Page 11 of Veiled Fate
He looked like hell. His shoulders, normally so broad and proud, were slumped forward, pulled by his head, which hung down as he stared at the ground. The shackles on his ankles were too tight, preventing him from truly walking. Instead, he was forced to shuffle forward, adding to the overall bleakness of his movements.
It was the image of a man who didn’t care. Who had given up all hope. Andi was right when she said it looked like someone had torn his soul from his body. I was more than flattered that my apparent death had caused such an effect on him but also bothered. He needed to be able to function without me. To continue with his rebellion.
“Well, I guess there’s only one way to fix that now, isn’t there?” I muttered to myself, turning a few nearby heads.
I ignored the bystanders. One of them twitched his nose, his eyes narrowing as he caught the smell of blood on me, but a sharp glare sent him spinning back around to mind his own damn business.
“Be ready to act,” I called up to Andi.
“What do you want me to do?” she hissed. “We don’t have a plan.”
“When you see the signal, attack,” I told her. “We’re making for the docks. Try to clear a path.”
“That’sit?” she yelped.
But I was already striding forward. Kiel was less than forty feet away now, his guards even closer. I could wait no longer. I shouldered through the waiting crowd, forcing them to part until I could walk into the middle of the broad thoroughfare.
There I stood, feet planted, staring at the guards as they came to a halt.
“Move aside!” one of them barked.
My head slowly came around to fix him with a glare. The leader. He would be the first to go.
“No,” I said firmly, standing my ground.
Spears leveled at me instantly, but that wasn’t what caught my eye.
At the sound of my voice, Kiel’s head snapped up. The dull blue of his eyes came alive with shock and then fire as he took in my blood-soaked form standing in the streets before him.
The shock was visible as it raced through his body, pulling him up straight, yanking his shoulders back. His arms swelled with blood, and the chains pulled taut. Guards near him shuffled uncomfortably.
“Time to go,” I said with a smile meant only for one person.
Kiel stepped to the side with a tremendous roar, swinging his cuffed hands upward. The chain caught the nearest guard under the neck. In the blink of an eye, Kiel had wrapped his hands around the guard’s neck and then pivoted. Bones snapped as Kiel hauled the corpse around in a circle, using the body as a weapon to clear a space around him. When he let go, the flying missile took out two more guards.
I wasted no time, charging the remaining stunned guards, all of whom had turned to face the whirling devil in their midst.
Leaving them open to attack from behind. I leaped on one, bearing him to the ground as Kiel flexed and snapped the cuffs off one of his wrists.
Grabbing my guard’s spear, I smacked him hard with the metal butt of it, dropping him to the ground, unconscious. Crouching, I whirled the six-foot-long weapon, driving back the nearest guard, the one who had ordered me from the streets. He hissed and came at me with a sword, whipping away my spear and seeking to impale me for the second time.
Andi landed on him, having charged down the row of buildings and leaped from the roof. I spun and stabbed the spear through the neck of one of the guards aiming to cut Kiel down from behind.
The crowd screamed as blood splattered in the air. That snapped the surprise, and the streets began to empty rapidly.
Andi and I reached Kiel’s side just as he wrenched apart the shackles on his ankles.
“How is this possible?” he asked, staring at me.
“Not now,” I said. “Come on. We have to run for it.”
“Where exactly are we running?” Andi asked as we charged at the guards, clearing a path through them and out the other side.
“The docks,” Kiel said in immediate understanding as we ran, not slowing down, forcing the soldiers to regroup and chase after us.
Andi started to protest, but a fierce growl from Kiel silenced her. There would be time to talk it over later. We just had to hope that our original plan could still work. Otherwise, we were all doomed.
Only a handful of guards were still down at the docks, and they were split into pairs to patrol the wharf. We went through the nearest pair with speed, not slowing, using our numbers to overwhelm them.
