KGWrites

Falcon’s Nest Palace, Fallen Kingdom of Aldiron

The world was fear. Flaming, screaming, running fear.

The sound of weapons on armour and shields rang across the hallways, louder than any chorus of alarm bells. The smell of smoke and blood filled the air, making the floral palace gardens and clear sea air feel like a distant dream, already slipping into a hazy memory. People ran in every direction, panic ruling over their minds and driving them forwards in a mad stampede. It was more than a river. It was a flood, an endless torrent of bodies rushing forwards.

And still the young girl pushed to find her way through. She had to find her way through. Her family were out there, she needed to be there with them.

Her wide blue eyes scanned the crowd, finding gaps and weaving her small frame through. She ignored the painful buffeting as she was unintentionally kicked and knocked.

But there were so many people. Though she ducked and dodged, the girl never seemed to make any forward progress, just remaining where she was and miraculously avoiding being crushed.

If I stay here, I’m dead.

Either through being crushed underfoot or by being caught up by enemy soldiers, the thought came with absolute certainty. And so, the girl turned and ran with the crowd, moving quickly with the current of the flood.

As she ran, she tried to swallow the rising panic that was threatening to consume her chest, pushing away the thoughts of her family leaving without her, or of the princess, locked in battle and losing her sword as the girl was swept away.  

She buried the thoughts beneath a mental map of the palace. She’d spent months carefully learning the layout of the building, mostly to find places to hide when she hadn’t wanted to get caught in boring lessons with her tutors. Finding her way around had become second nature, if she just stayed calm, she’d make it.

Someone screamed behind her and pushed at her shoulder, causing her to stumble forwards, nearly falling. Luck alone kept her feet beneath her, and she scrambled away, looking back to see that even more people had joined the rush. And that thick, black smoke was beginning to choke the ceiling above their heads, flowing in from side chambers glowing with flickering flames. Biting back fear, she ran again.

The map was gone, it had been useless anyway, she couldn’t see where she was with all the people around her. All she could do was keep moving.

Her chest burned as she struggled to catch her breath in the mixture of burning hot air and crushing bodies. Her eyes stung with tears, she didn’t know if she was crying from the smoke or the fear.

She’d heard adults say that the slums of the Winter District were the deepest pits of the Gravekeeper’s hell while she had been scrounging for food to survive there. She’d give anything to be back there now. Even the Gravekeeper would turn in fear from the hell she was in now.

And then, as the crowd exploded from the halls of the palace into the front courtyard like a dam bursting open, that hell got even worse.

No sooner had the fresh air rushed over the girl and the people around her than she heard a new, terrifying sound.

It was like laughter, if laughter could kill.

It was a shrill sound, like the call of a gull, yet filled with malice and murder, like the sound itself wanted to kill the girl’s hearing.

And it came from creatures that could only be monsters. Creatures from the storybooks she had read, come alive from the page.

They looked like people, but they were definitely not people. Their armour was black and mismatched, some had full suits, others only a chestplate, revealing bare arms that looked as if the skin had been flayed from them, ripped and bleeding. Their weaponry was twisted, dented and torn, like it had been ripped apart and then roughly put back together. No weapon was clean, some still bore entrails, or torn pieces of clothing and skin stuck to the blades. They stank of blood and death. The helmets they wore covered their faces, which the girl was glad of. She knew she did not want to see what was beneath, what was already there was nightmare enough.

They were the worst thing that the girl had ever seen, and they were meeting the rush of the crowd with sick glee, carving scarlet arcs through the air that left bodies piling around them.

The girl turned to run the other way, to move towards other entrances to the palace, but the crowd wouldn’t let her. The current of it kept sweeping her forwards, towards the monsters. Couldn’t they see them? Didn’t they know what they were running towards?

Even if they could see the nightmare though, would they have been able to turn and move away? The rush of the crowd was unrelenting, unstoppable. If you pushed against it, it would just rush over you and crush the breath from you, trampling you into the stone of the courtyard. Maybe the monsters’ swords were better than that, certainly quicker.

Unless you were small enough to avoid the crush. And the girl was small, and very fast.

The crowd had spread out slightly in the more open space of the courtyard, giving just enough space to squeeze between the people, if you knew when and how to move. Someone raised in the palace might not have known, but someone who’d spent years sneaking through the Winter District?

She spotted a gap where a couple of people shoved violently away from each other and dashed forwards, the gap crashing closed behind her again like the tide smashing another wave into the rocks. And she kept moving.

It was hard work, but the Gravekeeper was behind her, stretching out their bony hands, and she would not be caught today.

Forwards, always forwards.

It was agonising, at times she felt like she’d barely moved. But slowly, the sounds of the monsters and their glee fuelled slaughter grew more distant. The crowd thinned as she burst free of the crush like a cork from a bottle, squeezed suddenly free.

She stumbled and dropped, smacking into the ground and shaking with terrified, heaving breaths. Breaths that rapidly sunk into horrid, racking sobs that violently shook her whole body with panic and fear.

The fighting was around her now, spread out from the panicked tide of the crowd she’d been caught in. Soldiers wearing the royal colours of deep forest green clashed with the monsters she’d seen earlier. And in some places she saw soldiers fighting other soldiers, reminding her of the brutal attack from some traitors that had come earlier in the night.

Steel on steel echoed across the courtyard, drowning out the back and forth chorus of screaming and murderous laughter behind her. Grey smoke mingled with leaping orange flames to fill the spaces between the struggling silhouettes around her. It was worse than a nightmare, at least with a nightmare she could wake up.

She wanted nothing more than to curl up into a ball and cry until it all went away. But bad things don’t just go away.

She felt the ghost of a three-fingered hand lovingly grip her shoulder and pull her upwards. She heard the words in her head even though no-one was around to tell her them.

Get up little kitten, don’t be scared. Keep moving, we don’t stop until we’re safe.

She raised her head again, brushing her black hair away from her eyes and blinking away the blurry haze of tears. The mental map was slowly returning to her head.

The dungeons. That’s where she was supposed to meet her family, that’s where they had been gathering their equipment. She could get there.

She had to.

Hauling herself to her feet again, the girl started to run, giving the fighting as wide a gap as she could she ducked and dipped. Her movements came in fits and starts, rapid sprinting broken by her stopping as the chaos blocked her path, forcing her to work out a new route.

A single passage ran off the side of the main courtyard, a route for servants to move around the palace without entering the main buildings. It stood as a resolute, empty square of cool black amidst the raging conflict around it, untouched and empty. Following it, she could sneak around to the rear courtyards, and from there into the western wing and down into the dungeons. And back into the arms of her friends and family.

Focus on the route and the hope of safety betrayed her when she was barely a metre from the door.

A hand closed around her hair and painfully yanked her back, pulling her off her feet with a startled yelp of pain, tearing a fistful of her hair from her head. Her back hit the stone of the yard hard and she lay there, dazed and confused, staring up at the smoke.

And then the smell hit her.

Old blood, stinking and rotten.

And the noise.

A low, stunted chuckle, like the laughter had built inside its owner until they physically couldn’t restrain it anymore and it was now flowing out of them in small releases.

Panic filled her chest as the monster came into view, circling around her like a wolf with wounded prey. It crouched low over her, its limbs splayed to the sides, one hand pinning her by her hair to the ground while the other raised a crude, twisted dagger. It grinned with a twisted, lipless mouth that emerged from beneath the faceplate of the helmet it wore that hid its other features. It drooled like a rabid beast, thick trails dripping down onto the girl’s cheeks as it hung over her.

She couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe. She just lay there, terrified as it raised the blade towards her face.

Please, let me wake up now.

And then a heavy gauntleted fist emerged into her view, slamming into the twisted face of the monster and lifting off of her with a single punch. Shards of broken teeth sprinkled down on her like a dusting of snow as she scrambled back from it as a new figure stepped between her and the creature.

His armour was already bloody and battered, his green cloak torn to a ragged scrap and his helmet long since lost. His dark skin was blackened further with ash and blood. The shaft of an arrow was stuck through the meat of his right leg, just above the knee. He looked to be a dead man walking.

But he was most certainly alive, and fighting. He bellowed a war cry and hefted a spear, driving it forwards into the stricken monster before him, catching it beneath the arm and causing it to sag to the ground with a final, rattling breath. Dead.

Breathing heavily, the battered man wrenched the spear free with a squelching sound that wormed deep into the girl’s mind. Then he turned to her, his deep brown eyes finding her quickly and locking to her.

“Lillian?” His voice was strained, exhaustion and barely held back pain causing it to sound hoarse and rough.

Just the mention of her name was enough however, to bring the girl from the haze that the fear had laid across her mind. Lillian, Lillian Cobalt. She could remember herself again, she could remember everything she was and had been. And she could remember him. Sir Reynard Junice, royal guard to Princess Iona Ravellan. He’d fought to protect both Lillian herself and the Princess earlier that night and had taken heavy injuries as a result.

Alyx doesn’t like him.

The thought of Lillian’s guardian and her opinion of Junice came unbidden to her mind and she had to fight to keep herself present as she was struck with the vivid memory of the smell of Alyx as she held Lillian, grapefruit and sea salt, with a hint of woodsmoke. She had to fight to keep herself from sinking deep into the memory of the smell and the feel of Alyx’s comforting arms around her. So instead, she focussed on the man before her.

Alyx may not have liked Junice, but he’d fought to protect Lillian. And he’d just saved her life. Which meant that right now, he was safety.

Scrambling to her feet, Lillian dashed over to Junice and wrapped her arms around his waist, hugging him tightly. He stumbled slightly as she did so and let out a low chuckle, crouching down to her, the battle around them all but forgotten.

He cupped her cheek, guiding her eyes to see him smiling warmly. “I’m glad to see you, Little Lady Cobalt.”

Lillian sniffled and smiled back, offering a slight nod to show she felt similarly. Junice looked her over quickly, checking for injury. Once he’d clearly found none, he straightened again, gritting his teeth and stifling a moan of pain. He laid one hand on Lillian’s shoulder and leaned on his spear like a walking stick.

“Come on, we need to get you to the others, they’ll be waiting.” He said, pushing her urgently forwards, away from the chaos and into the dark passage she’d been aiming for earlier.

They moved quickly, keeping out of the fighting and in the shadows of the palace’s many corridors and routes. Everywhere though, it seemed there was screaming and death. Nowhere was free of it, and it was all they could do to avoid being part of it, unable to help people who begged for their lives as monsters, both human and not, closed in on them.

They had just skirted the side of a wide outer courtyard and were about to leave into the passages of the top part of the dungeons when the door before them burst open, allowing a rush of some twenty or so people through. Some were palace nobles and footmen running in a blind panic. Others though, wore the armour of various Aldiron legionnaires, though in some cases broken or missing parts. A quick scan of them ensured none wore the colours of the treacherous second legion.

None of them seemed to notice Junice and Lillian as they slammed the door closed behind them, with two of the legionnaires, one wearing the more ornate armour of an officer, leaning against it.

Junice straightened and approached quickly, calling out to the soldiers as he did so.

“You men! We need help getting into the dungeons, get this door open!” He ordered, causing all of the soldiers to stiffen to attention on reflex at the sight of the royal guard. But then they seemed to take in what he had actually said to them.

“Fuck that!” The young soldier next to the officer said, brushing back his long blonde hair to reveal a man only a few years older than Lillian herself, likely still a teenager. But the haunted look on his face seemed to age him considerably. Junice ground his teeth angrily.

“That was an order soldier, not a question.” He responded coolly, but as he reached the door, the soldier stood. He kept his gaze level with Junice, not backing down. Lillian was sure the royal guard was about to come to blows with the soldier when the officer suddenly stepped between them.

“Sorry sir, but I’m not taking anyone back in there. It’s crawling with second legion and Accursed. We saw Lady Hills getting cornered after she and some guards tried to make for the dungeons, just like you.”

Violet. Lillian remembered the beautiful, blonde-haired woman being swept away from Iona by the crowd, just like her. She’d hoped she’d made it out of the palace safely, before the monsters arrived, but apparently hope was a foolish thing to hold to tonight.

“This little one is part of the Princess’ entourage, they’re gathering in the dungeons. No matter the danger, she has to reach them.” Junice insisted but again the officer shook his head, his face a grim, stony mask.

“Sir, it’s not just the enemy warriors that are in there. Plenty of people witnessed that Draconeus himself pursued the royal party into the depths. He’s now between you and them, if they’re even still alive.”

Lillian’s heart dropped and it felt like she was falling, crushed beneath an invisible weight. Draconeus. The Blood Demon, the unkillable lord of Shetani that we need a magic sword to stop. And everyone’s trapped there with him. Every horror she had seen that night paled in comparison to her imaginings of Draconeus. And if he was between her and her family, Lillian knew one thing with deep certainty, an ironclad truth she could not break no matter how she wished to.

I can’t get to them.

She looked up at Junice just in time to see him quickly look away from her, whipping his head around the gathered people in the small, sheltered part of the courtyards they found themselves in.

“Where were you headed?” He asked the officer and he pointed off towards a tower set into the wall across the yard.

“That tower’s got a small gateway set into it, links to a road on the cliffside that leads from the palace to the city. It’s for movement of prisoners when we don’t want them seen. The palace is lost, figure if we stay then we’re just as doomed. So we were going to take our chances in the city.” The officer said quickly. Junice stared off towards the tower, a muscle working along his jaw as he thought. Then he reached out his spear hand towards the officer, passing the weapon over.

“Take this and lead the way.” He commanded simply. Then he crouched down to meet Lillian’s gaze again, his brown eyes finding hers and holding.

“I’m sorry Lillian, but it’s all up to them now. I trust they’ll get it done, but you and me, we need to live. To help them keep going, to fight another day.” She didn’t want to hear it, it was no exaggeration to say she’d had nightmares about hearing she’d be separated from them with no way back. But now it was real, and she knew, despite her want to scream and fight and cry, that she couldn’t deny it.

Slowly, painfully, like it was a leaden weight on her neck, she felt her head nod. Junice’s hand squeezed her shoulder and pulled her towards him, wrapping around her and lifting her off the ground and into his arms. She wrapped her arms tight around his neck, holding fast to him and burying her face into his shoulder, not wanting to look at the door keeping her family from her any longer.

Junice groaned slightly as he straightened up, standing to his full height despite his ruined legs. Lillian heard the sound of the guards stepping closer.

“You’re wounded badly sir, you should let us-.” But Junice cut them off.

“No. I’ve got her, she’s my charge. Yours is to get everyone here safely out of the palace.” His voice was strong, commanding, the pain hidden beneath determination. Lillian didn’t hear a response from the guards, but they must have agreed as soon she felt Junice begin to move, his limping walk turning to a light jog. One hand braced Lillian, holding her tight to his chest as the other cradled the back of her head, guarding her from harm.

As he carried her away from the palace, through the outer gate and into the ashen, burning husk of the city of Aldiron, Lillian felt her cheeks dampen Junice’s cloak with tears.

She was alive, but her family had left her.

She was alive, but she was alone.

She was alive, but the world had ended.