For My Father ~ Part 3

~ The third and final part of a fantasy short story ~

Both twins raised their bows and stepped out of the woods to get a clear shot. Aryss drew back her bowstring, aiming for the commander, while Evander targeted one of the other bandits.

Just as she released her arrow, the commander turned, opening his mouth to speak. The arrow, which had been aimed straight for his chest, sped harmlessly by his shoulder.

Aryss grunted, furious that she had not hit him.

Merely seconds after the twins had begun their attack, one of the bandits lay motionless on the hard ground, Evander’s arrow stuck deep into his chest.

The camp was suddenly alive with noise as the bandits jumped to their feet, grabbing weapons and yelling insults at their attackers, while awakened villagers screamed in fear, not recognising Aryss and Evander.

One of the bandits, who had immediately drawn his sword after Aryss shot at his leader, turned and started running towards her, his sword held ready at his side.

Aryss grabbed for an arrow from her quiver and slid it loose, knocking it on her bow and firing towards the approaching bandit.

She heard the sliding sound of wood against wood as the arrow sped away from her bow and heard the strangled cry that followed, but she didn’t wait to see where it went before she was already pulling out another arrow.

By now all of the bandits were on their feet with weapons in hand as they approached the twins.

One man had evidently picked Aryss as a target and was running towards her, a short sword in his hand.

He was only a few paces away from her, too close to shoot at, so she dropped her bow and instead pulled her two knives out of her belt.

A few paces to her left, Evander was fighting against two bandits, using his knives to deflect their clumsy blows.

As Aryss prepared to engage the bandit, she forced her tensed muscles to relax, knowing that tenseness would only lead to clumsiness.

A second later the bandit reached her, swinging his sword in a large circular motion aimed straight for Aryss’s head.

She waited until the sword was a few inches away from her ear, then ducked, letting it whistle harmlessly over her head.

Before the bandit could react, she stepped forward, too close for him to use his sword, and lunged at him with her knife.

The man brought his sword up, holding it point down in front of his body, just in time to deflect her blade, which slid over his arm, opening a shallow gash but missing any vital body parts.

The man yelled in pain as blood quickly trickled down his arm from the gash. His eyes were full of hate as he stepped forward, slamming the pommel of his sword into Aryss’s stomach.

She gasped, falling over backwards and hitting her back on the rough ground. Her vision blurred and her lungs were devoid of air as she lay on her back, desperately trying to get a breath.

For a moment, Aryss briefly noticed that she had not seen the leader since she had first shot at him.

I wonder where he is, she thought.

Above her, she saw the bandit raise his sword for a final killing blow and watched as it began its descent.

A few seconds before it would have pierced her heart, Aryss rolled out of its path and kicked her legs out, tripping the man above her.

He fell with a heavy thud beside her and she rose to her knees, quickly bringing her knife up over the man and then plunging it down into his chest.

His eyes widened in pain and confusion and then glazed over, all the life rapidly seeping out of his body.

Aryss watched him, stunned at what she had just done.

I… I killed him. She paused for a moment, dazed by the fact that she had just stolen another’s life from them.

She shivered but forced herself to not think about it, instead focusing on how cold and lifeless her father’s body had been when she and Evander had buried him.

A pace away, Evander was in the fight of his life against two bandits. He was defending against them well, but Aryss could see he was tiring rapidly.

She rose to her feet, quickly stepping towards him and joining the fight. Deflecting a blow from the man on the right, she parried another while manoeuvring herself around to get back-to-back with Evander.

Now that the odds were evened out the twins had a better chance, but both of them were tiring quickly and slowly losing ground.

They may have been better trained than the bandits but there were only two of them against six enemies.

Aryss parried a blow from her opponent’s knife and then swung at him with her own blade. A moment later, she heard Evander’s opponent shout something.

“Rilth! Get over here… you coward!” The man’s voice was harsh and angry, and Aryss glanced over to see who he was addressing.

A dozen paces away, the leader was departing the hut in which he’d been hiding. As he heard his comrade’s voice he turned, anger cast across his face.

A memory flashed across Aryss’s mind as she took in what the bandit had said. Rilth…

Her father’s bloodstained hand clutching the deep wound in his side.

Her hand in his as she gently urged him to reveal who had attacked the village, and his last two words before he succumbed to his injuries.

“Rilth… Bandits,” he had whispered as his lifeblood seeped out onto the hard wooden floor beneath him.

With a start, Aryss realised that the bandit group were not called the Rilth Bandits, as she had previously thought, but that their leader’s name was Rilth.

The man who killed her father.

A mindless rage flooded her body like a heat wave as she stood only paces away from the man who had cruelly and heartlessly killed her father.

The man she might have been able to stop if she hadn’t been so eager to beat her brother in a fight.

Completely rejecting everything she had told Evander earlier about sticking together, she flung herself into her opponent, knocking him out of the way and charging towards Rilth.

But little did she think in her mindlessness that she had left her own brother completely exposed to a fatal attack from her opponent.

* * * * *

Evander’s heart sank as he watched his sister tear across the clearing towards the bandit leader.

He was once again desperately trying to defend himself against two opponents who, although clumsy and ill-trained, were twice his age and brutally strong.

Meanwhile, Aryss had reached Rilth, lunging at him with her knife and nearly knocking him over with the force of her charge.

He deflected her blow and then followed up with one of his own, aiming for her leg.

She just managed to twist out of the path of the blade and then kicked her leg, hooking it around Rilth’s and then yanking backwards to trip him over.

He stumbled, nearly falling but grabbed onto the roof of the hut nearest him and steadied himself.

Aryss yelled in pain as Rilth’s knife caught her thigh, opening a shallow but painful gash in her flesh.

* * * * *

Still in a desperate fight, Evander was in a steady retreat but trying to give his sister as much time as possible before his opponents killed him and left to finish her.

One of the bandits began to edge to the right, slowly inching around to come behind him.

Evander knew exactly what they were doing, and knew that the fight would not last much longer.

As the bandit finished circling behind him, Evander heard the man’s knife whistling through the air towards him and ducked just in time to see it tear past his head.

As he crouched on the forest floor between his opponents, he realised that he needed to make a split-second decision.

He had already accepted that they were going to overcome him eventually, but now he realised that he could either prolong the fight or take out one of the bandits before being taken out himself.

Resolved in his mind, he lunged upwards with his knife, plunging it into the chest of the bandit opposite him.

The man grunted as the knife passed between his ribs, reaching his heart, and then toppled over backwards. He was dead before he hit the ground, the knife hilt still protruding from his chest.

Time seemed to still as Evander, now weaponless, heard the sound of metal splitting the air as the remaining bandit’s knife sped towards him.

* * * * *

Across the clearing, Aryss heard one of the most terrifying sounds she could ever hear - Evander’s brief cry of pain as the bandit he was facing pulled his knife out of her brother’s side.

She screamed, her world collapsing as she glanced over and in the firelight saw the bandit raising his knife for the final blow that would surely kill her brother.

* * * * *

Lying on the uneven, leaf-strewn ground, Evander’s hand was pressed against the wound in his side, trying to suppress the blood that was flowing out of it.

He could see his opponent above him, raising his knife to execute the killing blow.

Closing his eyes, he readied himself for what he knew was about to come.

Strangely, the bandit was waiting longer than he expected to plunge his knife into his heart.

Perhaps he’s taunting me…

A minute passed, and then he felt a thud on the ground beside him.

Evander was rapidly losing consciousness as he lost blood but he forced his eyes open, trying to see what had fallen beside him.

Two feet away, the bandit who had been about to kill him was sprawled out on the ground, an arrow protruding from his chest.

If Evander had been conscious enough, he would have wondered where the arrow came from, but as it was he merely closed his eyes again.

His last thought was of Aryss and the unpleasant fact that he had failed in his duty to protect her.

I’m sorry Ryss, I… tried.

* * * * *

Still in a desperate fight against Rilth and unaware of the scene unfolding behind her, Aryss, parried two blows and decided to try one last attempt to bring down her opponent.

Stepping forward, she brought her knife around to bear on Rilth’s, knocking it out of the way, and then lunged at him.

At the last moment, he swayed to the side, and instead of entering his chest, her knife slid deep into his shoulder.

He screamed in pain; his eyes widening in shock.

Longing to finish this girl who had inflicted such pain upon him, he lunged forward, but she was already gone.

Seeing he could no longer reach her, he clutched his shoulder and stumbled across the clearing towards the trail leading out into the woods.

He considered following Aryss to finish the job but then logic took over and he disappeared down the trail, resolving to get as far away from there as possible and never come back.

* * * * *

Aryss dropped to her knees at Evander’s side, tears springing to her eyes as she saw what she had done to him.

She had left him, exposed and vulnerable, while she satisfied her own craving for revenge.

So focused on the fact that she had lost her father, she had not tried to keep what she still had - her brother.

Glancing around, she saw the arrow stuck in the bandit’s back, and the young villager a dozen or so paces away holding her discarded bow in his hands.

During the fight, the captive villagers had been unable to offer any help to the twins due to the tight bonds that prevented them from moving.

Just after Evander had been stabbed, however, one young boy, who she recognized to be one of the other village hunters, had managed to reach Aryss’s bow that she had left with an arrow still knocked on the string.

She nodded her thanks to the boy and then turned back to her brother, pressing her hands against his wound and trying to stop the flow of blood.

His breathing was shallow but he was still alive. His eyes flickered open and he caught sight of his sister kneeling beside him.

“Ryss… I’m… sorry.” His tone was hoarse and raspy.

More tears sprung to Aryss’s eyes. “You don’t need to be, Ev. This is my fault, it’s all my fault. I was so caught up in wanting revenge that I didn’t look out for you, and yet the only thing you were doing was trying to protect me. I’m so sorry,” she cried, all the anger fading from her heart.

Evander managed a weak smile. “Perhaps… revenge… isn’t…” he coughed as a fresh flow of blood oozed from his side. “Isn’t… the only… way.”

Aryss squeezed his hand, too overwhelmed to speak.

She felt a hand on her shoulder and turned to see the boy who had fired the arrow standing behind her.

He had managed to slice his bonds with one of the dead bandit’s knives and had approached Aryss to speak to her.

“If there’s any chance of him surviving, we need to get him to a healer fast. There’s a village about a mile away, at the end of the trail through there.” The boy, whose name was Jarvis, pointed to a second trail leading out of the clearing that Aryss had not noticed before.

Jarvis’s words had sparked a tiny flame of hope in her heart that what she had not dared to hope possible might actually be possible.

She nodded enthusiastically. “Get a blanket from one of the huts and we can drag him on it.”

Jarvis nodded and turned to go and retrieve the blanket, but Aryss’s call stopped him.

“And Jarvis? Thank you.” She smiled at him, grateful for his help.

A few moments later Evander was lying on a blanket with a strip of cloth tied tightly around his abdomen, applying pressure to his wound.

Aryss started to pick up the end of the blanket but Jarvis stopped her.

“Aryss, I can pull it faster than you, let me do it. Wait here and come with the rest of the group.” A serious expression was cast across the boy’s face as he spoke, unsure of how she would respond.

Aryss went to argue but then realised the sense of his words and nodded.

“Alright, but I’m coming with you. And we should probably free the others before we leave.” Her tone was firm, and there was a determined air about her.

“Is your leg OK for walking on?”

“It’s fine.”

Jarvis nodded, satisfied.

The pair quickly freed a few of the villagers and then passed them the dead bandits’ knives to finish the job.

A few minutes later Evander was being dragged along the rough trail towards the village.

* * * * *

Aryss’s eyes fluttered open as sunlight streamed in through the small cottage window. She rubbed her eyes and yawned, shifting slightly.

She was sitting on a rather uncomfortable, hard, wooden chair in a small bedroom. By her side, Evander was lying asleep on a low bed.

It had been two weeks now since they first arrived at the healer’s home, wounded, bloodstained and tired.

Evander had nearly died, but thanks to the healer’s medicines, he pulled through eventually and was now healing slowly.

As Aryss’s mind was wandering, her brother’s eyes flickered open and he noticed her sitting on the chair beside his bed.

“Ryss, I’ve told you you don’t need to stay by me all night. You could sleep in a proper bed!” Evander smiled at his sister’s concern.

“No way, I’m staying right here until you’re significantly better.” She grinned at him.

“Ryss, I just remembered something… I do believe that you may have gotten your knife lunge correct when you were fighting that bandit leader.”

“So I did. Well, I told you I would, now you just hurry up and heal so I can thrash you in a fight.”

Evander’s face went serious for a moment, but his eyes were still full of mirth. “Just don’t say you want to chase the man down now.”

Aryss laughed, playfully slapping his arm. “Really? I thought you’d love that.” She grinned, overwhelmed with joy at the pure sight of her brother alive. Her face went serious as a thought crossed her mind. “But seriously, Ev, none of that matters now. What you said when you were bleeding out on the forest floor was so true. Revenge isn’t the only way to heal.” She smiled, genuine warmth spilling from her eyes. “Thank you.”