| abstract
| - Most soldiers of the Freedom Army were still in the city and, led by Drindell and Anita, were hunting every resistance soldier that hadn't yet gone to the castle. And in the castle, Hobenrûd was leading an army of about ten thousand people against what was left of the Sardinians. The keep of the castle was atop a hill, and the Freedom Army was on lower ground. The Sardinian crossbows incessantly fired bolts at the attackers that tried to march up the elevated ground. Hobenrûd ordered a shield wall to be made, and that every rider to dismount and keep behind the shield wall. The attackers' infantry and cavalry marched slowly up the hill, while their archers climbed the nearby towers and shot the enemy from even higher ground. Sporadic bursts of unnatural lightning struck the turret crenellations, electrocuting many a royalist archer and forcing them to take cover in their terror. The Sardinians couldn't kill enough members of the Freedom Army to make them stop, and were themselves being slowly killed by the ever-increasing number of revolutionary archers on the towers. It was not long until the bulk of the attackers reached the wooden gates of the keep. Seeing that the Sardinians could resist for a long time, Hobenrûd decided to lead twenty of his most trusted into the keep, to kill the king, to end it once and for all. Running through the halls, he asked his companions, "Why isn't he helping the Sardinians!? I thought he was a wizard!" "Perhaps he escaped?" was the answer. Nobody answered. The Gods couldn't have allowed such a injustice to happen. The king was inside the keep, probably hiding, cowardly and scared. And on this day, Hobenrûd would make him pay. He was thinking of Marin. If she didn't survive... he would kill the king, and then find a way to resurrect him, just so that he would be able to kill him again and again... They met fierce opposition, and before long, five of them were dead. Sardinians would block the hallways, they would be ambushed from the rooms, but they wouldn't stop. Much was at stake. They ran, their breath faltering, slashing, gutting, thrusting and parrying against all that came upon them. Until they met a group of crossbowmen blocking a corridor, led by the commander of the defence forces, a red-haired man called Ruann Rovias. They quickly fell back behind as the crossbow bolts zoomed through the air. "Okay, that's it, your little play-fight went on far enough. You can stay behind that wall until your friends lose down there, and my friends come up here and arrest you, or you can give up right now, both of which will make you be accused of high treason, executed and dismembered. Or you can take the third option and come running and screaming toward me, until my friends here put you on a stick. Many times," he said, in a mocking tone. Hobenrûd couldn't believe it. He couldn't have come all the way to that keep to face an impassable barrier. "Why are the Sardinians helping the king, anyway!? Ruivoca is a poor country compared to yours. The king can offer you nothing," Hobenrûd asked the question that had bothered him for long. A chuckle came from the corridor, "Okay, since we know each other for so long, I will let you in a secret. We found land, much land, to the west. Beyond the sea. Maybe more land than all that is currently known. An entire continent, maybe two. And believe me when I say it is laden with gold, and silver, precious stones and metals. And entire continent, maybe two, and it is ripe to be taken. By us. But Sardina is an archipelago, we don't have nearly enough land and wood to build as many shipyards as we want in order to be the first to take the land. We need more. So we decided to take some land from the Continent. And we don't really enjoy warring barbarian countries that can actually fight back. Instead, we support your barbarian kings and queens and princes. They let us buy their land in exchange. Everybody wins. Especially us." "That is your reason? You help the king to kill our people and our hopes for wealth? You are the barbarians, not us, not the Sumdonians. And you think you are part of a superior people. I dearly hope that not all Sardinians are like that, because I fully intend to rid them of you," because it was your fault Marin is dead, Hobenrûd was going to say. But he chastised himself. She wasn't dead. She couldn't be. Hobenrûd told one of his companions to give him his shield, then he sheathed his sword, and holding one shield in each hand, told the others, "When I go for the second time, charge after me." The others were confused as Hobenrûd ran out of his refuge, holding the shields to defend most of his body, then he came back into cover, as the crossbowmen shot, missing him completely, and before they could reload, he ran toward them as fast as he could, with the shields defending his body. Before the charging men could reach the Sardinians, some of the crossbowmen managed to shoot another volley, but most bolts were deflected by the round shields, except for one, that scratched Hobenrûd's arm. He slammed onto a group of crossbowmen, taking them to the ground, then he dropped the shields, unsheathed his sword, and attacked Rovias as strong as he could. The red-haired man parried his attack and held his sword with the half-moon shaped tip of his sword. Then he punched Hobenrûd's face, before he could escape the lock. "Don't you ever learn? I heard you are the best you barbarians can offer, I see I was not mistaken on your abilities," the other man taunted, as Hobenrûd chased him into a nearby room which appeared to be an armory, so that it was full of various weapons, and it was a dead-end hallway. But Rovias didn't seem to lose his confidence. Hobenrûd didn't attack, he just waited, gripping his flamberge tightly. Rovias moved around, hopping on his feet. This continued for some time, as both men searched for a weakness in each other's defence. After some time, Rovias made a move, bringing his blade to the left. Hobenrûd prepared to parry, but it was a feign, and only barely did he avoid being struck down. The other man smiled, and danced around more quickly. He slashed vertically, but Hobenrûd was prepared and avoided it. Hobenrûd tossed his sword away and chose a different weapon from the rack on the wall, looking back at Rovias with a hint of a smile. Not many have even seen a weapon like this, much less had practice confronting it. It was a nine-part chain, and he twirled it around him with incredible ease, the metal taking a path of its own that only one skilled in using it could predict. Rovias shook himself out of his surprise, and lunged at him with his sword. To his amazement the chain circled around the blade and knocked it sideways, then slithered back to Hobenrûd before lashing out again. A massive rip appeared in Rovias's shoulder, revealing bleeding skin underneath as the man stumbled back. But only for a moment. Then he charged again, this time armed with a spear. The chain constricted flawlessly on its shaft, pulling it out of Rovias's hands. Hobenrûd continued spinning the chain about in intricate patterns, and now it had a spear jumbled up along with it and whirling about at an incredible velocity. Hurriedly, Rovias pulled a gigantic mace off the wall and swiped it horizontally, barely missing Hobenrûd's head but smashing into someone else. One of Hobenrûd's footmen toppled backward like a thrown dice, his chest and lungs collapsed, as several others approached and encircled Rovias, jabbing and slashing with their weaponry. Hobenrûd dodged another blow from the massive mace and then cartwheeled sideways to avoid yet another hit as he lashed out his chain. When he had regained his footing he saw Rovias finish his own cartwheel, landing right beside him and having dodged a three-pronged attack; yet another footman was doomed, a pilum's shaft protruding from his solar plexus. Hobenrûd jumped as a scimitar flashed beneath him, then twirled the chain to catch the returning scimitar and knock it away. The second time he struck out with the chain, the weapon had wrapped around a trident's shaft, while Rovias grinned, suspended high above him and temporarily balancing on the pole. He struck back down, forcing Hobenrûd to perform a sideways spin. The chain latched around Rovias's ankle and sent him crashing into another wall, another rack. Hobenrûd was about to strike out again when he found two bladed darts suddenly embedded into a footman's skull. Infuriated, he lashed about wildly, his chain hitting nothing; Rovias meanwhile had leapt on top of four converging weapons and kicked away another soldier, continuing his martial dance with perfection as he circled around another footman to break his back with a three-ball flail while simultaneously avoiding all hits. Hobenrûd's chain bounced off a wall and brushed Rovias's knee, instantly drawing blood, even as its owner spun off the ground to avoid Rovias's spiked flail. He then dodged several javelin jabs in quick succession, before whipping his chain about his adversary's neck. A single pull, and Rovias was sent crashing into the ground, bleeding his entire neck over, the flail clashing into several more unused weapons. Rovias never got the chance to get back up as a footman quickly took the opportunity to press his boot on the fallen warrior's chest, pinning him down. "It's over, you filth," Hobenrûd spat.
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