Runeblade
B2 Chapter 274: Flight, pt. 1

B2 Chapter 274: Flight, pt. 1

The last ascent to the courtyard felt weighty, every footfall crashing through Kaius’s body.

He knew that each one brought him a step closer to the final barrier to his and his team’s escape—a mirror to the gradual increase in the quality and furnishings of their surroundings.

The militaristic simplicity of smooth hewn stone and simple wardlights faded with every long-stride they ascended—replaced by bevelled edges, and intricate wrought iron light housings.

Tapestries started to line the walls. Delicate and intricate things—the kind that might be found in the abode of a rich merchant, or a lesser noble. Not quite works of unfathomable wealth, but things of refinement—depicting scenes of hunting and battle.

Kaius thought they were rather bland, in all honesty. The kind of thing that carried significant costs due to the labour involved, but held no sense of identity or personal taste—an unaffronting and unassuming presentation of wealth alone.

In all likelihood, it was another layer of security—a way for Old Yon to hide the true nature of this compound behind a veneer of a noble family's private business interest, or perhaps even a holiday home. He knew from his few ‘trips’ above that the building above—the surface level portion of the compound, one he’d only seen on a few occasions thanks to porters making unapproved detours—was very similar to a manor. Albeit, a manor that was close enough in form and function to a fort that it might as well be one.

Returning his attention to the moment at hand, Kaius pushed himself to move faster. Any extra second spent on the grounds of their enemy was a wasted one.

His team was similar in their single-minded haste. Other than the growing clamour of battle, and the thumping of their feet, their ascent was totally silent. He could feel the tense focus in the air—the determination that flowed through his team, visible in set jaws and hard eyes.

“Alright—I've seen only a little of the house above, and even less of the courtyard, so our approach will be slightly less planned than normal.” Kaius started, breaking the silence.

“Do you at least know the way to the front door?” Porkchop questioned, his breath coming in heavy pants.

“Yes, thankfully. It’s barely a corridor away from the end of the stairs. Once we’re in the courtyard, we push hard, and we don’t stop for anything—I'd rather flee a fight we can win if it gets us out a few minutes faster.”

“I fear our leader may have been compromised—the Kaius I know would never run from a fight.” Ianmus wheezed. Of all of them, he had the worst physical statistics, and while the mage’s Magister’s Dash might have let him keep pace with the rest of them, it did little to help his exertion.

Kaius barked out a laugh. “Extenuating circumstances, my friend. Extenuating circumstances.”

Besides, from the hard clamour of steel and blending screams that bounced off the stairways’s stone walls, there would be plenty of battle to have—whether they liked it or not.

The chaos of the melee would make things easier in an ideal world, but he doubted that the reality of the situation would be so kind.

He could already see the path of blood they would have to lay—an ephemeral image that soothed the angst that surged at the thought of being unable to scour the whole compound clean.

“We’re going to rush to the north-east corner and scale the walls. If anyone is worried about not being able to run after we jump off, let me know before we get there. Porkchop, you stay close to Ianmus and Kenva—they’re going to be the worst off in a crush, and you can still open our path forward with your shardwalls.” Kaius said, explaining his plan of attack.

The quicker they could get out of the courtyard, the better. Even if the compound was under a full assault by an unknown horde of beasts, he doubted it was so bad that they would be worse off outside of the walls than within them.

With the poor quality of the men who manned this place, and their anaemic levels, he doubted the assault above was truely world-ending. If their strength was similar to the guards they had slain below, it would only take forty or fifty beasts with the strength of the bone biters they’d fought a few months ago to be a serious threat.

Undoubtedly dangerous, even to them, but not so much a threat that would be impossible for them to escape from.

Still, even if that was the case, they still had to fight their way through the defenders to get to that point.

“Kenva, you focus on counter-archery and mage killing. I want anyone who could hurt us from afar dead before they do so.” he continued.

“Easily done,” she replied, moving in lockstep behind him.

“Ianmus, priority is making sure we don’t die, otherwise help Kenva if you can.”

The mage let out a grunt of acknowledgement—more focused on keeping up with them than speaking.

With their plan set, they continued their ascent.

Rounding the next bend in the staircase, the deep red of the wardlights over them abruptly ended, replaced by a naturalistic yellow as the path out of the earth ended in a well decorated hall.

Kaius entered first, taking the lead as he ran past shelves of painted china and plaques of mounted antlers.

With his team close behind him, he took a sharp right, bursting into a foyer. A high ceiling towered above him, supported by stout oak beams. The room spilled over to his right, ending in a sitting room with a mezzanine above. To his left, a door half again taller than him was flanked by large panes of stained glass.

Stolen novel; please report.

Through them a battle raged, distorted by wavering glass and coloured hues—lit by the bright light of the full moon, and a dozen drenching wardlights. Men by the dozens fought shoulder to shoulder in messy squads—spread across a wide stone courtyard in disarray.

They fought desperately against what could only be described as an army of beasts, every specimen he identified at least level forty, with a few a decent bit stronger than that.

Even seeing a bare strip of the battlefield for no more than a few seconds, Kaius could already count nine different kinds of creatures. All of which had no business sieging what amounted to a fort, let alone working together in harmony.

Wolves, hamstringing men so that their chests could be skewered on the tines of a stag. Raptors diving in orchestrated strafing runs, leaving their targets unable to deal with the rodent-like beasts that sank yellow tinged teeth into soft bellies.

It was unnatural. Uncanny.

Worse, they were organised. This was no uncontrolled mob—the beasts covered for each other. Corralled squads away from their allies with silent precision—leaving them alone and defenceless for more to attack them from a flank.

Tactics.

Kaius came to a dead stop, staring at the sight in sheer disbelief. It was an impossibility, one that left him struggling to reconcile the truth in front of him with his understanding of the world.

The men put up a good fight, but they were ailing. Even with hundreds still engaging the swarm, Kaius could see dozens of bodies littering the earth.

He held no sympathy in his heart for the dead, but the sight of men under siege and laid low by creatures was confronting in a way he had no words for—a tension that clenched his guts in a sickening grasp.

The blackguards of this hellhole might have had the beasts that had scaled the walls outnumbered by three to one, but the strength of man had always faltered compared to creatures with superior natural strength.

He wasn’t alone in his disbelief—his team stood rooted next to him, watching in confusion and horror.

This was wrong.

“Kaius. I can feel something. It’s barely there—like a scent triggering a memory long forgotten, but I can feel it. A will. They’re being controlled.” Porkchop whined, clear discomfort and unease.

Kaius snapped over to his brother, looking at him in shock.

They were under the spell of a Skill? He looked out at the sheer number of beasts—heard a group many times their number screaming in anger outside of the tall stone walls.

What manner of strength could compel such a group? To have such an influence, over so many…he struggled to believe such a feat was within the grasp of even a powerhouse of the third tier.

And why would a beastmaster of such strength attack here? He didn’t know what else it could be—Porkchop had told him long ago that greater beasts were immune to their charms.

There was something going on—something he didn’t understand.

“We…We need to leave, now. This changes nothing, other than making our escape all the more pressing.” Kaius said, swallowing thickly.

“Let’s,” Ianmus agreed, his voice strained. “We need to bring word of this to Deadacre.”

Nodding back, Kaius ran for the door as he shifted his grip on his sweat slicked grip on his sword.

Ripping it open, he exposed himself fully to the chaos that had consumed the courtyard. The manor they left was surrounded by a short waist height wall, separating it from the greater space surrounding it.

Sitting in the centre of the courtyard was a cobble arena surrounded by tall stone walls and easily spanning a hundred long-strides in every direction.

Just like the guard they interrogated had said, the compound sat in a basin—tree filled hillsides surrounding them on all sides.

It might have looked peaceful at any other time, but as Kaius looked northeast, he could see the heaving movement through the branches—a loose and disparate flood of creatures that steadily moved towards the compound, welling up against the tide break that was the walls.

His eyes sharpened. They’d have to adjust their angle of escape—fighting through that many creatures was a fool's errand.

With his sharp eyes, and a quicker mind, Kaius drank in the rest of their surroundings. Men stretched along the battlements, desperately trying to fend off the beasts who continuously tried to scale the defenses. They weren’t always successful—every few moments, Kaius watched some agile specimen leap clean over the heads of the defenders, landing on the floor below to engage the scattered guards who tried to hold the space secure.

Most of the men were milling by the gate to their north.

It had been partially shattered, steel banded oak forced inwards by the assault of some titan. Kaius could just make them out through the holes in the defenses—some giant of a creature that bellowed in a bassy roar of fury—horned head lowered for another charge.

All around it, beasts leapt past its bulk to clamber their way through the hole in the defenses. A large group of black cloaked guards lay in wait—desperately trying to defend the breach as the back line of the regiment faced into the courtyard to ward off the creatures that slipped over the walls.

Among them was a figure that Kaius recognised.

Well dressed, with hair slicked back to their head—the delicate features of the man who had been present for every bout of torture.

“Hold! Hold!” he screamed, flashing forwards in a startling burst of speed to skewer a giant spider with a rapier that glistened brightly to Kaius’s mana sight. A guard was at his right, dressed in thick leathers of some scaled beast, reinforced with chain.

Another elite. They moved with a fluid grace that matched the foppish bastard they defended—dual curved blades like machetes blurring in motion with a speed far beyond the common rabble as they scythed life after life. Almost certainly in the second tier, or on the verge of it.

Shaking himself from his fugue, Kaius snapped his head away from the battle—looking towards the chosen direction of their flight.

He spotted what he was looking for—stairs in the corner of the courtyard, leading up to the battlements.

There was only one problem—a dense scrum of warring beasts and men lay between them and it.

Before he could start to race forwards, Kaius saw an archer at the top of the stares jolt, his eyes locking directly on Kaius. Their brows raised, shocking blue irises standing out starkly as they registered the implication of their non-standard dress.

The archer fell with an arrow in his throat before he could raise his bow, or the alarm, Kenva quickly snapping off a shot as she noticed their reaction.

Unfortunately, her speed or precision mattered little. Out in the open, a dozen other fighters noticed them, cries of alarm spreading quickly.

Kaius cursed under his breath—he’d hoped the chaos would have let them make a bit of headway before their presence was known.

“There!” he yelled, raising his hand to the far off stairs. “We move!”

They ran.