RuneScape Forum Archive | Feel the Silence

Crystal Smee

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The army moved rapidly toward Falador, despite having no clear path through the forest. The lines had disintegrated when they entered the trees, and now they were one great, shifting mass, slinking between the truns. Moonlight spilled through the leaves, pale and cold, casting a bluish pallor on their skins, and turning to black the dried blood on their clothes. The night had cooled, and a light fog enveloped them, and Lucas’ shirt clung to his clammy skin, making him shiver every time the light breeze brushed past him. No sound but the sinister crackle of hundred of feet on fallen leaves and branches. Lucas crawled through the vegetation with one hand on his sword, ready to jump at the first sign of danger. They were all jumpy, with muscles trembling beneath their skin, paranoid that something should attack them in the woods. It was that kind of a night, when everything seemed menacing, the eyes played tricks, teasing you to think that something or someone lurked in the shadows.
In due time they reached the other side of the wood, where the sad remains of Rimmington still smoldered. Previously they had come from the forest to the east, but now the army would pick up the road that led north, and reach Falador within a few hours. They had traveled all night and the first gray streaks of dawn appeared in the sky. It was the fourth sunrise in a row that Lucas had seen. He was completely exhausted, running off minimal sleep, and now his steps had begun to drag dangerously. There would be no rest for a long time, he knew – not until after Falador was saved. Some of the town’s residents had risen already and went about their chores, and although they stared somberly at the army, they said nothing, and the army passed silently.

07-Aug-2009 03:50:04

Crystal Smee

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Their sad stares disturbed Lucas, who had never seen poverty as desolate as this; not even the rampant slums of Varrock paralleled this destruction. Many farmers knelt over charred crops and fallen livestock, or shook their heads at the hollowed shells of their homes, or sobbed for their dead. Their gaunt, red-rimmed eyes glared with something akin to contempt at the soldiers, and Lucas did*’t understand this at first – why, they had come and rescued the town, after all. But they shouldn’t have needed rescuing, he thought angrily, and there was his answer. They resented this war altogether – they resented armies marching through their land, fighting for control over their persons, when truly they did*’t even care who was in control, for the politics never even touched them – until it came to blows, anyway.
Lucas felt a similar flash of resentment, that he too was a pawn in all this, fighting for a king he despised, whose chamber pots he’d cleaned as a boy, fighting to resolve a conflict between two grown men who couldn’t resolve it themselves. How much blood would be shed, how many lives taken, before they were satisfied? He bent his head as he passed a family sitting in the dust, looking stricken and lost, unable to meet their eyes. They did*’* want saving from the Kandarins, did*’t need saving, but here he was, here they all were, wreaking havoc for reasons they did*’t even understand.
They soon reached the road and marched all through the morning, and they moved much more quickly on the pavement. The sounds of the battle reached them before the city actually came into view. A terrible sound like thunder in a summer storm, crackling and booming, signaled the collapse of Falador’s great white walls, and the end of the siege and the beginning of the battle. Lucas envisioned the hordes of Kandarin soldiers leaping over the wreckage, jaws snapping and drooling like bloodthirsty hounds.

07-Aug-2009 03:50:32 - Last edited on 07-Aug-2009 03:50:42 by Crystal Smee

Crystal Smee

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As they drew closer, they heard screams and more explosions, and then the now-familiar sounds of battle. Then they wee pouring through the gate like a flood of water, hopefully enough to douse the flame of the Kandarin fires.
The south gate opened at the center of the city, which afforded Lucas and his fellows a clear view of the destruction that had befallen the once-great metropolis. All across the battlements soldiers dashed to and fro, shouting in panic and calling each other to arms. There were several small engagements where siege towers, ladders, and grappling hooks had mounted the walls, although this had been going on for weeks, and the lines and ladders were always knocked off, the towers burned, and the walls saved. This, while costly, could be defended, and was not the source of the commotion.
Cold terror seeped through Lucas as he took in the awful sight; it was as he had feared. The wall had collapsed. Explosions rocked the earth as the Kandarin mages fired into the city, but Falador’s own order of mages could fight back. It was the array of siege machines that had caused this destruction. Trebuchets and catapults were lined up outside the walls, visible through the gaping hole in the stones, that had been created by masses of rocks fired at the city. Lucas could see it all in the distance, down the long main street. Some of the rocks in the middle had been knocked loose and a section had caved in.
Lucas pictured the ripple, like a wave, rushing down the wall, sending soldiers flying off the wall in its wake, sailing to unfortunate deaths off its thirty-foot heights. Now Kandarin attackers in red and white scrambled over the pile of rocks and made their way into the city. For now, they could be held back, but it was only a matter of time until the defenders there would be overwhelmed, for they were vastly outnumbered.

07-Aug-2009 03:51:25

Crystal Smee

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And this was why Lucas’ division of the army had been called, by someone with brilliant foresight. Now, with almost all of the Misthalin army, combined with Falador’s smaller force, they might be able to defend against the invasion.
Now Lucas was within the walls, but wasn’t entirely sure what to do. No one was shouting orders, or if they were, there was no way to hear them. He supposed he must decide for himself where he was needed most, which wasn’t exactly an easy task. He wavered, unsure that he would be helpful in any capacity, and had to remind himself that he was determined to make a difference this time, and needed to think positively. That being decided, he looked first at the gaping hole in the wall, but it seemed covered for the time being. There was good action on the walls, so perhaps he should try his luck there.
He followed a line of soldiers who were running down side streets toward a tower in the wall, where there must be steps to the top. Within minutes he was inside and racing others upward, toward the sounds of battle. Lucas emerged breathless and armed in the doorway, and the sight that met his eyes was far more complicated than he expected. The wall neatly divided his sight in two. To his right, he saw the corner of the wall, and the city, and further on, the hole in the wall and the massive battle taking place there. To his left was the Kandarin camp, which stretched to the horizon, buzzing like a horde of insects, black masses hiding the landscape from sight completely. There must have been hundreds of thousands of them – definitely far more than there were in Lucas’ army.
But there was more immediate chaos before him on the wall. Soldiers rushed back and forth between small shelters, piles of supplies, and caldrons that simmered over fires. Every few moments one was kicked over the edge and boiling oil streamed down upon the invaders below, flooded them off their ladders, or covered a siege tower and sent it up in flames.

07-Aug-2009 03:53:09

Crystal Smee

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The air was a symphony of screams, the clash of metal, and cries to “Duck, for your lives!” as stones were catapulted from siege engines and rained across the walls. “Good work,” Lucas told himself grimly. “You wanted action, you got it. Go be helpful.”
As he thought this, the top of a ladder sprouted above the wall, followed by the pronged helmet of a Kandarin invader, this one a bearded Relekkan savage. Lucas sprinted toward him as he vaulted on to the battlements wielding a massive warhammer. They collided, and it was like running into a wall, for Lucas bounced off the man’s armor and reeled back with his head spinning. He evaded multiple vicious hammer blows before finding his opportunity wave his sword at the Kandarin, and found it stuck quite nicely in the thick neck, in the space below his jaw where no armor reached. The invader stumbled backwards, and Lucas found his sword wrenched from his hands, planted so firmly in that meaty neck, and it disappeared over the edge with the rest of the body. Another invader had scaled the ladder, but ran past Lucas toward the main engagement. Lucas rushed to discourage any more from following by kicking the ladder with all his might, and felt great satisfaction in the screams as it sailed back to the ground.
He was now, however, unarmed, and desperately searched for a weapon. Though the cobblestones were heaped with bodies, most were bereft of anything that could help Lucas. All he saw was a quiver with the arrows spilled out and a bow clutched in a hand nearby. He himself had never shot a bow, though he had seen various nobles practicing their archery in the yard back home. How hard could it be?
The fingers clung hard to the bow as though the unfortunate fellow wished to be armed even in death, although it had done him no good while he was alive. Lucas stolidly avoided looking at his head, or what was left of it, as he appeared to have been hit by the rubble cascading down around them.

07-Aug-2009 03:53:52

Crystal Smee

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When Lucas had finally pried the dead man’s fingers from the bow, muttering, “Sorry, man,” he hefted the bow, surprisingly heavy, and noc*ed an arrow. There were plenty of targets to choose from, so he copied the stance he had seen before and let fly. It whisked horribly off course, far too short, and the recoil of the string shivered all the way up Lucas’ arm to his shoulder. The second time he braced himself and pulled harder, and it flew true, lodging firmly in the breastplate of an unfortunate Kandarin, who keeled over with a cry of dismay.
In this manner Lucas was able to continue for quite a while, and he achieved a good rhythm of notching arrows, aiming, and firing at helpless soldiers below, broken only by the times he ahd to throw himself flat to the ground to avoid the flying stones. The wall rumbled and trembled beneath him, and every once in a while it groaned dangerously, as though it was weary of holding itself up and threatened to cave in. Lucas felt powerful and relatively save up on the wall even so; the thrill of taking lives when the invaders couldn’t fight back was addicting.
However, as the sun began to sink down over the Kandarin camp to his left, Lucas reached down and found there were no more arrows in the quiver by his foot. He then became aware of the increasing numbers of the Kandarins on the wall and below to his right, in the city streets. Dismayed, he glaned at the hole and saw that much of the rubble had been cleared, and the invaders spilled through the hole, outnumbering the resistance and therefore able to blaze right past them. They spread in their red uniforms like wildfire, ignorant of anything in their path, and were soon about to consume the city.
Lucas ran for the tower, kicking back two more ladders in the process, and took the steps down two at a time. He paused only a moment to snatch a sword and helmet off a body, then charged into the streets. There were so many invaders – where to begin?

07-Aug-2009 03:55:32

Crystal Smee

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There! He chased after one who kicked in the door of a small house and tackled him into a homely kitchen. They bowled through a chair and hit the ground in a tangle of limbs, biting and kicking and punching at each other, anything to cause harm to the other. The sword was knoced from his hand, but he saw the flash of a knife in his opponent’s belt and wrenched it free, then stabbed past armor into flesh, just above the belt. His opponent’s hands twitched in their grip on Lucas’ arms and he slashed again, this time higher up, and he must have hit a lung, for the man gasped and choked. His hands went slack and Lucas was able to disentangle himself and scramble away, just as the man began to flail like a fish out of water, writhing awkwardly, bloody foam dribbling out of the corners of his mouth. Feeling bile rising in his throat, Lucas staggered toward the door and bent over as his stomach convulsed angrily. The scene of the battle swam eagerly before his eyes. He was so incredibly tired…He tried to gather his wits about himself, but they danced out of reach. Night was falling, and he was sick and tired of fighting. The battle had gone on all day and it looked as though nothing had changed. They would be here awhile it was certain. How many had he killed already?
“Lucas!”
His head jerked as he processed the sound of his name. It was Derrick jogging toward him; he was so drenched with blood he practically looked like a Kandarin.
“Where have you been?” his friend panted.
“Up * on the walls,” Lucas slurred, waving a hand at the tower.
“That sounds like fun. I’ve been over at the hole in the wall and then at the castle – we’re trying to keep them from getting to the castle. Jonah wants our company all together. We need organization, he says. The squads are all broken up.” Derrick grinned. “He’s taking charge.”
Lucas nodded. “Where is he?” he had to yell to be heard over the clamor.

07-Aug-2009 03:56:00

Crystal Smee

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“Near the castle – he commandeered an empty warehouse as a kind of headquarters. Follow me.”
They sprinted through a maze of streets, pausing at every invader they saw to fight, though Lucas could barely lift his sword, and his strokes were more clumsy than usual. Once, Derrick yanked him into an alleyway and pressed him back against the wall. “I saw a huge band of ‘em,” he hissed breathlessly in Lucas’ ear. “They’d slaughter us.”
Lucas was dimly aware of certain details, like the curve of Derrick’s lips, the bright excitement in his eyes, and the drop of blood rolling slowly down Derrick’s cheek, like sweat. He stared with fascination as it dipped in the hollow behind his jaw, then began to slide down his neck. Derrick checked around the corner, then pulled Lucas back out, crying, “Almost there!”
They made a mad dash down the street, around a corner, and then they ducked through the door of a looming warehouse. Inside was a small huddle of soldiers, many wounded, others sitting on crates, and Jonah Barron waited tall and proud at the center, barking orders.
“I found another one, sir!”
Jonah paced toward Lucas. “You got a name, son?”
“Lucas, sir!”
“Lucas what?”
Lucas hesitated a moment, and heard an echo of Derrick’s voice in his ears. “You royalty or something?” So he replied with the first thing that came to mind, which happened to be Justine’s name. “Lucas Myren, sir,” he said, omitting the telltale “Val” of Northern Varrock that marked him as royalty or servant, neither of which he wanted to be, and he figured he could worry about it later.
“Get some sleep, Myren. You look like hell.”
“But the battle, sir—“
“—will go on with or without you, and will still be going on when you wake up. This isn’t beauty sleep. Rest, recharge, because you’re no help to anybody asleep on your feet, and I’ll wake you in a hour. And don’t you ever question an order from me again.” He then dismissed Lucas to speak to Travis, who had just entered the building.

07-Aug-2009 03:57:28

Crystal Smee

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“The castle is still secure, Jonah. We’ve got a perimeter around it. None of the Kandarins will get through. I could use fresh men, though.”
“Wake that group.” Jonah gestured to a group of seven men dozing in one corner of the warehouse. “Derrick, you wake those five, and patrol the streets around the castle. Stop anyone you see, even the large gangs.”
“Yessir!”
Lucas collapsed on the floor behind a stack of barrels and groaned with relief. Within seconds he had dropped asleep.

The book seemed so heavy that it dragged Justine’s hands down to her lap, and she pitched forward, eyelids fluttering, then rocked back as she woke up again. Startled, she yawned loudly, and forced her gaze back to the pages of tiny, cramped writing; it was all in vain, for she couldn’t bring herself to focus. The words made sense individually, but they refused to form complete sentences, and coherent thoughts hovered just out of reach, like wisps of smoke slipping through her fingers.
The lack of sleep was finally catching up to her. For the two nights since the gala, she had tossed and turned futilely in bed, tormented with guild and consumed by thoughts of Lucas and only dozed off when the sun peeked up in the east. She was exhausted; her eyes were rimmed with red, set above deep purple bruises that had ever existed before all these problems had beset her. Her hair was in tangles, her clothing was rumpled, and she wouldn’t let her distressed maids come near her. She also hadn’t eaten for hours, but her stomach felt so filled with lead that there was no room for anything else. And now, finally, after days of frustration, she was finally slipping into sleep.
Some small part of her was bursting with relief, but it did*’t show – she moved like an old woman, pushing herself with both hands off the bench, taking tottering, uncertain steps toward the house. She forgot the book entirely in her weary haste to get back to the house and her bed.

07-Aug-2009 03:59:37

Crystal Smee

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She was so focused on putting one foot in front of the other she did*’t even see the Prince before she shuffled right into him. When she realized who it was, she hastily gathered her thoughts, just as he tried to flee, knowing she couldn’t let him run away this time.
“No, James, don’t go!”
He stopped and looked reluctantly at her, waiting for her to speak. Her tired mind tried to process this and form sentences from her jumbled thoughts, but it felt like running under water – unbelievably slow, slogging through muck.
“Please – I’m sorry. I just want ---“ to talk to you, her mind supplied, but the words wouldn’t come out. “I shouldn’t have –“ lied… “Just don’t go – I’m –“ lonely…
The broken sentences kept coming, her thoughts just spilling out, half-complete, but she couldn’t think enough to finish them. James grabbed her by the elbows and guided her back to the bench. “Justine, slow down. Good Gods, are you all right?”
“Tired. I’m so tired…”
“Look at you! When was the last time you slept?”
She laughed brokenly. “Oh, who knows? Months ago, probably…”
James had picked up the book and thumbing through the pages. “A Complete and Thorough History of Misthalin? You’re tackling this in the state you’re in?”
She dismissed this with a shake of her head. “No, no, no. I hate history. But Lucas, he loves it. That’s his favorite book. He’s so smart…”
James squinted at the pages. “These are his notes in the margins?”
She nodded. “He must have read it hundreds of times.”
Realization dawned on the Prince, and he wrapped an arm around her shoulders, pity brimming in his bright blue eyes. Justine’s cheeks flushed. She was such a self-destructive, self-pitying fool, and now he knew it. “Oh, Justine,” he murmured into her hair. Then he jumped up and pulled her with him. “Come on, we’ve got to get you fixed up. Let me take you home.” As he helped her down the gravel path, Justine kept mumbling to James, having finally put her thoughts in a usable order.

07-Aug-2009 04:02:55 - Last edited on 07-Aug-2009 16:42:38 by Crystal Smee

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Feel the Silence