KEETHRO

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Half of the men Keethro and Titon had entered the arena with immediately took flight. Some of them did not see or simply ignored the weapons, but the majority snatched whatever sword or mace was most readily available. Whether they wished to attempt to reach the dragons before they had reloaded or merely to more quickly end their anxiety, Keethro could not tell. He only knew that in spite of being hardened by war, even his own anxiousness was nearly unbearable. “We all feel a crippling fear when faced with death,” Titon used to say to his warriors prior to a battle against a fellow clan. “But fear is like a beautiful woman. Cower from it, and it will know you to be unworthy. Embrace it with confidence, and you will become its master.” Fine words to rally your troops, Keethro had always thought, but he did not believe Titon to have ever truly been afraid.

Two men took a different tack and bolted back toward the open arena doors, but the guards were ready for them. One caught a spear through the eye and the other was impaled in the abdomen. The guards took turns spitting on the still-living coward as he squirmed and screamed, and the audience close enough to have seen laughed at the man’s agony.

Keethro turned his attention to Titon, who walked at his usual pace to the racks of weaponry and selected a large metal-faced shield not unlike the one that had been fixed to the boar.

“You’re sure you want that slowing you down? You saw what those arrows did to it.” Keethro did not expect his words to change Titon’s mind.

“Trust me,” he said and handed Keethro a small axe suitable for throwing.

A svelte man with a tan complexion led the charge downfield, far ahead of the others. Red strips of cloth tied above his biceps streamed behind him as he ran. He’d snatched a sword not unlike his own frame, thin and gracefully curved, and it gleamed as it caught the Dawnstar’s ample rays. Well behind him was the giant, lumbering forward without a weapon. He had three others close on his heels, and they seemed determined to keep the big one between themselves and the fire-spitting dragons. A final man lagged behind that group, his light skin and long hair of bright blonde making him stand out more than any. In each hand he had a longsword, both of which he occasionally swung around with exceptional deftness. Keethro realized the man’s display was not for show, but rather for familiarizing himself with the weapons. I will have to keep an eye on that one, should they make us eventually fight each other, thought Keethro. He purposefully turned his mind from the prospect of having to face Titon.

The svelte man had nearly crossed half the field by the time the next arrow was launched. He must have had a good view of the men firing the contraptions as he anticipated the shot and dropped to his stomach. The arrow flew over his head, nearly touching his long dark hair that trailed out behind him. A second arrow flew, aimed at a far larger target. It struck the giant high in the chest, going through him to impale two of his followers, and ripped the arm off the third at the shoulder. The three impaled men fell backward and lay motionless while the fourth ran in circles, screaming and fountaining blood from his wound.

Keethro realized he had been paying too much attention to the field and not enough to his selection of weapons, but Titon had for him two more small axes.

“We move,” said Titon as he hefted his shield onto one arm and tested his grip on its straps, then lifting a two-handed axe in his opposite fist.

Keethro was ready to break into a run, but Titon began jogging downfield with his shield in front of him. Keethro followed, and the final person from their group, a sturdy-built middle-aged man, did the same. He had selected a spiked buckler and longsword for his weaponry and held them as if he might know how to use them.

The svelte one on his belly had not yet risen. Keethro suspected he had hoped all four dragons would have fired at once, allowing him to close the remaining distance before they could reload. The remaining two refused to fire, however, and he too refused to move from his relatively safe position. The impasse gave Keethro, Titon, and their assumed ally time to make up some distance on the field.

They had made it a little more than a quarter of the way downfield by the time all four dragons were again ready to strike. With the two yet to fire still trained on the unmoving man, the other two were free to fire on the remaining targets. One fired at the frantic man with one arm and missed. A foolish mistake, thought Keethro, as there was no need to waste shots on a man who was of no danger. But it showed their enemy to be supremely confident that their victory was assured, which in itself was disheartening.

The other dragon launched an arrow at the blonde-haired warrior who was now midfield. The man dodged right with blinding speed, but the arrow clipped one of his swords and ripped it from his hand, forcing him to stop and retrieve it with caution. The two dragons aimed at the prone man both fired as he began to slither forward like a snake. One arrow went high, and the other went low, first hitting the ground, then bouncing over his head.

“Faster,” said Titon. They still did not run, but their speed considerably improved. Their companion followed in kind.

The svelte man leapt from the ground and charged at full speed toward the dragons and their keepers. One was quick to reload, however, and fired. He twisted his body and spun to the side, nearly successful in his attempt, but the arrow’s tip made contact with his waist and cut him deeply. Blood poured from the man, but no entrails had spilled. His charge continued, accompanied with a scream of defiance. He managed to come within a few paces of the dragons when an arrow flew clean through his right breast, silencing him and sending him to his back.

Keethro felt his heart thumping, but he was not winded. They’d come to within a hundred paces of the blonde-haired warrior who was himself now a mere hundred paces from the dragons. His mane danced behind him as he moved with increasing speed. One fired, missing him completely. It puzzled Keethro until he glanced behind to where the arrow had landed and saw the one-armed man had been killed. What gall, he thought, but he then saw the source of their confidence.

Four warhorses galloped through the far doors, prompting the man who had been running with Keethro and Titon to stop midfield by one of the fences. A strange man who fears horses but not dragons, thought Keethro.

Three of the horses rode past the fiery contraptions, their riders each carrying a massive ball and chain. The horses were covered in black armor that glistened as if wet, and the men atop were armored in kind, looking like greedy reapers. The effect was lost only somewhat as the fourth horse reared, frightened perhaps by the flames, and began trampling the nearest dragon’s crew with its unseated rider still caught in a stirrup.

The weapons of the horsemen may have been daunting, but Keethro soon noticed their long chains made them ill suited for joint attacks. The third horseman was forced to break from the other two as they charged the dual-wielding warrior from either side. The warrior dove and rolled at just the right moment toward one of the horses, avoiding the spiked balls of death while managing to slice the exposed ankle of one of the beasts. The horse fell forward, digging a trench in the hard-packed sand with its body.

The horseman that broke away came at Keethro and Titon. With the best-balanced of his axes in hand, Keethro stopped to throw. When the rider was at twenty paces he sent the axe with all his force, and it flew through the air with enough rancor to split steel. The axe blade found the vertical slit in the man’s helmet and forced its way through. His body went limp and fell backward on the horse as it galloped past.

When the single remaining horseman circled for a second attack on the blonde-haired warrior, Keethro made a silent wager that the rider would be the one to die. But before the two made contact, fire leapt forth from one of the dragons. The arrow caught the warrior in the lower back and passed through, just barely missing the horseman, who then stopped and began cursing at the dragon’s keepers. Keethro took the opportunity to better their odds and heaved his axe. He watched as it curved through the air, an impressive distance even for a man without an injured wrist. The axe head glanced off the side of the man’s helmet and buried into the neck of the horse. The animal whinnied and rose high on its hind legs, causing the rider to slip. The horse then collapsed lifeless to its side, completely crushing its rider in the process.

Titon continued forward and reached the horse that the blonde warrior had maimed, motioning for Keethro to catch up. Good, a living shield, thought Keethro as he sprinted to oblige. The horse’s front legs were both badly broken. Red-stained bones protruded as it pushed through the sand, trying to right itself in what must have been agony. With one slice from his mighty axe, Titon took the head off the unconscious rider, and with another, Titon brought an end to the horse’s suffering, eliciting a collective gasp from the audience.

Titon slammed the side of his axe against his mammoth shield as if to provoke the three dragons that remained, and the crowd broke again into cheer. It made little difference to Keethro that they may now have the crowd on their side. It will not change how this ends.

Keethro caught up to Titon and remained behind him. They now had fewer than a hundred paces between them and the dragons. A glance to the rear revealed the thick swordsman further behind—again moving forward, albeit slightly crouched as if to jump and roll at any moment.

As close as they now were, Keethro could tell exactly what the men were doing with their arrow-hurling contraptions. The devices themselves looked to be enormous bows placed on their sides and mounted upon wheels. With the exception of the dragon farthest left which had acquired two extra crew from the broken dragon, three men in light armor worked each device. One readied the arrows, one tensioned the bow with a lever, and the third aimed and fired. Keethro was sickened to see all three dragons were now ready to fire, two of which pointed at him and Titon, the other at the lagging swordsman.

“Stand tall and thin,” Titon instructed as he himself turned to his side, crossing one leg in front of the other while continuing his sidelong advance. Keethro stayed behind him and did the same, though he saw no point in trying to make themselves smaller targets. The machines skewered a pig at over three hundred paces. They will have no difficulty hitting the side of a giant soon to be at fifty.

The swordsman behind them must have felt the same and broke into a sprint, not straight forward, but alternating diagonally left and right. A deep “thwunk” sounded as the dragon aimed at him fired. Keethro watched out of the corner of his eye as the flaming bolt caught the spike of the man’s buckler held to the side. The impact spun him—so violently that he slammed into the ground and began the horrid, moaning inhalations of the unconscious and gravely injured.

Titon continued his methodical advance as they closed to fifty paces. The five men of the recently fired dragon yelled at each other while frantically struggling to re-arm their machine—their extra members seeming only to add to their hysteria.

“They will not miss,” Keethro said to Titon.

“I am hoping they do not.”

He’s lost all sense. But Keethro saw no better option than to trust him. He supposed it would not be so bad to die upon the same dragon arrow that impaled the mighty Titon.

The dreaded sound of the dragon’s release was heard. Keethro braced himself for death as he watched the trail of flame scream toward them. The tip of the arrow that should have punctured Titon’s shield instead scraped against the surface with a spray of sparks. Titon had angled the face sharply, deflecting the arrow’s glancing blow, but the force of impact was so great that it smashed his shield into his body and staggered him. The crowd erupted into a frenzy of ovation, but there was no time to celebrate. Keethro saw the fearful determination of the crew of the only dragon ready to fire. He also saw what they were planning.

“They are aiming—”

He did not have time to finish. Titon squatted just as the machine fired low. The impact with his shield was similar to the previous one, though this time it knocked him to his ass. The arrow deflected downward into the ground, spraying clumps of sand into Keethro’s eyes as he remained standing and dumbfounded. Titon righted himself, threw down both his shield and heavy axe, and charged, letting out a war cry so fierce that each of the eleven men manning the dragons visibly balked.

Keethro wasted no time. He sprinted as well, blinking his eyes free of grit. His target was the five-man crew that was closest to being ready to fire another arrow. Despite their extra members, they had neglected to light the tip of their projectile, and the less-impressive arrow was placed into the waiting machine, ready to be fired. Keethro let his final axe fly at the man responsible for aiming the wooden beast. The axe handle slammed the intended target on the top of the head, dazing him. The other men fought to fire the weapon, but with the semi-lucid man vying to do the same, they botched the attack, firing with the machine pointed at an awkward angle and missed completely. Keethro only had a moment to congratulate himself for achieving such a throw while half-blinded and running at full speed. He turned his attention to the next group of men who were trying to finish loading, but Titon was already on top of them as they fumbled with the heavy arrow.

Keethro jumped over the machine that last fired, and its crew scattered and ran—only to find that the giant doors behind them had been closed after the crazed warhorse had run back inside with rider still in tow. He grabbed the first man he could, who shrieked—not unlike a Dogman—as Keethro grappled with him to remove his helmet, then used it to cave in his head. Titon launched an assault on the other men and managed to grab two at once. With one in each hand, he raised them in the air by their throats, choking them until their windpipes caved. Keethro continued to give chase to the men one by one, still using the helmet to end them, while Titon had decided to use a giant dragon arrow as a spear.

The only ones screaming more loudly than the men they killed were those in the stands. The sound was like nothing Keethro had heard before, and knowing that it was in celebration of his victory felt not much different than when he was with a woman. To have gone from almost certain death—a death that was so eagerly anticipated and cheered for by a horde of bloodthirsty strangers—to winning the support of those very masses that had craved his humiliating defeat… It was something that even the thrill of victory in a battle against incredible odds simply could not compare.

Three men had managed to escape the lower ground between the dragons and the doors and ran to midfield. Keethro expected them to arm themselves with the weapons that had been dropped, but they did no such thing. They merely continued to run, and Keethro spat in the dirt in disgust. “Titon,” he called. “Over here.”

Titon finished his kill by cranking the neck of a man under his arm so savagely that his head would have surely come off if not for the unbroken skin. He came to Keethro and appeared delighted when he saw what he had in mind.

“I watched them do it. You arm it like this.” Keethro demonstrated on one of the machines and Titon quickly followed suit on another. The spearmen on the other side of the field must have remained, not allowing the dragons’ keepers to escape into the safety of the lower ground. It took Keethro and Titon some time to impale all three men—eight shots in total—and it was as enjoyable for them as it must have been for the onlookers who celebrated each success.

The cheers slowly morphed into a chant. It was difficult to make out what they said as it echoed and reverberated, but Keethro soon heard it clear.

“Northman! Northman! Northman!” sounded the chant of countless voices. It is not Northmen they say, it is Northman. But Keethro was not about to pity himself. It was good just to be alive, and more importantly, to have been with Titon as he achieved his glory. You deserve it, my friend.

The chanting stopped with a suddenness that foreboded danger. A single man draped in a large cape stood in the lowest seats of the midfield—not the one who had done the earlier announcing—and with a single raised finger he had brought the entire arena to silence. Keethro’s elation was snuffed as he recalled his thoughts about the men powerful enough to create such monstrous walls, and he feared being crushed by such a man more now than ever.