(THOB) Chapter 63: A Brother Deadlier Than Darvi (Patreon)

Ezril held back his ire at the sound of whistling. It was an odd strategy as far as strategies went, and only served to reveal the whistler’s location. Obviously, that was the intent.

The time of day was difficult to discern considering the Umunna forest was always dark. But the seminary had released them sometime towards dusk, so it was safe to assume night was drawing nigh. Ezril held back a sigh. A month ago the seminary had started them on a new training, a mock test of sorts. It was a battle test where each tower was pitted against the other in the vast expanse of the Umunna forest. The time of day was not fixed, and Ezril had a feeling they were chosen at random. Today, his tower faced another in the evening.

So far they’d won three out of their five tests and were getting a feel for the test, or better yet, a feel for what each of them were capable of. His hold on his wooden bow eased and he let the weapon dangle loosely from his hold. Strapped to his back were two wooden, practice swords of the Alduins design and a quiver full of dull tipped arrows. Every brother was given the choice of carrying bows and arrows, but the practice swords was mandatory. Ezril wasn’t given the option, however. The bow and the swords were mandatory for him. Still, he wasn’t the only brother who wielded the bow. Suffice it to say, he was the only brother who stood out with it.

Today they were facing off against the only tower with a perfect winning streak: The Konvac tower. It was already over an hour into their engagement and there was yet to be any kind of clash. It was almost as if their opponents were trying to draw out the test. At first, Darvi had them move in the same manner they’d done in all their previous engagements. They scouted close to the enemy’s borders, then doubled back to relay information. Today there was no information. They hadn’t even been able to find the enemy’s flag they were supposed to capture. But they’d found their opponents: all nine of them. In the event capturing the flag was impossible, capturing all members of the opposing team counted as part victory. Part victory was still victory.

Ezril twirled his bow in his hand and pulled out a single arrow. He notched it, closed his eyes and listened. The whistle was dying away, as if whoever it was was moving farther away from him. He drew back his bowstring, listening but not looking, and took aim. Three heartbeats later, he let the arrow fly. There was a mild thud of impact but no sound.

It was odd, it didn’t sound like he’d hit a tree, and he doubted it was possible for any of the brothers to hold in that much pain. His mind coursed through the possibilities and a moment later he realized what had happened. A panic fought to set in but he dispelled it. He’d thought they’d been baiting him, drawing him closer so he would attack only to be ambushed. He had been only half accurate.

As quick as he could, he ran for the nearest tree, his bow returned to his back, and his hands and feet found purchase faster than a lizard’s. Climbing was becoming as natural for him as walking in the dark. He blamed this on the Elken forest; most of the movement trainings Felvan had imbibed in him had had to do with trees and aerial maneuvers.

Still, he chided himself as he scaled from branch to branch, changing trees as if changing arrows. The almost mute sounds of footsteps only served to make him curse himself a fool. He’d known they were baiting him and, in his self-assurance, he’d gone and fallen for it. He’d given away his location.

“Do not reveal yourself unless you are certain you have the upper hand,” Darvi had told them when he’d commanded them to go into hiding.

Ezril had thought he’d had the upper hand. Certainty had led him into stupidity. And now they were hunting him. What was worse was he knew not where his brothers were hidden, which meant he couldn’t lead the ambush into an ambush of his own. That said, it also meant he had to ensure he didn’t accidently lead them to one of his brothers. That would certainly not go down well for them.

Tired of running, he cut to the tree on his left, heading deeper into enemy territory. If he couldn’t escape them then he might as well continue his hunt for their flag, not that he thought he’d find it; if Olufemi hadn’t, he wouldn’t. He moved through the trees with almost as equal sound as a Shade cascading through the air, were it not for the oddity of leaves scattered around the trees. He whisked himself to the side again and a moment later a blunt arrow struck were he’d been. He hadn’t avoided it, he’d simply been lucky, or the archer unlucky. It didn’t matter, he was running out of places to go. The forest had been marked, indicating its boundaries where none was to go beyond and he knew he was drawing terribly close to it.

The sound of footsteps was reducing, the numbers dwindling. It was as if he was losing his captors. Ezril dropped down a few branches but didn’t slow his pace. Now he couldn’t count more than two people chasing after him. Two was a number he could take. Two was a number he could handle.

As he drew closer to the ground he found his mind haunted by a hope he was ashamed to have: Please let Baltar be elsewhere. His feet hit the ground quietly and his hope proved him a friend. Before him stood two members of Konvac tower. The bigger of the two, the one built like a mountain and always scowling, he could remember. His name was Norvak, and he was a brute of a boy that reminded him of Olbi. The second’s name he couldn’t remember.

“Done running?” Norvak asked. He didn’t smirk, he didn’t smile. It was simply a question of curiosity. The boy didn’t even seem out of breath.

Ezril shook his head and said nothing. If they were all he had to deal with then he was done running. All he had to do was reach for his bow and—

The other boy covered the distance between them in the blink of an eye, swords drawn and striking, Ezril backed away from the attack, driven only by instinct. He turned his body and ducked into a roll as Norvak closed in on him, seeming to appear out of nowhere. As Ezril came to his feet, the faint whisper of mist from the ground trailing from his hair, he came to a realization that both boys thoroughly outmatched him in the use of the true step.

Instinctively, his hand went for his bow. However, his opponents did not give him the chance. His fingers barely grazed the bow before he was forced to move away from another attack from the boy whose name he did not know. This time the boy did not come at him with a single attack, he came with a flurry of them, striking hard and true. Ezril weaved and ducked beneath each slice and stab, managing to keep his feet beneath him. His movements raised a flurry of dead leaves connected by tendrils of mist aided by his disturbance but it did nothing to distract anyone; they had been trained too well to be distracted by such trivialities.

Ezril found a moment of opportunity in the madness of his opponent’s attacks and stepped in. In the single move he broke past the boy’s defense and into his space. Unarmed, he drove his shoulder into the boy’s chest, staggering him for the briefest of moments, caught him by one of his wrists, and with a pull, a shove, and a throw, the boy went cascading into the air, losing one of his swords to Ezril.

With time to breathe, Ezril realized two things. One, he was armed. Two, he was now flanked on two sides. Strangely, none of his opponents moved. He reached behind him again, this time over his shoulder for his veil rather than under his arm and they still didn’t move. They don’t want me to draw my bow, he realized.

Since the rumors of him being the first bow of their generation had begun circling the seminary so had the rumors of the capabilities of one bearing the title. Some of the rumors, like that of him carrying the title, were true. But some, where far-fetched. For instance, he was supposed to be capable of putting an arrow through four men if he wished it, and only then would he bear the mantle of first bow. It was ludicrous the fear that hovered over the title. And yet they will not allow you draw it.

Ezril flung the boy’s sword after he’d retrieved it. The boy scowled at the action but did no more than that. This would be a hard pressed battle and Ezril was no fool. Winning it would be a feat in and of itself. His opponents braced themselves, crouched low ever so slightly, and Ezril moved.

He went for Norvak first because everyone would be expected to go for the weaker of both parties. He hoped surprise would serve his ally, and it did. Norvak blanched for only the mildest moment. Before he recovered, Ezril’s swing was already hard and true. It was also already intercepted by the smaller boy. The clack of wood against wood sounded through the air. Ezril raised his other sword and executed a beautiful pirouette. The spin added momentum to his strike but Norvak saw this one coming and defended against it. Ezril moved into the execution and spun out of reach.

His opponents converged on him almost immediately. He fended them off with all the skills in his arsenal, defending against the smaller boy’s single sword with one of his while he fended Norvak off with the other, weaving away from the boy’s second sword. It was grueling work, tasking work, and it didn’t take long to realize the boys had been together because they worked in sync. Norvak struck with power, forcing Ezril to attend him while the other sought out openings for whenever Ezril was forced to attend Norvak.

One of the swords struck him in the thigh and he winced from the pain. He guessed it was Norvak as another struck him beneath the armpit, against one of his ribs. If the blades had been real, it would have been a killing blow, one that would have taken him in the lung. He forced himself away from them, missing a blow to the head that grazed the bridge of his nose.

Staggering away he kept his attention as his enemies followed, the mist stained hems of their cassocks swaying around their feet. He found his footing as they closed in on him, saw the space between them, and stepped. The movement carried him between them, past them, twenty strides in the opposite end. It bought him the mildest time because his opponents turned and followed as quickly as he’d moved. He ducked beneath a slash, took a knee to the face and leaned away with the impact of the blow to dull the stab to his gut. In all, he was doing poorly.

Then the distraction came.

Somewhere in The Planks a boy howled in pain. Ezril didn’t recognize the voice and he assumed it was a boy from the opposing team. Norvak started at the sound and he took his cue. He swung his sword as hard as he could manage and caught the boy in the side of the neck. Norvak buckled from the blow and fell to his knees but the second boy did not attend him, he rushed Ezril, keeping him from continuing the assault and forcing him to switch tactics. But he was one boy now, one boy with one sword, and Ezril attended him gladly.

The fight was quick and bloodless. He parried against the boy’s attack and followed in a riposte of his own. With one sword he struck the boy in the shoulder, and with the other he smacked the boy’s wrist hard enough that the boy’s weapon fell away from his grasp. Then he brought both weapons down for the finishing blow but it never landed.

An arrow whizzed between them, forcing Ezril back. He took another step as another arrow came flying. Peeved, he caught the third arrow and broke it. He could hear another footstep venturing his way and he turned his head in its direction. It was poor judgement, and an arrow struck him in the thigh. The pain brought him to his knee and he cursed under his breath.

Norvak and his partner converged on him with the true step, from the corner of his eye he saw a body step out from behind a tree, and he knew another would find him soon.

“ENOUGH!” he roared and rose to his feet to meet his two assailants.

Anger bristled through every inch of his body and he reached behind him from under his arm, his swords discarded to the mist ridden ground. He’d had more than enough of this. His hand closed on his bow and it came free. He swung it with the momentum of its release and struck Norvak’s approaching sword. He turned away from the second boy’s blow, caught the arrow fired at him from the air and stabbed it into Norvak’s thigh. He continued his motion and spun into a pirouette, smashing his bow into the second boy’s head with perhaps too much force before the boy could recover. Ezril continued without care, he staggered to the side, creating distance and retrieved an arrow from his quiver while in motion. He drew it back and let it loose from his bowstring, then jumped back. In the air another arrow left his bowstring for one of the trees.

When Ezril’s feet hit the ground it was all over. A few paces in front of him Norvak was on the ground groaning in pain, blood seeping from his thigh where an arrow was embedded in it. The second boy was passed out beside him. A distance away, where the arrows had been coming from, there was a body lying helplessly on the floor beside a tree. An arrow stuck out of the boy’s thigh and shoulder. And Ezril was panting heavily, watching the sight before him.

A slow clap pierced the air and Ezril turned to meet it.

“I swear I told them not to let you draw that bow,” Baltar said, still clapping.

Ezril picked out an arrow leisurely from his quiver. “It was annoying,” he said between breaths. He notched the arrow and drew back his bowstring then took aim at Baltar.

“Want to make a wager?” Baltar said, unperturbed.

“What are we betting on?”

“I’ll get to you before you release that arr—”

Baltar reacted quickly striking the arrow from the air before it hit him.

“Don’t make wagers against the speed of an arrow Baltar,” Ezril chided as he retrieved another arrow.

Baltar frowned. “How do you even keep those darned things from falling off. You barely survived that fight and not one arrow fell out.”

Ezril shrugged. He notched the new arrow. “Trade secret.”

Baltar shook his head in dismay and held both of his swords out to his side, points facing down. Another scream pierced the air and he frowned.

“You know what your mistake was?” Ezril said, aiming at Baltar’ shoulder.

“What was it?”

“You dedicated three Brothers, and yourself, to stopping me.”

“So?”

“I might carry the title of the first bow, but the rumors are vastly overrated. The title simply means I’m a boy that’s very good with the bow. I’m not the threat in the team.”

Baltar shrugged. “We already have Darvi under control. He won’t be able to do much today.”

Ezril shook his head and lowered his aim. They’d always made the same mistake Baltar had made, always made the same assumptions. But this training had taught them one thing: Darvi wasn’t the strongest of them in this specific training. Someone else stood levels above him. Another scream pierced the air and he caught Baltar bristle at the sound.

“Darvi isn’t the one you should be afraid of.”

“And why is that?”

Ezril smiled softly. “Because we are in the wild.”

In the darkened forest, in the rising mist, behind Baltar, Olufemi stood. He rose from the dying mist with a massive tree branch in his hand.

He swung it and the battle was over.