Nephilim Knights

An arrow struck the granite where Danielle’s foot had been a moment before. Two archers on the tower behind them were taking aim. A towering soldier in gold was leading four imperial soldiers from the other side.

            They were screwed.

            “Archers behind us,” she yelled. She pushed the boy into the shelter of a brazier filled with wood and snow. Only the ragged edges of his stolen red uniform showed around the fire basket.

            “I’ll deal with the five in front,” said Fabian. His stolen red cloak flapped in the breeze. “Make sure I’m not shot in the back.”

            “Deal.” She drew an arrow from her quiver and pulled the bow off over her shoulder. Notching the arrow, she aimed at the archer on the left. At that moment biting wind brushed the arrow off to the right. “Fuck off wind.”

            “While you two handle the easy stuff I’m going to defeat all of the soldiers in here with the smell of my piss and shit,” said the boy, hiding behind the cylindrical brazier.

            Danielle ducked an arrow. It thudded into the brazier behind her.

            The wind blew again as she waited for a lull in the breeze. As the cloak on her back stopped flicking she exhaled and shot an arrow high, up over the archer on the right, up it went. What goes up must come down. He who gets shot and falls from the battlements of a tower must hit the wall top with a crunchy splat.

            The clang of metal and the roar of her friend in battle made her curse the second man on the tower who was aiming at her. She drew the bowstring back with another arrow notched, waiting for the wind to die down again.

            She watched the arrow soar up and into the second archer’s eye as she felt the hot nip of an arrowhead scratch her neck.

            “All chainmail should have a hood,” she said to herself.

            “Are the archer’s dead?” Carl asked in a high-pitched whine.

            “Yes,” she said, drawing her bow again and turning to look at Fabian.

Fabian had done well, against the common imperial foot soldiers. The seven-foot-tall Nephilim knight was destroying him.

            Every time he blocked a blow by the giant the warrior of Crann almost lost his sword. Danielle had faced Fabian Castel enough in sparring sessions to know he was an excellent fighter who kept a solid grip on his sword.

            “Where is that bastard’s face?” Danielle shouted to Carl. “I can’t see any eyeholes. How does that thing even see?”

            “Maybe he doesn’t,” said Carl, who did smell of piss. “Let’s roll the brazier at him. If we can knock him off the wall, the fall will kill him for us.”

            “Good idea.”

            “Don’t sound so surprised, I have good ideas all the time.”

            “No. That’s definitely the first.”

            They tipped over the brazier together, losing half of the frozen kindling inside. Out fell a pot of oil to start the fire even in the snow. The wind roared as the hulking woman and the skinny boy rolled the brazier as fast as they could. They heaved the imperfectly round cage of metal towards the snow-white knight and the golden god of a man about to kill him.

            The two men had circled each other exchanging blows until the shimmering behemoth had his back to them and their rolling weapon.

            When they were just feet away the hulking slab of gold turn to look at them and raised its sword.

            “Kick it. NOW!” Danielle screamed. She and the boy kicked the rolling brazier, which stopped moving almost immediately.

            “Shit,” said Carl. She couldn’t agree more.

            It strolled towards them casually. The shoulders swung from side to side. It was strong and nigh impenetrable but also slow.

            She drew her sword and pulled the boy behind her. For once he didn’t protest, pulling at her cloak.

            “My cloak-” Undoing the clasps she whipped off the stolen red cloak and held it out in front of her.

            “What are you doing? They’re not magic cloaks Dan. If anyone here had a magic cloak it would be the Nephilim.”

            “I just want to blind him. I doubt he can see much through that helmet to begin with.”

            “Ah. I understand your plan. It’s still suicide.”

            “Take my sword. It will give you more range than that useless gladius.”

            “No. That’s alright. Your sword would just slow me down as I run away.”

The seven-foot-tall knight swung a sword longer than Danielle was tall in a horizontal arc. The sword slashed through her red cloak. She stood, waiting again. Fabian closed in from behind. After another close miss from his mighty sword, she threw the cloak at the giant’s face.

            As he ripped the read cloth from his helmet she ran, sprung off the brazier and wrapped herself around his arm.

            The monster stumbled but didn’t fall. It shook the arm, trying to dislodge her.

            Fabian took several swipes at its back, only making music as his exquisite sword hit the beautiful armour.

            “Fuck it!” Carl yelled.

            Bolting forwards, the boy sprung up off the overturned brazier as she had. Unlike her he managed to wrap his legs around the monster’s shoulders and began stabbing at the faceplate of the helmet.

            The beast’s free hand reached up to rip the boy off, but Fabian knocked it aside with a swipe of his sword.

            As Danielle held on for dear life and the knight tried to deflect the Nephilim’s free hand, Carl found a join in the faceplate, wedged the point of his steak knife in and began punching the handle with his puny fist.

            In a moment of heroic insanity, the boy stood straight up on the hulk’s shoulders and used the heel of his foot to slam his steak knife into the Nephilim knight’s skull.

            Carl was falling before the pillar of muscle and gold knew he was dead. It fell, taking Danielle with it.

            “Did I?” The boy was in a heap on the snowy wall top. “Did I just kill a Nephilim with a steak knife?” He sat up. The steak knife was still in the golden faceplate. He tried to pull it out. “Know what, keep it. WOOOOOO!” The boy raised his fists in triumph.

            “Well done, Carl. Now shut up,” said Fabian. “We need to keep going. We have to kill the general who’s in charge here so that people stop calling Dan a traitor.”

            “I don’t think I can do the steak knife thing twice.” The adults looked at the boy. He was being serious. “What?”

Fabian was peering down at orange orbs of light in the dark mist below. The lights were moving at running pace as gigantic men grunted in a synchronised chant.

            No one seemed to be on the wall to the east so far.

            “They’re coming up through the tower,” said Fabian.

            “I have curaduile arrows, two,” Danielle told the men.

            “Should be fun watching those bounce off the golden armour.” Carl’s voice was pure pessimism.

            “There are bodies we can use already in the tower,” she was working it out as she talked. “Carl, grab the jar of oil that fell out of the brazier.” The boy nodded and ran ahead. “Get my cloak as well.” The skinny kid ran back to the body of the Nephilim knight and grabbed the discarded cloak.

            They all looked down through the hatch where the ladder down to ground level had a man in gold climbing it. More than a dozen other golden heads looked up as they peered through the hatch.

            “What now?”

            “We need a spark.”

She dipped a corner of the cloak in the oil. Holding the wadded-up cloak over the hole in the floor she smacked her sword against the stone, tiny sparks failed her.

            “Come on. Light. Please.” She saw a mass of gold far below and heard the feet on the rungs as a giant climbed closer and closer. “You two, get one of those bodies over.”

            Carl and Fabian dragged over a corpse with red across the neck.

            A spark caught the oil on the cloak, and she dropped it on the golden monster climbing the ladder. Grabbing a red dyed arrow from her quiver she stabbed it into the neck of the body provided by the boys and tipped that over the edge as well. The body hit the big man climbing the ladder, almost dislodging him.

            “Please work.” She poured the oil down through the hatch, trying to get it to the flame of the cloak being stamped out by godlike soldiers.

            Primal screams rewarded her. The oil caught and set half of the Nephilim alight.

            Around the same time the man on the ladder seemed to realise that the body on top of him was growing. He fell as the curaduile tree sprouting from the corpse began to swallow him, armour and all.

            Blood was one of two triggers for curaduile trees, Danielle had been told. The other was fire. When the oak trees sacrificed themselves to make warriors, they imbued that first warrior with the power to feed upon the energy of flames.

            The noise as the curaduile tree hit the flame around the Nephilim wasn’t a scream. There was no time or space to scream as they were crushed and swallowed in a heartbeat. Branches shot straight up.

            “Run!” Danielle cried, jumping to her feet. She had enough presence of mind to grab her quiver as the other two were out the door in front of her.

            “I’ll admit that was incredible,” Carl said gasping, “but I think we all know the steak knife was the better kill.”

            She sighed. There was nothing else to do.

            Branches began to reach at them through the open door of the tower. They backed away.

            “Nephilim work in groups of ten. How many were down there?” The boy rubbed his eyes. “If it was nine, or nineteen, or twenty-nine,” he shrugged. “We might have killed them all.”

            “We?” She asked.

            “I got the oil, and the cloak, and I helped move the body. That wouldn’t have happened without me.” He was angry. She laughed. “I’m serious.”

            “You’re right. You’re a hero Carl. You’re also a traitor to your people.”

            “They sent me off to die in the snow. Fuck them. East we go, no other way now. The Nephilim Slayers. That’s what we are now.” He pointed between them excitedly.

            “I’m already Fate’s Puppet supposedly.”

            “Exactly. That’s an awful name. Now you’ve got a better one.”

            “Why did I bother saving you?” she asked, smiling.

            “Because I’m the light that gives your life meaning.”

            “And the whip that bites me from neck to ankles,” she told him. “I’m joking.”

Then they heard soldiers on the wall chanting. Familiar red shields crept forwards with the shining points of spears held out at average chest height. Behind the shield wall Danielle saw a golden figure. Another Nephilim.

            “Fuck off!” said the boy, the knight, and the traitor in unison.