Veil of Shadows

Chapter 29. In Blindness There Is Sight

Patch ran.

The five guards followed. They seemed more experienced, and they were getting closer, no matter how fast Patch tried to run. Soon, she found herself in the hallway that housed the cell she was put in.

She had almost made it to the end of the hallway when an arrow pierced her shoulder.

She let out a cry of pain and wrapped a hand around the shaft of the arrow, an instinctive action to dull the pain. It didn't help much, and the guards were only a few meters behind her.

And so, struggling against blood loss, Patch kept running.

For approximately three seconds.

Collapsing to the ground, she glanced at the arrow buried in her shoulder and tried to figure out how to remove it. She didn't have time to react when a guard caught her on the jaw with a powerful right hook.

Stumbling backward, Patch tested her jaw, and was relieved to find that it wasn't broken. Suddenly, there was a glint of iron, and Patch swerved to the side just in time to avoid a sword stroke.

Turning it into a roll, Patch looked wildly for an escape route. With no weapon, she didn't stand a chance against five experienced knights. Too late, she saw another guard with a wicked looking dagger drawn.

It plunged toward her throat.

A flash of golden light erupted from somewhere, and Patch was temporarily blinded. She heard a few clanging sounds that suggested fighting was taking place.

When Patch's vision cleared, and she could actually see, the scene before her came as a shock. Equinox was standing in the doorway of the room where the cells were kept.

How had he managed to get out of the cage and open the door?

"How did you get out?" Patch asked, trying to stand. Equinox replied "Someone - a girl - opened the cage door and the room door and let me out. I had assumed it was you."

While this exchange occurred, Salia slipped away from the scene.

Equinox turned back to the five guards.

"So this is your chivalrous rescue, knight in shining armor?" Patch drawled, snapping the barbs off the arrow and pulling it out of her shoulder with only some difficultly.

After a moment of thought, Equinox shook his head. "A knight in shining armor has never truly had his metal tested."

A guard who had fought off the blindness thrust a sword through Patch's heart.

For a moment, Equinox was dumbstruck. Then he pulled the sword out of her chest, pivoted on one foot, drew back his arm, and rammed the pommel into the guard's head with all his strength.

The guard's eyes glazed over instantly and he crumpled to the ground, knocked out cold.

The sword strike was a fatal wound, Equinox knew. Nobody could survive a blow to the heart like that - and he of all people would know. Quickly pushing the thought away, he fell silent.

The other four guards held their weapons aloft, ready to strike.

Slowly, he turned to face them, still holding the sword. The blood on the blade was Patch's, and Equinox watched in silence as it slipped down the length of the sword and dripped to the ground.

Nobody dared speak.

The first guard was dead before the others could even move.

It was an extremely one-sided fight. The three remaining guards blocked and parried desperately, but eventually, they grew exhausted, until Equinox finished them off.

The guard who had been knocked unconscious groaned as he slowly woke up, scrabbling for a weapon. Equinox knelt beside him and whispered "Bring a message to Shadow from me."

The guard nodded fearfully, watching the sword. "Tell him that the only thing he should fear is himself." Equinox said quietly, and the guard looked at him, not understanding.

"Well? Get moving!" Equinox said, pulling the guard to his feet and giving him a shove to start him on his way back to Shadow's throne room. The guard stumbled for a moment, then took off.

Looking down at Patch, Equinox began to sing softly.

"You said, remember that life is not meant to be wasted. We can always be chasing the sun! So fill up your lungs and just run, but always be chasing the sun! All we can do is try and live like we're still alive..."

He heard furious shouts from down another few hallways. More guards come to see what the noise was about. He couldn't bring himself to leave Patch there to be found by the guards.

"Go ahead and run. I'll get her out."

Equinox spun around to see Zero watching. He nodded and took off at a sprint, trusting Patch's mysterious acquaintance. Soon, he turned, and the darkness of the hallways consumed him.

Zero knelt down and picked up Patch. As he adjusted his balance to account for the extra weight, he closed her eyes with a brush of his hand. Then, he was gone.