The Land Below our Feet COMPLETE

REPOSSESSION

Sehira waited in the shadows for Yoendar and Dabether to arrive. She had been sitting below a large oak for a while now, distractedly biting her nails and silently going through the plan in her mind for the thousandth time.

After they'd managed to smuggle the weapons out, and there had been nothing left for her to do but wait, she had been struggling to keep her sanity.

It had felt like an eternity before Njál finally announced that he was marching to Mavaer. The vast army of golden-haired demons readying themselves and mounting the large muscular beasts they were so fond of riding on, as Sehira watched them, desperately trying to conceal her eagerness on such a deeply expected morning.

Just as she had been praying for, Njál was taking most of his warriors with him, leaving only about fifty men behind to guard the palace and a few of their strange remaining livestock locked in the granaries.

-Njál back soon – The hateful leader had whispered ominously into her ear. Inserting his tongue into her mouth and viciously sucking the life out of her, before hopping on his gigantic long-haired beast, with shaggy legs and powerful hoofs.

The entire party finally marching through the gates and disappearing from her sight.

The leftover men knew better than to mess with their King's bed-toy… So once the troops were far enough from Lowland's gate, she was mostly left to her own devices for the first time in a long while.

She had carefully sown the seeds of her innocent facade, and now, it was time to reap the harvest.

Most of the men in charge were brutal and skilled, but they also had an insatiable thirst for alcohol and women. So… It had not taken them long after the last glimpse of the expedition disappeared on the horizon to have the premises converted into a perpetual brothel. Their loud laughter echoing constantly through the almost deserted halls of the palace.

Sehira and Iktan had decided to let them have three unassuming nights, to loosen them up a little and make the most out of their lowered guard before finally moving on with their plan.

Tonight, it was the night when they were going to strike and try to take their city back away from those monsters´ claws, and Sehira could only hope that it would work out the way they were counting it would.

But the truth was that, even when the palace was now as undermanned as it would ever be, they were still in numerical disadvantage against them. Apart from Iktan and Sehira, only forty other prisoners had survived, most of them women and a few weakened men, including a diminished Ahau.

Sehira was fully aware that a bunch of mainly untrained villagers, armed with unfamiliar weapons, and with only a rough… theoretical knowledge of their usage, were not likely to pose a challenge against a prime task force. But she was counting on their daylong debaucheries and hoping that the obscene amount of alcohol they'd been ingesting would fog their senses enough to slow the soldiers´ response.

As enthralled as she was in her own thoughts and worries, she had failed to register at first the low murmur of footsteps approaching, until a small group of men emerged from the darkness and Sehira´s eyes brightened at the familiar image of the couple of tradesmen, followed by three other shorter strangers.

Dabe and Yoe were holding a firearm each, the three remaining men carrying the rest of the heavy arsenal with difficulty.

-Are you ready? – Sehira asked in a whisper, nervously looking at the couple of armed men - Did you figure out how to use them? Can you fire them correctly?

-Decently enough, given the circumstances… But yes, we can manage. – Dabe responded, shrugging off, then signaling at the other three men – Them also… These are Jogru, Jhoki and Jhagn. Anam told us that their father died standing in the first line of defense. So, they are seeking some revenge too.

The three other men did not utter a word as they placed the crates down and handed her a weapon. Sehira inspected it expertly before loading it and gesturing for them to follow her.

They wandered through the silent hallways at a careful pace and alerted senses, reaching the dark entrance of the dungeon and finding the guard sitting at his post. He had scrambled in surprise, but the girl and the two traders were already aiming at him by the time he tried to move his limbs and reach for his weapon in response.

-No, no, no- Sehira smirked at him, clicking her tongue with disapproval, nodding for him to raise his hands up in the air and pointing towards an empty cell – I know that you don't speak my language, but everyone knows when they have been screwed up. Now stand up and get your ass in there.

The shocked man did as he was told and once the bars locked behind him, he immediately started screaming in a desperate tone for what obviously meant help.

-Oh, sing all you want… little birdie – Sehira mocked him, looking at their prisoner’s abandoned gun, and indicating Yoe to take it – No one ever heard my people's laments up there, and no one is going to hear yours either.

They left him holding to the bars, screeching his lungs raw, his pale skin turning scarlet with his useless effort to warn his peers. The sound making the rest of the prisoners perk up and cheer excitedly, knowing that their freedom was finally at hand's reach.

They had freed Iktan first. And together, they had started barging into every survivor's cell, handing them each a firearm and sufficient ammunition. Soon everyone but their ruler was armed and ready to fight.

When they arrived at Ahau´s loathsome pit, they found him deeply lost in the void of madness. Mumbling incoherent phrases and silently crying.

-Get up! – Sehira commanded, tossing him a weapon – We are claiming repossession of this city, and you are helping us!

But the once impressive ruler would not even move a muscle, his litany of gibberish resuming after a single silent second of staring at her with his blank eyes.

-He is gone – The girl announced as she went back and reached the rest of the group – There is no time to waste, we need to attack now!

They climbed the stairs hurriedly and directed their steps to the main hall, where all the guards had gathered to drink and party. They were almost at the entrance when they stumbled upon an inebriated soldier distractedly taking a piss while staring at a corner.

Dabether had started aiming at him, but Sehira´s arm soon blocked him, knowing that they needed the surprise factor if they wanted to stand a chance against their enemy. So, instead, she scurried behind him and butt stroked him with her gun, knocking him out.

After that, they had barged into the hall, and chaos had immediately ensued...

The outsiders were surely drunk, some were even half naked and in the middle of having their way with the women that they had chosen to keep around.

But once the initial shock of realizing their captives had escaped wore out, most of their instincts had kicked back in impressively fast, and they soon started fighting, sharper and harder than her group of rioters could.

It did not matter that Sehira and the tradesmen were decent shots, none of the other rebels were really hitting any of their targets at all… Except for Iktan, who had surprisingly managed to take out one or two and was progressively improving his accuracy with every blast.

But the rest of them were being subdued without much effort, most of them resorting to simply try and hit their enemies with their firearms instead of uselessly shooting at them anymore… It was disastrous.

Sehira watched with increasing despair how their efforts were proving futile against the experienced warriors. Even when they had managed to take a bunch of them out. It would still not be enough… So, she decided that she was going to die fighting then and there. Because there was no way she could go back to her miserable life.

Her resolution interrupted when the rival she was aiming at was violently tackled by a large black beast. A man swiftly jumping off it and shooting all around. Her eyes blinking repeatedly in confusion at the unthinkable sight of the wild masked stranger, charging lethally and relentlessly at his very own kind.