A Bard's Tales

<Chapter 3: The Rescue>

The fire burns bright, the flame rages and devours everything around it, it appears this flame isn’t stirred by the force of nature, for no ordinary flame forms such perfect a circle, someone has been waiting for the band of soldiers to pass, the circle is a trap.

Amidst all the chaos, a shadow robed in dark green cloak emerges, stabbing the fat soldier in the throat with a dagger. Behind the bars, Jack caught a glimpse of the attackers’ eyes, as brightly lid as two emeralds in the dark. He watches as the fat soldier gasps for air, hands jerking as if trying to grab on to the rapidly fading life.

Two more soldiers emerge behind the cloaked stranger,charging with iron lances at hand. The figure turns in a lightening fast speed, dodging the blows in process. With his view obstructed by the green cloak, Jack but hears a sound of metal clashing. He then sees a raised sword, narrow in width, yet with a far longer blade than a common sword. The blade emits a scarlet glow, crimson as any man’s blood, for the cloaked figure has drawn his blade. Jack widens his gaze and found two severed spearheads on the ground, both a clean cut through a single strike.

The two soldiers staggers back, eyes in awe and fear and hands gripping tight of the broken lances, the cloaked swordsman dashes forward and cut down the two men in one slash. A clean death Jack thought, half wondering how sharp the blade has to be to cleave two men at once. Cleaner than the one they are going to give me anyway.

The remaining soldier readies his bow and started drawing at the swordsman, seven footings away, he will get off a clean shot before the swordsman gets close. He thought the swordsman would back off and attempting to dodge the coming arrow, but instead he sees a flying dagger thrown from the swordsman’s offhand. The ebony dagger flies forward, wounding the bowman’s draw arm, two fingers fly off the soldier’s hand, the soldier almost let out a scream, but that privilege is stopped with a clean thrust of the crimson blade into his head.

There is no one left within this burning circle now, except the swordsman and Jack.

The swordsman let off a single-handed swing, the chains barring the cage fell down. Another clean cut

“Who are you?” Jack lets out a question almost as fast as his rescuer’s sword.

Silence.

“That’s no ordinary blade, that’s a sword forged in red iron, there are non here. It comes from the East.”

Silence.

“That means you are another sword of the Empire. But I am a prisoner of the Empire, those are the lances of your own that you cut down! But why?”

Even after all this fighting, the swordsman is still robed in that green wool cloak, forbidding Jack from getting a full look of his rescuer. The figure seems smaller than ordinary man, and judging by the footsteps, quite a bit lighter too. Although much of his face is still in the dark, he can see his eyes, bright as the flame, looking coldly at him.

“You are Jack Derrington, The Desert Wind “ The swordsman utters a voice low and deep, yet Jack can hear the pretense. He is lowering his voice on purpose, but why?

“I don’t answer questions unless mine is answered first, thought you Imperial knights holds this kind of etiquette up high. " Jack says, mockingly. Yet he almost immediately regretted it. Smart mouth Jack, always too smart for your own good, your hands are bound and you are armed with only the lices in your hair, what if he gets angry? What are you going to do? Send your parasites to bite him to death?

“I have a job for you,” says the stranger, ignoring Jack’s mockery. His eyes cold and devoid of any movement, “I am in need of an escort”

“There are a dozen or so mercenaries and sellswords in the saloons, you Imperials have more than enough gold to buy off anyone on your side, why do you want me”

“You would come, or you would die” The stranger puts his sword firm into the ground, its crimson blade in bright contrast with the emerald in his eyes. “By my blade, or by the soldier’s lance”

“He has a point” Jack thought to himself, “But-“

Before he could let out any of his so many questions, he hears the distant footsteps, heavy and in haste, he saw the dying ring of fire being stepped over by reinforcing soldiers, three, nay, maybe five of them. Three of them in light infantry gears and Two of them clad in silver-plated armor with the sigil of a burning Phoenix.

Oh great, the Imperial Knights.

The band of soldiers quickly surrounds the swordsman and Jack, who is still in the cage. “Come out, and drop that sword in your hand”Says one of the imperial knight with a full mustache, his voice sounding as fierce as his broad sword and that long scar on his face. Two of the soldiers readies their bows, aiming at both the swordsman and Jack.

The swordsman answered with stern silence, his grips on the blade as tight as ever.

This is bad, real bad,he may be able to fight off that three soldiers, but the two knights will give him enough trouble to deal with. Even with that blade, it is a five to one. No mortal man can pull that off.

“You still want me on the job? Let me help you” Jack whispers to the hooded stranger as he steps out of the cage, walking closely to him, hands still bound.

For the first time, the swordsman answers his question “How might you help me” He whispers.

“I need that get to that bag, one of them took it from me when I was arrested” Says Jack, pointing to one of the dead soldiers, the fat one with his throat slit. A worn brown sack with hard leather casing was tide to him near the waits with a belt.

The bag isn’t far away from the two, perhaps three steps or a leap away. The problem is as soon as I lower my head I would have eaten that arrow aimed at me, perhaps a headful of lances as well. “I need you to create a distraction.

The swordsman gave a resemblance of a nod within the hood,and Jack took that gesture as a yes.

Jack sits down, one knee touching the ground.

“Well, I never wanted to escape” Says him, casual as any man in a bar with a belly full of cold beer. “This guy came out of nowhere and killed everyone! And I don’t even know him!”

“Your friend will die, we only have to take you alive” The lead imperial knight yells.

“But that blade though, look at that, its made of the finest red iron. It must worth a fortune “ 

Jack continues, laying his web, buying his time. He grabs a hand full of sand,hiding the fist just beneath his kneeled ankle. Eyes on the lead knight, but with his heart on the archer aiming at him.

“Surely you wouldn’t mind giving them a look of that fine sword of yours huh, friend?” “Why don’t you do so now”. Jack throws the sand,aiming at the archer’s eyes, the archer let out a loose shot, Jack dodges it with ease.

Almost instantly, the swordsman rushes towards one of the imperial knight armed with a battle axe, and put a quick thrust into his heart before he could get off a swing, the archer aiming at him loose the shot behind his back, but he quickly turns and swat it down with the flat end of the blade. One clean two handed swing cuts the archer down.

Jack rushes towards his goal, hands almost on the prize, but sees a soldier charges at him with lance, forcing him to roll over the ground with a face full of sands. In panic, he yanks the fat soldier’s sword off his hand, raising it to deflect off the lance blow. Numbness.

Great,they starve me and cuffed me, Now I can’t fight worth for shit! Thinks himself, hands trembling. The lance charges at him, of which he wraps around the spearhead with the chains around his wrist, he grabs and drags in the lance with his bodyweight, the soldier is drawn in.

Jack bites the soldier in the ear.

He tastes the salt and sweat and bit deeper, it’s a dirty trick and he knows it. No honor in a deadman. one often says. The soldier screams and yells as Jack pulls off his bloody, chewed up mess of an ear. They call me desert wind, now I am more like a desert stray dog. Thinks Jack,self-mockingly, and drove the sword blade into the soldier’s gut.

Another lance blow charges in, Jack pull out the sword clumsily to shield him from the thrust but is disarmed easily by the soldier, the soldier rushes in, hand on his frail neck, choking him.

In between the glaring white pain, Jack feeds an elbow into the soldier’s eye socket and kicked him with two feet on the chest. He bounces off the soldier, landing back first near the fat soldier’s body, finally having his hands on what he has been reaching for all this time.

The soldier charges in.

*********************************

The lead Imperial knight is locked in with the swordsman, he is fast, I would give him that, thinks the imperial knight, calmly, but too frail and light. With enough force, the swordsman would be unable to stop his ram-in. But a curiosity befalls the knight, the red iron blade bears a certain resemblance, he can’t quite fathom why or where, and his swordsmanship too is familiar, but seemed incomplete, overly relying on speed and the strength of the blade. He has to dodge all the coming blows, he is too frail to overpower an impact.

Formulating his strategy, the knight plays defense in his favor, focusing on deflecting the lightening fast blows dished out by the swordsman, creating as much collision as possible. I will overwhelm him with my weight, and disarm him off that dreadful blade. Endure is the name of my game, endure.

Within six moves, he senses the swordsman’s movement started to slow down. All the dashing and jumping around takes toil, thinks the knight. He seizes the opportunity, deflecting the seventh blow; a rapid but weak cutting motion aimed at the right arm, and knocks the swordsman’s hand off the blade.

“Victory is nigh” the knight let out a war cry, going for the kill.

A sound, nay, two sounds of roaring thunder claps, echoing each other across the seemingly boundless sea of sands.

The knight felt a sharp pain, and lost sight of an eye, with thick, dark blood oozing through the blinded wound. He felt his strength waning,and turns to look for the source of his undoing.

He sees the prisoner, the man know as Jack Derrington,standing tall within eight foot’s distance from him. Laying in front of him are two soldiers, one with his ear bit off and guts flowing out of his belly, and another laying face up on the ground, equally missing an eye, with smokes clouding over the wound.

In between the prisoner’ bound, chained hands is a twin barrel revolver, barrels long as the hilt of a sword, silver and shiny as any jewelry.The stained wooden revolver handle bears the carving of a howling wolf.

Black smoke comes out of the barrel, the knight smells the smoke and thought it felt like the stench of the reaper himself, his waning strength collapsed his knee, and he gazes at revolver, eyes in awe. To him the prisoner looks a changed man with the revolver in hand. His eyes suddenly brighter, and his footings suddenly firm.

The knight felt a cold hard thrust on the back, straight through his heart; he lowers his head and sees the blade, darkly crimson as the blood pouring out of his heart. He fell to the ground.

Eight dead soldiers, including two armored imperial knights in a matter of minutes. Now there seems to be only two standing in the whole wide desert.

“You are Jack Derrington, The Desert Wind, The gunslinger“ says the swordsman, his voice no longer coarse, and to Jack’s surprise, soft as fine silk.

“Show your self, stranger, You saved me, but I don’t have the honor to promise you that I wont put one of in bullet in between your eyes” Jack raises the revolver to the swordsman, still robed in that dark green cloak, now bloodied and soiled and almost torn.

His rescuer obliges.

The hair is red as the burning flame around them, as crimson and shiny as the red iron blade. His, nay, her eyes are bright and green as the finest emeralds money can buy, her cheekbones high, nose smooth as that of a sculpture and her skin shades of the autumn wheat field ripe for harvest.

Her figure, as he suspected, is light and slender, but with a shape of a fully grown woman, she wears a light set of armor on the torso, crafted to match the curve of her bosom and waist, Her hair is bound and tied back with not a strand out of place,

On the chest plate, a flaming Phoenix, the rightful sigil of the Empire, but this phoenix bears a single knife mark on the neck, as if the flaming bird has been decapitated.

“You are A woman!” says Jack, great, stating the bloody obvious, he is half shocked and fully in awe of the sight, a woman saved me, out of nowhere, from nowhere, but definitely not for no reason. What does she want from me?

“How observant.” says the red hair, green eyed, mysterious girl. She probably means to mock, but her voice dead serious as if she is giving him an actual compliment. 

“Jack Derrington, Gunslinger, I rescued you for a reason. ” Says the girl, her voice as calm as if none of the fighting and chaos had happened. “I need you to come with me”

“Lower that revolver of yours first” she continues, raising her sword and pointing towards him. “For I know there is no bullet left in that gun.”

“Oh great, the woman can fight AND count” thinks Jack, lowering his revolver, his arms still bound, his face a paint mask of blood and sand, he tastes that blood in his mouth, found out that he still has bits of that soldier’s earlobe in his mouth.

As expected, it tastes horrible. He spits it out.

“Aye Ser” Jack mutters in unwilling, whining reluctance.“But can you cut me off these chains first? With that fine blade of yours”