The Fallen Prince: A Prince's Mistake

Broken Trust

Or so I thought. I turned my attention away from the battle and looked at Archie. He was... alive? And still looking at the menu. I rolled my eyes. 'Why'd you gasp?' I yelled at him.

'They have chicken nuggets!' he shouted back.

As soon as he finished the last syllable, I had dived for him. His eyes widened. I was a few inches away from being on top of him as I grabbed his shirt and yanked him with me. We smashed through the window just as I saw a bronze sword pierce through the seat, its point exactly where Archie's head was. He jumped up a second after we had landed on the floor. 'WHAT WAS THAT FOR?' he yelled at me.

I pointed at where I was standing a few seconds ago, five or six suited men standing with their weapons drawn. I was lying on the floor (my elbows holding me up) with a glass shard in my leg. Cuts spread all over my face and I wiped blood off my lip as Archie followed where I was pointing. 'O-o-oh...' he whispered.

We drew our swords and got ready to fight. It was a clear shot for the archers to shoot, or for the swordsmen to charge at us, but, instead, one of the torch wielders stepped forward. They got their canisters of gasoline and took off the lids.

'Shi-i-i-t,' I cursed.

They began to pour out the liquid and I got ready to jump out the way. But, as soon as I got ready to get up, I yelled out in pain. The glass shard in my leg was worse than I thought. I couldn't even stand. The men noticed that I couldn't get up and began to speed up. Before I knew it, they were lighting their torches. Archie turned toward me and looked at my leg. He sprinted toward me, and time seemed to slow down. The blazing torches were flying through the air, and Archie was racing against them. The torches were winning. Knowing he would lose, he did the only thing that could save me: diving. The jump gave him an advantage, and he reached out his hand. I got the message and reached out my blade. He gripped the tip of the sword and threw it, me flying with it. I did rolls in the air like an acrobat. My awesome gymnastics routine didn't end there. I then hit the floor and did some forward rolls. After wincing in pain, I sat up, dizzy, my vision blurry from spinning and turning. I saw Archie alive and out of the flames, but the first wave was heading towards him – a group of ten swordsmen –, walking around the spitting, vicious, scalding flames. I jumped up and was ready to run into the fire if I had to. But first, I pulled the glass out of my leg. It was extremely painful. However, the pain died down. I began running after him, a slight gust of wind blowing behind my back, brushing a light, brisk breeze against my ankle. Sitting on the floor with ferocious flames spitting at him, Archie turned around and saw me heading towards him. You'd think he would at least smile, I thought, I almost just burned to death. Instead, his eyes widened. 'Castor! Duck!'

Trusting him with my life, I ducked within a second and spun around. While halfway through my spin, I saw a sharp tipped arrow an inch from my foot. I realised that the 'gust of wind' was actually another arrow. As I completed my turn, I saw a man with a bow aimed at my chest.

Luckily, I did some training with Archie a couple nights before and learnt to better avoid bow shots. The first shot was avoided by me turning sideways, but the archer was smart and shot while I dodged. It should've been a breaking-the-spine move, but I bent my back and slashed my sword upward, the arrow flying sideways when making contact with the weapon. I pushed myself back up and was ready for another extreme-dodgeball game.

More shadows turned the corner, in the figure of bodies. As they came closer, I saw bows in their hands, pointed at any part of my body they could spot – one aimed at my head, while the one from earlier was still pointing their arrow at my heart. On the other side, a flaming arrow (illuminating the swarthy sky) was pointed at my shin, another green tipped one at my sword arm. I suspected that the green was from a poison of some sort. So many deadly arrows pointed at vital parts of my body, yet there were still another six left – ten in total. As confident as I was with one shooter, ten was too much. I glanced at Archie, and he was on his feet, his dagger pointed at another ten enemies. He slowly walked backwards toward me, and we were soon back-to-back. 'I really think we should switch positions,' I muttered.