Chapter 16

The sword’s plan was simple. Keep running through the camp until the status told him he was near the [Demon Lord]. Follow the signs from status until he found Arthur. Free Arthur.

Figure out what happened next, after that.

Or, even better, Arthur would figure it out for him.

It seemed foolproof. Especially given how organized this camp was. He presumed they would put prisoners near the center, with as many layers of guards between them as possible.

He’d been on any number of prison breaks. A simple plan was best. Fewer things could go wrong that way.

Ducking from shadow to shadow, he managed to move quickly through the camp. There were a few guards on patrol, but it was the middle of the night, and almost everyone was asleep. And presumably, most guards would be posted at the camp’s perimeters, or with the prisoners themselves.

And even though he looked human, he could stand very still when he needed to. One thing he had learned very well was that if people weren’t expecting to find you, they often couldn’t see you. More than once he’d been hidden in plain sight, sticking out from a pile of rubble, or covered by a thin blanket, and had been completely passed over by tomb raiders and scavengers.

His progress continued for a few moments before the alarm went off, and all the lizards emerged from their tents pretty much at the same time.

The sword made it to a pile of barrels, tops off to collect rain.

Still no sense of where Arthur was. Could he be with with the captain? Had he been waiting there for them to arrive so that the captain could interview all three of them?

But surely they’d been close enough status would have given warning.

He huddled behind the rain barrel. The ground shook as lizardmen dashed back and forth, officers of varying ranks barking out orders, trying to get things organized.

He was trapped. He had to keep moving. How to manage it?

The situation was resolved as orange fire erupted from the edge of the camp, lighting up the night sky. The clang of steel and whistle of projectiles signaled the arrival of other combatants. The sword was surprised, he hadn’t thought that much time had passed, but it seemed that the Night Patrol had found them.

Paradoxically, this seemed to cause the lizardmen to calm down. Instead of unorganized rushing, they fell into loose groups of three or four, finished strapping on their armour, and began to move in the direction of the attackers.

There must be nearly a hundred of them. The sword wasn’t sure how big Night Patrol was, but he didn’t imagine it was that large.

It would be interesting to see what both sides could do in a proper battle, but he wasn’t going to get a better chance than this one to move unimpeded through the camp.

When things got quiet around him, he slipped out from the barrels and kept searching.

The Demon Lord is weakened—strike now!

There. It wasn’t anywhere close to the center, it wasn’t even a tent. Just a post set up at one end of camp, a post and a chain, with manacles for throat and wrist.

Arthur was slumped against the post, snoring with his mouth open, a little drool trailing from the corner of his lips.

If there’d been guards, they had abandoned their posts to help in the battle, still raging on the opposite end of the camp.

Arthur snorted awake as the sword dashed forward.

“Wuzzat! Oh. Hi,” Arthur yawned, tried to stretch, and failed. “Do you know how hard it is to get a decent night’s sleep with status popping off every other minute to tell you Your reign is threatened?”

“No,” the sword said. He looked around for signs of magical wards, saw none, and walked up to the post. It was a thick beam, old, probably used for many purposes. The chain was likewise sturdy. Neither seemed eaesily breakable.

“Mei thought you had betrayed the class.” He said, as he tugged at the chain, trying to see if it would come loose from the post.

Arthur snorted. “And share you all with someone else?”

This made perfect sense to the sword. He should have said the same thing to Mei earlier.

“I think Night Patrol is here,” the sword said, “I could go get someone. Maybe Cadmarius is here, he could just burn you loose.”

Arthur’s hand shot out to grip the sword’s wrist, he let him go a moment later. “I’ve been so bored with no one to talk to,” Arthur said lightly, “keep trying. It’s fun to watch you struggle at this.”

The sword thought Arthur was lying, but decided he could try a few more things anyway. Old metal like this often had weak points if it wasn’t well cared for, patches of rust that ate away at its strength. Perhaps even the bolts holding the chain to the post. That would be a solution.

“You could just…steal some torchlight, turn it into goth flame and cut me loose,” Arthur suggested brightly.

The sword was confused for a moment, then realized Arthur was talking about snuff.

He flinched. “No. I’ll smash your head into the post.”

Arthur shivered. “Mmm. Not appealing, I agree. But we might have to risk it anyway. I don’t like these people. They don’t kill anyone. It’s so weird. Someone’s coming.”

The sword stopped his inspection of the chains. “Who?”

“You all look the same to me,” Arthur said, “not a [Demon]. Cattle. You should hide.”

The sword looked around, saw no convenient hiding places, which made sense near a prison, and chose one of the deeper patches of shadow past the nearest torch, hoping that would be enough.

A trio of lizardmen stopped just beyond the radius of Arthur’s chain.

“Move!” The lizardman in charge barked, and the other two rushed to Arthur’s chain, unhooking it from the post with a small key.

The third lizard stood in front of Arthur, pointing a crossbow at him. “We’re evacuating. If you try to run, I will shoot you in the leg and carry you the rest of the way. I would like to shoot you in the leg and carry you the rest of the way. Please, try to escape.”

“Understood,” Arthur said with a smirk, and began to shuffle forwards.

The camp was quiet now, except for the occasional roar of fire or crackle of lightning coming from the battle. The sword followed behind, waiting for an opening of some kind.

When Arthur shuffled too slowly, the lizardmen walked faster, dragging him along. Quite quickly they walked past the last tent, and into the trees.

Then it got really quiet. Just the sound of crunching leaves and snapping branches.

It was at least much easier for the sword to stay hidden, he got closer, close enough he could hear them talking.

“There’s this amazing curse, makes you go blind but slowly, like really slowly,” Arthur was saying. “I like it because it sort of makes you question everything, you know? Like, is that really far away, or did my vision just get worse again? Sort of puts a real damper into every day of the rest of your life.”

“Do you ever stop making threats?” One of the guards asked.

“Not ever!” Arthur said.

“Keep moving,” the leader barked, “then you can be someone else’s problem.” Under his breath, quiet enough that the sword heard, but he wasn’t sure if anyone else did, “Maybe they’re doing us a favor, making us move you now. What a little skin-disease.”

The sword wanted to act.

There were only three of them.

Surely he could take them.

A few weeks ago he would have tried, but he had at last learned that his body was fragile. One wrong strike, one thoughtless parry, and he would be finished.

And even if there had been light around, he would not have used snuff.

He couldn’t.

Not without a wielder.

Arthur kept threatening them with all of the curses he would use on them when he had the right resources.

Up ahead the woods cleared. There was a small stone mound at the center, and at the top of the mound, a glowing circle of blue light, the blue of status.

“Oh crap,” Arthur said. “You guys have a portal?”

The guards didn’t answer. Instead they just walked forward, dragging Arthur towards the glowing blue portal. Arthur started struggling visibly, falling back on his feet, rolling, trying to evade the lizardmen as they went back to pick him up bodily.

A portal?

It took the sword a moment longer to understand.

A portal to another world.

This was how the lizardmen had come here.

A portal.

And it was stable, which meant they could bring things back through it. They were trying to take Arthur back to their world.

He had to do something.

All he had was this stupid, fragile body. It bled even from a small scratch.

The sword paused.

Blood.

Useless to him, perhaps.

Not to everyone.

Was there something else he could do?

He couldn’t think of anything.

They were quite close to the portal. Once they were gone from Earth, the sword couldn’t see any way that Arthur could be easily retrieved.

He rushed from his hiding place at the edge of the trees.

Took an opportunistic kick at the leader in passing, making him stumble, then leapt onto the back of the guard still struggling with Arthur.

He didn’t hold back. He slammed his fist into the lizardman’s neck with such force he heard his bones break, and felt as the guard went slack; knocked out cold. The other one was slow, distracted by Arthur, perhaps even green, not expecting an ambush out here, so close to safety.

He didn’t get as clean of a hit, but he at least bought himself the crucial seconds he needed to slice open his own arm on the lizardman’s sword and topple onto Arthur.

“Blood,” he breathed into Arthur’s ear. “Take it all.”

Arthur said, “I always knew you were suicidal, you little emo boy.”

Blue light erupted around them.