Nathan, found Jenna shortly after waking from the few hours of sleep he had grabbed. She was stepping out of the tent they had procured for Jones brushing a lose bit of hair from her face she started toward him.
“The counsel?” she asked
“Nope they’re meeting after we get back from the Prince.” he replied.
She shrugged and fell in step beside him as they made their way down to the main encampment.
“How is he” Nathan asked referring to Jones
“As good as can be expected. he did awaken yesterday and the injuries you gave him before pulling him back almost killed him. He’ll be able to travel in the three days you promised the prince. Fighting though may be another matter.” she said as they spotted the Prince’s tents.
They walked in and waited, the Prince was glaring at the general and the General was doing the same. The prince seemed to sag. “Fine, but this had better not lose me any men. you promised it wouldn’t, and if your wrong well lets just say a wont make the same mistake twice.”
the General shrugged “why not have them do it” the man said nodding toward Nathan and Jenna still waiting next to the tent flap. “with all the things I hear of them they will make it out fine with the job completed far easer than any of the others.”
The prince looked contemplative, then nodded. “True. Nathan please come in, as you have herd we have a job for your… people.” he said.
His eyes flickering toward Jenna and back to Nathan. “The general tells me that the easiest and quickest way to win this war would be to… assassinate the usurpers. Most of whom are gathered in Reichstadt. The capital city. But there are others on different towns. It will take at least five different groups to complete this. If you say no then its no but… Reichstadt is well protected and the other cities will be as well. Losing men on a battlefield is one thing but this is…another thing entirely.”
Nathan stood his gut Turing to ice with each word the prince said. “As you say, it is… another thing entirely from killing on a battlefield… we will at the very least discuss it, I can make no promises but we will decide one way or another with in two hours time.” Nathan told him mulling things over in his mind.
Jenna spoke up. “It would perhaps, be best for your side if you propose the idea yourself. Explanations will be required but which ever way the decision goes it will go faster if you come.”
the Prince looked at the general who shrugged. “ I’ll come then, lead on.” the prince said.
Jenna nodded and lead the way out with Nathan following close behind, and the prince behind him. “What’s going on?” he asked Jenna keeping his voice low.
“Just play along, we have a plan for something like this.” she replied and quickened her pace.
The prince didn’t speak until they were out of the camp. “Ah I always wondered why I could never find you guys when I looked.” Jenna and Nathan said nothing.
When they reached the counsel the prince stepped in front of Nathan and spoke “I need…”
Emily held up her hand cutting him off. “You sill speak when asked to. Jenna, you feel there is sufficient reason for this?” Jenna nodded.
Nathan followed Jenna to the others of the counsel and they formed a semicircle facing the Prince.
“What is it you ask of us?” John asked.
“When you joined me you said that you would fight with me to take back my throne. You have done well but another obstacle stands in the way. The General has informed me that the leaders of the coup are hiding in some of the strongest fortresses ever built. Our army would be dashed across the walls of the weakest one so our plans turned to assassination. Even the best of my men would die either trying to complete their… objective or die escaping. So we need you to do it. With your skills you would have the best chance of making it out alive with your target killed.” the prince said stepping back and sagging a little.
James turned to Nathan and Jenna “your opinion?”
“Both Nathan and I agreed to bring it before you… we will help him.” Jenna said.
The others nodded “we will help then.” Elaine told the prince.
The prince straightened. “There are five places you need to go. One of you would be best for each, accept for Reichstadt, most of them are there. The other cities only have one target each.” the prince said.
Nathan and Jenna spoke at once “I will go to Reichstadt.” they glanced at each other and looked back at the prince.
John shrugged. “I’ll go to the next place then.” he said.
“I would be the most in the way of us all, so I’ll stay and take care of things here.” Karin said as it came around to her.
Nathan shrugged “your choice I suppose.” as each of the others turn came they all agreed to be sent out as well.
“Thank you all, you have saved many men today. I will send a scout with maps when I get back to camp.” he said and bowed his head before turning to leave.
“Will this finish your war?” Jenna asked.
The prince stopped but didn’t turn “I hope so.” he said and continued toward the camp.
Karin went off to the others to tell them what had happened and the rest of the counsel stared off into space, considering what they had just decided to do. A man on horseback rode in bringing them from their thoughts. The scout called off names of cities and one by one they left. Reichstadt was the last one called and perhaps the furthest from the camp. After quick examination of the map, Nathan and Jenna set off toward their targets.
They arrived at an Inn after a days travel. Both had put on the grey cloaks they wore around most humans. Nathan requested a room and gave the man one of the sticks of gold left over from their flight form the organization. They settled into the room quickly, with so little to unpack. They hung up their cloaks and placed their claymores next to where they planned to sleep. Jenna claimed the bed and sat, her head resting against its backboard, while Nathan closed his eyes and leaned back against the wall against the wall. Tomorrow they had work to do.
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Nathan woke up to the distinct ‘shunk’ of a claymore being placed in its holder. He stood placing his own blade in place and flinging on his cloak to match Jenna as she stood in the doorway hood raised and ready to go. They left the Inn quickly and made their way through the bustling streets. Hearing shouts from over the noise of the crowd and were forced back to the edges of the street as a horseman rode by shouting for all to make to the palace and hear the nobles speak.
Nathan and Jenna let themselves be drawn along with the crowd all moving toward a specific location now. After a long, slow, jostling, walk they made it into a large square sitting before a large gray palace hung every were with red banners with eight stars in a circle. The square was packed tight with people some pushing against the protruding raised stage leading off of the palace. They waited as more were squeezed into the already tight area.
Finally six richly dressed men walked out onto the stage with a rising cheer from the crowd. The largest one walked forward raising his hands high above his pudgy face.
“You have all herd it said that the old prince has chosen to return here to enslave you once more. He comes, Yes he comes! But we will not let him into our city. We will hold it strong!” he shouted as the crowd cheered his every word.
The man turned with his fellows and retreated into the palace. Nathan nodded toward the building and both he and Jenna worked their way against the crowd toward their targets. Upon entering Jenna requested an audience with the nobles. The servant who greeted them lead them to a small sitting room where they were to wait for the answer to their request. They both leaned against the walls and waited.
“Do you think they were lying, the nobles I mean. their speech to the crowd was very directly opposing the prince’s point. I’ve herd it said that when two people say opposite things are true one is lying. Which do you think it is Nathan?” Jenna asked, trying make small talk to pass the time.
Nathan shrugged, “Probably the nobles but it doesn’t really matter I guess, its nothing that will effect us getting what we were promised. If the prince tries to back out. Well, we can take what we want by force.”
Jenna nodded “yeah I guess that from that line of thinking it all works out. To our advantage at least… say what will we do when we do get our ‘home’.”
Nathan shrugged again. “What humans do I suppose, from some sort of village or something and live how we chose.”
Jenna laughed. “Humans start families in those villages, some how I doubt we will. I mean would you?”
Nathan drew back into his hood and thought a moment before replying. “I don’t know, we are human to the same faults. I can’t say that I won’t some time in the future feel the need for such a thing but I can say that unless things change, its probably not going to happen. What about you then? Since you are so keen to have me answer the question.”
Jenna tilted her head back and looked at the ceiling. “I wonder…” she said quietly, trailing off.
The servant came back a while later and beckoned them to follow. Keeping their heads down and hoods up they were lead to a huge room filled with draperies and tapestries. They were lead down a wide thick red carpet to a raised area where the six nobles sat in high backed thrones.
“What is it you come for?” one asked.
Nathan and Jenna brought their heads up, letting the hoods fall aside, and looked into the eyes of the nobles. Before either of them could move men poured in from adjoining rooms reacting to their lords suddenly shaken faces. Even with the arrival of their men they still looked shaken
“Kill them!” shouted one of the nobles his voice quavering slightly.
Jenna rushed the platform and Nathan turned already spinning his sword through on of the guards. He herd screams of guards caught in Jenna’s way and turned toward the platform to see the fleeing forms of their targets dashing into a hallway behind the thrones as guards kept Jenna‘s path barred.
Nathan broke away somersaulting over one guard and bringing his sword through the head of another bisecting the man. Jenna was just behind him as he raced down the short passageway. The room beyond was smaller but even more decorated than the throne room.
All six nobles stood shivering behind ten bodyguards each carrying two swords. At first he passed his gaze over the bodyguards watching the nobles when he looked again. There were three women in the bodyguards carrying the same swords as the men. That was the least unusual thing about the group however. They were all a pasty white almost like snow but there eyes were a deep red that stared seeming to have no pupil, iris, or white, just red orbs set into a human skull. The nobles seemed to recover slightly seeing their assassins pause. “Berserkers, kill!” said the one who had given the order last time.
All ten rushed him and Jenna at the same moment their eyes going wide and their swords springing to hand the instant the order to kill was given. An odd sound accompanied a running almost like the wind but didn’t carry and grew harsher until it was as close to a scream of rage that could come from such a voice.
Nathan’s sword spun cutting down toward ones head but the man dodged almost completely but losing a good strip of muscle all the way down his arm causing him to drop that hand’s sword. The man kept coming not even seeming to notice beyond shifting his weight slightly to a one sword attack style as two of his fellows went for Nathan’s throat. Nathan ducked under their leaps and cut up over his head as they went by cutting one in half and loping of the others foot.
Nathan rolled to the side as another came low trying to tackle him as he was crouched. The other one charging him slashed at him in mid roll cutting deeply across his back and arm. The one who’s arm he had cut almost in half threw one sword at him as he completed the roll and came at him with the one from his almost missing hand. Nathan spared a glance toward Jenna who was similarly entangled with blood running from her shoulder and two of her attackers down. One missing his head and the other missing her legs with a hole in her back.
Nathan met the charge of the two healthy ones facing him by jumping to one side and flicking the tip of his sword forcing his current opponent to block high as he ran forward faster than his opponent could backpedal letting his trialing sword cut almost all the way through the pale man leaving a huge cut from his left shoulder almost to his right hip.
Nathan’s second healthy opponent jumped backwards as the one whose foot he had severed earlier somehow threw her self at him both swords ready to impale him. He somersaulted back to a spot clear enough for him to have some time to use one of his sword techniques. He let the blood in him boil almost to the point where his mind went over the edge and shunted all the power into his shoulder mussels.
His next strike started high and cleaved its way through part of the stone ceiling above him and through the floor below him causing the dust from the ceiling debris to cover the rent in the floor. His one healthy opponent was in midcharge when he tripped over the ruined floor and fell on Nathan’s waiting claymore.
One foot leaped at him again hollow cry seeming almost forced now. Nathan dipped low and let her go over him and impaled her as she landed. He turned to the last one facing him ready to strike should the man charge. The man stared into Nathan’s eyes and turned to a hallway off to one side that Nathan hadn’t noticed before. He let lose with a long howl that like their war charges didn’t seem to have any resonance at all but something down the corridor herd him.
The man turned back to face Nathan and seemed almost to smile as he rushed him sword down in a stance it would be impossible to guard from. Nathan ran the charging man through and lowered the blade to let the man slide off. The man reached up with both his good and half gone hands and pulled himself up the claymore’s long edge. The man came to the hilt right in front of Nathan’s face and spoke one word hardly discernable from the way his voice was. “Now you die.” was all he said as he fell from the sword into a bloody heap on the ground.
Nathan turned to the hallway and saw two more of the bodyguards standing there. One man and one woman. Both of these wore three swords instead of two as the others had. Their eyes were white and bloodshot looking as if white glass had cracked red.
Both of the newcomers drew a single sword and rushed forward. Jenna came from the side and intercepted the male stabbing at the man as quickly as she cold but only meeting air. The woman charging turned toward Jenna sweeping low at the back of her legs. Nathan jumped over the woman and landed behind Jenna in a crouch parrying the woman’s crippling sweep.
Nathan looked up to see the mans blade coming down at his head and felt the woman shift her stance pushing his sword up. He saw the woman’s stance shift again and her foot flash out toward his legs trying to trip him while all his weight was on her sword as he herd Jenna’s sword catch the mans somewhere over his head.
He turned his claymore so the flat was against the edge of his opponents sword and twisted his wrist cutting most of the way through the foot aimed at his legs and letting his weight cause him to tumble forward onto the woman’s sword feeling it cut through a large part of his abdomen as he rolled bringing his sword up over his head as he did so, letting it slash into her skull as he completed the roll. He turned to see Jenna trading blows with the man pushing him back toward the wall. Nathan stood ignoring the missing muscle and walked forward toward the man still fighting.
The man glanced toward his dead comrade once and let lose a scream of fury chilling Nathan with its similarity to that of a warrior at their limits. The man slashed at Jenna bouncing right off her claymore but with out pause second and third strikes followed both occurring almost faster than Nathan could track the third cutting through Jenna’s left shoulder severing her arm.
Nathan felt his blood boil again this time without his control and he felt Jenna’s do the same. He let it flow into his right arm as Jenna did the same letting their blood rule their sword arms as their swords sought flesh, sometimes clashing off the others blade in the search. The man managed to block a few of the slower slices but was staggering bleeding from cuts all over his body with in a second and was dead in a pile hardly recognizable as human remains for all the blood. The nobles where in a similar state with lighter patches showing where the once brightly colored robes had covered their bodies hadn’t been completely blood stained.
Nathan let his sword drop from his hands as he let his yoma blood flow through out his body healing where ever it went even repairing the muscles in his abdomen that he was holding now against his chest with both hands. Jenna was in much better condition the cuts she had taken had already healed over and even the blood had disappeared for the most part and her arm was well enough attached for her to move. She knelt next to him feeling his yoma side reaching for him mind as it ran through him healing him, promising him unlimited power for giving in. He felt her hand on his shoulder as he released more of his control to it in order to replace the muscle that he hadn’t managed to pull back to his chest.
Finally he stood feeling the hand on his shoulder slide off as he did so. They both walked out into the great hall expecting guards inside ready but were met with silence. They continued through the halls of the palace and where near the room they had waited in when they herd the first shouts of fighting. They both ran toward the source, stepping out into the square, into chaos.
People were streaming from the surrounding streets rushing at the palace square where the city guard had erected barricades and where holding them back using the butt of a spear or the flat of a sword. One of the guards turned around and saw Nathan and Jenna standing at the entrance. “It’s the assassins! kill them!” the man screamed. Several of the other guards took up the shout as well and ran toward them. The crowd saw them too and pressed over the barricades flowing around the few guards left defending them.
A shrill scream cut out over the roar of people, a death scream. Every one fell silent for a second and a ring cleared around a guard who was quivering almost as much as the thin man he had put his spear through. The man fell from the point of the spear and writhed on the ground blood running from the wound, people stepped back for a moment and seemed to draw a collective breath.
The crowd roared again, louder this time, as they ran as one piling over the guards in some places, beating them to death, while others where met with spears or swords as steel flashed, coming away red as often as it disappeared beneath the mob. Nathan looked over at Jenna who shrugged and pointed toward the edge that looked to have the least amount of people pouring over it.
Nathan nodded and they made the most of suddenly being ignored. They moved as fast as they could, slightly blood stained cloaks flapping behind them as they ran, on rooftops more often then in the crowded streets, out of the city.