Ascended

I filled my vest with blood-soaked rags.

Because of how flammable the knots were, one of us needed to hold them, and the other needed to have the fire. Since Val had the marks, it made sense for her to be the one throwing the knots around.

We scaled the walls without a problem. I felt bad about leaving the zombies alive in the pen, but once we got our weapons back, I was going to come back and cremate them. It was a waste of heart stones, but I wasn’t going to butcher Sera or Max. Plus, these people had been made zombies to create heart stones. I wasn’t going to harvest the stones of the others. This would only encourage more sacrifices.

We had only made it a few feet when we heard the scraping of boots. Two guards stepped into the torchlight.

“You should have…” The first guard’s voice trailed off as we saw Val’s marks. We had torn off her sleeves so that she could show off more of her marks. We were trying to be intimidating and judging by the look on the guards' faces, we had succeeded.

“You tried to kill a Bokor,” I rumbled. I threw a knot at the torch. It exploded, showering fire on the walkway.

Val walked over the cooling embers, “Swords. Now.”

Both guards dropped their weapons.

“Please.” Begged the second, “It was all the mayor!”

“We didn’t want to throw you in there.” The first proclaimed.

“I remember all the guards cheering for our deaths,” I remarked.

“Yes, they did.” Val picked up the weapons.

“Please don’t kill us.” The first begged.

I took a sword from Val. The guards must have seen my eyes for the first time, they both shrieked.

“You want to live?” I asked.

They both nodded vigorously.

“Go get the mayor.” I said, “We want to talk to him.”

The guards looked at each other before nervously running off.

“You know they’re going to warn him,” Val watched them run.

“I know,” I took off after them, “but they’ll get all the doors open.”

Val took off after me. I tossed her a knot and she lit it and threw it after them. The guards whimpered and sped up. It was enough that they left the doors open behind them and the other guards scattered. Lights began popping up across town. Word was spreading fast that the Bokor were attacking. Families were running to the other end of town to protect their loved ones. It was having the right effect. By the time we reached the mayor, most of the innocents would be on the other side of town.

Val stopped as we approached a fork.

I halted my chase and turned to her, “What’s up?”

She pointed at the path leading to the left. The path that the guards hadn’t taken.

“The mayor’s tower is this way.” She nodded towards the route the guards had run, “They’re going towards the prison.”

“Well, there goes our key.” I looked at Val, “Can you get us the rest of the way?”

“No,” Val shook her head and pointed behind me, “but he can.”

I turned to see Darren standing in the doorway. In his hand was the crossbow he had shot at me with earlier. On his hip was Max’s sword.

I set my feet as he raised the crossbow. This was the man who had murdered both Sera and Max. I wasn’t going to let him kill anyone else. I wasn’t supposed to kill humans, but the thing in front of me wasn’t human. It was a monster.

And I killed monsters.