Isaac crouched in a darkened alley behind a parked wagon, staring across the street at the group of soldiers standing outside the wide stone barracks doors. As he waited for the signal to attack, which was to be the call of a robin repeated twice in the same manner, he scanned the group for an optimal first target. They were all significantly less well-built than him but as he caressed the steel head of his two handed mace, one in particular caught his eye.

        This guard had the mien of a coward, his eyes darted back and forth, watching the passing citizens with a craven eye. The fellow’s brow was coated with an unhealthy sheen of sweat. The other guards would poke and prod him, offering him soiled hankies to wipe his brow with.

        A flash of pale blonde hair bobbing down the street caught Isaac’s eye. His heartbeat sped up as his adrenal glands kicked in and his mouth curved into a smile. He was vaulting over the cart just as the call of a robin sounded, he focused in on his target as Bethany drew even to the guards. She dropped into a crouch and lashed out with her foot shattering the kneecap of a guard and she drove her daggers into the thigh of the next man, a gout of crimson splashed onto the street. The two guards she had wounded collapsed screaming in pain and the other three drew their weapons.

        The craven man turned to flee into the building but met Isaac’s mace as it arced down into his skull. Isaac roared in triumph smashing his mace onto the man’s still twitching corpse in challenge. The volume of the roar seemed to stun the three remaining guards, one of whom, after snapping out of it, took off running. The other two appeared to forget about Bethany, who was a bit stunned herself, and turned to Isaac, brandishing their weapons.

        Raising his maul in an upward swing Isaac shattered the haft of the first guard’s spear and knocked the man flat onto his back. Continuing the arc of his swing, Isaac let the momentum carry him around a sword thrust from the other guard. He lashed out with his elbow, catching the guard in the temple and making him stumble back into Bethany who drove her daggers into his lungs.

        Turning to look after the fleeing man they saw him lying in a growing pool of blood in the street, one of Risha’s daggers protruding from his neck. Just then, a large group of guards, a couple dozen at least, poured out of the wide front doors and pointed their way.

        “Fall back!” Isaac ordered.

        Bethany hared towards the alley Isaac had come from as arrows slashed towards them from the upper garrison windows. She reached the darkened alley and immediately jumped to avoid the trip wire Risha had placed there. Isaac leaped atop the wagon and heaved one of the barrels from the back over his head, two arrows thumped into the barrel as he tossed it into the leading soldiers knocking them down and splattering the street with oil. He jumped from the back of the wagon with a rude gesture to the rest of the soldiers and ran off down the alley.

* * *

        In another alley on the other side of the barracks Kearse, Jason and I waited and listened to the faint sounds of battle carrying from the front of the barracks. Karan was perched on the top of a building overlooking the back alley where we waited and the rear entrance to the barracks around the corner. The barrel of her rifle poked out over the shoulder of a carved stone gargoyle her eye up to the scope. She held up two fingers to indicate that there were two guards on the door.

        We all flinched as Isaac’s roar echoed through the alley. After Karan pressed her eye back to the scope she gave us the all clear. We rounded the corner and moved towards the open back door. Jason padded up to the open back door and cocked his ear. Hearing nothing he peered around the frame and darted inside, motioning us to follow.

        We all had our short swords drawn and held down near our sides as we moved up the alley and into the paneled wooden hallway. Jason was looking around a corner down the hall as we crept up and stopped behind him. He held up five fingers and when he counted down to one we tip-toed into the hallway and watched two soldiers disappear through a door at the end of the hallway.

        The holding cells were located underground so we took a right down a set of stone stairs. At the bottom was the guardroom with an abandoned table with overturned chairs. Opposite the stairwell was the locked door that lead to the cells themselves, around the door were four alert guards, spears at the ready.

        Kearse charged into the room and set his shoulder under the table and straightened his legs, hurling the table into the clustered guard, cards and coins from the top spilling onto the ground. Jason and I split to either side of the table and plunged our swords into the guards’ unprotected flanks.

        Holding the table with one meaty arm, Kearse kept the other two guards pinned against the door and plunged his short sword through the table. The two guards collapsed and we finished them off quickly. Snagging the keys from the belt of a dead guard I opened the door to a long stone walled hallway with wooden cell doors on either side.

        Creeping down the hall and peering into the barred windows on the top of each door, we saw prisoners lying on cots or standing in corners. About halfway down the hall I looked into a cell and saw Nicolas sitting on a cot, hands clasped and head bowed as if in prayer.

        As we opened the door he looked up.

        “Commander, I’m so sorry.”

        The other cell doors opened.

Next Chapter: Chapter 13