The Gates of Helmaia Prologue Part 1

The longboat creaked eerily in the gentle waters as the soldiers manning the oars rowed silently through the dense morning fog. Soren Kast fingered the pommel of his sword nervously as the other half dozen longboats slowly glided alongside one another in a tight formation made difficult to maintain as the rolling fog made the other boats near impossible to see but for the lanterns dangling on their bows. More than once there had been a collision and were it not for the soldiers’ quick thinking, it might have cost them dearly.
The dark shape of an island awaited them, their destination looming in the fog like a sleeping giant. As Kast watched, the soldiers doused the lanterns and all traces of the longboats disappeared, swallowed up by the fog. The seconds crept by like an eternity and Kast silently dreaded colliding with another of the Longboats. The seconds stretched out into minutes until a quiet whistle, like the warble of a songbird, pierced the silence.
A warning.
Scrunching his eyes to see through the fog, Kast could just barely make out the silhouette of a sentry patrolling along the shore, the light coming off his torch giving away his position. Quietly he stood up, careful to keep his balance in the bobbing vessel and took the bow offered by one of his men. He knocked an arrow and drew it back, peering down the shaft to lock his target, and then let fly. Even through the dense fog, his arrow flew true, taking the sentry in his throat and he collapsed with a gurgle as the first boat made landfall.
The boats grimly settled along the shoreline one by one and Kast carefully hopped ashore and stretched out his legs. Six weeks cooped up aboard a ship had done him little good and he was glad to be back on land. He took a quick look around as the others spread out, all eyes open for any more sentries patrolling along the coast.
“Too much blood has been spilled for this day,” a voice said gravely from behind him.
The voice belonged to Captain Jerad Bey, Kast’s long time friend and mentor, as well as the commanding officer placed in charge of this mission. As he turned to face him, Bey was just slipping off the side of the longboat and crouched at the body of the fallen sentry and sternly examined the dead man. He was from Helmaia, a nation that had been at war with Kast’s Empire of Karnas for the last fifteen years. Now, somewhere on this island, Helmaia’s King, Arathor, was supposed to be meeting with the leaders of several other nations to form an alliance that could tip the scale of the war in Helmaia’s favor, something Kast could not allow to happen. That was why they were here, to capture King Arathor and force him to bring this war to an end.
“A clean kill,” the captain remarked, “I take it this arrow was yours, Soren?”
“Yes, Captain,” Kast admitted.
“I thought as much,” Bey said gruffly. Then he smiled. “Very well executed Soren. I would even dare say that your skills with a bow might even have exceeded my own.”
“I am honored to receive praise from you, Captain,” Soren said, bowing his head to the older man as a sign of the respect he held for him. He meant it. Jerad Bey was a legend. A master of all forms of combat known to man and an extraordinarily adept tactician, more than one victory had been snatched from the jaws of defeat due to the tiniest of his suggestions. Kast had seen first hand how the mere rumor of his presence on the battlefield was enough to make an army eight-thousand strong throw down their weapons and surrender.
With him leading the mission, they could not possibly fail.
As more of the longboats settled upon the beach, more and more soldiers spilled out onto the sand, a wall of crimson and black, sixty men proudly bearing the colors of their beloved Empire of Karnas.
The last of the soldiers made landfall, their armor bearing a circular insignia of a white hammer on a field of black, Executors, the elite personal guards in direct service to the Emperor of Karnas and his priests.
One such priest was the last man to leave the boats, his blood red robes fluttering wildly in the coastal winds as a company of five executors quickly feel into step around him.
Kast paid them no mind as he gathered his equipment and set off to scout the island. The local fauna gripped at his heels as he moved silently through the wilderness, until he crested a hill overlooking a wide sea of marshland and finally found what they were looking for. Set into the side of a mountain on the other side of the marsh was a large Citadel, an ancient structure constructed by some unknown lost civilization. Kast reasoned that if the Helmaian King was to be found anywhere, it would be in that Citadel.
But before he could think on it further, he heard the whisper of voices on the wind and froze, not daring to risk making a sound. The voices were coming closer, and Kast scrambled for a place to hide. He quickly scaled a nearby tree, laying himself on a thick branch that could hold his weight and after a few agonizing moments the voices halted.
Through the leaves, he could see two more Helmaian sentries were quietly conversing with each other, completely oblivious to the threat in their midst. But by the same hint of misfortune that always seemed to follow Kast around and land him in trouble, the two sentries were sitting between him and his way back to the shore. It didn’t look they were about to go anywhere anytime soon, meaning he would have to get past them if he wanted to report his findings back to the Captain. In his head, he cursed as he considered his options.
Though he had little doubt he could take them both with the element of surprise, to do it quietly was another matter entirely. The odds that one would call out an alarm while Kast engaged the other was far too great and their presence on the island remaining undiscovered was far too important for him to risk on a chance to prove himself. But if he just sat there, eventually they’d catch on to him and just raise the alarm anyway. They had to be eliminated.
As quietly as he could manage, he hooked his legs around the branch and slowly lowered himself until he was upside down. His quiver he let sit atop the branch so that it would not fall over and he carefully extracted an arrow and knocked it into his bow, holding it in place with his finger. With his free hand he drew one of his throwing knives, the blade made of black Karnasian steel that wouldn’t reflect the sunlight. Aiming for the sentry on the left, he let the knife fly, using the momentum as his arm came forward to grab the bow string and quickly draw it back. His aim was true, the knife embedding itself into the back of the first man’s neck even as Kast drew back his arrow and sighted in on the second. As his companion fell, the Helmaian only had a split second to register his shock as Kast’s arrow took him in the throat and he joined his friend on the ground, dead.
Kast climbed down, his eyes searching for more patrols, but finding none. He dragged the bodies of the two sentries away and hid them in the brush where they would not be seen, then quickly traveled back to the shoreline.
Captain Bey was looking over a map of the island when he got there, coordinating the scouts as they searched for what Kast had already found. Kast stopped in front of him and snapped off a quick salute, which the Captain quickly dismissed.
“I take it you found something, Soren,” Captain Bey said without looking away from the map.
Kast nodded. “I did, Sir. A large structure, a Citadel.”
Bey looked at him, then back to the map. “Show me.”
Kast traced his route on the map with his finger, marking the location of the Citadel by drawing a big circle in the air over the area where he had found it.
“That’s it,” Bey said with an air of certainty. “Everyone fall in! The time has come for us to make our assault!”
From all around, soldiers bearing the Crimson black armor of the Karnasian Empire gathered and quickly formed ranks, when a loud voice called out above the din of the troops.
“Captain Bey!”
The voice belonged to the Priest Kast had seen before. He proudly strode over to where Captain Bey was gathering the men to begin assigning tasks. Upon catching sight of the priest Bey quickly finished and dismissed his men. The soldiers scattered to carry out their duties, but Kast lingered for a moment.
“High Priest Demtri. To what do I owe this great honor?” he overhead the captain asking the robed man.
“I am here to make sure you do as commanded, Captain,” the High Priest said dryly.
“Does this mean the High Priest will be taking over command of the mission,” Bey queried. Though he spoke politely to the Priest, Kast could see the icy stare behind his eyes. The Captain had always held a certain contempt for the priesthood, though for reasons Kast had never been able to get him to divulge.
“Think of me merely as an observer,” the priest retorted. “Though know this. Failure here is failure to our Emperor himself. And our Emperor does not look kindly on failure.”
But before Bey had a chance to reply to the priest, the man caught sight of Kast eavesdropping.
“And who is this?” the man scoffed as he glared at Kast. “A soldier of the Empire dropping eaves?” 
Kast’s heart nearly leaped out of his chest and he scrambled to come up with an explanation for his lingering. Fortunately for him, Captain Bey was quick to intercede.
“I tasked this one to accompany me while I scouted the island,” Bey lied. “So good of him to wait patiently for me.”
“Yes, quite,” The priest said nonchalantly. “Name and rank soldier!”
Kast snapped to. “Soren Kast! Lieutenant of the Imperial Army in service to his Emperor, Vorashurn Lasan!”
The High Priest regarded him for a moment. “One of yours, Captain Bey?”
“My best,” Bey says proudly. “He is young, and still has much to learn, but his potential is unmatched by any I have yet seen.”
“Praise from the Captain is praise not easily earned,” the Priest said, clearly intrigued. “Perhaps someday, the young lieutenant will even advance to join the ranks of the Executors. What say you, Lieutenant?”
“It is my honor to serve,” Kast replied, stiff as a washboard. Captain Bey also seemed a little uneasy, but if the High priest picked up on it, he showed no signs.
“Indeed,” High Priest Demtri said jauntily. “Very well Captain. Carry on.”
With that the man gathered his robes about it and stalked off to attend to whatever other business he had on the island.
“Captain…” Kast started as soon as the Priest and his escorts were out of earshot. “Forgive me for eavesdropping. I just…”
“You have no need to ask for my forgiveness, Soren.” Bey reassured him. “However, you would do well not to cross paths with Demtri. He is a spider in the guise of a man. Do not trust him.”
“But the Priests serve the Emperor just as we do,” Kast said.
“The Priests serve to further their own ambitions as well as those of the Emperor. More than one proud soldier has become a pawn to their scheming, and almost always with dire consequences.” He placed a reassuring hand on Kast’s shoulder. “Above all, always remember this: You must never let yourself become a monster to serve another’s ambitions.”
Kast nodded somberly. “I understand.”
“Good. You make me very proud, Soren. You turned out to be as fine a warrior and a man as I could have ever hoped, and have even grown to love you as if you were my own son.”
“Captain…” for the first time in a long while, Kast was at a lost for words.
Bey chuckled. “But enough with sentimental words. Come, we have an assault to make and a war to bring to an end. We shall begin our attack at nightfall.”

Overcast skies had welcomed them by the time the sun had set, blocking out the moonlight and shrouding them in darkness, much to the appreciation of the Karnasian’s hiding in the shadow of the mountain. Just before them, the citadel gleamed brightly like a jewel against a murky backdrop, fires burning brilliantly in every room and on evenly spaced torches lining the structure’s protective wall.
After hours of waiting, Kast found himself fingering the pommel of his sword once again, a habit he had picked up whenever he was feeling anxious. Right beside him, a Platoon of eight soldiers also rested as they made the final preparations for the coming battle. They ate cold and in silence, not allowed to cook what could very well be their last meal, for fear of giving themselves away. Such was the nature of the mission.
Kast kept running through their plan in his head and though he could not see him through the lingering dark, he knew that Captain Bey was doing about the same some thirty yards away from him.
The Executors would don the uniforms of the slain Helmaian sentries, using transfiguration magic to assume the identities of the dead men and sneak into the citadel where they would then open the main gate, thus allowing the Karnasian’s to bring in the main of their forces and engage the Helmaian guards. While they were doing that, the Executor’s would then move deeper into the Citadel and find and apprehend King Arathor and then this brutal war would finally be over.
  Yet despite all their careful planning, the Citadel gate still remained firmly closed. It had been hours since the Executors had snuck into the Citadel, with no word from the inside. Their entire strategy hinged on them getting that gate open, but if they had been discovered and killed, then it was all over. They wouldn’t get any second chances.
The soldiers beside Kast all twitched and fidgeted in nervous anticipation. They had to be feeling the same as he did right about now. But just when the waiting seemed to be at its most unbearable, a torched flickered atop the Citadel’s main wall. It waved once, paused, waved back and forth, another pause, and then waved back, forth and then back again. The executors were in position and ready to raise the gate as the Karnasian’s approached
“There’s the signal,” Kast whispered to his men. “Remember, move swiftly and silently or you’ll just be prey for their archers.”
As they approached the wall, Kast could just barely make out the soldiers from the other platoons as they moved across the field, like specters in the night. They kept to the shadows as much as possible and after a few harrowing stops, made it to the base of the wall without incident. Through fate, sheer coincidence, or perhaps even his own design, Captain Bey was right next to Kast as the heavy iron gate clanked open and the Karnasian’s poured in through the opening.
“Soren, take your men and eliminate the archers on the wall. We won’t last long with them shooting at our backsides!” Captain Bey shouted over the clamor of the other troops as they engaged the surprised Helmaian’s.
Sword in hand, Kast looked for a way up to the top of the wall, spotting a corridor off to his left that led to a spiraling stairwell. Kast motioned to his platoon to follow him and they charged up the stairwell and onto the wall. Almost immediately they were met by Helmaian guards, and Kast found himself rolling under a swinging axe that was meant to take his head from his shoulders. 
He came out of the roll awkwardly, his stance off balance and his helm somehow twisting around to partly obscure his vision. Out of the corner of the eye he could still see with, he saw the axe bearing Helmaian bringing his weapon around and up over his head like the executioner at a beheading. More out of instinct than anything else, Kast threw back his elbow, hitting the man hard under his chin and knocking his head back. Before he could recover, Kast brought his own blade around and buried it in the Helmaian’s neck, and the man collapsed dead at Kast’s feet as he pulled his weapon loose.
Another Helmaian charged in at him sword drawn, determined to avenge his fallen comrade. Kast batted the first attack aside and parried the second, then he saw his opening. Lashing out with his boot, he kicked the man midsection and then followed up with a left forearm strike that caught the man in his temple and turned his head around. As Kast charged in to finish him off, the Helmaian attempted to counterattack, swinging his sword wildly over Kast’s head as he ducked under it and rammed his own weapon into the Helmaian’s gut. The man gurgled as he doubled over and Kast felt something hot and wet dribble on the back of his neck, the man’s blood as it escaped from his mouth and ran down the side of his chin. Finally, the man’s legs gave out as his strength left him, and he too joined his friend on the ground, dead at Kast’s feet.
By the time Kast had killed the second man, his eight soldiers had finished disposing of the rest of the Helmaian’s on the wall. Down below, the fighting was intensifying as the Helmaian Guards finally organized and rallied against their attackers. More and more of the blue and gold clad men pouring into the Citadel’s main courtyard with every second. Kast debated about rushing back down the stairs to charge back into the fight, but quickly decided he’d be of better use here, drawing his bow and shooting into the Helmaian’s towards the back of their formation. Seeing what he was up to, the other soldiers on the wall quickly grabbed the weapons of the slain Helmaian archers and followed suit, raining steel tipped death down on the enemy.
Helmaian’s fell by the dozens before they came to the realization that the outer wall was no longer under their control. Kast shot arrow after arrow, firing as fast as he was able, even using those made by the Helmaian’s as he emptied his quiver. There was a shout from down in the courtyard and Kast saw one of the Helmaian’s, an officer from the look of his armor waving towards the wall with a blood drenched sword. Kast’s eyes darted back and forth, trying to find who the officer was waving to, but all of the soldier’s in the courtyard were entangled in the battle. Then he heard a whistling in the air, faint at first but then picking up in volume as he felt the winds begin to stir. 
On the courtyard’s opposite wall, almost directly across from him, Kast saw a man garbed in blue and white robes holding a staff raised high over his head. Kast’s heart rose into his throat as magical energies coalesced into a giant rolling fireball, and it didn’t take long for him to realize that the wall was about to become a very bad place to be.
“Everyone off the wall, now!” Kast shouted to his troops as he bolted for the stairs.
Shouts and warnings erupted from the line of Karnasians as they all dropped their bows and scrambled to get off the wall, the four closest to Kast following him down the spiral staircase even as the others risked broken legs as they simply hurled themselves over the side to fall to the courtyard below, and with a final incantation, the Helmaian Mage released his spell and the wall was engulfed in flame.
Kast emerged from the corridor and surveyed of the scene. Immediately before him lay one of his troopers who was a fraction of a second too late leaping from the wall and had caught the trailing end of the Helmaian mage’s fire spell, lighting his garb afire as he groaned in a semi-conscious stupor from his fall.
“You,” Kast said, pointing to a soldier whose weapon had been lost in the melee, “Put him out.”
“The rest of you, with me,” he said as he drew his sword and waded into the battle. The Karnasian’s had the upper the upper hand for the moment, their surprise attack winning them a favorable momentum that was quickly being stalled as Helmaian reinforcements waded into the battle from the Citadel. But even that was not the most pressing concern that preyed on his mind. The Karnasian’s could trade man for man at this point and still emerge victorious.
And yet that Mage was fast making himself into a real nuisance.
As Kast and his band fought almost shoulder to shoulder, the Helmaian Mage continued to rain Hex and Spell on the Karnasians from his perch atop the wall. Solid blocks of ice fell and shattered as they hit the ground, peppering their legs with frozen shrapnel. Powerful gusts of wind swept up as if from the thin air itself, making the footing treacherous if not impossible as even the very ground seemed to quake beneath their boots.
Kast had just finished dispatching another Helmaian soldier as the Mage unleashed his latest work of magic, conjuring a flock of fiery avians that took flight and dove upon the Karnasians like hawks after a crowd of field mice. Kast ducked as one of the burning creatures nearly took his head off, instinctively shoving his sword upward to cleave the thing in two. The weapon clipped the wing off the conjured creature, severing it as the bird flew past. But Kast’s efforts proved fruitless as the thing merely reformed itself and continued on its path. The other birds proved equally indestructible as the Karnasians tried in vain to bring them down and paid for the distraction with their lives, cut down by the Helmaians they had foolishly turned their back to.
By this point Kast had had enough. The Karnasians were quickly losing the initiative and with the Helmaian Mage distracting them with his spells, they would all be dead within the next hour.
Ducking beneath a swooping dive from one of the firebirds, Kast quickly looted a shield from the body of a dead soldier and strapped it to his arm, silently hoping it would serve him better that its previous owner.
“You two,” he said, pointing to two nearby soldiers who were just finishing off their last opponents, “Watch my back and make sure the Helmaians don’t stick it full of holes. I’m going to take care of that Mage.”
With the two soldiers covering him, he ran to the wall and looked for something he could sue to climb to the top, quickly spotting a thick stretch of rope dangling from the top that would suit his needs well enough. Taking the rope in both hands, he started to climb. Not surprisingly, the Helmaian Mage saw what he was up to almost immediately and directed his conjured firebirds to attack him, but Kast was expecting this and was as ready to deal with them as any could have been, bashing away the first of the fiery avians with his shield as soon as it got within striking distance. The thing disintegrated into a fiery cloud and then reformed again as it moved past him, but already Kast was busy fending off the rest, alternating between defending and climbing as he dug his heels into the wall and hauled himself up the rope. It was slow going, as he had to constantly stop to deflect one attack after another, but he was making progress.
Progress which the Helmaian Mage seemed to be finding unacceptable, calling off his firebirds with a wave of his hand and then raising his staff over his head. As the staff head began to glow, Kast could feel the winds stirring again and he raised his arm, trying to hide as much as his body as he could behind his shield to protect himself from what he was sure was coming. Sure enough, a few seconds later the mage unleashed his fire spell, not at the wall this time but at Kast himself, enveloping the Karnasian in a stream of fire that would have vaporized him instantly were it not for his shield. Even so, he could feel the heat on his arm even through the armor of his gauntlet as the shield’s edges began to glow a dull orange. It wouldn’t hold up for much longer.
And then suddenly, everything went silent and the flames disappeared. Kast’s shield crackled and popped, the orange glow fading as its metal surface cooled, steam coming off it as the moisture in the air evaporated around it. Kast searched for the Mage, his heart racing as he scrambled to find the direction of the spell caster’s next attack.
To his surprise, he found the man standing in the same spot as he had been before, his staff held out in front at arm’s length and a barely visible film of light surrounding him. For half a second Kast wondered what kind of spell the Helmaian might be trying to work against him now, but then he saw it. A slew of arrows shot up from down in the courtyard below, flying at the Helmaian Mage but each failing to find their target as all of them hit the near invisible barrier and bounced harmlessly away.
More arrows were released, also failing to find their target as they struck the mage’s transparent wall, and Kast had to crane his neck to find who was shooting so he could tell them to stop wasting their arrows. Down in the courtyard, a line of archers stood, all of them reloading so they could loose another volley. And at the front of the line stood Captain Bey, knocking an arrow and drawing it back as he sighted on the Mage, catching Kast out of the corner of his eye.
“What are you waiting for Soren?” He yelled up to him, “Go! Quickly!”
Kast did not wait to be told twice, pulling himself up the wall as fast as he could go. The rope was still smoldering from the mages earlier spell, its fibers hot to the touch and burning Kast’s fingers as he climbed but he ignored the feeling and instead focused on his ascent, alternating between using his arms and legs and counting off the rhythm in his head until a few moments later, he had made it to the top of the wall.
Almost immediately he was enveloped once more by the mage’s fire spell, and it was only by sheer luck that he was able to get his shield up and block the streaming inferno. Captain Bey and his archers loosed another volley at the mage to capture his attention, but again the projectiles simply bounced off his barrier and this time the Mage answered their attack, unleashing a wave of air with his hand that crashed into the line of archers and knocked them all several feet backwards.
Kast used this opening to close the distance between the mage and himself, his sword drawn as he charged at the man he intended to kill. But he wasn’t quick enough, as the mage caught him before he had even made it halfway and with another wave of his hand, blasted him away as he had Bey and his Archers. Kast landed hard on his back, his helm slipping off his head as it cracked against stone while his sword skittered off the side of the wall and fell down into the courtyard. Rolling onto his front, he pushed himself up onto his knees before finally standing, his shield held out in front of him to ward off the mages next attack.
Another torrent of fire crashed into the shield like waves upon the rocks, and though by now Kast could not call it a very original means of his demise, its magic had lost none of its potency, forcing him down to one knee with his hand braced against the stone to stop himself from toppling over completely as he tried not to be burned by the flames.
“You were foolish to face me alone,” The Helmaian shouted over the roar of his own spell. “Now you shall pay for your arrogance! Die, Karnasian dog!” 
The jet of fire poured on as Kast’s shield continued to build up heat, globules of molten steel falling upon the flagstones like rain as the heat melted the shield’s outer surface down into liquid. It could do nothing more to protect him, in mere minutes he’d be swallowed by the inferno and his life would end if he did not do something now.
The Mage was determined on killing the Karnasian intruder, concentrating all his will into his magic, focused on reducing his enemy to ashes. So focused was he that he didn’t saw the Karnasian’s arm drawing back from within the flames. Didn’t see it come forward again with the knife held in his fingertips. Didn’t see the blade as it twisted end over end in the air towards its target. And never saw it sailing over his head to find its mark in one of the cables use to transport large basins of water to the upper levels of the Citadel.
The blade bit deep into the sinewy rope, one of three used to connect the basin to the main line, chewing through and severing it as its momentum carried it past. With the cable severed, the basin tipped over and spilled its contents down onto the mage positioned almost directly beneath it. The jet of fire was extinguished, whether put out by the water, or by the Mage’s ruined concentration, Kast neither knew nor cared.
When the spell finally ceased, it left Kast’s shield twisted and warped. The metal had melted into jagged edges, something Kast put to great effect as he bolted for the Mage before the man could utter another spell and rammed the shield into his throat. The jagged edges sizzled and smoked as they tore deep into the man’s neck like a saw, the residual heat from the flames cooking the Mage’s insides before Kast ripped his improvised weapon away.
A geyser of blood from his carotid artery shot out from the wound, drenching Kast’s face and torso as the man fell, twitching as he bled out onto the flag stones. Kast watched until the Mage’s eyes slowly rolled into the back of his head, and when the man had stopped twitching, Kast knew that he was finally dead.
The battle raged on below and Kast could only hope he had been quick enough to kill the mage and that enough Karnasians remained to still accomplish their mission. But then quite unexpectedly there came running a man adorned in the fine robes of a royal adviser to the king, his face panic stricken as he burst out onto a balcony overlooking the courtyard.
“The King is dead!” the man shouted hysterically, bringing a sudden halt to the fighting. “The King is dead! King Arathor has been-” 
But the man’s sentence was cut short as a darkened steel blade erupted from his gut. The Adviser gurgled once as the weapon was pulled from his back before tumbling over the railing, dead before his body hit the flagstones in the courtyard.
Out from the shadows of the balcony’s exit stalked Demtri, the Karnasian High Priest, followed closely by one of his Executors who wiped clean the blood stained blade used to send the Adviser to his death. The High Priest approached the railing and all heads on both sides turned to stare up at him.
“Hear me, Warriors of Helmaia!” The High Priest shouted down into the courtyard. “What the adviser said before his untimely demise is true. Your king is dead!”
Shocked murmurs played across the crowd and from his vantage point, Kast could see multiple heads swiveling from left to right, their owners unsure of what to do.
“You have no more reason to oppose us! No reason to throw away your lives for the dead!” the High Priest continued. “Surrender now, throw down your weapons, and your lives shall yet be spared. Resist and you will be executed immediately.”
“The proud soldiers of Helmaia will not be coerced by the tongue of a vile serpent like you!” One of the Helmaians shouted up to the High Priest, eliciting a chorus of cheers from the rest.
“I offer you a chance to live,” the High Priest argued, his tone of voice going sour.
“You offer lies, and naught else!” the Helmaian countered. “Helmaia will never surrender! If it is our fate to follow our king into death, then we will drag you Karnasian pigs with us into our graves!”
Every Helmaian in the courtyard echoed their agreement and raised their weapons.
“So be it,” the High Priest spat venomously. “Kill them! Kill them All!”
And so the battle raged anew, and Kast watched as every Helmaian was quickly overwhelmed and killed until none were left, massacred down to the last man. An eerie quiet took hold of the battlefield as Kast looked as his now ruined shield, slowly sliding it from his arm before solemnly dropping it beside the body of the dead mage. The battle was over. All that remained now was salvage what they could and then to sort out the fallen.
Kast gave a heavy sigh as he started looking for a way down off the wall.
It was going to be a long night.

By the time Kast had found another stairwell back down into the courtyard, most of the wounded had already been carted away, sparing him from having to listen to the sounds of their agonized screaming. The grounds were littered with the bodies of the Helmaian warriors, and though Kast counted few crimson garbed among them, he knew they could not have gotten off that lucky. Most of the Karnasian’s dead would already have been moved by the time Kast got there.
After retrieving his sword and Helm that he lost in his battle with the Mage, Kast took a quick look around for Captain Bey, and was relieved to find him receiving a report from another crimson armored soldier over by the Citadels massive front doors. The soldier finished making his report as Kast walked over and then moved on to fulfilling his next task. The Captain gave Kast a relieved smile as he stood at attention and saluted, but then his expression turned to one of concern. 
“You’re injured,” the captain said gravely, more of a statement than a question.
Kast felt his brow raise a little, a little confused by what the captain meant. Then he noticed the blood stains on his armor. “Don’t worry. It’s not mine.”
“I see,” the captain replied, his expression again turning to relief. “In that case, excellent work disposing of that Mage, Soren. You saved a lot of lives that would otherwise have been lost, at great risk to your own.”
“For what little good it did, considering the timing of the High priest,” Kast said solemnly. “Do you think its true? Is the Helmaian King really dead?”
“I do not know,” Bey answered. “Though I doubt the King’s adviser would have run out screaming as he did if there were not some grain of truth to it.”
“Then wouldn’t that mean our mission here was a failure, sir?” Kast queried, quite unsure of what to think.
“Success and failure both possess a much broader meaning than the objective of a single mission, Soren.” Captain Bey lectured. “In any case, do not let such things concern you. I plan to ask the High Priest myself about the circumstances leading to Arathor’s supposed demise.”
Just then, the entrance to the citadel began to creek open, prompting both men to look up to the massive doors. Out strode the party of Executors, all of them surrounding High Priest Demtri, who was anything if not smug.
“Speaking of…” Captain Bey said with a tone that lacked enthusiasm. Both men saluted the High Priest as the man came to stop in front of them.
“Congratulations are in order, Captain,” the High Priest praised. “Our forces are Victorious and the Helmaian’s will has been broken.”
“One can hardly blame them, given the circumstances,” Bey replied.
“Yes, a sad thing that,” Demtri agreed, though it seemed half-hearted. “Rather than surrender to us gracefully, the fool instead chose to take his own life.”
“The king killed himself?” Bey questioned, clearly not expecting that to have been the case.
“Of course,” Demtri answered. “Surely you do not think that I or my Executors had anything to do with it, when our mission was clearly to take him alive?”
“No, of course not,” Bey answered, though he was clearly not convinced.
“Oh well, it matters not,” Demtri shrugged. “We have cut the head off the snake, and without its King, Helmaia will soon crumble. In the end, the result will still be the same.”
“The only difference being the number of lives that are sacrificed before we get there.” Bey commented dryly.
Demtri waved him off as if such trivial things did not concern him. “Take your men and search the Citadel,” he ordered the Captain. “Anyone you find is to be executed on sight, is that understood?”
Bey hesitated for the briefest of moments before reluctantly nodding along. “Yes, High Priest.”
The High Priest stalked off, followed by his retinue of Executors, and Captain Bey and Kast stared after them.
“Do you remember what we discussed, Soren,” the captain asked him after a moment, “before storming the Citadel?”
“I remember, sir,” Kast nodded.
“It is my sincerest hope that you will take to heart the words that I spoke back then,” Bey said somberly, before shaking his head. “Gather your men, lieutenant. We have our orders.”
“Yes sir.” Kast nodded grimly. 
With a greater stride that he really felt capable of, Kast gave a weary sigh and then set off gather his platoon before following Captain Bey into the Citadel.
It was going to be a long night indeed.

“He suspects something,” The Executor commented from his place behind the High Priest.
“Of course he does,” High Priest Demtri affirmed as he walked at a brisk pace, his Executors easily keeping step with him. “But it matters little. By the time Jerad Bey realizes the true intentions of this mission, it will already be too late for him to stop us.”
He turned to face his Executors. “Begin with the Preparations.”
“For the glory of the Empire,” They all echoed and then set off to get to work.
The High Priest watched Bey’s soldiers move into the Citadel. With them distracted, his Executors would be able to move about unencumbered and none of them would be the wiser. He smirked at the thought of what was to come before this night was through.
“For the glory of the Empire,” he laughed, and then disappeared into the shadows.

Several hours later, Kast found himself wandering the corridors of the Citadel’s inner sanctum, his torch held high to light his way through the dimly lit space. With the Helmaian’s already routed and executed, he spread his men out in order to cover more ground as they combed through first the structure’s lower levels and then worked their way up, finding a few stragglers here and there who quickly met their end on Karnasian blades, as had been ordered by the High Priest.
The corridors themselves were quite elegant in design, torches lining the walls at regular intervals of about twenty feet on both sides of the corridor, illuminating a floor made of granite tiles so polished that Kast could see his reflection every time he glanced down. In the center of the corridor, the tiles were arranged in a diamond pattern, colored in Helmaian blue with gold borders around the outside, spaced evenly so that the eastern and western points of each diamond ended at the midway points between the torches on the walls.
The corridors were also highly decorated with all kinds of paintings and tapestries collected from all over the world hanging on the walls. There were also a great many stands holding cast iron busts of people whose identities, not surprisingly, Kast did not know. Most, if not all, of the pieces looked like they were older than Kast himself, possibly even older than Captain Bey, and Kast couldn’t even begin to fathom how many years it had taken to collect all of it, let alone at what cost.
It was too bad, Kast found himself thinking, if the Citadel hadn’t already belonged to the enemy, he could fancy himself living in a place like this.
After a few more minutes, Kast came upon a side hall leading off the main corridor. Kast took a quick glance back the way he had come to see if there was another soldier to he could delegate this hall to, but after finding none, he was resigned to do it himself.
In appearance the side hall seemed very much the same as every other corridor he had traveled through that night. More tapestries on the walls, and more busts of people de didn’t recognize. There were also a few doors here and there, which Kast wrote off as guest quarters after taking a quick peek inside. Finding nothing of interest and not wanting to waste even more of his time, he hurried on.
Further down the hall was another set of rooms. Four doors arranged across from each other with two doors on each side. He quickly checked the first door and then the one across from it, but again found only empty quarters, and so he quickly moved on to the third door. But In his haste, he failed to notice the fourth door beginning to creep open directly behind him, and his failure almost cost him his life.
The flames on Kast’s torch flickered as the door was thrown open and out charged a Helmaian with his sword drawn, aiming for the Karnasian’s back. It was only thanks to his quick reflexes that he managed to avoid being stabbed by the blade as he spun around to face his attacker, but as it was, the Helmaian slammed into his side all the same and pushed him against the wall, his torch falling from his hand and dying out as it hit the floor. Kast abandoned any fruitless attempt to draw his own weapon and instead quickly got a grip on the wrist of the man’s sword arm with one hand, while his other hand wrapped around the man’s throat and squeezed. To his credit, the Helmaian fought back valiantly, growling fiercely as he tried to free his sword hand even while at the same time trying to claw out Kast’s eyes.
Kast spun the man around, and with the momentum he slammed the Helmaian’s head into the wall, reeled back and then slammed the man’s head into the wall again, and then once more for good measure and then ran him through with his own blade.
Kast held the Helmaian against the wall until the man stopped twitching and then released him, letting the Helmaian’s body slump to the ground, a vertical trail of blood marking his path. As Kast fought to catch his breath, he was left thinking about what had just happened.
The outcome notwithstanding, that soldier had been no fool. He had waited for the precise moment when Kast would be most off his guard, when he was opening the door. Kast would have been so preoccupied with what was in front of him that he would have paid no thought to what was behind. And it worked, Kast had let himself be caught completely unawares. Just the same, the man had taken a great risk by deliberately exposing himself, trading stealth for the ability to make the first strike knowing it would have been safer for him to have lied in wait and ambushed Kast as he entered the fourth room, instead of the third.
Even if his attack had been successful, he must have known others would soon be upon him, and he couldn’t hope to fight them all by himself. No, there was something about that room, something the Helmaian didn’t want Kast to see, something that made him risk his life to make sure that Kast never got the chance. So what was so important inside that room? What had he been protecting?
Kast drew his sword and cautiously approached the room. The door had somehow rebounded off the wall after the Helmaian charged at Kast, and as a result, had slammed closed again. Even so, with an eerie quiet returning to the hall once more, he could hear quiet sobs coming from the other side. As he pulled the door open again, he found the source cowering over in the corner. There were two of them, a servant woman and a young girl, both of whom were shaking and sobbing in terror with no place to hide in the small room. The servant woman held onto the other girl tightly, shielding her as much as possible with her own body and she tried to choke out what Kast imagined to be a plea for mercy, but failed to find her voice.
Kast wondered for a moment who they could have been, or what kind of relationship they shared with the man whose life he had just ended, but in the end such things didn’t matter. The High Priest had sentenced anyone he came across to death and his order could not be ignored. Kast raised his sword overhead, knowing what he must do, what his duty demanded of him.
The servant woman cowered, choking out sobs as she quietly whispered to the girl to look away. The girl’s eyes were squeezed shut, tears streaming down her cheeks as she buried her face in the servant woman’s chest. She could not have been more than a year or two younger than Kast himself, barely old enough to understand the meaning of war and certainly not old enough to be massacred in one.
As much as he hated to admit, Kast found himself to be at war with his own conscience. Why was he hesitating? His blade had already tasted the blood of countless Helmaians, why should this be any different? But it was. Every Helmaian he had ever killed was a soldier, a warrior trying to take his life, only Kast had taken theirs first. But these women weren’t soldiers, they were just innocent people caught in the wrong place at the wrong time, crouching helplessly before him.
Could he really take their lives?
But he had no choice. The will of the High Priest was absolute. He had to obey or he himself would be executed and even Captain Bey’s loyalty might be called into question. What would the Captain do if he were here? The Captain always had the answers, always knew what to do. But the captain wasn’t here. Kast had to make this decision on his own.
What should I do?
You have your orders. Kill them and be done with it!
But they haven’t down anything wrong!
It doesn’t matter! You’re a soldier! Follow your orders! Kill them!
Why do they have to die?!
They’re Helmaians!
They’re innocent people!
It doesn’t matter! The High Priest sentenced them to die! Even if you spare them now, they’ll never make it out of this Citadel alive. They’re already dead, now put them out of their misery and kill them!
What would the Captain do?
The Captain isn’t here! Kill them!
I…
Kill them!
I…
Kill them!
I…I…can’t…!
Kill them, now!
I can’t…!
…But I must!
You must never let yourself become a monster to serve another’s ambitions.
The Captain’s words resounded in his head like a ripple clearing away murky waters and suddenly he felt at peace again. He lowered his sword. He couldn’t bring himself to do it. The two women looked up at him quizzically, but Kast offered no explanation.
“Have you found something?” a voice suddenly called down the hall, startling all three of them. Kast looked back the way he came and found the Karnasian the voice belonged too standing where the hall branched off into the corridor. Servant woman and girl both looked at him nervously, probably wondering if this man who had just chosen to spare their lives was now about to take them prisoner, but Kast had already made his decision.
“No,” Kast called back, “there’s nothing here.”
With that he slowly closed the door and silently walked away, and as he stepped out into the corridor he couldn’t help but wonder if he had just made the biggest mistake of his life. Oh well, he thought, there was no time to dwell on it. He still had a job to do.
“Gather the rest of the men and meet me at the stairwell,” he ordered the Karnasian who had called out to him. “We are heading up to the next level.”
The soldier snapped off a quick salute and ran off, quickly disappearing around the corner. After he was gone, Kast took one last look back down the hall, silently wondering would become of the servant woman and the girl before night’s end, before following after his subordinate.
Their fate was in their own hands now and that was the best that Kast could do for them. All he could hope for was that the two of them would somehow make if off this island alive, and that his decision to let them live wouldn’t soon come back to haunt him.