Chapter 29: Fury

Brian told them what they needed to know. He had no choice.

The tunnel was real — he had found it as a child, playing in the collapsed section of ground east of the current castle site. The original castle had stood in a different location; when they’d broken ground for the foundations, the earth had given way into an underground cave. The builders had relocated the structure. Most of the old sewers had been destroyed in the collapse, but a few sections remained, sealed and forgotten and — as Brian had discovered at age nine — not entirely disconnected from the new castle’s water system. His father had beaten him for it and warned him that trespassing in a lord’s castle was a hanging offense. He had never gone back.

He had talked about it. At dinners, drinking evenings, the kind of night where you tell the stories that make you seem interesting. He had said: I could walk into the castle without anyone knowing. He had said it perhaps twenty times over ten years, and each time he’d meant it as a boast, harmless and distant.

Now Fierce Scar had his sword at Brian’s back and the boast had become the price of the night.

The abandoned well was where Brian remembered it: in the middle of the collapsed section, hidden under a decade of encroaching vegetation. The waterway beneath it had changed since his childhood — narrower, the cut vines and vine growth choking what had been a spacious passage. The man with the torch and hatchet went first, clearing a path. Brian walked third. Fierce Scar walked fourth, close enough that Brian could feel the sword at his belt without the sword touching him.

He thought about Greyhound the whole way.

They had been children together before the town was what it was. They had played in these tunnels together, in fact — Greyhound had been present the day Brian found the well connection, had held the torch while Brian lowered himself down. When Brian had proposed joining the patrol, Greyhound had followed because Brian asked him to. He had always followed Brian. And the others had voted Greyhound captain because it was an honor with no substance behind it — a captain stayed in town during the Months of the Demons to light the alarm fires, which was a job for someone they didn’t want to risk their own skin on.

They let you do it because why should I do such a dangerous task?

Fierce Scar had said this with the expression of a man sharing a joke.

Brian walked and let the rage find its shape. Grief was a disorder; rage had a geometry. He knew its dimensions by the time the sound of running water reached them, by the time the tunnel opened into the wider junction and the man with the torch looked up at the shaft overhead and said: no road forward, just the mouth of the well.

He looked up. Night sky, a small circle of stars.

Fierce Scar tested the edge of the wellhead with a grappling hook, found it solid, and went up first. The others followed. Brian last. When he climbed out into the castle garden he could see the castle itself directly in front of him — not in the distance anymore.

Fierce Scar grabbed his arm. “Warehouse. Lead us.”

They moved through the courtyard with the small torch barely illuminating their feet. The corridors inside were dark; the oil lamps had been extinguished for the night. Brian’s eyes adjusted. He knew the layout from old memory, from the one visit he’d made years ago when a friend of his father’s had worked in the castle kitchen. He catalogued what he saw: width of the corridors, the branching, the stair down to the basement.

At the fork, he moved.

Not toward the warehouse. Down the stairs.

He had perhaps two seconds before they registered the deviation. He used one of them to reach the bottom of the stairs. He used the other to put the first man’s back against the wall and the third man’s face against the floor before either one had time to shout.

In the dark and the narrow space, seven-against-one had the wrong geometry. They could only come at him one or two abreast, and Brian had been training his swordsmanship for years — alone, methodically, in the kind of committed daily practice that the rest of the patrol had found laughable. He had not found it laughable. He had found it necessary.

When Fierce Scar reached the bottom of the stairs, two of his men were not moving. Brian was standing in the center of the corridor with a borrowed sword, waiting.

“Seven against one,” Fierce Scar said. “You have no chance.”

Brian said nothing. He raised the sword and slashed, fast and diagonal. Fierce Scar parried but did not fully recover before the tip crossed into his shoulder — not deep, but through. The scarred man stumbled back with a sound of pain.

The man behind him stepped forward. Brian adjusted and held the center.

He was not going to call for help. Not yet. He had something to do first.

Chapter 29 Fury

The Castle in Border Town hadn’t always stood in the place it stood now.

When they laid the foundation for the first castle, the ground collapsed due to an underground cave. Because of this, the Castle position had been moved.

The already excavated sewers were mostly destroyed in the collapse, and some parts were still intact, but these parts were also discarded because of the relocation and redevelopment of the castle.

When Brian was still young, he often played in these underground tunnels, and one day he accidentally found a route from an abandoned well outside the castle wall that directly lead to a well in the castle garden. Brian told the news of this discovery to his father, but he got a severely beating in return. His father also warned him that trespassing into the lord’s castle was a capital offense, in the case that he was found it could only end with a journey to the gallows.

Through this Brian was frightened for his life and never went into the old sewers again. However, when people get together they will start to drink and chat, and during such occasions he had repeatedly boasted about his own ability to have direct access to the castle. Now he was extremely regretting it.

The entire town’s patrol apart from Greyhound were nine men. In other words, Fierce Scar had convinced the entire town’s patrol – and they were now working for Duke Ryan, who was in control of the western part of the kingdom. Furthermore, the rewards were so good, that presumably only very few people could withstand this temptation.

The abandoned well was in the part of the place which collapsed in the beginning, and it was still a wasteland even today. Fierce Scar ordered Brian with his sword to lead the way, and during the whole time on their way to the

well Brian was caught in the middle of the group. The fairly spacious waterways he could remember from his childhood had now become very narrow. Because nobody went through this way, the water diversion had dug many holes in which have grown many vines.

The guy who stabbed Greyhound was leading the way at the forefront and holding a torch, in the other hand he held a hatchet to clear the way of all obstacles.

While Brian pretended to recall the road, in the bottom of his heart, he secretly thought on a way to escape.

But for such actions this was clearly a very inconvenient place, here he had no possibility of escaping. Only in the castle, there was the possible to obtain a slim chance. But how should he do it? Should he cry out loud to lead His Highness’ guards to them? No…no that was a bad idea, Fierce Scar only had to raise his hand and he would be able to take Brian’s own life, he had to get away from him, otherwise his fate would be like that of Greyhound.

When thinking about Greyhound, Brian’s eyes became somewhat gloomy.

Before Border Town had been established, he and Brian himself were already living here. They grew up and played many times together, and even joined the town’s patrol together, which was Brian’s idea. Greyhound had never expected that he himself would be elected as captain of the patrol.

Brian had been happy for him for a long time, but because of his stuttering, Greyhound had suffered much contempt. But today, he finally had the chance to be recognized – at last an opportunity arrived, thought Brian.

But when Greyhound went down and Fierce Scar snarled towards Brian, Fierce Scar sarcastically told him directly to his face the true reason why everyone elected Greyhound as captain.

“Fool, he was elected because an important job of the captain is to stay behind during the Months of the Demons and take care of things, like igniting the flames to ring the alarm.

We let you do this, because why should I do such a dangerous task? “

This sentence was like a sharp knife, directly stabbing into Brian’s ear.

So those who modestly declined when they got the offer for promotion… Those congratulations words were so false, their true reason was so ugly. He showed a look of shock and despair across his face, to cover up the raging anger within his heart. This was simply inexcusable, Brian secretly raged, someone must pay the price for this!

After walking for half an hour through the dried sewer, the crowd finally could hear the sound of flowing water.

This meant that they weren’t far away from their destination.

After they turned around a corner, the front was suddenly a lot more open and bright, the open place could accommodate two people standing side by side. The person moving in front of the group said, “There is no road ahead, it’s the mouth of the shaft.”

“What now?” asked Fierce Scar while poking Brain with the sword.

“Tell him to look up,” Brian narrated, “We have finally arrived.”

This abandoned channel was just in the middle of the castle sewer. At the time of the repairs, maybe due to negligence, they didn’t seal this interface. Fierce Scar stuck close to the wall and took a probing look, at his feet the rushing water was three feet deep, and when he looked upwards he was able to see the night sky through a small hole.

He let other people of him to look at Brian, and he took his backpack and pulled out a bundle of rope, fastened a hook to it and gently tossed it up, only to hear the sound of the hook firmly sticking to edge of the wellhead.

Fierce scar followed the rope, cautiously climbing out. Soon, he tugged at the rope from above and the other people schematically went up.

After a long wait, it was finally Brian’s turn to climb up the well. Originally they could only see the caste far into the distance but now stood right in front

of them.

Fierce Scar grabbed Brian and ordered silently, “You’re coming with us to the warehouse.”

Brian had only been here once. Although in his memory the look of the castle had become blurred, he still knew where they were, if they forced open the nearest door to the well, they would directly enter the castle.

At this time most of the people in the castle had already gone to sleep, and the oil lamp hanging at the wall of the corridor had already been extinguished, too. In the darkness, someone had to light a fire. The weak fire illuminated only a radius of a few feet, but Brian was waiting for his chance, which would certainly come.

When the team came to a fork in the road leading to the basement, he aimed for the stairway leading downwards, and suddenly rushed past his guards. The guards at Brian’s side were caught off guard, despite paying attention to every movement he did, Brian just jumped too fast, so they had not a chance to respond, but soon they reacted and jumped down after him.

He fell down the stairs, out of the range of the light and disappeared into the darkness.

“Oh shit, damn it!” Fierce scar immediately pulled out his dagger and jumped down to to catch up. He thought that Brian would take advantage of the darkness and would play hide and seek with him, so he was caught off-guard when Brian didn’t escape. He instead stood patiently at the end of the stairs as if he was waiting for him.

Fierce Scar noted that his other accomplices were already lying motionless on the ground, and in Brian’s hands were the men’s weapon.

“Idiot, do you think you have a chance of winning against me?” Fierce Scar took on an alert posture, and he could also hear his other men coming down the steps, “We have seven people, and you are alone.”

Brian did not answer; it was already needless to constrain his own fury any longer. He brought up his sword and quickly slashed diagonally downwards, hitting Fierce Scar’s sword, instantly creating sparks. Before Fierce Scar could even take his next defense posture, Brian’s sword tip had already pierced his shoulder!

Fierce Scar gave off a pained roar, and took a step back to let another man step forward, blocking Brian’s pursuit.

This was an excellent place for Brian to fight, with narrow aisles his opponents could simply not take advantage of their superior numbers. He just stood in the center of the corridor and had only the enemies in front of him. He would be able to hold off two people, who had to fight with there swords side by side.

In fencing, Brian would not lose confidence against anyone in the patrol.

When these group of lazy scumbags were gambling and indulging in a bar, he was still honing his combat skills, regardless of wind, frost, rain, and snow, unbroken through the whole years – this was his choice and the reason why he didn’t shout for help immediately.

He wanted to personally avenge Greyhound.