Down In Rain

Hell's Hammer (5)

Dima, Day 1, 12:22 PM
I dared not move an inch in my seat as the Royal Knight opened the door, my heart racing at all the possibilities that could happen. What if it was a false alarm and nothing bad was even there? What if everyone was killed at this very moment by a Magi Spell, would I even feel it happen?

The door opened, revealing the face of a young royal knight. Me and Tamantha briefly passed by him when we went through outside security, he looked nothing like he does now. Panting and disheveled, he tried to speak but no air was reaching his throat.

I could just barely make out the word "Dagger" in between gasped breaths.

"Breathe son, take it easy. Who sent you, was it the Front Kapitan?" The older knight reached out a hand to steady the young man.

Henwick stood up unexpectedly, narrowing his eyes and pointing his finger at a knight,

"You. Contact floor 3 on your sending stone, tell them to call for help from the top. Leftenant, bring the boy inside, something is wrong."

I looked down at my sheath and saw a symbol being burned from underneath it. It was one of my sword runes: T¥. I drew my blade and saw the rune glowing a deep purple as small dancing sparks of fire leapt from it. It had never started glowing on its own. I wasn't fighting evil right now so it doesn't make any sense...?

As one of the Royal Knights started to punch in buttons on his sending stone, I heard a slow white noise start to come off of the stone. The Knight raised the thing to his ear, trying to make sense of the noise as the stone violently exploded into him.

I Instinctively raised my sword in front of my face, as I felt the shards of rock bounce off of the sword at such a high speed my ears rang as stone met metal. One of the larger shards zoomed past my sword and hit me hard in the shoulder.

It pierced right through my armor and lodged right into my skin. I felt a line of blood shoot out of the newly formed hole and drip down over my arm. As the shear force of the blast knocked me out of the chair and onto the floor.

Looking out from over my blade, I saw the splattered remains of the knight's body, butchered by the force of the magic that held together his stone.

There was a heavy cloud of smoke that erupted from the blast, catching the table on fire and sending sparks onto the floor.

The knight was still moving, clawing at his throat and sputtering blood from his mouth. Within a few moments the man was dead, with tears laced in his eyes.

"IS EVERYONE OK?!" Henwick yelled, splayed out on the floor from where he was standing. At the last moment I saw that he was able to dodge some shrapnel that surely would have killed him.

I heard the voices of all of my compatriots: Krag, Tammy, Felix. They all called out that they were fine, so I called out as well.

"I have a shoulder injury but it's light!" I tried getting up off the ground but realized the wind had been knocked out of me.

Doctor Felix sprang into action and ran over to me. Pushing my chair aside, he pulled me to an upright position.

"Nonsense Dima, no injury is light until we see the full wound. That stone could have cut your axillary artery. I'll give you a Kick Tonic for now, it'll slow the bleeding."

The pinching feeling of a needle entered my neck, as I felt my senses restore themselves back to normal, albeit numbed a bit.

I saw the Leftenant walk over to Henwick and help him up from the ground. He looked down at me as I struggled to get up, fully terrified that I was the one who was injured.