The Adventures of Emily Tual Book Four: The Rising

Seraphina looked at the prison camp from her hiding spot. It was one of the smaller ones but she knew there would be a good number of prisoners there to help turn the fight against the Black Hands. There were Black Hands on patrol like she suspected there would be. Even in the dark, they were impossible to miss. Their armor stood out when they reflected the fire of the stationed fire circles. She counted at least ten or so fire circles. Maybe about forty to fifty Black Hands here and that was just the human soldiers. She had seen a few monstrous-looking creatures. They looked like dire wolves to her. Seraphina didn’t realize that her father had approved of the dire wolves being used. That would complicate things. She looked past them and saw some of the prisoners they were trying to rescue.

Gabriel joined her. “Victor, his Resistance group and a couple of other Resistance groups are waiting at their positions.” He told Seraphina. “We just wait for you to give the word.” He looked past Seraphina at the prison camp. His eyes widened when he saw the dire wolves. He had heard of the beasts but only in stories. He didn’t realize they were real. “Those might give us a bit more trouble than any of us planned.” He said.

Seraphina nodded in agreement. “But it’s too late to turn back now.” She told Gabriel. “We’ll just have to change the plan a bit.” She turned to Gabriel. “Go to the others and have the archers climb into the trees. Tell them to aim at the dire wolves. Once the dire wolves are either dead or injured enough, we’ll charge in and wipe out the rest of the Black Hands here.”

Gabriel thought it over. “We’ll lose the element of surprise once the arrows start flying.” He said. “The Black Hands might even set loose the dire wolves on us.”

Seraphina knew that Gabriel was right but they didn’t have time to change the plan too much. If they didn’t strike now, the other Resistance groups might leave or think she wasn’t worthy of being the leader of the entire Resistance. They had to do this. “Tell the archers to get to the trees.” She ordered Gabriel. “And that they have their targets picked before I give the signal.”

Seraphina looked back at the fire circles as she heard Gabriel going off to the other Resistance groups. She quietly unsheathed her sword. She wanted to get this done as quickly as she could.

The Black Hands by a fire circle were chatting and laughing about the day. One of them had gone to a local village, causing all of the inhabitants there to clear the streets and locking their doors behind them to keep him out. He was talking about how he had broken down one of the doors and had stolen food from the family, stating it was his fee for his service. His comrades were laughing about how he had said it was for his fee. They all knew that they could take whatever they wanted and not get in trouble. The Dark One protected them after all and there was no way the village would stand up to them.

One of them stopped laughing as he heard crying. “I really wish those urchins would shut up.” He said. “They should be happy that they’re in the army of the Black Hand.” The prison camp was filled with ten year old boys to grown men. The younger boys were crying and were trying to stay away from the Black Hands. The older boys and men were standing guard over the younger ones, pushing Black Hands away if the Black Hands tried to punish the younger ones for crying.

One of the other ones looked at him. “How about you go teach them a lesson then?” He asked. “Make it clear that they belong to the Black Hand army and that they’ll be serving the Dark One the best way anyone can.”

That was when they heard whizzing sounds. A lot of them too. The whizzing sounds were followed by yelping from the dire wolves they had. The Black Hands looked at the dire wolves. All of the dire wolves had arrows sticking out of them. Most of them were just injured but a few had fallen to the arrows. “We’re under attack!” One of the Black Hands shouted. “Defend yourselves!” More arrows came from the trees, hitting dire wolves, killing more. A few Black Hands fell as well if they got in the way of the arrows.

Seraphina watched the arrows flying into the border of the prison camp. She had counted at least five to ten dire wolves that were still alive. The Black Hands hadn’t ordered the beasts to charge into the forest. No doubt they wanted her forces to charge in and attack and then let the dire wolves kill her forces. A few more dire wolves fell. Seraphina smiled and raised her sword up. There was no way that a couple of dire wolves could take down the Resistance army she had. She pointed her sword at the Black Hand, giving her ground forces the signal to attack.

The Black Hands looked around as they saw warriors marching towards them. Several of the warriors had shields in front of them, shielding them and several others. The arrows continued to rain down on the dire wolves and the Black Hands, killing the rest of the dire wolves and a few more Black Hands. The Black Hands quickly realized that they were surrounded and that the only way to get away was to kill these warriors. The Black Hands drew their swords. “For the Dark One!” One of them shouted.

The Black Hands charged towards the attackers, arrows picking them off as they did so. The warriors behind the shields drew their swords and the warriors with shields made a blockade. The Black Hands ran up to the shields and tried to break the shield wall. The warriors with swords would jab out between shields, stabbing at the Black Hands if they could. A few of the Black Hands yelped and jumped back, dropping their swords from their wounded hands. The Black Hands tried to attack the shield carriers under the shields but the warriors with shields would lower the shields onto the Black Hands’ hands and the warriors behind the shield would jab out, stabbing the Black Hands in the chest, killing even more.

More Black Hands came out of the camp with their swords and shields as they heard the commotion along the border of the prison camp. They stopped running once they saw the dead dire wolves and several dead Black Hands between the fire circles and fighting. They raised their swords. “For the Dark One!” One of them shouted and the new Black Hands charged in.

Seraphina looked at Gabriel and Victor. The three of them were standing back with the second wave of Resistance fighters. Seraphina was impressed with how well the Resistance cells were doing. They hadn’t lost any warriors yet while the Black Hands were losing forces quickly. “Wait for it.” She ordered the two. “We charge in only if we need to.” Seraphina looked back at the fighting.

“What if there are more dire wolves?” Victor asked. He hadn’t seen any coming out of the camp since the ones by the fire circles were killed but that didn’t mean that they weren’t waiting in the camp to ambush Resistance warriors. “We could be walking into a trap.”

Seraphina shook her head. “If there were more dire wolves, the Black Hand would have used them by now.” She answered. “They wouldn’t be fighting like this.” She looked past the fighting towards the prison camp. The men and older boys were herding the younger boys together to the center of the camp away from all of the fighting. She was relieved to see that. Before the end of the night, there would be families reunited with their sons, husbands and fathers and word of their victory would spread around the empire, encouraging people to join the Resistance.

Back at the fighting, it was clear that the Black Hands were losing. The Resistance warriors had started marching again towards the camp, forcing the Black Hands that were still alive to fall back still fighting. No matter what the Black Hands tried, they couldn’t break through the shield. The Resistance Warriors that would jab out with their swords had switched to their spears, jabbing out over the shields, forcing the Black Hands to keep retreating. Not even the second wave of Black Hands could do much against the unified force of the Resistance forces. The spearmen and the archers were covering the shield carriers while the shield carriers protected the spearmen.

One of the Black Hands saw past the Resistance fighters and his eyes widened when he saw Seraphina standing along the forest edge with even more Resistance forces. Seraphina had a determined look on her face. The Black Hand realized that Seraphina was leading the Resistance in this attack. He looked around him. He knew that it was a losing fight. He had to escape to warn the Dark One that Seraphina was the one leading the Resistance attacks. He ran back into the camp, removing his armor so he was just in his tunic and britches. He disappeared into the group of prisoners. He would make sure that the Dark One learned what had happened.

After the fighting was over, Seraphina, Gabriel and Victor were walking through the prison camp. Their soldiers were tending to the prisoners and gathering whatever supplies they could. The Black Hand soldiers that had surrendered had been forced to leave without their armor, weapons and supplies. Seraphina wanted it to be known that this was a victory. She knew that it was just a matter of time before her father found out and she wanted him to know that someone would challenge the Dark One.

“We should get going soon.” Victor said as he looked around. “If we are to save more prisoners before the Dark One can move them, we need to get on the road.” He felt like that they had already spent too much time there. He had thought they were just going to leave right after winning and forcing the Black Hands to leave. He didn’t realize that Seraphina wanted to stay there long enough to get supplies and to help the prisoners get ready to go home.

Seraphina looked at Victor. Gabriel’s older brother was really serious about the fighting. It was like all he cared about was winning each fight and then moving on. She wondered if he was just in the Resistance for the fighting. He was very different from Gabriel. Gabriel wanted to make sure that they saved lives while doing this. It was why he and his team had saved Seraphina from the group of Black Hands when she had been alone.

“We can’t leave these people behind Victor.” Seraphina told him. “We have a responsibility to save whoever we can and to make sure that people know there is a force fighting for them against the Dark One. That the Dark One’s reign of tyranny is coming to an end.” She wanted her people to feel safe. “The Dark One wants to take children? We’ll just stop his forces and arm the villages so they can fight back for their families.”

Victor stopped walking and looked at Seraphina. “Do you really think that it will be that easy Princess?” He asked her. Was Seraphina naïve or something? Did she really think that by arming the villages they could challenge the Black Hands? “This is a war. We can’t try to save each person. We will lose people.” He looked at Gabriel. “If you want to follow this girl, go ahead. We won’t win if we try to save each person.” Victor stormed off before Seraphina or Gabriel could say anything to him.

Seraphina looked at Gabriel. “Remind me why we needed your brother for this?” She asked him. As far as she could tell, Victor was just holding them back. They could win if they did save each life that they could. She knew that Victor was Gabriel’s older brother and that Gabriel wanted his brother’s group of Resistance fighters to help them with the fighting.

Gabriel looked in the direction that Victor had walked away in. “Victor and I lost our father when we were little.” He told Seraphina. “Our dad was a Resistance leader. He fought the Black Hand the way you have us fighting. He and his forces were small in number but they had a lot of victories before they were defeated by the Black Hand. Our dad and nearly his entire force were wiped out. The remaining ones were wounded and injured to the point they couldn’t fight anymore.”

Seraphina’s heart sank. She had no idea that the two brothers were used to this kind of life. No wonder Victor just wanted to move on to the next fight. This wasn’t just war to save their people to him. This was a personal vendetta. Victor wanted to make the Black Hand pay for what they did to his father. “Gabriel. I’m sorry.” She said.

Gabriel shook his head. “It’s not your fault.” He told Seraphina. “You didn’t know. Victor and I don’t talk about it so most of our fellow Resistance fighters don’t know about our dad either.” He wanted to stay focused on what they were doing. Helping as many of the people as they could. “Don’t worry. Victor can have a temper but he won’t betray us to the Dark One.” He told Seraphina.

Seraphina looked in the direction that Victor had walked away in. “I hope you’re right.” She said. The last thing she wanted was to have a traitor tell her father where she was.