The Reformation Wars: A Hero's Peace

Chapter 11

As the battle progressed, Monterayne's defenses began to finally crumble. Cohesive as their formations had been, Innutuk simply had more numbers to spare. Even the strongest defense would give way if tested for too long, and given Monterayne wasn't doing enough to strike back, the best they could hope for was a standstill.

Captain Andre Feliz had seen to it that the battalion primarily tasked with guarding the castle was battered over and over until it had been shattered entirely. And quite gloriously, the Innutukian company that dealt the final blow was none other than the one Andre led.

Andre now made his way through the corridors of the castle itself and battled guards at every turn. He had no man to back him up, and no weapon at his disposal aside from his trusty golden-hilted sword, but for Andre Feliz, that was sufficient.

He was a blur to the guards who opposed him, appearing from the shadows, striking a man or two down before they could react, and then nimbly dodging anything else thrown his way. Andre's expertise was impossible to overcome. He thought too fast to be deceived by a feint and attacked too quickly to have a defense devised against him.

Andre ducked beneath a horizontal blow from a pole-axe. Then before the guard could swing the weapon back around, he buried his sword blade in the man's gut. He leveraged the weapon to move the body into the path of another incoming axe. Then with a quick yank and a sprint, he beheaded his second attacker.

Andre sighed and rounded a corner. After traversing one last hallway, he found himself at the broad wooden doors to the Monteraynian throne room. Only one last line of defense stood in his way, that consisting of a quartet of knights who stood resolutely with swords drawn. With narrowed eyes and set jaws, they spread out and encircled Andre.

Instead of engaging the man standing right before him as they must have expected, Andre twirled around and slashed into the neck of a raven-haired knight of Torlenian training. Andre knew him by name—Thomas the Viper. Despite his mastery of the most defensive Monteraynian swordsmanship style, he fell immediately to Andre's blade, unable to swing his own sword even once.

Andre understood by instinct which move came next from the three remaining knights. One swung an overly telegraphed blow over her head as a distraction while another attempted to sneak in from behind. With a spinning jump, Andre simply evaded both, nearly forcing the two knights to impale each other in the process. The third of the swordsmen charged at Andre.

The half-Innutukian knight named Sir Saradakeldan threw several rapid attacks Andre's way, and he easily deflected each one. Skillful as the knight was, Andre found his strategy trite and perceived his defenses to be weak. Andre's parrying blade was a blur. A deep cut into the halfbreed's chest. His career of disrupting Innutukian supply lines ended. Andre immediately removed his sword from the man's flesh and blocked a powerful blow from the female fighter.

Andre barely paid any attention to his current attacker at first. He deflected each of her attacks by instinct while eyeing her brother creeping in on his left. With a sigh, Andre trapped the female knight in a blade lock to force her movement such that she stood between himself and her brother. Lesmorne Tilbi was an even finer Torlenian warrior than the fangless viper he'd first slain. She fought off a whopping three testing strikes from Andre without overexerting herself. But she took his following feint too seriously and opened herself up to a thrust.

With a sigh of disappointment, Andre squared up against the last knight standing, who stared at his sister's bleeding form with widened eyes before steeling himself to face the master swordsman before him. Danton the Dauntless was a knight Andre was well familiar with, given they'd fought many times before. But this was different. Andre had just slain his sister.