Arrow after arrow I shoot. I ignore the soreness in my ribs, arms, and shoulders. I pull out my blades when I run out of arrows. I ignore all of my aches and pains, taking deep breaths to keep oxygen in the muscles that are fighting to defend the beast’s kingdom.
When we have finally defeated anyone who has emerged from the ships, some people from our side board the ships and kill any remaining enemies.
The beast comes back to my side. He glances over at me as if to make sure I haven’t been captured again.
“I’m still here.” I look up at him.
He wraps his arm around my shoulders and gently pulls me to his side.
I feel him kiss my hair and I wrap my arm around his waist, being careful not to nick him with one of my blades. We turn when we hear the sound of horses coming from beside us, the opposite direction from where everything started just a few short days ago.
I recognize some of the men leading additional horses behind them from the village. “We have to travel around the water, make sure that there aren’t any more getting ready to attack,” the beast tells me. I nod in confirmation. “Will you be okay to come, or do you need to go back to the castle?”
“I’m coming.” Quickly, I slide my blades back into their sheathes and move to one of the horses in front of me, attempting to get my foot into the stirrup. My muscles protest the movement.
“Here, let me help you,” he says behind me. When I turn around, I see the beast kneeling down and offering me his hands to use as a step. I place one hand on his shoulder, and the other on the saddle horn, step into his hands, and he helps me onto the horse.
I shift my weight in the saddle, trying to get in a comfortable position. The beast quickly mounts his horse and rides up next to me, reaching out between our horses. I take his outstretched hand and he squeezes my fingers. “Keep a long blade in your hand, the shorter blade tucked away in case we’re thrown from our horses.”
Briefly, I pray that doesn’t happen. I’m not sure if my body can take being thrown from a horse after all my other injuries. I nod to him and pull a blade from its sheath, holding it against my thigh and grabbing the reins in my other hand.
Our group splits in two, going around the water in either direction to make sure we find any stragglers from the other side. We all travel just inside the tree line, barely within sight of the water, to avoid being seen by anyone walking along the shore. The beast comes to my side and stays near me the entire trek.
We follow the rest of the pack, and when we’re about a quarter of the way up our side of the water, we see them. In front of us, in the trees, is a group of men. They’re circled up around a fire. Unlike the pirates from the ships, these men are all dressed warmly for the snowy weather. They’re bundled up and even have some kind of scarves wrapped around their necks.
“Do we have to kill all of them? What if we can make some kind of deal?” I whisper to the beast. He shakes his head at me in return, motioning with his finger for me to be quiet.
I face forward again and continue to follow the men in front of me.
We stop moving, and my group moves back just out of sight of the men. Some of the people dismount and draw their weapons, attempting to sneak up on the enemy men. I remain on my horse, unsure if I could handle having to dismount and remount again.
The beast dismounts and joins the rest of his men. From my position, I hear shouts and the clashing of blades, but can’t see anything happening. I look around me to see what I can and the other people remaining on horseback do the same. It’s then I spot them, a second group of men coming straight for us, blades raised.
“Get ready!” I yell, bringing my blade up, getting ready to strike.
The first one who reaches us is taken down by a woman holding her sword in both hands as she brings the blade down. Her single strike decapitates the man entirely, and I gasp as his head bounces off the back of his horse and lands at its feet. His body tumbles off shortly after, his foot caught in the stirrup as his horse takes off at a run, dragging his body behind it, a trail of blood left behind in its wake.
When finally one of them reaches me, the woman’s teeth are clenched as she tries to bring her blade down on me. I strike first, hard and fast, adrenaline masking any pain in the rest of my body. Somehow my blade hits where I’ve aimed, at her neck, and she tumbles off her horse.
Before I have much time to look, another one comes at me, and I’m knocked from my horse, hitting the ground with a grunt. At the sound, one of our men turns and helps me up before continuing to fight. I run between the horses, ducking and slashing out my blade at any enemies I see. My maneuvers do not take down anyone but, I do see several get taken down by the next person they come into contact with. Their injuries from my blade distract them enough they don’t notice the next guy they run into.
When there is a small break in the attack, I pull a second blade from its sheath. I look up just in time to avoid my head joining the others in the snow. Instead, I slash out my blade and slice the leg of one of the riders, causing him to yank on the reins and the horse bucks him off, kicking the rider in the head as he runs off.
What seems like hours really only takes us a few minutes and we see our other men coming back to us. From what I can tell, they all survived their part of the attack. The beast leads them back to us, and he approaches me slowly. “Are you okay?” He pulls me to him and scans up and down my body.
Finally, I look around at the damage we inflicted on the riders that came at us. I approach the woman I slashed at the beginning of the battle. Her gasps growing more shallow.
Vomit rushes up my throat so quickly, I barely have time to bend over before what little remains in my stomach is heaved onto the snowy ground. The beast runs his hand up and down my back. He also attempts to pull my hair out of the way while I continue to heave. Standing back up, I glance around at the remaining bodies.
For the first time since I woke up this morning, tears flow from my eyes. “I’m so sorry. It was my fault,” I cry.
“It was not your fault, Callie. This is war. These things happen,” the beast says, resting his hand on my shoulder.
I jerk my shoulder away from him, angry at his nonchalant behavior. “These things do not happen in my world!”
The beast gestures for me to hand him my blades. He reaches down and wipes them off on one of the fallen men’s clothes before helping me to secure them back in their sheaths.
I move to my horse and attempt to get back in the saddle. It’s on my third attempt I notice red out of the corner of my eye. I look over and see the blood pooling in the snow from the woman I killed.
What makes me do it, I’ll never know, but I look around the rest of the clearing and search for the other blood pools staining the snow. I move to the woman and kneel beside her. “I’m sorry,” I whisper to her corpse.
Around her neck, I see a necklace, and I quickly remove it, shoving it into one of the pockets in my coat.
The beast helps me to mount my horse again and we have to continue traveling the rest of the way around the water through the trees.
“Someone will come back to bury the bodies,” the beast tells me.
I glance over at him and nod. Facing forward again, I do my best to ignore the excited chatter all around me. Inside, I feel anger, sadness, and a mix of other emotions I can’t name. I can’t believe I’ve killed so many people in such a short amount of time. I’m not sure I’ll ever be the same again.
* * *
We stand just inside the trees, a small distance away from the land bridge to the other side’s castle. Finally, the other group who went around the other side on the opposite bank from where we started arrive.
We all dismount to discuss what to do next. They tell us they also encountered men, but theirs were all on foot.
“What about Hook and Peter?” I ask.
“Who?” the beast replies.
“They’re the ones who captured and tortured me. At least, they said they were the ones in charge. I don’t believe I saw either of them at the boats, or in the woods.”
“What do they look like?” Steve asks, part of the other group.
“Peter has boyish features, and Hook wears a ridiculous hat, and has… well, he has a hook instead of one of his hands,” I gesture above my head in some pathetic imitation of his hat.
They ask around to see if someone encountered anyone matching their descriptions. No one remembers seeing anyone like them.
“Maybe they never left their castle,” the beast says.
“So they’re cowards,” I reply between clenched teeth. “Only willing to join the fight if their opponent is chained up.”
The beast rests his hand on my shoulder. This time, I don’t shrug him away. “They may have never left the tunnels they took you to. We’re not exactly close to where we found you.”
Two of our men come running up, out of breath. “It’s abandoned,” one of them says.
“There’s no movement at their castle, no smoke can be seen in the air. It’s as if they all just… disappeared,” the other one finishes.
“Did anyone notice these guys seemed a little disorganized? Almost like they weren’t entirely prepared for any of this,” James states.
“What do you mean?” I ask.
“Remember how our group was lined up at the beginning? We were all together, and while they approached us from behind, we were quickly able to disarm and kill them,” Steve says.
“Okay, if you say so. What does that mean?”
The beast looks down at me and responds, “It means, that all the things they were preparing, the last several weeks they’ve been crafting weapons, there’s no way that the men that we’ve taken out today were carrying all of those. There is either a stockpile of weapons somewhere, or a larger army waiting. Probably both. This felt like they were testing the waters, seeing how prepared we are.”
“Which means?”
“It means, miss, that there’s a bigger war coming, and we don’t know where they hide in wait, or when they plan to strike,” Steve answers.