Gauntlet

Alizar could feel the hands of the many below her, carried by the band of warriors she had saved, now returning the favor, as she had gone overboard with the great gate, but damn it felt good.

She could tell there weren’t many soldiers opposing them to fight, and the mob carried her like an amoeba through the dark dingy bottoms of the Capital, the hollow shops and sheer volume of garbage that piled up was far from the cheery markets she remembered.

Alizar’s army had mild hesitations in movement between clashing swords, that was until the drill sergeant screamed, and a stampede of boots came from the staircase ahead. The entire royal army was armed to the teeth. 300 men strong, lined in rows strategically with men wielding great shields with long swords then pikes for the men behind them and archers many rows back.

“Our tax dollars at work has never looked so fearsome,” one of the women carrying Alizar grumbled as a pre-victory trumpet sounded.

“You can surrender and live out the rest of your lives, eating slop behind bars,” the commander of the army offered, as the men behind him chuckled.

“Been there done that,” one of the men from Alizar’s troupe called out.

“YEAH!” another cried out, “we’ve been locked up, and no one’s come looking for us, taken from our homes and families and forced to fight in Flint’s arena,”

“YEEAAHH! So we’re not scared of what happens, we the people of haberdash have already been forgotten by the monarch and fight for a better tomorrow!”

“YEEAAAHHH!”

The thick tension before blood was to be spilled laid in like jello, thick but transparent as every warrior formed their stance, tightened their grip, and prepared to strike.

CRASH!

The focus broke as every fighter looked up, a tower many stories above had been smashed through as what from a distance looked like a cannonball, but quickly as it got closer to earth it was clear they could see squirming as if limbs were fighting amongst the massive ball.

“RETREAT, EVERYONE FALL BACK!” the general commanded, but it was too late. The massive giant’s body came down hard as a powerful gust of dust knocked back Alizar’s army. Luckily, most of the royal battalion was flattened. Boulders of the castle continued to fall, and the visibility remained clouded. All they could make out were the last screams of crushed dead men as stone boulders continued to pepper the battlefield from above.

The small group of fugitives backed up as they didn’t want to meet the same fate as the guards, but gradually, the sound of falling stone stopped, the dust thinned, and on top of the giant’s body was what appeared most peculiar of all—a man seemingly made from stone.

“Hyde…? Hyde Robart?” Alizar asked as she sat up to assess the situation.

Rubbing the back of his head as his jagged skin chipped off, he looked to the old witch who had tried to help him all those years ago.

“Well, you don’t look like you’ve aged a day,” Hyde grunted, as he climbed off the unconscious giant’s belly.

“Where did you go? All those years I visited your family many times, and your mother always hoped you’d return.”

Tears welled up in his eyes, despite the fierce battle he had with a giant, the blows he had exchanged had not stung nearly as hard as hearing his mother missed him.

“I had to run, you don’t understand,” he said, his voice quivering as his cracked skin moistened around his face.

Alizar patted the warriors carrying her on their shoulders, trying to signal she was fine to walk. As she stumbled to her feet, she limped her way over to the crying oaf. Wrapping her arms as far as they would go around his massive frame, she hugged him and comforted the boy who was trapped in the monster’s body. “She told me if I ever found you to deliver this message, she said she always loved you, and her only regrets in life were not protecting you and never getting to say goodbye.”

“But she’s gone now…” he said as the tears hesitantly stopped.

“Yes, like most small villages scattered around this country, they have been destroyed in the hunt for artifacts, these strong men and women are here today to try to correct that, will you fight with us?”

“It’s not like I have a choice,” he said, finally cracking a smile.

With only fifty or so guards surviving the crumbling cobble trying to regroup, they could barely fill the width of the stairway to the top floor of the Capital.

Climbing back into the arms of her warriors, Alizar watched as Hyde briskly walked toward the surviving soldiers, the eight archers in their band let loose their arrows, jabbing into Hyde, making him look like an unfazed cactus with the wooden sticks now jetting out as a threat not to touch him.

As most of the arrow stems around his moving joints cracked and snapped off him, the long-sword-wielding men swung, and like many men before them, grew terrified as their blades stuck in Hyde’s in human flesh. The pikemen wondered if there was any use as this walking armory pin cushion single-handedly parted their remaining forces without lifting a hand.

The soldiers clung to the edges of the stairwell, as Hyde’s carved path through the men let in Alizar’s army who only grinned as they advanced, reaching out to pat the soldiers on the back as a show of good sportsmanship, hopeful that the wind would forever be in their favor.

♮

“What the hell is all the racket out there?” Tyson asked as his voice echoed through the sewage pipes as they had trudged through hours of winding pipes both vertical and horizontal.

“I don’t care what it is, as long as it doesn’t plan on making its way in here,” San said, trying her best to walk on the edges of the pipe, letting the less than desirable water run through her legs. They had been at this for hours now, trying every pipe they could fit down, but they were feeling confident with their current path, as there were no other paths left.

“Do you think it could be Alizar?”

“Yeah, right, she’s probably powering a windmill or something,” Marko whined as he stomped through the puddles bitterly.

Climbing up a long metal ladder, San went first as Marko and Matilda paid little mind to try to keep their feet dry, and she didn’t want to get their boot water dripped in her face. Climbing higher and higher, the sound of roaring fires and hissing steam was accompanied by clicking fans rotating, but with sharp pitched cries—they sounded thirsty for repair.

At the top of the ladder now, the dark tunnel was sealed with a heavy metal disk. Gradually adding pressure till its weight eventually gave way, San couldn’t have been happier to smell the industrial metals and burning coal of the castle’s boiler room.

There wasn’t much room left in the stuffy space by the time their four bodies were up out of the sewers. Taking a moment to breathe cleaner air, the group looked for the next step in infiltrating the castle.

“What about that?” Marko suggested, pointing at the air duct above a long metal cabinet.

“That could work,” San added hesitantly, “but how do we reach it?” she asked as they braced their tired bodies to the sound of marching boots outside the door simply passing by. When they were certain the coast was clear, San felt Matilda’s hands answering her question, her massive grip elevating her up to the grate that would be tight for anyone but Marko, who was smaller than San even before the Gauntlet.

Pinching and twisting the bolts with her metal fingers, San quietly freed the grate from its posting and gently set it down on the nearby cabinet. Struggling to climb inside, when she had enough of her body in, Matilda let go and hoisted Marko up with her.

“Wait, what are you guys going to do?” Marko asked before diving headfirst into the vent.

“Well, I don’t think Matilda will fit,” Tyson said as his words caused the muscular girl to start flexing and posing to try and break up the serious act they were about to commit, “so I’ll stay on the ground with her and we’ll try and rendezvous in an armory of some sort, San is the only one-armed here, so that should be our first step.”

“Good call,” San said as her voice reverberated through the metal opening, not wanting to waste any time before the Gauntlet’s grasp on her consciousness tightened further.

“Just be careful, alright? I don’t need to lose any more friends…” Marko said as he hoisted himself the rest of the way into the vent, following San’s boots.

As the two of them were alone in the boiler room Tyson asked, “So what’s our plan here?”

Matilda shrugged, “Right, I’ll do the talking then,” Tyson suggested as Matilda slowly creaked open the door. A large guard stood watch at the corner of a hallway, dressed head to toe in red plated armor, if they could get to him, it would be the perfect disguise… for one of them.

Matilda tiptoed down the corridor, her cloth boots were perfect for sneaking, despite the trail of sewage that dotted their path, Tyson tried to keep watch behind them as he clung to her back, and luckily, the halls were quiet for the moment.

The guard had kept his back to the pair right up until Matilda grabbed him, popping his helmet off as she went for a chokehold, the guard swung a fist back, trying to put up a fight against the girl but quickly losing breath as he was only able to break her nose in the scrap.

The blood gushed from the mute’s nose as she tried to carry his plated body back to the boiler room. Quickly, they shut the door behind them as they pried the armor off the man and tore his clothes underneath to try and make some rope to tie his hands and stuff in his mouth, just in case he woke up.

The armor was loose on Matilda, but it was better than nothing, which was all Tyson had as it would surely blow their cover if a fellow guard saw him hanging off her, but wiping her bloody nose gave Matilda a brilliant idea.

She tied the bottom of Tyson’s shirt around his remaining waist and put a finger over her nostril that wasn’t bleeding.

“Wait what the hell are you thinking?” Tyson asked in a hushed voice, as the young girl bent over and sprayed his lower half with blood so it looked like his legs had been freshly severed.

Disgusted, Tyson reluctantly admitted it was better than nothing as she closed her eyes and tilted her head at him, moving a finger across her neck, trying to tell him to play dead.

“Yeah I get it, don’t worry, I won’t move,” Tyson said as he was lifted back into her arms, carried like a large dead swine with dangling arms, making sure his face was turned in toward her armor, so no one could see his mouth move, as the helmet covered her mouth and together, hopefully, they could fool someone.

Leaving the boiler room once again, they weren’t as lucky as before, three guards stopped right as they recognize the armor,

“Hey, commander how’s it going?” one of the smaller recruits said to Matilda as she soon realized they took out someone who might be important.

“Good, just on my way to the armory,” Tyson said and Matilda gave an enthusiastic thumbs-up as she pushed one of the young men lightly on the shoulder to get him to let her through, but as she passed, Tyson's bloody stumps rubbed off on him smearing across the recruits armor

“COMMANDER! What the fuck, is he okay?”

“Watch your mouth, recruit,” Tyson said as Matilda waved a finger, “Yes he’s fine, he just needs to walk it off.”

One of the three chuckled awkwardly as the other two could tell more was wrong, as Matilda’s bloody nose wouldn’t stop running and had made its way down her face and out of her helmet, and onto her breast plate. The stream of blood soon caught their eyes.

“Commander, are you sure you’re okay?” a recruit asked, reaching forward, trying to take off her helmet, but Matilda panicked, and started running, only to bump into five more guards

“Hey, Steve, what’s the rush?” a man said, wearing the same armor as Matilda so they must have been equals or at the very least knew each other, but before Tyson could come up with something, the three boys from earlier heard muffled screams as they opened the boiler room door behind them to find their beloved commander Steve in his underwear tied up and gagged.

Quickly removing the gag from their commander’s mouth a barking cry echoed down the corridor, “THEY’RE IMPOSTORS, YOU FOOLS, GET THEM!”

Thinking fast, Tyson disarmed one of the five crowding guards, taking his short sword from his hip, and slashed at another’s throat. Still in Matilda’s hands as he swung wildly, she could only block as the beard of an axe came out of nowhere, dull enough to bounce off her plated armor.

Two guards tried to stop their friend with the slashed throat from bleeding out as they dragged him away from the action, while Matilda defensively put her back against a wall, watching in fear as one of the remaining recruits pulled back a glass box and pulled a lever, alerting everyone in the castle with a deafening siren.