Gabriel's Armada

Chapter 14: The Ambush

Before Thaddeus could blink, six more hooded figures joined the woman who had just been crying a moment ago and charged at him and his teammates.

Fortunately, Thaddeus was already holding his sword, so he met his attacker's offense wo his own sword, causing a metallic clang to break the night.

His attacker parried and lunged again, missing Thaddeus by a breath. The cries of one of Thaddeus' teammate getting struck down by another figure distracted Thaddeus for a moment, and his assailant took that opportunity to strike again, this time nicking Thaddeus' right shoulder. Blood spurted out and Thaddeus screamed.

His screams emboldened his assailant to try again, and Thaddeus threw the torch he held in his left hand at the figure's face, effectively setting his hood on fire.

The figure became scared and dropped his sword, patting his hood to quench the fire. Thaddeus gritted his teeth and with all his might, swung his sword at the figure's neck, effectively decapitating him.

The figure stood frozen for a moment before his head rolled off his body and hit the ground with a large thud.

Blood flowed freely from his severed neck as his body slumped to the ground. Thaddeus walked over to where the head lay, and squinted eyes, making out red scaly skin and disarrayed dentition.

“A demon,” Thaddeus mused, wondering why they'd ambushed Ramiel.

He was drawn out of his musings by screams and clangs of swords hitting against each other. Thaddeus saw that another of his teammates was about to be killed and ran as fast as he could, plunging his sword in the back of the hooded demon.

His teammate then finished off the demon by decapitating him.

“Thanks, Thaddeus,” the huge man, Ezekiel said gratefully.

Thaddeus nodded, thinking that Ezekiel had been one of the people who had been complaining that patrol was boring.

Surveying, Thaddeus saw that out of the seven members of Ramiel, only four, including himself were surviving. He took solace in the fact that only three demons were surviving too.

Thaddeus saw Raphael fighting fiercely against a hooded figure. For some reason, this figure made Thaddeus shudder. The figure seemed to be as skilled as Raphael, and Thaddeus could see that Raphael was physically tiring.

“Ezekiel, let's help Raphael.” Thaddeus said to the man he'd just saved.

When he didn't hear Ezekiel agree with him, Thaddeus turned around to see his teammate gurgling out blood. He looked down and saw a sword thrusting out of Ezekiel's abdomen.

Ezekiel fell to the ground in a heap, revealing Gabriella holding a broadsword stained crimson red with Ezekiel's blood.

Seeing Thaddeus, she grinned maniacally, showing bloodstained teeth. In that moment, Thaddeus regretted pitying her. This woman wanted to bring about the fall of Ramiel.

Well, it wasn't going to happen on his watch, Thaddeus vowed silently before lunging his sword at Gabriella.

Gabriella deftly dodged the blade and retaliated with a lunge of her own which forced Thaddeus to take few steps backwards.

Thaddeus pressed forward a moment later, hitting his sword against Gabriella's knuckles.

A red line appeared, and she cried out, dropping her sword.

Thaddeus struck out, hoping to skewer her through her abdomen but Gabriella did something unexpected; she held the sword.

Thaddeus put more force in his thrust, watching as the sword slowly but firmly progressed past Gabriella's hand which was dripping blood steadily.

Gabriella winced in obvious pain but did not remove her hand, shocking Thaddeus into asking, “Who are you and why do you fight with these demons?”

“Because I am the one the prophecy spoke of, it is my duty.” Gabriella replied through clenched teeth.

Her words shocked Thaddeus to his marrow that he momentarily lost grip of his sword.

“What?”, he asked.

Gabriella didn't answer. Instead, she used her other hand to grab Thaddeus' sword from the hilt and turn it against him.

Thaddeus realized his mistake. He had failed to obey one of the most important rules in combat; never let your guard down.

Before he could act in any way, Gabriella thrust his sword through his abdomen.

Thaddeus shrieked as Gabriella withdrew the sword and stabbed him multiple times.

His last thoughts as he died was that he'd failed his people.

* * *

Gabriella glanced at the angel she'd just killed before moving on. For some reason, the look of shock on his face when she'd told him who she was bothered her.

“Don't let things like that bother you, Gabriella,” she cautioned herself as she kissed her teeth, savoring the metallic taste of the blood that was there. The blood on her teeth wasn't hers, she thought proudly, it had belonged to one of the angels.

She saw the hooded figure still fighting with one of the angels who looked like he lived to battle and sighed. The earlier they ended this, the earlier she could get away from the scene.

All her life, Gabriella had been taught the angels were the good guys, so it still bugged her a bit to slay them.

The hooded figure had warned her not to interfere in his fight, but she decided to aid him anyway. It wasn't as though he was going to punish her.

Gabriella made her way over to where the two men were fighting and was about to get into the fight, when the angel pulled down the figure's hood.

Gabriella only saw the back of the figure's head, which was covered with lush wavy black hair that looked like something out of a hair shampoo commercial on earth.

In the next moment, the figure slit Raphael's throat from ear to ear with one precise motion and pulled back the hood over his leonine head.

Gabriella gasped in horror and the figure turned to her.

“What?” he asked, trying to clean his sword on his cloak.

“We were supposed to spare one of them so we can torture their location out of the person.” Gabriella said.

The figure laughed, “Were we? That totally skipped my mind.”

Gabriella didn't believe him one bit. The figure had killed the angel because he had seen his face. Gabriella wondered why the figure wanted to keep his identity a secret.

Knowing better than to challenge him, Gabriella addressed the problem, “What do we do now?”

The figure patted down the angel he'd just killed and found a parchment of paper on him, “If I'm not mistaken, this is a map.”

Looking at the map with the little fire that remained and shook his head, “As I expected, this map does not show where the angels are hiding.”

Gabriella sighed disappointedly. All the killing and the injuries had been for naught.

“Don't be distraught,” the figure said cheerfully as he pulled out a dagger from the angel he'd just felled.

Gabriella watched with trepidation as he approached her with the dagger in his hand, and hoped he didn't want to kill her.

When he reached her, the figure gave her the dagger.

“What do I do with this?” Gabriella asked fearfully, staring at the dagger.

“Cut yourself,” the figure answered calmly.

“What?” Gabriella asked, unconsciously taking a few steps backwards.

“Cut yourself,” the figure reiterated, “when they don't hear from this team, the General will send out a search party and they'll find the bodies. We have to leave a note to intimidate them, and to do that, we need ink.”

“But we don't have any ink,” Gabriella said before adding, “so my blood will have to serve.”

“Exactly!” the figure exclaimed, patting her shoulder, “you must have been a genius on earth.”

Gabriella couldn't decide if the figure was being sincere or sarcastic, so she ignored the comment and took the knife from him, reopening the cut Thaddeus' sword had given her right palm.

As blood dripped from it, the figure placed his gloved hand beneath it, catching the drops.

Finding a dried twig on the ground, he dipped into the blood and gave it to her.

“I want you to write whatever I tell you, word for word on the back of that map. We'll place our note in a place they'll never miss it.”