief coming at him in the hip and threw him back into the wall. Kunezar finished rolling to his feet and decapitated the thief by pulling his sword out of the floor. Bridger entered the room and the two joined forces against the last thief getting up after being thrown into the wall. He saw the both of them coming at him and made a run for the doors to the front lawn.