Chapter 10: Free at Last
The stage was set, and there was no going back.
Alain readied himself both physically and emotionally. He knew he was asking a lot of his three companions, especially Garrick, who would bear the brunt of his father's anger if this turned out to be a simple misunderstanding. Even still, he believed in his heart that it would be worth it, because the consequences of being right were too dire to fathom.
No one understands the horror of a demon manifestation, he thought. Not even me.
It had been so long since a demon manifested in the world that demons were considered ancient even by the most ancient of records. But in all the knowledge that had been passed along—and granted, there wasn't much—it seemed that a single warning permeated all of it; it was the singular piece of information that stood out above all others. And it was simple, too.
If even one demon managed to manifest, another would eventually follow.
There is no such thing as one and done!
So now, leading thirty armed guards down the town square in the early morning hours just before sunrise, Alain prepared to raid the pub where Majula was staying. Elsewhere, Denin and Rethi were leading another twenty, and they had been instructed to enter from the rear of the location to cover the back exit.
This was really going to happen. They were really going to do this.
And Alain was nervous.
"I can see the fear in your eyes," Garrick said to him, his low, deep voice contrasting with the consoling smile on his lips. "Stand by your decision, my prince."
"I am," he said. "But if I'm wrong, I'll have done great injustice to a trusted Sorceress of Ostros."
He shrugged as he walked beside Alain. "If she's truly loyal to our kingdom, she'll understand why you had to do this."
"Maybe…"
Marching together with Garrick, the two of them led the guards beyond the stone fountain that Dal had been using a few hours ago to take cover. Far ahead in the distance, the ruins of the watchtower served as a potent reminder of their new friend's destructive power. The smell of smoke still lingered in the air. But Alain put that out of mind. For the time being, his sole focus needed to be on Majula.
Moving onwards, he led the guards beyond the eatery where Dal had claimed he'd worked earlier last night as a dishwasher. It wasn't far from the pub where Majula resided, and in a matter of minutes, the pub came into view. He decided to halt here, about a block away, and address the guards before going any farther. Denin and Rethi would be doing the same.
"For those of you wondering why you're here," he began, "it's because of a disturbing sight I encountered a few hours ago when I was visiting a Sorceress friend of mine." Keeping his voice steady, he continued, "I observed a mother and father in clear distress. And as God above to serve as my witness, I swear that I observed a woman pleading for help."
There were murmurs and gasps from the guards of Bradford, but they soon gave way to nods and reluctant acceptance. Alain had deliberately omitted anything regarding demon summoning or the like, as the last thing he wanted was for the guards to think they were acting on the whims of someone insane or in the midst of a delusion. Thus, Alain had told them something that was both true and believable—even if it did invite obvious questions.
"What do you think is going on in there?" one of the guards, a young man, whispered to his captain as the other guards began discussing this amongst themselves. "What could Majula possibly be up to?"
"I don't know," said the guard captain, a slightly older man who looked to be in his early thirties. "But I trust the prince's word. Clearly, something isn't right in that pub. But more importantly, we have a duty to protect the townspeople, and we cannot ignore a request for aid."
"I bet she's experimenting on them," another young guard said. "Yannil, didn't I always tell you that old bitch was crazy?"
"You did," someone Alain assumed to be named "Yannil" replied with a laugh.
Garrick cleared his throat, and all fell silent. "We should stop speculating," he said. "Whatever is going on, we'll find out soon enough. Until then, try to remember we have no evidence yet that this 'crazy bitch' has done anything wrong, and until we do, remember you're speaking about a trusted ally and Sorceress of Ostros."
Quickly muttered apologies followed, and Alain nodded. Then, with as much warning in his voice as he could muster, he added, "But also keep in mind that Majula is extremely dangerous, so do not let your guard down for even a moment."
Upon those words, a sense of nervous anxiety could be felt in the air, having become palpable. They weren't attempting to arrest just anybody this morning. They were going to arrest a high-level Sorceress: a woman who was a member of a tier-3 Battle Class that she'd all but mastered. But Garrick, who had lived through more bloodshed than just about anyone, had quickly come up with a plan.
And it began now.
Suddenly, all the lights on the street turned off, as did the lights on the adjacent street where Rethi and Denin were waiting for just such an occurrence to serve as a signal. Now, they were submerged in darkness. And with that, Garrick at last gave the order. "Go, go, go!"
Two guards, both members of the Soldier class, raised large shields and began sprinting down the street and towards the home while six more lifted their swords and followed very closely behind. Alain and Garrick stayed close to them both. The others began spreading out and encircling the pub while guards with bows crouched down in the middle of the street, nocked their arrows, and covered the windows, ready to fire if needed.
"Breaching," the guard captain said as, with a loud, crunching bang, he slammed his shield into the pub's front door, knocking it off its hinges. Then he, along with the five others, moved into the pub and disappeared inside, their bodies vanishing out of sight. Alain, holding his breath, watched as another five men darted inside behind the initial six.
"Let's go, Garrick," Alain said.
"Yep."
Drawing his blade, which glowed with the light of holy magic, Alain raced inside the dark pub as another bang rang out somewhere in the distance; this, he took to be the sound of Denin and Rethi making their way in through the back. The sound of their feet slamming down onto the wooden floorboards joined the existing clamor as voices began shouting out.
"Majula! You are under arrest! Tell us where you are right now!"
Alain made his way farther into the pub as the shielded guards ran in straight lines that caused tables to knock over, glasses to shatter, and bottles to fall out of cabinets. In just a matter of moments, the entire pub was swarming with guards. Yet amid all of this, Alain could see no sight of Majula, the young girl, or of the parents he'd spotted in here a few hours ago.
"Check the cellar!" Garrick shouted out, pointing to a door that was slightly ajar.
"Understood, Lord Ashmere!" the guard captain responded. With that, he and five of his men stormed their way down the stairs, their boots loud against the flooring. "Over there!" the captain shouted. "There's something there!"
There were more footsteps from below, more shuffling sounds, and then, abruptly, the noises just…stopped. They simply stopped. What followed were several seconds of confusing, agonizing silence. Alain looked at Garrick, and Garrick looked at him, and he could tell they were both asking themselves the same question: what was happening? Why had the guard captain fallen silent?
But then there was a shout: a horrified, urgent shout.
"Your Highness!" the guard captain screamed. "You must come down here at once! Oh, God. My God!"
Alain didn't need to be told twice. He took off towards the stairs, and so too did Garrick, Denin, and Rethi, the two rejoining them. But Rethi paused just a moment to politely shove back a guard following behind her. "There's not enough room for any more of us," she said. "You and your men wait here."
"Understood, ma'am!" he said, saluting her.
With that, the four of them descended as fast as they possibly could. And before they'd even reached the bottom, Alain knew that he was about to see something horrific. He could tell from the fresh vomit all along the floor at the base of the steps. Whatever he was about to see had been enough to make either the guard captain or one of his men puke up their dinner.
And as Alain entered the cellar, he now saw why.
"Oh, God," he whispered, his mouth falling open in shock and disbelief.
"Have mercy, God above," Denin said as he appeared beside Alain.
Rethi, rarely one to become rattled, covered her mouth and dropped her staff.
But Garrick merely made a low, guttural groan and said, "You three should go back upstairs and let me handle this alone."
"No," Alain said, shaking his head. "I won't turn from this."
"If you insist, my prince…"
The sight was horrific—no, it was beyond horrific. Alain knew he would never be able to get it out of his mind as long as he lived. For in the middle of the cellar, there was a pentagram that appeared to be drawn in blood, and in the middle of this pentagram were the body parts of what looked like four completely separate individuals, Majula included, though it was difficult to tell as they were all mixed in together. A woman's foot was on top of a man's severed head, and a young girl's spinal column was beside an assortment of thumbs and other fingers.
Four bodies, all mutilated—in so many different pieces that they looked like discarded scraps. The blood was everywhere. It was on the walls, the floor, and even the low ceiling hanging above. Some of it had dried, but most of it was fresh, such as the blood that was still draining from a male leg that had rolled outside of the pentagram and contained what appeared to be bite marks.
Whatever Majula had done, it had not only backfired, but it had backfired to such an extent that she appeared to have died a painful, terrifying death along with the poor souls she'd dragged into this.
"What in the name of our great God above has happened here?" the guard captain asked, shaking. "What could have caused this?"
Alain swallowed nervously. He looked at Garrick. "What does this mean? Were we too late?"
"I don't know, my prince."
********
"Be gentle with him," Dal said as Poko was removed from the cell. By some miracle, a lion tamer happened to be staying in town this very night, and he'd been rushed over here. He was a tall, mustached man who looked back and forth between Dal and the guards accompanying him with outrage and disgust.
"This is how you treat such a majestic creature?" he shouted angrily at the guards. "You stuff it into a tiny cage and abuse it! And you," he said with a scowl, walking over to Dal's cell. He then spat in Dal's face, causing the guard to warn him and shove him back.
"No, it's all right," Dal said. "He's right. I never should've, uh…I never should've gotten drunk with my lion."
"That's right!" the man scolded, admonishing Dal for his made-up actions. "And you have the gall to call yourself a lion tamer? What kind of lion tamer gets their lion arrested! I've never seen that happen before! How irresponsible do you have to be to get arrested with your lion?"
"I'm a bad man," Dal confirmed with a sigh. "Just please give Poko a good home."
"I have an estate where he will live a free, happy life. Away from…from you," he said angrily. Then he clapped his hands. "Come, Poko! Happiness awaits." And with that, the lion obediently followed behind his new tamer as the guards escorted the two of them out of the above-ground dungeon that people here seemed to refer to as a "jail."
"That really was fucked up of you," another guard said to him as he began closing the cell door, locking Dal inside.
And just like that, a jolt went straight through Dal's heart. Because, in this moment, it occurred to him that this guard had no idea why Dal was actually in here. In fact, none of these guards did. This meant that the prince and his cohorts, having been so preoccupied with whatever thing it was they were dealing with, had not apprised the guards from the incoming shift change of the current situation.
He actually believes that I'm in here for alcohol-related offenses, Dal thought, becoming excited. This could be my chance!
"Uh, wait! Excuse me!" Dal called to the guard just before he fully closed the cell door.
"What is it?" the guard asked him.
Dal averted his eyes, looked at the floor, and made a sorrow-filled expression. "I just lost my lion," he said. "My only means of earning gold! My mom is never going to forgive me. Things are going bad enough at home. Can you please just let me go, sir? My parents are probably worried sick about me."
The guard, an older man with silver hair, frowned at him. "Actions have consequences, kid. You should've waited until you were older to get a lion if you wanted to go out drinking all night." He sighed. "What's your name, anyway?"
"It's Dal, sir. Dal Rineloch."
The guard hesitated, and he almost seemed like he was going to consider letting Dal go, but then another, much younger guard quickly approached him. "What the hell are you doing, Hecre? That's the guy we were chasing around all night. The one who shot an arrow at Gil in the alley! Are you insane? You're thinking of letting him out?"
The older guard paused. "Wait, that was him?"
"Yeah, obviously."
Dal, acting quickly, said, "Are you two talking about that kid with the bow?"
"Y-yeah, actually," the younger guard said. "Isn't that you?"
Dal turned his head to the side as though he were confused. Then he ran both his hands from his shoulder to his waist, gesturing at his outfit. "Do I look like a member of the Soldier class capable of using a weapon? The kid you're talking about left with the prince right before you guys changed shifts. He was in the cell next to mine."
"Oh, right," the younger, more skeptical guard said.
The older guard then slapped the younger one playfully on the back of the head. "What's gotten into you? We literally just saw this young man's lion get confiscated."
A third guard approached. He, like the other two, was part of a changed shift, which gave Dal exactly the kind of opportunity he needed to confuse them. This third guard, also fairly young, said, "I'm just catching up on our prisoners for tonight." He was holding a clipboard with a bunch of papers attached. He began flipping through them. "I don't see a Dal Rineloch listed on here."
"That's because I was arrested right before you got here, and the guards were too busy dealing with some bow-wielding maniac to pay me much mind." Dal extended his arm and pointed off to his left in a hypothetical direction. "I was the guy in that nice pub near the town square who got arrested with my lion. We were actually supposed to perform on stage together."
"On stage?" the youngest of the three guards asked. "That must be Ulana's pub."
"Yeah, that's the one," Dal said, nodding. In truth, he had no idea such a pub even existed, and he was just allowing them to fill in the blanks.
"So, what happened to you?"
Dal again put on a remorseful, sorrow-filled expression. "Well, I had a little bit too much to drink, and I got into a fight with some jerk who threw beer at my lion. Then they arrested me and my lion and stuffed both of us in this cage."
The older guard scowled. "That was really irresponsible of them. Do you happen to know the name of the guard who arrested you, son? What he did was dangerous and stupid."
Dal shook his head. "He didn't give me a name. But everyone in here at the time was upset about it."
"Yeah," the old guard, Hecre, said, "you don't just go throwing a lion in with a human. The fuck is wrong with some people? I've been a guard in Bradford for over forty years, and this is the first time I've ever had to call in a lion tamer. Whoever arrested you owes you a huge apology. You never should've been put in here with the lion. I can't tell if this is the result of incompetence or some sick prank, but you can bet I'll be filing a report on it."
The other two guards nodded. Then, all three began to talk softly among themselves. "The kid's suffered enough," Hecre whispered. "And they didn't even fill out his paperwork properly. We should just let him go with a warning. He's already lost his lion."
"I agree."
Finally, Hecre inserted a key into the outside of the cell and slid it back open. "All right, you can go home to your parents, son, but don't ever let us catch you in here again. Now, go on. Get out."
"Thank you!" Dal said, bowing before the guard. "Thank you so much."
"Yeah, yeah. Just get out."
Dal again thanked the guard and hurried down the hallway lined with cells on both sides. With each step he took, he became more and more paranoid that someone was going to attempt to stop him on his way out.
But no one did, and so he left. Finally, he was free.