Ranger's Star

• Daniel Colley, Grade 12
• Short Story
• 2011

Bells rung amidst harsh shouts through the blaring night, stars glaring down upon two cloaked blurs lunging from rooftop to rooftop. Their weapons glittered in the moonlight, arrows whizzing past with every hasted step.
“You had to blow up the tower, didn’t you?” Karn yelled
“Had to, no. Wanted to, definitely.” Jarl laughed between heavy panting “Split and met outside the walls?”
Karn cast off abruptly left. The beacons were lit, a torrent of guards trailing their paths like snakes through the dark city. He’d barely reached the walls when a sound struck him, piercing through the chaos. He didn’t even react, he was just there, diving, falling, rope round his feet. The rope reached full draw, snapping with the weight and nulling most of his speed. Karn landed hard in a crouch on the ground with a thud, somewhere between the markets and the hell of town-square.
All guards were focused on the mist of blood and death that was Jarl’s frenzy. He’d taken an arrow through the calf and soon after a slice across his shoulder before Karn threw his last dagger, replaced by his twin sax-knives as he sprinted for his companion.
He charged into the senseless blur of cuts and swings, steel clattering a syncopated rhythm against the sound of the droning bell, a yelling motif harmonising the screaming melody. It was a symphony of suffering, the bittersweet ballad of battle.
“Why do I always have to pull you out of the fire?” Karn asked Jarl over the song as he cut his way to him
“Because I keep igniting it!” he yelled back, gifting him with a grin when he took his side, then cleaved a man in two with his broadsword “How good are our chances?”
“What chances?” Karn smirked back but suddenly went stone cold
Time seemed to slow to allow him to fully experience the blade rushing through his friend’s chest, erecting from flesh like a vile worm. Karn fell to his knees with Jarl, uncaring about the spears pointed at him from all around. He didn’t know how long he knelt staring at those listless brown eyes before he heard the commander.
“Ranger!” he yelled out from three rows back, a tall, stout, middle aged man “Drop your weapons!”
Karn hadn’t even realised he still held the sax-knives.
“If you return what you stole and leave now, you won’t be harmed.” His voice was thick with lies
Karn stood up and every spearman took three steps back. He reached into his cloak and pulled out a small orb, a light glowing incandescently within. He stared at it for a long moment then glared coldly up at the commander.
“Hand it over.” He ordered but the ranger wasn’t listening
“You took my home.” Karn said sternly “You took my status and you took my family.”
“Ranger! Stand down!” the commander yelled
“And now you’ve taken my brother.”
Karn felt the orb melt into his hand and the rest was no more then flashes of flames, light and death until he stood coated in light over the body of his died friend, surrounded by ash.