Nicholas Smith - Allegiance

“Back!” Rhino shouted.

He ducked as several arrows burst through the drapes and cut through the air. With his spear, he swiped under the curtain hard enough to sever a foot.

An agonized scream rang out as the drapes of other stalls opened. Cazador soldiers poured into the room, raising swords and spears.

Two men rushed out of the room in front of Rhino, and he swung his spear, taking a head off clean. Then he back-stepped away from the wide swipe of the other soldier’s sword. The man stumbled out of the enclosed space, right onto Rhino’s spear.

He had taken three Cazadores out of the fight in twice as many seconds. When he turned to help his team, everything seemed to slow down.

X and Mac fought back to back in the center of the large room. Both had arrows sticking out of their robes.

Felipe had lost his cutlass and threw one of his daggers into a soldier slashing at him with a sword. Then he sidestepped a low jab from a spear and stabbed the wielder twice in the neck.

The front door swung open, and in rushed the two Praetorian Guards Rhino had seen out front earlier. Following them in was a third man with an arrow nocked on his bowstring. He aimed it at Rhino and let fly.

The shaft caught Rhino in the shoulder. Adrenaline kept the pain at bay, but he did feel the deep cut of betrayal of his old friend and trainer.

Isaiah took another arrow from his quiver and shot it into Rhino’s other shoulder. At this range, he shouldn’t have missed the heart. That told Rhino the old man was disabling him so Vargas could finish him off.

Screaming in rage, he thrust at a Cazador soldier who came from the side with sword upraised. The spearhead ripped through the man’s exposed chest, opening him from navel to sternum.

The two Praetorian Guards moved in front of Isaiah to intercept Rhino, and Rhino jabbed at the one on his left. The soldier tried to parry but hadn’t given himself enough room. He backed into Isaiah, knocking a third arrow from his bow.

Rhino impaled the guard, through the stomach and out the back. He jammed it farther, hoping to get Isaiah on the same skewer, but his wily old mentor had jumped away.

As the other guard drew back his sword to strike, Rhino clicked the button in the middle of the shaft and twisted, disconnecting the two halves of his spear.

Leaving the top three feet of spear stuck through the first guard, he thrust the other half up under the second man’s chin, through his palate, and into his brain before he could bring his sword around.

Rhino was down to the knife on his belt, but instead of drawing it, he pulled the arrow from his left shoulder. Isaiah was renocking the arrow that the staggering Praetorian Guard had knocked loose. He managed to bring it up and release it, but nerves must have thrown off his aim, and the arrow sailed past, an inch from Rhino’s face. Rhino used the opportunity to slam into Isaiah and knock him to the ground.

“No!” Isaiah yelped as he squirmed under Rhino’s weight. “Rhino, please, don’t!”

Rhino wrestled Isaiah onto his back and raised the arrow he had plucked from his shoulder.

“No!” Isaiah yelled again.

With both hands, Rhino jammed the bolt into the center of his chest. He heard a satisfying crunch, then gurgling as blood filled Isaiah’s lungs.

“Why?” Rhino grunted. “Why did you betray me?”

A voice in Spanish answered, “Because I paid better.”

Rhino turned to see Colonel Vargas sitting on a bed in one of the small rooms, watching with a bemused smile.

The fighting outside the stalls had all but ended. Six Cazador guards stood in the open space, their weapons pointed down at X and Mac, who lay on the floor, bleeding from the arrows and sword and spear wounds.

Felipe was the only one still on his feet, fighting two soldiers near the back exit. But he was down to one dagger, and both men had swords. He kicked the leg out from under one soldier, ducked the other’s sword stroke, and jammed his knife into the face of the downed man.

Then he punched the second guard in the temple and jumped on him, knocking him down. His sharpened teeth clamped down and ripped the man’s throat out.

Vargas gestured toward the young warrior. “I want that one alive,” he said.

Two guards left X and Mac to help subdue Felipe. They tackled him to the floor, but he fought on, biting and head-butting. A third soldier finally went over and hit him in the head with his sword hilt.

Rhino remained on top of Isaiah, knowing that he would soon draw his last breath here in this grubby brothel. In trying to ambush Vargas, they had walked right into a trap. All because of the waste of air that now lay trapped and dying under Rhino.

Isaiah’s lungs rattled as they filled with blood. Rhino finally pushed off him and stood. Unsheathing the long blade on his belt, he bent down and sliced his old mentor’s throat from one earlobe to the other.

Isaiah looked up at him, but Rhino didn’t give him the honor of looking into his eyes. He wiped the blade on Isaiah’s robe and turned to Vargas, who finally stood and walked over to Mac and X.

“I’d say you fought bravely,” he said. “But trying to kill a man while he’s fucking is below cowardly.”

Vargas drew his sword and angled the blade at the king’s neck. An arrow stuck out of X’s right arm, and another protruded from under his collarbone.

“I should have killed you when I had the chance,” X growled.

Vargas smiled. His bulging eyes flitted to Rhino. “Since you showed me such respect by trying to kill me with my pants down, I won’t give you the honor of a good death.”

He gave a nod, and two of the men guarding X and Mac moved cautiously toward Rhino, while a third stepped away from Felipe.

Rhino threw off his robe, and the men stopped as if daunted by the sight.

“ ¡Mátenlo! ” Vargas yelled.

The men advanced, and Rhino held up his long knife. Both shoulders throbbed from the arrow wounds despite the adrenaline rushing through his body.

He deflected the first sword blow, but the next two left a long, curving gash across his ribs, and a deep cut to the opposite hip. He staggered backward.

“no!” X yelled. He fought to get up, but the Cazadores clubbed him back down with their spear shafts and kicks to his gut.

Rhino locked eyes with X just before the three soldiers swarmed. They weren’t cautious, however, and moved with haste. He jabbed his knife into the mouth of a man in the act of stabbing Rhino in the belly. The other two men stabbed from the side, finding little resistance.

The man Rhino had killed slumped onto him, and Rhino held on to the corpse as the other two men stabbed again and again. The heat turned to ice.

Pushing the corpse off him, Rhino then grabbed one of the swordsmen by the neck. The other guy jabbed Rhino’s belly again, but before he could pull the sword out, Rhino reached down with his other hand and grabbed the man’s arm and held it.

Rhino crushed the windpipe of the soldier he was holding and dropped him in a heap. He punched the remaining guard in the face, crushing his nose, then dropped to his knees with the sword jutting from his gut and an arrow in his shoulder. He knew that his many wounds were too deep and too many to survive. He would never see his sweet Sofia again. All he could do now was try to save his king and his men.

Only four soldiers remained in the room—easy odds if he weren’t bleeding like a speared Siren.

Vargas gave the nod to finish off Rhino. The first warrior approached uncertainly, eyes wide with fear. He brought his sword up, but before he could deliver the final stroke, Vargas ordered him to stop.

X mumbled something that sounded a lot like “Go fuck yourself.”